Facial Yoga Candle Gazing

Video Transcript

"Hi. Welcome to Facial Yoga. This is a segment called, "Candle Gazing". So the eyes are really important in the face. We many are times squinting or stretching the eyes or the eyes are seeing something that's very unhappy and sad. It could be from something that we're really seeing or it could be something from films, movies or TV, or books that we're reading--even imagining. So the goal here is again to connect body/mind, breath/spirit, and we're going to gaze at the candle with the intention that maybe we're at the computer, we might have this kind of a posture and if we think again of the string of pearls, the back, we would start to lengthen the spine. And sit in the upright, but not stiff manner, and then simply holding the candle at the eye level is best. If it's lower, we might have the tendency for our eyes and our head and our chin to go lower. It depends on what's comfortable for you. For right now, I'm going to see if I can demonstrate letting the spine feel long and lifted with the breath, really feeling my lungs, letting my ribs feel like they're lightly floating, the back of my neck is slightly a little bit longer. So it will be doing a little bit less of the chin raising it up, bringing the chin down, feeling that the back of the neck gets long and again, connecting to this space at the top of the head. Gazing at the candle, my eyes don't need to stay wide open, you could start that way and just close them and open them a few times, just adjusting...It's really about building sensitivity to your face, to the muscles that are there, to the bones, the meridians, and then especially the eyes--the muscles here really can be exercised by simply gazing softly. The lips could be slightly turned up at the edge, the heart is open, you feel a little sense of gratitude. So this idea is you're moving to stillness, you find a gratitude, you could use words if you'd like, you can look at the candle itself or you can extinguish it, of course, when you're finished. And allow that sense of inner stillness to relax the muscles around the eyes, you'll feel an opening in the jaw, you'll feel some saliva perhaps coming into the throat, allow yourself to just gently swallow. Notice the subtle movements in the body, in the face, in the breath."