Category Archives: Yoga

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.)

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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.

Anatomy, brain, research, Yoga

What is Vagus Nerve Stimulation?

The vagus nerve is a very long nerve that carries signals back and forth to your brain, heart, lungs and digestive system. It is the longest cranial nerve in your body. It is said to run from the brain all the way to the large intestines. It also has branches that reach all of our major organs.

I tell clients that the vagus nerve is what people consider to be the “lizard brain” of the body. It is responsible for fight or flight responses and also freeze and hide. It controls involuntary sensory and motor functions like your heart rate, speech, mood and urine output. It is a very complex system of communication with our entire body but it has a very important role in how we respond to stress. The role it plays is regulating the way the body switches from the rational brain (the parasympathetic nervous system – relaxed state) to a fight or flight response (sympathetic nervous system – alert state).

Apparently the vagus nerve can lose its ability to switch back easily to the parasympathetic mode due to factors like stress or age. Also Known as vagal dysfunction, this can put a person at risk for high blood pressure, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, depression and anxiety.

Professionals say that stimulating the vagus nerve will help our body to switch more quickly to a relaxed state. They recommend a variety of things to do to “stimulate” the vagus nerve. These include: 1) meditation, 2) exercise, 3) music, 4)massage, 5)cold exposure and also through 6) a medical intervention, applying an implanted or transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation, VNS/tVNSSo “stimulation”.

These activities create a cascade of events in our body that lead to activating the parasympathetic nervous system. Sensory signals initiate when we participate in one of the above activities. This signal then travels up to the brain stem from the lower part of the body that is participating in the activity/sensation. The brain stem then sends signals to activate certain parts of the parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn, decreases cortisol, heart rate, and increases metabolism. This mechanism triggers the release of chemicals like serotonin and anti-inflammatory related chemicals that help our body feel calm and less pain. This series of events isn’t just for experiencing relaxation — it’s a multi-system communication event linking the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems. It affects not just an emotional state but the entire body.

The reason that the above activities trigger a response that activates the parasympathetic nervous system is the need for our body to seek balance and recovery. When we shock it with cold our body wants homeostasis, so it activates a series of events to calm us down. This idea of trying to return back to its original state and achieve homeostasis is also at work with activities like massage/yoga/exercise. These activities create specific changes in our body systems that makes the body want to return to it’s original state. Our body registers the sensations and our vagus nerve sends out messages to release chemicals to balance excitement or other changes. These chemicals make us feel calm and “okay”. Breathing/humming/music can also do the same thing. Basically any sensory activity that is not overly stressful or perceived as actual danger, can stimulate the vagus nerve in a healthy manner. The more we do these activities, the more training we do for our system to be stronger and recover quickly from changes and imbalances, ie stress in our environment.

On a side note, a big chemical messenger that is responsible in this process is Acetylcholine (Ach). It’s a little bit more technical for me to explain so for further information on this process, go to this link.

Also for more info on polyvagal theory, click here.

For a quick yoga routine the aids in stimulating the vagus nerve, subscribe to access our bonus content.

Breathwork, Stress Management, Yoga

Mindful Warrior Practice

Last week I posted a piece on Mindfulness Practicing for ACT.

Here’s another practice , this time using a warrior II pose. I like Warrior II, Virabhadrasana II (veer-ah-bah-DRAHS-anna), for generating a feeling of power and focus. Try this exercise when you are having difficulty with finding motivation.

Part one: The pose

  1. Face the long side of your mat with your arms stretched straight out from your shoulders and your feet parallel to each other in a wide stance. You want your ankles approximately beneath your wrists.
  2. Turn your right foot and knee to face the front of the mat.
  3. Angle your left toes a little in toward the upper left corner of the mat.
  4. Bend your right knee so that you only see your right big toe.
  5. Check and distribute your weight evenly between both legs. Press down through the outer edge of your back foot and four corners of right foot.
  6. Check posture and keep the crown of your head stacked over your pelvis and your shoulders over your hips.
  7. Reach through both arms toward the front and back of the mat and turn your head to look past your right fingertips.
  8. Engage your abdominal muscles by creating a “lift” in your lower ab area.

Part Two: The practice

Hold the pose and breath in to the belly, reversing the exhale constrict the belly as the air empties. Continue even breathing as you look out over your right finger tips, envisioning that which you to accomplish. Switch sides and think of another project/task you would like to accomplish.

Additional:

For a full Warrior Sequence subscribe to our bonus content.

Stress Management, Uncategorized, Wellness topic, Yoga

September Focus – Anxiety Relief

“Pose” of the Week – Cat/Cow Flow

How to Do It:

  • Come to hands and knees with shoulders over wrists and hips over knees.
  • Inhale: arch your back, lifting your chest and tailbone (Cow).
  • Exhale: round your spine, tucking chin and tailbone (Cat).
  • Continue flowing with your breath.

Why It Helps:
This gentle movement synchronizes breath and body, helping to release physical tension while calming the nervous system.

Time: 1–2 minutes

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