Tag: healing

Posted on

The Comeback

My whole world exploded when I was diagnosed with a recurrence of breast cancer with bone metastasis during my vacation in Paris this summer (while I was living in the U.S.) After months of silence, I’m getting my voice back. Here’s who I am now.

The explosion happened on June 24, 2022. I had been living in Atlanta, GA for 16 years and was enjoying my summer vacation in Paris—my native city—, when my oncologist announced the unthinkable: “You have a recurrence of breast cancer with bone metastasis”. The PETSCAN showed eight sites on my bone structure where cancer cells had settled. It’s been eight years since my second cancer, 18 years since the disease first entered into my life.

A week later, I made the most radical decision of my life. I came to the conclusion that, if I had a chance to survive this, it would be in France. I decided to settle in my native country close to my mom, with access to France’s universal healthcare and medical system (which is under huge pressure, just like any other medical system in the world). My gut feelings told me to stay put and concentrate on the healing process, not to travel back to Atlanta to move my stuff. To this day, I haven’t returned to Atlanta.

Instead, my Atlanta friends did what I should have done myself. They moved my stuff out of my place in Southwest Atlanta, sold or donated it, and traveled from Atlanta to Paris with suitcases full of my clothes. An incredible movement of solidarity. I still have no words to express my gratitude. Instead, I feel tears coming up.

I’ve felt as if I’ve been dropped in France by parachute, uprooted. Still feeling that way today.

As the medical treatment kicked off in the early summer, the universe sent me help—thank goodness. I was lucky to find a regional park—nature is rare in Paris suburbia, one of the world’s most densely populated areas—close to my place. I practiced yoga every morning in the park’s meadow. Bare feet. No mat. I had to feel and smell the (new) ground I was standing on. Hikers? People walking their dogs? I didn’t care, nothing stopped me from doing what I needed to do to stay somewhat sane.

A bond with my adoptive city

Another “extraordinary” thing happened around the same time. My work (at least part of it) as a yoga therapist and a teacher of French “followed” me in Paris. I’ve continued teaching online to my Georgia students. That’s helped me keep a bond with my adoptive city and stay busy, thinking about something else than cancer.

Finally, I’ve been able to put together a team of complementary medicine healers to help me in this journey where I feel a huge sense of loss. Loss of my health, loss of my Atlanta life and tribe.

Now what? Cancer impacts a person on the physical, emotional and spiritual levels. This time, the diagnosis was an even bigger slap in the face, a stronger mortality wake-up call because of the metastasis. My oncologist believes I will reach complete remission. I feel I can too. When? I don’t know.

A few things are emerging for me.

  1. The emotional work is hard. Still, I’m committed to doing it. I want to know, understand and, most importantly, feel what are the shocks that have led to the recurrence. I’m convinced it’s necessary for my healing.
  2. I’ve been so terrified by the diagnosis that I’ve let it silence me. I’m done with that. I’m finding my voice again. This post is a start.
  3. I’m continuing my work as a yoga therapist and a patient advocate, spreading the word about integrative medicine and integrative oncology. This means the true integration of complementary modalities into health care and cancer care to help us, patients and survivors. Because our lives depend on it.

It feels good to be back—back in the light—showing the world who I am. Thank you for seeing me.



I practiced yoga every morning in this meadow that’s in a park, 5 miles South of Paris. I need to feel and smell the (new) ground I was standing on.
Posted on

How Are You Standing in the World?

Our body posture and tensions reflect our life experience. Thankfully, these can change at any time of our lives with a modality like yoga therapy.

It is a fact that our posture, our body build up and reflect our life experience from our early childhood and throughout our lives.

Have we been touched, welcomed, supported, reassured during the first months and years of our life? Have we been able to find our place, to occupy it fully? Encouraged to express what we love, who we are? Were we allowed to explore the potential of our body? To play with gravity?

The need to connect deeply with another and the fear to be rejected make us adapt our posture. We each respond differently to critical remarks such as “Sit straight”, “Stop getting into trouble” . Some of us may have stiffened during childhood.

It is easy to see how these repeated negative emotions and stresses produce contraction or loss of muscular tone that gradually create a veered posture or a body tension.

Good news

I have good news for you—life is movement, and all of this can change at any time in our lives. Yoga therapy can help.

You can get in touch with the fear and sadness that have been locked in the body in the form of tension by getting out of the mind and into the body and with the conscient effort to breathe deeply. With the help of the therapist, you can then express these feelings and, ultimately, accept them.

Both the verbal work and the body work help you reach an expanded version of yourself–loosened up and more aligned. You can experience this feeling of expansion off the mat, in situations of the real life. The key is to go slowly on the mat, to let these new movements–and feelings–arise, eyes closed, instead of trying hard to go into a pose. In yoga therapy, like everything in life, nothing can be rushed.

Then, you can gradually find a new way to live and stand in the world, in the right posture for you, flexible and strong all at the same time.

Posted on

How Breast Cancer Has Made Me Who I Am

It’s precisely because cancer is a life-threatening disease that it has helped me find who I am. I would have preferred to learn without paying that price. Nonetheless, since two breast cancers were on my paths, I’ve decided to make sense of it all.

The universe threw two early stage breast cancers my way, ten years apart—one in 2004 (stage III) and another in 2014 (stage III that had spread in two lymph nodes). Looking back, they’re atomic explosions that have shaped my life and—as odd as it sounds—helped me find who I am.

Within weeks of my first diagnosis in 2004, I came across yoga for the first time and met my teacher, Aline Frati, in Paris (where I’m from and where I lived at the time). I also consulted with a doctor who was a nutritionist, Dr. Ithurriague. Charcuterie, cheese and wine was part of my diet back then. Hell, that’s normal for a French! Here I was listening to Dr. Ithurriague explaining how nutrition impacts the immune system. I changed my diet, practiced yoga, discovered reflexology, and did pretty much whatever I wanted during the year of my treatments. I could do that since I was on a sick leave while I received 100% of my monthly salary, as part of the French universal health care system.

This was a time of transformation, churning, grief and rest. Dr. Ithurriage also mentioned this guy who had been diagnosed with an incurable cancer and who had decided to live his dream—spend the rest of his life on a sailboat, traveling around the world. The guy ended up being cured and living many more moons. “If there’s something you’ve always wanted to do, DO IT. It can make a huge difference,” concluded Dr. Ithurriague.

I had always wanted to live abroad

His words resonated with me. A year after our conversation in his office, I met an American (who lived in Atlanta) during a Thanksgiving dinner in Paris. We fell in love. I had always wanted to live abroad. After a year of a long-distance relationship, I moved to Atlanta and we got married. It was the first time I followed my gut feelings and did something for me.

Eight years went by living in a marriage, working as a freelance corporate writer, and dipping my toe in the water of yoga therapy. The news of the second cancer was just as big of a shock as the first one, especially since my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer at the same time. My medical team did their job while I went on a mission to understand the disease on an emotional, almost spiritual level.

It was time to look at what my breast cancer was saying to me. I worked with a psychologist, Laurent Malterre, who guided me. I searched my soul and my childhood years. I realized I had been left unseen and unheard. I became aware how much that had left a powerful footprint in me, and pushed me to develop a strategy to be seen—all my life, I had given abundantly to classmates, family, life partners, friends, bosses, clients, whomever. I had given to the point of exhaustion, of illness. An exhaustion that had led to cancer. Twice. On the other hand, I had helped others heal for as long as I could remember. No matter how damaged a person was, I saw the diamond they were. This is still true today.

“What is it that makes you, YOU?”

The psychologist asked me the questions I needed to hear, “Stop waiting for others to see you. It’s time you look at who you are. So, what is it that makes you, YOU? What are your beliefs and values? What speaks to your soul? What are you here for?” Each question felt like a wake-up call. I literally had a “a-ha” moment. All of what made me who I was—my yoga practice, my ability to listen and name emotions and feelings, and to see the diamond inside the other—came together. To be me, I had to help others heal and create my own yoga therapy practice in a way that deeply resonated with me.

While creating my yoga therapy practice from the ground up, I learned to value my own needs instead of putting the needs of others before mine. I divorced. The time came when I said “no” to friends who were used to me being present for them whatever my circumstances. I started dancing—another life-long dream.

It’s been a long road, full of turns, trust me. An ongoing process. That’s why I’m so proud of what I’ve accomplished so far.

Photo: at a weekly contemporary dance class provided by Fly On A Wall and their visionary teachers (here: Jimmy Joyner and Anna Bracewell Crowder) at the Windmill Arts Center in East Point, GA.

Read also:
– “Pinktober, aka The Month of Over Giving” (Oct. 17)
– “Pinktober — Intuition saved my breast” (Oct. 18)

Posted on

A Place To Be Reborn

Atlanta has one of the best cancer wellness centers in the country. As a survivor, I have attended their classes and been blown away by the patients’ creativity and aliveness.

I found out about the Piedmont Cancer Wellness Center in Atlanta, this past autumn, while I was looking to teach yoga therapy to cancer patients. With that goal in mind, I met the manager, Carolyn Helmer. She suggested that I, as a survivor myself, start by attending classes and workshops to get a vibe of the place, the people who look to the center for support, as well as the healers and the teachers in the support team.

I was a little annoyed by the idea. I was passionate about teaching yoga therapy to anyone affected by cancer. Nevertheless, I wanted nothing else to do with people looking like zombies.

I met people who were dealing or had dealt with breast cancer, lung cancer, brain cancer, pancreatic cancer. You name it.

I also came across something I didn’t expect—aliveness.

I attended soul collage sessions, yoga classes and personal development workshops. We all shared a common experience–The experience of facing or of having faced, at some point in our lives, the effects of a life-threatening disease.

During a lunch break, I talked with Cookie, a woman who had had pancreatic cancer seven years before, now in full remission. I had noticed her witty look and remarks during the class. “If it wasn’t for this place, I wouldn’t be alive today,” she told me.

During a workshop on how to cultivate self-care, the counselor asked us to come together in groups of three and brainstorm to write our own quote on self-care. Adele, Elizabeth and I were ecstatic with our quote: “Drop the mask of perfection and replace it with authenticity. Allow the development of creativity and reach for the unknown”.

After the workshop, I left the center and took the elevator to the building’s lobby. Suddenly, I stopped walking. I became aware that people I came across—employees, visitors, etc.–looked dull and drained. A thought came to my mind. I had just spent three hours with a bunch of cancer people who looked more alive than the “healthy” people. I smiled while realizing that, after all, I liked the zombies.


The visual at the top of the page is a card I created during a soul collage session at the center on Jan. 5, 2019. The card is titled “I See You”.

Posted on

I Am Good Enough

Feeling “good enough” is vital. At least for me. Why? Because over doing or always putting the needs of others before my own has come with a high price.

Piedmont Hospital’s Chapman Cancer Wellness Center provides free wellness and personal development programs for cancer patients and survivors. Last week, the center offered a workshop that spoke to me, “Good Enough: Letting Go of Perfectionism and People-Pleasing”, so I went. It made me reflect on my own—sometimes painful—journey towards feeling “good enough”.

Twelve years ago, I moved from Paris to Atlanta. I was coming out of breast cancer, and I believed that my (new) marriage and a complete change of scenery would make me happier and prevent me from getting sick again.

I was wrong.

In 2014, I got sick with a second bout of cancer.

The ordeal forced me to face something that became clear—I had spent most of my life pleasing others and helping them fulfill their dreams. I was convinced I had to do a lot to be loved, and I was constantly looking for the love and approval of others.

It was time to change, and to start seeing and acknowledging who I was.

Two years later, I did a big step towards feeling “good enough”. I let go of a 25+ year corporate career that was draining me, and I allowed myself to do something I loved—teach yoga therapy.

The workshop at the cancer wellness center, last week, was a new opportunity to check in with myself. What are the areas in my life where I may not feel good enough? How come this is happening? Feeling good enough is my life’s project.

What about you? Do you tend to overdo yourself and please others? If yes, what has motivated you to do that in your life? And what is the cost you are paying to overdo and please others? These are important questions as they may lead you to better physical and emotional well being.

Posted on

How Raina, Five Months, Reminded Me Of The Power Of The Mind Body Connection

While a client went through her pregnancy with emotional turmoil, her unborn baby showed physical symptoms. My client worked through her emotions to find peace, and her baby found the way back to health.

This time last year, I starting seeing Ronika, a client, during yoga therapy private sessions to support her during her pregnancy that was emotionally challenging.

Childhood trauma came up to the surface. Ronika was also facing a feeling of abandonment in her couple. She was overwhelmed with anger, fear and sadness.

Four months into the pregnancy, doctors told my client that her baby had five or six cysts on her kidneys.

From that point on, Ronika was considered “at risk”, and went to visit her doctor every week. There was nothing else the doctor could do except wait until Ronika’s baby was at least three months old. The doctor would then check the baby’s kidneys.

When I first heard about the unborn baby’s cysts, I connected the dots between Ronika’s emotional turmoil and her unborn child’s physical symptoms.

I called a mentor in Paris to have his point of view. “Kidneys are connected to fear. If your client finds peace and is able to welcome her baby with love and serenity at birth, then everything will come back to normal,” he said.

During her private yoga therapy sessions, Ronika became in touch with suppressed emotions and released them. Her relationship with her partner became stronger. All this helped my client be emotionally and physically prepared to welcome and nurture Raina after she was born.

Five months later, doctors were finally able to check Raina’s kidneys with ultra-sound for the first time. “Raina has one only one kidney. The good news is that there is no cyst on her kidney.”

I am convinced Raina absorbed her mom’s emotions before she was born, and that these emotions had an effect on Raina’s body–they dissolved one of her kidneys. I am also convinced that Raina felt her mom’s renewed peace and serenity and that those feelings dissolved the cysts.

Today, Raina is two. The youngest of three girls, she is a powerhouse of health and vibrancy!

Posted on

Natural Born Healer

My first memories are images of comforting my mom and others. It’s kind of my destiny. No wonder I have come up with my own healing method, Yoga for Renewal.

I’m three, maybe four years old. I’m in our 400-square foot apartment, which is on the fourth floor of our building with no elevator, in the blue-collar neighborhood of Belleville, Paris. It’s the middle of the night. My dad is out of town, in another province, building a school or a hospital. Money is scarce so, at night, he sleeps in a sleeping bag on the working site. I’m standing in the middle of the flat. In front of me, I see my mom. She’s in the bathroom, standing, her head bent over the sink. The light is dim. My mom’s nose is bleeding. I see the blood dropping in the white sink, for hours. I’m scared. That red on the white sink… I don’t like it. I wait and look out for my mom, refusing to go to bed until I know she’s ok. Years later, she confirmed to me that the nosebleeds—which happened regularly, always at night and when my dad was away—did last for hours.

Panic mode

Another night. I’m around the same age, maybe younger. My dad’s away building another school in another province. I’m wrapped up in a blanket in my mom’s arms, while she, in panic mode, runs down the staircase of our apartment building. We end up in a taxi. The driver’s voice is soothing. He’s probably concerned. What are this young woman and her child doing outside, at this hour? Years later, my mom revealed to me that she had suicide impulses. She was attracted by the apartment’s windows and the height. To run away from these impulses, she grabbed me and ran down the stairs as fast as she could until the impulses and the panic faded away.

Years ago, my mom and I walked through Montmartre (Paris) where an artist created our faces' silhouette drawing.

I’m eight or nine. It’s the summer and we’re on vacation in Spain. Spain is such a joy, and my dad is with us! Nevertheless, my mom is starting to break down. She’s unable to stay standing for more than five minutes. Then she faints. No one knows why, including the Spanish doctor my parents go to consult out of despair. I walk holding my dad’s hand on the village’s port. I’m wondering what I could do to make him feel better.

Tell your story, breathe and feel your body--Deeply

For as long as I can remember, I helped heal. It’s my purpose—along with dancing. It took me a while to come to terms with it. First, my mom started her own healing path—a couple of years after the Spanish vacation. Then, she took my hand when I was a young adult, and showed me the way to heal myself from the pain and trauma that circulated from her blood to mine. I also had to set myself free from what I thought my dad wanted me to be—a “success” in the corporate world. Life has its way of pushing you onto the right path. Have you noticed that? In my case, the universe threw two cancers my way, ten years apart. They helped me find my purpose for sure.

I received the message so deeply that I’ve come up with my own healing modality--Yoga for Renewal. If you’re ready for something new on your healing journey, you can take my hand too, and join me in one of my small group classes or a private session. There’s space to tell your story, and there’s space to breathe and feel your body--deeply. “That’s exactly what you need to heal,” my mom says. She knows. She’s done the hard and brave work to heal her wounds and tame her demons. She’s my hero.

Posted on

A Last Au Revoir To My Yoga Teacher

Portrait-Aline

Once, I asked Aline Frati, my yoga teacher, "Do you consider you teach therapeutic yoga?" She answered, "No, I teach a yoga approach for everybody. I teach the yoga of non-duality in which we search for our true nature, beyond all conditionings."

Every breath and every pose I lead my yoga students into are inspired by my yoga teacher, Aline Frati. Aline left us on Jan. 2. Tribute.


My yoga teacher, Aline Frati, left us on January 2, in Paris where she lived.

I happened to be in Paris when Aline made her transition. I was going to fly back to Atlanta the day of her religious ceremony, when Delta unexpectedly cancelled my flight early that morning, allowing me to attend the ceremony, which was held at the Père Lachaise, the most visited cemetery in the world.

After the funeral, Barbara, another of Aline’s students, and I decided to walk through the cemetery to catch the train at the Père Lachaise metro station. On our way, we met a man--one of those “real”, direct-to-the-point, cheeky Parisians--who knew the place like the back of his hand. He guided us to see tombs of many famous people, including Jim Morrison, before disappearing like smoke. I don’t know about you but I believe in signs.

I wrote a few lines about Aline that I read to Aline’s family and friends. I know that Aline would have loved for me to share them with you on my blog, so I’ve included them, below. Namaste.

Discovering yoga with Aline deeply shook my life. She supported me all along my journey.

Aline taught the most therapeutic form of yoga I have ever come across--far from the “yoga-robics” that is often taught in France and the States, where I live.

Above everything, Aline wanted to help us develop our capacity to listen to our body--without judgment. About her yoga approach, she also said, “the purpose of this yoga is to dissolve the repetitive patterns of fear and anxiety which we experience, since childhood, that get fixed in the body in the form of tension and pain.”

Aline fully expressed her art during the yoga retreats she taught at the Abbey of Saint Antoine, a 11th century abbey in one of France’s most beautiful villages, niched in the pre-Alps. “It is the teacher’s quality of presence that helps a person harmonize, not the yoga technique,” she told me during one of those retreats.

Thank you, Aline, for what you have passed down to me. Thank you for being a precious friend, a guide, a light that led me to my deepest self. Just like I asked for your guidance when you were here with us, I will continue to ask you to guide me in yoga therapy and in building on the foundation of what you have taught me.

Your friend, Always,
Elisabeth

Every summer from 2005 to 2016, Aline taught a week yoga retreat at the 11th century Saint Antoine abbey in a village in the pre-Alps. Aline's teaching combined with the spirit of the ex-abbey run by a Christian community that hosts personal development workshops, revived my soul and deepened my understanding of this yoga practice every time I attended Aline's retreat.

Aline (center, sitting down) with us, her students, at the abbey during the 2008 summer yoga retreat.

 

Posted on

Wrap up 2017 with my annual Year in Review

Laying down the foundations of a new alternative healing approach, that's what 2017 is about. What is yoga therapy? What does the ideal and most healing yoga therapy class looks like for me? Experimenting Yoga for Renewal. Transforming it. Testing it again. Re-changing it. 2017 has been an altogether exciting and grueling year full of questions--and sometimes answers. Here's 2017 in seven photos.

 

1-Jan-Feb

January-February

I lock myself in my home office, and collect yoga training and gestalt training material as well as my experience as being my own yoga therapy patient to design a 3-day workshop, "Thriving After Illness", the cornerstone of Yoga for Renewal's alternative healing approach. Its purpose is to help people find their inner fire after illness. In the middle of this, I take a break to participate to Atlanta's version of the Women's March on January 21, the day after Trump takes office.

079

March-April

After a unsettling month of March during which I am naturalized as an American citizen, I teach "Thriving After Illness 3-day Workshop" for the first time ever at Vista Yoga, Atlanta, in April. While teaching the program, I have the confirmation it works. I feel relieved and more grounded.

3-May

May

I feed my blog with blog posts, teach individual sessions of yoga therapy, and realize that "Thriving After Illness 3-Day Workshop" can help everyone, not only people who are recovering from illness.
I bring the best French tradition ever, the "apero"--drinks and finger food before the real dinner--to friends in my all-in-one home/office/yoga studio duplex, in SW Atlanta. More grounding comes along.

4-June-July

June-July

It's time to say bye bye to the beautiful loft, in downtown Atlanta, where I've taught Yoga for Renewal's weekly class for the past months. I modify "Thriving After Illness 3-Day Workshop" so that it's adapted for anyone who needs a "decompression week-end", not just people who are recovering from illness. "Thriving After Illness 3-Day Workshop" becomes "Yoga for Renewal 3-Day Workshop".

5-August-Sept

August-September

Again, Vista Yoga hosts a Yoga for Renewal premiere. There, I teach a 4-class series over four weeks, a "sampler" of YFR 3-Day Workshop, in August for the first time ever. Ten students--the series is at full capacity--help me grow as much as I help them.
A new community. A family. That's what I (finally) find in the Deep South after ten years living in the States. It all starts with my friend Stacie inviting me to her wedding on August 21, the day of the total solar eclipse, in South Carolina, on the path of totality. Shifting experience.

6-Oct-Nov

October-November

I participate in a two-day training on healing circles in the tradition of Native Americans. We're a dozen of volunteers who have committed to be part of a Trauma Response Group in SW Atlanta. That style of healing circle is used in some of Texas' prisons to ease up conflicts. I realize how opening up can be challenging in the American culture--maybe more so that in the French culture. In November, I teach my 4-class series over fours weeks for the second time, at Candler Park Yoga, Atlanta.

7-Nov-Dec

December

Back to the roots. In France with my mom (center) and our cousins, Giovanni (left) and Rosine (right). All three of them emigrated from Italy to France between 1949 and 1964. Out of five surviving siblings, my maternal grandmother (Carmela Picano) and three of her siblings (Concetta, Crescenzo and Antonio Picano) left Italy.  Carmela, Crescenzo and Antonio emigrated in France while Concetta left for the U.S. My paternal great grandfather, Geraldo Tartaglia, was one of the first Italians to commercialize Italian fine foods to the French. He had a foot in both countries.

Posted on

Time to Regroup After a Year of Testing My Yoga Therapy Method

Naturalization-5-March17-Cropped3

My naturalization ceremony on March 10, 2017, in Atlanta. Several people have asked me the same question lately, "What (the hell) makes you stay in the States, these days?" I always give the same answer, "I've met a community of great people, my people."

Yoga for Renewal works. That's the good news. Man, it's been a process. The next step is to make myself known. Right now, time to renew.

I’m a yoga pioneer, and I’m going through a rough time right now. I’ve spent this year building the foundations of my yoga therapy business, Yoga for Renewal, in Atlanta where I live. These days, it seems like every time I open a door, I find a stop sign on the other side--so I’m feeling stuck. And since YFR brings to life what I carry intimately in my soul and what I’m here for, this bothers me.

One of the things I’ve worked on this year is my elevator pitch. Here it is. “YFR is the unique yoga therapy approach that I’ve developed, situated at the intersection of yoga and therapy. It brings two healing modalities together--the unique yoga practice I’ve learned from my yoga teacher in France, Aline Frati, and a time where I invite participants to become aware of what is weighing on their heart and share—I call that time ‘the healing circle’.”

Not bad, right?

If the person I talk to looks interested, I keep going. “You want to know what you truly need in your life, right now? There’s a grief that’s weighing on your life and that you haven’t allowed yourself to go through. Whatever gets in the way of your joy will come up in a YFR class so you can contact it, name it, feel it in your body and transform it into free energy.”

The whole year, I’ve taken two steps forward and one step back.

I started 2017 designing YFR’s three-day workshop, which captures the essence of my approach. For three days, participants practice yoga, then share what is coming up for them in a healing circle, then return back to the yoga mat for more breathing and postures, then back to the healing circle, and so on.

I taught the workshop for the very first time in the spring. There were only three participants. Still, the group was enough to show me that my method worked. One participant became aware of how physically and emotionally strong she was despite a serious chronic condition; another recognized her need to grieve after the loss of a loved one; while the third left before the end of the three days, avoiding addressing her guilt.

Later in the year, I designed the Yoga for Renewal 4-Class Series--a condensed version of the workshop. My first series brought together a group of ten. Yeah! Each week for four weeks in a row, I taught a two-hour class where participants practiced yoga and came together in a healing circle.

During this series one of the participants became aware of how vital it is to express how she feels. Another spoke her truth to a loved one, something she had never done before. Another dropped out half way because of a sore throat, or maybe a trip out West, or maybe both.

I’ve also had to cancel a workshop and a series for lack of people registering. That sucked.

“Write an elevator pitch.” “Put less text on your flyers.” “Put more text on your flyers.” “You need to teach in hospitals!” “Have you talked with chiropractors?” “Do you think the French would be more receptive to what you do?” My friends’ suggestions and questions have uplifted, helped, confused or depressed me, depending on what they said and my mood in the moment.

There are a few things I know for sure. The body and soul are inseparable. When we contact and express our emotions, we move towards better physical, psychological and spiritual health. I’ve developed YFR based on those principles. Yoga for Renewal works—for those who are ready.

Last but not least, I’ve gone too far to give up!

Next week, I’ll fly home to Paris, taste my mom’s home-made pizza and get nurtured from her wisdom, walk on the city’s bridges, go salsa dance with my friends, make eye contact with cute guys in the streets, taste the world’s best wines, joke with my cousins, share my journey with my yoga teacher, and experience whatever the universe has in store for me. Au revoir. I’ll meet you on the other side for more Yoga for Renewal.

"Feeling and do some yoga", that's how a client describes Yoga for Renewal.