Hello and welcome to Yoga for Caregivers.
I'm Alex Howson from Moon Valley Yoga and today we're going to practice colour breathing.
So find a comfortable seat with your feet on the floor.
So sitting in a chair or on the edge of a bed or shelf or whatever is available but just so that you can really feel the soles of your feet on the ground beneath and we'll begin.
Bring your hands to your thighs,
Let your eyes be soft or closed,
Whatever feels good today.
And just tune into that sense of energy in your hands,
Your arms.
And let yourself be grounded here.
Feel the connection of the soles of your feet on the ground.
Begin to track that energy up through your legs and into your sits bones.
Let your tailbone feel really heavy,
Kind of weighted down,
Plugged into your seat so that you feel really rooted where you're sitting.
And if you need to take any movements in order to come to that place of feeling really connected to where you're sitting,
Go ahead and do that.
And if it helps,
Maybe even extending the imagery of being rooted down and imagining roots pushing down from your pelvis right down through your legs into your feet,
Into the ground so that you're solid and anchored.
Begin to visualise the ground beneath you as a really energising shade of red.
Whatever shade of red comes to you,
The colour of our root chakra.
But feel the energy in that colour,
It's a really energetic red.
And maybe as we did with the open hand exercise,
Maybe you saw some colour there,
Maybe that colour was red energy.
And as you breathe,
Just begin to draw that shade of red,
That red energy slowly into your body.
So each inhale pulls the colour red from the ground into your body.
Pulls that muladhara chakra red and energy into your body from the ground.
There's no rush here.
There's no particular way to breathe.
Just connecting energy to both your inhale and your exhale.
Each inhale bringing energetic colour into your body.
And on the exhale,
The energy doesn't disappear,
It stays in your body.
Slowly filling up your legs.
Breathing that energy into your hips,
Your pelvic bowl,
Your belly.
And just pausing there for a moment.
Just pausing to enjoy and notice the energy and the grounding of this colour that you've chosen for yourself.
To notice the grounding experience of whatever anchors you to the ground,
To yourself,
To those around you.
Breathing in energetic red.
And as you breathe out,
That energy stays with you.
And then when you're ready to continue that journey of colour breathing,
Allow your breath to draw energy further up into your body.
Towards your belly button,
Your chest,
Up into your heart space.
And as you breathe,
Noticing any shifts in sensation.
Breathing that energetic red into your upper chest,
Your collarbones,
Your neck.
Infusing your thyroid gland with warmth and energy.
Feeling that diffuse into your shoulders.
Breathing this energetic red into your arms,
Your fingers,
Your face,
Your eyes.
Breathing energy into your jaw,
Your cheekbones,
The space between your eyebrows,
Your third eye centre or your seat of intuition.
Allowing that colour to move up toward the crown of your head.
Once you feel filled up with this energetic colour,
On each exhale,
Start to visualise this colour spreading to create an aura around you.
Just a sense of establishing an energetic field around your body.
Using your exhale to just let the colour move beyond the boundary of your physical body.
Creating this field of red.
And notice how connected you are to the earth.
Notice how gravity anchors you here in this particular space and time.
And allow any tension in your body to just drain away to the earth beneath you.
Be like a tree connected to the earth and knowing that everything that separates you from being peaceful,
Dissolved.
When you're rooted to self,
To family,
To friends,
To friends,
Just breathe.
Breathe your connection to the earth,
To your body,
To the earth,
To your body,
Body to self,
Self to spirit.
And that whole unified body,
Mind and spirit connected to friends,
To family,
To the rest of the people in your world.
Stay here for a few more moments filled with this energising Muladhara chakra red protected by the aura you've created for yourself,
Connected to yourself.
And then softly,
Whenever you're ready,
Just let go of any visualisation,
Let go of any conscious awareness of your breath.
Take this energy with you into whatever comes next.
Go gently.
