Morning Energy Flow: Start Your Day Right

1. Welcome | Course Overview: Welcome to the morning Energy flow course. I think this is a really powerful, enjoyable and transformative program for you to be taking. I think it's very, very important that we begin our days in a really healthy way. It's really common these days, people wake up, and the first thing they do is they grab their phone, maybe they scroll through social media or through the news, and that could bring in some kind of negative feelings. What we're encouraging is to start your day in a really healthy way. And that's why we emphasize movement, breathwork, and meditation. So why those three? Why are we encouraging you to start your day with movement, breathwork, and meditation? When we first wake up, we've been lying in bed a really long time, and it's very common the body feels tight and stiff. We've been lying in bed. Maybe you've been turning and tossing or maybe you've just been completely still. But we want to bring the body to a nice state where it feels aligned, where you feel loose and relaxed. So you'll notice our practices are not really about stretching or we're not really about doing cardiovascular work. It's about opening up, loosening up the body, creating space. It's about releasing tension. Then we move into breathwork. The breath is an amazing tool, something we do all the time, obviously, you know, thousands upon thousands of times a day. But by optimizing the way we breathe, we literally can influence every major bodily system. We also regulate our energy level. And you'll notice what we do with our breathwork, is that we're using praxes that bring up higher levels of energy, which is obviously really nice in the morning we want to wake and energize. And then we balance that out with calmon breathing practices. Finally, we move to meditation, very nice short meditations. What I've recognized through the years is that when you try to introduce people to meditation, you want to make sure you don't go really long because then people end up, to be honest, not continuing. And we want to ensure success. So we have very short meditations that will just help you enter the rest of your day with a sense of calm, mindful awareness, with the ability to just kind of let go and let be as you move into the day. What we recommend is that you do all the practice sessions in this course. We recommend that you do it in order, but it's not necessary. The third thing I want to emphasize is that I think it's very, very good to repeat the practices. You don't want to just do the thing like you're ticking off a box, if you were going shopping and you bought this product, and you bought that product, and you're done. Go back, do each practice multiple times. You should get to the point with these practices that you don't need the guided sessions at some point, you know, in the future, three months, six months, one year time. The important thing is that these become kind of almost in your subconscious, in your bones, in your tissues, and that you can do these through memory. Because the important thing about these morning energy flow practices is that this is how you start your day this week, next month, even next year, because the way these things work to improve our holistic health is by practicing every day. So take your time, enjoy the practices, and start to create a new you by creating a new ritual every single morning. Thanks for joining me. I hope you enjoyed the course. 2. SECTION 1: THEORY | Top 5 Tips Upon Waking Up: Top five tips for an optimal morning routine. Tip number one, have at least your first hour of being up that you do not engage with any social media. You're not checking your email or even looking at the news. If you want to have a device on, let it be to do a guided practice or some nice light music that you use as you do a practice or timer. Tip number two is what I call the water tip. First, you want to hydrate. Have a glass of water upon waking up and at least a liter or a quart of water within your first 2 hours of being up, as well as you want to wash your hands and face, and at some point within the first hour or so, have a bit of cold exposure, a little bit of a cold shower. Tip number three. You want to get some early morning sun. I recommend starting to wake up a bit earlier, which might mean changing the time you go to sleep so you get enough sleep. But start to get up somewhere around sunrise and get that early morning sun, ten to 20 minutes of direct sunlight really puts the circadian rhythm in line, and it's just very good for your mood and energy levels. Tip number four is bring some movement, some breathwork, and meditation into your morning routine. With movement, there's two types I want to talk about a bit. The first is just to release tension. You can do a bit of yoga, a bit of chee gong, any type of gentle stretching just to get rid of any bit of tightness you might have acquired from sleep the night before. The other type of movement is a little bit of physical exercise where we get the heart rate up, a little cardiovascular resistance training. Doesn't need to be that long, just a bit of exercise. The fifth point is a really healthy breakfast. One that includes good amount of carbs, fats, protein, hopefully getting some fruits and vegetables in there for vitamins and minerals. Final point on the healthy breakfast is when to have your cup of coffee or if you're having caffeinated tea. The recommendation is if you need to work through the afternoon and you don't want to hit that afternoon loll where people normally tend to get tired, you want to wait about 90 minutes to have your first cup of coffee. If it doesn't matter in the early afternoon, if you have the time in your life for a little nap or siesta, and you can relax a bit, then it really doesn't matter your timing with your first cup. So thanks for joining me. I hope you include some of those tips into your morning routine for the first hour upon waking up. 3. Standing Posture for the Movement Practices: Standing posture for the moving practices. Before we move into the movement, you want to make sure that you're stable and standing correctly. So what I mean by that is you want to have your feet firmly planted somewhere between hip and shoulder width apart. The feet pretty parallel, but you don't need to obsess on that. A lot of people that they try to get their feet parallel, they end up collapsing their knees and their arches. So you just want them generally facing forward. There's a slight outward twist to the feet as if you're firmly planted in like roots of a tree. You want to almost imagine that if someone came and gave you a gentle push that you're not moving. What happens to a lot of people is people get these bad habits, they tend to come up, they rock back on their heels, they lose their center, their knees lock, you can just imagine someone giving you a big quick push, you're going to lose balance. You want to engage the balls of the feet in toes in the stance through the feet. There might be a slight feeling when you work on this that you might feel like you're leaning forward too much, but you're actually in better alignment. So feel the balls of the feet in the toes in the ground. You want the knees to just be out of lock. We're not doing any low knee bends. We're not doing any intense isometric work. You just want them not to lock up. So just take the knees out of lock. Bring your attention to the bottom of the spine. You want to relax the bottom of the spine, okay? So you don't want to stick the buttocks out. You don't want to tuck in so tight and roll it underneath that your buttocks and the glutes get engaged, right? We want this feeling of relaxation. So it's a feeling of almost just relaxing that tailbone. And that relaxes the chest, just like we do whether we're sitting, is feeling this lengthening through the spine. So we're lengthening through the spine. The arms are just nice and relaxed out to the sides. We don't want the armpits closed. So we want this kind of, like, almost like wings of a crane or an eagle, this openness and looseness to the arms. Once again, this feeling of the head rising, ears staying over the shoulders, once again, starting from the ground, rooted in the roots of a tree, feeling the balls of the feet and the toes, a slight torque outward. The knees just slightly out of lock, relaxing through the tailbone, rising through the spine, relaxing the arms and shoulders, rising of the crown. Connecting to that feeling before we start the movements, that dynamic interplay I'm always talking about, feel aligned, feel majestic, dignified, tall, at the same time very relaxed. Then whichever movements we're going to do, we're going to then move into the movements. 4. Demonstration on Releasing Tension Through Movement: Talk a bit about releasing tension through movement. A lot of times when we're using movement, whether we're talking about in the Eastern arts of yoga and he gong or even some Western practice, especially for healing calming ailments, as well as to get the body ready for some sitting breathwork and meditation, we're going to be using this word release tension. So what do I mean by that? Most of us, especially if you tend to have a very high stressful life and you sit a lot, the body tends to get stiff. There's almost like a wooden like quality or the body could feel almost cement like. What we want is to bring a water like quality to the body or as some of the traditions say cotton feeling to the body. So I want to give you two examples of what I mean by that, which is about by releasing tension, we can move deeper into a pose rather than using an effort in going through it through trying harder. A typical example of this one is a forward fold and you can make a wide stance. So what you're doing is instead of going fast to kind of do a good hamstring stretch, we're also going to release tension in the lower back. So we fold at the hips, you're going to come really slow, you're going to take a few breaths. You're not just trying to touch your toes or touch the floor because you can because you have good hamstring flexibility. You're going to come somewhere. And for me, right there, I feel a little tightness in my lower back. So I don't push past there because I can. On the inhale, I bring awareness there. Once again, it has a bit of tightness feeling, little wooden or cement like feeling. Then as I exhale, I release and let go, it becomes softer. I do that again, inhale, I feel, exhale, I soften. Next, I know my fingers are on the ground. It's a feeling of going deeper, not through effort, but through relaxation. I do that for a few breaths. When I'm here, I inhale and feel wherever there's that tightness and on the exhale, it's a feeling of just softening. Next thing I know, I've gotten way deeper into the post. I'm never trying harder. I bring my attention to where I have an ache or pain, tightness, through the exhale and intension, I soften and release. Next thing I know, my palms come down to the ground. And then very important when you do forward folds to protect the lower back. Put your hands on your knees, engage the core and engage the glutes, tighten up your buttocks and roll up as if you're a little kid stacking building blocks. Don't rush coming up. I could really cause a bit of pain in the lower back. So as if you're stacking the spine on top of each other one by one, keep the core engage, the buttocks tight. And then come up very slow. Just a few shoulder rolls, counterpose, a little bit of arch in the back since we just did a forward fold. When we talk about this notion of releasing tension, that's what we're talking about, which is bringing the body to this water like quality, which is mostly what our body is, or if you like the phrase of cotton. So the phrase they use in the Daoist starts a lot. A cotton like quality to the body is the releasing of tension, which is especially good when we want to ease a little achre pain, as well as getting the body ready for some breathwork or meditation. I want to show you another example of releasing tension and how important the exhale is with movement. So this is more of a flowing spiraling movement they call the tea cup spirals. So this movement is about imagine you have the cup in your hand, about half full with tea or whatever liquid, and you want to keep it from spilling. So it starts here. Fingers will come towards me here. When I'm coming here, I'm inhaling. So if I'm tense and I'm not paying attention to my body, I'm holding my breath or I'm inhaling, this is as far as I can go. I'm obviously going to drop that liquid. I can't keep my palm up, and I'm very tight in the body. Remember, it's the exhalation. That's really intimately connected to the parasympathetic nervous system, the relaxation response. I also that exhale relaxes the body. So if I'm doing watch, if I do an inhale, that's as far as I can go. I can't do the move. Because remember, the point is to keep my palm up to keep from spilling the liquid. But if this becomes a big exhale with the sound of a psi, the body softens and relaxes. Exhale. Arch and back. So when you're using these Eastern arts, I'll just do three on the other side once again to demonstrate. Excel, Excel, Excel. Big exhale, I come over the head. It loosens up my body, allows me to do a big arch of the back. It makes it easy for me to spiral over my head. So when you're using these movements to release any bit of ache or pain, think about that notion releasing the tension. We're not trying to over exert ourselves, to use effort or physical power. It's about releasing and relaxing, connecting with the exhale to go deeper into the pose. Thanks for joining me. 5. Sitting Posture for Breathwork & Meditation: To talk a little now about establishing a healthy sitting posture. This is essential not only in the breathwork and meditation practices we do in this program, but more importantly, in your life. I want to emphasize just a really nice two point of posture you can use anytime in your day. The first most important thing is to establish yourself on your seat. You're on your sit bones, not leaning back on the upper legs, not leaning back in the back of a chair. You're in the front of the chair, feet planted, shins pretty vertical. You want to have this feeling that you feel very upright, your back is aligned. You feel kind of sense of dignity, majestic quality to sitting. But you also want to feel very relaxed. As relaxed as you can possibly be, the shoulders sink, take any tension out of the body. You could rock a little side to side, forward and back, kind of get that optimal sense of alignment, and just connect with that feeling. Spine rising, body soft and relaxed. And you might feel as if you're a little bit forward than you're used to because a lot of us are so used to slouching back and leaning back in the chair. So play around. When you're playing around this posture, little side to side, forward and back, and boom, you find that optimal sitting posture where you feel very aligned, dignified, very relaxed. Just as a quick thing, I'll show you sideways because it's a little easier to see what I mean by this. See, I'm just on my sit bones. Not on the upper legs. I'm on the edge of the chair, so I'm not able to lie back and lose that alignment. And if you look, you want to kind of come in, you can close your eyes so you find that nice sense of rising. And relax. You'll notice during the practices, I'll be sitting on the floor, and even then, it's very, very important if you want to do any of these practices on the floor to raise the level of your hips higher than the knees. So you'll notice with me, I'm a bit older and I've had knee problems, surgery on both knees is I need to raise my hips. You'll notice I'll use a yoga block and a pillow to get my seat to that optimal place where I could keep my spine nice and long, get the body relaxed. Thanks for joining me. See you soon. 6. SECTION 2: MORNING PRACTICES | Session 1 | Connect: Alright, setting your intention for the coming day and your intention for this practice. Let's arrive into our body taking three slow, deep, calming breaths. We're going to slowly move into what we call the swing set. So we're going to start off just lightly moving our body side to side. We're gonna just lightly tap. The left hand comes to the right, taps the right side. The right hand will tap the left lower back. Come off the opposite heel. When you come to the right, come off the left heel. Come to the left, come off the right heel. Let's focus on the exhales with the breath. Exhale as you tap. Remember, we're focusing here on opening the joints, loosening up the body, releasing any tension as we come into our day. Just nice taps. Up to you about your speed. Coming to your 70%. Once again, up to you about how deep you want to go in your stance. Just letting the body side to side. Let the arms just go weightless. I just following the body. Let's do a few more. Letting the head go with the arms. Do a few more each side. And slow the movement up and relax. Just a little shake. Now we're going to do some swings coming up. We're going to bring the arms up above our head, coming off the heels. We're going to make fists. And then as we exhale, it's like, you're coming down, flicking water off your fingers. Big exhales as you come down. Once again, the feeling of the point of this is not to stretch. It's to release any bit of tightness or tension out of the body. Opening up, loosening. Let's cross the arms, making an X. Focus on your exhales. Inhale as you rise, exhale as you swing back down. Three more. Last one, and shake it out. Now let's work on opening up and loosening up around the hips. I'm going to just swing the legs open, bring the leg up, get the thigh about perpendicular if you can to the ground, and just swing it open. Once again, up to you, about the height, about how far you want to swing the legs out. Find your 70%. Do two more each side. And one last one. In relax. Coming to your standing posture, feet evenly weighted, knees slightly bent, this general feeling through the body, the spine rising, the body relaxed, loose. Now we're going to move in to our breathwork and meditation practice. I'm going to start off with some classic lower belly breathing. We'll use our hands to feel. So bring in your hands to the lower belly, start with an exhale. With all these praxes, we start the breathing session with a full exhalation, empty out. Then as you breathe in, diaphragm, this dome shaped muscle below the ribs contracts. The belly expands, you might feel some movement in the lower back and in the sides, and then you just relax. Belly compresses, contracts. As you inhale, diaphragm engages, breathing always in through the nose. Exhale, recommend the nose, but it's okay to also breathe out through the mouth. Do you want to feel this rising and falling or maybe expanding, contracting? You want to feel this 360 degrees expansion. As you breathe in, the belly expands, you feel a slight bit of movement possibly in the lower back through the obliques and the sides, just like a balloon expands. Then if you take out the air and it contracts. Let's do four breaths like that. Let's take the hands off. You can place them above the knees, palms down, palms up in your lap. Start with your exhale, empty out, you're fine. The more you exhale, the easier the inhale becomes. Inhale through the nose. Exhale up to you. Keep all your attention now below the ribs above the pelvic floor. Belly, slight movement, lower back, the sides, and let go. Let your exhales be long. Really release. It's the exhalation that's intimately connected to the relaxation response. A the awareness in this lower abdominal area. Let's do one more breath like this. Once again, breath starts with the diaphragm engaging, belly expanding, lower back and sides, about 70, 75% effort on the inhale and the full exhalation. Now, we're going to add some words to keep your awareness engaged as well as to enhance feelings here. As you inhale, feeling of the belly rising, or maybe it makes more sense in the sitting position to the belly expanding, the whole lower dominal area, like a balloon. As you exhale contracting or falling? Second breath. This is a two breath practice we'll do a few times over. Feel the whole body. Feeling of expanding with the inhale, oxygenating the body, blood through the cells, as you exhale, feeling of just dissolving and letting go. We'll do that again. Inhale, expanding the lower abdominal area. Exhale, contracting. Inhale. Feel the whole body expanding with the inhalation. Exhale, everything relaxing, softening, letting go. We're do this two breadth practice three more times. Inhale rising of the lower abdominal area. Exhale falling. Lord do compressing. Inhale, we expand the whole body, almost as if it's floating up. Exhale, release and let go. Just dissolving into your seat, two more times. This inhale really feel this whole expanse of quality to the breath. Just hold for about a second or two and then fully release. Ride out the outbreath almost with, like, a very soft, almost non audible sigh. We do this two breath practice one more time. Expand just the lower abdominal area, where is your area of focus. Exhale, lower belly falls, taking all the air out of that balloon. Final breath, expanding the whole body. On this last exhale, just a very soft sigh, letting go, letting deep, relaxed. Body in mind. 7. Session 2 | Dissolve: Set in your intention for the coming day for this short morning practice session. We're going to come into the body and into the breath taking three slow deep diaphragmatic breaths. Start off with an exhale. Let everything out. Then diaphragm engages, feel the belly swelling. Just this 360 degree expansion, like a balloon, and then you exhale. Let the exhale be really long. The exhale will reconnect with this relaxation response. As you inhale, the diaphragm engages. You just feel the breath coming up the torso, like an ocean wave. And as you exhale, the wave breaks. We're going to be moving in through the spiral set. First one we're going to do is what you call coiling up and down. We're going to coil through the wrist four times and then come down four times. So we start off. The wrist will coil in to out, two, three, four, come off the heels. Inhale, exhale. Coming in to out, three, four. And then after the fourth breath, arch the back, expand the chest, hands go behind you. So inhale one, two, three, four, reaching up. Exhale. Do three more. Two more, coiling into out. One more. And relax. Next we're going to do is what they call snake creeping up the spine. So you want to visualize that the fingers are like a snake's head right here at the navel. So I'm going to start with my right if you want to mirror me and you're starting with the left, comes up the center line up the middle of your torso, palm faces you, then the right hand faces away, faces forward. Then if you're pushing something up, then as you exhale, pushes out, come off the opposite heel, push out with the hand. Then when it comes to the shoulders, the palm faces backwards, comes to your hip, faces towards you. And then if you're just scooping up, comes into the lower belly, inhale and rise, get a nice side stretch. Exhale. No. Just let the flow continue. So how this feeling when you inhale. You feel you're creating space. The spine rises, get a nice side stretch, exhale a feeling of releasing. Everything relax on these exhalations. So inhale, torso opens up, connect to the side stretch, exhale release. Do one more each side, inhale and rise, open up, exhale release, and let go. Next move we're going to do is rather similar, but we're going to be moving much bigger around the body. So what I mean by that, I'm going to start with my right hand, if you want to start with the left. I'm going to go across the body. And with my right hand, I'm coming off the right heel. The right palm faces out. And I'm just kind of making a big circle until I come to the middle, I'm even weighted. This is the finish of the inhale. Exhale. Come off now the opposite. I'm off my left heel, goes behind me, palm backwards, then it faces down at the shoulders, scoop in. Come across, Exhale. Come across here, inhale, inhale, inhale. Very important as you go back here, put your awareness on your shoulder. You're not trying to push past your comfort zone. If you're feeling a little pain, it's time to stop. We're just opening nice, gentle twist, nice stretch through the sides and loosen up that shoulder going around the universe as they call it. I'm going to do one more each side. Come across. Link the movement with breath. Let the breath control your pace. And relax. Let's see. I'm bringing your awareness into the body. Feel it open, loose, relaxed, and we're going to transition into our breathwork and meditation practice now. Thanks. Bring in your awareness into the body, find a nice comfortable sitting position, whether you're in the chair or on the floor. Once again, this feeling of feeling tall and aligned, the spine rising, the body relaxed. I'm going to work first on this second step, the lateral breath. So as we start our breathing, we first start here in the lower belly. Diaphragm engages, the whole lower abdominal area, expands. Then you want to feel that expansion coming up to the ribs. It's a sideways, it's a lateral, almost like the wings of a bird expanding. So let's use the thumb and first finger, put them here on your ribs. Once again, we're not starting here. We start just like we start here in the lower belly. Exhale, breathing in. So it's the lower abdominal area, swells and then feel that swelling continue up to the rib cage and release. Starting in the lower abdominal area, like an ocean wave starts small and gets bigger, and it breaks. What you can think about is filling up a glass. It's empty, starts from the bottom, it's coming up two thirds of the way. And release. Remember, have that feeling on the inhale, about 75% effort on the exhale, go really full. Always inhaling through the nose, where we filter and regulate. So as you start, your awareness in the lower abdominal area. It comes up to the ribs. Really let's do one more with our hands here. If you're not feeling much movement, that's okay. Don't force it. I will come. Just let the diaphragm engage. Lower belly swell. Feel the expanse continue to the ribs. Now let's bring the hands down, pumps down, pumps up in your lap. Whatever you're comfortable with, just make sure your armpits stay open. Just feel this two step breath, lower abdominal area, ribs. You could even help the feeling by letting the arms almost go out, bit on the inhale and coming back in with the elbows on the exhale. Remember, let that exhale be really full. Lete letting go with the exhale, empty out, really feel you're emptying out into the lower abdominal area. Diaphragm engages, belly swells, lower back and sides and feel that swelling expansion continue up into the mitre. We're going to two more breaths. Let's empty out, empty out, create space in the whole body and begin. Nice slow, smooth breathing. No breath holding right now. This final one, let the exhale be really long, very quiet side, as if you're just completely dissolving this exhalation. Now, we're going to let go of the technical breath. We're going to bring our attention into the body. We're going to use the breath as a guide here to help us with this rotation of our awareness. As we inhale, whatever body part I'm mentioning, you're going to bring your attention as if you're almost breathing in directly to that body part. So we're breathing in not just through the nose and the respiration system, but as if the pores have opened up. And on the exhale, it's just complete letting go and relaxing. So it's bringing your attention to the crown of the head, top of the head. You breathe in as if your crown is opened up like the blowhole of a whale. Breathing into the crown, feel that breath oxygenating into the brain, through the skull, and then just softening, relaxing as you breathe out. Coming into the forehead, temples, inhale and feel, exhale release. Coming into the eyes, very important. A lot of us keep a lot of strain in the eyes. We're very visual. Close your eyes, inhale and feel. On the exhale, not just that you're closing the eyes, but that you're softening the eyes. Let the gaze go inward. Coming down through the face, feeling the cheeks, the nose, the mouth, the chin, and the jaw, the ears. Breathing in, feel. Exhale. Dissolve in the face as if you're just dissolving your self image, letting go. Make sure your jaw mouth are loose. A lot of us carry tension up here in the jaw and the chint. Nice and loose. Let's come down to the throat and neck. Feel the breath moving through on the inhale. As you breathe out, this feeling of softening the back of the neck. Coming down to the shoulders. A lot of us carry our shoulders, as they say, uptight. Let's do the opposite down and loose so bring your awareness to your shoulders, inhale and feel. Exhale, release and let go. We do the arms, both arms at the same time. We're just going to run it down as if it's just like water slowly running out down the drain, bring your awareness to the upper arms, the biceps and triceps, down through the elbows, feeling into the forearms, the hands, all ten fingers. So breathing in, feeling both arms. Hold at the top of the end for a couple seconds. Now on the exhale, this feeling as if you're just completely, it's just like water running out through the fingertips. Any bit of tension, tightness, ach or pain just runs out. Bring your awareness to the chest and upper back. I feel as if you're breathing in directly into the heart center. Exhale, release, relax, and let go. Bring your attention to the mid tore the sternum, the solar plexus, the ribs, and the mid back, breathe in and feel. Exhale, feeling of softening. Finally the lower belly, obliques, lower back. Feel the swelling of the belly as you breathe in. As you exhale, bring your attention to the lower back. Feeling of dissolving. A bit of tightness. A lot of us have a bit of acre pain, bit of tightness in the lower back. Bring your awareness there. We're not trying to forget about any bit of acre pain and move away. Bring your awareness there, feel it with the in breath. Then use an intention in the exhale, relax, let it go. Soften it. Coming down to the hips, the buttocks and the pelvic region, groin and release. Feeling the upper legs, thighs, and the hamstrings, up to the psoas. Breathe in, feel all of the upper legs, breathe out, soften. Coming into the knees, breathing and feel. Once again, if you tend to have problems in the knees, we're not turning away, we're turning towards feel, exhale, release, release that tension, that tightness, that ache. Coming into the lower legs, shin bones, calf muscles, breathing and feel and relax and release. Finally, the feet. Feeling into the soles of the feet, the arches, tops of the feet, all tents. If you're breathing in through the soles of the feet, saturating the body with awareness, and it's exhale, let it all just drain out. Before finishing up, bring your awareness to some place in your body that you're feeling a bit of an ache or pain or maybe just some tightness. Bring your attention to that spot. For me, it's my lower right back. I'm going to breathe in and feel, enhance the feeling. Then as I breathe out, using my exhale and use intention. I'm just going to soften and let go. It's as if I'm dissolving. I'll do that one more breath. And release. Before finishing the practice, just connecting to this optimal posture, as you sit here, feeling very tall, dignified, very relaxed at the same time. 8. Session 3 | Release: Alright, setting your intention for the coming day, as well as for this morning practice session. Before we begin, we're going to start with taking three slow deep diaphragmatic breaths. So starting off, always start with the breathing practice, starting with your exhale, empty out, empty out any steel carbon dioxide, stele prana. Start with the inhale, the diaphragm engages. Feel the belly swell, and the breaths just start filling up the torso on the inhale. And then as you exhale, just like an ocean wave, just feel letting go. Every exhale feel the body a little more relaxed. Inhale. Three step breath as you're coming up, filling up the lungs, exhale. Release and let go. Inhale. Complete, relax, let go. Let the exhale be really long. This practice set really focuses on loosening up the back. If a lot of times people wake up early mornings, back a little stiff, remember, we want to focus on this notion that the opposite of stiff and tight is not stretched. The opposite is to loosen up. So have that in your mindset as you practice this set. We're here to open and more importantly, to loosen up the back, not necessarily the stretch. So first one we're going to do, you're going to tuck in your tailbone, round out the back, tuck in the chin. It's almost like there's a cord pulling the middle of your back backwards. So you're kind of creating like a C curve. You're going to make loose fists. Then as you start your inhale, you're pushing off the legs. It's almost doing a hip thrust and feel the spine and undulate almost snakelike span the chest, arch the back. Then as you exhale, drop the tailbone, drop the chin, round out the back. Inhale. Start the movement here, the hips, feel the spine, undulate and open and loosen up. You can even give yourself some shake, feeling. Let's do three more. Open, loose, and relax. Next one is you can bring the feet a teeny bit closer together. We're gonna bring the hands up center of our body. You're gonna interlace the fingers with the index fingers to the sky. You're gonna have a feeling as if Someone's pulling your wrists up on the inhale. On the exhale, just let the hands come back to the head. Inhale? Feel the spine get longer and feel that continuation continuing through the crown of the head. Just rise, rise, rise. And on this exhale, gently come down to your side. I'm going to go to my right. If you want to mirror me go to the left, it's up to you. Just come down for a nice, gentle spine. Stretch and a nice feel nice stretch through the sides. Exhale, come back to the middle. Take an inhale, exhale go to the other side. And come back to the middle, and just let the arms come out to the side. Now, bringing the feet together. Going to sink into the ground, bend the knees slightly, coil the wrists so the palms are facing out, sink, pushing off the feet, power through the legs, stretching up and out. Feel the whole body length, lengthen through the spine, when the hands get up high, palms towards the head, and then as you exhale, and the hands get towards the forehead, just keep the mind with the hands and you just relax layer by layer. Relax through the face, relax through the throat and neck, shoulders, upper chest, upper back, to the lower torso, you come to the waist, bring the hands inside, and just a gentle push, releasing any last tension down through the feet to the earth. So do that two more times. Rise. So on the inhale, you feel this rising nature to the spine and to the whole body, creating space. And as you exhale completely relaxing, releasing, and letting go. The optimal posture here, which is that the spine rises and the body is soft like cotton. Or in a Western sense, you want to feel as tall as you can possibly feel while being as relaxed as you can possibly be at the same time. This is that optimal posture you want throughout your day, whether you're standing, you're sitting. Just keep aware of that nature of the spine long, the body soft and relaxed. Now we're going to move into our sitting work with the breathwork and meditation. Coming into a comfortable sitting position, feeling aligned yet relaxed. We're going to start with our exhale. We're going to be working with the three step yogic breath. The whole torso involved in the breathing process starting from the lower abdomen, sides of the ribs up to the upper back and chest and releasing an ocean wave. We're going to start with hands. Bring the hands to the lower belly and start with your exhale. And then as you breathe in, feel the lower abdomen expand like a balloon. And then as you breathe out, compresses and contracts. Once again, this is not an aggressive movement. It happens because the diaphragm engages, presses down on the abdomen to expand, and it just releases. Let the exhales be very full. You fine the fuller the exhale, the easier to inhale. You're going to take your hands off. You just bring them on the sides, palms down, palms up, whatever's comfortable. Same thing. The breaths, all your awareness here in the lower abdomen, breathing in. And release. In through the nose, exhale is up to you. The last one, belly swell, little movement in the lower back, a little movement in the obliques sides, and then release. Making half circles, the thumb and first finger bring them to the rib cage. Remember, we're not going straight here. We still have the lower abdominal area expanding like a balloon. And as it pushes out through the sides, that rises up to the ribs. And release. Remember, no tension on the inhale. So going to only about 70 or 75% of effort on the inhale, let your exhales be really full. Really connect to this feeling of relax and release as you breathe out long relaxed exhalations. And now you can take your hands off. And once again, it's just two step. It's like an ocean wave that starts deep in the ocean coming up, or you're filling up a glass of water about two thirds of the way now. So take a nice deep exhalation, empty everything out, now filling up. Lower abdomen, this wing like expansion of the ribs and then come back in. Like filling up a cylinder all 360 degree directions, the forward, the back, the sides. I. Putting one hand on the belly, one hand on your chest. We're going to be working with this full three steps, lower abdomen, sideways expansion of the ribs, upper back and upper chest. Bring your awareness the upper back before the chest. So once again, we start deep. Exhale, inhale. Belly, ribs, upper back chest. And as soon as you feel the slightest bit of tension in the chest, you release. And then it's just like emptying out a glass or ocean wave breaks starts from the top down when you release inhale, bottom up. Exhale, top down. Bring a real finally tuned sense of mindfulness. Really feel every little bit of the body that's involved in this breathing process through three breaths, following this three step ocean breath. Ast one. Once again, release and relax as you breathe these long exhalations. We're gonna bring a bit of sound now. But they call you gia breathing. We're going to actually do it with the mouth because it's slightly easier. It's a sound of an ocean wave. It's a sound of fogging up glasses or a mirror or if you've seen Star wars like Darth Vader soul, sound like this. You inhale, just like we've been doing, lower belly, ribs, upper back chest, and then Once again, quiet on the inhale. Exhale. If you'd like to try it with the mouth closed, it's just a constriction of the throat. But that's a sound. So is inhale, very subtle. Let's do three more like this. Full three step yoga breath on the inhale, and that ocean breath, ujiasund as you breathe out. So three breaths. Ride your exhalations, ride them out till you're completely relaxed. Let's do one last one, the perfect breath. Empty out with the exhale, begin. Balloon, ribs, upper back, chest, and let go. For. When you're normally done with your exhale, exhale a little more. Let's hold at the bottom of the exhale for five, four, three, two, one, and relax. Just in some relaxing breaths. When you inhale, you'd say the word calm and feel calm. Exhale, release. As you breathe in, calm. Exhale, release. Inhale, I calm the body and the mind. Exhale, I release. Tension worries. We do that for three breaths on your own as we finish up. As you take your last breath, just bring your awareness to the whole body. Note any spots, you may be still carrying some tightness or tension and just soften it up as you continue your exhale and finish up the practice. Thanks for joining me. Have a great day. 9. Session 4 | Relax: Setting your intention for the coming day and for this morning practice session. Before we begin the movement practices, let's just take three nice, deep, relaxing breaths. So always starting with your exhale, breathe out, breathe out, empty out, taking your inhales, lower abdomen, sideway expansion of the ribs, upper back, upper chest, and release. Really let these exhales be long. This is where we let go. Inhale. Just building up like an ocean wave coming up the torso. Feel the expansion, and as you exhale, feel the release. Just letting go. Let the exhales be really long and full. And let's take one more breath. No stopping, no holding, nice and relax and release. This following set I'm calling the essence of gee gong. It's three practices that are very calming, a really nice way to link the body and breath in the mind as we start the day. The first one we call cleanse, we're just going to come into our stands. We're going to bring the hands till they're not touching each other. Okay? Just one hand right underneath the other one, doesn't matter if it's left under right, right under left, whatever you're comfortable with. Sink into your growing a bit, slight bend of the knees, and then pushing off the feet, power through the legs, we come up so this first movement is a feeling of creating space between the hip bones and the ribs, the oblique area. Create space. Let the spine kind of get nice and long. Exhale, cleanse, release. So on the exhale, it's a feeling of releasing any bit of tightness or tension in the body, any bit of tension, you're holding in emotionally, psychologically. Inhale we open up, exhale, we cleanse, release. And just link the movement with breath. So inhale and rise. Exhale, you let go. If your breathing's at a different pace than mine, you can move a little faster, a little slower. That's fine. Fin what works for you. So you inhale, pushing off the feet, power through the legs. Feel that spine length and the body loosen up. Exhale, let go. Let's do three more. One more. You could let the exhale be a nice long sigh at the end here. The second movement we call sinking the chee. So we're just going to coil the wrists so the palms are facing out and forward. Sink again. This feeling, whole body integrated, push off the feet, power through the legs, and the feeling that the arms are just floating up with the body. The hands, elbows get even with the shoulders, just bend the elbows. Hands come to the top of the head, and in keeping the mind with the hands, we just relax through the whole body softening and releasing. So floating the arms. Mind stays with the hands, and we relax layer by layer as if you're under a slow motion shower or waterfall. Really keeping that attention through the eyes, softening the face, the throat, and the neck, shoulders, upper back, and especially through that lower back, soften, releasing any bit tightness attention through the feet. Three more. Floating, releasing. One more. Now we're connecting the palms to the lower abdomen, what they call the lower Danton, this is our energy center, our sense of being grounded. So first, just connect with this. This should feel the center. If you're feeling uptight and tense, you're going to feel your center up here in the chest. We want to sink. Not necessarily through just bending the knees, a slight bend of knees, but fold here in the groin, what they call the qua, and connect the center of the palms to the lower abdomen just below the navel. And you're just connecting to that balloon like expansion of the whole lower belly and let the hands and arms float open. You want to get the feeling here that it's the lower Dantien, our energy source, our center, our groundedness that's influencing the movement of the hands and arms. The hands and arms should feel weightless. Our attention is all here in the lower Dantien all here in our energy center. Taking three more breaths here. One more breath, feel that full expansion, front back, and sides, and then compress lower abdomen compresses the hands compress and we relax. We're going to now transition into some more work like that in the sitting position through our breathwork and meditation. And coming into a comfortable sitting position, feeling aligned and dignified, but also very relaxed. Bring the mind into the body on your seat. Now, bring your attention to the breath. We're going to be working with the five qualities of the breath. The first quality is a feeling of slow. Let the breath be slow, calm it down, pace of the breath very connected to the state of your emotions and energy. A very slow breath as you breathe in and breathe out. The second quality is a feeling of deep. Meaning we go deep into the body and you feel the breathing in the lower abdomen as if you're diving down into a deep lake. Feel the lower abdomen involved in the breathing process. Work on the breath being smooth and continuous. No holding the breath, no jerky, fast slow parts, just a continuous flow to it like a wheel. Slow, deep and smooth. The breath is quiet. No huffing and puffing. As if someone sitting next to you isn't even hearing you breathe, even though you're breathing very deep, the lowest part of the lungs, diaphragm engages. It's ocean wave like feeling but very quiet. Finally, a feeling of softness, the body softens. Letting the breath fill up every part of the lungs. Feel the breath as it moves through the whole body, oxygenating the blood into the cellular level. Just be with that for about two or three breaths, the feeling of slow, deep, continuous, quiet and soft. Mintaining these five qualities, we're going to work with a counting pattern now what they call the coherent breath, the optimal breathing. We're going to breathe in for five to 6 seconds on the inhale, and then five to 6 seconds on the exhale. No breath hold, this continual flow. As they say they call the coherent breathing or optimal breathing when breathing rate this rate of respiration brings all our major bodily systems online to work how they should be. Right? We're going to start off. I'll count it off counts of five, and then we move to counts of six. Start with your exhale, empty out, breathe in. One, two, three, four, five, out, one, two, three, four, five, in, one, two, three, four, five, out, one, two, three, four, five, do a few on your own. We're going to increase the rate a bit to six. Six on the end, six on the out, start with your exhale and begin. One, two, three, four, five, six, out, one, two, three, four, five, six, in, two, three, four, five, six, out, two, three, four, five, six, and do a few on your own. One more? Now, moving into an embodied breathing meditation. Moving from technique, accounting practice, and the doing to the just pure being we do with meditation, not trying to control or manipulate the breath, just experiencing the breathing body. At first, let's drop our awareness bring into the lower abdomen. So we're not trying to extend the breath. We're just experiencing the body as it breathes here in the lower belly. You might feel some movement with the belly, might feel some movement with the back or the sides. Once again, not trying to control. There's no perfect way to do this, not better or worse. What we're training now is awareness. Once again, approaching the practice non judgmentally. Don't be bothered if you don't feel like you're breathing well or the length. Let go of expectations. Be curious of this moment to moment experience with a light touch and a sense of humor. Let's take one more breath with our attention in the lower abdomen. Now let's bring our attention to the heart center, the center of the chest. Once again, not trying to do anything special. We just have brought our attention, which normally up here with our thoughts and our worries, dropping it here, feeling the breath, feeling the body as we breathe in and out. Nothing to do. Just bring the attention here, experiencing the breathing body. He feeling almost like the heart center just opens up. Let's do one more breath here. Just experiencing the heart center. As we finish up, we're going to bring the attention to the nose. Just being with the breath at the entrance and exit point of the breath. You might notice slight coolness on the inhale, slight warmth on the exhale. Once again, not trying to control, manipulate, nothing to do. We're just being with the breath at the nose, four breaths. Once again, the mind wanders, no judgment, no frustrations, a curious noting. Note the wandering mind and bring it right back to the next breath. Taking one more breath here. All the awareness at the tip of the nose. Fully exhale and relax. I think you can bring a little movement to the fingers and the toes, loosen up the jaw. Thanks for joining me and have a great day. 10. Session 5 | Letting Go: Welcome to the spiraling movement practice set. Before we begin, let's set the intention for the practice. What we want to do with these movement practices is more about opening and loosening up the body, as I say, releasing tension. Using these in the morning or anytime during your day is the ability to just release any bit of ache or pain, tightness, emotional, psychological tension. So, starting up on this, we're going to be moving through some nice spiraling movements. We're going to start off with the palm out in front of you a little lower than shoulders, and we're just going to be swaying the body. So we're not isolating the arms here. So we're starting here, our weights on this side, you just gently swinging across the body, and then you come back. And as you come back, the finger tips face you. Then as you sway back again, the palm. You're always having the visualization that you're holding a cup. All right, trying to keep it from spilling. And then exhale as you come over the head. So it's a two breath practice. So we start here, we inhale, we come across the body. We exhale, we come back with the fingertips facing you. And fingertips go away, remember, you're trying to visualize holding a cup. They call teacup spirals. This comes from China. Exhale, leaning back. Exhale, exhale, really loosening everything, the shoulder, back, the waist, inhale, exhale. EhalEhal leaning back, loosening through the back, and shoulders. Let's do three more. Big size on the exhale as you come over the head. Once again, keeping the palm up, palms up, palms up. And relax. Last one on this side. And release. So once again, working with the visualization of keeping a cup. That's about half full of tea or whatever beverage you like, keeping it from spilling. Coming around. An exhale. In exhale. So two breaths. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale fingers away in the palm up. Exhale, go over the back, let the back arch however it needs to it'll come over the head. Let's do three more. Just gently swing the whole body. Everything loose. Everything in motion. One part of your body moves, everything's in motion. Damn, one more. Spiraling and loosening and relax. Next one we have is we call snake charmer. The thought here, I'm going to start on my right side. It's fingers, like a snake's head looking at you. And as you exhale, the hand dives down as if the snake dives down, you lean your body the other way, transfer the weight to the opposite side, looking so with my right arm here. I'm on my left side, I'm looking left. Then I'm going to coil the arm, palm out, and up, you're just coiling that arm up and then coming back, looking at the snake's head, snake dives down. Transfer your weight, looking the opposite way. Coil the arm up. Exhale, snake creeps down, coils, inhale. Exhale, diving down, palm out, Coil that arm. Let's do a few more. And relax. You get that nice kind of loosen feeling as you're coiling and spiraling through the arm. Starting on the opposite side, looking at the snak's head. As if you're charming it dives down as you exhale, transfer your weight, looking the opposite way. Coil the arm up. Exhale, diving down. Three more. Last one, nice and loose and relax. Final one we'll do in this set. We're going to take the right hand, put it behind our back just overneath the left lower back. We're going to bring a left hand comes across the body. Our weights over here and our waist is turned. Inhale. Exhale, shift the weight, turn the waist and letting the hand spiral on the arm spiral till the palm faces down, faces forward, faces out behind you. Inhale, coil till the palms up, comes above the head, and then just like pouring water over your head, relaxing. Switching sides. Inhale, come across the body, shifting the weight, turn the waist. Exhale, gazing at that middle finger. Spirals across the body, facing back. Inhale. And exhale. Inhale, palm up, coming over the head, just like a wave of relaxation coming down the center of the body. Transfer the weight. So shifting the weight, turn the waist, gazing at that middle finger, spiraling the hand. End of the exhale, inhale and drop it. Relax and release. Do one more each side. Even out, let's do one more on this side. Exhale. Inhale, turn that palm up above the head, this wave of relaxation down the center of the body. Take a couple nice calmon breaths as we transition into the sitting practice for some breathwork and meditation. Coming into your seat, establishing a comfortable sitting posture. You feel tall. Spine rising, the body relaxed. We're going to do alternate nostril breathing practice. We're going to be using our thumb to close off the right nostril and our third finger to close off the left nostril. The key with this practice is to kind of change the way you normally think of the breath. So instead of in out, you want to think about breathing out, then in, and then we're going to change the sides. Okay? So what I mean by that is we're going to take an inhale. Take your thumb, right thumb, close off the right out with the left. Then bring it in with the left. At the top of the inhale, take this third finger, close off the left out with the right. In with the right. So it's out in change sides. The other thing we're going to do, we're going to start this off. Make this powerful, like a cleansing breath. It's going to be somewhat loud. You're going to hear the breath, take it in a lot. Exhale. So they're full inhales and exhales. Keeping all your attention here at the nose. It's a great mindfulness practice, keeping your awareness just on the entrance point, the exit point of the breath. Remember when the change sides? As we go further, just make it more and more quiet, more and more subtle until you can't even hear your breath. If the mind wanders off the breath, just bring it back to the nostrils. Just following the entrance and exit of the breath. More and more subtle. Feeling balanced, aware, calm. We're going to do one more each side. Coming in, taking your last inhale and let go of the hand and bring it down and relax. I'm feeling this nice, calm breath, slow, deep, smooth, body relaxed. O when we work with these sitting, breathwork, and meditation practices, as well as in life, we want to cultivate what we call the four major foundational attitudes. So keeping your awareness on your breath, bring to mind this quality of being non judgmental. You're not judging yourself, getting frustrated, if you feel you're not breathing well, or if the mind is wandering during one of these mindfulness meditation practices, not judging our ability to do good or bad or if you miss a practice session. The second quality we want to cultivate is a feeling of curiosity. We don't need to be annoyed with ourselves, and as our mind drifts to another thought. Just be curious. A light touch, almost a sense of humor to how your mind works. So you'll notice as you practice, your mind is going to constantly be wandering, as I say, the monkey mind. It's all over the place like a small monkey. You want to bring the sense of curiosity to the wandering mind. Curiosity to our emotional state. So instead of this frustration, annoyance, bring this light touch curiosity with a touch of humor to how the mind works. The third quality we want to cultivate is a sense of patience, a trust in the process. Many times people arrive at these meditation practices, feeling they're going to transform themselves in a short amount of practice time. Trust the process. As I say, this is slow medicine. This will take a long time to create lasting transformational changes in the body and mind. Be patient. Be patient with yourself. Patient with the practices and trust in the process. And finally, a feeling of letting go. This will mean letting go of expectations. I will mean during a practice and in life, thoughts come in, difficult emotions like stress and anxiety come in, and learning to just let them go. We note them. We're not trying to push it away. We're not trying to suppress it. We acknowledge it, we note it. We experience the energy of these difficult emotions, and then we learn to let go. Learn to ride it out with the opera. So as we finish up here, we're just going to take a little time to bring our attention to these four qualities, what it means to you and how you're going to cultivate this through the practices that then you're going to bring into your daily life. So bring into mind this quality of non judgmental. Being kind to yourself. Bring to mind the quality being patient, trust in the process. There's no quick remedies here. It's just consistent daily practice. And not getting annoyed with the wandering mind, noting that doubt happens to everyone, you note as time goes on that the space between thoughts will get larger. But just trusting that this will take time. Bring into your life and especially the practices, this feeling of curiosity. As your awareness improves the mindfulness aspect, you start to notice things more. Be curious about it. We're not getting annoyed with ourselves. We're not judging our ability to not be good meditators. We don't get annoyed with ourselves if we get frustrated. Bring this light touch of curiosity and a bit of humor. And finally, a feeling of letting go. We want to work on this feeling as they say, of non sticky. This feeling of things don't stick to us. These all these thoughts and feelings and a lot of times difficult emotions will come in. We acknowledge, we note, we let go. We learn to experience the feelings of stress, anxiety. It's just energetic feelings coming up. It's not who we are. We just let them go. Even if that needs to happen every time you take a breath, that's fine. We note, we ride it out, we let it go. So keep in these four foundational attitudes, not only through the practice, but through life, and you'll begin to see some really nice changes happening. 11. Session 6 | Patience: Setting our intention for this common practice to open up, loosen up the body, releasing tension, physical tension, emotional, psychological tension through some nice, spiraling, gentle, flowing movements, and some stretching. In this set, we're going to focus actually a little more on some stretching movements. So before we begin, let's just come into the body and come into the breath. Feel yourself rooted into the ground. Feel yourself nice and tall, get relaxed. Take an exhale. Let's just take a couple nice diaphragmatic breaths, focusing on these nice qualities of slow, deep, smooth, soft breathing. So the diaphragm engages coming up. Exhale, feeling of letting go. You inhale. Belly swells. Body expands laterally. Upper back and chest and release. Let's take one more nice breath. And release. So this first movement is called bow and arrow. I'll be simulating shooting a bow and arrow to both sides. It's a two breath practice. So we do to sink down a bit into the feet, but in the knees a bit, we inhale. We stretch up we cross at the wrist, we exhale, bring the hands down to the center of the chest, the heart center. I'm going to go to my right. You could do the mirror me and go to the left doesn't matter, go the same as me. As if you're pulling the bow, these two fingers are simulating an arrow. Have a focus point, if there's a target you're shooting at, sink into your posture a bit more. Get a little feel that in your legs. You pull, feel a distance between this elbow and the arrow. And release. You come down. Inhale, we stretch, cross at the wrist. Exhale. Coming down. Inhale, we pull the bow. Exhale, release. You shoot the arrow. We're gonna do two more times each side. So inhale and rise, creating space through the whole torso. Exhale, bring it down. Inhale, we pull the bow. Exhale, shoot the arrow. Sink, and rise. Sink. Pull the bow. Release and shoot the arrow. One more each side. Really creates space. Feel the spine, elongate. Through the back, through the neck, through the crown. Exhale, relax. The feeling still very tall, aligned and majestic. Pull the bow. Release and shoot the arrow. Do one more. Crossing at the wrist. From the down. The next one we're going to do is a forward fold. Now, most people get used to doing this movement, focus on the hamstrings. We will get a nice hamstring stretch, but we're also focusing very much on the lower back. Make your stance wider, wider than shoulders, wider than you're used to. As we come down, we're just folding at the hips, so we're not going fast. You want to feel like as if you're just releasing as if you had, like, a stack of building blocks, you're taking them off from the top one by one. You're coming down very slow. As you come closer to the ground, you're going to find resistance somewhere in the lower back. We're not going to try to go deeper through effort or because we have loose hamstrings and you're flexible. The point is we go deeper through relaxation. So come here as you see my hands aren't touching. Take your inhale. Exhale. So you come deeper through relaxation. Put your awareness for me, I have a little bit of tightness in my lower right back. I put my attention there on the inhale, on the exhale, I just soften that spot up I come a little deeper. Inhale and feel exhale release. So you're not moving on the inhale. You feel. And on the exhale, you just soften any bit of tightness through the lower back, and you'll just notice you come a little bit deeper every exhalation. Et's take one more breath here. Now, coming back up, put your hands on your knees to protect the lower back, engage the core, tighten up your buttocks, and we're going to roll up very slowly, taking at least five or six breaths. Protect the lower back as if you're stacking the building blocks, you stack every vertebra right on top of the previous one. Coming up very slow. Engage core rolling up. Don't rush when you get high. Coming up the upper back, the shoulders, keeping the core engaged, the buttocks engaged. Up the neck. Lastly, comes the skull. Then just counterpose. Let's roll the shoulders a few times. Rolling the back. Arch in the back, rolling the shoulders. Oh, little counterpose. The finish up, this set, we're going to do what they call the sky and Earth. We're going to be doing is bringing up one hand. I'll go up to my left, the right hand down. The upper hand, palm is up. Lower hand, the palm is down, leaning to the low hand side. We exhale, we come back down the middle. The hands meet around the sternum. Inhale, we stretch slightly to the low hand side, as if this hand is holding the head up, helping float the head. This hand pushing that foot into the earth. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Should feel really nice stretch through the sides, opening up, raising of the crown, floating the head. I'm going to do two more on each side. One more each side. And relax and bring it down. Just take a nice breath or two, finishing up this movement practice as we transition into our sitting breathwork and meditation. Coming into your seat, feeling nice and tall and relaxed. We're going to work with a counting practice, they call it 369. You're gonna be breathing in for a count of six. Hold the breath for a count of three, exhale for a count of nine, hold the breath at the bottom of the exhale for a count of three. What I'm going to recommend on the exhalation is to go count of six through the nose and 789 like a si through the mouth. We're going to do it two times where I'm going to count it off for us and then do four times on your own. So take an exhale, starting with your exhale, empty out, empty out, and inhale one, two, three, four, five, six, hold, two, three, exhale, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, hold, one, two, three. Inhale, two, three, four, five, six, hold, two, three, out, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, hold, two, three, and do four on your own. Just stay with the breath. Last one. And you can let go of the counting. The focus now will just be on the exhale. So you're just going to inhale, don't worry about it. Don't think about being perfect, breathing in through the nose. Then as you exhale, draw out the exhale, nice and long. Start maybe through the nose again and then make the exhale through the mouth. And almost it keeps on going when you feel like there's absolutely nothing left to breathe out. And a feeling of just dissolving with the outbreath. If you're just falling off a cliff, dropping into open space, We're going to do this for three more breaths. Inhale. Go to inhale, nice and relaxed. Feel the body expand and open. Hold for just a second and then release. Once again, this feeling of just dropping, dissolving, connecting to just open empty spacious awareness. Two more breaths like this. Inhale and expanding. Hold and just release Dissolve. Empty space. One more breath like this. And relax. Bring to mind now something in your life, something that's causing you stress, anxiety, maybe a light feeling of depression or burnout, some type of difficult emotional state. Look at what's the trigger, what's causing it. We're not trying to suppress it or forget about it because we're in our meditation. We're turning towards difficult emotion. We're going to work on applying those four foundational attitudes. Bring to your mind's eye this difficult emotion the trigger and apply this feeling of being non judgmental. We're not judging ourselves, feeling this way. Bringing a quality of curiosity and humor, noting when it arises, seemingly out of nowhere. Being curious about how it affects our way that we sit, maybe how we breathe. Once again, not judging, not getting annoyed. Being curious. How does this negative state affect our breathing? How does it affect the feeling in the body? Where does it arise from? How does it dissipate, dissolve? Come back in. Just being curious. That light touch of humor. Applying the feeling of patience and trust in the process. Noting that just a short little meditation, it doesn't mean we're never going to feel this way again. But be patient that this slow medicine approach will work and create transformational changes. Being patient. Trust. And finally, learning to let go. We turn towards this difficult emotion. We note it. The felt sensation of it, and we just let it go. If you want to time it with the breath, let it go on the exhales, ride it out. If it comes back in on the next inhale, that's fine. Remember, note it, be curious about it, non judgmental and ride it out, let it go. Cultivating this quality of letting go, one of the most important qualities you bring into your life and practice. Noting being with letting it go. You could use this practice anytime throughout your day on any situation. 12. Session 7 | Joy: Right, welcome. Coming into this morning practice session. This is a very nice, calm, mindful movement practice to start the day. Really want to start by setting our intention. For the practice, we set the intention of opening up, loosening up the body, releasing tension, connecting the body, breath, and the mind. And then bring your thoughts to cultivating. What qualities is it you want to cultivate throughout your day today? Set the intention that you start that process right now. So before we begin this practice, let's bring the awareness to the body and more importantly, to the breath. So feel yourself, rooted into your stance. You're in a coqual place in your room, wherever you're practicing. Feet, rooted, knees slightly bent. Gentle rising of the spine as the body relaxes, the shoulders are relaxed. Let's take a nice, deep exhalation, let everything out. Exhale, as you breathe in, diaphragm engages. We're just connect into this three step ocean like breath on the inhale, exhale feeling of letting go. Let the exhales be really nice and long and full. Inhale Like, you're filling up a cylinder through the torso, and on the exhale, just feeling like the ocean wave breaks, you completely let go. So, last one, we inhale. Release, relax, and let go with this exhalation. These next three movements are connected to what we call the water element. We're really connected to this feeling of water moving through the body. So the first one is called the fountain. You want to feel almost like the fingers are drawing up water from the Earth come up through the feet, through the legs. And then it comes up just inside the spine, through the crown of the head. And then as your arms go out, it's like a fountain. Water just goes out to the sides. So as you come up, comes up through the feet, up through the legs, up the tube, this big straw, small tube like just inside the spine, rising, rising, this waterl quality to the body. So if you feel like there's any block in your body that feels more wood like or cement like, just bring that feeling of water to there. Just opening, loosening, connecting to this slow, gentle, waterl quality moving through the body on the exhale, just like a fountain, just kind of release and goes out the side. I do three more of these. Just feel connect to the Earth, then goes up through the crown and release. Let's do one more. And bringing your hands down to the lower abdomen. The feeling here is that you have what they call your chee ball. You feel like a small soccer ball football. So there will be a spot that just feels right for you. If the hands are too close, there's a little bit of tension in the shoulders, armpits are enclosed, elbows, the hands too big, you feel like you're using physical muscular tension to keep the hands in place. So it just feels like a right spot for everyone about this size. Now for the first part, you're going to keep your eyes open and your awareness is centered on the exact point. Try to keep it on this point just in between both hands. So sin. Then as you come up, the hands rise with the inhale. When you get to the chest, they circle. It's a circular movement. It's called the water wheel. So eyes stay on that spot between the hands, inhale and rise. And then as they hit exhale, they sing keeping the movement as circular as possible. Not letting the hands come too close to the body. They come too close. You feel tense. We want to feel completely relaxed and loose. Inhale, we rise, exhale, we sink as circular as you can possibly make the moves. Really linking the body breath and mind here. Let's do one more with the eyes open. Now, you're going to close the eyes and feel as you come up just inside the spine, you're bringing water up this big straw, small tube, it comes up over the top of the head. On the inhale. And about in between the eyebrows, at that third eye point, you're at the pinnacle of your inhale. And as you exhale, it's like this wave of relaxation comes down the front of the body as the hands come down. So you inhale, feel this water like quality coming up just inside the spine, over the top of the head. And as the hands go down, just this feeling of relax and release. Just this gentle, slow Semi warm quality water flowing over the top of the body. Let's do four more of these. Keeping the eyes closed, all your awareness inside the body. And relax. A final movement is called the ocean wave. So the movement starts off palms facing down like the tide going out, then a wave starts to crest, get bigger and bigger. It comes kind of height of the forehead, the wave breaks, you just kind of its wave breaking over you, coming down the front. Inhale. Wave comes up. Exhale, wave breaking over, just nice and relax. And once again, get in this flowing like motion, same as flowing nature of water. Inhale and rise, exhale, release and soften through the body. Let's do three more. Last one. And relax, feeling into the body, feeling nice and calm, get aware. We're going to transition now into our sitting breathwork and meditation practice. Welcome. Coming into your seat, being in a comfortable place, feeling tall and relaxed. I'm going to start off, which is the practice generally called box breathing, where we're going to have inhale, hold at the top of the inhale, exhale, and hold at the bottom of the exhale for equal time. We're going to do this with counts of six. If this tend to be too difficult for you on your own, you could lower it to a count of four or five. But you're going to see we're going to start with this box breathing. The counts of six. Then we're going to let go of the holds and just do this optimal coherent breathing where we inhale for a count of six, exhale for our count of six and a continuous motion cycle. Coming into your seat, let's start off with an exhale, empty out, empty out. And begin inhale, two, three, four, five, six, hold, two, three, four, five, six, exhale, two, three, four, five, six, hold, two, three, four, five, six, inhale, two, three, four, five, six, hold, two, three, four, five, six, exhale, two, three, four, five, six, hold, two, three, four, five, six, and now four on your own. Do one more this box breathing. Once again, now let go of the holds inhale for six out for six. Do that for about four breaths. Do connect to that feeling of the body expanding and contracting? One last coherent breath. Yeah. And relax. We're now going to move into a meditation called the foreign measurables. In this practice, we're cultivating these four qualities of kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. We're first going to work on bringing these qualities to the self, and then we're going to bring it to someone in our life. So bringing your attention to your heart center center of the chest. And first connecting with a feeling of kindness. You could use some phrase like, may I be well. Second, move into the feeling of compassion. You could use some phrase, may I be free of suffering and pain. The third quality is joy. May I experience joy and happiness throughout my day. Finally, there's the feeling of equanimity. This quality of equanimity is so essential. It's a quality expressing that no matter what's happening in your life, work, family, friends, and the external world, that you're able to connect with a deep source of contentment. And your sense of contentment and happiness is not dependent on external circumstances. And you could say something to yourself, may I feel this sense of equanimity connected to this deep sense of contentment, joy and happiness? Now, bring your attention to someone else in your life. Could be a family member, friend, someone at work. Bring them into your mind's eyes if they're sitting a few meters in front of you. We're bringing these same four qualities. Feeling of kindness. You could say to them, may you be happy and well cultivating a sense of compassion to them. May you be free of suffering and pain? Third is that quality of joy, what they call empathetic joy. May you be happy experience joy and happiness throughout your day. And finally, that feeling of equanimity, may you be able to connect to a deep source within yourself of contentment and a feeling of genuine happiness not dependent on external circumstances. Before we exit the practice, connect to these four qualities. Make a commitment to embody these qualities in your day to day life with whoever you come in contact with. Thanks for joining me. 13. Session 8 | Gratitude: In this practice set, we're really going to focus on keeping balance. So much of balance is really about keeping mindful attention. So let's be aware of where our body is in space. Let's keep the feet rooted into the ground and making sure that the body is connected to the breath, which is connected to the mind. And feel comfortable if you feel yourself lose in balance, feel yourself ground more. The floor with your toes as if you're picking up a pencil off the ground, bend the knees and keep a focused attention somewhere. The majority of falls that happen with people are not because they're limited with their muscular skeletal system is weak. A lot of it happens from the loss of mindful awareness. So let's really work on the mindful attention aspect of this. Practice as we work on this nice flow series, and then some Tai chi style kicks. So what we're going to do is we're going to start off. You can put your hands on your hips or hands just on the side of the body. We're going to put the weight on the left. Raise the right leg. Try to get the thigh perpendicular to the floor. If that feels too high and uncomfortable, just keep it lower. That's fine. Then you're going to slowly open. Bring it back. And then if you're just kicking someone with your toes in their knee, bring it back. Then we step back behind us. This is very important. Only on the toes and ball of the foot, do not bring your heel down. Then exhale over the front leg, and we're going to do a gentle twist. Very important with twist not to over twist. Slowly come to your edge and stop. We don't want to overtwist And as we come up, into this tree pose. Very important with the tree pose. If you're fine, bringing the foot up really high, that's fine. For me, that's a little tight for my knee, so I keep it low. What you don't want to do is press against the knee. So just listen to your own body because we're mostly going to focus on this practice on balance. So don't obsess on bringing the foot up high. Keep it here or bring it up. Just don't press sideways into the knee. I could cause some knee problems. And then you're just going to bring your attention. Going to put the hands in prayer position. We're going to start off just very simple hands at the heart center at the chest. If you find yourself losing balance, don't bring the attention up. Sink. Feel your center here in the lower abdomen. Grab the floor at the toes and find a focus point somewhere in your distance. Now we're going to do the other side. Gentle kick. Very important as you step back, don't step too far back, nice and comfortable, toes and ball of the foot, exhale over the front leg, go slow, go slow, go slow. And when you come to your edge, don't push past. Relax. Looking over your shoulder. So it's very be very soft and gentle with yourself with the twist and coming in, once again, know yourself. Like, right now, if I try to bring my leg up, this hurts my knee. We don't want to do that. So I'm going to keep mine low. Find a focus point. Bring your center down into the lower abdomen, bend the knee gently. Grab the floor at the toes. Training your attention, finding your focus. Come on down, we're going to do one more on both sides. Bring it up. Open. Back, gentle kick, stepping back, exhale. Gentle twist over the front leg. Coming up. Let's start. Get yourself stable. Very focused, bring the hands up. You might find as you come up that you lose a little bit of your balance. So as the hands go up, bring the body down. If you want a little bit more of a challenge, close the eyes. If you close your eyes, you need a new focus point. Bring that to that spot between the eyebrows, the third point, the third eye. And bring it down. Coming back. I want to go one more side. Bring up, out. Kick. Stepping back. Gentle twist. Gently, slowly, mindfully, come to your edge and stop. Coming into tree, once again, Wever's comfortable for you. We're really focusing now on balance, not necessarily about how high you can bring your foot. Coming up. Once again, as the arms go up, sink the body. If you want a little more of a challenge, close the eyes. Coming out. Finish off this practice, we're going to do what we called some tai chi style kicking. So the thought here is, you're gonna be stepping in, waiting one leg. The other leg comes up, and it's like you're taking both hands and splashing water in your face. And then as you kick, exhale, it's a very gentle kick with the bottom of the foot. The foot that you're kicking with, you're kicking underneath that hand. The other hands just out for balance. High, low doesn't matter. We're just going to do a bit of a flow. Bring the leg up, splash the water in the face, kick out underneath the hand, let the other hand go out for balance. Make sure you're breathing. Bend the knee, grab the floor at the toes. Slow smooth kicks. Doesn't matter the height. What matters is the control, the back staying upright. Sink up. Kick, we'll do one more each side. And relax, bring it on down. And just feel yourself stable again, see if you feel a little different in the body, working with that sense of kind of dynamic balance. So let's slowly transition into the breathwork and meditation sitting practice. Taking your seat, putting the body on your cushion, bringing your mind and the body, feeling the spine rise, body relax. We're going to start off which is sometimes called Crow's breath. We're going to be like a bird that sucks up some food. It's like we're going to be sucking up the air from the earth, it's through the mouth. It's like per slips. Bring it up and just hold for a second or two and then really long breath out. We're going to do this for six breaths. Really full inhalation. Let the head come down as if you're coming down and bringing in the breath from the ground. Let the head come up, the chest comes out, arch the back a little. And as if you're just looking up towards your ceiling, and then as you let it go, you just let the breath return. Out the space down into the Earth. So we're going to do this for six breaths. Start with your exhale and begin. Man, really. Keep the purse lips on the exhale, as well. Three more like this, really emphasizing that energizing feeling on the inhale. Filling up the lungs in this full on relaxing, long exhale. Two more breaths. Last one. Release. Now changing the breath in and out through the nose. As you exhale, you're constricting the throat, making the sound as if you're fogging up your glasses or a mirror, or it could feel like the sound of an ocean or if you've seen star wars, it sounds like dark Vader. You need gia breath. You want to really connect to the feeling of an ocean wave now. The breath starts in the lower belly, comes up to the sideways expansion of the ribs, upper back, chest. As you exhale, constrict the throat. Long exhalations. Fill up, bottom up. As you exhale, constricting, like an ocean wave going back out. You can make that sound in the inhale if you're comfortable as well. We do four more breaths like this. Ocean wave comes up and it breaks. Okay. Two more breaths. Connecting with that soft deep guttural sound with the exhale. And relax. A really great morning meditation or a meditation you can bring in your day anytime is a gratitude practice. It's very easy for us as we get caught up in our lives. Our minds are trained, almost in a genetic sense, to train on the negatives. What's going wrong. We learn from negatives. We think about the bad things in our life. The gratitude practice, we train in our minds to do the opposite, connecting to the positives. Learning to be grateful for the simple things in life, one that we just exist, the amazing ability we have to be here on this planet, healthy, alive, expressing gratitude for friends and family for the roof over our heads and the food we eat Bringing this into your day to day life, that if you find yourself getting caught up with problems, getting caught up with your negative emotions, connecting with a sense of gratitude. Just being grateful for even negatives in your life, applying a growth mindset, even the things that we normally tend to think of as negative, being grateful for them and thinking how you're going to learn from them and grow as a person. It's in struggle, it's in challenge that we grow and become better people. Bringing that attitude we talked about earlier of curiosity, patience, into everything in our lives, taking all our experience and being grateful for them, being grateful for this opportunity to be alive on this planet, in this day and age, Applying that growth mindset and acknowledging these things that are positive in your life, training your mind, training your emotions to be more content, more happy and grateful. Thanks. 14. Session 9 | Awaken: Welcome to this morning practice session. We're going to start off with a really nice series of spiraling, like motions moving through the body. Excellent practice for loosening up the joints, releasing tension, and just kind of energizing and bring ourselves to this, nice, calm, yet aware and energized state. So before we begin, just setting your intention to the practice to release, loosen up and awaken for the morning, see if there's anything you want to think about in terms of qualities you want to cultivate for your day today. And then we're just going to bring the awareness into the body, specifically, taking three nice diaphragmatic breaths. This kind of ocean wave like feeling, we're filling up the torso on the inhale and just releasing emptying out on the exhale. So let's start with an exhalation. Feel your center here in the lower abdomen. Drop it out of your head, out of the upper chest, relax, sink to the lower abdomen, then inhale. Feel this 360 degree expansion of the lower abdomen, lateral movement of the ribs. Hand, release. Really connect to the exhalation now. We're starting up our day. We want to let go of any tension. As we exhale, let the exhale be long, long, exhale more than you used to empty out fully. One more breath. Just like filling up a clin the whole torso expands. And as you exhale, just release, relax and let go. The first move we're going to do is called Teacup spirals. So we're going to do I'm going to start with my right hand, if you want to do your right or if you want to mirror me and do left, it doesn't matter. We're going to do both sides, seven times on both sides. So remember, everything should move. This isn't about testing how mobile and how loose your shoulders. Your knees will circle, the waist will circle arching the back as you move above the head. You start off with the hand by the hip. Fingers facing forward. So then the hand fingers move towards you, behind you away. Remember, the visualization is you're holding a tea cup that's about half full. Alright? So we want to keep the tea from spilling. So we start here, go across the body, staying kind of low. And as you exhale, leaning back, trying to keep that tea cup from spilling. But once again, if your shoulder hurts, don't go past on any movement we ever do. You never go past any pain. So what I recommend is if you're here and you feel tightness or pain in your shoulder, continue the movement, but let the palm come down, okay? But if you're able to exhale. Big exhalations. Loosen up the back. Let it be a big sigh coming up over the head. We need three more. Mm. One more. Loosen, loose, loose, and release. Let's do the other side. Palm in front, fingers forward. Holding your tea cup, about half full. Fingers towards you, behind away, Whip in front. Over the head. Exhale, exhale, as you go over the head, you got to let go. Best way this is done is to completely let go of trying to control your body. The knees circle, the waist circles, you lean back. Let's do a few more. Yes. One more. And relax. Next movement is two at the same time. So let go of the feeling of holding a cup. It's called flying Dragon. It's a two breath practice. You start off, hands push behind you, span the chest, arch the back. As you start the first inhale, it's if you're going to sit down in a high chair or a bar stool, the hands come around you, you round out the back, exhale, arch the back, hands come over the head. And then the hands are out at shoulders. And the pinkies are like knives and they're slicing comes underneath the armpits. Exhale. Expand the chest, arch the back. Inhale, round out the back. Exhale, both hands over the head, arch in the back. Then cutting like knives. Bring them underneath. And exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Okay, let's do three more of these. Keeping the body as loose as you can. And relax. Final movement we're going to do is called the rainbow. It's really like a big arch moving across the body. So I'm going to start off over here on my left side. Left hand is high, right as low as if it's holding a big ball. I shift my weight to my left. The right hand goes out across left side, and then it just creates this big arc. Once it gets to the middle, we exhale, and the hand will come around down the other side. So inhale, gets to the middle, exhale. Oh comes low hand, inhale. Exhale. Two more. Shift the weight. The waist turns, you come to the middle. Exhale. Let's switch the sides. Inhale. Exhale. Just nice big gentle arcs. If you're just creating this nice 360 degree movement, loosen it up through the shoulders, the sides. Back. Two more. And now we should feel nice and loose, and we're going to transition into our sitting practice for breathwork and meditation. In this practice session, we're going to be working on balancing our energy, our emotions, and our mind. This will happen by first starting off doing a very powerful energizing breathing exercise, then moving that into a common breathing practice. And finally, a meditation that's all about this sense of embodied awareness. The first practice, what we're going to be doing is bringing the arms up, fingers apart. On the inhale. As we exhale, we're going to quickly be bringing our hands and arms down and making fists at about the chest level. These are powerful exhalations through the nodes. Inhale, you don't even think about it. So the inhale and then exhale. So it's this powerful exhalation. Don't even think about your inhale. That will happen naturally. We're going to do a set of 30. And on the 31st, arms will come up and we'll come out to the outside. I'll count this down from the last ten. So from 21, 22, I'll count us down to 30. Okay? If it starts to get too hard for you, you feel your heart rate is going too fast and you find yourself getting too stressed, just end it. You might be at 17 on 18, come out to the sides. That's totally fine. All right. We're going to try to do two sets of 30 before we move into the calming breathing. So just connect with your breath, take an exhale. You might want to refine your posture, feeling tall, yet relaxed. Just feel the diaphragm, engage. It's expanding and releasing with the breath. With this exhale fully let go, exhale, exhale completely, feel it in the lower abdomen. Then as you inhale, bring the hands up, and three, two, one. Begin. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, rise, and relax. And you can bring the hands down, palms up on top of the knees, gently in the lap. Just get relaxed. If you need to refine your posture a bit, that's fine. And just be with sensations. Not trying to control, not trying to change. There's no right or wrong way to feel here. Might feel the heart beat a little faster, perhaps a little tingling, a little lightheadedness It's all fine. Just being with felt sensation, we slowly calm down. We bring our energy levels up. Now we're calming it down to balance. The heart rate goes up, we bring it down to balance. Let's take two more relaxing breaths before we start one more set of 30. Then we'll start again. Take your exhale, wherever you're at. Exhale, exhale and raise inhale. Powerful exhalations, and go. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, up, out to the sides and relax. Just feel into the body. Note the rate of the heart. Note any sensations on the skin. How does the mind feel? H, the next practice working on calming down, going to be taking a nice slow deep diaphragmatic breath, this feeling of expansion through the whole torso. On the exhale, start your exhale through the nose about halfway or a little more than halfway, and then finish the exhale with the sound of a sigh, what we call the healing breath. Is you inhale, the diaphragm engages, lower belly, expanding, the torso expands like a balloon. Exhale, start the exhale through the nose, halfway through. I do four more breaths like this. One more healing breath. Slow deep, smooth inhale, expanding, as you exhale, just letting go. Finish off the sigh sense of dissolving. Now moving into an embodied sense of awareness, we're working with now is the sense of the enlightened body, the awakened body. Whereas we inhale, you feel the expansion of the torso, you feel the spine rising. As you exhale, a softening, a complete letting go, So as you inhale, expanding, this feeling of the spine rising as if the breath just guiding the energy up through the central channel just inside the spine. As we breathe out, a softening of the body, letting go. But they call on the Daoist Ge gong system song, an active state of relaxation. You awakened body, inhale, a rise in quality, oxygenating, bringing in this life force energy, exhale release and let go. You inhale, rising, expanding? As you exhale, letting go, release. I do that for four more breaths. Just be in the body for four breaths. H I want to do one last breath together. Take your exhale, empty out, and then connect as you inhale. Spine rises, bringing in this life force energy. As you exhale, the body feels like cotton completely soft. Connecting to this feeling as much as you can throughout your day, this optimal posture, a feeling tall, dignified, a majestic quality to your sitting while at the same time being very relaxed, soft within the body. This active state of relaxation, the enlightened, the awakened body state. Thanks for joining me. Have a great day. 15. Session 10 | Curiosity : To this nice morning practice session. This is a little bit different of usual he gong where we take one movement and we do it a little repetitively for a certain amount of times and breaths. This practice, we're going to pick three movements. We're going to do every movement once, and then we move into the second movement, and then the third movement. Every movement connected to one breath. We're going to practice it a few times, and then we do three times quiet. So coming into your stance. I just coming into your breath and body. Setting the intention for the practice, kind of waking up, kind of get that optimal state of calm aware and energized. So bringing in, connecting to the breath. Palms are facing down at hip level. Feel that breath in the lower belly as if it's just expanding the lower abdomen like a balloon, then it compresses, contracts. Then it can bring that breath up. Belly expands like a balloon. And the whole torso expands almost like a cylinder. This kind of wave like feeling through the torso as inhale takes up, bring it all the way through the lungs, and then it just relax and release. Let's take one more breath like this. Relax, release with those exhales. So movement number one is a feeling of floating arms. So you're going to push off the feet, power through the legs. And it's almost as if there's puppet strings on the pinkies as well as the crown of the head. The arms float up as you push off the feet and power through the legs. Come the shoulder height, exhale. Arms float on down. The inhale on the second breath, starts like this. But then the arms come out to the sides. That's the inhale. The exhale palms come up. That's a transition to an inhale and exhale. Exhale, down, up, back out. Breath number three, fold at the elbows. Hands are just here at the top of the forehead and keeping the mind with the hands, the feeling of dissolving, dissolving tension as it comes down the front of the body, relaxing layer by layer. This practice, very essential link the movement with the breath. It's the breath that controls the pace. So inhale, first movement. Floating arms, floating back down. Second movement. You got to move a little faster, right? Cause we come up and then out. Palms up, down, up, back out. Now we slow up the movement. We just fold at the elbows. Nice slow breath. Exhale, Mine stand with the hands. Sink, relax. We're going to do this a few times. Inhale and float. Exhale, relax, sink back down. Inhale we float up and then come out. Exhale, sink the palms up, rise, out. Fold the elbows. Dissolving dissolving and sinking. Same cycle, three breath practice. Float. Now, sink, rise, back out, fold, relaxing layer by layer. Do it one more time. Connect to that feeling in the body, spine rising, body soft like cotton. Bring your attention down to the lower belly, connect the hands to the lower abdomen, the lower dontion. Connect to the breath. We'll transition this into our sitting practice. Welcome. Coming into your seat, feeling tall, aligned, yet relaxed. We're going to work on some strong breathing, some calming breathing, and then moving that into a meditation, really enhancing these feelings of balancing our energy and emotions and really learning to let go in the meditative process. The first one is what call strong spinal breathing. It's almost like a sitting cat cow if you're used to yoga. What we're going to be doing is as we exhale, the hands will be on the knees, we tuck in the chin, and we tuck in the tailbone and round out the back. As we inhale, hands will come towards the hips as we arch the back and expand the chest. The inhale and exhale are both power flow. Think more about power than about speed. So they're full inhale, full exhale. Inhale through the nose, exhale is up to you. You can do first set through the nose, second set through the mouth, you can split it. Just be conscious of which one you're going to do for the exhalations. Personally, I'm going to do the first set of 11 in and out through the nose. The second set, we're going to do a set of 15. I'm going to do inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth. Connect to your posture. Let's empty out. I'm gonna start off a little bit slow and then build up the speed a bit. So starting off, inhale, hands to the hips. Expand chest starch to back. Exhale. Strong, powerful breaths, energizing, bringing in this powerful life force energy. Let's do three more. One more. Empty out, round out the back, hold at the bottom of the exhale, and relax. Take a couple of relaxing breaths. Feel into the body. Kind of awakening, as I say, the energy, moving up through the central channel, this big straw, small tube just inside the spine, important area of practice and energy in all three major Eastern traditions. We're going to do one more set. This is up 15. So what I'm going to do on this set is inhale powerfully through my nose and a powerful exhalation through the mouth. If you'd like to stay with the nose on the exhale, it's spine. Let's take one more relaxing breath. If you need to get yourself ready. Remember, think more about power and cleansing than about speed. We exhale, empty out, chin the chest, tucking the tailbone, round out the back and begin. Mm. Three more. Release. Tuck it in, empty out till there's absolutely nothing left to exhale. B with the emptiness and relax. Bring your attention to that area. I was saying that central channel inside the spine. You want to visualize a big straw or a small tube. So we're going to start the breath in the lower belly, with this expansion, this balloon like expansion on the inhale. This releasing and compression on the exhale. Then we slowly start to feel the energy of the breath. This chee, this prana, start to guide this feeling of energy up the spine. Bring your awareness up just inside the spine behind the navel. Coming up, solar plexus, upper abdomen. The breath is just as if it's heating up and creating steam, it's a steam like quality coming up. Coming up behind the heart center. Coming up through the neck to where the softness of the neck meets the skull finally up through the crown. Connecting to the rising quality of the spine, this energetic feeling. And relax. Now you can let go of the technique and just be in the body, be with the breath. With the exhales, this feeling of letting go. Letting go of any thoughts, emotions. Instead of turning away from thoughts or feelings, start to notice they're arising. Sometimes seemingly out of nowhere. We note. Any thoughts, feelings, positive, negative. We're not judging them, we let go, rising, let it go with the outbreath. Start to note how nothing's permanent. You don't need to attach. Connecting with this feeling. Not I'm stressed or I'm anxious or I'm constantly worried, but you're just feeling the energy, feeling the energy of stress. You yourself are in this enlightened body state, as I say, a diamond. We're just experiencing this rising and this release, dissipation of the thought, motion or feeling. Let's be with that for a couple. Last breaths. Rising, noting, and letting go. Start to bring this quality into your day to day life when you note these feelings, these emotions of stress or anxiety or burnout start to arise. We can note them, and we can let them go. Just experiencing the energy in non judgmental, curious manner, release them. The sense that they are not who we are, connecting with impermanence and non attachment. 16. Session 11 | Water: Welcome. This morning practice session, we really want to connect to this feeling of water. All these three movements have a water like quality to the movements, as well as a feeling in the body we want to connect to an embodied feeling of loosening, no feeling of tightness, cement or wooden like feeling. It's a soft flowing water like quality to the movements, the feeling in the body. So setting that intension that this full body full water free of tension, the breath will be slow, deep and smooth, like a slow moving river. So let's start off, take a few nice calming breaths as if we're just filling up a glass of water. And then as you exhale, it's pouring the water out. So it's just like a glass of water fill up and then pouring the water out really bringing that feeling into the body. The body is an empty vessel now filling with water and letting empty out. The first movement is what they call water waves. You just want to have this feeling you're in a lake or ocean or a pool, staying about hip height and just tracing the hands along the water, tracing your fingers, drawing nice little patterns, and just shifting the weight side to side. Nice and loose. Nothing very technical. Connect the hands to the feet. Keep the breath nice and loose. Nice and relaxed. Let's just take a couple more side to side. And next movement is like taking what they call a chee bath or a shower from the sky. So you're going to start off the hands facing the lower belly, hands not touching but close, sinkingo your feet, pushing off the feet, come up the center line, stretching up high, palms open to the sky and relax. Inhale, feeling as if the center of the palms have opened up. And then as if they were collecting rainwater or che, and then you bring them down over the top of the head, back of the neck, chest, sides like you're washing your thec field coming up in the inside, come up, relax. Open up the hands and collect. Exhale, wash the top of the head, back of the neck, down the front, coming down the outside of the legs up the inside. Inhale and rise. Exhale, relax. Inhale, open up the palms. Exhale wash over the top of the head, back of the neck, washing through the chest area. Down the outside legs, come up the inside. We're just one more time. Wash and relax. Gonna bring the feet together. Bring your left hand as if you're holding your belly right underneath the navel. The right hand will come out to the side, the inhale. Then the exhale, bring it down the center line coming down through the crown, through the middle of the body. You want to feel yourself very centered. You're very balanced, aligned, and feel grounded. This is where your center is. It's not up here when you're tense and tight, up in your chest or up in your head, connect to the lower abdomen. Inhale and rise, exhale. Center, grounded, feeling yourself here in the lower abdomen. So as you come up? It's almost like you're pulling a shower. You just feel this water flowing down the body, softening your muscles, your joints, your tissues, relaxing and releasing. Centered, grounded, calm and aware. As we finish this last round, you're going to come up. We're going to stop at what they call the three Dantions and the Taoist tradition. So you're going to take the joint of your first finger and stop between the eyebrows, they're called the upper Dantion. And here you want to connect with a feeling of clarity and wisdom and cultivating that as you move through the day and bringing it down to the heart center, sent a chess, what they call the middle Dantion. Here we connect with a feeling of kindness, compassion. Finally sinking it down, putting your hands over the lower belly, loaded navel, what they call the lower Dantion. This is our energy source, our center, being grounded, connecting to this optimal source of being calm, aware, energized, but relaxed. Do that with this other hand. Coming up, and bring it down and know yourself. How long do you need to be here? Connecting with being wise, sense of clarity, coming down, connecting with the heart center, kind and compassionate. Finally down to the lower abdomen, both hands centered, grounded, calm, yet energized and aware. Taking this, we're going to come down to a sitting position for some breathe some meditation. Coming into your seat, finding a posture. Dignified, get relaxed. Spine rising, body relaxed around that rising spine. This first practice we're going to be doing is palabt which is this powerful exhalation, all the attention and all the work is done here at the lower abdomen. The inhale, you just let the inhale happen naturally. The exhale, we're doing a powerful exhalation where the navel comes to spine, so the belly comes out on the inhale, on the exhale. Powerful exhale through the nose as we bring the belly in towards the spine, shrink in the belly. Inhale, let it just happen naturally. So it's like that. Don't even think about your inhale, belly will swell. And on the exhale, we're not moving the rest of the body, the shoulders remain still, the chest, upper back. Everything remains still. It's just this pump like motion of the lower belly, so you want to feel about we're just pumping. We're pumping the energy through the body. We're going to do two sets of 30. In between the sets, a little relaxing before we move into the next breathing practice. So take a few relaxing breaths. Remember, inhale, natural, powerful exhalations, shrink in the belly, enable the spine. Let's take inhale, and three, two, one, begin. Five, four, three, two, one. Nice relaxing breath in, in full exhalation. Nice long sigh through the mouth. And just takes some relaxing breaths. A All your awareness. Let's keep all the attention here in the lower abdomen. We're not bringing up to the mid torso. It's not going to be in the chest or the back or the head. It's as if your attention has dropped out of the mind, you're dropping into the lower abdomen. Slow deep, calming breaths. Let's take one more relaxing breath and we do one more set of 30. If it starts to be too hard for you, just end it, go to a calming breathing pattern. Just going to be pumping that energy. Et's take an exhale, exhale, exhale. As you breathe in, three, two, one, be good. Five, four, three, two, one, slow in. And release. Just for a few breaths, keeping all this attention here in the lower abdomen, just be with the expanding. 360 degrees like a balloon and contract. Really full exhalations. Keep your attention deep in the abdomen, connect to your center, grounding. Now we're going to move into a practice called whole body breathing or the cosmic breath. The feeling that the pores of the body have opened up. We're not just breathing in through the nose. In, breathing in through all the pores, oxygenating down to the blood, even down to the cellular level. Body needs to really relax and soften up for this practice. Let's start with just the intension with the torso, from the lower abdomen up through the chest and upper back. It's feeling as you breathe in, breathing in through the whole body. And as you exhale, the sound of a sigh, really letting go. Every exhale, the body drops and the mind drops a little bit deeper into calm awareness. Inhale breathing in through the whole torso. Exhale completely release and let go. Now, bring in that same tune to the body, to the whole body. Everything opens up, breathing in through all the pores and just completely release and relax as you breathe out. This whole body breathing, as I say, the cosmic breath is if you're not doing anything, just letting the cosmos breathe you And This deep breathing. Every part of your body should have a minute amount of movement. Awakened body. You're just feeling that energy moving through the whole body to breathe in and the whole body releasing as you breathe out. One more breath like this. Now, let's bring our attention to maybe somewhere in our body that we feel a little bit of tightness, maybe an achor or pain. We're not trying to turn away using our meditation to turn away. We're bringing our awareness to that spot in our body. For me, a bit of tightness in the lower right back. I'm going to bring my awareness there. I'm going to breathe in and feel. Just being with that, letting it come, letting it go, not trying to do anything, just being with it, turning towards seeing the rising and falling just like the breath rises and falls, noticing the difference in feeling. Being with felt sensations. Seeing how we could turn towards bring to mind something in your life. Using that now as your object of practice. B with it and release it. Letting go and letting be Not trying to change anything, not trying to do anything. Slowly starting to connect with the difference from doing to being. Being with the breath, being with body sensation, and being with our emotions, no matter what they are. Not trying to control or manipulate, just riding the waves. You can slowly come out of the practice, bring a little movement to your fingers and your toes. Make sure. Once again, check to make sure you're not holding any part of your body tight, loosen up anyway needed. Taking this feeling of calm awareness with you through the rest of your day. Thanks for joining. 17. Session 12 | Integrate: Welcome to this nice morning session. We're going to be working with some tai chi, like movements here to start our day, open up the body, get into a nice relaxed, calm, yet awake and aware state of being. So bringing your attention into the lower abdomen, let's take an exhale. Let's just take a couple of relaxing breaths. Once again, this feeling this three step yoga breath coming up the whole torso, like you're filling up a cylinder, on the exhale, just relax and release and let go. Let the exhales be nice and long. The exhales is where we connect with that relaxation response. Rise, energize with the inhale, relax and release as you exhale. Let's take one more breath like that. And fully letting go as you breathe out. Now, starting off with this practice, we really want to work with this feeling of connecting the body, the breath, and the mind. Starting, even weighted, knees slightly bent, the spine, nice and long, the body soft like cotton. Palms facing the ground, sink into the feet, as you inhale, powering through the legs, let the arms float up. As you exhale, they just kind of relax and float back down. You want to get the feeling here that the arms you're not making a physical effort to bring the arms up and down. It's just following the body. So you're powering through the legs, torso rising as if strings are holding the pinkies and the crown of the head up. Let's do a couple more. Nice and loose. If you find your arms feel very tight, feeling them just shake them loose, almost like a crane, which we're going to move into next. Give it a little shake and a little roll, loosen up. Next moving a crane spreads its wings. So bring your weight to your left side. You're going to cross the wrist so the palms are up. Your weight is about 80% here in your waist is to an exhale. You go to come off the heel of the low hand side, which is my left right now. The right hand goes up and out. Get a nice side stretch through here, x. So inhale, switching sides. Exhale, open up. So you want this feeling to be like a diagonal, like feeling like a big wings of a crane. Whit's like a slow motion whip like feeling. Exhale, exhale, open up. So inhale, shift about 80% of your weight, turn the waist, like your slow motion exploding off that leg. Now, exhale we're gonna do one more each side, starting now. Come in. Bring the weight, turn the waist, sink. And come out on down. We're going to finish up with some what they call cloud hands. I'm going to start off with my left arm across my body, if you want to start with the right hand. So it's as if the hands are holding a stick. They come across together. The palm starts facing you. You just shift the weight. Turn the waist, switching sides. Then put the hand out like a stop sign. High hand comes low, low hand comes high on the inhale, exhale, shift the weight, turn the waist. Elbow below the shoulder, nice and relaxed. The Exhale. The mind is just watching that middle finger as it floats across. Just like that first move, you want to have the feeling. The arm feels weightless like a cloud, cloud just moving across the sky. So the arm is just following the body as we shift the weight, turn the waist. You can keep the palm facing you, or you can start to spiral it out. Whoever feels comfortable. Inhale as high hand, low, low hand, high. Exhale move across the body. Starts diagonal, comes over to the same side. Just feel this moving meditative flow. Gonna go one more each side? And bring it up. Just feel that looseness through the body. Let's bring that same feeling of body breath and mind linked up as we move into the sitting practice. This tumor breathing practice, it's a very powerful and transformative breathing session. But what we're going to be doing is a powerful inhalation through the nose, filling up the whole torso. You want to fill it filling up from the bottom up as well as expanding sideways, and just a quick exhalation. So what we're going to be doing is a full inhale through the nose. And through the mouth, just like blowing it out very quickly through the mouth, powerful in full, and a very quick exhalation through the mouth. So it'll be like this. All right? That will last us about 90 seconds. At the end of that, we're going to take three physiological sides, an inhale through the nose, a short inhale through the mouth, and then si through the mouth, the physiological side, we do three of those. After the third, we're going to hold the breath at the bottom of the exhale. The first round 90 seconds. The second round, we're going to increase the hold 15, and then after the third round, it'll be a full two minute breath hold at the bottom of the exhale. After we've held the breath at the bottom of the exhale, I'm going to breathe in. Then at the top of the end, just hold for about 10 seconds, breathe out slow, and we'll start our second round. We're going to do three rounds of this. During the breath holds, I'm going to lead you through a very kind of simple body sensing feeling where you bring awareness to different parts of your body as we hold the breath. This is an amazing practice. Let's relax, let's enjoy. So remember, on this tumor breathing, powerful inhale, filling up the whole torso like a cylinder, bottom up into out, and just letting go with the exhale, like letting go through the mouth. So let's start it up. Let's just take some relaxing breath, just connecting to the breath. Just connecting to the body, connecting to the breath. Take one more relaxing breath. Let it go on this exhale. Then remember full powerful inhales and just short simple letting goes on the exhale and begin. Just keep a pace that works for you. Five more. Then three physiological sides, breathing in, a bit more through the mouth. And long exhalation. Letting go and again, Hmm. And last one. Release, release, release, relax, exhale till there's nothing left to exhale, and we're gonna hold at the bottom of the exhale. Bring your awareness to the hips. Sense in your buttocks and the groin. The thighs and the hamstrings. Feel into the knees. The front of the lower legs, the shin bones, and the back of the lower legs, the calf muscles. Feeling into the heels, soles of the feet, the arches of the feet, all tentes Feeling both feet coming back up, feeling the lower legs and the knees, thighs and the hamstrings back to the pelvic region. Feeling the lower body on both sides, saturating the body with your awareness. A paper towel absorbing liquid. And take a deep inhale in and hold at the top of the inhale for five, four, three, two, one, and release. And for the second round, once again, find a paste that works, if you powerful inhale and just release on the exhale and begin. Staying with it. Five more. And three physiological sighs, breathing in through the mouth. And release with the sound of a sigh. And again, one last physiological sigh. Empty out till there's nothing left to breathe out and holding at the bottom of the exhale. Bring your awareness to the shoulders. The upper arms, biceps and triceps. The elbows, feel into your forearms and the wrists palms of your hands in the back of the hands. The thumbs, the index fingers, the middle fingers. Bring fingers and pinkies. Back to the palms of the hands and the wrists, feeling the forearms, the elbows, upper arms. Bring your attention back to the shoulders. Making sure the shoulders are down and relaxed, feeling the front of the shoulders and the top of the shoulders, B of the shoulders. Feeling both arms at once with all body sensations. Bring your attention to the right side, the right arm and the right leg. Just feeling. Bring your attention to the left arm and left leg. And now breathing in. Hold at the top of the inhale for five, four, three, two, one, and relax and let go. Third and final round. Feel free to be a little stronger, a little more powerful, a little faster or go the same pace. Whatever feels right for you, really strong, powerful inhales, release on the exhales. And let's begin. If you're comfortable, pick up the paste. Five, four, three, two, one and three physiological sides. Breathe it in, in a bit more and release. In another. And let it go. In the last one. And let it go. Empty out. Exhale, exhale till there's nothing left to breathe out and just be in your body. This relaxed feeling at the bottom of the exhale, bringing your attention to the crown of the head, top of the skull. As if you're underneath a warm shower or slow motion waterfall, slowly sensing the body on the top down, relaxing. Top of the head, the forehead, relaxing through the eyes, cheeks and the ears, back of the head. The jaw, throat and neck, shoulders. Relaxing through the upper back and chest. The ribs, the solar plexus, the mid back. Feeling in, relaxing through the lower back in the abdomen. Now, bringing your attention to the whole body. Saturing the body with awareness as if there's a luminous quality empty energized. H being and taking a deep breath in. And hold for five, four, three, two, one, and just let go. Return to a nice, normal, relaxed breathing pattern. And let go of any technique. Moving from doing to being. Let your awareness be open to any and all sensations, any and all feelings. Let the mind just be open. Feel it might go to the body or the breath, open to any sounds, possibly thoughts. No need to control. Just be open. I want to take one last minute this state of open awareness. Oh as you come out of the practice, bring some movement to the fingers and the toes, take this calm yet aware and energized state with you for the rest of the day. Thanks for joining. Yeah.