Yin Yoga For Gratitude

Gratitude has a surprising power in that it can make us feel immediately happier and more optimistic. In this Yin Yoga class, we will get in touch with feelings of gratitude for ourselves and the people around us. Give it a try, and see how the effects of practicing gratitude can affect your experience of life.

The poses in this class are Cow-faced Arms in Reclined Butterfly, Open Wings & Anahatasana - find images of most on my website (see profile).

Victoria's Yin Yoga classes are designed to release tension and bring presence to body & mind. Bring a bolster (or pillow), some blocks (or books) and a blanket. Please make sure to listen to your body during the class and if anything doesn’t feel right, come out of the pose and rest. Your body is your responsibility.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to today's Yin Yoga session,

Which is all about gratitude.

I thought that this class would be a good one to do,

Simply to bring some positivity and some optimism to our lives.

Yeah,

There's a lot of crap going on at the moment,

But there's also good things,

And it's important to try and remember what they are,

Because it's so easy to forget and focus on the negative.

So what I'd like to do is start with our Yin poses today,

And then finish with the meditation on gratitude.

By the way,

If you want to pause the audio and get a notebook and pen here,

Then that would be useful for the last part of the class.

Our Yin Yoga poses are going to be particularly focused on opening up the heart area,

Which is symbolically,

And also in some traditions,

Where gratitude comes from,

Emanates from perhaps.

Our poses are going to be focused on opening up this area,

And also stimulating the meridians that are connected to the heart.

We're going to start in a lying position,

So if you want to lie down on your back in reclined butterfly.

So that's where your knees are bent,

And the soles of your feet are together,

Allowing the knees to drop out to the sides.

Hopefully you're feeling some kind of stretch on the inside thighs here,

But don't worry too much if you aren't.

Now what we're also going to be doing is cow face arms.

So just lift up the chest to have a bit of an arch in the spine,

And bring the right hand somewhere between your shoulder blades,

With the back of your hand on the body.

Okay,

Now bring the left hand up to join it,

Maybe it's on top of the right hand,

Or maybe it's underneath.

It doesn't matter,

As long as we've got the opening in the front of the chest.

So just play with the position of the hands.

And you can also play with the position of the arms,

Particularly if you're feeling any uncomfortable sensations,

Such as pinching in the shoulders.

As I already said,

We want an opening in the chest,

This is what we're going for.

When you have the position that works for you,

Close your eyes,

And we're going to stay here for three minutes,

Keeping the body relaxed.

And if you're feeling that this isn't right anywhere,

Then just wiggle around and move your position until it's okay.

Just adjust the body.

So just around a minute now left,

Bring your attention to the area of the heart.

As you breathe your normal,

Natural breath,

Bring your focus there.

Feel it descend.

Then we're going to move to the other side.

So lift up again,

Bring the arms down,

Let them rest for a few moments,

Noticing how the arms,

The fronts of the shoulders,

How they feel.

Then we're going to move to the other side,

So this time bend the left elbow,

Bring the hand between the shoulder blades,

Palm up,

Now lift the chest up and bring the other hand to join it.

Again,

They might touch,

But they might not.

Play with the position of the body,

Play with the position of the hands,

The arms,

The shoulders,

So that nothing is hurting you but you're feeling an opening in the chest.

Then again,

We'll stay here for three minutes.

You may well notice that it's different on this side,

You may feel like you have more or less tension.

Notice where you're feeling it,

Is it more in the left arm,

Is it more in the right one?

Which part of the arms can you feel it in?

The shoulders,

Maybe the legs?

Bring your attention to the area of the heart and see if you can notice the rise and the fall of the chest as you breathe in and as you breathe out.

You may notice the rise and the fall of the chest as you breathe in.

You may notice the rise and fall of the chest as you breathe in.

On the next out breath,

Gently lift up or maybe roll to the side a little bit.

Bring the arms out,

Straighten the legs and we're going to move into our rebound pose.

Bring your attention to your body as a whole and notice where you're feeling the after effects of what we just did.

Where are you feeling sensations?

Now for me,

I'm feeling it more on my right side.

My hand is tingling.

I can feel a release of tension in my right arm and it feels kind of relaxed on my left inside thigh.

So I obviously had some tension on my right side.

That's me.

Notice where it is for you.

Then before we move to the next pose,

We're just going to have a little bit of yang within the yin.

What we're going to do is move into a variation of fish pose to bring a little bit of back bend into the upper back.

So first,

Breathe out and as you breathe in,

Activate the arms,

The hands,

Spread the fingers wide.

Now push the elbows into the floor as you rise the chest up and move gently onto the top of your head.

Make sure you are actively pressing into the floor with the elbows as we don't want any pressure on the head.

We're pushing the chest up and the arms down.

Your legs may also be quite strong here.

Then when you're ready,

Come back down again,

Lie down and just rest the body.

Okay let's do it again.

Breathe in,

Activate the arms,

Push the elbows down,

The chest up and go up on the top of the head.

Again pushing the arms into the floor,

Pushing the chest up,

Trying not to have weight on the head.

Using the muscles of the legs and the pelvis so that we've got this upper back bend as a counter pose here.

And then gently come back down again.

Rest.

Now one more time in your own time.

Activating the arms,

The legs,

Arching the upper back.

And when you're ready to go back down onto your back,

Then please do.

Now we're going to roll over onto our fronts to move into open wings.

I'm going to give you a couple of options here.

So lie on your front and first of all put your left arm straight to the side on the floor.

Then move it down a little so it's at a bit of an angle.

What we're going to do here is gently roll over onto our left side.

So putting the right hand on the floor,

Use it to push yourself up oh so gently onto your side.

And what we're looking for here is an opening in the chest in the left side of the chest.

Okay now come back down again.

And this time move the arm the left arm up on the floor.

So it's more of a right angle this time.

Then come up onto your side again.

And you can also play with the position of the legs.

You might want to keep them straight.

You might want to bend the knees.

You might want to just bend one knee,

Perhaps bringing the top leg on the floor behind the other leg.

The legs don't really matter.

It's more about this opening in the side of the chest.

Now roll back down again.

And if that one was actually too intense for you,

If the first version worked better,

Then you can go to that first version now.

But if that second version was good,

But maybe you would like some more,

Then the final option is to put the left arm back on the floor.

But from that right angle position,

Move the arm up a little bit.

You can now once more roll onto your left side and see how that feels.

An opening in the left side of the chest,

Being very careful of any pinching or uncomfortable sensations in the back of the shoulder in particular.

So choose which of those three options are best for you.

And if you find that none of them work,

You can try bending the arm as well.

See if that makes any difference.

Your head you can have on the floor or on a block or resting on your hand,

Whatever's most comfortable.

And now we're going to stay for two minutes.

Knowing that this is yin yoga,

So we want to be passive,

We want to be relaxed in the pose.

We don't want any pain,

Particularly for example in the back of the shoulder here.

And as always,

If it's not feeling right,

Come out of the pose and either move the position of the arm or just lie face down in a relaxed neutral pose.

Take care of your body.

You have responsibility for your body.

I can give you suggestions,

I can give you variations,

But ultimately I can't see your body.

And even if I could,

I wouldn't know what you were feeling unless you told me.

You need to take responsibility,

Listen to it and adjust accordingly.

Two minutes remaining.

Okay,

And on the next out breath,

Roll back down,

Bring that top leg down if it's behind you,

And then we're going to have a brief rebound.

Bring the arms down by the sides,

Or maybe bend both the arms and put them like a cactus,

Cactus arms.

Notice the difference between the front of the left shoulder and the right shoulder,

The side of the chest,

And just stay here for a short while.

Okay,

So let's go to the other side.

Same thing,

Put the right arm down on the floor and try those different angles,

Being really careful.

And as I said before,

If you feel like you want to bend the arm at all,

Then please do that.

You might feel you even want to rotate the arm.

Once you've found your position,

Put something underneath the head if you feel you need to,

And remember you can have the legs on top of each other,

Straight or bent,

Or put the top leg behind the bottom one,

On the foot,

On the toes,

Or maybe on support.

We're going to be here again for just over two minutes,

So spend a bit of time adjusting.

Ask yourself,

Is this hurting me anywhere?

The stimulation in the body and hurting is very different.

Ask yourself,

Can I feel the opening of the front of the right shoulder,

The right side of the chest,

And adjust as necessary?

I'd say that it's much more important to listen to your body and adjust than simply staying in the pose for the amount of time that I've allocated.

Absolutely.

Bring your attention back to the area of your heart,

Once more noticing the rise and fall of this area with the in-breath and with the out-breath,

For the last 30 seconds or so.

Keep the body relaxed.

Notice if you've tightened or tensed anything,

And soften.

Okay,

So on the next out-breath,

We're going to move down gently,

Gently bringing the leg down.

Lie on your front.

Your right arm could definitely feel very tender.

Don't worry,

This is normal.

And again for the rebound,

You might want to bend the elbows,

Put them on the floor in a cactus arms position,

Perhaps separating the legs a bit,

And make sure if you turned your head one way last time in the rebound to turn it the other way.

And we'll stay here for around a minute,

Noticing how everything feels.

Alright then.

We're just going to again move into a counter pose.

So push back into a child's pose,

Knees together,

Or separate,

It doesn't matter,

And stretch the arms out in front of you.

We're making this more yang,

So you can walk the hands forward a bit to stretch the arms,

Stretching the shoulders,

Allowing yourself to drop into it a bit more,

A bit more active.

You can walk the hands to the sides if you like to get a bit of a side stretch,

And make sure to go the other way as well.

When you're finished,

Move up onto your hands and knees,

And make sure to keep the hips in the air.

We're going to move into anahatasana,

Or melting heart.

So from hands and knees,

With your hips in the air,

Walk the hands forward,

Allowing the chest to drop down,

And again we're going for opening in the chest.

You can put the forehead on the floor,

Or the chin,

Or you can put something underneath the head,

Such as a block if you like.

We want to feel a stretch on the front of the shoulders,

And the underside of the arms,

But if you're feeling a pinching sensation in the back of the shoulder here,

Move the arm,

Or the arms,

You can separate them as far as you need to.

And if that isn't working for you,

You can always do the one arm version,

Bending one arm,

And stretching the other out.

Feeling an opening in the front of the torso,

Chest,

A stretch on the arms and the front of the shoulders.

And we'll stay here for four minutes,

Bringing your attention to the area of the heart,

And really sending your focus there.

Understanding that you're breathing,

Breathing from this area,

Sending your breath to the area of the heart,

And just softening.

And I'll leave you here,

With the birds,

For the remaining time.

Let's relax.

You you you you you you you you so in the next hour breath you can do one of two things we are going to move into the meditation so you can either come up into a sitting position that is comfortable and neutral for you making sure your back is straight or you can come down lying on your front or lying on your back you choose which one works best for you get yourself relaxed and get yourself relaxed and get yourself relaxed and get yourself relaxed and get yourself relaxed spend some time playing with your limbs making sure that you are comfortable and then when you are ready close your eyes and once more bring your attention to the area of the heart and if you know ujjayi or ocean breathing you can do one of two things you can do one of two things you can do one of two things and if you know ujjayi or ocean breathing then you can bring a very soft ujjayi if you like breathing into the area of the chest noticing the rise and the fall as you breathe in and out and as you are breathing into this area call to mind think of something or someone that you are grateful for something or someone that makes you happy it can be anything anyone an animal a type of food that you like a person then as you breathe in just say in your mind I am grateful for whoever or whatever it is you are thinking of for me for example I would say in my mind I am grateful for my friend the cat who lives with me maybe a little bit long but you get the idea so as you breathe in say in your mind what you are grateful for and as you breathe out say in your mind thank you I am grateful for my friend the cat thank you still keeping your focus on the area of the heart now you can continue with this same person or thing that's fine but if you want at any point to adapt to change or to add to what you are grateful for then please feel free to do that I am grateful for my nice home thank you I am grateful for the fact that I am warm thank you you choose to stay with the original one or change it if anything comes to you naturally without effort do you notice how maybe it might actually get a bit easier once you start thinking of things perhaps it's a bit easier to think of more things you are grateful for however small however silly and after the next thank you then just let go of these thoughts go back to your normal breath again and from here you choose what you want to do stay here for a little bit longer with the birds just relaxing you might want to note down these things that you are grateful for or you might just want to move slowly onto the next part of your day whatever you choose to do next I am going to leave you just for now until next time namaste dear friends have a wonderful day you you you you you you you you you you you you you

Reviews

Lovely and we did it at end of the day. The birds were a bonus. 💕

Absolutely wonderful. Thanks so much for this practice. Now full of gratitude going into my day! Namaste 🙏 🪷

Lovely practice! Thank you 🙏