Better leadership from the inside out. - Blog

Run Salutation

Wed, 21 Jan 2015 18:21:27 GMT

A 10-minute yoga sequence for post-run, post-walk, or chronically tight low back, hips, and hamstrings.

I call this a “Run Salutation” because it flows like a Sun Salutation, but it’s a version that feels better to me after a run or long walk.

Half Sun Salutation

From standing, inhale arms overhead, keeping shoulders rolled down and relaxed. As you exhale, hinge from your hips and fold toward the floor (stopping wherever your body says to stop). Inhale and sweep back up to Arms Up Mountain. Exhale and sweep arms back down toward Forward Fold. You can take your arms out to the side, move them in front of you, or keep them on your hips. Experiment. :)

Forward Fold

Pause in Forward Fold, knees bent as much as they need to be. If your hands don’t touch the floor, you can extend them down as if they will, rest them on your shins or thighs, hang in Rag Doll with opposite hand to elbow, or interlace hands behind you in Yoga Mudra. Keep your back flat if there’s any discomfort. As you inhale, imagine lengthening the line from your tailbone through the top of your head. As you exhale, bring your belly a little closer to your thighs. Don’t force – hamstrings don’t like to be pushed and will tighten up even more if you’re too aggressive. Be nice! :)

Table and Cat/Cow

Come to Table, hands and knees, with hands under shoulders and knees under hips. Begin to move in Cat/Cow, inhaling to arch your back and look up, exhaling to round your back and look toward your belly. You can rest on flat palms, fists, or forearms, and your toes can be curled under or the tops of your feet can rest on the floor. You can move in straight lines, rounding and arching, or you can let your hips and shoulders create circles or diagonals. For a more Lateral Cat, move side-to-side, parallel with the floor, taking your hip and shoulder in a C-curve. Your hips can make a half-circle (like a smiley face) behind you. You can move with your breath, or just take a couple of breaths in one position. What feels the best to you?

Downward Facing Dog

From Table, curl your toes under and lift your hips up on an inhale, so that your body creates an upside-down “V” shape with the floor. Explore the position of your hands and feet, side-to-side and front-to-back, until you find the position that feels the best right now. Knees can be bent or straight, or you can alternate, bending one and straightening the other. Keep your back flat, head in line with your spine, shoulders rolled down away from your ears, and shift forward and back until the weight feels equally distributed between your hands and feet.

Lunge

From Downward Facing Dog, take an inhale and float one leg into the air behind you, then engage your core and step that foot forward, placing it on the floor beside your hand. Wiggle your toes or move your foot forward with your hand until your knee is in line with your hip and not extended past your ankle. Your hands can rest flat on the floor or you can “tent” your fingers, bring your forearms to your thigh, or reach your hands overhead or behind you. Explore.

Runner’s Lunge

From lunge, bring both hands to floor on the side inside your bent knee. Turn your front foot out 45 degrees. You can stay up on your hands to build core strength or set your back knee down to build more flexibility in your hips. Your front foot can be grounded, or you can roll onto the outside edge of your foot. You can stay still, of inhale arms straight and exhale elbows bent. You can face forward, or twist and turn. You might set an elbow down and reach the other hand out in front of you. If your knee is down, you might draw the foot of your back leg in toward your bottom to create more sensation in the front of your hip and thigh. Search for the sensation feels the best.

Pigeon

From Runner’s Lunge, heel-toe your front foot across toward the other side of your mat, then lay that shin down. If your hips are tight, that foot will be back near your other hip. If your hips are flexible, your shin will be closer to parallel with the front of your mat. You can stay up on your hands, arching your back and lifting your heart to create length all the way down the front of your torso to the front of the back hip. You can come down to your elbows or the floor for more sensation in the outside of the front hip. You can keep you torso centered, lay it down over your bent knee, or extend it out toward the other front corner. You can always prop a pillow or blanket under the front hip or under the bottom of the hip with the bent knee.

Seated Twist

From Pigeon, come back up to your hands and roll to the outside of the hip corresponding to your bent front knee, sitting up. You can leave your front leg bent or straighten it out in front of you. Draw your other leg around and cross it over with the knee bent and the foot on the floor. Adjust your position until both of your sit bones connect with the floor. Cross opposite hand or elbow to the knee that’s on top and sticking into the air. On an inhale, lengthen from the tailbone through the top of your head, reach the other arm overhead, then exhale, setting the raised hand down behind you, and turning your shoulders toward the side wall. With each inhale, lengthen up, with each exhale, relax your shoulders away from your ears and imagine them being parallel with the side wall.

If you’d prefer to be on the floor, lie down on your back with your arms reaching out in a “T” with your body, bend your knees and draw them in toward your chest. Take an inhale, and on the exhale lower your knees toward the floor on one side. Inhale to the center then exhale to the other side.

Repeat Sequence on Other Side

You can move directly back to Table and proceed through Downward Facing Dog, Lunge, Runner’s Lunge, Pigeon, and Seated Twist on the other side. If you’d prefer, you can move through Plank on your way to Table or from Plank directly to Downward Facing Dog. Play with it until you find your preference in the moment.

Plank

Plank is just a high or low push-up position on your hands, fists or forearms. Your knees can be down on the floor, or your legs can be straight. Create a straight line from your shoulders through your hips, through your knees or heels, as if you’re a plank propped against a stair.

Corpse

After Seated Twist on the second side, come down onto your back. You can draw your knees in and rock side to side, or move in any other way your body wants to before settling into a minute of ease. Corpse is an important “seal” for every practice, even super short ones, as it helps to integrate the experience. Rest on your back or side, with your knees bent or straight. Relax the muscles of your feet and legs, hands and arms, hips, glutes, abs, chest, shoulders, neck, and face.

Keep your mind present as your body relaxes completely – you can always just “watch” your breath as you inhale and exhale. When you’re ready to get up, roll to one side, let your hands press you back up to hands and knees, and find your way to standing. You might move through a low squat up to Mountain, from Table to Downward Facing Dog to Forward Fold to Mountain, or you might find another way. Once you’re up, take a couple more deep breaths, then head back into the rest of your day. :)

For dedicated videos for Mountain, Arms Up Mountain, Forward Fold, Lunge, Plank, Downward Facing Dog, Seated Twist, and Corpse visit: http://www.jenasawyer.com/poses.html.

Progressive Relaxation

Fri, 02 Jan 2015 01:22:29 GMT

A guided meditation to help you relax :)

BEFORE You Set Intentions for the New Year

Wed, 31 Dec 2014 23:28:12 GMT

Taking time to look back at the year ending before setting intentions and creating visions for the year ahead can help clear the slate and prepare the soil for the new seeds.

This 4-minute video will get you started...

Make list of your accomplishments over the past year, including major categories of life such as your health and wellbeing, work, finances, relationships, authenticity, growth and learning, etc. Really let yourself see what you've done with your time and energy. Be careful not to judge the size or importance of the list - this is about seeing what you DID rather than what you didn't :) Create at least a few minutes of space for yourself to just bask in the glow and celebrate and appreciate all that you’ve done, all you're becoming, and all that you are.

Buck the system - REST!!

Mon, 22 Dec 2014 23:08:22 GMT

Yesterday’s Winter Solstice marked the longest night of the year, but it’s at a time of year where many of us often get very little rest. Like much of life, the holiday season can be a giant contradiction: festive, beautiful, heartwarming, cold, peaceful, overwhelming, and confusing.

Within the span of a few minutes, we can be both the best and worst of ourselves as our kind and generous hearts are besieged by fatigue and stress. We may graciously wish joy and peace to total strangers in one moment, and then proceed to fight them in traffic the next. I’ve long said bad traffic and crammed parking lots tend to bring out the worst in people – it’s a particularly interesting juxtaposition during a time when people are (generally) at their most loving and compassionate.

Have you ever watched a child eat lots of candy, their mood and antics swirling and escalating higher and higher, louder and louder until they hit the inevitable peak of the sugar high, followed by the equally predictable crash? This time of year feels a little to me like the grown-up version of that scenario. Sometimes sugar is the culprit. Sometimes it’s a lack of sleep, too much social interaction, or too little authentic expression of our real thoughts and desires in an attempt to keep the peace. But the collapse is just as inevitable.

So before you find yourself screaming or cursing or crying (or all of the above), GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK. REST!!!!! The world won’t fall apart, I promise. Even if you take a bag of chips to your office potluck or ask your friends to skip exchanging gifts this year, or use gift bags instead of fancy wrapping, the world will keep spinning. Guaranteed. Or it won’t, and then all of that really won’t matter :)

To me, Child’s Pose represents rest - an opportunity to regroup, re-center, and take a break. Let go of the illusion of control. You can get down on the floor, or just visualize pulling into your imaginary turtle shell and breathe deeply for a few moments. In the stillness of rest, listen for the voice of balance. BREATHE.

7 Ways to Strengthen Low Back

Thu, 11 Sep 2014 17:24:28 GMT

4th in a series of 6 to decrease low-back pain.

6 Ways to Strengthen Abs

Wed, 11 Jun 2014 23:22:53 GMT

3rd in a series of 6 to decrease low-back pain.

Happiness Is An Inside Job

Thu, 29 May 2014 16:24:43 GMT

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi’s words are a powerful reminder: happiness is an inside job. It has nothing to do with the car you drive, what anyone thinks of you, where you live, or how much stuff you have. It’s a matter of being clear about what matters to you and choosing thoughts, words, and actions in alignment with those values.

When you’re not happy, look for what’s askew. What are you saying, thinking or doing that doesn’t serve you or align with what you hold dear? Where are you judging what you’re seeing or experiencing? Where are you attached to a certain outcome? Where are you in the groove of an old record that it’s time to break over your knee and toss aside? Where do you need new boundaries? What can you learn from the experience?

You’re not a victim, you’re an observer and creator. Get present. Breathe. Experience. Notice. Choose. Love. BE.

Be Present and CHOOSE!

Wed, 28 May 2014 22:19:34 GMT

"Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. It is all we ever have, so we might as well work with it rather than struggling against it. We might as well make it our friend and teacher rather than our enemy." ~Pema Chodron

Every moment contains an opportunity for a choice - love or fear? Possibility or limitation? Seriousness or light-heartedness? Resistance or acceptance? Growth or comfort? Creating change requires consistently making choices in alignment with your goal.

That may sound simple, but it requires a level of awareness most of us don’t have much experience maintaining. Have you ever arrived somewhere in your car with no recollection of the journey? Walked away from a conversation and had no idea what was said? Events like those remind us how often we operate on auto-pilot, without being fully present. While our ability to function automatically can save us a lot of time, it can also undermine our transformation.

Practicing presence is absolutely crucial to our personal revolution. Two of the most powerful keys to presence are sensation & breath. Notice your thoughts, emotions, actions, and physical responses. Pay attention to what tempts you to check-out, run away, or numb out. Be there for every possible moment.

No matter what is happening around you, you have a choice. Who you will be in the face of it? What story will you tell about it? Will you suffer over it or accept it? Will you let it stop you or find a way to learn and grow from it? Your life is the sum-total of the choices you made in the ever-unfolding present moment. Choose!

5 Stretches for Tight Hips

Fri, 23 May 2014 16:40:50 GMT

5 Stretches for Tight Hamstrings

Wed, 14 May 2014 23:00:25 GMT