Hip Openers - Safely Release What You've Been Carrying

In this brief and gentle yoga sequence, we are focusing on opening our hips, a place in our body where we tend to store tension and unprocessed emotions. With this practice, we are giving our bodies a chance to release any built-up tension and give any previously stored emotions a space to be processed. No yoga experience required.

Transcript

Hold on. Today we're going to do some hip openers and it's a very short sequence so that you can fit this in even like between two calls or just if you have a moment to yourself to kind of just come down and hip openers are traditionally used to release emotions and build up tension because many of us end up storing a lot of tension and emotions that are unprocessed in our hips. So if, You feel emotional after doing these practices, That's actually fairly typical. So I invite you to sit with whatever comes up and see if there's something that is asking for your attention. I'm on a yoga mat. You could also do this on a carpet or something like that. You don't necessarily need the like stickiness of a yoga mat. And I have blocks as well that can be supportive when you do more restorative poses like these ones or more yin like poses as opposed to yang, Which is more energetic, But it's not a requirement. And so for the hip opener, We are coming into what's called a low lunge. Whichever way you're going to get yourself there, Bring one foot forward. This is my left foot. And you want to have it sort of at a 90 degree angle, Not further back, Further forward. That can be challenging for the knee and we want to protect that knee joint. Bring the back leg, My right one in this case, Further back. So when I look at this, I have sort of that 90-90 angle in the front and a deeper angle on the back. So bigger than 90 degrees. And you can bring your hands on your, On your front leg, Or you can bring them down. Or again, If you have something like blocks, You can bring your hands on the block. Now what's important here is that my hips are facing straight forward. So if I had sort of headlights on my, On my hip bones, They would be pointing straight forward as opposed to the side. And this also helps to protect the joints. And you might find that this is quite a lot of a stretch right through here, Through your hip flexors or even into the leg and the hips in general. And that is the point. That's what we want. We want some sensation there. So if you're finding it as uncomfortable and painful, You've gone too far. Definitely back out a bit more, Um, Or come, Um, Come up a bit more. But if you find it's just, Um, A sensation, See if you can stay with it because often our brains give up long before our bodies do. We're going to stay here one more moment. Breathe into it. These are like yoga inspired poses. And part of the beauty of yoga is that we have the breath to support us. So just see if you can find your breath as an anchor here. It doesn't necessarily have to be the deepest breathing ever, But just see if you can slow it down a little bit to support you. And as you back out, Just come back a little bit. We're just going to do one little counter stretch before we go a little deeper. Just kind of pulling back into a half split. So here I'm putting my toes to come towards the ceiling and I'm pulling energetically both my hips back so my hips remain sort of squared forward. And then from here, I come back forward and this time I'm going into lizard. So we're going a little bit deeper. So if it's available to you, Bring your front foot further out, Just so you have a wider stance, So to speak. And then from here, I'm going to lay myself onto my forearms. Again, This can be on blocks if you prefer that a little bit more height. Or you can take stages where you start higher up and you come further down as your hips are releasing. Now in this pose, I'm not perfectly square anymore. So I'm trying not to lean too much on one side, But it is a bit more tricky to try to stay stable here. And again, This is a pretty deep release, So you might feel this on the other hip on the outside. You'll probably feel it in the front and your hip flexors. Just find your breath here again. Really breathe into. These hips. Who may not be getting very much love. And support here. It's normal to have. Strong reaction to this, This is a deep sensation. And again, Sometimes the emotions that we store there come up. We'll just stay for one more moment. Take a full cycle of breath. Then our next inhale. Come back up and just come into the tabletop position. As I reset. And we'll go to the other side. So this time bring my right foot forward. And first, We're going to do this little lunge. So I'm bringing my. Arms, My hands onto my leg. And again, The front is about a 90 degree angle and the back is a bit wider. My hips are facing straight forward. Sinking into the frontier. Really feeling that stretch on the back hip, But also through the front glute. The glutes of the front leg, I should say. Find your breath here. Again, You can stay upright. You can come onto blocks here if you like. Never supports you, Blocks are really meant to support you. Take some deep breaths here. Know that this is an intense stretch, Even though it's not a crazy over pose. Take one more full cycle of breath. And then next inhale, We'll shift back into that half monkey half split. So essentially pulling both my hips back equally so that they are not at an angle, But like pointing back. My front foot, My toes go towards the ceiling and I'm feeling a stretch in the back line of my leg. And I'm pulling my right hip back and gently bringing my left forward for sort of this equal stretch, Just as a bit of a counter. So then you can go a little bit deeper into lizard. So on the next inhale, Come forward. And again, You can bring the foot a little bit wider. So mine is almost as wide as my mat. And that just gives me a bit more space. And then I lean forward and I bring my back foot back ever so slightly. My back leg, By the way, Is kind of straight out of my hips. It's not at an angle. And again, You can come onto blocks here. Into your forearms so you can come all the way down. And so from this side, You can see how. I am in a pretty deep angle here so that my back hip, I feel the hip flexor. Quite a bit here and then again through the back of my, My. The front foot glutes. And it is an intense stretch. So stay with it. Your mind wants to give up long before your body gives up, But also we want to acknowledge sharp pain at any point. You do not ever want sharp pains. If that's the case, It's likely your nerves are getting involved. We don't want to aggravate those. So just come out of it. If it's too deep, Listen to your body, But also know that your mind gives up long before your body does. You can wiggle here a little bit. It is legal in yoga now to move a bit. So if you're finding just a bit of movement back and forth, A little bit of rocking could be supportive. Please feel free to do so. Or you can find stillness, Whatever. Suits you right now. And we'll take one more full cycle of breath. Next inhale, Lean back up. Bringing the leg back into a tabletop position. And just come to seat for just a moment. We want to integrate. What we're feeling here, So just maybe close your eyes if that feels safe. And just see if you are feeling anything different. If your hips are screaming at you or saying thank you, You never know. Maybe you found that you're feeling one side more than the other and that's very normal. Our hips, Or generally our bodies, Are not very equal on both sides and yoga has a way to point that out. Just whatever is coming up for you, Allow it to be. If you're feeling emotional in any way, See if you can just sit with that and see if you can see the emotion as a data point rather than a directive. What is it trying to tell you? When you're ready, You can move on with your day.