Relaxing Gentle Yin Yoga - Opening The Heart & Self-Love

Yin Yoga is an incredible practice for regulating the nervous system and opening the energy lines and fascia or connective tissue of the body. This practice includes guided meditation focusing on self-love and energetic clearing of the unconscious beliefs of being unloveable and not worthy. After this practice, you will feel open-hearted and relaxed.

Transcript

Welcome.

My name is Ixchel and I'll be your guide for the next hour for a deeply relaxing and rejuvenating yin yoga practice.

We're going to begin in a comfortable seated position.

So I invite you to come onto your mat and find a cushion to place directly under your sit bones.

I'm bringing your awareness to your breath,

Inviting you to increase the length of your inhales and your exhales,

Allowing your nervous system to slow down.

Inhaling and exhaling with a sound.

Keeping that going.

Exhaling with a sound allows the nervous system to relax and brings your entire awareness into your body,

Into the present moment.

Feeling where your body is meeting your mat and inviting yourself with the next few exhales to drop in a little bit deeper into this space,

Imagining that your thoughts are drifting away like clouds in the sky.

And your breath is your anchor to bring you into the present moment.

So every time you notice your thoughts taking you into the future or replaying something that happened in the past,

The invitation is to use your breath as an anchor to bring your awareness back into the present moment.

Staying deeply connected to your breath,

Feeling yourself dropping more and more into presence with each inhale,

Feeling your sit bones rooted firmly in the ground,

Allowing you to grow a few centimeters taller with the next few inhales,

Imagining the crown of your head being pulled towards the heavens,

Allowing your shoulders to drop back into the present moment.

Relaxing any tension in your shoulders and just focusing on the sound of your breath like a wave rolling in and out.

So we're going to begin by unwinding any tension that we may be holding in our necks.

So I invite you to slowly bring your chin to your chest and begin to rotate your head very slowly to the right.

Your head finds your right shoulder,

And you rotate to the back.

It's as if you're looking up to the sky.

Rotate towards the left side,

Your ears coming to meet your shoulder,

Rotating to the front,

Chin coming to the chest again.

And keeping this slow pace so that you can feel what is alive inside of your body in this moment.

What is it that you're holding in your neck?

Anytime that you feel that there's some stuck that there's some stuck energy,

I invite you to pause there for a moment and use your sound.

Bringing the entirety of your awareness to the point of tension.

Imagine that you can breathe in directly to this point of tension and exhale out from this space with a sound,

And creating a little bit more softness,

A little bit more space.

And next time your head is back and it's as if you were looking up to the sky,

Inviting you to pause there for a moment,

Closing your mouth and exhaling with a hum.

And keep that hum going,

Feeling that vibration of your own voice,

Letting your nervous system know that it is safe to fully let go.

That this is your time to drop into your center,

To deeply relax.

And one final hum.

And from here,

Inviting you to rotate your head in the opposite direction.

So this time we're going to be coming down to the right,

Ear meets the shoulder and chin to chest.

And very slowly rotating up to the left,

Left ear meets left shoulder,

And back around again.

Finding your own rhythm for this slow rotation.

Once again,

Bringing your entire awareness to the sensations that you feel in your neck,

In your shoulders.

And if there's any point that feels a little more stuck on this side,

Give yourself that moment to offer it your presence,

To offer it your energy,

To offer it your breath.

Your presence,

Your curiosity,

The body communicates to us through sensation.

So allow this practice to be one where you invite curiosity to listen to your body,

To what it wants to communicate to you,

Inviting a deeper sense of connection.

To your body through the communication of sensation.

And the next time your chin comes to your chest,

I invite you to pause here,

Take your fingers,

Interlace them together and bring your thumb to the base of your skull.

Allow your elbows to grow heavy and draw them together,

Allowing gravity to bring your head down to the earth.

Breathing into the back of your neck,

Your shoulders,

Allowing each breath to give your body a massage,

Using sound to let go with each exhale.

Feeling yourself dropping into another layer of surrender.

And from here,

I'm going to invite you to use your intuition and gently move from the right to the left,

Feeling what's alive and present in your neck and your shoulders.

And see how you can use these gentle movements and see how you can use these gentle movements to create a little bit more space.

Using sound to let go of any stuck,

Stagnant energy.

Remembering that sound is one of the most powerful tools that we have to move energy.

Last three breaths here,

Allowing yourself to exhale with any sound that wants to come out in this moment.

And when you've completed that third breath,

Inviting you to slowly and gently release your to slowly and gently release your fingers,

Bring your hands to your knees,

Palm facing up.

Taking a few breaths here to feel the openings that you've created through this very simple movement.

So the invitation for this practice of yin is to keep your eyes closed for the entire time.

You're going to activate your intuition for the transitions between asanas.

So if your eyes are not closed already,

Inviting you to close them now in this moment.

And this is so that you can go deeper inside without any external distractions,

Deeper into a journey of feeling your inner terrain.

From here,

With your eyes closed,

We're going to transition to come onto our hands and knees very slowly.

And we're going to find ourselves with our hands directly under our shoulders,

Our knees directly under our hips,

Shoulder and hip width apart.

From here,

We're going to continue that rotation of the neck and we're going to add the hips.

So we rotate the head to the right,

The hips come to the right.

When the chin comes to the chest,

We round the back,

The pelvis comes forward.

When we rotate up to the left,

The hips come to the left,

The crown of the head comes towards the sky,

Our tailbones come towards the sky.

We rotate down to the right,

Making circles with our head and our hips.

Every time that the chin comes to the chest,

The spine rounds,

The pelvis tucks.

Every time we come to the left with our head,

The hips also come to the left.

Tailbone and crown of the head follow each other to connect to the sky.

Allow this to be a very slow movement and imagining yourself unwinding any tension that you're holding in your body.

Using your breath to let it go,

Give it back to the earth with any sound.

Relaxing your jaw,

Relaxing your tongue,

Relaxing all the muscles of your face.

Yes,

Feel how good it feels to unwind.

The next time your chin comes to your chest and your spine is curved,

We're going to invite you to rotate to the opposite direction.

Finding your rhythm,

Your flow for these rotations.

We're slowing the nervous system down to prepare for the practice of yin.

The energy of yin is soft and still,

Whereas the energy of yang is dynamic and hard.

It's beginning to spiral your rotations towards the center,

Making each circle smaller and smaller until you eventually come to stillness.

Yes,

I'm taking a moment here in stillness to feel what is alive inside of your body,

The openings that you've just created.

From here,

We're going to come into our first yin asana.

So,

Inviting you to keep your tailbone raised to the sky and come onto your forearms.

Your forehead comes to kiss the ground in devotion.

Extending your arms out in front of your head,

Palms facing down,

Feeling your hands connecting to the energy of the earth.

If this feels good for you to stay here for about three to five minutes,

Then find your sweet spot and then come into stillness.

If this feels too intense for you,

You can come further up into the crown of your head.

If this feels too intense for you,

You can come further up into the crown of your head.

And if you're very flexible and would like a deeper stretch,

You can come onto your chin.

Breathing into your heart.

Inviting you to tune in a layer deeper to what you're feeling in the moment.

Checking in with your emotional body,

What's alive and present in your heart right now.

Without trying to fix or change anything,

Just giving yourself a moment to drop into feeling without placing a label or a story upon it.

Allowing yourself to simply feel.

Breathing into your heart,

Feeling your breath expand to the front,

The sides and the back of your heart.

The invitation for this practice is to listen to your body.

If there's anything that for this practice is to listen to your body,

If there's anything that doesn't feel good for you,

Your body knows better than anyone else.

If there are any sharp pains,

Come out of the asana and rest in child's pose.

At the same time,

Yin invites us to be able to come into a deeper state of presence with sensation.

We get to notice when there's a slightly uncomfortable sensation,

Our immediate reaction is to want to change it,

To get out of it.

Similarly,

When there's an uncomfortable emotion,

Most people have the tendency to sweep it under the rug,

To go to something that will take their awareness away from feeling that emotion,

Going towards food,

Towards social media,

Towards cigarettes,

Towards alcohol,

Towards the things that take our power away because our power lies in feeling our emotions.

So just noticing inside of this asana if that tendency arises and give yourself the opportunity to use sound,

To drop in deeper,

To experiment with what happens when I let go of the tension that I'm holding with my exhale.

How does my experience of the sensation in my body transform when I consciously use my awareness and my exhale to soften and let go of tension?

You can very clearly feel if there's resistance present,

That creates even more tension.

It creates even more discomfort.

Similarly,

When there's resistance to feeling our emotions in life,

We tend to feel even more discomfort,

Even more tension.

Whether we are aware of it or not,

Sometimes we are so disengaged from feeling and we're numbing ourselves with food,

With sugar,

With caffeine,

That we actually don't even know how disconnected from our feelings we are.

So for the last five breaths here in this beautiful heart opening asana,

I'm going to invite you to make the sound of the heart.

When you exhale,

You'll sound ah,

The sound of the heart.

Keep that going for the next four breaths,

Inviting you to tune into any resistance that you have,

Any blockages in your throat chakra around making sound.

Move through that resistance in this moment and allow your next few ah's to be even louder.

And then when you're ready,

Keeping your eyes closed,

You're going to push into your hands and your forearms to slowly come up and back into a wide legs child's pose.

So your knees are going to be at the edges of your mat,

Your forehead is kissing the ground,

Your buttocks comes towards your heels,

And we're going to take our arms and bring them to rest at our sides next to our heels with our palms facing up in a beautiful gesture of receptivity.

Feeling as if the energy of the earth is holding you inside of her womb.

She's holding you inside her womb of pure unconditional love.

She invites you to allow any part of you that doesn't completely and unconditionally love yourself to be given back to the earth through your exhale.

Any part of you that judges your body,

That wishes your body to be any different than it is right now.

Letting that go with your next exhale,

Feeling her wrapping you in pure love,

Telling you that you are absolutely beautiful and perfect exactly as you are.

Feeling any part of you that judges yourself for being too much of this or not enough of that.

Whatever your ideas are about yourself that are anything but completely kind.

Inviting you to let them go with the next few exhales into the earth.

Feeling the energy of the divine mother of mother earth wrapping you in her love.

You know that she loves you exactly as you are,

That you are unique,

That there is no one like you,

Unique,

That there is no one like you,

And that any part of you that compares yourself to anyone else or has taken on the idea that you should be more of this or less of that is completely ludicrous.

Bringing a smile to your face as you celebrate your unique beauty,

Your unique gifts,

Your unique characteristics.

Your unique characteristics.

Feeling your essence as a snowflake.

There is no one else on the entire planet quite like you.

And then mother tells you now in this moment,

Come forth to be even more fully you,

To embody your essence even more so that you may share your unique gifts with all of humanity to complete the rainbow and make this world a more beautiful place.

Taking five deep breaths into your heart.

Letting go with each exhale of any thoughts of the mind.

Telling you anything other than you are perfect,

Whole,

And complete exactly as you are.

Inviting you to bring your hands now in front of you,

Your palms facing down so that you could gently push into them and slowly come up.

Inviting you to stay sitting on your heels for just a moment and give yourself a warm embrace,

Taking your arms,

Wrapping them around yourself.

Sending love into every cell of your being.

Thanking your body for functioning perfectly.

Thanking all of your organs for doing the work that they need to do to keep your body alive and thriving.

Thanking all of your muscles,

Bones,

And joints for allowing you the freedom of mobility.

Sending the vibration of gratitude into every cell of your being.

To bring about a sense of greater harmony within your body.

And from here,

Keeping your eyes closed,

I'm going to invite you to come to sit on your butt and extend your legs out in front of you.

With yin yoga,

We don't use any muscular energy so simply allowing your feet to flop open to the sides.

And from here,

We're going to come into a forward bend with our spine rounded,

Bringing your chin to your chest and allow your spine to roll down one vertebrae at a time until you come to wherever you arrive.

Until you come to that point of stillness,

Not using any muscular energy to push yourself forward,

Bringing your arms out to your side,

Palms facing up.

Once again,

In a beautiful gesture of openness and receptivity,

Breathing into your back,

The backs of your legs,

Feeling your fascia or connective tissue in the entire back of your body beginning to soften.

In a more dynamic yang practice,

We work with the energy of the muscles and in this yin practice,

We have the opportunity to tap into the fascia by staying in each asana for up to five minutes.

And it's said that your fascia or connective tissue is crystalline in nature.

And just as a computer uses crystal to hold memory,

Your fascia holds the memory of your fascia holds the memory of everything that has ever happened in your life.

So taking these next few breaths to exhale with any sound,

Anything that you are holding in your connective tissue that you feel ready to let go of.

Imagining that each breath is bringing that gentle nectar of lubrication to all of your connective tissue.

This is the fountain of youth,

Bringing that fluidity into your body bringing that fluidity into your body so that you can stay supple,

Flexible,

Young,

Vibrant,

Radiant.

The meridians also run through your fascia.

So you may begin to feel some chi moving through your body as you soften up any places of stagnancy or hardness in your fascia.

This is your moment to completely let go,

Nothing to do,

Nowhere to go,

Simply to be here now,

Dropping into a deeper experience of surrender with your next few breaths.

Noticing where you might be slightly out of balance in your life,

Where there might be an excess of young energy.

This is your opportunity to create balance,

Noticing where in life you are pushing,

Perhaps feeling like you're swimming upstream,

Using unnecessary energy to try to get to your goals.

The yin energy invites you to flow on the path of least resistance,

Like the river,

Responding to what comes along your path,

Deeply connecting to your intuition.

For the last three breaths here,

Inviting you to exhale out with any sound or simply a sigh.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Then we're going to bring our palms behind us and just lean back for a moment of integrating the openness that you just created,

Bringing your awareness directly to the sensations you feel in your body,

And simply offering your presence.

From here,

I'm going to invite you to lie down on your back.

Now we're going to come into a spinal twist.

So bring your hips slightly to the right,

Take your right leg,

Cross it over the left leg,

And allow gravity to bring your knees down to the left.

If you're not comfortable keeping your shoulders connected to the ground,

Take a pillow and place it under your knees so you can relax completely.

Your arms can be bent in a 90 degree angle or extended horizontally out to the sides.

Turn your head to the right and with your next exhale,

Let go completely.

With the next few breaths,

Sending love into your hips.

Our hips are the gateway to our life force energy,

To our creativity,

To our sexual energy.

So I'm going to invite you to bring your awareness into your right hip and feel what emotions are present here.

Oftentimes,

We feel blockages connected to a sense of guilt or shame around the fact that we are sensual,

Sexual,

Alive human beings.

If there's any blockages here around your creativity or your sexuality,

Inviting you to exhale them out with a sigh,

Using this opportunity to clear any emotional energy that has become stagnant in your body.

Emotions are simply energy in motion.

And when we don't give ourselves the space to feel when they arise,

Or we don't have the tools to welcome them,

Then they can become stuck and stagnant inside of our body.

I believe this to be the root cause of all dis-ease.

So with your next few breaths,

Sending your body love,

Letting yourself know that it is okay to feel.

Feel that that part of us that might have become overwhelmed or drowned by the waters of our emotions need not fear because this is a new moment.

This is a moment for you to live with self-love in action by giving yourself the opportunity to feel,

By not making yourself wrong for what is or any emotions that arise.

So for the last three breaths,

We're going to imagine that we have lungs inside of our right hip.

As you breathe in,

Breathing directly into any sensation,

Any feeling,

Any emotions that are present in your right hip.

As you exhale,

Exhaling out with a sound,

A sigh,

Any sound directly from your right hip.

Once again,

Breathing directly into this area,

Directly into the point of sensation and exhaling out with any sound.

Breathing in,

Sending love,

Sending presence into your right hip.

Exhale,

Letting go of any judgment.

Inhaling radical acceptance for yourself,

For your body,

Exactly as you are.

Exhaling deep peace.

Very slowly,

I'm going to invite you to bring your legs back to center,

And then bringing the hips back to center,

Scooching a little bit over to the left.

I'm going to draw the knees to the chest,

Hugging your knees,

And sending the energy of gratitude.

Thanking your body for being the incredible portal that it is.

Into all of your other bodies,

Into your mind,

Your heart,

Your spirit.

And rocking from side to side,

Massaging your sacrum,

Massaging your hips.

And now,

I'm going to invite you to bring your legs back to center.

Rocking from side to side,

Massaging your sacrum,

Massaging your hips.

And we're going to bring the soles of the feet back down to the earth.

I'm going to bring the hips slightly to the right,

Taking the left leg,

Crossing it over the right,

Keeping the shoulders grounded.

We're going to come into a similar shape on the other side,

Allowing the left knee to make its way down to the earth.

Each side of our body is different,

So you might need a pillow for this side.

If so,

Just gently placing a pillow underneath your knee to give yourself the opportunity to fully let go.

And once again,

Imagining that now you have a lung in your left hip.

You can breathe directly into this sensation that you feel.

When you hear the words,

You are perfect exactly as you are.

Notice what thoughts arise.

Does the thought arise that says,

Yes,

I feel that,

I love myself exactly as I am?

I am perfect.

Are there any thoughts arising,

Telling you that there is a part of you that is not good enough as it is?

Trying to convince you of the story that there is a certain aspect of you that is not lovable.

Maybe there's a thought saying that if you were a little more like this,

Then you would like this,

Then you would be perfect.

Or maybe if you were a little bit less like this,

Then you would be lovable.

So I'm going to invite you to simply notice the thoughts that arise.

Connecting to that part of you that is beyond your mind,

Your body,

That part of you that has always existed.

The part of you that is eternal,

Beyond time and space,

Beyond form,

Beyond name,

Feeling yourself as your spirit,

And as your spirit,

You observe these thoughts.

There is no part of you that identifies with them.

There's no part of you that believes them.

You understand that these thoughts were created through conditioning,

That these thoughts are not yours.

And in this moment,

You're going to choose to give them back to the earth so that they may be composted and create fertile soil to grow beautiful flowers and juicy fruit.

So inviting you in this moment to continue breathing into that left hip and to simply observe the sensation,

The emotions,

And the thoughts that are arising.

For the last five breaths,

Inviting you to breathe directly into your left hip.

And exhale out with any sound.

It doesn't have to be beautiful.

It can simply be a sigh,

But allow it to move whatever stagnant energy has been liberated from your left hip.

Ah,

Yes,

Beautiful.

One more exhale,

Letting go completely.

And when you're ready,

Inviting you to uncross your leg,

Bringing your hips back to center.

And this time,

We're going to draw our knees towards our chest,

Keeping the knees together,

And imagine that we're painting a circle in the sky with our knees.

And these large circles massaging your lower back,

Your sacrum,

Your spine.

Tuning into what your body needs right now and what feels the best for you,

Inviting you to draw circles in the opposite direction.

And then spiraling those circles closer to the center until you come to stillness.

Giving yourself one final hug here.

Tuning into something that you are so grateful for,

For your body,

For your essence,

For who you are.

Sending the vibration of gratitude,

Health,

And harmony into every cell of your being.

And from here,

We're going to extend our legs out in front of us.

And before we rest in the Savasana,

We're going to play a little game to create tension in our bodies so when we do relax,

It's even sweeter.

I'm going to invite you to inhale,

Make a fist,

Make a scrunchy face,

Clench your anus,

Point your toes,

Hold your breath at the top,

Clenching all the muscles of your body,

Holding your breath,

And then letting go,

Release.

We're going to do this two more times.

Inhale,

Creating tension in all the muscles of your body,

Clenching your anus,

Clenching your anus,

Making a really funny face,

Holding your breath,

Feeling that life force energy moving through your body,

And then letting go,

Feeling the chi,

The life force energy moving through your body.

And okay,

Last time,

Breathing in,

Clenching the fist,

The anus,

Pointing the toes,

Making a really funny face,

Holding your breath,

Bringing your awareness to your third eye,

Holding a little bit longer for this final breath,

And letting go with a sigh,

Feeling that life force moving through your body.

So we're going to come into a pentacle shape for our final rest.

We're going to create a star with our body by bringing our legs a few feet apart.

Our arms come overhead out to the side at a 45 degree angle,

And we allow our feet to flop out to the side,

Our palms face up,

And we simply allow ourselves to surrender to gravity,

Relaxing all of the muscles of your face,

Relaxing the muscles of your eyes,

Softening the space between your brow,

And all the muscles of your head,

Neck,

And shoulders softening,

And feeling your arms,

Your fingers,

Your hands becoming heavier,

Softening your heart,

Your belly,

Your hips,

Feeling your legs,

Your feet,

And your toes growing heavier as you surrender even more into your mat,

Feeling the energy of the earth holding you from below,

Letting you know that it is safe to drop in even deeper to surrender,

Allowing your breath to slow down,

And now calling upon your angels,

Your spirit guides all of the beings that work with you,

Calling them forth,

And calling them forth for you to tap into all timelines of your soul's journey,

Feel time and space completely melting inside of this moment,

And calling upon your higher self,

Your spirit to tap into anything that is holding you back from walking with radical acceptance and unconditional love,

Tapping into anything that is holding you back from knowing your true essence,

From embodying your true essence,

Feeling any of these limiting beliefs,

These stories that tell you that there's something inherently wrong with you in this moment,

Feeling them melt into the earth,

Letting go of the idea that time is linear and calling upon your future self,

Your higher self in this moment,

Feel him or her coming towards you,

And as they come towards you,

Feeling that connection to your essence,

Starting to wake up in every cell of your being and through this feeling of being so comfortable with who you are,

So at home with who you are,

Feeling the energy of self-love activated inside every cell of your being,

Taking three last breaths here,

Breathing that energy of radical acceptance,

Of knowing your essence,

Of radical self-love into every cell of your being,

From here,

You're going to roll over onto one side of feeling yourself inside the womb of the great mother in fetal position,

Preparing to birth yourself anew.

When you're ready,

Slowly coming up to sit,

Feeling yourself even more grounded in your body,

In your essence,

In your heart,

Bringing your palms together at your heart in prayer,

Gently bowing your head in gratitude to yourself for taking this time for self-care,

To nurture,

To rejuvenate.

If you like,

Taking some time to journal on what came up for you during this practice,

Or if you like,

Simply continue to sit in meditation.

Thank you so much for joining me for this practice.

Namaste.

Reviews

Such a wonderful class! One of my favorites yet!!