How to Set Up Your Home Yoga Space

Transcript

hey everyone i'm carolina from yourbooty.com and i'm going to show you how i set up my space for yoga flow lift and meditation so i'm lucky enough to have a cute little art studio outside of our house it's just pretty small there's not a lot of space but when i didn't have the studio i would often set up in my living room or in my bedroom i would just move some of the furniture out of the way and have enough space for a yoga mat here's where i would set up my mat there's obviously not a lot of space right and left there's a little bit more space forward and back but you don't need a lot of space to do yoga you do need a little bit more space to do flow lift just because sometimes you roll to the side and you do these like rolling moves but for the most part for yoga and meditation you don't need a lot of space so here's where i would throw down my mat and then after i show you a couple of things that i use to kind of set this tone i'll show you how i set up for meditation and for meditation you need even less space just enough space for your body to sit and to lie down at the end i'm gonna show you three things i like to have at the top of the mat when i'm doing yoga first one is a candle i'll link a couple of our favorites below in this article any candle will do just kind of sets the tone sets the vibe of like just calm energy i also like to have a crystal it can be any crystal here's a selenite you can have a quartz or any just stone that you like it's uh tends to be a little bit grounding so i like to have that nearby and i love having a plant it could be any size um plants always kind of liven up the space and you can also use these things as a dress to your focal point as you flow through your practice so i just like to arrange them at the top of the mat and then i would throw down my mat right here i just left it at the studio so i can't show you how it would look but you get the idea just have it at the top of the mat kind of setting your your space and your boundaries of where you're going to practice if i'm doing a flow lift class i typically don't like to have anything around just because there's so many kicking movements and rolling movements that i like to just kind of keep the space pretty clear around my mat one thing you could do is just put a picture of something that motivates you at the top of the mat or tape it to the wall anything that kind of keeps you going and makes you want to keep doing the class and not quitting early lastly i'm going to show you the setup for meditation anytime you're meditating the way i was taught was to have something to sit on with a back the most important thing when meditating is comfort so you want to make sure that your back is supported doing a meditation sitting upright in the middle of the room is extremely difficult especially if you're tight in the hips the low back or the hamstrings so i was taught to use pillows and bolsters and anything else that you can find to make the experience more comfortable so i'm going to show you how i set that up as you can see it almost looks like a lounger so i have this little cute chair that i got on amazon that the back goes up and down and you can set it up whatever level you want but you can just use a flat wall behind you you need a little bit extra padding in the low back area which is where this yellow cushion is and then i have another cushion supporting the legs and then this bigger cushion here that's more like a pillow that's going to go under my knees so i'll show you what it looks like when i sit for meditation i use this setup right here i lean back you want to be upright enough so that you don't fall asleep too easily sometimes i'll even put another pillow behind my head so my head can rest back and then my low back is very supported my knees are very supported i can even open my knees up to the sides and then i'll just lean back and close my eyes um the interesting thing about meditation is most people say they can't meditate because their minds race too much their minds are like a monkey but that's everyone so once the mind softens you leisurely move into this deeper state of relaxation it's like a conscious state of relaxation you don't force it you don't push it it just happens when you close your eyes and the mind begins to settle i was taught to meditate for 20 minutes and then you slide yourself flat onto your back like this and you rest in like a corpse pose or shavasana for five more minutes and i like to do that twice a day uh once in the morning and once in the evening before 7 pm i've noticed that if i meditate after seven it's a little bit too late i get too tired and i fall asleep a lot easier one other thing with meditation is if you start to doze off and fall asleep lie down and fall asleep that's your nervous system asking for rest so it's okay to fall asleep when i first started meditating it took me two weeks to not fall asleep every time i sat down to meditate i would fall asleep and that's just your system begging you for some extra rest and when you do allow yourself that rest and you wake up out of it you actually feel like you took like a three hour nap it feels really nice um i hope you enjoyed this home setup get ready for the summer get ready for your schedule to be thrown off a little bit so you got to get more creative a little more creative with getting your practice in whether it's flow lift yoga or meditation