I believe in teaching to a person’s abilities, not disabilities … and from there, it is nothing but upward.
To help, encourage, and motivate others to find their strengths, to teach them and show them the potential for getting well and getting stronger is in their hands and how they actively participate in their well-being and how they think and view things.
To share the gifts that yoga gives … the gifts of strength, flexibility, mobility, exhilaration, and rejuvenation of the spirit as well as the health and wellness benefits that accompany the practice of yoga … relieving stress, pain, depression, and sleep disturbances, and more.
To teach other people that they do not have to live uncomfortably in their bodies, that they have the power within themselves to make not only a good but a noticeable difference in how they feel mentally and physically.
Yoga can and does bring improvements. We can step in after a surgery or treatments and show the path to greater strength, mobility, range of motion, to better understand the body and all its layers, to the mind and all its doors, the soul and where it can roam. It is a path to return ourselves to the very beginning where we were in divine balance. Through yoga, we unclench our minds, bodies, and souls … and their many layers, knocking down walls that we created to protect ourselves, as we grow and rise back up.
All yoga is therapy. We address things that are sensible, common sense. We help bodies to uncoil, minds to release and expand. We have the ability to pick up, brush off, relieve, and make a positive difference.
Through Yoga, we learn to stop holding our breath and allow our breath to not only hold us but to carry us … higher. We have the power to empower cancer thrivers, all people. Cancer Thrivers desire to be on their feet, not live life as an invalid. Give them the keys, help them unlock the door – our thoughts, our movements, our breath can harm or heal us. Yoga encompasses not just the surface but gets into every nook and cranny and layer, every thought, feeling and movement.
How powerful is that, awe inspiring that we hold this power within ourselves?
Cancer pulls the earth out from under your feet. Yoga puts you firmly back on your feet. Yoga empowers you – giving you a degree of control of your body and your world in a space where everything has spun out of control around you. Steadying your mind, bringing a grace, a calm, strength … to walk forward, to embrace each new day.
Yoga gave me the grace to accept and go with the flow of my cancer, the aggressive treatments and the surgeries. I has meant to be able to walk, regaining strength, balance and mobility amidst my numerous challenges.
The benefits of a yoga practice don’t only help in bringing a cancer patient through their journey but it helps them through any hurdles they may face afterwards. You learn to accept the limitations in your life, yet know those limits are walls we imposed on ourselves with our inner voice and the words we choose to use.
There is a grace in acknowledging this. Yoga brings an acceptance – a gentle balance not only with your body and mind – but also outwardly in how you accept things in your external world. In yoga, we learn that if we push too hard we cause a resistance – we take that learning from the mat and incorporate it into our lives. How we deal with situations and others. We learn the balance of “firm gentleness”. We learn that, in this calm, secure presence we uncoil – we open up, blossom and allow life and breath to flow through us un-constricted. Allowing a new freedom and buoyancy, we lighten up, we gain strength and we learn that strength and softness are the same thing … just different sides of the coin. We stand taller, steadier and stronger … mindfully, physically and physiologically. Yoga builds tenacity and fortitude, bringing equanimity to your being. Pranayama, breath work, opens you up. Freeing the knots created by pain and stress. Asana poses build strength, open new pathways, put the ground under your feet … enabling you to bury your roots deeper, standing more solid.
Meditation reminds you and allows you to recognize and let go of what serves no good purpose. Even in restorative yoga, lying in the stillness, there is movement in non-movement. As tensions melt away muscularly and psychologically, your body and mind open up to receive the calm. There is movement … gentle, subtle, profound. You learn that your breath is the horse, your mind is the rider … you learn to release and to breathe again. Someone with physical limitations will find new boundaries. The body is awakened – the nerve paths are reignited, scar tissue is released. It brings not only a new lease on life but fuels a great hope and reason … a desire to welcome the future with open arms, accepting your own and the burden of other’s expectations and limitations with grace.
We learn we are enough just as we are and that we have the capacity for continuous change and improvement. We are not static, not our lives, thought or bodies. Learning to accept and embrace with grace … whether it is a yoga pose or a change in our life circumstance. We learn we are enough just as we are. A decrease in pain, neuropathy, fatigue, insomnia, increased mobility, relieving stress, depression, building bone. The benefits are not only enormous but endless.
Is yoga the answer to everything? Of course not, it just makes it a whole lot easier with the relief and multitude of benefits it provides. The beauty of yoga is that it can be modified for any body, any age, any place the individual is in regards to their health and it can be done in some form anywhere at anytime.
Wilmot Cancer Center – The 5th Annual Breast Health Day
October 15th 2011
Copyright 2011
Karen Armstrong RYT, All Rights Reserved
Rochester Yoga Service Network
[email protected]
Rochester, New York
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