5 Yoga Poses for Enchanting Energy

Leila Sadeghee is a yoga and meditation teacher working across the fields of priestessing, movement, yoga asana, depth spiritual practice and energy healing.

Read on to discover Leila’s 5 poses for enchanting energy…

Urdhva Hastāsana & Uttanāsana

I often sequence these two poses together to help students move away from their thinking mind and toward a more meditative state.

Move between standing with your arms over your head, to a forward fold, and back up again, at any pace, and in any way that you choose. Keep moving between the two poses.

When you are folded forward, intend to connect with the energy of the Earth.

When you are standing with your arms over your head, intend to connect with the sky.

Pulse between the two and observe your sense of connection to Earth and sky.

*For folks who find forward folding tricky or who have a tendency to have low back trouble, you can practice the forward fold by bringing your forearms onto your thighs, with bent knees, thereby resting your upper body’s weight on your legs, reducing traction on the low back. You can also make the gesture of reaching up to the sky, and gesturing towards the floor, seated in a chair, if standing on your feet is inaccessible.

Tarāsana

This pose is an unsung hero, in my opinion. I sequence it in my classes between more complex and physically demanding pose forms to cue my students to engage flows of energy with more intention and less physical effort and strain.

My guidance in this pose is:

To have the sense of extending from the very centre of your body and your being, into every peripheral point (crown of head, tail, feet & hands, edge of your skin all over), without doing and physical effort to create that effect.

Hold this pose and observe the radiant energy that moves from the inside out. If you happen to notice that energy moves back in as well, then you can observe the pulse between the in-going and out-going energy.

*This can be practiced with the support of a wall behind you, or seated in a chair with arms and legs spread as wide as you can easily take them.

Bhumi Sparśa Mudra

I love the energetics of this mudra. I don’t want to say too much about it, as I think it’s best to just experience it for yourself and see how it is for you. I will say this: I am very interested in helping people to experience the fundamental ‘rightness’ or ‘okayness’ of their existence, regardless of what is going on in their lives. I find this one helpful for that, among other things.

Mudra is more subtle than āsana for many people, so I offer a little guidance here to help you sink into the subtlety.

Seated either on the floor or in a chair, take your left hand to your heart, and your right fingertips to either the floor or to the seat of the chair.

To sink into the experience of the mudra, observe the sense of knowing what you know (without any thought based reflection on what you know, just the sense of knowing things, which of course you do, as a kind of presence in your life). Notice what happens, if anything, as you make the physical gesture of lightly touching the Earth, with a light attention on the sense of knowing what you know.

Breathing along your Centre

Looking back on my early days of practice, I am so grateful to have had teachers encourage me to locate and increase attention on my physical centre as a way of accessing the more subtle dimensions of my bodyworld. It’s still so powerful and I often include practices for articulating the centre in my classes.

Seated either on the floor or in a chair, organise your body in such a way that the centre of your head is directly above the centre of your pelvis, to the best of your ability, and with as little effort as you can manage. (In other words, do not employ rigidity to maintain this position – just aim for it and let go.)

Breathe from the crown of your head, tracing your awareness along the centre of your body, all the way down to the centre of your pelvis. Follow the next phase of breath back up through the centre from pelvis to crown. There is no need to extend your breath or try to make it longer than it naturally is. You can feel free to take deep breaths if you like but it is not necessary.

You may notice that it takes a bit of practice to synch your breath up with the movement of your attention along the centre of your body. You may also notice places along the centre where it is more difficult to have awareness. As you engage this practice, keep intending to smooth your attention into every part of your vertical core, and to have the breath and your attention move smoothly and in concert to the best of your ability.

Do this for as long as you wish. 5 to 10 minutes may be good for folks who are newer to this, and you might try it after practicing āsana, before savāsana. If you are doing this for more than a couple of minutes, I recommend a less deep breath pattern.

Once you stop, observe the sense that you have of your centre.

Find out more about Leila:

Website: https://www.leilasadeghee.com/

Instagram: @leilasadeghee

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