Shanka Mudra: open to vulnerability, settle into reassurance, and nourish yourself
It is safe to feel.
When big emotions get big, the instinct is to protect. To retreat. To pull inward and guard your softest places until the world feels safe again. That instinct is wise. It has kept you whole.
But the same guard that protects can also keep you from feeling at all. It often seems easier to ignore or completely numb your feelings. And that makes sense. When emotions feel like too much, numbing is how you stay safe. It is a protective response, not a flaw.
The truth is that numbing is not selective. So, when you numb yourself to sadness, anger, or fear, you also numb yourself to joy, determination, and courage. We learned with Ida Mudra that your emotions, while often intense and sometimes not so pleasant, come to you for a reason, to guide you! And once they guide you, they need to move through you to create ease and well-being.
Shanka Mudra helps you find a sense of safe-enough so you open to the vulnerability of feeling. And it is in the feeling that you find the healing!
Shanka Mudra is a wonderful handshape to work with anytime you want to feel to heal, but especially during Cancer Season or when you want to work with any water sign energy or your sacral chakra. This pull to protect and retreat is the shadow side of that water sign energy, and this practice helps you soften it.
Give yourself permission and reassurance to feel to heal with this mudra and these tools to support its intention!
Check out ways to practice mudras live with our empowering yoga community on our live class schedule!
🫶🏻 MUDRA: Shanka Mudra
Benefits of Shanka Mudra:
safety
reassurance
nourishment
vulnerability
overall well-being
connection to the water element
connection to your Svadhisthana (sacral) and Muladhara (root) chakras
Why practice Shanka Mudra:
To help you find a sense of safe-enough to open to vulnerability and feeling to heal.
How to practice Shanka Mudra:
Find a comfortable seat. Add support if you’d like. Wrap the four fingers of your right hand around your left thumb. Let the back of your right hand fingers rest inside your left palm. Connect the tip of your right thumb to the tip of your left index finger. Let the fingers of your left hand wrap around the edge of your right hand. Rest your wrists below your navel or let the shape rest in your lap. Soften your shoulders and align your spine.
🧘🏻♀️ MEDITATION: Safety in Feeling Meditation
WHY:
A mudra meditation that facilitates safety through hands and breath so you can open to feeling to heal and clear old stress and emotions.
PLACE:
Find a comfortable seat. Perhaps sit on a bolster or blanket to get your hips a little higher than your knees.
MUDRA:
Find Shanka Mudra by wrapping the four fingers of your right hand around your left thumb. Let the back of your right hand fingers rest inside your left palm. Connect the tip of your right thumb to the tip of your left index finger. Let the fingers of your left hand wrap around the edge of your right hand. Rest your wrists below your navel or let the shape rest in your lap. Soften your shoulders and align your spine.
DRISHTI:
Focus your gaze towards the tip of your nose if it feels comfortable.
PRANAYAMA:
Inhale deeply through your nose for a count of five
Pause and be with that breath for a count of five.
Exhale through your nose for a count of five.
Continue for 3-5 minutes.
TO END:
Release control of your breath and your hands after an exhale and breathe freely as you sit and reflect on your experience.
✨ MANTRA:
It is safe for me to feel to heal
I hope you allow yourself space and reassurance to be vulnerable so you can feel to heal and find ease and overall well-being!
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