Release - Surrender To Receive With Yoga And Essential Oils

Use yoga and essential oils to help you release muscle aches and emotional stress. The oils have physical and emotional properties. When combining them with yoga, you can surrender your anxieties and receive whatever the universe has in store for you. Please remember to practice mindfully and avoid using this session while driving or operating machinery.

Transcript

So welcome to our yoga and essential oil practice today we are going to try to release stress anxiety tension out of our body and and mind and Be able to receive the gifts that yoga can bring to us and we'll do this using essential oils Essential oils are very powerful when paired with yoga. A lot of times we Oh, Let's see. Okay. My internet went bad for a moment. Okay. When we use essential oils, We are taking the defense of the plant upon ourselves. So we might place them on our body today. We might breathe them in, Trying to get the benefits of the oils along with the benefits of our yoga practice. And you'll see that I'll mention both a physical and an emotional benefit with each of the oils. Then combined with the yoga it can be a very powerful experience So I hope you enjoy this today. Let's do a little setup. Grab your frankincense oil or maybe something that you have that's earthy, Grounding. I guess that's kind of what frankincense is like. You can breathe it in. I personally really enjoy the smell. And we're gonna put it on the top of our mat So just drop a couple of drops. On the top of your mat. If you want to rub it in you certainly can. But every time we're close to the mat, We're going to smell it. So anytime we chaturanga, Anytime we, Um, Anytime we. Are in a child's pose downward facing dog we're going to get the benefits of frankincense and frankincense supports our body. In tissue repair. And then it brings stability and protection when our heart is feeling vulnerable. Like I said, We're going to try to release some of these feelings that maybe are holding us back today. The next one in our setup is wild orange. If you don't have orange, Any kind of citrus will do. Wild orange or any citrus are very uplifting. A good scent that's going to lift our energy, Lift our mood. So breathe it in. And it also supports digestion. You can either drink, The oil i didn't bring a glass today because i was going to suggest to put it on our stomach So you can either put it in some water or take a drop and just rub it onto your stomach to help support digestive juices as we move. You know that when we do yoga, We're twisting, We're moving through our center, Which can stimulate the digestion. And when we talk about releasing things out of our body, Sometimes it's things we ate all weekend long. We want to get it out. We want to start fresh. It's a new week. So we'll begin with that. Okay, I think we've got the setup out of the way. Now to get into the practice, Before we move into our first pose, Grab your next oil, Which is citrus bliss. So this might be just another citrus oil, Same one that you just used. Or if you have citrus bliss, I love this one. Give it a smell. Once again, Uplifting. You can either place it on your back or your neck. Whatever feels good. Today, My back's a little tight, A little sore from the weekend, I guess. So I'm going to put it on my back. But feel free to place it on your neck. Because that feels good too. You can do it in both places, Right? Why limit ourselves? So Citrus Bliss is uplifting. It inspires creativity or feelings of power by helping us to let go of our boundaries. Sometimes when we move into yoga poses, We want to feel creative to kind of flow and explore and discover the pose. Citrus Bliss might help us with that. So let's move into a child's pose. We're going to be right close down by our frankincense oil. So let your knees open a little wider than your hips and reach down toward your mat. You can drop your forehead on the mat. Roll your shoulders back. And just start to breathe. Connect with your breath. Breathe in and out just through your nose. You might be smelling a lot of different things. All of it is good. And it might start taking your mind to another place. My goal when I teach a yoga class is to help people to feel different after we're done. So we come to yoga in one place physically, Emotionally, Mentally. And we're going to exit someplace else feeling totally different. Take one more breath right here. Feels so good. We could stay here all day, But we won't. Sigh. And let's comma on up to all fours. So readjust, Bring your hands right below your shoulders, Your knees right underneath your hips. And let's take cat and cow pose. Drop your belly down, Inhale, Send the gaze up, Shoulders roll back. Exhale, Round through the spine. Pull and lift. We'll tuck our chin. Right up into our chest. Inhale arch. Maybe at first we're moving a little bit slow, But let's try to get the whole range of motion. Exhale round through the spine. Maybe think for a moment as we move here. What are you trying to release today? Is it a place physically on your body that you're trying to release? Or is it some emotion that's holding you back? That you want to let go of. One more, Inhale, Arch. Exhale round. Good. Roll onto the toes. Come up to downward facing dog, Which is on all fours. Press your heels down toward the floor to lengthen through the backs of the legs. Feel free to pedal your feet if you're extra tight today. Bend your knees, Maybe sway through the hips. It is totally up to you. This might be your first chance to kind of release something in a pose here. Calves, Ankles, Shoulders, Whatever it may be. Let's walk up to our hands. And hang forward. A great thing to release here is our neck. If you place that oil on your neck, You're already halfway there. But let's loosen it up with our motion. Maybe you're loosening your hamstrings. You're taking some strain off the hamstrings and releasing the back. Maybe you are straightening your knees to feel the hamstrings. Discover what it is for this moment. And start to roll up through your back, One vertebrae at a time. As we come to the top, Our shoulders roll back. We're ready to begin Sira Namaskara A and get warm through the whole body. Let's do it now. Inhale lift your arms reach up overhead exhale swan dive forward take your hands down as far as you can go you do not have to touch the floor don't feel that pressure inhale look up halfway lift exhale hands down step back or hop back to a plank feel free to drop to your knees here chaturanga elbows bend see if you can hover even for just a moment Inhale, Urva Mukha Svanasana, Upward Facing Dog. Exhale, Atamukhasvanasana, Downward Facing Dog. Turn your chin towards your chest. Lengthen out the back of the neck. Feel free to stay here. Maybe you feel like returning to a child's pose. Then do so. Pay attention to what your body needs. Now bend your knees, Look forward. Inhale, Step or hop up to the hands. Exhale, Fold into the legs, Bhutanasana. Inhale reverse one dive reach up to the sky or the hastasana Exhale, Samasthiti. We're going to take a couple of these, Probably three. So that was one. Inhale, Lift. We want to make sure we're warm from the inside out. Exhale, Swan dive forward. Inhale look up halfway lift Exhale, Hands down. Step or hop back. Drop to your knees if you want. Chaturanga. Inhale, Urva Mukha Svanasana. Exhale, Atamukhasvanasana. Take a moment to pause and maybe just take stock. Are you starting to warm through your body? Are you beginning to connect with your breath? How are you feeling right now? Bend your knees. Look forward. Inhale. Step or hop up to the hands. Exhale fold into your legs Inhale, Reverse one dive, Reach up to the sky. Exhale, Samasthiti. Go ahead. Let's do one more for now. Inhale, Lift. If anything, It just feels good to move. Our bodies are meant to move. Exhale, Fold down. Inhale, Look up, Halfway lift. Exhale, Hands down. Step or hop back. Chaturanga. Inhale, Urva Mukha Svanasana. Good. Open the heart and throat. Exhale. Atamukasvanasana. Downward facing dog Beautiful. Come forward to a plank for a moment, And let's lower down onto our stomach. Here, Roll your shoulders back, Tops of the feet on the floor. Take a breath of that frankincense and inhale, Lift up to cobra pose. Hold. Backbends can be so energizing for our body. Really feels nice to stretch those muscles. Lengthen them out Inhale. Exhale, Lower down. Good job. Change the direction of the back. Inhale, Come back once again to Child's Pose. Exhale. Drift back toward those heels. Change the direction of your back. Feel that curve of the spine once again lengthening. Inhale, Lift up to Atomakasvanasana. Exhale, Press back. Bend your knees. Look forward. Inhale, Step or hop. Up to you. Whatever you choose. Exhale fold into your leg Inhale, Reverse one, Dive, Reach up. Exhale, Samasthiti. Good. Nicely done. Let's grab our next oil, Elevation. So this is a blend. If you have something earthy or grounding, It might work. Uplifting though think of an uplifting scent whatever that is to you So we're going to put this on the back of our neck. First I would breathe it in. Feels really good. Smells really good. Put it on the back of our neck so our neck will feel very good. This is going to help us to energize. And it'll give us the ability to let go of old habits or addiction. Remember I told you to think of something that you're trying to let go of today. Maybe this will give you a little bit of courage boost to do that. Step wide, So you're in Prasarita Padottanasana A. And let's take our hands to our hips. Look up, Inhale. Exhale fold forward. Take your hands down to the floor and walk them back so they're in between your feet. Press into the ground. Look up. Lengthen your spine. Shift your weight forward so you feel the stretch in the hamstrings. Exhale fold back down Relax your neck. Relax your gaze. This feels great along the backs of the legs, Outer edges of our hips. Really gets deep into the into the legs here And let's walk our hands over to our right leg. Give it a little bit of a pull. This is going to pull our shoulder. You can feel that in the left shoulder. A little bit of a shift in our hips. Low back. One more breath. Inhale. Exhale. Walk your hands back to the center. Press into the floor, Inhale, Look up. Exhale, Bring your hands to your waist. Inhale lift up nicely done turn your right foot toward whatever end of your mat and let's come to warrior two so we've got our right knee bent here in warrior two Nice and strong. We're starting to feel that energy building in that right hip there. Lots of rotation through the internal rotators of our hips. Good. Now just straighten out the right leg and move to trikonasana. So we'll reach our right hand down. You can grab your big toe if that's available to you or take a block to the big toe side of your foot. And you can press yourself on that block. So open through the chest. You can send your gaze up. Or if that's uncomfortable for the neck, Then just look down. Stretch out the legs. Feels nice. Now inhale, Lift back up. Let's re-bend. Exhale to Virabandrasana B. Keep this bend. Inhale, Reverse warrior. Tilt back. Your left hand drops down and the right arm reaches. And we feel that side body nice and long. Good. Inhale, Straighten up through both legs and torso. Exhale, Take your hands to your hips, Rotate your hips and your feet. So both feet are pointed straight forward. I'll move my block so you can see. Straight forward and our feet hip width distance apart. Hips are square. Take pyramid pose. Inhale, Look up. Exhale, Fold forward. Extend your torso as you go down and you can take your hands down to the floor. If you can't reach, That's why you have your block. So you can place your hands on your block. Either way, We want to keep the right knee as straight as we can so that we can feel the back of the leg lengthening. Hamstring here, Calf. And ankle turn your gaze back toward your left foot so we're relaxing the neck Take one more breath here. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, Look up. Exhale, Bend your right knee and bring your left knee down to the floor. For a low lunge make sure you get wide enough so that the knee stacks on top of the ankle we're not pressing the knee over our toe and just sit down into the hips now if this feels too low to you first you know Monday day Monday morning maybe you can have your hands on your knee You can also take it a little more energized by reaching your arms overhead. All of those options are just fine. Good nice and deep through those hips really open them up release tension and pressure in the hips and go a long way to release tension and pressure in the rest of our body. Take one more breath here. Inhale. Exhale bring your hands down lift up onto your back toe there and let's step the right foot back and into our downward facing dog. Take a breath here. Inhale. Exhale. Bend your knees. Look forward. Inhale. Step or hop. Up to your hands. Exhale fold into the legs Uttanasana deeply release that neck there inhale reverse one dive erva hastasana Exhale, Samasthiti. Good. Step your feet wide. Once again, We need to do our other side, Don't we? So nice and wide. Take a breath. Inhale, Look up. Exhale bring your hands down walk them back in between your feet or i didn't say this last time you can have your hands on a block yes if you can't quite reach the floor that's what the block is for Good. Fold it down. Notice if anything is starting to get a little bit easier. I can feel my hamstrings are opening up a little bit. Maybe your hips are. Nice to notice that progress, Right? Now walk your hands over to your left foot. We can feel that pull in the right shoulder. We can feel the shifting in the low back area. The sacrum there. Good. Walk your hands back to the middle. Press into the floor. Inhale, Look up. Exhale, Bring your hands to your waist. Inhale, Lift up the rest of the way. Good. Turn your left toe forward and bend into Virabandrasana B. So now we've got our left knee bent. We still have that open sensation through the inner thigh and groin in this very strong. Stable, Rejuvenating pose. Inhale straighten up through the right leg or left leg sorry exhale lean to trikonasana reach it down again you can grab your big toe if that is available to you or you've got your block you place your block on the big toe side of your foot Lots of reach and open through the chest. Such good open sensation there. Feels nice. Maybe we're releasing a little bit of. Sadness today by reaching through the chest so deeply. And as we inhale, Let's bend our left knee once again. Come on up. And exhale here keep the bend in the left knee inhale reverse warrior drop your right arm down pull that left arm back and feel the length through the torso all of this reach through the side of the body, Just more room for breath. That's how I like to think of it. What? Inhale straighten up through legs and torso exhale take your hands to your hips and turn your feet once again i'll move this block out of the way so you can see both toes pointed forward hips pointed forward ready for pyramid pose inhale look up exhale fold forward take your hands down if they can touch the floor great if not utilize your block do your best to keep the left knee as straight as you can so that you can feel the length down the back of the leg all the way down. Then turn your gaze toward that toe. And just relax your neck here. Keep it nice and loose. Long length through the hamstring. And the calf. Love how that feels. One more breath. Inhale. Exhale. Good. Now bend your left knee. Take your right knee down to the floor. Perhaps you need to widen out. Make sure you've got that alignment. Knee stacked on top of your ankle. Hands down. Hands on your knee. Or hands up overhead. Three options are just fine. One more breath. Inhale. Exhale, Bring your hands down, Lift up onto that back toe, And let's step our left foot back into Adho Mukha Svanasana. Downward facing dog press back Pull those heels toward the ground. Nice and loose through your neck. One more breath. Inhale. Exhale. Good. Bend your knees. Come down. Let's have a seat. And do our next oil. This is serenity. So it's maybe lavender. If you don't have this blend, Lavender is very calming. Anything that's calming to you. So that's the goal. Relaxing and calming. We've done our steady standing poses, Warmed up our body. Now we're trying to relax everything. Let everything go. So why don't you place it on your neck and shoulders? Builders. I think the three areas that hold stress in most of my clients are neck and shoulders, The hips, And the low back. So I think we've already got good headway on those areas in our body. Hopefully this will mean that we're going to feel better later. That's the point. So it's serenity, Also calming, Relaxing. But it can calm feelings of hostility or fear or anger, Resentment or jealousy. We're going to try to calm those thoughts down just a little. Do that by stretching and holding still so grab your strap if you have one let's extend our legs forward and take the strap around your feet. Sit nice and tall as you do. Take a breath. Inhale. Exhale come forward along that strap If you can grab your feet, Then do it. You don't need to have the strap. Pull your shoulder blades back. Take a breath. Inhale. Exhale, Fold back down. So relax your neck here. We just placed oil on our neck and shoulders. Notice them. Do you have tension in your shoulders and your neck? Shake them out maybe. Pull those shoulder blades back. We're reaching forward with our arms, But we do not need to have rigid shoulders. Let it go. Do your best. To let it go. Take one more breath here. Inhale. Exhale. Now come up. We're going to return to this pose in just a moment. But first, A couple of things. Let's now get on to our back. Do some bridge poses, Which both stimulate our back, But then also we learn how to release and to let go. So let's come to our back. With our knees bent and the feet on the floor. Relax, Tilt your pelvis so the curve of the spine connects to the ground. And then, So that's releasing the whole lower back, Yes. And then let's start to lift from the base of the spine. So as you roll up, There's new energy through each vertebrae of your back. You can either press your hands to the mat, As I'm doing here, Or you can clasp. Underneath and pull your shoulder blades toward each other. It feels really great to lengthen out your quadriceps. Hip flexors We're once again opening that heart space. And maybe think for a moment again of that thing you're trying to release If it's an emotional thing, Let it clear your heart. Let it leave your heart. We've created some space in our heart with this pose. Let go. Take one more breath here. Inhale. Exhale. Good release your hands roll down Bring your knees into your chest. As we press that curve of the spine to the floor, Feel that low back release. Now we're going to go back to the forward fold and see if we feel any different. So let's just gently roll ourselves up. Extend the legs out again, Take your strap around your feet. Sit tall. Inhale. Exhale reach forward for that strap Take your deep reminder breath. Inhale, Pull in through the middle of the spine. Exhale, Guide those shoulder blades back as you deepen. And just notice if you feel any different. You might not, And if you don't, Please do not judge yourself. Just keep focusing on your breath. Change will come. Sometimes it just takes a moment. Our whole. . . Experience on our mat. It's a journey. Every time we come to our map. Take one more breath here. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, Lift up. Exhale release your release your strap Nicely done. Let's take one more gentle hip stretch back onto our back. With the knees bent. Take your right ankle to the left knee. Make a figure four shape. Then reach through and grab onto your shin or the back of your leg. Grab on somewhere. You can even take your strap. Around your feet. And pull forward. Just try to keep your shoulders relaxed if you're using the strap. And then just lay the head back. Now if your head doesn't quite reach the floor because maybe you're really tight in your back, Put a blanket underneath your head. Try to find a way to ease the upper back. Everything that we're doing from here on out is resting, Restoring, Releasing. No straining. Don't strain. If this is even too much for you, Just put your foot back down and just work on guiding this knee. Just do whatever it is that works for your body today. And just let it go, Let it happen. No judgment, Right? This pose is great to open up the outer edge of the right hip. It's good for the sciatic nerve that runs down the back of the right leg. And it presses the curve of the spine to the floor, So relaxing in the low back. Let's release our hold and switch the feet. Take the left ankle to the right knee, Making that figure four. And then reach through and grab on. However you did it last time is probably what's going to work for you this time. This time I'm also going to roll my ankles around. I like to do that sometimes in this pose. To let go of ankle strain. Use some of that. You'll notice that your breath is probably slowing down. Let that happen. That's good. As we once again move toward that really deep feeling of rest and release. Take one more breath here. Inhale. Exhale. Nice. Let go. And I know we've been on the floor. We do need to sit up for just a moment to get readjusted to our next thing. So roll over to one side. Make sure that your blood flow is kind of returning to your head. And then gently press up. We'll do our last oil and then get into our last pose. So get to your feet. If you've got socks on, I would suggest removing them so you can place the oil, This is balanced blend, On your feet. If you don't have balanced blend, Then you can use any kind of grounding oil. Breathe it in. You always want to smell how good it smells and then rub your feet. Now I'm always of the opinion that we don't give our feet enough attention, Enough love. So this is a great way to finish our practice by giving ourselves a little foot massage. Rub that fascia. Rub it in the tops of the toes in between the toes even how tight do we get between our toes A lot of times we do. And what is Balance Blend doing to it? So it supports healthy muscle tone. And it's especially good for people who seek to to be grounded. Sometimes when we're in stress, When we're in anxiety, We try to run away from our emotions. We try to disconnect because we don't want to feel it. So this could help you maybe get grounded. Connect once again with maybe your emotions or other people around you. All of that kind of feeling. Now, If you have a blank wall, This will be really great. I'm going to show you an option if you don't. So I've got this blank empty wall behind me. We'll go there in just a moment. If you don't have a wall, Grab your block and grab your strap. So I'll show you option A. This is the no wall option. So you'll place the block underneath your hips. It's real comfortable to feel like there's not any strain in your back. Then you'll take the strap around your feet. And just lift it up to the air. So as you can see, We're just simulating our shape like we would be legs up the wall. And you should have really relaxed arms. And hands so even though you're grabbing your strap we're not we're not tight we're really nice and relaxed So here's option A, No wall. Available to you Option B. Is to scoot yourself as close as you can to the wall. That's the biggest challenge. So try to get one hip right up against the wall and then swing your legs up. Once you're there, Pretty easy. We'll just take our arms out. And we're going to relax here. So either option, This is where we will end our physical yoga practice. The benefits of being up the wall or being inverted are great. They're very good for circulation and metabolism. And it's very relaxing. We're laying on the ground. We're supporting our legs up the wall. Really stable. And it should allow you to release. And let go. So try to let your thoughts just float around you. Don't even pay attention to your breath. Just let it come and go as it will. I am going to put a timer on us. So that we don't fall asleep here completely. If at any time you need to come out of either of these two poses, Of course do, Just do it slow. Start to come off the wall out of your position. So bend your knees if you have the strap. Remove the block. If you have the block, And all of us let's roll onto one side and fetal pulse. Just let the blood flow come back to neutral In our bodies. And then press up to a comfortable seated position will return to face each other bring our hands to heart center This is a quote by Kenji Ami. Miyazawa to close our practice. We must embrace pain. And use it as fuel for our journey. Thank you for your beautiful practice today. Namaste.