June 11, 2025 • 44 mins
Gia-Raquel Rose, owner of Airs Above Yoga, LLC and a real estate sales associate in Tewksbury, New Jersey has had a love for horses stemming from early childhood. Growing up in “horse country” afforded her the privilege of beginning to ride from the tender age of four. It was a childhood illness, which brought her riding aspirations to an abrupt halt. It took twenty years before she was able to reunite with her long lost passion for horses and their ability to heal. In that time, she received a Bachelor of Arts in Corporate Communication from Arcadia University and became a twice two hundred hour certified yoga instructor in both Hatha and Vinyasa. It was the loss of her mother, Rose, to breast cancer, which ultimately shifted her trajectory from the corporate world to the internal work for which yoga, as a practice, is renowned.
Have you ever felt a brilliant creative spark only to watch it fade away without action? You're not alone. The bridge between receiving intuitive inspiration and manifesting it in the world is something many of us struggle to cross.
In this enlightening exploration, we dive into how specific yoga postures can stimulate our upper chakras—particularly the crown and third eye—to enhance our connection to intuition while building the courage to bring our unique creations to life. Our chakra systems are inversely linked, with the crown connecting to root, third eye to sacrum, and throat to solar plexus, all bridged by the heart chakra.
Child's pose creates powerful contact between our third eye and the earth, fostering humble receptivity to inspiration. I share several modifications for those with knee sensitivities to make this posture accessible to everyone. Downward facing dog, when properly aligned with weight distributed through the legs rather than dumping into wrists and shoulders, creates a beautiful energetic current from root to crown—a true invitation for creative flow.
For those ready to explore deeper, we discuss safe approaches to inversions like headstand and handstand, which offer profound crown chakra stimulation while building physical strength and confidence. Alternatives like legs-up-the-wall and inversion tables provide similar benefits for practitioners with limitations.
The world needs your unique creations—those inspired ideas that come from your intuition and no one else's. By stimulating these upper energy centers through mindful yoga practice, you create the conditions for enhanced creativity, clearer intuition, and greater courage to manifest your gifts in a world hungry for your contribution.
What intuitive hit has been nudging you lately? Perhaps it's time to get upside down and let that inspiration flow from crown to manifestation.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Divas that Care Radio Stories, strategies and
ideas to inspire positive change.
Welcome to Divas that Care, anetwork of women committed to
making our world a better placefor everyone.
This is a global movement forwomen, by women engaged in a
collaborative effort to create abetter world for future
generations.
To find out more about themovement, visit DivasThatCarecom
(00:24):
after the show.
Right now, though, stay tunedfor another jolt of inspiration.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Namaste and welcome to the Divas that Care Network.
I am your host, gia Raquel Rose, owner of Heirs Above Yoga, and
you are listening to Above theGround podcast, if this is your
first time.
Tuning in our network is in its15th year and listened to in
over 30 countries.
I would like to take thismoment to personally thank you
(00:52):
for giving me the gift of yourtime.
It is always my honor talkingabout creation and cultivation,
and we kind of went a little bitlast time into ways that what
(01:13):
seeds are we planting?
It was a big theme was seedsand planting seeds, and those
seeds could have been anything.
It doesn't necessarily need tohave come from you.
It could be things that youwant to implement into your life
.
What I want to talk about nowis actual creation for you,
things that are going to, thatare coming from you, that did
not exist until you put them outinto the world, and how certain
(01:36):
yoga asanas can help you tobegin to get in touch with the
creative centers in the bodythrough your chakra system, and
what postures are bestsupportive of that.
And we haven't really gotteninto the ones that I'm going to
talk about too much so far, andthe reason for that is because,
(01:59):
predominantly, when we thinkabout our chakra, I, I generally
talk about them from the groundup, and when I go through yoga
practice, I generally lead fromthe ground up.
And but a lot of times we thinkabout energy and we think about
intuition.
A lot of times that energyflows from the, the, the crown,
or the top down right.
That inspiration is coming fromsomewhere.
(02:20):
So I want this to be aninspiration and I want this
whole sequence and this, thisnext series of episodes, to be
towards that inspiration andways for people to bring their
own wisdom, their own intuition,into fruition, into creation in
the world around us, so that wecan all benefit from.
(02:42):
You know, every, every person'sspecial snowflake ideas, right,
like the, everything that welove and look up to in this
world originally came, generallyspeaking, from the mind or the
intuition of a human person, andso if we can cultivate our own
intuitions and actually take theinspired action to create them
(03:02):
in the outside world, think, ifyou ever, if you haven't seen it
, I encourage, I encourage.
It's very, very.
It's sad, but one of the mostromantic movies.
Ps, I love you.
Right, it's to steal fromHilary Swank, it's a piece of
you and it's out there and it'syou.
And so, coming from that notionof bringing something that
intuitively came to you, thatcame from your mind, from your
(03:23):
heart, from from your, from theinside of you, to the outside of
the world, and how can we bestsupport that, how can we start
to inspire and how can we startto cultivate not only the
intuitive hits, because I feellike and I'm guilty of this, but
I feel like a lot of peoplehave ideas and then they just
(03:44):
don't do anything about them.
And that's that's where I thinka lot of the disconnect between
for creation itself exists, isthat disconnect of oh I have
this idea, but what if?
And all of the associatedimplications that come from what
if?
And basically, we all knowthose are the self-sabotaging
(04:05):
thoughts, those are the doubts,those are even, you know,
unfortunately other people whomaybe never follow their
creative path and so they wantto squash those that are trying
to, which I don't love, but youknow it happens.
And so how do we tune all ofthat internal and external noise
out and essentially bringourselves into the place where
(04:30):
we can not only receive theintuitive hit as to what our
special creation it doesn't haveto be one, it can be multiple
what our special creations areand how we can turn them into
reality in the world and theexistence around us to make it a
better place for all humans,all humanity.
And so how are we going to dothat?
(04:51):
Well, one of the best ways thatI can give you is to start to
think about our upper chakras,right?
So, when we're talking aboutgoing off of things that are
meant for us, things that cometo us, things that find us,
dreams that we have that inspireus, or, you know, insights that
we get while we're meditating,all of these are different
things that will hopefully giveus a glimpse into our path, into
(05:11):
our next best step, into whatit is that are.
You know, as I, as I do before,like I'm not a scientific
research deep diver.
I was never meant to be in themedical field.
I do not like.
I do not like gore.
It scares me.
If something bad happens to ananimal, I won't even watch a
movie like that's me.
That's not my path.
(05:31):
But if we didn't have doctorsand surgeons and people who are
absolutely inspired to createthese you know medical marvels
well, we'd be in a very, verybad place in society.
So just to just to preface bysaying it doesn't matter what it
is, as long as it's not harmful.
Do no harm, right, that's,that's their creed, but mine too
, and for yoga instructors aswell, there's a do no harm
(05:54):
policy and I firmly believe thatno matter what you do in life,
no matter who you are, notharming should be ahimsa in yoga
, no harm, not harming should beyou know the first thing and
then hopefully it's it's abenefit to others and that
should be you know the goalright.
Not just, not just selfishnessand doing it for your own sake
(06:16):
or for credibility or notorietyor financial abundance, whatever
it might be.
And those things are allwonderful and good and come
hopefully with with success.
But this is this is about,about the true inspiration and
the heart led, heart space,inspired creations that
(06:37):
hopefully bring love and lightinto this world.
And to that end, let's get intothe asana.
And so, thinking about thechakras and, as I said, we've
done a lot of work recently withyour creativity coming from the
sacral chakra, your secondchakra, root and groundedness,
rooting and groundedness, safetycoming from that root chakra,
(06:58):
your power, coming from yoursolar plexus, and I feel like
we're kind of skipping ahead,but to that end the chakra
systems are linked um inversely.
So your safety, your rootchakra is inextricably linked to
your crown chakra and viceversa on the way down.
So root to crown, third eye tosacrum, creativity, right,
(07:20):
inspire, and receiving thatintuition from your third eye
and meeting it and creating itthrough your sacral chakra, your
throat chakra and your solarplexus chakra are linked and
then, as always, my personalfavorite your heart chakra is
the bridge that links all of ittogether.
So we're going to talk, aswe've talked a little bit about
(07:40):
grounding, we've talked a littlebit about our sacral chakra and
creativity and, you know, hipopeners to help to open that,
that potential creative blockand kind of remove it so that we
can flow more freely.
Now we're going to start totalk about a little more of the
upper chakras and I know we'rejumping around, not necessarily
going linear, and probably noone cares about that but me.
But I do want to note that thisis specific, to kind of go with
(08:05):
that cross alignment betweenthe upper and lower chakras.
So when we're talking about ourupper chakras, a lot of times,
you know, people are wonderingokay, well, how am I going to do
a yoga pose for my crown chakra.
It's not, you know, in my body,technically, right, it's in my
energetic body, not in myphysical body.
It's there's.
No, you know, there's notangible thing.
So, really, what we're thinkingabout when we, when it comes to
(08:28):
a lot of associated asana thatgoes with inspiration, intuition
, divine, if you want to go thatroute, fine, we're talking
about generally prone orinverted postures.
So, with that in mind, think of, you know, a child's pose,
think of a downward facing dog,think of any pose, even
(08:52):
headstand, handstand, and I'lltouch on those a little bit more
.
But again, I, my focus is alwayson safety, especially as I put,
as I put, my creation of abovethe ground podcast out into the
universe, not knowing where itcould go and where it could land
.
I just always want to say that,as we talk about inversions,
I'm hesitant to even teachinversions in my classes or with
(09:16):
one-on-one students because ofthe implication, with improper
alignment, potential harm to thehead or neck.
Now we're talking about, youknow, the big ticket items there
, right?
So when we talk about this, I'mgoing to focus on the gentle
ways to be able to inspire.
Then, of course, child's poseis going to be, you know, one of
(09:37):
the most easy ways except forpeople that have bad knees, and
there's always a way to prop andfigure that out, except for
people that have bad knees, andthere's always a way to prop and
figure that out and downwardfacing dog.
But we want to think about thatidea of of being prone in
humility, being humble, havingthat, that contact between your
third eye and even your crownchakra, like so, for example, I
(10:00):
love downward facing dog forthis idea of how am I going to
target my crown chakra withasana.
Well, you're going to pointyour crown chakra at the floor
in downward facing dog or evenin a posture like headstand, but
the bottom line is that you'restimulating, physically and
energetically, flow of prana,flow of energy, flow of your
(10:24):
consciousness into these areas.
And thinking of the contactbetween the third eye and the
crown chakra.
And the ground is, you know,something that we generally
don't do right?
Little kids do it, gymnasts doit, yoga instructors, yoga
practitioners do it.
But on a whole, on the dailylife, you know, as you're going
(10:44):
through about your day, there'snot a lot of time where people
spend upside down.
It's just not necessarily athing traditionally Right.
So, as we talk about it, um, andand I will give a little bit of
a nod to, uh, the interviewthat I just did with Nick,
because one of his favoritepostures, asana's was and is
child's pose.
Um, and it's never been one ofmine because I had and have had
(11:09):
for many years since I was achild I have a knee injury, and
so when I compress my knee so ifyou're talking about child pose
generally, it is done with thebig toes touching the knees,
spread wider than the torso,wider than hips width, and then
you create that gentle V anglefor your chest and torso to lay
comfortably with your armsoutstretched, and this is one
(11:31):
way to to kind of submit intothat pose, surrender into that
pose.
Now, if you're like me and youhave knee injuries, a couple
things can go wrong here.
One you don't want to becompressed through the knee, so
to prop for that you would takea towel, a blanket.
Bolsters are going to be toobig.
You want something that has alittle more give and you'd put
it not directly behind the jointitself but to lessen the
(11:56):
compressive angle in that jointby placing that, that prop
behind and in between the thighand calf to alleviate that angle
, to give a little bit of spaceand to still be able to relax
your back and your hips into thefull expression of the pose,
wherever you are in that moment.
So that's one way to prop forthat.
Another issue that can come upis literally having, you know,
(12:20):
more body weight on compressedknees, and while that's more of
an issue when you're talkingabout kneeling postures where
you're actually on, like theplatella, which can be very
uncomfortable for some peoplepresent, company included, and
I've had students that have thesame concern that would be
stacking a second mat not rolledobviously either, either just
creating more cushion underneaththat knee is another way.
(12:43):
So you could have a blanket ora second mat, either on its own
or folded under the knees andthen even prop between the knees
on top of that as well.
But when we're talking aboutchild's pose, when I take it one
of my favorite things to do andthis is because of my neck and
shoulder injury, but alsobecause I think it's always
(13:03):
great to be able to deepen andopen through the upper back and
shoulders because so many, notjust women, so many of us just
from, like I'm doing right now,sitting at my computer, looking
at our phones, just our livesare spent forward and hunched,
and if you're a woman, doubly sobecause we carry the extra
(13:25):
weight of the world right infront of us and it creates that
rounded spine, that kind ofturtle looking neck posture.
It's not very pretty, whereyou're kind of your chin juts
out, your shoulders collapse andthen you kind of look like this
and it's no fun and it pulls inall the wrong places and it's
just generally bad juju.
So because of that, this is oneof, for me, with a neck injury
(13:47):
feels lovely and, assuming thatyou are relatively propped
appropriately or set upcomfortably in your knees, legs
and hips for for child's pose, Ilike to take blocks and instead
of coming into child's pose,where you would shift your hips
back so your hips are literallyresting on your heels or just
(14:07):
above them, if you're proppedand supported as you shift your
hips back, you reach your armsforward, traditionally straight
out in front of you, palmsfacing down.
I like to take blocks and youcan start on the thin you know
the thinnest section, so thegentlest lift, and I like to
take the blocks and make surethat I place them under my
elbows, so then my elbows comeup a little bit higher.
(14:30):
It creates a little bit ofspace for the shoulders and the
chest to drop below and itreally creates this really
awesome gentle collarboneopening, shoulder, shoulder,
head opening.
It feels lovely and then I takemy hands into prayer behind my
head and I let my forehead comedown through the blocks.
(14:51):
Now, if you don't have openshoulders, this can be
aggressive and I would adviseyou to skip it or start by
placing your hands on the blocksto get to start to work the
shoulders up and back so thatyou have a little.
You start to understand whatit's going to feel like to let
your head come below the line ofthe shoulders and the torso.
For me it really, really feelswonderful and it also gets that
(15:16):
forehead.
Either way, your forehead isgoing to come in contact with
the floor, which is the point tostimulate that third eye chakra
right, we are talking about inthis instance, and not to say
that it doesn't also benefit thecrown chakra.
But if we're being as literalas we can be for the sake of
asana, physicality and posture,we are talking literal third eye
to the floor and so, with thatin mind, this is a really great
(15:39):
way and then you just breatheand you melt into it.
And if you're propped andsufficiently supported in this
pose, you can hang out there foran extensive period of time
comfortably, assuming thatyou've set yourself up as with
any yoga pose.
You can hang out there for anextensive period of time
comfortably, assuming thatyou've set yourself up as with
any yoga pose you know.
Shout out to Annie and the yinyoga, as many yoga pose.
You can do it comfortably aslong as you set yourself up
appropriately.
So child's pose is a wonderfulway, to you know, stay in your
(16:04):
surrendered humility to havethat contact of the floor with
your third eye, to stimulate theenergy, the consciousness, the
flow to that third eye chakra.
Another wonderful way to againbring the energy and we're
talking about in theory, we'retalking about inversions.
Child's pose certainly is notnecessarily an inversion, but
(16:28):
there is.
There is a pose and differentschools of thought call it
different things.
I was taught rabbit and it is.
I'm going to preface with alittle asterisk by saying that
if we're talking about this,posture is also a second way to
take child's pose, again,depending on the school of
thought, because you knowdifferent, different Western
(16:51):
words have come to be associatedwith different yoga asanas.
You know, bound angle andbutterfly essentially are two,
two things to bring that thoughtprocess into mind.
But when it comes to what I'mgoing to discuss, this is
essentially another variation ofchild's pose where, instead of
having your knees wide and againfor people with knee issues,
(17:12):
you're probably not going tolove this one.
So I would.
I would steer clear of thispotential variation.
But your knees are going to betogether and your feet are going
to be essentially together, oryou know, roughly hips width but
next to each other, and you'regoing to sit directly on your
heels.
So your knees are bent, yourshins are on the floor, the tops
of your feet.
If you have feet issues, thiscan be uncomfortable ankle
problems for some people.
(17:32):
So just to preface propping forthis would really just be a
roll towel or blanket under theankle area and again, it does
put pressure on the knees.
Please know that I am givingyou this information for the
upper chakra, inspiration andcreation aspects of it, not
necessarily for the knee, thepotential knee conflicts of it.
(17:55):
So work with me on this oneOnce you are set up with your
hips on your heels and again,another way to set up would be
hero.
But the distinction between herois you're upright first, but
your heels are actually slightlywider than your hips and your
knees are in, and so for rabbitand I'm using air quotes for
those of you listening yourknees and your feet are going to
(18:18):
be more in line, and there's areason for that.
This formulation of child'spose rabbit, however you want to
talk about it is also going tobe with respect to the fact that
once you're sitting on yourheels, you fold forward into
your child's pose and a lot ofpeople will take at this point
it's more of the forehead or thetop of the head hitting the
floor and the arms are going towrap around behind you and
(18:41):
you're going to grab your heels,if you can so comfortably.
Otherwise, you're going todrape your arms, the shoulders
roll forward and the backs ofthe hands are down by those
heels and ankles restingcomfortably and, if you're okay,
there, like I said, the onlything that generally aggravates
people in this position aregoing to be the knees and the
tops of the feet and ankles.
(19:02):
So avoid, if those are problemareas for you.
But one of the reasons that youknow I don't generally teach
the rabbit aspect of this, whilewhat I've just described as a
child's pose variation, therabbit aspect of this.
You then gently cup the heelsin the palms of your hands, you
(19:23):
start to lift the hips and youstart to gently tuck the chin in
and roll ever so slightly ontothe top of your head.
Now, why is this relevant?
Because this would be a way tobegin to stimulate the crown
chakra when you are in thisposition, in a child's pose
position, it does, a way to prepfor a shoulder stand to loosen
(19:51):
into the back and the upper, youknow, the upper back, the neck.
It's also a nice way to beginto prep for a headstand.
And when I say prep, I don'tmean prep to get into the
headstand, I mean, you know,like a posture that will start
to loosen the muscles inpreparation to support the
(20:13):
entrance of the posture.
Right, we're not going to gointo the headstand from this
direction, but just benefits tothis pose.
Now, the giant asterisk fromthe person with the cervical
vertebrae injury is going to beno, I don't love it for the neck
.
Plow pose is another one thatthis is a good you know
precursor for.
But again, I don't teach plowpose in my classes.
(20:35):
I don't teach handstands orheadstands.
Handstands sometimes, butheadstands I do not teach in my
classes, or even with my privateclients, unless I'm in the room
with them and they want me toand they ask me to, and the
reason for that is you just ifyou're, there's too many
variables where you couldseverely potentially cause
yourself injury and headstandspecifically, while it is, you
(20:56):
know, arguably one of the most,if not the most, crown chakra
stimulating posture, I I don'twant to take that responsibility
and so I will not beresponsible for the head and
neck of another human being,knowing how fragile the neck
truly is from my own personalexperience.
(21:17):
So that's my, my big giantflashing disclaimer when it
comes to even such a gentleposes, rabbit, where you're not,
where most of your body weightis still on the floor and you're
really just kind of coming intothat tuck of the chin and that
elongation of the upper back inbetween the shoulder area and
the neck, and the neck is thereason why I don't.
(21:39):
I have practiced that andgenerally I will.
I just wanted to give you anidea of how to stimulate in
child's pose by connecting thetop of the head and the crown
with the ground, because, again,it's a little bit harder to do,
especially if you choose not topractice certain positions due
to injury or, you know, justconscientiousness for the
(22:01):
welfare of others, which ishopefully the space that I'm
coming from.
So again, child's pose with thechin tucked and the head
towards the floor, as opposed toarms outstretched and the
forehead, are two different waysto stimulate and receive that
intuition and insight.
Rabbit, again, I'm not sayingthat I recommend it, disclaimers
, asterisks, all the things infront of that.
(22:24):
But again, grabbing those heels, gently lifting the hips to
roll a little bit of compressionpressure onto the crown of the
head, not necessary, you don'tneed to do that.
I'm taking no responsibilityfor anyone that chooses to do
that giant disclaimer alert fora second time Moving on.
So, but those are ways that Ithat are that you can stimulate
(22:46):
these upper chakras again inthat prone position, starting to
get that rare contact with yourface and or the top of your
head and the floor.
Now, one of the most popular,well-known, spoken about
postures is downward facing dogand from a vinyasa standpoint,
obviously it's a wonderfulposture.
(23:07):
I've mentioned it here beforebecause, same same reason, my
neck injury prevented me foralmost a year from really being
able to to fully support thatposture and there are so many
ways that you can modifydownward facing dog and there
are so many people, just frombeing a yoga instructor, that
that are in downward facing dogand, unfortunately, are not
(23:29):
completing the proper alignedexpression of the posture,
simply because either theyhaven't been taught how to set
it up or they have too muchtension in certain areas of
their body.
When positioned appropriatelyand done correctly, downward
facing dog is anall-encompassing yoga asana.
Not only does it stimulate thecrown chakra and, honestly,
(23:53):
probably all all chakras, it isone of the most accessible
inversions and when we sayinversion, we're really just
talking about the alignment ofthe spine and the chakras being
upside down from the norm, wherethey are again crown to root.
When you are a downward facingdog, the crown is down and the
(24:14):
root is up, and so, with that inmind, one of the one of the
cues that I give that I findgets the most spinal alignment
and engagement is thinking of aleapfrog.
And, instead of worrying, what alot of people tend to do in
downward facing dog is they dumpdirectly into the one place
(24:36):
you're not supposed to, which isup here, into the upper
shoulders and the neck, andthey're doing downward dog like
this, downward dog like this,and the shoulders are up by the
ears and all of their bodyweight is dumping onto the tops
of their shoulders, which is notmeant really to support all of
your body weight in that way.
Their backs are not engaged,their lower abdomen, their core,
is not engaged, theirhamstrings are probably
(24:58):
excessively tight, as are theirhip flexors, and so it's just,
it's it's.
It looks kind of like a C rightrather than an upside down V,
and so the cue that I find thatgets people to eliminate or
realign to the best of theirability is pressing your belly
(25:19):
to your thighs.
Do that for most people is tobend the knees so deeply that
they come towards the floor andto lengthen that belly and that
spine up and back.
This also does two things itshifts the weight from height,
hopefully from the arms and thehands, into the hips, which is
(25:42):
where the weight's reallysupposed to be, and by bending
the knees it creates that extrakind of torque in the lower legs
.
But a lot of times when peoplecome into downward facing dog,
they forget that their legs arestill doing half the work and
they kind of use their legs asas a balance more so than as a
support, because they're justnot used to distributing their
(26:04):
body weight in this way.
That's my understanding of whythis happens consistently.
So once you get them tolengthen through the spine by
pressing their belly back andcoming from that C into that B,
because you've reduced the anglewith the legs, then you can
begin to ask them to pedal orbegin to straighten one leg at a
(26:29):
time, creating a little bit ofa dynamic movement.
So we're reducing the risk ofpotentially popping a hamstring
right, we don't want that.
So, now that I've given all ofthe you know, asana, postural
kind of indications towards it,when we're talking about the
spiritual implications of it,what I love about downward dog
(26:50):
and why I think that you know.
For vinyasa specifically, andand I will put a little little
detour in my line of talking tojust touch on the vinyasa aspect
and um, the movement reallycreating flow in the energy of
the body, and one of the reasonsthat I was always drawn to
vinyasa is the flow of it, themovement of energy, the moving
(27:13):
meditation that it is versusHatha, traditional yoga and I
can't, I shouldn't saytraditional, because it's all
traditional, right, but staticposture holds are in my mind.
You really shouldn't have onepractice without the other,
because if you are new to yogaand you go to vinyasa class,
you're not going to have anunderstanding of those postures
(27:34):
with the speed with which theyare moving through them, whereas
if you have a hatha practiceand you understand the postures,
you will be able to more easilymove into and out of those
postures.
Not only easily but safely.
And that is the most importantthing is to be safe in our
practice.
No matter what Right Our lifepractice, our goal is our own
safety and the safety of others.
(27:54):
Do no harm.
Remember so, with that in mind,one of the beautiful things
about Downward Facing Dog andVinyasa, and why the yoga
teacher will laugh somewhatsomewhat what's the word I'm
looking for?
Frighteningly, because it's arest pose, so that the downward
facing dog, which for mostpeople is an extremely
(28:16):
challenging, highly dynamic posein a vinyasa class, that's your
rest pose and child's pose isthe alternative.
If you've, you know, takenyourself to your edge and you
really just need a break, thenyou come down to child's pose.
Well, we just talked aboutchild's pose and essentially the
two postures are doing the samething.
One is significantly morestrenuous, obviously Downward
(28:37):
facing least.
In downward facing dog, like atraditional child's pose with
the knees wide and the spinelong and the spine lengthened
with the room for the torso, youhave that spinal alignment,
that chakra alignment, that lineof energy from the hips through
(29:01):
the head, and you're bringingin a traditional downward dog
asana.
You're bringing that energyfrom the root chakra.
You're stimulating it anddriving it up towards the crown
chakra.
You're also aiming that crownjust like we were talking about
before towards the ground whichis creating that stimulation and
having that out of the normupside down.
(29:22):
Having that out of the normupside down inversion practice,
relatively safely for mostpeople.
I could probably do an entireepisode on just downward facing
dog and, who knows, maybe I will.
This is not going to be thatepisode but, like I said, there
are certain ways formodifications.
A lot of people do have wristinjuries and or carpal tunnel
(29:44):
and or that's where they feelthis the most Well.
One of the reasons for that isbecause they're probably putting
too much of their body weightinto their arms and shoulders.
Another reason for that isbecause they are not.
They are cupping and dumpinginto their wrists as opposed to
elongating through the wristsand really getting into the
hands themselves.
So one of the big, the big cuesthat I'm going to share with
you now for how to alleviatesome of that discomfort in
(30:07):
downward facing dog is twofold.
The first fold is in order toget out of this and into the
traditional shoulders broadenedarms, extended aspect to get out
of your neck and crunchyshoulders and into your back and
to really strengthen.
I like to take my arms, notshoulder but slightly wider than
(30:28):
shoulder, with a gentle 45degree angle of the hands that
I'm making a little smaller justso it fits into the screen.
If you are watching or listeningand not watching, I should say
Other most important thing tothink about is and a lot of
people don't know this, unlessyou go to yoga teacher training
or you have a really wonderfulinstructor one of the most
(30:48):
important placements when we'retalking about downward facing
dog is this right here.
It is the kind of ball if youwill again air quotes for those
of you that are listening ballof the hands, and it's going to
be the, the, the on the palmunderneath the knuckles of the
index and middle fingers, andwhat that does when you press
(31:09):
into that it elongates.
It's hard to kind of hard totell.
It elongates the wrist and whatthis does as you ground into
that, a lot of times you'll seepeople cupping in downward
facing dog where they're likesqueezing their fingertips in.
Their palms are coming off themat and their wrists are like
taking on the brunt of theirupper body weight.
Their palms are coming off themat and their wrists are like
taking on the brunt of theirupper body weight.
(31:29):
So by pressing into this areaon both sides, you are then
grounding through your palms,you're extending through your
fingers and you are taking thecringe out of the wrist, the
bend out of the wrist, andreally creating a stream of
energy from the fingertips andthe palms directly into the
floor, up the line, through thearm and towards the back.
And that is probably 99% of thetime going to help alleviate
(31:54):
that crunchy wrist, my wristhurting, downward dog problem.
Obviously, if you have a severeinjury or something, it may not
for you, but nine times out of10, that's that cue is going to
start to change your downwarddog practice, coupled with the
idea of keeping the knees bentand actually getting your spine
straight and I again, we don'tlike to say the word straight,
(32:16):
but I'll say lengthened indownward facing dog is another
way that you're going to be ableto start to get the weight out
of the hands, out of the wrists,into the back, into the hips
and down the legs.
Don't forget about your legs,bend into them, bend those knees
, lengthen through that spineand then begin to work through
the legs, pedal out through thefeet and shift that weight back
(32:38):
and down to create that equaland opposite kind of physical
reaction in your own body, withconsciousness right on purpose,
because that's that's the wholepoint, that's what we're doing.
So another thing I touched onthem briefly headstand,
handstand.
These are ways to go into thatcrown chakra and again, trying
to bring energy there, to createthat connection with your
(33:01):
intuition, with your insight,with your creativity, with with
the manifestation of what's inthe mind out into the reality in
front of us.
And again, this is not going tobe for the faint of heart.
So when we're talking aboutheadstands, there is, there are
different.
There's one in particular andyou can, you can look it up, but
(33:21):
it is kind of a support systemand because of my neck I haven't
tried it, so I can't comment onit or its efficacy, other than
I've heard good things fromother people, but it is
essentially a padded, shortenedtable with a neck cutout that
you hold on to and kick yourlegs up and it is able to
(33:42):
provide you, with your shoulderspressing onto it, a way to
practice headstands without theactual body weight on the head
and hands.
I urge you to look it up.
I would just Google inversionsystem and see what comes up for
you.
That's one way to attempt itand again, I'm not saying that
it's, I'm not promoting it inany way.
(34:04):
I'm just saying that that's atool that's out there.
Another tool that's out therethat I do use but again won't
promote.
We'll just bring up ourinversion tables and they can be
pretty aggressive for peoplethat have again ankle injuries.
You're literally hangingyourself up by your ankles
upside down, but it's a greatway for people that have a
comfort level for that and don'thave any contraindications
(34:24):
physically for that todecompress the spine.
There's a whole host of healthbenefits associated with
inversion tables.
You know, increased productionof synovial fluid beginning to
literally create that, thatdecompression by hanging upside
down.
So if you do, like me, stareclear of typical inversions such
(34:48):
as a headstand, for good reason, or you don't have the, maybe
strength right now to practice ahandstand, which is, I believe,
personally, handstands.
While the balance is morechallenging, you can always use
a wall and they are, in my mind,the safer option from a
headstand.
A because your elbows are notare are not grounded.
(35:13):
Some people practice headstandsin a tripod, which I don't love
because of the instability ofthe neck.
So anytime I do practice aheadstand, or anytime I would
help someone else, it would bewith the elbows engaged with the
floor and the palms around theback of the head as so, and that
would be the only way I wouldteach it.
(35:33):
I am not not a fan of thetripod headstand.
It's just much too unstable foreven with a wall, I just I do
not hashtag, do not recommend.
So when it comes to a handstand,people might think, oh well,
that's, you know, even moreaggressive and technically you
definitely need more strengthfor it.
Technically it is moreaggressive.
(35:55):
You're only on your hands, butwhen your elbows are are in
contact with the floor and yourlegs are up over your head, if
you, if you can't really fallout of that without severe
injury to your shoulder, whereaswhen you're on your hands,
ironically enough, it gives you,if you fell out of it in a
direction you can kind of moveand kick your legs around
(36:16):
because your neck and your spineare not engaged with the floor.
So you have a lot more safeways to emergency dismount out
of that posture.
And handstand definitely buildsstrength, they all build
strength, but handstand reallybuilds strength and there is a
way to.
There are different ways you canL to build the strength, to
(36:39):
build the balance with.
You know, one foot against thewall, one leg up in the air.
That's a little morechallenging.
You can kick up into ahandstand.
You are never, ever supposed tokick up into a headstand.
It is contraindicated, rightagain, because of the head and
the neck and the pressure onthem.
So a lot of times people willkick up into headstand because
(36:59):
it's easier than using the coremuscle engagement that it takes
to get you there.
And so you know again, the preplike these all go in linear
succession, kind of generallyspeaking, just because
inversions are traditionallyagain throwing out that buzzword
.
They are a huge associationwith yoga because they bring in
(37:21):
that energy right, going upsidedown, flips, flips things around
.
It brings the energy flowingback towards mother earth, up
towards the upper chakras andand they are imperative to a
comprehensive yoga practice.
Yeah, pardon me, but we need topractice them safely and
everyone everybody is different.
So in an effort to give peopleoptions, if you don't have a
(37:47):
neck injury and you want to beable to air quotes, play in an
inversion, that table Imentioned where you can hold on
to it it's its own sturdy area,with your shoulders supported
and your neck and head quoteunquote free, without the weight
then that would be a decentrecommendation.
(38:08):
If you are just looking for thebenefits physically of an
inversion an inversion table andyou can handle the strain on
the lower joints, the ankles,the knees, it doesn't bother
your lumbar spine.
An inversion table is anamazing, safe and gentle way to
go about that.
I've mentioned legs up the wallon this podcast almost every
episode.
It's not a true inversionsimply because your back is
(38:32):
still flat on the floor.
But if you really don't have alot of accessibility for
whatever your reason for theseother options, then that's good
enough.
It's better than nothing.
It's getting your legs up inthe air.
It's getting blood flow fromyour feet, your ankles, your
lower legs up to the body.
So it's still definitely abenefit If you are feeling
(38:52):
frisky and you want to inspireyourself.
Handstands are fun.
They're fun to play with aslong as you're doing so safely,
under supervision, with supportfrom a qualified professional.
Again, I'm taking noresponsibility for putting this
out into the universe, otherthan to give you the ideas to
implement with a professional.
I'm always happy to help you,but please don't just start, you
(39:15):
know, kicking up intohandstands all willy nilly.
It's just a way to again bringthat stimulation into your crown
chakra.
And I will say, out of all ofthe above, probably my most fun
has been with a wall and otherpeople in the room, either in a
class type setting or, you know,one on one with a friend or or
(39:35):
another yoga instructor.
Playing with handstands can be.
You know, as long as you'reopen to to laughing at yourself
and you are under thesupervision or are a qualified
professional, then they they canbe a lot of fun.
There are different ways topractice.
They're very strengthening,they engage your entire core,
they engage your legs and thatyou can kick up against a wall
(39:58):
and kind of take most of thebalance aspect out, and they
build confidence.
Handstands truly do buildconfidence.
I will say since my neck injuryI have not practiced a handstand
and maybe, maybe this is theuniverse drawing me to my
intuition to start, to start towork on that again.
But I will say that I have hadquite a lot of fun in my, in my
yoga heyday, pre injury, playingwith handstands, safely with a
(40:22):
wall and a qualifiedprofessional.
But they are a great way toagain align the chakras and to
challenge yourself right and tobring that energy down, up, up,
down, up down into your crownchakra.
And so all of these, again, areoptions.
(40:42):
They're just options, but thepoint of this is to stimulate
these lesser, I guess, focusedon chakras.
When we meditate, we'restimulating our crown chakra.
Right, it's not all about thephysicality of it.
When we're talking about yogaasana, we are literally speaking
about the physicality of it,and so these are ways to tap
(41:04):
into to, to pay, pay homage toto our, our upper chakras, our
intuition, our connection to ourhigher self, higher power,
whatever you want to call itzone of no judgment and to begin
to stimulate these areas.
Um, the science behind it iswill be for another episode, um,
(41:26):
but you know, you have yourpineal gland, which is a huge,
huge, huge um, that's that's.
That's not even just oneepisode, that's a multi episode
feature, um in in into itselfand it sits right back there, um
, behind the third eye, and soyou know we want to.
People call it the seat of thesoul.
(41:48):
I'll just make it a littlespoiler alert and I urge you to
Google, because it is again oneof the reasons that we practice
these inversions, one of thereasons that we stimulate this,
this spinal fluid, that we haveour bodies in these different
positions to overall stimulatehealth and well-being and, for
our purposes today, stimulateour creativity.
(42:09):
So, as I've said many times, Iwill post videos.
However, due to my ownlimitations, which I'm aware of,
probably will not be showingyou videos of headstands and, if
I can get there, maybe I willpost a video of me laughably
kicking up into a handstand onceI have the okay from my doctor
to do so for my neck injury.
(42:30):
But I just want to thank youfor allowing me to help you
break into your creativity,align yourself with your chakras
upside down or right side upand explore a little bit
different ways that are, I hope,are accessible to everyone, for
their highest and best good, tobring their inner dreams into
(42:52):
their outer reality, pardon me.
And so I would just like to saythat I appreciate each and
every one of you for sharingthis space with me, and so I'd
ask you to please share the samewith your loved ones.
For more goodness.
Follow me on all the socials atAbove the Ground Podcast and
(43:12):
visit my website,erasaboveyogacom.
As always, I'm happy to helpyou with any assistance you may
have with your own yoga practice.
Please don't forget to checkout all of my other episodes and
the amazing sisters atDivasThatCarecom.
You can find us on Spotify,odyssey, apple, amazon,
iheartradio or anywhere elsethat you might feel guided.
(43:34):
Again, my name is Gia RaquelRose, owner of Heirs Above Yoga,
and you are listening to Abovethe Ground Podcast, where every
day is a good one.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Thanks for listening.
This show was brought to you byDivas that Care.
Connect with us on Facebook, onInstagram and, of course, on
divasthatcarecom, where you cansubscribe to our newsletter, so
you don't miss a thing.
It's Divas that Care Radio Stories, strategies and
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Welcome to Divas that Care, anetwork of women committed to
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This is a global movement forwomen, by women engaged in a
collaborative effort to create abetter world for future
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To find out more about themovement, visit DivasThatCarecom
(00:24):
after the show.
Right now, though, stay tunedfor another jolt of inspiration.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Namaste and welcome to the Divas that Care Network.
I am your host, gia Raquel Rose, owner of Heirs Above Yoga, and
you are listening to Above theGround podcast, if this is your
first time.
Tuning in our network is in its15th year and listened to in
over 30 countries.
I would like to take thismoment to personally thank you
(00:52):
for giving me the gift of yourtime.
It is always my honor talkingabout creation and cultivation,
and we kind of went a little bitlast time into ways that what
(01:13):
seeds are we planting?
It was a big theme was seedsand planting seeds, and those
seeds could have been anything.
It doesn't necessarily need tohave come from you.
It could be things that youwant to implement into your life
.
What I want to talk about nowis actual creation for you,
things that are going to, thatare coming from you, that did
not exist until you put them outinto the world, and how certain
(01:36):
yoga asanas can help you tobegin to get in touch with the
creative centers in the bodythrough your chakra system, and
what postures are bestsupportive of that.
And we haven't really gotteninto the ones that I'm going to
talk about too much so far, andthe reason for that is because,
(01:59):
predominantly, when we thinkabout our chakra, I, I generally
talk about them from the groundup, and when I go through yoga
practice, I generally lead fromthe ground up.
And but a lot of times we thinkabout energy and we think about
intuition.
A lot of times that energyflows from the, the, the crown,
or the top down right.
That inspiration is coming fromsomewhere.
(02:20):
So I want this to be aninspiration and I want this
whole sequence and this, thisnext series of episodes, to be
towards that inspiration andways for people to bring their
own wisdom, their own intuition,into fruition, into creation in
the world around us, so that wecan all benefit from.
(02:42):
You know, every, every person'sspecial snowflake ideas, right,
like the, everything that welove and look up to in this
world originally came, generallyspeaking, from the mind or the
intuition of a human person, andso if we can cultivate our own
intuitions and actually take theinspired action to create them
(03:02):
in the outside world, think, ifyou ever, if you haven't seen it
, I encourage, I encourage.
It's very, very.
It's sad, but one of the mostromantic movies.
Ps, I love you.
Right, it's to steal fromHilary Swank, it's a piece of
you and it's out there and it'syou.
And so, coming from that notionof bringing something that
intuitively came to you, thatcame from your mind, from your
(03:23):
heart, from from your, from theinside of you, to the outside of
the world, and how can we bestsupport that, how can we start
to inspire and how can we startto cultivate not only the
intuitive hits, because I feellike and I'm guilty of this, but
I feel like a lot of peoplehave ideas and then they just
(03:44):
don't do anything about them.
And that's that's where I thinka lot of the disconnect between
for creation itself exists, isthat disconnect of oh I have
this idea, but what if?
And all of the associatedimplications that come from what
if?
And basically, we all knowthose are the self-sabotaging
(04:05):
thoughts, those are the doubts,those are even, you know,
unfortunately other people whomaybe never follow their
creative path and so they wantto squash those that are trying
to, which I don't love, but youknow it happens.
And so how do we tune all ofthat internal and external noise
out and essentially bringourselves into the place where
(04:30):
we can not only receive theintuitive hit as to what our
special creation it doesn't haveto be one, it can be multiple
what our special creations areand how we can turn them into
reality in the world and theexistence around us to make it a
better place for all humans,all humanity.
And so how are we going to dothat?
(04:51):
Well, one of the best ways thatI can give you is to start to
think about our upper chakras,right?
So, when we're talking aboutgoing off of things that are
meant for us, things that cometo us, things that find us,
dreams that we have that inspireus, or, you know, insights that
we get while we're meditating,all of these are different
things that will hopefully giveus a glimpse into our path, into
(05:11):
our next best step, into whatit is that are.
You know, as I, as I do before,like I'm not a scientific
research deep diver.
I was never meant to be in themedical field.
I do not like.
I do not like gore.
It scares me.
If something bad happens to ananimal, I won't even watch a
movie like that's me.
That's not my path.
(05:31):
But if we didn't have doctorsand surgeons and people who are
absolutely inspired to createthese you know medical marvels
well, we'd be in a very, verybad place in society.
So just to just to preface bysaying it doesn't matter what it
is, as long as it's not harmful.
Do no harm, right, that's,that's their creed, but mine too
, and for yoga instructors aswell, there's a do no harm
(05:54):
policy and I firmly believe thatno matter what you do in life,
no matter who you are, notharming should be ahimsa in yoga
, no harm, not harming should beyou know the first thing and
then hopefully it's it's abenefit to others and that
should be you know the goalright.
Not just, not just selfishnessand doing it for your own sake
(06:16):
or for credibility or notorietyor financial abundance, whatever
it might be.
And those things are allwonderful and good and come
hopefully with with success.
But this is this is about,about the true inspiration and
the heart led, heart space,inspired creations that
(06:37):
hopefully bring love and lightinto this world.
And to that end, let's get intothe asana.
And so, thinking about thechakras and, as I said, we've
done a lot of work recently withyour creativity coming from the
sacral chakra, your secondchakra, root and groundedness,
rooting and groundedness, safetycoming from that root chakra,
(06:58):
your power, coming from yoursolar plexus, and I feel like
we're kind of skipping ahead,but to that end the chakra
systems are linked um inversely.
So your safety, your rootchakra is inextricably linked to
your crown chakra and viceversa on the way down.
So root to crown, third eye tosacrum, creativity, right,
(07:20):
inspire, and receiving thatintuition from your third eye
and meeting it and creating itthrough your sacral chakra, your
throat chakra and your solarplexus chakra are linked and
then, as always, my personalfavorite your heart chakra is
the bridge that links all of ittogether.
So we're going to talk, aswe've talked a little bit about
(07:40):
grounding, we've talked a littlebit about our sacral chakra and
creativity and, you know, hipopeners to help to open that,
that potential creative blockand kind of remove it so that we
can flow more freely.
Now we're going to start totalk about a little more of the
upper chakras and I know we'rejumping around, not necessarily
going linear, and probably noone cares about that but me.
But I do want to note that thisis specific, to kind of go with
(08:05):
that cross alignment betweenthe upper and lower chakras.
So when we're talking about ourupper chakras, a lot of times,
you know, people are wonderingokay, well, how am I going to do
a yoga pose for my crown chakra.
It's not, you know, in my body,technically, right, it's in my
energetic body, not in myphysical body.
It's there's.
No, you know, there's notangible thing.
So, really, what we're thinkingabout when we, when it comes to
(08:28):
a lot of associated asana thatgoes with inspiration, intuition
, divine, if you want to go thatroute, fine, we're talking
about generally prone orinverted postures.
So, with that in mind, think of, you know, a child's pose,
think of a downward facing dog,think of any pose, even
(08:52):
headstand, handstand, and I'lltouch on those a little bit more
.
But again, I, my focus is alwayson safety, especially as I put,
as I put, my creation of abovethe ground podcast out into the
universe, not knowing where itcould go and where it could land
.
I just always want to say that,as we talk about inversions,
I'm hesitant to even teachinversions in my classes or with
(09:16):
one-on-one students because ofthe implication, with improper
alignment, potential harm to thehead or neck.
Now we're talking about, youknow, the big ticket items there
, right?
So when we talk about this, I'mgoing to focus on the gentle
ways to be able to inspire.
Then, of course, child's poseis going to be, you know, one of
(09:37):
the most easy ways except forpeople that have bad knees, and
there's always a way to prop andfigure that out, except for
people that have bad knees, andthere's always a way to prop and
figure that out and downwardfacing dog.
But we want to think about thatidea of of being prone in
humility, being humble, havingthat, that contact between your
third eye and even your crownchakra, like so, for example, I
(10:00):
love downward facing dog forthis idea of how am I going to
target my crown chakra withasana.
Well, you're going to pointyour crown chakra at the floor
in downward facing dog or evenin a posture like headstand, but
the bottom line is that you'restimulating, physically and
energetically, flow of prana,flow of energy, flow of your
(10:24):
consciousness into these areas.
And thinking of the contactbetween the third eye and the
crown chakra.
And the ground is, you know,something that we generally
don't do right?
Little kids do it, gymnasts doit, yoga instructors, yoga
practitioners do it.
But on a whole, on the dailylife, you know, as you're going
(10:44):
through about your day, there'snot a lot of time where people
spend upside down.
It's just not necessarily athing traditionally Right.
So, as we talk about it, um, andand I will give a little bit of
a nod to, uh, the interviewthat I just did with Nick,
because one of his favoritepostures, asana's was and is
child's pose.
Um, and it's never been one ofmine because I had and have had
(11:09):
for many years since I was achild I have a knee injury, and
so when I compress my knee so ifyou're talking about child pose
generally, it is done with thebig toes touching the knees,
spread wider than the torso,wider than hips width, and then
you create that gentle V anglefor your chest and torso to lay
comfortably with your armsoutstretched, and this is one
(11:31):
way to to kind of submit intothat pose, surrender into that
pose.
Now, if you're like me and youhave knee injuries, a couple
things can go wrong here.
One you don't want to becompressed through the knee, so
to prop for that you would takea towel, a blanket.
Bolsters are going to be toobig.
You want something that has alittle more give and you'd put
it not directly behind the jointitself but to lessen the
(11:56):
compressive angle in that jointby placing that, that prop
behind and in between the thighand calf to alleviate that angle
, to give a little bit of spaceand to still be able to relax
your back and your hips into thefull expression of the pose,
wherever you are in that moment.
So that's one way to prop forthat.
Another issue that can come upis literally having, you know,
(12:20):
more body weight on compressedknees, and while that's more of
an issue when you're talkingabout kneeling postures where
you're actually on, like theplatella, which can be very
uncomfortable for some peoplepresent, company included, and
I've had students that have thesame concern that would be
stacking a second mat not rolledobviously either, either just
creating more cushion underneaththat knee is another way.
(12:43):
So you could have a blanket ora second mat, either on its own
or folded under the knees andthen even prop between the knees
on top of that as well.
But when we're talking aboutchild's pose, when I take it one
of my favorite things to do andthis is because of my neck and
shoulder injury, but alsobecause I think it's always
(13:03):
great to be able to deepen andopen through the upper back and
shoulders because so many, notjust women, so many of us just
from, like I'm doing right now,sitting at my computer, looking
at our phones, just our livesare spent forward and hunched,
and if you're a woman, doubly sobecause we carry the extra
(13:25):
weight of the world right infront of us and it creates that
rounded spine, that kind ofturtle looking neck posture.
It's not very pretty, whereyou're kind of your chin juts
out, your shoulders collapse andthen you kind of look like this
and it's no fun and it pulls inall the wrong places and it's
just generally bad juju.
So because of that, this is oneof, for me, with a neck injury
(13:47):
feels lovely and, assuming thatyou are relatively propped
appropriately or set upcomfortably in your knees, legs
and hips for for child's pose, Ilike to take blocks and instead
of coming into child's pose,where you would shift your hips
back so your hips are literallyresting on your heels or just
(14:07):
above them, if you're proppedand supported as you shift your
hips back, you reach your armsforward, traditionally straight
out in front of you, palmsfacing down.
I like to take blocks and youcan start on the thin you know
the thinnest section, so thegentlest lift, and I like to
take the blocks and make surethat I place them under my
elbows, so then my elbows comeup a little bit higher.
(14:30):
It creates a little bit ofspace for the shoulders and the
chest to drop below and itreally creates this really
awesome gentle collarboneopening, shoulder, shoulder,
head opening.
It feels lovely and then I takemy hands into prayer behind my
head and I let my forehead comedown through the blocks.
(14:51):
Now, if you don't have openshoulders, this can be
aggressive and I would adviseyou to skip it or start by
placing your hands on the blocksto get to start to work the
shoulders up and back so thatyou have a little.
You start to understand whatit's going to feel like to let
your head come below the line ofthe shoulders and the torso.
For me it really, really feelswonderful and it also gets that
(15:16):
forehead.
Either way, your forehead isgoing to come in contact with
the floor, which is the point tostimulate that third eye chakra
right, we are talking about inthis instance, and not to say
that it doesn't also benefit thecrown chakra.
But if we're being as literalas we can be for the sake of
asana, physicality and posture,we are talking literal third eye
to the floor and so, with thatin mind, this is a really great
(15:39):
way and then you just breatheand you melt into it.
And if you're propped andsufficiently supported in this
pose, you can hang out there foran extensive period of time
comfortably, assuming thatyou've set yourself up as with
any yoga pose.
You can hang out there for anextensive period of time
comfortably, assuming thatyou've set yourself up as with
any yoga pose you know.
Shout out to Annie and the yinyoga, as many yoga pose.
You can do it comfortably aslong as you set yourself up
appropriately.
So child's pose is a wonderfulway, to you know, stay in your
(16:04):
surrendered humility to havethat contact of the floor with
your third eye, to stimulate theenergy, the consciousness, the
flow to that third eye chakra.
Another wonderful way to againbring the energy and we're
talking about in theory, we'retalking about inversions.
Child's pose certainly is notnecessarily an inversion, but
(16:28):
there is.
There is a pose and differentschools of thought call it
different things.
I was taught rabbit and it is.
I'm going to preface with alittle asterisk by saying that
if we're talking about this,posture is also a second way to
take child's pose, again,depending on the school of
thought, because you knowdifferent, different Western
(16:51):
words have come to be associatedwith different yoga asanas.
You know, bound angle andbutterfly essentially are two,
two things to bring that thoughtprocess into mind.
But when it comes to what I'mgoing to discuss, this is
essentially another variation ofchild's pose where, instead of
having your knees wide and againfor people with knee issues,
(17:12):
you're probably not going tolove this one.
So I would.
I would steer clear of thispotential variation.
But your knees are going to betogether and your feet are going
to be essentially together, oryou know, roughly hips width but
next to each other, and you'regoing to sit directly on your
heels.
So your knees are bent, yourshins are on the floor, the tops
of your feet.
If you have feet issues, thiscan be uncomfortable ankle
problems for some people.
(17:32):
So just to preface propping forthis would really just be a
roll towel or blanket under theankle area and again, it does
put pressure on the knees.
Please know that I am givingyou this information for the
upper chakra, inspiration andcreation aspects of it, not
necessarily for the knee, thepotential knee conflicts of it.
(17:55):
So work with me on this oneOnce you are set up with your
hips on your heels and again,another way to set up would be
hero.
But the distinction between herois you're upright first, but
your heels are actually slightlywider than your hips and your
knees are in, and so for rabbitand I'm using air quotes for
those of you listening yourknees and your feet are going to
(18:18):
be more in line, and there's areason for that.
This formulation of child'spose rabbit, however you want to
talk about it is also going tobe with respect to the fact that
once you're sitting on yourheels, you fold forward into
your child's pose and a lot ofpeople will take at this point
it's more of the forehead or thetop of the head hitting the
floor and the arms are going towrap around behind you and
(18:41):
you're going to grab your heels,if you can so comfortably.
Otherwise, you're going todrape your arms, the shoulders
roll forward and the backs ofthe hands are down by those
heels and ankles restingcomfortably and, if you're okay,
there, like I said, the onlything that generally aggravates
people in this position aregoing to be the knees and the
tops of the feet and ankles.
(19:02):
So avoid, if those are problemareas for you.
But one of the reasons that youknow I don't generally teach
the rabbit aspect of this, whilewhat I've just described as a
child's pose variation, therabbit aspect of this.
You then gently cup the heelsin the palms of your hands, you
(19:23):
start to lift the hips and youstart to gently tuck the chin in
and roll ever so slightly ontothe top of your head.
Now, why is this relevant?
Because this would be a way tobegin to stimulate the crown
chakra when you are in thisposition, in a child's pose
position, it does, a way to prepfor a shoulder stand to loosen
(19:51):
into the back and the upper, youknow, the upper back, the neck.
It's also a nice way to beginto prep for a headstand.
And when I say prep, I don'tmean prep to get into the
headstand, I mean, you know,like a posture that will start
to loosen the muscles inpreparation to support the
(20:13):
entrance of the posture.
Right, we're not going to gointo the headstand from this
direction, but just benefits tothis pose.
Now, the giant asterisk fromthe person with the cervical
vertebrae injury is going to beno, I don't love it for the neck
.
Plow pose is another one thatthis is a good you know
precursor for.
But again, I don't teach plowpose in my classes.
(20:35):
I don't teach handstands orheadstands.
Handstands sometimes, butheadstands I do not teach in my
classes, or even with my privateclients, unless I'm in the room
with them and they want me toand they ask me to, and the
reason for that is you just ifyou're, there's too many
variables where you couldseverely potentially cause
yourself injury and headstandspecifically, while it is, you
(20:56):
know, arguably one of the most,if not the most, crown chakra
stimulating posture, I I don'twant to take that responsibility
and so I will not beresponsible for the head and
neck of another human being,knowing how fragile the neck
truly is from my own personalexperience.
(21:17):
So that's my, my big giantflashing disclaimer when it
comes to even such a gentleposes, rabbit, where you're not,
where most of your body weightis still on the floor and you're
really just kind of coming intothat tuck of the chin and that
elongation of the upper back inbetween the shoulder area and
the neck, and the neck is thereason why I don't.
(21:39):
I have practiced that andgenerally I will.
I just wanted to give you anidea of how to stimulate in
child's pose by connecting thetop of the head and the crown
with the ground, because, again,it's a little bit harder to do,
especially if you choose not topractice certain positions due
to injury or, you know, justconscientiousness for the
(22:01):
welfare of others, which ishopefully the space that I'm
coming from.
So again, child's pose with thechin tucked and the head
towards the floor, as opposed toarms outstretched and the
forehead, are two different waysto stimulate and receive that
intuition and insight.
Rabbit, again, I'm not sayingthat I recommend it, disclaimers
, asterisks, all the things infront of that.
(22:24):
But again, grabbing those heels, gently lifting the hips to
roll a little bit of compressionpressure onto the crown of the
head, not necessary, you don'tneed to do that.
I'm taking no responsibilityfor anyone that chooses to do
that giant disclaimer alert fora second time Moving on.
So, but those are ways that Ithat are that you can stimulate
(22:46):
these upper chakras again inthat prone position, starting to
get that rare contact with yourface and or the top of your
head and the floor.
Now, one of the most popular,well-known, spoken about
postures is downward facing dogand from a vinyasa standpoint,
obviously it's a wonderfulposture.
(23:07):
I've mentioned it here beforebecause, same same reason, my
neck injury prevented me foralmost a year from really being
able to to fully support thatposture and there are so many
ways that you can modifydownward facing dog and there
are so many people, just frombeing a yoga instructor, that
that are in downward facing dogand, unfortunately, are not
(23:29):
completing the proper alignedexpression of the posture,
simply because either theyhaven't been taught how to set
it up or they have too muchtension in certain areas of
their body.
When positioned appropriatelyand done correctly, downward
facing dog is anall-encompassing yoga asana.
Not only does it stimulate thecrown chakra and, honestly,
(23:53):
probably all all chakras, it isone of the most accessible
inversions and when we sayinversion, we're really just
talking about the alignment ofthe spine and the chakras being
upside down from the norm, wherethey are again crown to root.
When you are a downward facingdog, the crown is down and the
(24:14):
root is up, and so, with that inmind, one of the one of the
cues that I give that I findgets the most spinal alignment
and engagement is thinking of aleapfrog.
And, instead of worrying, what alot of people tend to do in
downward facing dog is they dumpdirectly into the one place
(24:36):
you're not supposed to, which isup here, into the upper
shoulders and the neck, andthey're doing downward dog like
this, downward dog like this,and the shoulders are up by the
ears and all of their bodyweight is dumping onto the tops
of their shoulders, which is notmeant really to support all of
your body weight in that way.
Their backs are not engaged,their lower abdomen, their core,
is not engaged, theirhamstrings are probably
(24:58):
excessively tight, as are theirhip flexors, and so it's just,
it's it's.
It looks kind of like a C rightrather than an upside down V,
and so the cue that I find thatgets people to eliminate or
realign to the best of theirability is pressing your belly
(25:19):
to your thighs.
Do that for most people is tobend the knees so deeply that
they come towards the floor andto lengthen that belly and that
spine up and back.
This also does two things itshifts the weight from height,
hopefully from the arms and thehands, into the hips, which is
(25:42):
where the weight's reallysupposed to be, and by bending
the knees it creates that extrakind of torque in the lower legs
.
But a lot of times when peoplecome into downward facing dog,
they forget that their legs arestill doing half the work and
they kind of use their legs asas a balance more so than as a
support, because they're justnot used to distributing their
(26:04):
body weight in this way.
That's my understanding of whythis happens consistently.
So once you get them tolengthen through the spine by
pressing their belly back andcoming from that C into that B,
because you've reduced the anglewith the legs, then you can
begin to ask them to pedal orbegin to straighten one leg at a
(26:29):
time, creating a little bit ofa dynamic movement.
So we're reducing the risk ofpotentially popping a hamstring
right, we don't want that.
So, now that I've given all ofthe you know, asana, postural
kind of indications towards it,when we're talking about the
spiritual implications of it,what I love about downward dog
(26:50):
and why I think that you know.
For vinyasa specifically, andand I will put a little little
detour in my line of talking tojust touch on the vinyasa aspect
and um, the movement reallycreating flow in the energy of
the body, and one of the reasonsthat I was always drawn to
vinyasa is the flow of it, themovement of energy, the moving
(27:13):
meditation that it is versusHatha, traditional yoga and I
can't, I shouldn't saytraditional, because it's all
traditional, right, but staticposture holds are in my mind.
You really shouldn't have onepractice without the other,
because if you are new to yogaand you go to vinyasa class,
you're not going to have anunderstanding of those postures
(27:34):
with the speed with which theyare moving through them, whereas
if you have a hatha practiceand you understand the postures,
you will be able to more easilymove into and out of those
postures.
Not only easily but safely.
And that is the most importantthing is to be safe in our
practice.
No matter what Right Our lifepractice, our goal is our own
safety and the safety of others.
(27:54):
Do no harm.
Remember so, with that in mind,one of the beautiful things
about Downward Facing Dog andVinyasa, and why the yoga
teacher will laugh somewhatsomewhat what's the word I'm
looking for?
Frighteningly, because it's arest pose, so that the downward
facing dog, which for mostpeople is an extremely
(28:16):
challenging, highly dynamic posein a vinyasa class, that's your
rest pose and child's pose isthe alternative.
If you've, you know, takenyourself to your edge and you
really just need a break, thenyou come down to child's pose.
Well, we just talked aboutchild's pose and essentially the
two postures are doing the samething.
One is significantly morestrenuous, obviously Downward
(28:37):
facing least.
In downward facing dog, like atraditional child's pose with
the knees wide and the spinelong and the spine lengthened
with the room for the torso, youhave that spinal alignment,
that chakra alignment, that lineof energy from the hips through
(29:01):
the head, and you're bringingin a traditional downward dog
asana.
You're bringing that energyfrom the root chakra.
You're stimulating it anddriving it up towards the crown
chakra.
You're also aiming that crownjust like we were talking about
before towards the ground whichis creating that stimulation and
having that out of the normupside down.
(29:22):
Having that out of the normupside down inversion practice,
relatively safely for mostpeople.
I could probably do an entireepisode on just downward facing
dog and, who knows, maybe I will.
This is not going to be thatepisode but, like I said, there
are certain ways formodifications.
A lot of people do have wristinjuries and or carpal tunnel
(29:44):
and or that's where they feelthis the most Well.
One of the reasons for that isbecause they're probably putting
too much of their body weightinto their arms and shoulders.
Another reason for that isbecause they are not.
They are cupping and dumpinginto their wrists as opposed to
elongating through the wristsand really getting into the
hands themselves.
So one of the big, the big cuesthat I'm going to share with
you now for how to alleviatesome of that discomfort in
(30:07):
downward facing dog is twofold.
The first fold is in order toget out of this and into the
traditional shoulders broadenedarms, extended aspect to get out
of your neck and crunchyshoulders and into your back and
to really strengthen.
I like to take my arms, notshoulder but slightly wider than
(30:28):
shoulder, with a gentle 45degree angle of the hands that
I'm making a little smaller justso it fits into the screen.
If you are watching or listeningand not watching, I should say
Other most important thing tothink about is and a lot of
people don't know this, unlessyou go to yoga teacher training
or you have a really wonderfulinstructor one of the most
(30:48):
important placements when we'retalking about downward facing
dog is this right here.
It is the kind of ball if youwill again air quotes for those
of you that are listening ballof the hands, and it's going to
be the, the, the on the palmunderneath the knuckles of the
index and middle fingers, andwhat that does when you press
(31:09):
into that it elongates.
It's hard to kind of hard totell.
It elongates the wrist and whatthis does as you ground into
that, a lot of times you'll seepeople cupping in downward
facing dog where they're likesqueezing their fingertips in.
Their palms are coming off themat and their wrists are like
taking on the brunt of theirupper body weight.
Their palms are coming off themat and their wrists are like
taking on the brunt of theirupper body weight.
(31:29):
So by pressing into this areaon both sides, you are then
grounding through your palms,you're extending through your
fingers and you are taking thecringe out of the wrist, the
bend out of the wrist, andreally creating a stream of
energy from the fingertips andthe palms directly into the
floor, up the line, through thearm and towards the back.
And that is probably 99% of thetime going to help alleviate
(31:54):
that crunchy wrist, my wristhurting, downward dog problem.
Obviously, if you have a severeinjury or something, it may not
for you, but nine times out of10, that's that cue is going to
start to change your downwarddog practice, coupled with the
idea of keeping the knees bentand actually getting your spine
straight and I again, we don'tlike to say the word straight,
(32:16):
but I'll say lengthened indownward facing dog is another
way that you're going to be ableto start to get the weight out
of the hands, out of the wrists,into the back, into the hips
and down the legs.
Don't forget about your legs,bend into them, bend those knees
, lengthen through that spineand then begin to work through
the legs, pedal out through thefeet and shift that weight back
(32:38):
and down to create that equaland opposite kind of physical
reaction in your own body, withconsciousness right on purpose,
because that's that's the wholepoint, that's what we're doing.
So another thing I touched onthem briefly headstand,
handstand.
These are ways to go into thatcrown chakra and again, trying
to bring energy there, to createthat connection with your
(33:01):
intuition, with your insight,with your creativity, with with
the manifestation of what's inthe mind out into the reality in
front of us.
And again, this is not going tobe for the faint of heart.
So when we're talking aboutheadstands, there is, there are
different.
There's one in particular andyou can, you can look it up, but
(33:21):
it is kind of a support systemand because of my neck I haven't
tried it, so I can't comment onit or its efficacy, other than
I've heard good things fromother people, but it is
essentially a padded, shortenedtable with a neck cutout that
you hold on to and kick yourlegs up and it is able to
(33:42):
provide you, with your shoulderspressing onto it, a way to
practice headstands without theactual body weight on the head
and hands.
I urge you to look it up.
I would just Google inversionsystem and see what comes up for
you.
That's one way to attempt itand again, I'm not saying that
it's, I'm not promoting it inany way.
(34:04):
I'm just saying that that's atool that's out there.
Another tool that's out therethat I do use but again won't
promote.
We'll just bring up ourinversion tables and they can be
pretty aggressive for peoplethat have again ankle injuries.
You're literally hangingyourself up by your ankles
upside down, but it's a greatway for people that have a
comfort level for that and don'thave any contraindications
(34:24):
physically for that todecompress the spine.
There's a whole host of healthbenefits associated with
inversion tables.
You know, increased productionof synovial fluid beginning to
literally create that, thatdecompression by hanging upside
down.
So if you do, like me, stareclear of typical inversions such
(34:48):
as a headstand, for good reason, or you don't have the, maybe
strength right now to practice ahandstand, which is, I believe,
personally, handstands.
While the balance is morechallenging, you can always use
a wall and they are, in my mind,the safer option from a
headstand.
A because your elbows are notare are not grounded.
(35:13):
Some people practice headstandsin a tripod, which I don't love
because of the instability ofthe neck.
So anytime I do practice aheadstand, or anytime I would
help someone else, it would bewith the elbows engaged with the
floor and the palms around theback of the head as so, and that
would be the only way I wouldteach it.
(35:33):
I am not not a fan of thetripod headstand.
It's just much too unstable foreven with a wall, I just I do
not hashtag, do not recommend.
So when it comes to a handstand,people might think, oh well,
that's, you know, even moreaggressive and technically you
definitely need more strengthfor it.
Technically it is moreaggressive.
(35:55):
You're only on your hands, butwhen your elbows are are in
contact with the floor and yourlegs are up over your head, if
you, if you can't really fallout of that without severe
injury to your shoulder, whereaswhen you're on your hands,
ironically enough, it gives you,if you fell out of it in a
direction you can kind of moveand kick your legs around
(36:16):
because your neck and your spineare not engaged with the floor.
So you have a lot more safeways to emergency dismount out
of that posture.
And handstand definitely buildsstrength, they all build
strength, but handstand reallybuilds strength and there is a
way to.
There are different ways you canL to build the strength, to
(36:39):
build the balance with.
You know, one foot against thewall, one leg up in the air.
That's a little morechallenging.
You can kick up into ahandstand.
You are never, ever supposed tokick up into a headstand.
It is contraindicated, rightagain, because of the head and
the neck and the pressure onthem.
So a lot of times people willkick up into headstand because
(36:59):
it's easier than using the coremuscle engagement that it takes
to get you there.
And so you know again, the preplike these all go in linear
succession, kind of generallyspeaking, just because
inversions are traditionallyagain throwing out that buzzword
.
They are a huge associationwith yoga because they bring in
(37:21):
that energy right, going upsidedown, flips, flips things around
.
It brings the energy flowingback towards mother earth, up
towards the upper chakras andand they are imperative to a
comprehensive yoga practice.
Yeah, pardon me, but we need topractice them safely and
everyone everybody is different.
So in an effort to give peopleoptions, if you don't have a
(37:47):
neck injury and you want to beable to air quotes, play in an
inversion, that table Imentioned where you can hold on
to it it's its own sturdy area,with your shoulders supported
and your neck and head quoteunquote free, without the weight
then that would be a decentrecommendation.
(38:08):
If you are just looking for thebenefits physically of an
inversion an inversion table andyou can handle the strain on
the lower joints, the ankles,the knees, it doesn't bother
your lumbar spine.
An inversion table is anamazing, safe and gentle way to
go about that.
I've mentioned legs up the wallon this podcast almost every
episode.
It's not a true inversionsimply because your back is
(38:32):
still flat on the floor.
But if you really don't have alot of accessibility for
whatever your reason for theseother options, then that's good
enough.
It's better than nothing.
It's getting your legs up inthe air.
It's getting blood flow fromyour feet, your ankles, your
lower legs up to the body.
So it's still definitely abenefit If you are feeling
(38:52):
frisky and you want to inspireyourself.
Handstands are fun.
They're fun to play with aslong as you're doing so safely,
under supervision, with supportfrom a qualified professional.
Again, I'm taking noresponsibility for putting this
out into the universe, otherthan to give you the ideas to
implement with a professional.
I'm always happy to help you,but please don't just start, you
(39:15):
know, kicking up intohandstands all willy nilly.
It's just a way to again bringthat stimulation into your crown
chakra.
And I will say, out of all ofthe above, probably my most fun
has been with a wall and otherpeople in the room, either in a
class type setting or, you know,one on one with a friend or or
(39:35):
another yoga instructor.
Playing with handstands can be.
You know, as long as you'reopen to to laughing at yourself
and you are under thesupervision or are a qualified
professional, then they they canbe a lot of fun.
There are different ways topractice.
They're very strengthening,they engage your entire core,
they engage your legs and thatyou can kick up against a wall
(39:58):
and kind of take most of thebalance aspect out, and they
build confidence.
Handstands truly do buildconfidence.
I will say since my neck injuryI have not practiced a handstand
and maybe, maybe this is theuniverse drawing me to my
intuition to start, to start towork on that again.
But I will say that I have hadquite a lot of fun in my, in my
yoga heyday, pre injury, playingwith handstands, safely with a
(40:22):
wall and a qualifiedprofessional.
But they are a great way toagain align the chakras and to
challenge yourself right and tobring that energy down, up, up,
down, up down into your crownchakra.
And so all of these, again, areoptions.
(40:42):
They're just options, but thepoint of this is to stimulate
these lesser, I guess, focusedon chakras.
When we meditate, we'restimulating our crown chakra.
Right, it's not all about thephysicality of it.
When we're talking about yogaasana, we are literally speaking
about the physicality of it,and so these are ways to tap
(41:04):
into to, to pay, pay homage toto our, our upper chakras, our
intuition, our connection to ourhigher self, higher power,
whatever you want to call itzone of no judgment and to begin
to stimulate these areas.
Um, the science behind it iswill be for another episode, um,
(41:26):
but you know, you have yourpineal gland, which is a huge,
huge, huge um, that's that's.
That's not even just oneepisode, that's a multi episode
feature, um in in into itselfand it sits right back there, um
, behind the third eye, and soyou know we want to.
People call it the seat of thesoul.
(41:48):
I'll just make it a littlespoiler alert and I urge you to
Google, because it is again oneof the reasons that we practice
these inversions, one of thereasons that we stimulate this,
this spinal fluid, that we haveour bodies in these different
positions to overall stimulatehealth and well-being and, for
our purposes today, stimulateour creativity.
(42:09):
So, as I've said many times, Iwill post videos.
However, due to my ownlimitations, which I'm aware of,
probably will not be showingyou videos of headstands and, if
I can get there, maybe I willpost a video of me laughably
kicking up into a handstand onceI have the okay from my doctor
to do so for my neck injury.
(42:30):
But I just want to thank youfor allowing me to help you
break into your creativity,align yourself with your chakras
upside down or right side upand explore a little bit
different ways that are, I hope,are accessible to everyone, for
their highest and best good, tobring their inner dreams into
(42:52):
their outer reality, pardon me.
And so I would just like to saythat I appreciate each and
every one of you for sharingthis space with me, and so I'd
ask you to please share the samewith your loved ones.
For more goodness.
Follow me on all the socials atAbove the Ground Podcast and
(43:12):
visit my website,erasaboveyogacom.
As always, I'm happy to helpyou with any assistance you may
have with your own yoga practice.
Please don't forget to checkout all of my other episodes and
the amazing sisters atDivasThatCarecom.
You can find us on Spotify,odyssey, apple, amazon,
iheartradio or anywhere elsethat you might feel guided.
(43:34):
Again, my name is Gia RaquelRose, owner of Heirs Above Yoga,
and you are listening to Abovethe Ground Podcast, where every
day is a good one.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Thanks for listening.
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