Archives for June 2021

Summer Session 2 Starting Soon!

People have asked me how it is that I have been able to recover so quickly from a very hard, physically traumatic fall I took on May 6th.

People that know what I went through back in 2016, the damage that my body sustained and the prognosis I’d been given that sounded like total doom and gloom.  Stenosis, massive arthritis, degenerative spine, labral tears, eminent hip replacement, it did not look good for me back then.

Yet my body healed from the majority of all of it without surgery, or much western medicine at all.  It was yoga, meditation, essential oil use, and straight up positive mental attitude, along with some acupuncture and a bit of time in a warm therapy pool, and about 4 years of focused effort.

 

So OF COURSE as I went airborne through my kitchen crying “NOOOOOO!”, trying to somehow break the fall, life flashing before my eyes, I feared I was likely in for that hip replacement this time for sure.  I was about to undo all of the good work I’d done on myself.  All of the healing, years of progress, gone in an instant.

 

But that’s not what happened.

 

Yes, that fall put me into total acute, physical trauma.  My entire back seized up with hot burning pain that resonated down the legs and up into my arms.  No standing up straight. Unable to walk a step.  The only position even remotely tolerable for days was to simply lay my torso across the dining room table and try to breathe. I slept hanging across my dining room table most of the first night.

 

Those first couple of days were unbearable. Yet, I rolled off that table in the morning and got myself situated to teach my 6 am yoga class—using only my words.  With ice, heat, essential oils, lots of restorative poses and an acupuncture treatment I started finding relief.  I started asking my body if we could try a little yoga.  I kept TEACHING my yoga classes, using my voice.  I went to my doctor and got checked out for head trauma, and back and hip x-rays. She handed me a stack of “exercises” to do at home.  As I paged through them I said, “you know, you may consider these physical therapy exercises, but they are actually yoga poses, basically, and the kind of yoga that I typically teach.”  Her response?  “Okay, do what you do.  Carefully.”

Little by little, I worked with my body to try tiny movements via my yoga knowledge.

 

Friends loaned me a fancy walker with breaks and a seat so I could get around the house.  I had help with shopping and mowing and all the heavy lifting stuff that my body just wasn’t ready for.  I slept in a recliner in restorative poses.  I napped any time I could between day job and night job, 30 minutes here, 20 minutes there, resting, meditating, coaxing my body to calm, and asking it to release the trauma.  Two weeks later, one more acupuncture treatment, a series of tests and x-rays and it appears that not only was nothing broken chipped, fractured, or crushed, but my spine looks better than it did in 2016.  I didn’t even have signs of osteo-perosis!

 

It has only been a month since my flight across the kitchen, and yet I am up and moving and doing things to at least 75%. I am confident I will be 100% before the Fourth of July.

 

How is it I’ve been able to recover so quickly?

Yoga

Meditation

Essential Oils

Eating well

Sleep/Rest

Positive Mental Attitude

 

I am proof positive that Yoga is for EVERY body.  Especially if you have pain, trauma, limited range of motion, less flexibility than you’d like, if you’re recovering from surgical procedures, injury, or live in a larger body and realize you need to move it.

 

This summer I offer 6 different yoga classes.  Three classes are narrowly focused on guiding the body in  very gentle but effective ways to introduce it to movement.  The first step in opening up your energy pathways and bringing more flexibility to your life.

 

Gentle Yoga –Sunday nights 7:30 via Zoom—breath work to help you to allow your body to relax, super basic poses to introduce your body of the day to the idea of movement, and conscious relaxation to allow your body to integrate the new energy you’ve sent it.  Perfect for the ultimate beginner, the inflexible, folks with arthritis, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, or larger bodied beings that thought “they” could never do yoga.  Well, yes you can. With me. Sunday nights. In your own space.

 

Happy Joints-Tuesday nights 6:00 – 7:00 in person at Parker Lake—an hour of serious part by part joint movement as the body allows, to begin to increase strength and flexibility, rehydrate and loosen up the joints.  The perfect hour for anyone suffering with aches and pains and stiffness, dis-ease like low back pain, tendonitis, frozen shoulder, “bad knees” or for those that are trying to bounce back from a trauma or injury.  It is so important to develop a relationship with your body, and dedicate effort not just to areas of the body that are reacting to chronic pain triggers, but to the whole body, as it all works together.

 

Seated Yoga—Wednesdays 4:30 – 5:30 on Zoom.  Forget the floor, pull up a chair.  This is a “raised” Yin class, for those that find it harder and harder to get down on the floor, and harder yet, getting back up.  As we age, if we don’t use it–we loose it, and this hour will have you using your body in gentle, yet challenging poses while seated on a chair.  Now is the time to get your body moving towards a healthier you. Perfect for beginners, older bodies, larger bodies, or anybody who has limited range of motion, and struggles with the ability to comfortably get to the floor.

 

All 3 of these classes share elements that have been instrumental in my injury recovery. There are no expectations, no judgements—participants are always free to do as much or as little as they choose.

 

If you or someone you know would benefit from some movement, why not give this a try?  Surprise yourself. Take care of yourself. Come Yoga with me. New classes start in July.

 

Namaste.

Good Morning for Yoga!

A Grateful First Half

Its been almost half a year since I last posted thoughts.  Back then, on December 31st, I was full of gratitude, and thankfulness, for all that I am surrounded with.

I still am.

Not to say it hasn’t been a challenging year, hence, why I’ve been absent.  Looking back, my 2021 year began with a new series of Yoga classes on-line, hoping to soon be able to get back to in person.  It was only a couple of hours a week, but hey, for a super small business like me, those dollars can translate into groceries for a week, or even paying a utility bill.  The path to wellness begins with, and requires nothing but the desire to try, and that resonates with the people who come to me with their body of the day.

So very grateful for my yoga community.

Shortly into the New Year, my best friend, Coco (my chocolate lab) became incredibly ill.  We spent several weeks on the edge of life or death due to a blockage in her intestines, with indescribable obstacles from not being able for her to be seen due to covid restrictions, to not being able to afford to be seen. I experienced the power of our connection, and the power of prayer, in a big way. In the eleventh hour she underwent a critical, life-saving surgery removing 15 inches of her intestines, resulting in a long road back and massive medical bills.  I was simply amazed at her will to live, and who stepped up to help us with costs, and support.

So very, very grateful for the people and organizations that were there for us during the most difficult of days in January.

In the midst of all that trauma, I ending up in emergency with what appeared to be a heart attack.

Thankfully it wasn’t a heart attack.  It’s amazing how much stress and trauma a body can take under extreme circumstances.  So grateful for my faith.  My strong body, mind and spirit, and ability to work with my breath and yoga practice to manage trauma overload.  As I’ve so often said in my yoga classes, “The breath is life, just breathe”….

Yes, January was full of challenges that once again, confirmed there is so much to be thankful for.

By February a true miracle occurred.  I was offered a temporary, full time work contract working from home.  There was a clear end date to the assignment, I just needed to make it to that date. A big goal. So grateful to have that opportunity to earn a livable wage and do it from home, as Coco was far from out of the woods needing to be closely monitored, and that income was spent just as quickly as it arrived.

Two setbacks later, we are now, hopefully, finally over the hump of complications and we can call her “fully recovered”.

From February, until May 28th, I basically worked night and day.  My days started at 6 a.m. teaching yoga every morning on Zoom, followed by a 40+ hour work week, and teaching yoga 3 – 4 nights a week and every other Sunday morning in person.  The end of May my temporary work contract ended and I was back to exclusively teaching yoga.

Again, so grateful, for my strong body, mind and spirit to be able to carry me through such a grueling day to day for those 4 months.  So grateful for the will, the drive, the perseverance, the determination, and the skills to be able to create a means to carry such a heavy load without actually overloading.

Just when I thought I was headed for a break from continual work, another short-term contract was presented to me for the month of June.  Once again, I was committed to work from 6 am to 8:45 pm most week-days, but now overtime Saturday and Sundays from 5 am to 4:30 pm to get that contract out on time.  We just wrapped things up Friday afternoon. Now I can finally take a much needed break.

The first half of this year I’ve been very absent. So very grateful for the friends that worried, wondered, understood, and reached out to me during that time, when it was so difficult for me to do the reaching.  Love you so much!

Oh, did I happen to mention that on May 6th, at approximately 6:00 pm I was launched across my kitchen—airborne–taking a hard fall that knocked me out for over 10 minutes? I have been slowly healing from being pretty much incapacitated for the month of May. Yeah, well, I’m doing much better now. More on that in another post.  But for now, all I can say is….

So grateful for the will, the drive, the perseverance, the determination, and the skills to be able to heal from what could have truly been an extreme disaster.

And there was the day my truck was broke into, days later followed by the state patrol and canine canvassing my yard and neighborhood searching door to door for home invader/burglars, and a week later followed by yet another several “thug themed” incidences in my neighborhood….yeah.  I am indeed grateful that I am a strong person.  Grateful that I can detach. Strong in my convictions and decisions on how I will respond to any threats to me and mine.  I am grateful to be at peace with what I am at peace with–definitely ready to “rise to the occasion” should it present itself.

And breathe.

We are almost half ways through this year.

The best part of it has always been finding time for the people I so cherish, whether it be a phone conversation or enjoying time spent together laughing and doing things that make us happy—and now being able to get out and about again. I find myself feeling so very whole, centered, and grateful for my life, and the people who choose to be a part of it. I feel ageless. Boundless, ready for another short term work project to begin in just a little while, and the excitement of additional Yoga programs with new partners to follow shortly. Thankful for my physical health improving daily, time spent with good friends, and just as importantly, the serenity of alone time.

So much gratitude spilling out from my being.

Life is good.

No matter what happens in your world, outside of you, around you, despite you, you always have a choice.  You can choose to ask yourself “why is this happening to me?!”   Or you can choose to hold space to look within, and ask yourself “what is this trying to teach me?”

 

May you find some peace and stillness between the triggers and the chaos.

May you set down some of your burden and lighten your load.

May you breathe softly, with care and loving kindness,

And may you find gratitude for all of the good that we have.

 

Namaste.