27 Dec 2014
Day 7 of Holiday Yoga-Rest in Savasana
You survived the Holidays! Now it’s time for some well-deserved RELAXATION…
Today’s pose is SAVASANA, which is the pose of total relaxation and surrender. Try this pose at the end of a your yoga practice or right before bedtime.
Follow these simple steps for SAVASANA:
1. Come to a lying down position with your legs and feet falling gently out to the sides.
2. Stretch out your arms alongside your body with the palms facing upwards.
2. Relax your entire body, starting with your face all the way down to your toes.
3. Slowly breathe in and out from your abdomen, feeling your belly rise and fall with each breath.
4. Allow your body to come into a state of deep relaxation for 5 to 10 minutes.
5. To come out of the pose, begin to the deepen your breath and slowly awaken the body by bringing some movement to the fingers and toes.
©2014 Betty Larrea and Lucinda’s Magical Yoga Adventure
While lying in Savasana, enjoy this special Guided Cloud Visualization:
Close your eyes and imagine that you are lying on a puffy white cloud. You’re all snuggled into the cloud, which is like a comfy blankie made of cotton balls. You can feel the sunlight on your skin, as the cloud takes you higher and higher into the bright, blue sky. With each breath, feel yourself sinking deeper into a state of peaceful relaxation. You feel a deep happiness and love in your heart for the people in your life and the world you are a part of. This feeling washes over you and radiates out to all parts of your body and mind and beyond…like a beautiful light shining out from your heart to the whole world…
Namaste and Infinite Love
Betty
I was fortunate enough to spend time with my family this Holiday Season and was able to share these poses and my love of yoga with the ones I love.
My greatest gift this holiday has been to be able to share my beautiful light through my book.
All the poses from the 7 Days of Holiday Yoga can be found in Lucinda’s Magical Yoga Adventure which is available HERE.
Special thanks to my amazing illustrator Lorena Isabel Suarez for all the beautiful illustrations featured in my book and this special series of 7 DAYS OF HOLIDAY YOGA.
To lift heavy machinery, goods and a variety of culprits for the pain 
13 May 2015
Plant Your Own Garden
Teaching kids about gardening helps plant the seeds for self love and peace.
This week we explored a gardening theme in my yoga classes. Since the children have been learning about Nature and how things grow, it seemed like a great way to connect everything we have been learning through an interactive story. We began in circle time by sharing what grows in their gardens at home.
Then I introduced the story:
Are you ready to put on your gardening gloves because we are going to get messy in the soil!
First we cut the grass with our gardening shears. Next I taught them PLOW POSE so we could get the soil ready for planting. The children really enjoyed moving their legs in plow and then rolling back up to a seated position. We were now ready to dig a hole in the soil with our shovels so we could plant our seeds.
Let’s pretend that you are the little seed in the soil.
I had them come into CHILD’s POSE like a seed. I went around with my rain stick to make the sound of the rain as I watered the “seeds”. I asked them to feel what it would be like to grow and then peek out from the earth. The little plants began growing and taking in the light of the sun to grow taller into TREE POSE. We also grew into pretty FLOWERS.
I asked the children what else we might find in our garden and they came up with some of their favorite yoga poses including BUTTERFLY, RABBIT, BIRD, and FROG, as well as some very creative ideas, such as ladybugs, grasshoppers, ants and snails and spiders. We all had some laughs crawling, wiggling and hopping around like insects!
Let’s go inside and wash up!
We sat with our hands on our shoulders and “washed” our dirty clothes in the washing machine while making a swooshing sound and then “dried” them in the dryer, while rolling our arms in a circular motion.
After a long day of gardening, we were ready to relax in SAVASANA and I guided them through a visualization of them sitting in their gardens, looking around at what they had planted and taking in the sights and smells and sounds in their GARDEN!
I ended class with a song called In My Garden, that my friend Scott Massarky had created in collaboration with some children for a Peace Garden Mural Project. It’s a beautiful and catchy song that all the children loved and by the end of class, they were all singing along! To find out more about Scott’s amazing project, stop by my blog tomorrow because I will be posting a video of the song.
Stop and smell the flowers.
I even brought a live gerber daisy to my first teacher yoga classes this week. I placed it in the center of our yoga mat circle and told them it was a reminder that we are planting some new seeds by nurturing ourselves through yoga and relaxation. It was so rewarding to be able to provide some tranquility in the middle of a busy day for these preschool teachers and educators.
You can find more fun Nature Yoga Themes and ideas in some of my previous blog posts here:
Earth Day Yoga Theme
A Rainbow of Colors
Be Like a Butterfly
Spring is in the Air