Mobilizing Mid-Body Release

Hello, and thank you for tuning in. We are going to work on mobilizing the viscera in this class. Mobilizing our organs a bit, bringing some renewed energy to them. So for this class, we're gonna be mostly sitting on the mat, sitting on the ground. If you need a cushion to be comfortable here to really feel like you've got range available to move in your spine.

If you sit in this cross-legged position on the floor and your knees come up a bit, then you'll wanna bring your pelvis up so that your thighs drop down and you'll have a little more movement available in your pelvis. And so what we'll do here is just relax our arms on our knees or thighs. Really the most important thing is that you feel comfortable in the position that you're in. And we'll just close our eyes for a moment and take a deep breath. And as we exhale, just allow the weight of the body to settle down and just take a few moments to scan what you feel like, scan what your body feels like right now, and now bring your awareness to the points of contact that you're making under your seat through your feet.

And again, as you inhale draw the breath in just a little bit slower so that you can really appreciate that upward current that the inhale provides. And as you exhale, soften the tissues around the space that the inhale created, inhaling slowly and fully to feel that sense of expansion and growth, exhaling slowly to feel the way that the pelvis weights down. Allow your lower back and your abdomen to soften, allow for your jaw and your neck to soften. Just notice the way that your head sits between your shoulders. And then we'll bring our hands in closer to our hips.

Just noticing where our thighs become our groin, our groin being the intersection between pelvis and thighs and just placing the hands there so that you're holding the lower area of the abdomen or the area of the pelvis, and now exhale and allow yourself to slouch down gently and slowly into your seat. Really feeling the weight now in that downward motion towards your pelvis. And as you inhale let your abdomen expand, it's gonna start lifting your chest forward and up, but be mindful of what happens through the lower back. As we exhale, allowing ourselves to roll down and back. And as we inhale, we wanna keep this quality of a heavy pelvis as we're breathing and rising up.

So inherent to the exhalation is a letting go, right? We're letting go of the breath. We can let go of the weight. We release. Inherent to the inhalation as a taking in, bringing space in, bringing renewed oxygen in.

As we continue to roll back and forth with our exhale and our inhale, we wanna keep that feeling of heavy thighs and pelvis. And now this rocking motion in the pelvis will start to become a circle. So we're gonna lean over to one side, one hip will get a little lighter, roll in front of the sit bones over to the other side and behind. You can keep your awareness or bring it back to the base of your seat. Notice how you roll around the sitting bone, behind them over the other side, and then in front of them.

But as you're rocking around, keep reminding the tissues of your back, the tissues around your organs and your abdomen to stay heavy, to stay releasing downward. Breathing through one part of the circle, breathing through the other part of the circle. Just notice how your breath syncs up. How does it synchronize with your movement? And then when you're ready, reverse this direction.

And again, if it's helpful for you to close your eyes, to really be able to tune into what you're sensing at your seat, close your eyes, release your glutes, release your genitals, release around your anus, feeling a sense of releasing in that space between the genitals and the anus, really feeling how all of the parts fall down into the depth of your pelvic bowl. One more time, reverse the direction of your circle when you feel ready, simply exploring the circular motion at the base of the spine, accompanied with the awareness of releasing downward into gravity. And when you feel that you're ready, you'll sit in the center between the sits bones, where you come up, and now we're gonna place our hands on our rib cage. So right hand on the left lower rib, left hand on the right lower rib. And this quality of weighting down, the quality of earth and heaviness and roots traveling, getting pulled down it remains, but what will rise is our awareness.

So now we're going to feel and listen to our rib cage area. And again, as we exhale, allow ourselves to slouch or schlump over, and as we inhale slowly feeling the rise as we inhale, but only going gently. Like right now, I know I can physically push through it, but now I'm feeling the muscles in my back drawing into work. So I'm not gonna go that far. As I exhale, I'm rounding up in over myself, only going as far as it feels like it's willing to let go.

Inhaling first. As a result of the inhale, rising up, exhaling, folding back down. Allow yourself to feel the wave of the breath and notice how you can ride it. Slowing the breath down every time is incredibly helpful. So the idea's like you've got a valve through which you can control how much air comes into your body.

Draw the air in and let the air out very slowly through a very fine straw, through a very fine hose. 'Cause if we inhale too quickly, my breath is done and I've got nowhere left to go in my movement. So I exhale and I drain all of the breath out. And now I'm more mindful of inhaling very slowly. Play with that for a couple of more breaths.

And now keeping that awareness, we're gonna turn this into a circle. So I'm inhaling, feeling the rise from the exhale, this I'll let my head go to one side so that my ribs go open and move to the other side. The weight of my head rolls forward. So my ribs roll back. And then my head goes to the other side to move and open the ribs diagonally.

And then if it feels easy for the muscles in your back, your head can slightly roll back, or it just rolls up. Notice that as you're circling around now in your rib cage, your pelvis is staying rooted and heavy. Your thighs are relaxing. The size of the circle does not matter, how far you move, your range does not matter. What matters is your ability to stay heavy, to feel like you stay connected to the point of you that is grounded, that is anchored to the earth.

And then we reverse the direction of our circle whenever and wherever in the movement we feel like we're ready for that. And then finding our way into our center, let the arms rest back down on the knees and the thighs, close the eyes and just notice. When you take a deep breath, what might you feel? And now using our mind's eye, we're going to bring our awareness into the area that sits between the sitting bones and these lower ribs, which is more or less the center of the naval area. And now we're going to circle around from this naval center, which is not necessarily aligned with the belly button, but is more about feeling that you're moving through the center now, or again, that point in between the lower aspect of your rib cage and the lower aspect of your pelvic bowl.

Allow yourself to explore. You can let your head get involved if it feels like it naturally moves into it. If it doesn't, then don't worry about it. When you feel ready, reverse the direction of your circle and notice how it's really about, again, letting our weight roll through. Inhaling as you move through one direction, exhaling as you move through the other.

One more time, reversing and rolling back. And now, as you feel ready coming back into the center, if your legs are getting tired or your hips are getting tired, feel free to make changes. Sometimes taking one leg out, taking the other leg out, whatever you need to do to sit on your pelvis, just for a moment longer. This time we're gonna take our hands out to the sides. And in fact, let's go ahead and take our left leg all the way out.

It can be the right leg if that's more comfortable. Take one leg all the way out, just be mindful that your legs aren't so far apart, that now it's pulling on your lower back and your pelvis. You wanna make sure that there's enough movement still available so that it's not taking you anywhere near where you feel like you've got nowhere left to go. We're going to reach our fingertips out to the sides along the mat and feel ourselves grow up through the center and inhale. And as we exhale, not the long leg arm, but the opposite arm is gonna reach up and over the head, push down with the hand that's on the ground and just take a moment to reach long in a diagonal, bring the hand behind your head and gently turn to look up an inhale.

Notice what it feels like to breathe into the side of the abdomen. Exhale, feel yourself weighting down, rooting into your pelvis and into the earth, and then inhale, take the arm back up and over, bringing it back where it came from. And then again, now reaching the same side arm of the long leg, taking it up and over, right? Noticing that on this side, it's a lot easier for the pelvis to come with. So be really mindful of how you use your bottom arm to help you stay anchored and releasing through your lower back.

Bring the hand behind the head, inhale, gently turn and look under the left shoulder as long as the shoulder and the spine feel like that's appropriate. If you feel like it's hard to get there, then just stay wherever you are. Don't force yourself. If it feels like you're pushing into something, then pull back, it's okay. And then we'll bring our arm back up and now this time we're gonna find the center, and we're gonna take our hand, the opposite hand to the long leg out in front of us.

And we're gonna use our arms. The back arm is gonna gently, as if I was gonna slide it forward, but it doesn't move. It pushes down and forward just enough to send my opposite shoulder forward. And it turns me to look over. And so what I'm playing with is creating rotation in my trunk, and then I'm gonna round over my leg a little bit and breathe there to see what I feel through my organs and allow yourself to burp, allow yourself to fart.

You might have gurgling. This is why we're doing it. Whatever needs to come out, let it go, let it out. Inhale deeply while you're there, exhale, exploring using the arms to create the movement and then coming out of it and sitting tall, switching the hands out to explore, turning in the opposite direction. And again, notice that as you're rotating, there is a certain amount of allowing yourself to round slightly so that the muscles in our spine don't feel like they have to work to pull back.

But instead we're allowing them to have some give so that we feel really weighted. And so that there's nothing pulling on our organs. Relax the abdomen as you breathe, notice how your fingers push down and forward. And the hand in front is just kind of there to guide and support, but it's really the hand on the back that leverages the floor to create some movement. And as you're ready, you'll bring your hand forward.

We'll do this one more time to the other side. And switching one last time. Again, being really mindful that we're just exploring the movement, feeling the movement of the breath as we're in this twisted shape. And then bringing both of the hands back to center, walking them up and in towards yourself. Let's bring that long leg in for a moment, stretch the other one out.

And again, just notice how your pelvis feels. Notice that your legs are in a position where you're able to roll back into your seat. Inhaling, walking the fingertips out. We'll bring one arm up and over, it doesn't matter which arm. Reach long, explore the feeling of breathing into the side of the ribs.

Relax the thighs, keep the pelvis heavy. When you're ready take that arm back out and down, anchor it into the ground, lift your other arm up and over, simply exploring where does it feel the most comfortable to be. Where does it feel the most comfortable when you breathe deeply in this shape. Relaxing around your glutes, coming all the way back up. And now once again, take one hand in front, push down into the fingertips, kind of gently rounding around yourself.

The fingertips slide forward to send the opposite shoulder forward. Breathe, and then walk the hands around, come up tall through the center, but be really mindful that this concept of coming up tall, isn't pushing you into work mode on your back muscles. It's just, relative to the shape you're in, you're a little bit taller. So that now from there you've got more give to turn yourself around. And this time we'll come back up and through our center, bring both of the legs in, and now we're going to lie on our back.

So we can have our knees bent, hook our hands behind our knees. Keep the legs really heavy. And just notice that as your sacrum rolls back, your thighs can release. Use your arms, really hang off of your legs. Notice that the weight of your forehead moving forward helps you slow down and come all the way on to your spine.

Hug the knees into your chest for just a moment, inhale deeply and fully, exhale and stay there. If you feel any discomfort or pressure in your hips then you'll wanna separate your knees a little wider. Basically change the shape that creates pressure, find the one that doesn't, that's always the golden rule. And now we'll bring our feet back onto the ground and we can keep our feet on the ground here so that we feel very supported by the soles of the feet. Notice that the lower back feels easy.

And we're going to bring our fingers, our fingertips down onto our pubic bone. And so we'll start, and be gentle with yourself, especially if you've never done this before or received bodywork where someone's poking their fingers into your abdominal area. Be very gentle with yourself because we're never sure of what we're going to find, which honestly, that being said, even if you have done this before or used to bodywork, you still wanna be gentle because every moment is unique. So our fingertips will start on our pubic bone and we're just gonna gently press onto it and walk our fingertips out along the width of the pubic bone, until we come to those round edges and into the groin. And then you'll just walk your fingertips back in and just notice the sensation of going back and forth.

It's not that wide, right? It's pretty narrow. Go slowly. Sometimes we feel things pop like that bubble wrap sensation can happen, right? Where we're releasing little bubbles in our fascia, where we feel sometimes some tenderness and bruising.

If you find any areas that feel like, this is kind of yucky, but I can tell it's good. Hold it and breathe into it. Just do it with lots of care. Never as much as you can, never as hard as you can, always pull back. And then you'll walk your fingers up just a little higher so you're above your pubic bone and we'll do the same thing.

Where our fingertips are kind of like pressing, just doing this little sideways walk to the widest part, which will be your groin in this lower area, and then to the area in the midline where the fingers meet up again. And just take your time, you're welcome to close your eyes. And as you repeat little by little, your fingertips will be moving up higher and higher. Be mindful to release your breath, let the size out when the size feel like they need to come out, whatever needs to come out, allow it to come out. Pressing around your hip bones, right?

If your hands get tired, you can start moving from your wrist more than from your fingertips, which would be like taking the pinky finger and then rolling it in like, like it's a wrist rolling movement to get the hands to move in towards the midline and then to get the hands to move out and a way from the midline. And it's really an invitation to explore your body. It's yours, right? Who more should know about it than you. You live in it.

And as you come up out of the pelvic area and into the abdominals zone, again, just move with care. Be gentle with yourself. Pause when you need to pause and breathe. Notice how the rest of you responds, right? If you find a tender or a vulnerable spot, other parts of your body might respond to protect, pause there and let the body know that you're perfectly safe.

Let your tissues know that you made it, that whatever memory they're still holding on to in this very now moment, it's safe to let it go. With great respect and even greater gratitude because it's thanks to those mechanisms of protection and tension and guarding, right? We're able to keep pushing and moving and doing so always with great gratitude and respect for what is, as you massage and continue to explore this area. And you'll notice that you've got ribs, right? You'll notice that it gets bony.

It goes from being bony at the pubic bone and then a bit mushier and mushy. Remember mushy and jiggly and soft are all really positive things we want in our abdomen and in our life and around our organs. And now when we get back to where we're bony again, we're gonna use our fingertips and just very gently explore the edge of the diaphragm or this bottom edge underneath your ribs. Just be gentle. Again, sometimes it can be like, whoa, what's in there?

So much sensation. Sometimes it's not. Take advantage of those days, right? Where it's not that eventful and really hang out and breathe. How does the tissue, how is one side tougher than the other, right?

Can you kind of recognize and say, yeah, that makes sense. That the tissue under my rights floating rib area feels denser than my left floating rib because I've got a long history with my right hip, right? My strong hip, the one that's allowed me to do so much because there's another side to that story, right? Which I'm sure we all know, we don't need to get into. How do we reframe the things that we recognize so that we can approach them with a much more joyful, right?

With an approach that actually will give us energy and not take it from us. And so you're welcome to keep exploring the ideas. Basically start from the midline at the base, moving out and in, out and in. And it's in this zigzag in-out, in-out motion that we make it all the way up to the ribs. And then we'll just lengthen our legs all the way out.

Let the arms release at the sides, close the eyes and just notice. And as you feel like you're ready, you'll take a deep inhale, reach the arms up and over your head, take a long exhale like you're stretching to yawn, reaching the joints away from each other, stretching in a way that feels really good. And then we'll bring the arms back down, walk the feet back in, hug the knees back into the chest. And again, this time let's pull the knees in really tight. See if we can wrap our elbows around them and grab the wrist of the opposite arm, or as close to that as we can get.

Remember, allow the gases to move, let everything out and breathe. One last breath. And then as you're ready, gently turning onto your side and slowly making your way back up to sitting. And just notice how we feel as we come up. And when you're ready, opening your eyes, deepening your breath.

And as you exhale, relax your abdomen, release your groin, allow your pelvis to feel anchored. Remember, the deeper the roots, the taller the tree. Thank you so much for being here.