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Why Is Yoga So Important to Me?

Why Is Yoga So Important to Me?

Greetings Wellness 101 champions. My name is Jean. I know A.J. and Jane for many years. We’ve traveled to cancer conferences, spoken and eaten together. Flown together and kept each other’s special interests at heart. We’re friends. A.J. and Jane knew me three years before they attended my yoga class.  I’m thrilled to report that they loved it and it became an offering in their wellness community for survivors.  But why is it so important to me? As a colorectal survivor, yoga has been my path back to my new body. Bodies are ever-changing, but after six month of weekly chemotherapy, I was really devastating unconditioned.  It was through breathing, meditation and very gentle movement, that I reconnected to my body, mind and spirit.

Yoga provides systems for regaining and maintaining wellness.  It has a physical piece that we call yoga, but it also has other branches or limbs, which are just as critical to a balanced life as being physically well.  I now work with cancer patients, mostly newly diagnosed and those in long term treatment. These are not the typical people we see in a regular yoga class which includes lots of active postures and advanced breathing techniques.  The yoga I teach is about going deeply within and using the healing aspects of yoga, meditation and breathing.  Some people call it restorative or therapeutic yoga.  I believe it is the ‘true yoga’ of self-exploration.  Yoga didn’t start out as a physical practice. Thousands of years ago, it was about breathing practices and meditative practices. The physical practice is about 200 years old. Surprising? Yes, to many Westerners, it is surprising that their concept of yoga is not the way in which millions of people practice in other parts of the world.

The inquiry of going within, is a soul’s journey.  It is not for the faint of heart. It is not for a fancy flyer of yoga teachers standing on their heads.  There’s nothing wrong with standing on your head. But I doubt the Dali Lama practices headstands, and he is a most advanced yogi.  Passion for the internal journey which calls us, or maybe just whispers, until we start to realize that we are not just a clay body, but we are so much more.  And now you know a little about me and why yoga is so important to me.  Will you tell me a little about yourself?

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Jean Di Carlo-Wagner

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