B. R. F. W. A.

Breathe Relax Feel Watch Allow!

A Kripalu classic!

All Kripalu trained yoga teachers learn to use this in each yoga pose, in meditations, and in everyday life! 

BRFWA pronounced BRIF-WA is an easy technique you can use when things get heated, when you’re stressed, overwhelmed, in an argument, or in a challenging yoga pose…OR just when you want to be more present!

1. BREATHE: When you are experiencing a challenging moment whether it be a yoga pose your teacher is making you hold for what feels like forever, or a wave of anxiety, or you’re having a difficult conversation, just remembering to breathe can make all the difference. Deep breathing can help to break up the stuck energy in your body and to allow for more internal flow. The breath can also help shift your nervous system from fight/flight to rest/digest. 

2. RELAX: Scan your body for any tension and invite the body to soften. Common areas of tension are the jaw, shoulders, belly, and hips.  

3. FEEL: now that we have released tension it is a bit easier to truly feel what is going on physically, emotionally, and mentally. It can be a courageous act to truly let ourselves feel the experience. See if you can do this without judgement. Notice sensations, emotions, thoughts. Be curious as you navigate your internal landscape.      

4. WATCH: Now step back from your experience and observe sensations, emotions, and thoughts as if you are the blue sky and they are all clouds passing by. Watch as your experience shifts, ebbs, and flows. You are the steady anchor observing the waves of life. You are the witness. From here you have perspective on the current situation.

5. ALLOW: now let go of any doing- - any desire to make something happen-  allow the experience to be as it is, we let go, we ride the waves of experience.  Let yourself feel exactly what you’re feeling—even if the emotions seem odd, out of place, annoying, frustrating, allow it to move through you. 

In this week’s mini yin practice I’m contemplating the “powerful unbounded consciousness” that I am. As I practice I visualize softening the boundary of skin and flesh that “separates” me from all that is. I allow my mind to soften along with my skin, my muscles, my ego. As I allow all this to melt my breath is allowed more room to expand and my spirit to expand with it. I am not “trying” to expand, but allowing it to be as powerful and unbounded as it is.

Shoelace: this pose can be quite intense in that it creates a lot of sensation in the hips. The knees are meant to be stacked one on top of the other but if this is too uncomfortable feel free to place a block/blanket between the knees or outstretch and straighten the bottom leg so only the top leg is bent. Breeaaaathe deeply in this pose. Continuously remind yourself to soften your face. Often the pleasure in this pose is in the release! Stay upright for 3-5 minutes or begin to fold forward after a minute if it feels good in your body.
When you release this pose you might feel creaky and achey. Take your time as you outstretch your legs, lean into your hands and let yourself feel the echo of the pose in your body.

Melting Heart: If hanging out here feels uncomfortable you might like to try this with a prop under your elbows/triceps! Inhale expansive energy through the crown of your head, exhale limiting beliefs through the heart center. 

Bridge: In the image the block is at the highest setting but you could even try this with a couple of pillows under your sacrum for a more restorative version. What is your relationship to having your heart open and vulnerable? Do you feel better able to allow the heart to be open when the back feels supported? As you lie here, with each exhale can you soften your resistance to allowing the front body and the heart to open?

Legs up/snail: Lie here and contemplate the existence of your toes! If it feels good in your body you can drop your legs straight back behind your head into Snail pose (or what you might know as Plow Pose) either keeping you legs straight, or bending them and bringing the knees to the ears. 

Always take several breaths between each pose to rest+feel

Hakini Mudra

Finding it easier to drop in to your meditation session when using a mantra but want to take your level of focus (dharana) to the next level? Hakini mudra to the rescue! This is the mudra for focus, concentration, memory, and clarity. ⁠

This is my go to mudra before I need to sit down for a couple hours of paper writing. ⁠

In Hakini mudra we create a complete circuit of energy in the body by bringing the fingers to touch. It is said that this mudra helps to bring together the right and left hemispheres of the brain. ⁠
When I practice Hakini mudra I like to imagine all my scattered energy being drawn back into the center where I can allow it to settle. ⁠

Sit with this mudra for anywhere from 2-10 minutes or until you feel ready to focus on your task at hand!

Let me know if you try it out! ⁠

This sequence begins with 3 forward folds for encouraging introversion and focus. 

Hold each pose for 3-5 minutes. 

1. Caterpillar: unlike your classic seated forward fold make sure your feet are not flexed and the muscles in the legs are relaxed. USE AS MANY PROPS AS NEEDED! Sit on a blanket/cushion. Place blocks/bolster/blanket under knees. Place a bolster/pillows on your legs to support your torso. Prop up your head with fists. As you rest here you might imagine thoughts draining out of your forehead as you allow the earth to absorb them. After 3-5 minutes slowly release the pose by bringing your hands behind you to prop yourself up. Sit & feel the echo of the pose in your body.

2. Butterfly: Same rules apply here: make sure you support yourself as much as necessary. If you find it hurts to have your knees bent in this way make sure you place something underneath. Now that you have dropped in to your body with caterpillar you might be ready to begin shifting into the “flow” phase. Connect with a sense of flow in your body. Even if you do not feel any flow you can encourage it by deepening your breath and/or visualizing that the sensations you feel are flowing through your entire body instead of remaining stagnant. 

3. Sleeping Swan: (aka pigeon). This pose often stirs up a lot of sensation. Can you take a step back from the sensation and observe it without judgement? Notice the ebb&flow of sensation&breath. In this pose practice cultivating your ability to witness your experience without reacting. Even when you have a desire to move can you observe the sensation and just let that be? (if you have a desire to move because you are in pain- please move!)

4. Supported Side Bend: in this pose you place a bolster/pillows under the side of the torso underneath the armpit. You can have the knees bent or straight. The arms can be alongside the ears if comfortable. After a minute or so you might keep the knees/legs where they are as you roll on to your back into a supine twist. This is the pose to “let go”. To let yourself be. Allow. Surrender. Nothing to do but just be. 

Taking 20 minutes to do this could totally turn your day around! Let me know if you try it!

Mantra Meditation

"Dharana", the sanskrit word for “concentration” is the sixth limb of the eight limbs of yoga. Once the mind is focused you can meditate, which is “dhyana” the seventh limb. Then comes “samadhi”, or “enlightenment”, the eighth limb. These three final limbs can also be thought of as “focus, flow, and let go”. (I think I first heard that from my teacher Sudhir Jonathan Foust). ⁠⠀
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For there to be freedom in the mind there must first be focus. We can find that focus through mantra meditation.⁠⠀
As I mentioned last week 98% of our thoughts are the same thoughts we thought yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that! Mantra meditation is a great way to insert a new thought into your daily thought carousel, and a great way to focus the mind for meditation.⁠⠀
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So far I’ve shared the mantra “my roots run deep into the center of the living earth” and I will continue to share more. You also can make up your own phrase or just choose a word.

Some to get you started:

1. OM

2. I am that I am

3. I am enough

4. I am where I am meant to be

5. Peace

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In meditation you can choose many things to focus on: breath, sound, sensation, etc… no matter what you choose to focus on all you have to do is come back to your point of focus every time you realize you have wandered off into some fantasy or a rabbit hole of thoughts. In this case you will come back to your mantra. ⁠⠀
You can repeat the mantra in your mind until you feel you’ve “dropped in” to a flow state and are ready to let go of it. You could also begin by repeating it out loud, then whisper it, then just repeat it in your head. ⁠⠀

Try it out and see how it goes!⁠⠀
Happy mantra-ing! ⁠⠀

Ksepana Mudra

The mudra for letting go. ⠀
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I have experienced feeling fairly “empty” after practicing this mudra so If you would like to add Ksepana mudra to this week’s Yin practice (see previous post) I would suggest sitting in meditation with the mudra for a few minutes and then transitioning into the yin poses to ground you and get you back into your body. ⠀
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Ksepana mudra is for emptying yourself of negative energy to make space for new and positive energy! Negative energy includes physical ailments and negative thoughts, experiences, and memories. ⠀
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As you hold the mudra visualize what you want to let go of and imagine you can let go a little bit more with each exhaaaaale. ⠀
You can hold the mudra in front of your heart, or point your fingers down in a gesture of letting go and releasing. If you are lying down you can point the fingers towards your feet. ⠀

Sit with this mudra for a few minutes, add it to your meditation, or begin and/or close your yin or other asana practice with it!
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Let me know if you try it- and how it feels!! Happy mudra-ing! ⠀

Allot about 20 minutes for this sequence. No props needed!

Hold each pose for 3-5 minutes. (Insight Timer is a wonderful app with tibetan bowl sounds for the alarm instead of the harsher alarm sounds that come with our phones.)

1. CHILDS POSE: knees as wide as feels comfortable, big toes together, arms extended but remember to allow the muscles to be passive! If too much weight is in your knees when you bring your forehead to the floor bring something under your forehead so the weight goes back towards your heels.
2. SPHINX: if you have tight neck and shoulders this pose can be uncomfortable at first but stick with it! See what it’s like to just be supported by your bones and let the muscles “melt”.

3. HALF FROG: take just 1 minute on each side to give your lower back a break after all that compression from Sphinx pose!
4. STIRRUP: for those of you who have done Happy Baby in a yoga class you might be surprised at how holding Stirrup for a few minutes can be a bit uncomfortable. What is it like to breathe into the discomfort? (note: do not breathe into pain! If it’s pain just let the pose go/back off. Discomfort is different than pain!) Between the poses take a minute to just breathe and feel the echo of the pose in your body. 

I heard someone say once that Yin yoga is a bitter practice with a sweet result (was it Bernie Clarke who said this?). Some of the poses can be very pleasurable when holding them, but more often than not the real pleasure comes from the release. 

PRANAYAMA FOR LETTING GO:

To deepen the experience of letting go of the old to make room for the new add some breath and a visualization to your Yin practice! This breath works especially well in Childs Pose and Sphinx. 
1. as you inhale imagine drawing the breath in through the crown of your head and visualize the breath/energy moving down your back all the way to the base of the spine. 
2. as you exhale visualize the breath/energy moving back up your spine and pouring out of your heart (or you might visualize it pouring out of your chest)
3. Continue like this or add the visual of drawing into your body on the inhale what you would like to draw into your life and on the exhale releasing what you would like to get rid of. 

note: illustrations are a collaboration between me and my mom but most of the credit goes to her

My Roots Run Deep Into the Center of the Living Earth

Post holiday rest  *part 2*

Did you do the yin poses from part 1 but still feel a bit disconnected, scattered and ungrounded ? Calm and center the mind and body even more by adding the very grounding “bhu mudra” either in seated meditation before and/or after the yin poses, or even incorporate it into the yin poses. 

To do the Bhu mudra simply place the tips of your peace fingers on the ground as shown in the image. 

Option to add the mantra: 

“my roots run deep into the center of the living earth.” 

(not sure if the credit for this mantra goes to Jennifer Reis or Joseph LePage?)

Close your meditation practice or yin practice with the intention of offering some of the peace and joy you experienced in the last 20 minutes to those who made it possible for you to have these 20 undisturbed minutes to yourself 🙏

What is Yin Yoga?

In the future I will go even more in depth into Yin yoga but for now here is what you need to know:

• Yin yoga has its roots not only in the yogic practices from India but also in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Taoist yoga. Just like TCM uses acupuncture to help unblock Qi/energy by inserting needles along meridian lines (channels in the body through which energy flows)  the practice of yin yoga unblocks energy by applying pressure to those same meridian lines. (If you’re familiar with yogic “nadis”, meridians are essentially the same thing). 

• Yin yoga accesses the fascia, connective tissues, tendons, and ligaments instead of the muscles (which we access in yang yoga styles like vinyasa). We do this by entering the poses without warming up and holding the pose for 3-5 minutes which is the amount of time it takes to rehydrate the connective tissues and restore flexibility. 

• In the 3-5 minutes we hold the pose we only move if we are in pain and need to modify or if the body begins to open up and allows us to sink more deeply into the pose. Otherwise we find stillness and surrender. In Yin yoga we have the opportunity to allow, accept, and be (as opposed to do). 

• Sometimes when we come out of a yin pose we feel a bit stiff and achey- this is normal. Exit the pose slowly and take a minute to just sit and feel the effects of the pose. 

 A COUPLE OF MY THOUGHTS ON YIN YOGA…

1. People who practice yoga often talk about having an experience of a “yoga high” after practicing and I have to say that the particular yoga high I experience after a yin yoga class is what really got me hooked on this approach to yoga. 

2. After ten years of trying different meditation techniques I finally figured out how to approach meditation after diving deep into yin yoga. Yin yoga taught me how to be with discomfort and observe my experience without needing to change it. This profoundly shifted my meditation practice, and my whole life. 

Have you tried yin yoga? what did you think? 

Stay tuned for the first in my 20 minute self care series!!