How to Teach a Fourth Chakra Yoga Class

This video is brought to you by my new book, How I Made a Million Dollars Teaching Yoga. Grab your copy today, link in the description, or visit book.milliondollaryoga.com. Hey everybody, today we're going to be talking about the Anahata chakra and which postures go with the fourth chakra, the heart chakra. Let's get into it. Thank you so much for watching today. I'm super excited that you're here. If you haven't yet, please take my masterclass, masterclass.milliondollaryoga.com, where you're going to learn 3 tips that you can use to 10x your yoga income in 2021 and help to blow your business up so that you're helping more people, you're reaching more people, you're spreading more love and light, and you're also bringing more income into your life and the life of your family. So let's get into it. Anahata chakra. The fourth chakra, this is our heart chakra. The color is green. And I love the heart chakra. I mean, who doesn't, right? But it's one of my favorite chakras. Oh, and an interesting fact that you probably didn't know: dogs have two heart chakras. My partner— so I do online yoga teacher training, and one of my partners, her name is Elizabeth, she actually messaged me one day and was like, "Oh, uh, dogs have two heart chakras. Now it all makes sense." Right? Because they're so loving. Anyhow, heart chakra is the Anahata chakra. So we're talking about a lot of openers here in the chest. We're talking about a lot of deep chest opening. So this is, I mean, obviously the first thing you're going to think of is Dhanurasana, right? Bow pose, or Setu Bandhasana, bridge pose. But it's also anything that's standing and heart opening. So you might like, you know, Right, just your movement in the heart. You know, you might, um, do your hands behind your back and clasp your hands together. That's going to help to open. You might do that shoulder opener where you lie on your side and then you roll over and open the shoulder. Anything that's heart opening. Of course, lots of backbends, right? So Camel Pose, Ustrasana, anything that's got a like like really open up the heart because the heart chakra is all about love, but it's not about sexual love, right? That's, that's the second chakra. It's about, it's about how you see the world. It's about how we love the world. It's about does the world love us? Do you see the world as a loving place or do you see the world as a hostile place? And that's where the heart chakra really lies. And so when we're working with our students in our heart chakra, we want to keep that class happy and light, but we want to go deep in there, and those deep backbends are going to do that. So we're going to want to use words and language that helps them to open up the heart chakra. So when I get to the backbend portion of the class, so like say we're doing like a series of Setu Bandhasana followed with Dhanurasana, because some people can do the bridge and some people can do the full, the full backbend, right? And the, the bow, the upward bow pose. Um, but some people, you know, they can't, they're not ready to get to the upward bow. And I don't think people should force themselves into that because it looks really wonky and it's very uncomfortable. And I don't— it's like uncomfortable for me. To watch them do that. But anyhow, um, what I do is when I'm teaching that series, okay, so I'm gonna do like 3 to 5 of them, and every time they do them, I ask them for the first one, I'll say, before we come up into the posture, I want you to close your eyes and take a moment to think about someone who your life would not be the same if they had not been in it. And I want you to bring them deeply into your mind and hold them there. And I want you to thank them and create that energy within your heart of thanking and gratitude. And as we take a deep inhale, we'll exhale into the pose. But before we do, as we exhale, I want you to bring that pose, the full expression of that posture, into your mind and into your heart in dedication to this person. So taking a deep inhale, on the exhale, move into the pose. So the very first time, we want to warm up because backbends can be dangerous if you aren't warmed up. So the very first one, I'm just going to have them do the backbend to warm up, and then I might move this into the second or third one where I start to have them dedicate. So the first one, I'm gonna have them dedicate it to someone that, that has changed their life. That someone that, uh, without that person in their life, their life wouldn't be the same. So for me, like, that's my grandma. I spent most of my life with my grandma, and she felt like a mother to me, and she really taught me how to be a good person and how to be there for other people. And, um, I know for sure I wouldn't be here talking to you today if it wasn't for her. She just— she was the only hope that I had. My whole childhood. So, um, she would have been that person for me. Uh, so somebody like that, right? That's who they're bringing into their mind. So there's this like real sacred connection to love. And then I might ask them to think of a lover that they've had in the past they need to let go. Maybe someone that they no longer have a good relationship with, or they've been harboring some anger or resentment towards them, and then let that go. Uh, or maybe just in general, like anyone else that's harboring, that they're harboring resentment against, to send them love. Because, you know, ultimately we will not be free until we love and accept everyone and know that their journey on this planet is exactly— they're doing exactly what they're meant to do. And I used to be a really big fan of Shawn Corn. Like, I loved her, and I went to her classes for many, many years, and she would teach this. She would teach that, you know, if you can love the person that stabbed you in the back, or you can love your ex-husband, then that's like true— that's true— the true ability to be free in love. That's the true yoga. And unfortunately, she's really moved away from that. And, um, you know, whatever we think about politics, it really doesn't matter because that's not our purpose on this planet as yogis, is to learn to accept that everyone is on the journey that they're on. So, you know, whoever the president is, that person is on the journey that they're supposed to be on. And our job as yogis is to recognize that everyone is going to do things that are not perfect. Like, we're not perfect. No one is perfect. We're like spiritual beings having a physical experience, but the reality is, is that we're spiritual beings. Right? So this is where the deepness in the heart chakra healing comes from. It comes from recognizing that we're spiritual beings and that so is everybody else, and then we're all one. So regardless of how we feel about each other's choices, we're connected. So when we treat someone poorly, we're damaging our heart chakra. We're hurting our heart chakra. When we talk poorly about another person, we're hurting our heart chakra. And even if it— I want you to think, I want you to think in your mind of the person that you dislike the most. And I don't use the H word, but if you do think of that person, and if you can love that person, you can heal your heart chakra. And that's what you want to transmit when you're teaching a class. That's how I teach a heart chakra class. I would love to work with you this year. Please take my masterclass, masterclass.milliondollaryoga.com. The link is below in the description. If you haven't yet, grab a copy of my book, book.milliondollaryoga.com. Link is also in the description. And subscribe to the channel. I'll see you next time. Tomorrow we're gonna be talking about the throat chakra, vashuddha, and I'll see you then. Okay, bye.