Yoga Flow For Letting Go: A Gentle Practice

Yoga that is a meditation. You’ll move through different shapes (less than 10) to open and support the body to release heaviness and tension that has been stored up and no longer serves. A practice of well-being that supports both the mind and body in total surrender. Release fear and get unstuck in every way. Lovingly guided.

Transcript

Namaste,

It's Jordana here and today I'm going to guide you through a short yoga sequence for letting go.

This practice is designed to support total well-being.

When we feel stuck with anything in life,

It's likely that somewhere within us,

We believe something that is limiting our potential and our lives.

We feel like we can't do something,

Be something,

Or have something.

There's fear that gets between us and being able to do,

To be,

Or to have something we desire.

When this happens,

There isn't just a stuckness in the mind.

There's also a stagnancy in the body.

This often translates to tight muscles,

Pains in the body,

Low energy,

And lack of resiliency.

In this practice today,

We'll move through different shapes to both open and support the body in releasing heaviness or tensions that the mind may have planted in your body and that don't serve you anymore.

Just begin seated comfortably in a cross-legged position.

Sit tall and lengthen your spine.

Close your eyes and take a deep inhale.

Feel your belly.

Feel your lungs.

Exhale.

Release it all out your mouth.

Take this time now to set an intention for your practice.

Maybe you want to forward the intention of releasing heaviness or tension from the body or perhaps dispelling limiting beliefs.

Whatever words of affirmation you'd like to give yourself,

Go ahead and bring those words to mind and repeat them silently to yourself.

Blinking the eyes to open,

Come to hands and knees,

Creating a tabletop position.

You're moving into what's called cat-cow.

Take an inhale and arch your spine in a U-shape.

This is cow.

Then on your exhale,

Arch the opposite way,

Rounding through the spine into the cat stretch.

Press down through the hands to get more length in the front of your chest as you inhale and arch.

Find yourself in the exhale and round your spine again.

Keep going.

Move with your own breath,

Warming up the spine from the base of your pelvis up your back,

Your neck,

And to the base of your skull.

Pass your breath.

Walk your hands a few inches forward of your shoulders.

Spread your fingers wide.

Exhale and lift your knees.

Push back into downward facing dog.

Reach your pelvis up toward the ceiling and draw your sitz bones behind you.

Keep a nice bend in your knees here and maybe pedal out the legs by bending one knee and then the other as you relax the opposite heel toward the ground.

Your body is creating the shape of the letter A.

Keep the length there.

Press the tops of your thighs towards whatever is behind you.

Your quadriceps are engaged here.

Keep breathing.

Downward facing dog is an inversion.

In inversions,

We're able to begin to see things differently.

It offers us a change in perspective.

So relax your head between your arms and find a single point here.

A single point to gaze towards your navel.

As you exhale,

You can bend your knees and let them land on the ground.

Melt your entire torso over your folded legs for child's pose.

Arms are straight out in front of you on the ground.

Forehead is on the ground.

Relax here.

Let your exhales deepen your relaxation.

This is your resting pose and it's a pose of surrender.

When our journey is to let go of tension from the body,

And we look to find more shapes that allow us to move into a restorative state,

We want to be in the parasympathetic nervous system,

The part of us that governs our function for rest and digest,

So that healing has space to happen.

So we're going to end up here for an extended period.

But before we do that,

We'll take a simple flow from this child's pose back into your downward facing dog.

And once you get there,

You're going to hold downward facing dog for as long as is comfortable for you.

So stretch your arms out long.

Press down through your hands,

Fingers spread wide.

Engage through the outer upper arm,

Externally rotating from the upper arm.

With straight arms,

Lift the knees and push the thighs back to find downward facing dog.

Find length in your spine.

Firm your shoulder blades,

Moving them away from your neck,

And broaden across the upper back.

Let your breaths be long here.

Long inhale,

And long exhale.

Find stillness in this downward facing dog.

And you'll stay here for as long as is comfortable for you.

And then you'll take a rest in child's pose again.

You'll move through a few cycles on your own,

Holding down dog for as long as is comfortable in your body.

Then coming into child's pose,

Repeating down dog.

And we'll meet shortly in child's pose again.

2.

Mommy 1.

Mommy 2.

Mommy 3.

Mommy 4.

Mommy you Water,

Stories,

The body,

All the things we do are mediums that hide and also show what's hidden.

Roomy.

There is an opportunity in the stillness,

In the silence,

To become aware of the body,

To become aware of our thoughts,

To become aware of our stories.

What's beneath the surface here?

Find yourself moving into a child's pose.

We'll take several minutes here to fully surrender.

You can flip your palms up towards the ceiling.

In this way,

You're not only in surrender,

But also there's an aspect of devotion to the pose,

Of receptivity,

And of being open to the world around you.

The poet Roomy also says,

There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

There are a thousand ways to go home again.

Allow this pose to be a coming home to yourself.

You can flip the palms to face down now.

Walk your hands back towards your body and roll over your toes to come onto the bottoms of your feet.

Find a standing forward fold here.

Your arms are dangling or holding onto opposite elbows.

Your head and neck are heavy.

Your spine is relaxed as if water could cascade down it.

You can nod your head yes and no.

Make sure the neck is relaxed.

There's no gripping.

Bend the left knee and move the right towards straight.

Walk both hands over to the outer edge of the right foot and breathe.

Come back to center.

Dangle the arms as you slowly roll to the left side.

Bring your hands to a prayer position.

Put the thumbs at your forehead or what's known as the third eye space.

For positive thinking,

Take a deep inhale and exhale here.

Bring the prayer to your lips for kind and compassionate speech.

Take a deep inhale and exhale here.

Bring the prayer to your heart for purity of being.

May I be an empty vessel open to receive and removing any barriers that keep me apart from what I desire most.

Inhale and exhale here.

We're moving into a strong balancing pose,

The tree.

Ground down into the left leg and get light on the right side.

On an inhale,

You can pick up your right leg and place your foot either on the inside of your left calf or on the inside of your left thigh.

Pull up through the standing leg to find stability.

Press the bottom of your right foot into your left leg where it meets and bring your hands to prayer at the heart.

We're going to hold this for 45 seconds.

If you fall out of the pose,

Simply pick up your foot and come back.

Just 15 seconds.

Maybe you can try closing your eyes.

And inhale,

Exhale.

Place the right foot down on the ground.

Take out both legs and shifting to the other side.

Find stability in the right leg and lightness in the left.

Pick the left foot up off the ground and place the bottom of the foot either on the inside of your calf or your thigh.

Avoid hooking the foot on the knee.

It's bad for the joints.

Press the bottom of your foot into the leg and the leg into the foot,

Creating stability.

Take a 45-second hold.

So Rumi has a quote about trees also.

He says,

Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.

So trees don't hold onto leaves when they die.

They shed their leaves so new greenery can sprout.

It welcomes the spring.

So in the same way,

Once you realize a habit or story that doesn't serve you,

Can you let it drop?

Imagine that simply feeling a story of I can't do,

Be,

Or have something that I want.

Imagine it falling away from your being like a dead leaf off a tree.

Inhale and exhale.

Place both feet on the ground and shake them out.

Stretch your arms overhead and find an extension through the side body.

Come onto your tiptoes and stretch up,

Up,

Up as if receiving all of the gifts available in the world.

Come higher on your tiptoes.

Stretch up.

Take in the abundance of all things good,

Of good health,

Of good relationships,

Of good direction.

Inhale and exhale.

Come down onto your feet.

Release your arms and we're going to find a wall.

Find a wall that has nothing on it.

We're going to wind down with our legs moving up the wall.

So you'll come to sit as close to the wall as you can with the left side of your body against the wall.

Then you're going to begin to turn your whole body left towards the wall and let your feet and legs climb up the wall.

With the heels pushing into the wall and a slight bend of the knee,

You can scoot your hips a few inches closer to the wall until you find a spot that feels supportive for you with your hips as close to the wall as they're going to get.

From here,

Straighten your legs up the wall and let your feet splay open.

Your toes are going to point in an outward direction but without any effort here.

Relax your back into the ground and open your palms up towards the sky.

Reversing gravity,

Letting energy flow through the body in a different direction,

Take a deep breath in.

Exhale sigh.

Close the eyes if they're open.

It'll take several minutes here.

Let your awareness rest on your breath.

With each breath you take,

A sense of renewal.

And with each breath out,

Continue to release and let go of your own dead leaves.

Stories that don't serve you today.

So we're moving toward our posture of final surrender.

But first,

Let's take a moment here at the wall to open the hips.

Bring the right foot into a figure four shape,

Ankle over your left thigh and flex the foot.

Take the left foot down the wall any amount and breathe into the hip.

Be gentle.

Be patient with yourself here.

Grief,

Sadness,

Fear,

Anxiety.

They're stored in the hips.

As you open here,

Allow the rest of your body to relax.

Focus your breath on the area of opening.

So there might be a sense of softening.

On an exhale,

Maybe bring the foot a little bit further down the wall.

Breathing into the hip.

Inhale and extend both legs up the wall again.

And you'll switch sides,

Taking the figure four with the left leg.

Flexing the left foot and walking the right leg down the wall towards your hips.

Feeling that light stretch on the opposite side of your hip and breathing.

Letting go.

See if you can cultivate a sense of calm as you gently remind yourself to let go a little deeper,

To shed another layer.

And maybe walking the foot a little bit further down the wall towards the hips.

And then extend both legs up the wall and wiggle yourself back into the center of the room for our final resting pose.

The pose of the corpse is known in Sanskrit as Shavasana.

It's the pose of ultimate restoration and surrender.

So laying on your back,

Your feet are spread comfortably wide.

Your palms are out to your side at a comfortable downward angle about six to twelve inches away from your body.

Your palms face up to the sky.

If you have a sensitive lower back,

You can put a pillow beneath your knees.

Close your eyes.

And we're going to do a quick practice of tensing and releasing before we find our total resting space in the pose.

This practice helps release fear and anxiety as well as supporting the body for a good night's sleep.

So beginning with the feet,

Bring tension to the feet and the toes.

Squeeze,

Squeeze,

Squeeze.

And release.

Relax the feet.

Moving to the calves and the thighs.

Tighten them.

Squeeze,

Squeezing.

And release.

Relax the legs.

Engaging the hips,

Buttocks,

And groin.

Tighten them.

Tense,

Tense.

Holding.

And release.

The abdomen and chest.

Squeeze,

Squeezing.

And release.

The hands,

The arms,

The shoulders,

Tighten.

Squeezing,

Squeezing.

And let it go.

The face.

Scrunching the face.

Tightening.

Holding it.

And release.

And now the whole body.

Inhale,

Hold the breath.

Squeeze the entire body.

Head to toe.

Tense,

Tense.

Squeezing.

And exhale,

Relax.

Let it all go.

Find Shavasana,

Corpse Pose.

Relax into the blissful stillness.

Allow your body to absorb the positivity of the pauses and the openings throughout this practice that you just did.

Let your mind and your body surrender.

Let your mind and your body surrender.

Let it all go.

Let it all go.

Let it all go.

Let it all go.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light,

Not our darkness,

That most frightens us.

We ask ourselves,

Who am I to be brilliant,

Gorgeous,

Talented,

Fabulous?

Actually,

Who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine as children do.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us.

It's in everyone.

As we shine our own light,

We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,

Our presence automatically liberates others.

Maryanne Williamson You can stay in this resting pose for as long as you like.

And then whenever you're ready,

You can gently bring yourself back into a fully awake and restored state,

Using gentle movements of the fingers and the toes,

Eventually sitting up and opening your eyes.

Maryanne Williamson Maryanne Williamson you

Reviews

Loved the music to this and letting go was relevant for me. Thank you

Well led practice with a great sound track. Thankyou

Beautiful practice!

Thank you, that is a great practice🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻Loved the many Rumi quotes , as well as the Marianne Williamson one at the end. Being a visual person, I notice that I miss being able to look at a teacher modeling the pose...

Thank you for this - have bookmarked to return to practice.Namaste🙏

Thank you for this wonderful practice. I will be coming back🕉🙏❤️

Thx for a wonderful calm yogasession. Enjoyed it a lot, liked the insight words of Rumi. Bookmarked!

Really enjoyed this - loved the dialogue, music and flow will do again Thankyou 😊🙏❤️