All posts by Amanda Vaughan

Wellness topic, Yoga

Chakra Yoga Therapy Sequence for Emotional Balance & Flow

Session from Last Night’s Group

The second chakra, or Sacral Chakra (Svadhisthana), is the energetic center connected to emotional flow, creativity, pleasure, and the ability to experience life with a sense of fluidity rather than tension. Located in the low belly and pelvis, this chakra helps us connect to movement, sensation, and healthy boundaries. When balanced, it supports flexibility — both physically and emotionally — allowing us to feel our feelings without becoming overwhelmed by them. This practice is designed to gently open and regulate the Sacral Chakra through mindful movement, breath, and grounding awareness.

✨ Warm-Up: Awakening the Body

1. Standing Joint Circles
Begin standing tall. Gently circle the ankles, knees, hips, wrists, and shoulders. Move slowly and intentionally, inviting awareness into each joint.

2. Swaying Side to Side
Shift your weight from one foot to the other in a slow, rhythmic sway. Allow the arms to hang heavy or gently float with the movement.
This helps regulate the nervous system and encourages fluidity — perfect for sacral chakra work.

🌞 Sun Salutation (Surya Namaskar)

Move through 3–5 rounds, or whatever feels right.

Step-by-step version:

  1. Mountain Pose (Tadasana): Stand tall, grounding through all four corners of the feet.
  2. Inhale – Arms Up (Urdhva Hastasana): Sweep the arms overhead, lifting through the spine.
  3. Exhale – Forward Fold (Uttanasana): Hinge at the hips, softening into the legs.
  4. Inhale – Halfway Lift (Ardha Uttanasana): Lengthen the spine, hands on shins or thighs.
  5. Exhale – Step Back to Plank: Engage the core, steady the breath.
  6. Lower Down: Knees-chest-chin or Chaturanga, depending on comfort.
  7. Inhale – Cobra or Upward Dog: Lift the chest, opening the heart.
  8. Exhale – Downward-Facing Dog: Hips lift back, grounding through hands and feet.
  9. Inhale – Step Forward, Half Lift: Long spine.
  10. Exhale – Forward Fold
  11. Inhale – Rise to Stand
  12. Exhale – Return to Mountain Pose

🔥 Standing Strength & Flow

3. Goddess Pose (Utkata Konasana)
Open the hips and connect with your internal power. Add gentle pulses or stillness.

🐾 Floor Work & Core Awakening

4. Cat–Cow (Marjaryasana/Bitilasana)
Move slowly, synchronizing breath with spinal movement to regulate and soothe.

5. Side Plank (Vasisthasana)
Choose knee-down or full expression.
This activates inner stability and confidence.

6. Reverse Plank (Purvottanasana)
Lift the chest and hips. Option: bend the knees for a table-top version.

🌀 Hip Opening

7. Locust Pose (Salabhasana)
Strengthens the back body and energizes the solar plexus chakra.

8. Bow Pose (Dhanurasana)
A deeper heart opener—move gently and avoid strain.

🕊️ Hip Release Sequence

9. Pigeon Pose (Eka Pada Rajakapotasana)
Hold each side, using props as needed.
Great for emotional release stored in the hips.

🌙 Cooling Down

10. Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana)
Lift and open the front body, supporting heart and throat energy.

11. Reclined Twist (Supta Matsyendrasana)
Release tension in the spine and support digestion.

12. Supta Baddha Konasana (Reclined Bound Angle)
Place hands on belly or heart.
End here for a few minutes of soft, supported rest.

🧡 Closing

Take a moment to notice how the body feels — the warmth, openness, and grounding.
This sequence is designed to bring balance to the emotional body, support nervous system regulation, and restore mindful presence.

**Bonus

If you’d like a guided audio version of this click here for bonus content. (Content related to this post may take up to a week to be uploaded.)

Also if you’d like to receive our new “Grounded”newsletter, it’ll be available to subscribe to in the next week or so. It will contain atleast one additional practice or information to supplement what is already on the website. We are hoping to create a space and a community to support overall wellness so stay tuned!

Mindfulness, Wellness topic, Yoga

Integrating Chakra Work Into Clinical Yoga Therapy

Exploring a Mind–Body Lens for Mental and Physical Wellness

Since completing my yoga therapist training, I’ve been slowly weaving more yogic therapeutic elements into my clinical counseling practice. One of the most helpful bridges between traditional mental-health models and yoga therapy has been using the chakra system as a lens for understanding health, behavior, and emotional patterns.

Whether a client approaches chakras and “energy medicine” literally or metaphorically, the framework gives them another way of exploring what’s happening in their body and mind—and often opens new pathways for healing.

How Chakra Inquiry Supports Clinical Work

A simple example: a client arrives feeling anxious and overwhelmed. Instead of diving straight into cognitive or behavioral interventions, we might do a brief check-in with each chakra to identify what feels “off” or unbalanced.

If we notice root-chakra themes—such as feeling unsafe, untethered, or unstable—we would work with grounding practices.
The Root Chakra (Muladhara) relates to:

  • Safety and survival
  • A sense of belonging and the right to exist
  • Grounding, centering, and stability
  • The earth element

Because the client is experiencing the opposite of these qualities, our work might include:

  • Breathwork with slow, steady rhythms
  • Grounding postures and simple yoga sequences
  • Connection with nature (walking, sitting on the earth, sensory awareness)
  • Steady, rhythmic music—like a heartbeat
  • Mantras or self-talk such as “I am safe. I have a right to be here.”

These interventions mimic many of the skills we use in counseling—particularly mindfulness practices from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). First, we help the client step back and regulate. Then, with clearer awareness, they can move toward the chakra’s core value—like security, grounding, or stability—and take committed action.

Chakras as a Lens for Physical Concerns

The chakra model is just as useful for physical symptoms.

For example, someone experiencing lower-back pain may benefit from practices associated with the root chakra. By focusing on grounding and opening through yoga postures, we help release tension and bring awareness to both the physical and emotional layers of discomfort.

Root-supporting postures might include:

  • Mountain Pose
  • Bridge Pose
  • Child’s Pose

These movements lengthen, strengthen, and create spaciousness in the low back while reinforcing feelings of stability.

To help with pain, other root chakra focused practices like 3 part breathing or grounding in nature can be used to help a person take a step back and not “fuse” or panic with the pain but hold space for the pain so it can provide them feedback on what their body needs.

This Week’s Root Chakra Group Sequence

We launched our chakra group this week at the office—starting, of course, with Chakra One: Root (Muladhara). Below is the grounding sequence we practiced together.

🌿 Gentle Rooting Flow

  1. Mountain Pose (Tadasana) — Feel the soles of your feet; establish your root.
  2. Chair Pose (Utkatasana) — Build strength and stability.
  3. Tree Pose (Vrksasana), Right — Explore balance and grounding.
  4. Chair Pose
  5. Tree Pose, Left
  6. Goddess Squat (Utkata Konasana) — Inner strength, willpower, courage.
  7. Wide-Leg Forward Fold
  8. Return to Mountain, then Forward Fold, step back to Tabletop.
  9. Child’s Pose (Balasana) — Safety, surrender, breath into the back body.
  10. Cat/Cow
  11. Thread the Needle, Right
  12. Thread the Needle, Left
  13. Pigeon Pose (Kapotasana), Right
  14. Transition to Fire Logs Pose (Agnistambhasana)
  15. Move into Cow Face Pose (Gomukhasana)
  16. Shift into a gentle backbend, lifting the pelvis and looking behind.
  17. Butterfly Pose, then repeat steps 13–16 on the left side.
  18. Bridge Pose (Setu Bandhasana) or Supported Bridge
  19. Legs Up the Wall (Viparita Karani) — Grounded rest; nervous-system reset.

For an audio guide with the above practice and playlist used for the group today, subscribe here to our bonus content.

Change, Meditation, Wellness topic

Understanding the Stages of Grief: A Gentle Guide Through Loss

It’s the end of October and the beginning of November with Halloween and Dia de los Muertos behind us. I love the idea of having a time of the year dedicated to thinking of the after life and of honoring our ancestors. However, with all the reminders of death during this particular holiday season, grief can be stirred up. There may be those who have been triggered and wondering what is going on with their swings in emotional states. I thought I would take this time to review the stages of grief in order to offer some support and understanding if you find yourself in the grief process.

The Five Stages of Grief

The idea of the “five stages of grief” was introduced by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her groundbreaking 1969 book On Death and Dying. She initially developed the model while studying people facing terminal illness, but it has since been applied more broadly to all types of loss (Kübler-Ross, 1969; Kübler-Ross & Kessler, 2005).

1. Denial

Denial serves as an emotional buffer. It helps the mind process loss at a pace it can handle. People might say things like, “This can’t be happening,” or find themselves moving through daily routines on autopilot. Denial gives us space to absorb shock before deeper feelings surface.

2. Anger

As reality sets in, anger often arises — directed at oneself, others, or even at life itself. Anger is sometimes easier to express than pain, and it provides a temporary sense of control. Recognizing anger as a natural part of healing prevents guilt from compounding the emotion (Worden, 2009).

3. Bargaining

In this stage, the mind searches for meaning or tries to negotiate away pain: “If only I had done this differently…” or “Maybe if I change something, things will return to normal.” Bargaining often reflects our struggle to regain a sense of agency in an uncontrollable situation.

4. Depression

When the full weight of the loss sinks in, sadness, fatigue, or withdrawal may appear. This is not necessarily clinical depression but rather a reflection of the profound emptiness that loss brings. Allowing these feelings without judgment helps us integrate grief rather than resist it (Stroebe & Schut, 2010).

5. Acceptance

Acceptance does not mean being “okay” with the loss. It means acknowledging reality and finding a new way to live alongside it. This stage is about integration — learning to carry love and memory forward in a new way (Neimeyer, 2019).

Beyond the Five Stages

In my most recent yoga therapist training at Purusha Yoga School  (San Francisco, CA), I took a class “Aging Gracefully”.  The Primary teacher and founder of this school, Joy Ravelli,  had compiled an excellent class on death and dying.  From her research and practice she shared a different “version” of the grief stages that I feel have changed my perspective on this process, particularly with the addition of the stage of “wisdom”. Here they are:

1.Denial/ Shock 

 Denial and Shock help us survive and cope.  This stage helps us pace our grief.

Shock and denial are defense mechanisms.

2. Exploring Emotional

(Otherwise known as “Anger” and “Bargaining”)

The stage of searching and yearning leads to feeling in the body.  Those feelings may be anger, sadness, panic, hurt, loneliness, despair, depression.  Each of these feelings has a story.  Each of these feelings has an energy.

3. Conscious Rest

(Also known as “depression” – Instead of just depression, this stage includes the following:)

  • Depression. This may be a period of isolation and loneliness during which you process and reflect on the loss.
  • The upward turn. At this point, the stages of grief like anger and pain have died down, and you’re left in a more calm and relaxed state.
  • Reconstruction and working through. You can begin to put pieces of your life back together and carry forward.

4. Acceptance

Acceptance and hope. This is a very gradual acceptance of the new way of life and a feeling of possibility in the future.

5. Wisdom

Grief becomes wisdom and empathy develops for others in that through the transformational experience of grief we come to a place where we can recognize these states in others.

Moving Forward

Grief changes us, but it can also deepen our capacity for empathy, gratitude, and meaning. There is no timetable or “correct” way to grieve — only your way. The stages are also not linear so you could experience acceptance one day and the next day be back in anger.  Support from compassionate others, therapy, and time can help integrate loss into a renewed sense of wholeness.

For a guided meditation on life and death, click here to subscribe to our bonus content.

References

  • Kübler-Ross, E. (1969). On Death and Dying. Macmillan.
  • Kübler-Ross, E., & Kessler, D. (2005). On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss. Scribner.
  • Stroebe, M., & Schut, H. (1999). The Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement: Rationale and Description. Death Studies, 23(3), 197-224.
  • Stroebe, M., & Schut, H. (2010). The Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement: A Decade On. Omega, 61(4), 273-289.
  • Worden, J. W. (2009). Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner (4th ed.). Springer.
  • Neimeyer, R. A. (2019). Meaning Reconstruction in the Wake of Loss. Death Studies, 43(1), 1-11.