Yoga for Heavy Hearts

Hello my darling friends and welcome to yoga withadrien. I am Adrien and this is Benji and today we have yoga for heavy hearts. Thank you for joining in. Let's begin in a comfortable seat of your choice. You can come on down to the ground. Sit up on a little blanket or a couple of blocks or a pillow. Or maybe you'd like to adapt this session for a chair or even on the edge of your couch. I'd love to invite you to find a seat where you can sit up tall through the spine. And we have begun. Let's take a second to close down the eyes or gently soften your gaze down past your nose. Whatever feels best for you in this moment. Whatever feels more comfortable, more safe. This session is designed to hold you. We are going to sit together, move a little bit together and bring our awareness, our attention to our breath. Gently breathing together. So, take a second just to notice your breath. You don't have to do anything to it or change it. Just notice it. And the hands can rest gently on the lap or wherever feels good. And as you bring your awareness, your attention to your breath, you may notice that it starts to change. And I say, let it change. Listen and respond. Nice slow, easy breaths responding to the previous cycle of breath. Yeah, that's it. And then bring your left hand to your heart and your right hand over your left hand. So now your palms are here at the heart center. And you can take it to heart center, over to the left, whatever feels right for you today. Use this gentle touch of your palms on the chest. Use it to find a small, it can be very small. It could be like a micro movement. Lift up through that space in the body. Feel the warmth of your own hands and your heart center, your heart space. Allow your shoulders to relax, the skin of your face to soften. And together, because we're in this together, I'll invite us to take a deep breath in through the nose. Big full long breath. Pause at the top just for a moment. Retain the breath. Hold it for a second. And then exhale out through the nose or softly through the mouth, your choice. Again, inhaling deeply. Big full long drawing of the air in. Pause at the top. Keep the shoulders and the skin of the face relaxed. And then exhale out through the nose or the mouth, your choice. One more time. Just like that. Here we go. Big breath in. gently pausing at the top and a long breath out. From here, keep a nice smooth, slow and steady breath going best you can. Draw your chin to your chest. Bow your head to your sweetheart space. And just take a quiet moment here to listen. Listen to your body. Listen to your breath and be with whatever emotion or sensation energy that you're coming to the mat with today. We can just be with it. We can just sit with it here together. We're not here to fix it. Just here to sit with it

allowing it and then welcoming shift of course but using each cycle of breath to come back to that present sensation. Whatever that means to you. Okie do. Release the hands to the knees. Carve a line with your nose forward and keep moving the nose all the way up towards the ceiling till the gaze is up, but you're not crunching in the back of the neck. So maybe don't do the most here. Keep nice extension through the neck. So this is just a gentle opening up through the throat. Take one more breath here and open your eyes and just take a look to the left and then to center. And then take your eyes to the right and to center. And then we'll slowly drop the chin back down. And then take it back up. And now you can move um in a rhythm that feels right for your body. So maybe a little faster pace, but I hesitated to say fast because we want to keep it nice and slow and steady. Nodding the head. Yes. Keeping the shoulders relaxed. If you feel like your upper back is hunching over, find a gentle lift through the chest and sternum, engaging the muscles of the front body and the back body to help hold you up. Great. Come back to center. Head over heart. And then we'll take the right ear over to the right shoulder. Stay here. Just breathe. Maybe part the lips. Allow the jaw to relax. Then come back to center slowly and take the left ear over the left shoulder. And just give yourself a second here. If at any point in this practice you feel like bringing your hand or your hands back to your heart, listen to your body. And then back to center. And one more time over to the right. This time you have a couple options to play here. We can find some gentle, super gentle movement with the chin. Or you may stay with the stillness and bring the weight of your right hand gently to your left ear. So you don't have to push or press. It's so soft. Everything in this practice is soft, subtle body connection. And then bring it back to center when you're ready. And let's take it to the other side. Come back to your breath. And then when you're ready, bring the head back to center. Head over heart, heart over pelvis. Let's take the right arm out and spread the right fingertips like so. really spread the right fingertips. Think of the right arm as this beautiful extension of your sweetheart space. And then maybe you take it a little further back in space and a little further forward in space. And then just find some soft, easy movement here. Opening the right arm out and drawing the right arm in. And then release that. Take it to the other side. Just the left arm extends. Hang with me. Roll with me. Think of your heart energy moving all the way through the armpit. All the way out through the limb and beyond the fingertips. Creating that connection. Bringing our awareness rather to that connection between us and that which is bigger than us. And then let's take it into a little stretch. Oh yeah. Slow and steady, you'll pull the back of the hand back in space just a bit. And then allow the arm to slowly move forward. Spine is upright. Breath is smooth and steady. The invitation for this practice is to be with it to just be with your heart

heavy and dull. All right, then we'll release that. Take a second to squeeze both shoulders up to the ears. Big breath in here. And on an exhale, we relax the shoulders down, down. Twice more. Inhale, squeeze and lift. Squeeze, squeeze. Sit up tall through the spine. Draw the lower belly in. And then exhale lower it down. One more time. And exhale creating space. Okay. Now both hands are going to extend out. Arms nice and wide. Inhale. Think expansion. Lift your heart, your chest. Spread your fingertips. Exhale. Bring the fingertips forward as if you were coming into hug a tree. So, open it out and hug a tree. Open it out. Lifting up through the crown of the head. Hug a tree. Now, listen carefully. Now, we're going to open it out. This time, we're going to cross the right arm over the left and give yourself a hug. Good. Open up. And left arm crosses over the right arm. Give yourself a hug. and open up. And one more time on each side. This time stay in the hug for a couple breaths on each side. You might find some soft swaying here. Rocking gently back and forth. And switching to the other side whenever you're ready. Feeling the warmth, the comfort of your own hug here. Maybe rocking front to back on this side. And then extend, extend. Open the chest. Lengthen through the crown. Send the fingertips out left to right. And then let it go. Beautiful. All right, we're going to come forward onto all fours. Nice and easy. Nice and slow. Take your time. All right, knees are going to go as wide as the mat here. Big toes to touch. If you are working in a chair, you can bring your palms to the knees or to the tops of the thighs for a little spinal flexion. We're going to inhale, drop the belly, look forward, open the chest, the heart space forward, and then exhale, send the hips back, round through the spine, extended child's pose or chin to chest, seated. Pause. Breathe here. And when you're ready, we'll continue. Inhaling, dragging the hands back, opening the chest forward, long belly. Exhale, rounding through, sending it back. Extended child's pose. Couple more rounds with your breath. Lovely. Beautiful. The next time you're in that extended child's pose, stay there. Close your eyes or soften the gaze and allow your breath to be smooth and steady, slow. Allow your heart to be heavy. On your next inhale, rise up to all fours. Walk the knees in just a bit. Swing the legs to one side, any side. And we'll send the legs out in front for dandasana, the staff pose or the stick pose. You can sit up on your blanket or block here. Legs are out in front of us. Feet are flexing back towards the face. We can take a nice bend in the knee here if you like or a slight bend. As we inhale, lift the heart, send the fingertips forward. Exhale. Draw the navl to the spine. Bend the knees. And reach, reach the arms all the way forward. Coming into your seated forward fold, pashimotanasana. Allow the hands to rest wherever feels right today. That can be the thighs, the backs of the knees, the shins, the calves, the ankles, or fingertips interlaced around the big toe.

Again, allow your heart to be heavy. Maybe take a sigh. Breathing with it. Ground down through your sitsbones. Take a deep breath in and use an exhale to point the toes and roll up. Good. Now come to one side. Any side. It could be the side facing the video or it could just be the side that feels right for you today. Left side or right side. You're going to come into a fetal position. Resting your head on your bottom arm. We're almost done with this session. So take some nice loving breaths here. really present with whatever energy, whatever emotion, whatever body sensation, whatever thoughts are coming still your way. Way to be present with it. Way to take this time to tend to yourself from your fetal position. Let's move onto our backs. And we'll hug the knees into the chest. Give the low back some love by gently hugging the knees in. Maybe rocking a little side to side. You might take your palms to your kneecaps for this. Maybe draw circles or figure eight or just find some extension and release. Nice. Then release the feet to the ground. Bring your left hand to your heart, your right hand to your belly, and allow the knees to fall together. Maybe bringing the feet a little wider so that you can really soften through the bowl of the pelvis. Relax the low body. Close down the eyes once again and allow your shoulders to relax. Feel the warmth of your left palm on your heart space. Feel the warmth of your right palm on your belly. Take a deep breath in. Fill all four sides of the torso with air. Big breath in. Come on. You got this. And on an exhale, we're going to sigh it out. Two more just like that. Then you're done. Big breath in. Full breath. Breathe in and let it go. And one more time. Inhale. Lots of love in. We're in this together. Exhale. Lots of love out. In this together. Take a moment to notice how you feel. Bring the palms together. Gently bring the thumbs up to the third eye. And thank you so much for being here and for sharing your valuable time and energy and your heart with me. Take good care. Namaste.