Tag: Yoga

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Is Yoga Therapy Fake News?

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As yoga therapists, we're breaking grounds and making the field--a challenging and exciting time to live!

If you're like everybody else, you don't know what yoga therapy is. Here are four questions to help you see clear.

I get the question almost daily, “What’s yoga therapy? Isn’t yoga supposed to be therapeutic, in the first place?” And it’s true, yoga is a 5,000-year old mind-body practice that early seekers came up with to feel happier. So, yes, yoga is therapeutic by definition. That was years ago, though. Since then, yoga has turned into a physical practice mostly for those who are “fit”!

In the ocean of yoga styles, yoga therapy is a new yoga, a yoga for the “misfits”, which really means a yoga for each one of us since we all shift from being “fit” to “misfit”, and vice versa, during the course of our lives. Here are four questions to help you understand this practice that hardly no one knows yet, and what to expect from it.

Is yoga therapy actually a thing?
Yes and no.

Yes, in the way that the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT), a non-profit founded in the late 80’s in the Western U.S. by a handful of yogis and doctors, has released training standards for yoga studios that want to offer a yoga therapy training program, and for yoga teachers who want to teach yoga therapy. There are 27 IAYT-accredited yoga therapy training programs, and 2,500 IAYT-certified yoga therapists, in the world. Each certified yoga therapist has received a training that answers the IAYT’s requirements, and is committed to obey to a code of ethics.

No, in the sense that yoga therapy is unregulated. Unlike acupuncture, chiropractic or counselling, there is no license given to those who are trained as yoga therapists. The IAYT is working on establishing yoga as a respected and recognized therapy. In the meantime, we’re the first generation, and breaking grounds.

That being said, there are yoga teachers out there who have had no formal training in yoga therapy and, still, who do a job just as good, if not better, than certified yoga therapists. It all depends on the teacher’s quality of presence and knowledge.

Who can yoga therapy help?

Anyone interested in deepening their healing journey. The practice is accessible to everyone, regardless of their fitness level, body type and mobility. I’ve had clients come to me for physical issues--lower back and hip issues, weight management, post-surgery recovery, post-cancer treatment recovery, Parkinson’s disease, and more—as well as for emotional breakthroughs--post-partum depression, grief after loss of a loved one, anxiety, to name a few. Yoga therapy can also help when we simply need to check in, feel and know what is truly going on with ourselves emotionally and physically, so that we can take the necessary action whenever we’re ready.

How does yoga therapy work?

It depends on the yoga therapist. Each one of us works with who we are as a human. Some yoga therapists have a background in physical therapy, others in psychology, others in the arts and more. We all do share one thing in common—we use yoga techniques to help a person create, develop and nurture their physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well being.

I personally love helping a person dive into their body, and feel the emotions that have been stored. My classes start with a specific hatha yoga (yoga of the poses) practice that’s geared to help participants connect deeply with their body. The practice is usually followed by a time where I invite them, thanks to a “toolkit”, to become aware of how they truly feel and then share it with their own words. Body connection, awareness and spoken word. These, to me, are the keys to wellbeing, if not health.

What does a yoga therapy session typically look like?

Yoga therapy works well in one-on-one private sessions or in small group classes or workshops. Other than that, each yoga therapist works their own way. Whatever the setting, you should expect a high quality of presence from a yoga therapist.

In a nutshell, the keys to achieving the benefits of yoga therapy is finding a teacher that you connect with, the believe in the body-mind connection and the willingness to step into that space.

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My Yoga Teacher And I

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During her 40-year career as a yoga teacher, Aline has trained dozens of yoga teachers including her daughter Sandra Drai. Some, like me, teach outside of France.

Aline Frati has taught me everything in yoga. Her yoga practice, where "listening" and self-awareness are prime, is truly unique.

I’ve come across many yoga teachers since I’ve started practicing yoga. Some have helped me dissolve the tensions that were in the deepest tissues of my body. Some have guided me in the philosophy of yoga. Others have shown me how breathing exercises can expand my awareness. Others have made me feel like I’m dancing. Still, out of all of the teachers who have crossed my path, there is only one whom I consider my true teacher in yoga. Aline Frati has been teaching yoga for 40 of her 79 years--both in classes that she hosts in her classic Parisian-style Haussmannian apartment and also at retreats in France, India and Israel.

A friend dragged me to her class, in 2004. I had never done yoga before. I had been diagnosed with breast cancer shortly before, and was ready to do anything to break from the depression and the fear that came along with the diagnosis.

Aline taught a semi private to my friend and I. The experience with her style of yoga was like love at first sight. I had been pushing myself for decades. I worked in corporate jobs--sometimes in brutally competitive environments--I had no passion for, and I was coming out of a toxic relationship of ten years. I had managed to survive all of this thanks to my inextinguishable joy and the support of my tribe. And here I was, in Aline’s apartment, connecting for the very first time with a part of myself that I had ignored most of my life—my body.

Although Aline says “this yoga approach is for everyone”, the yoga she teaches is the most therapeutic form of yoga I have ever come across. Far from the “yoga-robics” that is widely practiced in the West, her yoga is about developing our capacity to “listen” to our body without judgment. It’s also about dissolving the repetitive patterns of fear and anxiety that we have experienced since childhood, that get fixed in the body in the form of pain or restriction. “The goal is to help a person become aware of this fixed energy so that it can be freed, and find its way back through the body’s global energy,” she explains.

Since 2005, I’ve attended over half a dozen one-week long yoga retreats with Aline. Most of them in an 11th century abbey in the ancient village of Saint Antoine L’Abbaye hidden in the French pre-Alps. The abbey served as a hospital in medieval times, and is now a personal development center run by a Christian community. Every single corner of this place heals.

During Aline’s retreats, I’ve seen her eat almost nothing for a week so that her perception was as clear as it could be for her students. “It’s the teacher’s quality of presence, not the yoga technique, that helps a person harmonize,” she says.

Bringing a person to deep relaxation is pivotal in her yoga teaching. “We can’t modify anything without the body being deeply relaxed first,” she says.

As a little Jewish girl, Aline survived World War II in occupied France. Later, she left an unhappy marriage taking her two kids with her. She met her spiritual teacher, Jean Klein, who passed away in 1998 at the age of 86, when her marriage started falling apart. “Every time I was around him, I felt a sense of unity between us, a thread of love and affection.”

Everytime I've needed deep renewal, I've been lucky to end up at Saint Antoine L'Abbaye (French Alps) during one of Aline's one-week yoga retreats that she's taught in the healing center, almost every year since 2005.

Despite Aline offering me many of Jean Klein’s books, I’ve never understood his writings and philosophy. That’s okay. I don’t need to understand. The most important is that I now feel in my body what is going on with me, and I pass this approach to others through my yoga therapy practice. “Merci”, Aline, for showing me the way to my body and soul.

 

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Pump Up the Energy with Yoga (and Dance)

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A daily fast-flow yoga personal practice and dance classes have pumped up my energy level, this past two months, and helped me design --from scratch-- my Thriving After Illness yoga-based workshop. Mission accomplished!

Wow! The beginning of the year has been invigorating. I just finished designing what is nothing less than one of my life’s accomplishments—a body-mind, yoga-based 3-day workshop designed for people who have been struck by physical or emotional illness ––and for anyone who’s interested in deepening their healing journey. The workshop, titled Thriving After Illness, invites participants to experience practices that they can do in conjunction with, or after medical treatment, to improve their general health and wellbeing, and re-ignite their life fire. Nutrition, self-awareness and yoga are the workshop’s pillars. Every idea, concept, practice mentioned in this workshop is there for one single reason—I’ve personally used them on my own healing journey, they’ve worked for me and, in some instances, they probably saved my life.

Now, picture this--I wrote the workshop’s script from my home office in Atlanta. Being a small business owner, it’s just me in the office. There’s no one to talk to over coffee or turn to for a motivation boost or a laugh. At the beginning of this process a month ago, I knew I needed to crank up my energy level. Yes, bringing together years of mind-body healing practice into a 3-day workshop script requires high energy—even if you used to be a marketing writer for years, like me!

So you know what I did? I adopted a high-energy morning daily yoga routine in my home studio in Atlanta. From one day to the next, I went from a gentle, slow-paced yoga practice composed almost exclusively of postures on the floor, to practicing breathing techniques that raised my energy level--dozens of sun salutations and standing poses that tested my strength, balance and endurance.

At the same time, I started dancing classes. These were meant to be pure fun. Every Thursday evening, Gordon Neil, Atlanta’s best salsa dance teacher (so I’ve been told), has led us in new Afro-Latin contemporary choreography. The class, which started last month, is small. I’m the only person who’s showed up every single week. The choreography part is hard as hell and I quickly learned that I have coordination and memorization issues. I almost dropped out after the first class, and if it wasn’t for my workshop’s script, I would have. But I realized that the dancing classes, too, kept my energy up. So, I kept on going. Last week, I told Gordon I’m quitting and going to a beginner class. “You’ll have the memorization issue everywhere you go, you need to train that part of your brain,” he commented. Yep, he’s tough. I said, “I’ll think about it” while leaving class, and still haven’t made my mind up yet. It may be time for more softness.

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Breathe Move Believe

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Whatever we believe in, Yoga brings us closer to our mind, body and spirit, as well as to something bigger than us. All for the sake of healing and thriving. Here's how.

I've been recently thinking about how faith helps us heal. Some of us believe in God, a prophet or an unnamed force, others are attached to love or their own willpower, and so on. Whatever our belief system, it helps us surpass difficult circumstances and ourselves.

Faith was never part of my consciousness as a child. My mom is a non-practicing Catholic and my dad was an atheist. When I was ten, they both did their best to explain God to me, and imparted that I could always choose my religion –if any- once I was a grown up. A few years later, I asked my parents to sign me up to a Catholic teen summer camp in the beautiful mountainous region of Auvergne. At school, I had made friends with practicing Catholics, and was hoping to connect with their religious traditions. I had fun camping in a beautiful nature with my friends, while nothing much happened for me on a religious level.

It took almost 30 years for things to change. Being diagnosed with my first cancer and discovering yoga blew the lid open on my blockages to belief. The shock of the illness opened the door to my vulnerability, while yoga helped me undo stress, unknot tensions, and unite my body and mind.

At times, I also started experiencing -just like any person who practices yoga-, what Garrett Sarley, a senior teacher at Kripalu, the U.S. largest yoga center, calls “integrated functioning”. That’s when what you think, what you feel, what you say, and what you do are all the same and aligned.

This alignment, which is a powerful realm, started giving me access to insights on what I felt at the deepest level, on how to move forward, and on my connection to something bigger than me.

Today, I believe in the universe and its natural flow, in the power of joy and the acceptance of life -all of life- including its sorrows, which are opportunities to become more of who we are.

With my dad, entering the protestant church, in the Paris neighboring countryside, where I got married in 2007. By then, I was a regular yoga practitioner and had come closer to my spirituality.

My «faith» has even guided me in making life changing medical decisions. In 2014 when I was faced with my second breast cancer, a medical panel made up of twelve experts -doctors, radiologists, and more- all met to determine the best treatment option for me. After much discussion, they collectively agreed that a mastectomy was the way to go. For me, that option felt physically, emotionally and spiritually inadequate. I knew in my gut and in my soul that it wasn't what I needed. Against all odds, I refused it and decided for a lumpectomy instead. My choice came from within and from that something bigger than me. Something that I listened to and trusted. Today even my oncologist, who was part of the original panel and against my choice back then, is happy about my decision and results.

May 2017 bring you integrated functioning, and that deeper connection to yourself and, why not, to that something bigger than you.

The book La Puissance de la Joie ("The Power of Joy") is my bible. Written by Frederic Lenoir, a French philosopher and spiritual teacher, it offers a personal development path based on the vital power and wisdom of joy that also embraces life's griefs.

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4 Steps To Finding Resilience And The New You

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"We will stop the pipeline, and we will do it peacefully," said Catcher Cuts the Rope, an army veteran protesting on the North Dakota plains, this past September (Photo: Alyssa Schukar for the New York Times).

In today’s turbulent times, resilience is a much needed tool.  It helps us recover and show up in a new form, for ourselves and in the world, just like building a new house. Yoga can be a huge help in the process. 

Many of us in the U.S. are experiencing intense feelings of distress, right now. Many are having a hard time coming to terms with the presidential election results; racial injustice and endemic poverty are becoming more visible to those who were previously oblivious; as well as environmental and cultural crises, such as DAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline), the proposed construction of a major crude-oil pipeline that would have passed through the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s ancestral lands, in North Dakota, threatening the drinking water supply for a large part of the Midwest, in addition to the destruction of culturally sacred, protected land.

Right after the presidential election, as I contemplated the next steps for a divided country, one word came to me —Resilience. In material science, resilience is the ability of a material to deform elastically. One of my mentors, Laurent Malterre, a Parisian licensed psychologist, describes resilience as, “the capacity to find a new form, a ‘new house’, in a life that has been wounded.”

Each one of us has to find the “tools” that will help us build our own resilience, our own new house and new “self”. Here are the materials that work for me. I hope they’ll inspire you to find yours.

Acceptance

First, I’ve found that whatever difficult situation I’m faced with, I need to actually accept the situation. The key is time. Acceptance takes time and that’s perfectly okay. When I was diagnosed with my second breast cancer in June 2014, I first felt an un-describable sadness—Why me? How could life hit me that hard once again? It is only when I accepted the diagnosis (which took weeks) that I started to reach out to my inner healer and outside help.

Faith

Hope and faith are other components of resilience. Back 2.5 years ago, a powerfully intuitive friend of mine and a reflexologist, Rodrigue Vilmen, guided me through my medical treatments, sharing his insights. He started showing me how the universe was supporting me, in the smallest ways. I started paying attention to those small signs, and seeing them as positive energy and guidance for the next step.

The situation turned tricky, though. Complications following my surgery brought on an infection and an incision that simply wouldn’t heal. I felt so discouraged. Finally, one day, my surgeon said, “For the scar to heal, I need you to have faith.” From then on, I KNEW that I was going to heal, and accepted the process with patience. And sure enough, I did—months later, once I truly let go, and had faith.

Hope? Of course there's hope, just look at the adorable Jazmine! One year-old Jazmine is American of French and Guinean descent and my friends Helene and Alhassane's baby girl.

Voice and purpose

Finding my own voice has been one of the most powerful ingredients to resilience that I’m still currently in the process of uncovering. Who am I? What does my soul long for? What are my dreams? What is the purpose of my soul, and of my life? Taking tangible steps to live more aligned between what I feel, say and do has been the most beautiful gift I have offered to myself. The most recent step was to let go of my career of 25+ years as a business writer to dedicate more time to teaching and educating on yoga therapy.

Yoga

And lastly, there is yoga. I would not be who I am without yoga. Yoga helps me get back to my soul--to pause and feel where I am--to rest and to check in on the new house that I’m building. It helps me to find meaning in resilience—which, really, is all about finding the new me.

What about you, are you ready for the new “you”?

Symbols of two of my passions, right now--yoga and biking in downtown Atlanta.

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How Yoga Therapy Found Me

Paris. 2005. With my girlfriends Antonella van Rumund (to the left), and Carole Pean Mathurin and Laurence Brunet (to the right). A month or so into chemo after being diagnosed with my first breast cancer, and shortly after I first started practicing yoga.

Paris. 2005. With my girlfriends Antonella van Rumund (to the left), and Carole Pean Mathurin and Laurence Brunet (to the right). A month or so into chemo after being diagnosed with my first breast cancer, and shortly after I first started practicing yoga. 

A life-threatening disease was the catalyst that first brought me to yoga. And once I discovered Yoga Therapy—I knew I had found my ”home.”

In a way, I came across Yoga Therapy the very first time I did yoga. It was end of 2004 in Paris, France. I had gone through surgery for breast cancer (#1) a month earlier, and felt hopeless and exhausted.

A friend dragged me to a yoga class at Aline Frati’s home studio. We were the only two students. And in that hour and a half, I went through a complete transformation. For the first time in my life, I actually connected with my body and felt its deep-rooted aches as well as its message of hope.

Aline has an incredible intuition about her. She has the ability to sense the students in her class like no other teacher I’ve ever met. And she’s able to deliver exactly what each person needs, at exactly the right moment. “The yoga I teach helps a person become aware of repetitive patterns –anxiety, fear- that come from early childhood, and free that energy up so it’s reintegrated in the body’s global energy,” she once explained to me.

After my treatments, I knew that it was my calling to teach yoga--to share with others the type of healing and transformation that I had experienced.

Aline Frati, my yoga teacher. Parisian, Aline has taught yoga for over 30 years. Her spiritual teacher, Jean Klein, is also the spiritual teacher of a member of the I.A.Y.T. Advisory Council, Richard Miller.

Love made me do the big leap from Paris to Atlanta, GA, in 2006, and three years later I started a 200-hour yoga teacher training in the city’s largest yoga training center, Peachtree Yoga Center. It was the first time I had ever stepped foot into an actual yoga studio. But soon after I began the training process I realized that something was amiss. This yoga felt drastically different from what Aline had introduced me to during that vulnerable period of my life.

An incredible Phoenix Rising Yoga instructor, Betsy Blount, taught there. Still, many of the classes were for “fit” students. I felt far from the powerful healing connectivity I felt back in France. Sure there were other types of yoga that were more gentle and restorative but still didn’t quite unite my spirit with my body and mind in the manner that I was seeking.

I started doubting--questioning if I had made a mistake. Should I teach a more “physical” yoga or restorative yoga to conform to what seemed to be the American way? Neither of these routes spoke to me. With the encouragement of mentors, I decided to stay true to myself, and start teaching my own style of yoga--the type that worked for me—“my yoga”.

I continued my training even in areas that seemed outside of the field of traditional yoga. In 2010 I trained in the art of Gestalt Therapy—an awareness practice that helps a person focus on the present moment and express their inner truth— at the Gestalt Institute of Atlanta. This was a natural move since I had personally benefited greatly from psychotherapy.

It was a year later, in 2011, that all of the dots finally connected for me. I landed in an anatomy workshop lead by physical therapist and yoga teacher, Marlysa Sullivan, who was then director of the Therapeutic Yoga Teacher training certification of the Pranakriya School of Yoga Healing Arts, in Atlanta. The workshop was part of the training’s curriculum, and for two hours, she led us in a therapeutic yoga class. Those two hours felt familiar. I finally experienced a type of yoga that was close to what I wanted to teach—geared entirely to help a person heal whether physically, emotionally or spiritually. Also, Pranakriya was based on the teachings that were the inspiration behind the Kripalu Center in Massachussetts, the largest yoga center in the U.S. which meant recognition and credibility.

Atlanta, 2013. At the end of the Pranakriya Therapeutic Yoga Teacher training.Standing, from L. to R.: Beth Zeigler, Allison Mitch, Anika Francis, Michelle Cox and I, all of us students. Kneeling: Marlysa Sullivan, program director (left), and Tra Kirkpatrick, internship director.

Today, I am part of a new and small community of Yoga Therapists. The field of Yoga Therapy is still in its infancy, and is currently establishing its standards. A pioneer at heart, I feel I’m here to break grounds, and share with the world –maybe you one day– the benefits of Yoga Therapy.

 

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Ten Years of Body and Soul Connection in the U.S.A.

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End of 2006, freshly arrived in Atlanta, in my first "American" car.

I first came across a therapeutic form of yoga 12 years ago, and made the big move from Paris, France to Atlanta, GA, two years later. Here's how both aspects of my life have intertwined.

Tomorrow, it will be ten years since I moved from Paris to Atlanta. Love was the inspiration for that decision. The change was both enchanting and brutal. I was in a new world where I had to re-learn everything, while exploring my new existence with my American fiancé.

I had two beautiful things going on-- I spoke English and I had learned a form of therapeutic yoga in France, from going through a bout with breast cancer in 2004. Early every single morning I rolled out my yoga mat in our living room. My practice helped me navigate through the misunderstandings in my relationship, and the inevitable hazards of being a new immigrant.

Still, I felt I didn’t fit.

Six months later, I pushed through the door of a therapist’s office.  He listened and said, “Be who you are”. I felt an instant relief in my chest, and kept going.

I was finding my footing in my relationship, while working as a full time freelance business writer for a global company, and, at the same time, training to be a certified yoga therapy teacher.

In 2013, John and I bought a house, uprooting our secure suburban existence for life in “the hood”. The move left me feeling both shocked and relieved. For the first time in seven years I was finally experiencing something American that I could actually relate to. Our new hood on the South side had a similar feel (only a rougher version) to my old diverse, blue-collar, Parisian neighborhood.

The move unexpectedly helped reveal to me who I truly was--a person with a longing for deep connection. I began to realize that there was a major disconnect between who I was and what I was living – personally and professionally.

That’s when the “nuclear explosion” happened.

In 2014, I separated from John and flew to France. Upon arrival I was presented with a second breast cancer diagnosis. And that same week, my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer. We both locked in our fear, sadness and helplessness, and kept going.

To start healing, I had no other choice than turn inwards and look at my soul --who am I? What makes me unique? What do I want and need? Healers and loved ones held my hand along the way. I, once again, rolled out my yoga mat--my rehab center and sanctuary. Slowly, the breath brought the answers.

I returned to Atlanta in 2015. Three months later, my dad passed away, silently and softly--it was as if he did everything he could to avoid disturbing my healing. Since then, my grief and sadness have slowly emerged. These days I find myself rolling out my mat to find the space and peace on the yoga mat that will allow the new me to emerge.

With this blog, I want to explore and talk with you about yoga therapy, and how it can help us connect with our body and soul, and therefore our needs. Let’s start this beautiful journey together.