Stretch and Get Happy!

My Favorite Stretch: Contraction and Expansion
Try this now! I love this!

Contraction and Expansion

1. Stand with your feet hip-width apart. Ground the feet, root them in the earth. Bend your knees a touch. Lengthen your spine and imagine a horse tail at your sacrum, pulling down the base of the spine. Imagine a string from the top of your head down through your perineum connecting heaven and earth.
2. Open your arms to your sides, chest open, face soft, jaw loose. Take in a big, wide, full inhalation, palms open, jaw releasing.
3. Slowly, with tension in the arms, round your arms and chest forward as if you were hugging a great big beach-ball. Exhale all the air out of your lungs. Engage your core and let your body contract.
4. Inhale deeply through the lower lungs and extend the arms, wide open again. Stretch the
fingers open and give some tension into the arms. Open the mouth and slowly exhale as you contract the arms in again, hugging the imaginary beach ball.
Repeat 5-10 times with exaggerated breath. Stretch the face open. Smile.

The arms are our social center. The arms reach, grab, hold, punch, push away, manipulate objects, write, feed, etc... With the arms we express our impulses to give and take. The arms can "act" as extenders from the heart, communicating feelings.

As we play with this exercise, we not only purify the breath, relax the face, strengthen the core and extend our flexibility, we also increase our ability make contact, reach out, receive and experience longing.

This exercise can be used to refresh and revitalize, wake up the entire Self, melt away depression, inspire creativity and warm up cold extremities.