Valentine's Day is here and I would like to offer you a few ways to connect with your sweetheart in a different way than you may be used to...Try these few simple exercises and feel the difference.

Grounding Hug *First you will give it, and then you will receive it.*

1. Stand with your feet hip-distance apart and your knees slightly bent. Breathe out focusing on your belly button expanding forward, and allowing energy to flow down the lower half of your body into the earth.
2. Embrace your partner. Place one hand on their low back, and the other on their upper back. Breathe your belly into their belly. As you breathe imagine that your breath is also grounding their body as well as your own.
3. Continue to breathe together, feeling your partner letting go and relaxing. You will actually feel your partner's center of gravity move down into their pelvis and legs.
4. Switch positions; now it's your turn to receive. *Receive the grounding hug with as much consciousness as you gave it.

The Pose of Recognition with Hand Balancing

1. Sit directly across from each other, close but not touching, with your legs crossed. (most easily done on the floor)
2. Look into your partner's nondominant eye. (If you are right-handed, your left eye is your nondominant eye;if you are left-handed it's your right eye.)
3. Put your right hand, palm down, into your partner's upturned left hand. Put your left hand, palm up, under your partner's downturned right hand.
4. In this position simply gaze into your partner's eye recognizing their light within. Resist the temptation to reach out toward your partner. You don't have to do anything except breathe. Just be with them and with yourself. See what happens. Feel what comes up. Just Be.

*Find more exercises in Urban Tantra by Barbara Carrellas, 2007