March 28, 2024 Breaking News, Latest News, and Videos

Yoga: Even for the disabled:

Betsy, 80, diabetic, amputee, abdominal tumor and, heart condition.

From a room filled with cymbidiums given regularly from fellow students this warm huggable lady from Philadelphia cheerfully, puts her one foot, her only foot, actually half a foot down and tells me:

“My mission is to be as independent as possible.” Since she began classes Betsy clearly states:

“I am stimulated and more flexible in my body and mind, aware, new energy and having more fun out of life and feeling my heartbeat.”

What creates this for Betsy? She creates it because as a friend and being a driven, Yoga therapist and a recovered disabled woman I teach Yoga therapy/Viniyoga: ancient wisdom of Classical Yoga, Hatha Yoga and Ayurveda, to facilitate the continuum of self-healing.

I tell her it is Yoga, but so much more. Yoga is all. It is everything, it is a process to unite and is about freedom. Physical, energetic, psycho emotional, and spiritual healing means the freedom to be simply who we truly are.

Freedom is the word that sums it up.

My joy is having her receive from me- a friend of many years since she took care of me over 20 years ago as a master massage therapist after I nearly died in an auto accident and had to learn to walk again and use a built up shoe. I decided to put journalism aside and research body mind therapy and became a yoga therapist.

“Receiving is as necessary as giving. To consciously receive is an expression of the dignity of giving”, Deepak Chopra writes, “and Betsy knows how to receive”.

A 20-minute class in her chair will include:

1. Breathing smoothly and completely- the priority.

2. “Stretching me by pulling my arms with your hands and massaging my neck makes me feel so good. The touching is about friendliness, I need that. I require caring and loving. A new flexibility is happening- one of my mind as well.”

Betsy is an avid committed student of spiritual psychology and her classes at the University of Santa Monica -USM is a block from her assisted living home.

3. Strengthening: Utilizing a non-electric wheel chair forces the smiling very active white haired darling of center work her cardio and tones her upper body. “I make use of all. All the adapted, assisted poses bring me to life. I feel alive. I have more energy, not stagnant. I feel my heart beat.”

Senses are awoken I notice more and more. Appreciating a dark chocolate bar, ok for diabetics, I bring her, then plugging in a Hawaiian floral scent diffuser sweetly transforms the shared room and the cds encourage Betsy to sway to the best rhythms when she:

4. Twists her spine

5. Rolls her shoulders

6. Turns her neck

7. Presses down and does pelvic tilts to wake sleeping muscles

“When I am stiff and need help for my stiff, sore back what can I do?”

I instruct her to

8. Bend forward, lean and reach out to hold on to a table and breathe fully and deeply then let your headrest down. By me pushing and pulling the spine gets release and energized I tell her.

9. Now I assist her to circulate her upper body, –the spine- like a spoon in a bowl – the pelvic basin-, hands holding the wheel chair arms turning in one direction a minute and then reversing. This is a noted sequence to bring circulation to the sacrum plus letting energy release and move up the spine.

Twenty minutes is up and the alert, energized Betsy is ready to do her homework, or look at her favorite tennis on TV, and roll herself out to help some of the residents acclimatize … she is the president of the patient’s council using her experience of many years as a counselor to serve others. The mother of two children with disabilities, now deceased, Betsy worked for years on programs for the retarded.

To close: Awareness:

Slipping and sliding.

“Yoga assits me when I must slip and slide into my wheel chair, toilet, and bed. Using gravity, heights and breathing.” Note Betsy’s firm comments:

Some Public toilets are good i.e. railings at right angles- so she can lift herself up securely and easily and some are not Handicapped accessible. Bad ones with one railing make it impossible to wash her hands when the sink counters are too low. She cannot push her wheel chair in enough in order to reach and use the faucets, soap, and towels.

I write this to show how I have used the years of study for myself to ultimately help others. Teach them to fish, rather than giving them fish. Take care of yourself so you can help take care of others.

in Uncategorized
Related Posts