đ§ââď¸Yoga to Feel Supported
How To feel supported when you are the one supporting everyone else.
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Itâs really hard to feel audacious and to make bold moves when you donât feel supported. This post is to help you feel supported so that you can access your body, audacious, brave, and courageous self.
Storytime
There was a time in my life when I had pretty severe low back pain.
On the outside, I looked like the picture of healthâŚphysically fit, eating well, and serving as a strong contributor to my community.
I was only 25 years old.
And I was getting in and out of bed like an old lady.
The issue wasnât really my back as much as it was my behaviors.
I was a high school teacher, a swim coach, advisor to the school yearbook, and working part-time every other weekend in a group home for developmentally disabled adults.
I was the kind of teacher that students would come to my room for lunch and tell me their woes. Iâd stay as late as my students needed when they came to my room after school for help with something, even if it was for homework for another teacher.
When someone needed my help, I always said yes.
In other words, I worked a lot.
And A LOT of people depended on me.
Then, when I went to the gym (every morning at 5am, and many evenings at 7pm), I worked out HARD. I didnât realize it at the time, but I was beating myself up, both in and out of the gym.
No wonder my low back hurt.
I was supporting a ton of weight, most of it not my own, and not nurturing myself in the ways I needed to.
Lesson
Your low back is first place in your body to yell at you when you donât feel supported, and when you are supporting too much.
When you have a ton of people you support that heavies the load of responsibilities you have to bear, your low back can seize up in revolt. Itâs telling you to go easy, be lighter.
But you canât just shuck your responsibilities off to other people.
And yet, you need support for yourself.
Somehow.
Somewhere.
When you canât depend on other people to support you because you are the support for EVERYONE, turn to Mother Earth.
This yoga sequence is designed to work with the support of the FLOOR to help you connect with MOTHER EARTH so you can feel SUPPORTED.
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Practice
1 - Bridge Set-Up
This is your baseline pose for todayâs practice. As a bridge is a support beam from one space to another, this pose serves as a support beam from one pose to the next. We come back to this pose between the other poses to remind our bodies of the full support of Mother Earth.
2 - Supine Twist
We tend to HOLD things in our âsaddle bagsâ or hips. This pose is a gentle rotation of your pelvis from left to right to help your body begin to surrender to release the things we have been holding, the extra responsibilities as we support others.
3 - Baby Pigeon
This is a deeper stretch of the hips and pelvis, but yet a very gentle one. Pigeons (also known as mourning doves) are known to walk and lead with their breast, meaning that they lead with love. In leading with love, we can get overly focused on service and not enough taking care of ourselves. The breast/love energy can weigh us down so much that we feel mourning of others woes as if they are our own. This can be overwhelming. Baby Pigeon pose is a very gentle way of giving those woes to a greater source - Mother Earth.
4 - Happy Baby
This is an even deeper stretch of the hips and pelvis than Baby Pigeon is. At the same time, it brings with it a bit of happiness and joy, like that of a baby. Thus, it prepares you to go back into the world and to serve others once again, but to bring that sense of freedom, joy, and play to your service. Reminding you that holding for others is an honor and a pleasure and when you do so without the tightness of holding too much, it is a beautiful energy, like that of a happy baby.