by Connie Habash | Apr 23, 2025 | Articles, Balance, Body, Spring, Yoga
Winter may have left your feet feeling stiff and sluggish. Let this simple yoga practice awaken them and put spring into your step!
I remember, when my daughter was young, that springtime would fill her with delight. After days of rain, the bright sunshine peaked into the room through the edges of the shades, and she wanted to spring right out of bed into the beautiful blue skies. I wanted to join her – and still do! At this time of year, we can’t help but feel that desire to dance and delight in spring’s magic.
Our feet, however, may not be quite up to the task! Being a little more sedentary in the winter, we may notice the ankles grow stiff and weak, the toes cramped from being in closed-toe shoes, and the soles of our feet in need of a good massage. These are common effects from the accumulation of Kapha (one of the 3 Ayurvedic body-mind types), which can lead to stiff, puffy joints, and excess water retention. A few simple yogic practices can make a big difference and put that spring back into your step.
Open the Circulation
To wake up those feet upon rising, massage your thumbs into the soles of the feet, and stretch out each toe with your fingers. Then, extend out the legs with your feet apart and do ankle movements: flex and point the feet, then rotate them for a few rounds in each direction. Spread the toes, then curl them in, back and forth several times. You have now opened up the circulation and prepared the foot and ankle muscles for more stretching.
For further release on the tops of the feet, sit in Vajrasana, the thunderbolt pose. This is a simple kneeling pose with the heels under the buttocks. If you have pain in your knees in this position, place a folded blanket between the upper and lower legs, right behind the knee joint. Sit here for several breaths and let the tops of the feet open. To alleviate pain on either the top or bottom of the foot, roll up a hand towel and place it under the front of the ankles. If your feet are pretty comfortable you can go for a more intense stretch: lean back and slightly lift your knees off the floor. Only do this if there is no pain in the knees or feet. You’ll really feel the stretch with this one!
Wake Up the Feet!
Then, open the bottoms of the feet. This is a favorite of Shandor Remete’s, the founder of Shadow yoga. It’s the same position, but with your toes turned under. You can approach this from all fours, with your legs and feet together, then curl your toes under (so that they point towards your hands and you feel the stretch on the bottom of your toes) and slowly lean your weight back into your heels.
If you are able, you can sit up on the heels and breathe deeply into the stretch. Lean your weight forward onto your hands if you can’t bear too much! I love to call this pose “Yoga Coffee”, because it’s sure to wake you up! Go easy with it, and over time you’ll work up to sitting in it with relative ease. It is very healing for the feet, and actually affects the health of all the internal organs.
Integrate with Your Feet with Your Whole Body
Now, come up to standing to integrate this newfound flexibility and vitality. Stand in Tadasana, mountain pose, with your feet together, heels slightly apart. Lean back into your heels and slightly lift the balls and toes of your feet off the floor; hold for a few breaths. Then rock back and forth, from the heels to the balls of the feet, trying to move slowly and steadily. You’ll feel the muscles of the lower legs, ankles, and feet warm up.
To strengthen these muscles, as well as improve your balance, return to Tadasana and stand still. Feel the lift of the arches creating a lightness in the middle of your sole, while feeling grounded and rooted in the heel and the ball of the foot. Imagine a firmness embracing the ankles, giving them support. Hug the muscles of the legs into the bones, while you draw in the belly and rise up through the spine.
Then, on an inhalation, lift your heels slowly and balance on the balls of the feet. Draw the ankles toward each other, feeling their firmness. Let the eyes remain steady, as well as the breath and mind. Hold for a few breaths (if you can), and then slowly lower down as you exhale. Repeat at least two more times, feeling the strength, flexibility, and stability of your feet, ankles, and legs.
Warming Up for That Spring in Your Step
Finally, from Tadasana bend your knees into Utkatasana, the powerful pose (also known as chair pose). As you inhale, bring your arms up overhead, and breathe into your strength. Let your weight fall into your heels, and bend your knees enough to feel the intensity in the thighs and the stretch in the achilles tendons (below the calf muscle). Enjoy the warmth that this pose fills your body with for several breaths. Then rise up and release on an inhalation.
Now you’re ready to roll! Whether you’re embarking on a hike, out to weed the garden, dropping your child off at school, or heading to work, let your feet do the talking and bound out into your day. Celebrate spring in your step!
Let your feet lead you into renewal. Explore how movement and Spiritual Mentoring can awaken your spring.
by Connie Habash | Apr 19, 2024 | Openness, Seasons, Spring
Spring is the season of opening – allow yourself to unfold like the flowers around you.
By now, the aliveness of springtime is bursting everywhere. I am astounded, every year, at the glory of the flowers opening around us. The colors, the fragrance, the bees buzzing, and the birdsong fill the air with that essential aliveness. Spring is about that aliveness in each of us.
Spring is very much about opening. The flowers open their buds, the chicks hatch out of their eggs… and we’re opening to new ideas, new energies, new adventures.
Our hearts can powerfully open at this time of year, bringing us deeper into connection with others, with ourselves, and with our sense of the Divine.
Our minds can open to imagination, to new ways of perceiving the world, and to new directions that life can take us.
What a great time to be encouraging our bodies to open – whether through yoga, a few laps in the swimming pool, a hike in the green hills, or a spontaneous dance in the living room! But only if we’re willing and aware of the potentials waiting inside to blossom, will we open.
What is waiting inside you to blossom? Is there a door that’s patiently beckoning you to open it and step inside (or outside)? Is there something you’ve always wanted to try that’s tapping you on the shoulder? Have you been resisting a new idea or way of doing something? How about simply opening to the unexpected? Let yourself be receptive to the positive energies of spring and what they might bring into your life, even if you haven’t a clue what that might be.
There’s a wonderful song that I’d like to quote, to keep in mind for the magic of this time: “I am opening up in sweet surrender to the luminous love-light of the One.” This is a beautiful affirmation to play with during spring.
Affirm your openness to the Divine, let go of your defenses & resistance, and know that the energy of Spirit leads you to something far better than you can imagine. Allow yourself to open like the brightly unfolding petals of a flower. May springtime bring inspiration, love, and light into your life in a wondrous way!
by Connie Habash | May 2, 2014 | Motivation, Spring
I’m writing this on the first day of May. It snuck up on me like a squirrel trying to steal the strawberries out of our garden. Before I knew it, he scampered away with a ripe red berry, and I was just as surprised when May arrived.
This mid-spring moment gives us pause to consider what is growing in our lives. This lively season is in full bloom – have we allowed something to bloom within us? Are you tending to those seeds that you planted, the goals and aspirations that gestated over the winter?
Step out of your comfort zone – spring is great for giving you the inspiration to do that – and take action towards what you’ve longed for. Just like the squirrel that is eyeing that berry, there is something within your reach, if you allow yourself to go for it.
Don’t worry if you fail – putting the intention into action creates a momentum that will support your next step. Before you know it, you’ll have a strawberry in your mouth and tasting the sweetness of going for what you desire.
by Connie Habash | Feb 27, 2014 | Acknowledgement, Appreciation, Beauty, Blessings, Delight, Joy, Resilience, Resourcefulness, Seasons, Spring, Wind
One of the first flowers to reveal itself in the spring, the Dandelion is a common sight in sidewalk cracks and my own front yard. I saw the first one stealthily growing next to my African daisy by the front fence.
I pledged to stop pulling up these plants, what we usually consider to be “weeds”, as a way to support the local bee population. They are one of the first flowers to nourish honeybees when they emerge from hibernation. And since the honeybee is in serious danger in North America, I figured it was the least I could do.
On further reflection, I realized that there is more to the Dandelion than meets the eye. What a powerful little plant, and how much I can learn from it.
Dandelions pop up seemingly out of nowhere. They grow in the most difficult places, where there’s little water and poor soil (as well as my semi-manicured garden). They are extremely hardy. That’s some resilience, and something I could use more of.
It occurred to me that Dandelions give completely of themselves. Their leaves are food for animals (and apparently are edible for humans, too, although I’m not sure if the garden variety is fit for our consumption), deeply appreciated when abundant foliage still isn’t readily available in early spring. The health benefits and medicinal use of various parts of the Dandelion have been revered for centuries.
They unfold a beautiful yellow flower that offers nectar and pollen to bees. Dandelions are very important providers of food for bees, and it is said that settlers from Europe actually brought Dandelions over for this purpose. The Europeans knew that bees not only provided us honey, but were essential to growing crops. And how the Dandelion has propagated as a result of that!
Not only does this common yellow-flowered plant give of itself as food and medicine for other animals, but ask any child and they also give much beauty and joy. I always found these yellow flowers delightful. Like sourgrass, their sunny and bright blooms were harbingers of springtime. You didn’t have to plant them – they’d just show up and add color to the empty lots across the street, the patch of dirt behind a store, the corner of the yard by the shed.
But the greatest delight of children is near the end of their life-cycle. Who didn’t find joy at least once as a child, almost anywhere in the world, by blowing on a puff-ball of Dandelion seed and making a wish? I remember seeking out as many of them as I could with my friends, and seeing who could blow all the seeds off with just one exhale. Do you?
Then, we’d watch as the seeds floated and drifted away, sometimes carried high by a breeze. Where would they land? Where would those seeds become new Dandelion plants next spring?
What a brilliant way of propagating itself… the tiniest little seeds attached to a natural kite, just waiting for the next gentle wind to carry itself away.
The Dandelion gives all of itself as food, medicine, beauty, and enjoyment, and then it is spent. It dies, knowing it has touched many, and its offspring will carry on its part of the ecosystem.
Do you have some Dandelions in you? Some parts of yourself that you consider as weeds, useless, a nuisance, that you just want to get rid of? And yet, those parts of you may harbor some of the most powerful, healing qualities. The sadness in you may be a well of compassion for others. In one instance, you may see yourself as resistant and slow; in another, you’re recognized as patient and discerning. You might not believe you have much to offer others, and yet you find people seek you out for wisdom, comfort, or a safe haven to just be themselves.
You have within you many gifts that make a difference to others, even if you don’t always see it that way.
How can you be of more service to the world, like the Dandelion? How can you nourish others, or bring them delight?
by Connie Habash | Apr 24, 2013 | Beauty, Expression, Growth, Movement, Patience, Peace, Quiet, Rebirth, Seasons, Spring, stillness
Nature reflects to us the process of personal and spiritual transformation all around us. In my classes, with my clients, and in spiritual community I honor and invite all to explore the profound affect these natural changes have on each of us.
Spring, the season we’re currently in, and summer are both times of longer daylight – hence, the energies around and within us are externally focused. It’s all about taking what is within you and finding ways of expressing it in the world.
Spring is new beginnings, where we burst forth from the gestation of the colder time of the year and feel ready for new adventures. We explore who we are becoming and we reinvent ourselves anew. It’s a good time to step into something you’ve toyed with for a while. It’s also a good time to listen to new perspectives and see the world in a fresh way.
Summer is taking those explorations to a new height. It’s the time of ripening. While spring encouraged us to step out into new territory, summer is prime-time for play and celebration of our success and our finer qualities. Allow yourself to authentically and radiantly shine, just like the sun. Recognize your gifts and share them freely, just as nature’s bounty blesses us with the fruits of the season.
At the end of summer we begin to feel the down-shift into a more introspective time. We enter the growing nighttime, and so, too, we enter the unconscious. Fall takes us away from the externally-focused energies of exuberant summertime and asks us to pause and consider what we feel, who we are, and to reminisce. We revisit the past during autumn to integrate, grieve, reflect, and heal.
Which takes us at last to winter, the coldest and most inward time. This is the great stillness; nature is quiet, hibernating. We, too, have been called by the inner silence to find peace with what is. We embrace our inner wisdom that we have gained from the four seasons of life, and let it gestate into something which we will share with the world. Winter is a time of the Spirit, peace, and patience.
Each season offers us new opportunities to understand ourselves and the world we live in. I facilitate that greater journey for every person I work with, as they are touched by what the season offers. What is this season offering you today?
by Connie Habash | Mar 16, 2013 | Action, Birth, Manifestation, Movement, Play, Rebirth, Spring, Transformation, Uncategorized
As winter comes to an end, I find that I’m a bit antsy. I’ve been sitting with what is all winter, and now the time to sit has come to an end. Spring calls us to come out of our wintering nests and get on the move!
If you’ve been working with the winter energies of listening to the stillness, seeking your inner wisdom, and letting things gestate, then reflect on what you’ve discovered from that process. Notice what is taking shape, uncovered beneath the melting snows of inner reflection. Are some ideas knocking at your door, longing for you to get them started? Is a project that you shelved over the holidays now ready to be completed? Are friends beckoning you to come out of your rabbit hole again and play?
Spring is all about birth, allowing the new and fresh to become manifest. Feel your body. Listen to its impulses. How does it want to move? Where does it want to go? Follow your body’s lead, for its wisdom will take you in the directions of growth and transformation right now, in alignment with the energies of spring. Led your body and your Divine Self spring forth!
What have you got to lose?
Spring is the season of opening – allow yourself to unfold like the flowers around you.
I’m writing this on the first day of May. It snuck up on me like a squirrel trying to steal the strawberries out of our garden. Before I knew it, he scampered away with a ripe red berry, and I was just as surprised when May arrived.
One of the first flowers to reveal itself in the spring, the Dandelion is a common sight in sidewalk cracks and my own front yard. I saw the first one stealthily growing next to my African daisy by the front fence.
How can you be of more service to the world, like the Dandelion? How can you nourish others, or bring them delight?
Nature reflects to us the process of personal and spiritual transformation all around us. In my classes, with my clients, and in spiritual community I honor and invite all to explore the profound affect these natural changes have on each of us.
As winter comes to an end, I find that I’m a bit antsy. I’ve been sitting with what is all winter, and now the time to sit has come to an end. Spring calls us to come out of our wintering nests and get on the move!
