Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Living with MS and how Yoga saved my life. A guest post by Lisa Bachrach-Zeankowski
Since 2006 I’ve
found Yoga or I should say Yoga found me and that day changed my life. I was
diagnosed with MS in 2002 and for the first four years, like many, I allowed
the diagnosis of MS to define me and then one day I searched out a yoga class.
I had no idea what
it was, or what it would bring to me, all I knew is that I had this friend who
was remarkably calm and she did yoga.
What was it about
this practice that kept her so centered? I’d ask myself. I found a yoga studio where it was small and simple;
it had this amazing energy about it and wasn’t “selling” anything but
peacefulness.
I had no idea that yoga would bring me so much
more than strength and balance (which is what I thought I was looking for). It took me and still continues to take me on
an unbelievable journey of self discovery, stillness, inner peace and balance
of mind, body and spirit.
I took on a yoga
practice where most begin, at the beginning and eventually built up a strong
practice, however this didn’t mean that I could throw myself into a handstand
or many inversions that come so easily to many.
It means that I found this space on my mat that was quiet, balanced and
peaceful. I was not judgmental and I was
okay with wherever I was each day and I continue to practice yoga and life just
that way.
I was content with
me and the MS, it was quiet now sitting in the background and no longer
standing front and center, and no longer did it define me. Eventually this yoga
practice became a way of life. It’s not
just the asana’s (the physical practice or the poses) but it’s the way I live,
by the principles of self love, love of others, non-violence in my words and
actions and how I treat myself and others.
I literally,
without knowing it, took my yoga off the mat and into my personal world and
then out to the world where MS meets Yoga and beyond.
In 2010, yoga
teacher and then friend offered me to take part in her yoga teacher training,
if not to teach (which I had no intention of doing) but to truly understand why
I was doing what I was doing and also to deepen my practice. I accepted her invitation and in June of 2010
after 6 month training I graduated and became a 200 hour certified yoga
teacher.
I decided that
teaching the general public was not my purpose or my passion but sharing what I
had learned and who I was, the person living with MS discovered that yoga can save
the life of someone living with MS as well as significantly change that same
life in such a positive way.
I have been
actively involved in public service by being a team captain for the National MS
Society’s Long Island Chapter’s MS Walk and for the past 12 years have raised over
$80,000 collectively. I also ran a 3rd
party fundraiser from 2008 through 2012 called Healing and Moving for a Cure,
where all monies raised went to a program that I started to provide home health
aide assistance to those living with MS.
Then I chose to
start a program that offered free yoga classes to those, like me, who live on
limited income and have MS to have yoga in their lives. This program is offered
free to our local MS Society on Long Island in
collaboration with 2 other yoga studios in my area who have also offered their
time and selfless service and for that I’m so grateful. We run the program for 8 weeks twice a year and
during this time anyone who has MS, their friends and/or support partners are
offered the opportunity to take classes with yoga teachers that I’ve worked
with to find out what they can do rather than what they can’t do. I also teach one of these free yoga for MS
classes during these 8 week sessions twice a year. I am, like them, a body living with MS but I
am also an example of how we can learn to live well with MS. Yoga helped me find my way, my peace, and my
balance.
My hope and prayer
is that this program that I began here on Long Island
could reach across the country and that every yoga studio would offer such a
program from the perspective of someone living with MS. Unfortunately, I can’t be everywhere but I’m
hoping one day I can teach other teachers to teach from the perspective of
someone living with a chronic illness like MS so that it might open the door
for any ‘body’ to enter the yoga studio, knowing that it is a safe place for
them to help guide them to that place that is really within themselves but has
only yet to be discovered.
Teaching yoga to
someone living with a chronic illness can be challenging. There is a ‘knowing’,
a gift that comes from having this disease that allows one to offer out the
gift that yoga has brought and to be able to offer that out to others.
Yoga is balance. It is a moving, living meditation. It’s a way
to go inside and quiet the mind. For those moments we are on our mat, the MS or
the illness or trouble that one is living with can be quieted as well, if only
for a moment and hopefully longer. It
takes practice, life is practice...yoga is practice...yoga is where I find my
peace, my center and my balance.
For more
information, please visit my website www.lisabachrach.com
or feel free to contact me directly via email at lbloveslife@optonline.net. To see
the class schedule use this link:
http://www.lisabachrach.com/calendar/events/free-yoga-for-ms-program-schedule. If you live outside the Long
Island area and would like to attend a free Yoga class, please
know that you are welcome to join us!
The program is open because it is donated to the chapter rather than a
chapter run program.
Lisa Bachrach-Zeankowski
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