Householder yoga series is a set of practical tools rooted in yogic tradition to help moms build up their daily practice amidst their new role, busy schedules and limited time for themselves. Each tool is integrated in the regular daily activities you are already doing with your baby, in a way that it builds on and expands the mom-baby relationship to directly serve your growth and development. The aim of this practice is to cultivate more awareness, enhance your wellbeing and integrate the power of motherhood; as well as to collect precious moments and have some fun with your baby.
If you hit a wall, climb over it, crawl under it, or dance on top of it.
Being a mom is great. It empowers women as we finally realize the magic we are capable of. It refines our intuition and develops superpowers to raise and nurture our babies, create and express ourselves, as well as deepen the connection with worlds both outside and inside of us.
One of the superpowers I especially love is the drive to reinvent things on a daily basis, striving towards simplicity, practicality and meaning. In other words, for a mom (or for any other human, really) – there is no more capacity for bs. What we spend time and energy on should only serve and nourish our souls.
In light of the aforementioned – one of my favorite things to do with my baby is to dance. She loves the music and she loves to move. I enjoy performing for her and she enjoys being entertained. Besides being super fun, introducing dancing in your daily mom-baby activities can:
- Promote bonding through a super fun way
- Support your fitness, in light of the limited time you can dedicate to yourself
- Help move the energy throughout the body and release any stored emotions or even trauma
- Help your self-expression, creativity and processing emotions
- Support motoric development and movement coordination of your baby
As I was a professional dancer for many years, my body craves dancing. Hence to introduce dancing in our daily mom-baby routine came rather naturally. However, if you need some help how to get your body moving, here is how:
Prepare: It helps to set a specific time for dancing that fits in your daily mom-baby routine, in order to build the habit. Then commit that today at xx:xx hours you will show up for yourself and let it flow.
Bring awareness to the body: Put your favorite music on and start by slowly moving the body. You can follow the simple exercise below in order to wake up the body, as often practiced in creative movement and improvisation sessions.
Start by observing and becoming aware of your right arm. Look at your fingers, palm, forearm, upper arm and the shoulder. Start to slowly move all those different parts of the arm, exploring the range of movement in your joints. Play with all the different directions of movement, as well as with isolating a certain part of your arm vs moving the whole arm together. Ask your arm what does it feel like doing today, how does it feel like moving?
Keep the focus on the right arm for couple of minutes and then proceed to the left arm. Do the same with your left arm, engage it through reviving different parts of the arm and exploring different ranges, directions and combinations of movement. Then do both arms together for a couple of moments and play with how they dance together – do they follow each other, dance at the same time or can they do completely opposite things?
After couple of minutes, proceed to the trunk: start from shoulders, through your chest, belly, back and pelvis. Apply the same logic – explore different ranges of movements in each of these parts that together form your trunk. Pay specific focus to the chest to open your heart, as well as to your pelvis to awaken the life force. Imagine you are in tribal mode and just shake your trunk. Stay here as long as you like.
Now proceed to the hips and explore the range of movements in your hip joint. Hips are where our bodies like to store different unprocessed emotions, so be gentle and do not be afraid to go deep. Then follow the movement down your right leg first: from the left hip, through the thigh, knee, shin, ankle and foot. Do the same through you right leg and eventually, move both legs together. Ask the same questions: how are my legs feeling today, how do they want to move, how they play together? Then focus on the feet and your connection to the ground. Feel the floor, feel the Earth underneath you and imagine as if you are tree and your roots go deeply into the ground through your feet.
Last but not least – move your head. Start by moving the neck very gently, in circular movements in both directions. Then let your head dance a bit, engaging all parts – hair, scalp, forehead, eyes, nose, jaw, chin, tongue, ears. After you have awaken your head and your face, it is time to move your whole body together. Keep the attention throughout your body, trying not to let any part out. Then slowly, as you catch the rhythm, let the intelligence of your body take over and just dance, dance, dance!
Be silly: No one is watching! I encourage you to dance like a child, with your child. Don’t think about how you look – you look beautiful. Being able to let go of the body image and just let the body express itself is so liberating. Laugh, jump, turn, do chicken dance – whatever you feel like. Once you bring forward your inner child, you will feel a deeper bond with your baby – as the presence takes over, immersing both of you in a playful dialogue.
Unravel Ninja 