Wake Me Up: Morning Positivity - Wake Up & Stretch - Generosity | Morning Yoga for Comfort & Care of Your Body

Episode Date: October 17, 2022

This morning, wake your mind and body with mindfulness and yoga designed to help you be generous to yourself and others. Enjoying Wake Me Up? Get ad-free access to the entire WMU catalog + bonus content by joining the WMU Premium Feed. Sign up and start your 7-day free trial at https://wakemeup.supercast.com/. Follow the show on Spotify - Apple Podcasts - Amazon - Podchaser Say hi or request an episode at www.wakemeuppodcast.com/contact. See visual guides for the yoga and stretches in WMU episodes at www.wakemeuppodcast.com/stretches. And find the podcast on Instagram and TikTok. **Only partake in the physical movements suggested in Wake Me Up episodes if you are physically able and in safe surroundings. All movements are done at the individual's own risk. Be safe, and always consult a doctor if you have any questions or concerns.** Have a wonderful day 😃 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you'd like to enjoy Wake Me Up completely ad-free and get access to exclusive bonus content, check out the link in the show notes for the Wake Me Up Premium Feed. Hey there, welcome to Wake Me Up and to this wake-up and stretch episode, where we'll get out of bed and prepare the mind and body for a fantastic day. This week, we've got a common theme to all of our episodes, and it's generosity. Being kind and generous is a great. quality that will never harm you in life. It will only help.

And today, we're going to start by being kind and generous to ourselves and our bodies. So let's jump right in. I recommend you start this episode from bed, but if you're up already, that's just fine too. Don't worry. Wherever you find yourself right now, let's all just pause for a moment and take a deep breath in, fill all the way up, hold at the top, and then release. Just let it all fall back out. Once more now, inhale, filling up even deeper this time.

Hold and release. Now, generosity always starts with caring. So let's care for our bodies a bit with a gentle stretch while we're here. If you're in bed, then roll over and make your way to your back. And if you're not in bed, that's okay too. Just find your way to the ground or a couch, somewhere where you can lay down in a soft spot preferably. And once you're there, take a big breath in

and bend your knees and bring them towards your chest. Wrap your arms around your legs and give them a big squeeze. Now exhale, release your arms, and keeping your knees bent, let your legs fall over to the right, so that your body is in a gentle twist. Keep your shoulders square on the surface beneath you and just let your legs fall over as far as it feels comfortable.

And remember, be generous with yourself. Take whatever kind of stretch your body needs here, whether that's a light one or a deep one. And just hang out here for a minute. Enjoy this moment of peace and quiet. Just to yourself. All right, now inhale, bring your knees back to center, back over your chest, and just reset for a second. Now exhale and let your legs fall over to the left this time, keeping your knees bent and again, no need to force anything.

Make sure your shoulders stay flat on the surface beneath you. And be generous with your body. Provide what it needs. and that may not be exactly what you want from it right now, but that's part of being generous, isn't it? Giving the recipient what they want, not what you want them to want. And that can be one of the tougher things about generosity,

not placing our own expectations and desires on others, giving someone what they want, treating someone how they want to be treated. That is true generosity. So inhale, bring your knees back to center, give them another big squeeze, and then on your exhale, roll over and make your way to standing up. It's time to get this beautiful day started with a few more stretches. All right, now that we're all up and out of bed, let's do some more stretches to help wake the body. And as always, just a quick word of warning.

Don't stretch if you're not able. don't do any of the stretches I suggest if they don't work for you. Feel free to do something else. In fact, I encourage you to modify or do different stretches if that's your preference. If you're ever confused about a stretch or you'd like to see a visual guide, you can find a link for that in the show notes. So, let's do a couple of light stretches to help wake the body and get it loosened up for the day. And remember, as we do these stretches, be done.

generous with your body. Provide what it needs. And that might be a lighter stretch than usual, and that's okay. Practicing generosity with yourself is a great place to start. And let's begin by opening our chest and our heart space. So stand up straight, feet flat and stable on the floor. Inhale and open your arms out wide. Reach all the way to the opposite walls of the room. open through your chest, drop your head back, and add a little back bend if you'd like. We're really just opening the chest in all directions. Release that now, take a full breath in and exhale, and let's do that again. So inhale, open your arms out wide, spread across the chest, drop your head back,

really reach all the way to the opposite sides of the room. Now exhale, come back, release. One round of breath just to reset. Inhale and exhale. And let's do that one last time. So inhale, spreading your arms out wide, opening across the chest. Exhale, release. All right, now we're going to open up the side body a little bit.

So keep standing straight up just like you are. Crown of the head to the ceiling. interlace your hands in front of you, down by your waist. Now inhale and keeping your hands interlaced, reach up and over to the right. Reach up and over to the top corner of the room that you're in. You'll feel a nice stretch along the left side of your body. And just hold here, keep trying to reach a little bit farther and a little bit farther,

and then exhale and release. So keep your hands interlaced. We're going to do that same thing to the left side. So inhale, reaching your hands up and over to the left. Feeling that stretch down the right side body. Again, keep reaching to that top corner of the room as far as you can. A little bit farther every second. And then exhale,

Great. Now we're going to end on one of my favorite stretches, a good old forward fold, and we'll take this nice and slow just to be generous with ourselves today. So you can separate your hands now and inhale, reach up to the sky, reach as far as you can, and on your exhale, fold forward at your waist. Let everything hang towards the ground, relax your neck, relax your face, and feel free to do any kind of modification here that you'd like, whether that's bending one knee and then the other. Maybe you want to bend both slightly,

just to open up the lower back a little bit. Maybe you want to spread your legs out wide to open up the hips. Do whatever works for you. And whatever you choose, enjoy this moment of peace and quiet. close your eyes if you'd like and just hang out here in forward fold and while you're here think of one way that you can be generous to yourself today if you've been crazy busy can you give yourself a little break can you do that activity or hobby that you love can you call up that friend that you miss anything you can do that would feel like a little gift for yourself

Take a moment now just to think of that. All right. Now slowly begin to roll all the way back up to standing, vertebrae by vertebrae. And when you get to the top, two times around, roll your shoulders up, back, and down. Once more, up, back, and down. Fantastic. Well, it's time to run. wrap up now. I hope you're feeling awake, nimble, and ready to enjoy another beautiful day.

Tomorrow in our meditation, we'll be doing a much-love technique called loving kindness or meta-meditation. It will build on what we've done here today, and it will really help you encourage that feeling of generosity. So I hope to see you there. And until then, go out and have an absolutely fantastic day.