9 Steps To Happiness
The Yucky Yoga Series was developed with intention to expel pent up trapped energy through noisy YODELS, burping, crying. Tooting, you name it, we do it all. Getting the YUCK OUT, when it needs to be PUSHED OUT FULLY. Each of our step programs has an associated posture focused on the step type of only 3 minutes each.
111 Depression & Anxiety
Posture : THE CLOWN
Depression and sadness can mean being stuck in the past which only exists is in your mind.
Anxiety and fears are when our thoughts are focused on the future.
Focusing on the right here, right now is being present.
Here are two anxiety techniques to try out:
The Surfboarder. When a wave of anxiety starts to head your way imagine you are a surfboarder on the top of a huge wave. Take deep slow breaths imagine staying on the surfboard knowing that as you head to shore the power of the anxiety wave will disappear. Riding the surfboard right up to shore.
The Rodeo. When you feel anxiety imagine you are at the fairground riding a mechanical bull, and that feeling of anxiety is going to stop when the ride stops, you just need to hold on until that feeling passes.
222 Tension
Posture : THE STAR GRABBER
There are many reasons for tension and different types of tension. Cry it out. Sob it out. Release your shit. Crying is strength not weakness. Own your tension and let it pass out.
Now make yourself a big bedtime yawn, maybe try and stick your tongue out, feel the tension release from your jaw.
Try this tension beater; rub your palms together for about 30 seconds until they feel warm, then with very gentle pressure hold the warm palms on your closed eyelids, now take a big inhale then make deep hummmmmmm cleansing exhale with noises and vibrations, jaw relaxed, teeth unclenched, tongue away from the roof of the mouth. Now let’s repeat once more.
You’ve got to remember to cry and yawn it all out.
Tension
333 Emotions
Posture : THE MAD MONKEY
Emotions are energy in motion. We all feel and experience emotions in very different ways. Most emotions are subconscious actions and reactions without the thinking mind knowing the reasons why. Try to look at your emotions in the streams of the river, not where the river meets the ocean.
Negative thoughts are like weeds. If we spend all our time weeding, we won’t have time to water the flowers.
We just need to sit in the mud with the emotion, instead of trying to fix the emotion. We are made up of many internal parts. Reassure yourself there are no bad parts. Let’s try to release some pent-up emotion by standing placing one hand on your heart, and one hand on your belly, take a big inhale then let it all out through the mouth on your second big inhale hold for 4 seconds followed by a cleansing yodel exhale making noise and vibration.
444 JUDGEMENT
Posture : THE TOOTER
The judging mind is our harshest critic. We fill our minds full of expectations. We focus on Doing vs Being. Sometimes we just need to Be and not Do. We need to do this without judgement.
A goal each day for us is to be the best version of yourself for that day, without judgement of our thinking minds. We all seek purpose and a meaning to life.
With one eye focused on the end goal, there is only one eye left to look at the pathway. “Perfect” does not exist. There is no such thing.
Let’s try to release judgement by doing a large full 4 second inhale then pause with full lungs for 4 seconds and then release exhale for 4 seconds while making a deep hummmmmmm exhale noises and vibrations with jaw relaxed, teeth not clenched, and tongue away from the roof of the mouth. Let’s do this 4 times.
555 BELONGING
Posture : THE SLEEPY CHILD
We all need to feel like we belong, whatever that feeling of belonging means to you. Fostering the feeling of belonging can be the hardest task. It involves communication, and intentions. We foster a sense of belonging through what we can control; our actions, reactions and how we show up, how we respond. It is for example how we respond to attacks of character.
Sometimes all we need is to feel a sense of community, a sense of belonging.
Validation can create a sense of belonging.
We don’t need to solve someone else’s problems, most of the time we just need to be there with them stuck in the mud because all they may crave is support, validation, empathy and compassion.
You have to go through it, to get to it. Belonging is on the other side.
666 ACCOUNTABILITY
Posture : MEOW MOO
We all need to be accountable in our lives and own our shit no matter what it is. Accountability for all of our actions, and our reactions. We often focus on blame, victim, accountability, conflict. We often focus on who is the victim or who is the oppressor. We have to remind ourselves that we are all just actors in the illusion, and that’s ok. Actors in the play. This is the source of so much suffering. We need to be accountable for our roles we play. Every action equals a reaction. Everything is a test and this is where yoga of the mind exists.
This is where accountability is, where you show up as the best version of yourself. Be accountable for your actions and reactions.
777 The Body
Posture : MEERKAT
Are you sick of hearing and reading about what is good for you and what is bad for you. I know we are. It is extreme complete overload of competing opinions on everything. Here are some moves that have worked for us in addition to all the regular bullshit we all endure. Use a saline nasal irrigation machine. They cannot be underestimated for instant quality of life improvements. It changed my life, it will change yours. Left and right nostrils have different energies. Next time you are feeling a strong emotion like anxiety check your nostril passageways, maybe one nostril is blocked. Check your nostrils for equal airflow.
Posture impacts breathing and your brains ability to obtain oxygen. Bad posture can constrict airflow. Hip rotation is everything for posture. Standing up try tilting the hips backwards and reach straight up to expand the spine. Walk slower and more deliberately. Trapped air can be the source of so many human emotions like anxiety as the gut holds so much trauma.
888 Inner Work
Posture : TOADLET
Looking within ourselves. The Childhood belief system. The Subconscious. The Unconscious. The thinking mind. The sticky place. Understanding these parts of us is where so much inner peace and self acceptance sits. It takes a lot of work and self love. Once you know and understand yourself fully then freedom arrives in your soul. Today’s everything constantly overloads us with flashing light human made distractions adding to unreasonable societal pressures to conform to the masses and its unruly insatiable expectations. Information overload. Overcomplicated everything. Never enough.
One should strive to be the best version of ourselves, to the best of one’s situation, for right here, right now. In the present. Freedom lies within you. You have to look within. You have to go through it to get to it.
You have to serve ones internal subconscious and unconscious needs. Our internal programming. We have to serve our true needs and wants, and we need to know ourselves to understand what we want.
999 The Present
Posture : HONEY BADGER
It is tough to live in the present when so much of our lives live in the past or the future. Neither past nor future exists, only the present right here, right now. We have to remind ourselves to not get caught up in all the melodrama and distractions taking us away from the present. All the feelings, emotions, assumptions, intentions. It can get really sticky.
Sometimes we have to look back to who and what we were when we were five years old, before we were told who we are meant to be. Sometimes that is the person we have all lost contact with causing us so much internal suffering.
When the path appears amongst the trees that is when you climb one step further up the treacherous mountain path towards inner peace. This now visible path = hope = certainty = security. We need to trust in hope. Hope is our superpower.
Life is complicated enough with feelings and emotions. When we suppress, ignore and invalidate our inner voice, we only add ammunition to an internal ticking time bomb. We believe that pain and suffering is there to be experienced and felt. It is how we move through the pain and suffering that shines our internal light brighter for storm aftermath clean up. You have to move through it, to get to it. Growth. Self work. Self love. The best time to plant a tree seed was forty years ago, the next best time to plant that seed is right now in the present.
Our world is dictated by our actions, our reactions, and how we respond to the world.