Living w/ Chronic Pain and Life Threatening Illness

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To me, yoga is not really about achieving that hot yogini bod or pretzeling

our bodies into postures, although this can fulfilling to watch happen. 

It's about getting off our mats, and spreading kindness;

it's about "Seva," Sanskrit for the Art of Giving Back.  

For many years, I've been privately teaching yoga to people living 
with chronic pain, life threatening illnesses, and cancer patients.

As a complementary therapy to traditional medicine, yoga and meditation 
practices, have been shown to ease stress, help patients sleep better, reduce 
pain, fatigue, ease the side effects of drugs and treatments, 
and in general, improve quality of life.

People going through life threatening issues deal with A LOT. 

 It is not just coping with pain and physical discomfort that is most troubling;

it is the emotional distress, loneliness and fear of the unknown

that can be the most concerning. Being ill, we are deeply confronted with

the body-mind-spirit paradigm.  When the body is suffering, 
the mind reacts, when the mind is at odds with the body, the spirit 
looses hope.  Yoga and meditation practices 
can really help with all of the above.

Yoga is Empowering! 

While practicing yoga and meditation, students can take a break from

the obsession of their illness.  Yoga provides a safe place to feel comfortable 
and relax in a body that is suffering, and to sit without judgement in a mind 
that is worried. The breath work allows students to step back from tension 
and its componentto suffering.   
The community of other students in class, or simply sharing 
timewith me, provides a sense of camaraderie, 
peace of mind and inner balance.

To be able to help people who suffer from illness, and/or wrestle with the 
uncertainty of recurrence has been an incredibly moving experience for me.  
It has been my greatest honor to help in some small way by providing my 
students  with a sense of hope, and a few gentle tools 
to help alleviate their physical or emotional distress.

A little over 10 years ago, I helped create the 
Stanford Cancer Supportive Care Program 
at the Stanford Complimentary Care Clinic.  This program provides 
traditional medicine and complementary care 
(including yoga and meditation)

to cancer patients in treatment, recovery, and transition.

 

I am pleased to announce that I am bringing this program to YogaSource 

in collaboration with Stanford Supportive Cancer Care Program 
beginning in November. If you know of anyone who could benefit 
from this COMPLIMENTARY 

program, please ~ spread the word. 
ALL classes are FREE to patients, family members and caregivers. 

For more details including class schedule,

visit YogaSource or Yoga and The Art of Living.

xx ~ Cindy