Yoga Practice: Heart Opening, Backbends, Hip Openers

Untether your heart with backbends and hip openers

Stand with hands, palms open, elbows bent at heart center

Close the eyes and gaze inwards as if gazing down into your heart and ask the meaning of the practice, the journey you are open to receive from your deepest highest self.  Be courageous and listen to your heart’s desire

From there the practice begins

Untether My Heart

                                                                             

Untether my heart.

Untether my mind.

Unite my heart and mind.

Ignite my soul on fire blazing through this path before me

With all its peaks and valleys.

My heart is delicate, I know.

Fearful of being seen and abandoned

I shield myself with armor decorated in diamonds,

The hardest but most beautiful jewel,

From feeling future and memories of past.

Behind the armor is a soft, tender lover

Daring greatly For the spark and courage to be seen.

This is me.

Home is Where the Heart Is

Home is where the Heart is. “To live in accord with love is to set your heart on fire. In the crucible of such an inferno all convention burns away. What’s left is an entirely new kind of existence, one full of passion, presence, and infinite possibility”. Raphael Cushnir “Setting Your Heart on Fire” There are so many common expressions focused on the heart. We might say, “Home is where the heart is” or “listen to your heart and all else will follow” or “you broke my heart”. We know the heart can’t literally talk or break in two, but the feelings from this space in our bodies feel that intense. Compared with the brain, the electromagnetic field of the heart is a thousand times greater. It emanates thousands of times more electricity and magnetism than any other organ in your body. Your heart perceives information, just like your eyes might and then, as the heart beats, radiates vibrational energy. There becomes a feedback loop between the heart and the brain. The heart tells the brain what to perceive as information and what should be the corresponding emotion. Sometimes the two organs agree and other times they disagree. Think of how your heart aches for someone that your mind knows is not right for you. These vibrations cause our cellular makeup to energetically have resonance or dissonance. One of the most powerful and most associated to the heart is LOVE. We feel it when we hug our children, when we find a partner, and during love making. But we can also experience this field of energy we call “love” through music, singing, laughing, movement, dance, and meditation. Think of the “deadheads” who followed the Grateful Dead like a tribe addicted to the need to feel more love in their lives through dance and music. Artists like the Red Hot Chili Peppers at Super Bowl 2014, sing their hearts out and we connect to these passionate performances. How can one not feel something when the artists are giving it their all? If you look at the heart from an energetic chakra center, it is the central point of where love and relationships reside. The heart links to the most predominant sense in the body, our sense of touch. It is no wonder why we feel love when we hug and touch each other. When we are angry, the opposite happens. We pull away, crossing arms over chest, and retracting from the power of touch. These are instinctual and very important emotions. “The heart will hear what it is programmed to hear. If love resides in the heart, it will attune to love. If fear, greed, or envy resided within, the heart will access negativity,” writes Stephen Harrold Buhneer in The Secret Teachings of Plants. The negativity we endure emotionally can be so painful to our hearts it can literally shut us down causing illness and even death. Therefore, we must think of our hearts as our partner, lover and supporter/destroyer. So set your heart on fire with love and your life will be alive with a positive vibration. *Other inspirations and quotes from Shiva Rea’s book “Tending the Heart Fire”, Cyndi Dale’s encyclopedia “The Subtle Body”

Emotions and the Heart’s Response

When we speak about emotions it seems the first thing that happens is the body’s response and facial gestures. The facial cues are: a smile, drawn down mouth, a quiver of the lips, piercing eyes, nostrils flare, jaw drops, tears, a roaring laugh…you get the drift. The body language has many cues such as: the chest caves in, slump of the shoulders, heart lifts with pride, the arms open for embrace, arms cross the heart, and it goes on. There is a reason for this. The heart perceives information first in the body then the brain figures out what to do with it. Therefore, the center of the body emotes a response. What does emotion mean? Where did it come from? The Latin root “emovere” “to set in motion”, means the idea of physical movement and the association with mental movement. (found in psychoanalysis dictionary) The choice of the word makes perfect sense as it was given to a literal physical reponse of the senses moving towards processed feelings. Now, why do so many of us hold back emotions. Fear of being “seen” vulnerable? Since when was that a negative thing? So many stories I have heard through the years during my hairstyling days and today as a yoga teacher about people’s stories and emotions. Here are just a few. “She was so expressive.” “He is way too affectionate with me.” She was so needy, I couldn’t wait to get away”. “Why does she have to be so sensitive?” “He is always so angry when we talk about our feelings”. “She can be so temperamental.” These are all just defenses. The truth lies in the heart. Untether your heart allowing your heart brain to express truth. Where there is vulnerability there is truth. Where there is truth there is love and compassion. That is all we need.

Total Body, Leg Crushing Workout

A great workout using TRX, Barre, and bands for total body leg crushing workout in 45min.

Warm up

Walking lunges step together to a/L for 30

Squats 20

TRX squat rows 15

On mat magic circle inner thighs stability pulse at top then 45 degrees for 20

Big ball at wall with small ball in between legs and kettle bell

a/L lunges with shoulder press bands

magic circle inner thigh laying on mat

push ups at barre

barre with ball squats

repeat from the top

rest in plank TRX with bent elbows

plea squats with calf raises with TRX 15-20 reps

TA planks with DWD

Explosive jump squats 10-15

Pull up in reverse table use s/L 10 times each leg

Repeat from the top

Rest in plank TRX with bent elbows

Hamstrings TRX knee’s in/out and up

Plank reverse table feet in TRX on hands 30 sec hold or knee’s in/out plus dips

2 sets

on knee’s plank hold and in/out

add tricep extensions

standing for biceps extensions