I have never been one for group work.  I’d rather do it myself – I can have high expectations and I know who to beat up when it doesn’t get done.  This has created a lot of independence and bullying of myself… and I’m often not good at really trusting others to come through for me.  I can be the caregiver but have a hard time letting someone else take care of me.  My parents, my partner, my friends… it all works better when I’m the one who is needed instead of needing.  I often find I don’t even know how to express my needs which only continues the cycle of not feeling supported.

Partner yoga poses can help me learn that others are there to lean on.  It means I have to learn communication – constant communication.  It means I have to learn to trust.  It means I have to put myself out there – parts of my body, areas of my strengths and weaknesses, my flexibility and inflexibility, to someone else.  And while I practice not judging myself there, I practice letting go of others’ judgments of me, too.

This calm yoga pose is called Lizard on a Rock and has elements of support and of openness to the world.  One partner is ‘covered’ and helped to stretch their back in child’s pose.  The other partner gets support to open up through the heart.

Here’s how it goes:

Partner 1: Sit in child’s pose on the ground (no props).  Settle your hips deep and stretch your arms long away from you.

Partner 2: Sit on your partner’s lower back facing away from them.  Check in with your partner – does this feel okay?  If so, slowly lower your back down along his/her back.  You will be doing a supported and gentle back bend here.  Let your arms open up overhead to either side.  If you feel comfortable, extend your legs long.

Rest here until either partner is ready to get up.  Communicate through the dismount, and always be gentle when getting up!   Switch roles and notice how it feels to be supported, covered, and stretched with the help of another.  Which role do you prefer?  What do you learn about yourself in each position?

At Kenston Middle School I remember my art teacher guiding us to draw each and every line we saw on our hands.  Every wrinkle in our fingerprint.  The small white crescents at the base of our finger nails.  Studying them intently, we came up with 6th grade masterpieces.  And truly they were beautiful pictures – and a beautiful self-study of these so often used and so often taken for granted parts of our bodies.

Our hands hold and hug, high five and wave hello… These are our expressions of love and compassion.  Our physical connection to so much of the world.  And we have some yoga just for them, called mudras.

A mudra can be practiced sitting (like in Virasana), standing, or lying down.  Use this mudra to really get to know your fingers.  Feel the texture of your skin.  Maybe even give yourself a little hand massage with coconut oil.  Feel the heat of your body where your fingers touch.  Notice as much as you can about your hands as you set up the gesture.  We practice mindfulness by becoming intimately aware of our body’s details.  Connecting these pressure points in our fingers will invite energy to circulate in our bodies – this one is to pump up our life force and encourage healing!

Prana Mudra

Find a quiet space to comfortably sit/stand/lie down.  Get settled in here with candles or soft music or just a cozy space.  One hand at a time, bring the tips of your ring and pinky fingers to touch your thumb.  Bring your first two fingers together and keep them straight.  Do the same with the second hand.  Rest your arms at your sides or on your legs and feel free to close your eyes.  Practice your form of meditation or practice deep even breathing through your nose.  Give yourself 5-25 minutes to soak up the energy moving in your body.  Give thanks for this time to care for yourself today!

I have a friend who is growing her compassion.  Actively learning this skill that we assume we can muster when needed.  She attends seminars.  She studies books.  She travels to be at conferences.  She is building her compassion muscles with workouts in her life and in each conversation.  And I love hearing about what she is learning.

After one trip, she told me that her teachers encouraged her to see everyone around her as already a hero in someone’s life.  Instead of seeing “that guy who just cut me off” or “that woman who gave me a funny look” or “those people who have it all together and don’t even know how I’m feeling”… now he is a hero in someone’s story.  She is a hero for someone else.  They are heroes in some way simply unknown to me.

And the same is true in us.  How can I turn my “not good enoughs” and “unlikeables” and “failed attempts” into seeing the hero in me?  The bravery it takes to get up each morning and put on my truest face of myself to share with the world.  The strength it takes to listen and care and walk alongside other humans.  The courage it takes to reveal something vulnerable in me – something not yet (or not ever) perfect.

I’m not sure I’ve taught a yoga class that doesn’t include the cue “lift your heart” at some point.  Oh, if only we could always proudly share our hearts in life!  This yoga pose invites us to stretch our whole front body.  With all our vital organs are ‘out in the open’, it takes courage to be so vulnerable – in yoga and in life!  I invite you to spend a few minutes in this reclined (and supported) yoga pose, Virasana, named after a hero with a brave and passionate heart, like you.  Who is a hero in your story?  Who are you a hero for?

Ingredients:

– soft floor

– thick blanket or long thin pillow

– extra pillows around to figure out your set up!

On the floor, sit with your knees bent and your heels on each side of your seat.  Your feet and ankles will be stretched flat down on the floor.  Sit upright and check in with your body here.  You may want to put a blanket or pillow under your seat for comfort.  Breathe.

If you feel open to a little more of a stretch on the front body, remove anything under your seat and place your hands behind you.  Set a rolled blanket or long pillow behind you that will eventually support you along your spine.  Slowly lower to your forearms.  If you are able, lower your back onto the pillow (getting a few can work, too!).  Let the top of your head reach for the floor or support your neck and head with an additional pillow.  Breathe big and deep and rest in the truth that you are courageous and strong.

(Sitting with knee pain is not heroic, so click to check out some great variations for your body!)

I so much prefer when I know all the answers, when I have it ‘figured out’ or at least can look the part.  I like being the one with experience, age, and usually a little bit of an attitude of superiority.  It fells good and safe.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of areas in my life where I do not have the answers – if there are any to be found.  I really feel uncomfortable when I am faced with situations where I can’t have everything figured out, I get anxious and snarky.  Surprises or changed plans trigger this panic in me – what do I say?  What do I bring to the dinner party?  I want people to see me as put together ‘right’ and if I can’t manage that image, I feel lost.  This lurking, scheming voice in my mind wants to look better, sound better, and be better than the people around me – and ‘better’ than how I really am.

And then there is this yoga thing.  The first Sutra points me to beginning the inquisition of yoga… and I’m a real beginner here.  I don’t have the knowledge that so many people around me have.  I don’t have the experience that many teachers my age have under their belts.  I feel tempted to pretend, to reply vaguely to leave space for people thinking I’ve been doing this forever.  But it feels so icky because it is totally untrue.  I play the impostor and then I lose a chance to learn because I’m hiding instead of being real and just asking the question.  I have some threads of this yoga web that I’m clinging to and I do need help and I do need other people.  And I have trouble admitting that.

But once I do, I can imagine another narrative.  Instead of only getting the surface of connection with the people around me, I can ask the deep questions that I’m afraid of – and connect over the discoveries in the reply.  I can be that awesome person that wants others to share, to teach me everything they know, to soak up the humanity-experience-compassion that they have grown in their lives.  I would love for someone to come up to ME and say, “I think you have so much wonderful ____ in you – could you teach me?”… so let me begin by being that to others.  And oh, what I could learn and enjoy along the way!  Because it seems like it would be much more fun to be honest with where I’m at (and where I’m not) and get to explore the journey of learning, one step at a time.

Yoga daily reminds me that we are called to be beginners in this awesome, expansive, humility-embracing kind of way.  In a way that draws people together, opens them up, and shares the light we all have within us.  And it is as hard as anything to wear the ‘beginner’ hat all the time.  But I believe that it will be more rewarding over the long haul.  So I will practice being a beginner, always.  Maybe we can wear this hat together.

Here’s a stretch that really reminds me that I am just beginning the journey into my hamstrings…

Paschimottanasana/Forward Fold

Ingredients:

– lots of pillows

– comfy place to sit on the floor

Sit on the ground with your legs stretched straight in front of you.  Pile some pillows on your lap.  Stretch your spine and reach as tall as you are able in your back.  Gently fold over your legs onto the pillows.  Rest your head to one side.  Breathe deeply and evenly through the nose.  Sink in here, supported by the pillows, for 5 minutes.  Switch your head and adjust (you may get deeper into the pose) and then hold for 5 more minutes.

Think of an area of your life where you want to embrace being a beginner.  Imagine how free it will feel to wear that hat instead of the “all together” hat.  Trust that where you are at on your path is enough.

Each week we are be exploring a restorative yoga pose or breathing technique with images/video and tips.  Check in at Lacuna Loft on Wednesdays to anchor your week with peace, grounding + community (and don’t forget to join the dialogue all week long by posting comments).  Excited to journey together!

I got back from holiday travels and decided that the new year meant new arrangements for my house.  I measured and cut little shapes to move around the paper drawn version of our living room.  I talked to my husband.  We cleared out all the little things like lamps, guitars, rugs, and dog toys.  And we started to move.  We pulled things out of one room and into the next.  We tried the long couch here and there.  We took everything out of one room and put it in another.  We sat from different angles and took in the view.  We weighed the pros and cons and all the things we value for a space – comfort, view, conversation friendliness.  We got up, shifted things again.

Two hours later, we arrived at an arrangement almost the same as the original.  We only decided to move the TV from one room to another and perched it on our mantle.  So, two hours of work and we were back where we started.  Which, it occurred to me, was like most epic journeys.  The myth of the hero.  We go, we discover, wrestle through challenge, meet adversity, grow, reflect, change… and wind up back in the same place, only different inside.

Like my living room, there are parts of my life that may look mostly the same on the outside over the course of a year (ok, I did cut my hair pretty short last March) but that have undergone a massive process of growth.  How I think about my relationships has changed through some hard pondering and conversations.  My spirituality has changed language and expression with a huge embrace of yoga though a lot of the outward expressions of who I am remain similar.  How I choose to think about my husband’s work and its time demands is slowly evolving and giving me more freedom to love boldly.

But for me the process doesn’t stop there.  We come back around to these ‘same’ places… these almost the same places.  And then we begin again.  We learn more, we grow deeper, we dig further into relationships, beliefs, our stories and patterns and choices… and we come back different again.  It doesn’t stop.  What part of your life has these cyclical patterns of growth in it?  Use these yoga poses to spend time contemplating cycles of change and expansion in your life.

Easy Pose (Sukhasana) or Lotus (Padmasana)

Ingredients

– two or three pillows

– a blanket or soft floor

Easy Pose:

Come on to the floor on your seat.  Bring your legs out in front of you with knees bent.  Cross your legs and draw your ankles in towards your body (sitting cross legged).  Check that your ankles are under the opposite knee.  Place a pillow under each knee so that it is resting, grounded.  Maybe even place another pillow under your seat so that your spine can stretch tall.  Feel the energy in your body move through the full circle of your legs.

Half Lotus Pose:

Begin cross legged on the floor.  Lift the right knee up and bend it so much that your right thigh and calf hug.  Keep the ankle close to your seat and rotate in the hip socket to move the knee/leg wide around.  Place your right foot in your left hip crease.  Place a pillow under each knee and sit in this pose of ‘full circle’ legs and feet.  This is half lotus.  After a few minutes, release and work the left side.

(Bonus: For some extra clarity, sit with your eyes closed and your hands in gyan mudra – thumbs and pointer fingers touching!)

Each week we are be exploring a restorative yoga pose or breathing technique with images/video and tips.  Check in at Lacuna Loft on Wednesdays to anchor your week with peace, grounding + community (and don’t forget to join the dialogue all week long by posting comments).  Excited to journey together!

Sometimes being soft towards ourselves can be the hardest work of all.

I started doing yoga because it was convenient.  There was a dance studio two blocks from my house with a class and I started going.  It was my “off” day from other more strenuous workouts.  Often I would even go for a run before class so that it felt like a real workout.  I ran regularly and did barre classes that worked all my muscle groups till I shook.  I was teaching my body who was in control and I felt like I needed to sweat (the more the merrier) for movement to ‘count’.  Yoga was a break.

So when something in yoga started calling to a deeper part of me and I started going to classes maybe twice or three times a week, I wanted them to be challenging.  If a teacher offered a modification to make the pose harder, I did it.  Even if I wasn’t really ready for it.  I wanted to sweat and feel sore.  I went to hot yoga and power vinyasa and would even work the studio package and sometimes go to more than one class a day.  I loved my teacher training days because I was physically working my body towards its limits.

And then I moved, found a studio to teach at, and was subbing a lot of gentle yoga.  At first, I wasn’t even sure what gentle yoga meant.  Like, do we put pillows under our head during headstands?  So I went to a few classes and I did some research on gentle and restorative poses, took lots of notes, planned a class, practiced it a few times before teaching… and loved it.

As I was practicing being so hard on my body, I was also being hard on myself in my thoughts.  Tough girl, independent, in control, always put-together.  I had standards for myself that were difficult to reach, and a lot of “should”s.  And entering into a whole hour (or more!) of gentle yoga where I was meant to move slowly, purposefully, supported, and restfully… was magical to say the least.  For the whole hour I was allowed to nurture myself in body and mind.  Sensitive thoughts that had remained hidden away from my strong pushy self began to pop up and teach me more about myself.  A deep sense of peace and calm filled me.  I didn’t need the hardest pose to feel satisfied.

Check out this supported version of bridge.  I know, full wheel (urdva don urasana) is the hardest variation, then bridge, and then this is the ‘easiest’.  Which is awesome because it means we can do it anytime in the day when we need to practice a little self-love and find a little peace.

Ingredients:

one big stiff pillow or block

soft floor

Lay down flat on your back with the block or pillow near you at your side.  Bend your knees and plant your feet on the ground, about hips distance apart.  Reach your arms down and see if you can touch your heels with your fingers, this is a good distance for most people but adjust as you need.  Feel your shoulder blades against the floor.  Feel your feet deep into the earth.  Press into your feet and raise your hips into the air.  Place the support under your sacrum – that triangle shaped bone just above the tail of your spine.  Rest your lower back down onto the support.  Breathe deep and full, expanding your lungs with each inhale.  Feel your chest rise and lift towards your chin.  Revel in the simplicity and support of this pose and enjoy the benefits of a little TLC!

Have you tried this support version of the yoga bridge pose before?  We’d love to hear your experiences as you journey!