MOL: Movement For Awakening

This is a Virtual Meditation on the Lawn session hosted by the Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia with the guest facilitator, Ina Stephens. This guided meditation is a movement meditation for thanksgiving. Virtual Meditation on the Lawn is a free online live program hosted from September through May.

Transcript

Good morning,

Everyone.

Welcome to virtual meditation on the lawn.

And it's a real honor to be here with you sharing this time with you today.

For those of you who don't know me,

My name is Ines Stevens.

I am a professor of pediatrics and a professor of pediatric infectious diseases.

I'm also the director of the Medical Yoga and Integrative Health Center here at UVA.

And I also direct the Physician Wellness Program,

Both for the medical students and for the pediatric residents.

So I thought today we would start with a meditation on a Monday after Thanksgiving,

Sort of a movement meditation just to kind of enliven you guys,

Awaken you,

Welcome you to your week after Thanksgiving,

Where maybe some of us kind of sat around,

It was a little languishing and lethargic,

And maybe we feel really full.

So I just thought this would be a nice thing to kind of get a little movement in this morning.

But before we start,

I want to just put a little thought for you to think about during the meditation.

And that is just a very quick acronym that I call P.

A.

C.

E.

And this acronym stands for P is for permission.

I want you guys to feel like you're giving yourselves permission to take this time out of your day for your own practice and meditation.

It's really,

Really important.

So thank yourselves that you're giving yourselves permission to do this.

That's number one.

A is to be aware of how your body feels,

Not only during this meditation,

But all the time.

Are you feeling a little bit tense?

Is your body feeling tense?

Are your muscles tight?

Are you feeling really tired and kind of overwhelmed?

That's okay,

Whatever it is,

Just notice it.

And the C is giving yourself a little bit of compassion.

What if you feel kind of lousy this morning or it's tiring for you to get up?

And what if a friend came to you and said,

This is how you feel,

And you'd maybe give them a big hug.

So use this meditation as sort of your compassionate hug to yourself.

And E is for energize and enliven yourself.

So think of these kind of four words while you're working through this meditation.

And so now I just want you to take a moment and kind of find your seat.

I hope you're all sitting down in a nice kind of comfortable chair and just see if you can maybe just lean back into your chair.

It's okay if your back goes into the chair and put your hands on your belly and feel your seat,

Feel your feet into the ground and feel your hands on your belly.

And we're going to start by taking just a few little deep belly breaths.

So through your nose,

See if you can envision that breath coming in through your nose and just lifting and spreading and opening up your belly with a big inhale.

And as you exhale,

Feel your back,

Your belly and your hands leaning back all the way into the chair.

Exhale it out.

Again,

Inhale.

And with this big inhale,

Puff out your hands,

Let them expand,

Expanding the breath and the belly and exhale and with your exhale,

Let go of the rush of your day.

You actually have nowhere to go.

Exhale it out.

And again,

Inhale,

If you would like,

You can close your eyes and just listen to my voice or just keep your eyes at half mast as you exhale.

That means looking just slightly down so you're not necessarily staring at the computer screen.

Again,

One more big inhale,

Big belly breath,

Expanding your belly,

Expanding your hands.

And as you exhale,

See if you can straighten up just a little bit,

Move your spine off of your chair,

Plant your hands,

Sit up straight,

Hands on your lap.

Let's take another deep inhale,

This time with your arms,

Lift those arms all the way up.

Big inhale,

Reach your arms way overhead.

Take a big inhale and on your exhale,

Clasp your hands and turn them inside out so that your palms are reaching all the way up to the ceiling.

Get a big stretching feeling on either side of your body.

You may look up to your hands or if your neck is bothering you,

Look straight ahead or again down to half mast.

Take an inhale,

Keeping your hands clasped,

Bring your right elbow all the way down to the chair,

Left elbow goes almost behind your head.

So you get a big stretching feeling all along the left side of your body.

Take an inhale and straighten up both of your arms back up.

Now bring your left elbow all the way down,

Left elbow comes down toward the chair,

Right elbow goes up to the ceiling.

Take an inhale through your nose,

Both arms go back up.

Now drop your right hand,

Leave your left hand up.

If you're sitting in a chair,

Grab underneath the chair with the right hand and reach all the way over to the right with your left hand and see if you can keep your left butt cheek still on the chair so you get a huge stretching feeling all along the left side of your body.

Take another inhale,

Reaching with your left hand,

Bring yourself all the way back up and now drop your left hand over and grab your right ear with your left hand and use your left hand to pull your head all the way over to the left.

So your left hand is over your right ear,

You're pulling your head down to the left just gently and you're feeling a nice stretch all along the right side of your neck.

Take another inhale,

Bring your head back up,

Straighten out your left arm,

Drop your left arm,

Let's do it to the other side.

So bring the right hand all the way up to the ceiling,

Reaching down underneath of your left chair with your left hand,

Left side of the chair and reach all the way over to the left.

Again,

This time getting a big stretching feeling all along the right side of your body.

Take a very,

Very deep inhale,

Reaching down with your right butt cheek,

Keeping both sides on the chair,

Come on back up and now drop your right hand,

Reaching over to your left ear and seeing if you could gently reach your head over to the right side and use your left arm under the chair so you feel a big stretching feeling all along the left side of your neck.

Take one more inhale,

Bring yourself back on up,

Reach your right arm up,

Dropping both hands,

Let's engage your shoulders.

So bring your shoulders up and drop them back,

Reach them up forward and drop them back.

One more,

Reach them up forward and drop them back.

Now just shake out your hands,

Shake them out,

Shake them out,

Shake them out,

Reach them all the way out to the side,

Reach and grab onto your opposite elbows,

Opposite shoulders like you're giving yourself a huge hug.

Again,

How often do you give yourself a hug?

Take an inhale and just twist your body over to the left side.

See if you can keep your knees straight forward so you're getting a little bit of a thoracic spine twist.

Take an inhale,

Keeping that hug,

Come back to the center.

Now bring both of your elbows and your body over to the right.

Again,

Big thoracic spine twist,

Looking over your right shoulder if you can,

Keeping those knees forward and bring your body back,

Let them go,

Let your arms go.

Let's engage your legs.

So if you're sitting close to the table,

Just move back a little bit and reach up and grab onto your right knee and squeeze your right knee all the way up maybe to your right shoulder.

Now this may be good enough right here,

But if it feels good,

Take your right ankle and cross it right on top of your left knee and open up your right knee.

So it's a little bit like a figure four.

I'm going to move my camera so you can see my legs like a figure four.

Take an inhale and see if you can just open up that hip.

And if you'd like,

You may lean all the way over and drop your hands to the floor.

You may drop your head.

And as you do this,

You may feel a big stretching feeling all through your right thigh,

Your right butt cheek.

Take a deep inhale and exhale it out.

Breathe into any tight area and roll yourself back on up.

Come on back up.

Let's shake out that right leg.

Let's do that to the left.

Bring your left knee up and squeeze your knee all the way up into your left shoulder.

Now this again may feel good enough.

You may want to drop your left ankle over your right knee,

Open up into what we call the figure four and feeling a little bit of a stretch all along your left hip and your left butt cheek.

If this feels good,

Stay here.

If you want to take it further,

Take a forward fold and drop your hands,

Drop your head toward the ground.

See if you could really feel a nice stretch in the back of your left hip.

We carry a lot of tension in our hips.

See if you can let it go and breathe into it.

Take another inhale.

Bring yourself back on up.

Bring that knee back on up.

And now I want you to just see if you could stand up,

Stand up,

Take a big stretch,

Reach those arms all the way up over your head,

Clasp your hands,

Turn them again inside out.

And now take an inhale as you take a forward fold and just kind of drop into what we call a ragdoll pose.

You can bend your knees as much as you need to,

But see if you could drop your head.

Let your hands go.

You may sway a little bit.

Your head is actually the heaviest part of your body.

It weighs about 15 pounds.

Let it go.

Let your head go.

Let the neck muscles detent.

And then slowly roll yourself back on up.

On your way up,

Shrug your shoulders up,

Drop them back,

Sit down again,

Find your chair,

Find your center.

Feel just a little bit of that energy that you just engaged.

Feel it kind of swirling around your body and see if you can find your breath again.

Right through your nose,

Inhale it,

Expanding your belly and exhaling it out.

Again,

Inhale,

Big,

Big belly breath.

You can use both of your hands on your belly again as you exhale it out.

One more big belly breath,

Expand your belly,

Let your hands open.

And as you exhale it out,

Drop your hands one more time.

Reach them all the way up,

Reach them up and bring them back down to what we call heart center.

Just having your hands either claps or in just folding them together,

Or you may drop them on your lap,

Whatever feels best for you.

And just take this one last moment for yourselves.

Feel yourselves very grounded.

Feel yourselves very quiet.

Take an inhale and thank yourselves for taking the time out of your own day for your own practice.

Have a great week.

Thank you.