The Experiment: Day 334 ~ I CAN Do Yoga Again! Finding My Way Back To My Body With Joy!

Chair Yoga for Healing, Strength and Mobility
Get lifetime access to the course for only $10!
It’s fabulous! I just started today…

Finally you cannot be involved with a great diet, and taking care of your emotional and spiritual self, without getting your body involved though Lordy that would have been easier, or so I thought. I have never been comfortable in my physical body but I did love yoga.

I have taken classes off and on in my life and in 2002 began taking regular classes with the amazing Suzanne Dulin but in 2004 I fell down a flight of stairs and broke both feet, badly. The doctor said, “You didn’t break your feet, you shattered them.” It was a year before I could walk unaided again and I have never been able to walk right since. My feet healed badly, one big toe won’t bend and all, and I could no longer do any yoga poses that required me getting down on the floor or pushing up on my toes (Think, all of them!). Serious depression caused me to gain a tremendous amount of weight and 3 years being pre-diabetic left me with such serious neuropathy in my feet my feet are now considered “at risk.” The ketogenic diet, as the doctor put it, saved my feet. I could have lost them, but they will never be right again.

I absolutely cannot get down on the floor, my feet will not help me push back up to a standing position. And though I am down 50 pounds and know I will get the rest off — I have been on the ketogenic diet for 10 1/2 months and am dedicated to it for life — I have a long way to go. I started the diet at 333 pounds. I am now 283 pounds. So a 64 year old, seriously overweight woman, with seriously compromised feet, does not have a lot of options when it comes to getting physically active. I cannot even walk for exercise being at risk of stumbling and falling because of the numbness in my feet (An 8 out of 10 on the neuropathy scale.). I have been doing my stationary bike but it is a real challenge and I can’t do much more than 10 minutes at a time because I have led such a sedentary life for so many years I have no strength in my body. I had all but given up. And while I had heard of chair yoga, and gentle yoga classes for seniors or those with disabilities I am still mostly agoraphobic and it is hard for me to leave the house, pretty much impossible for me to go to a gym or take any exercise classes outside my home — I have tried both. What in the world could I do?

Last night, on Instagram, I saw this ad for this chair yoga class offered through the DailyOm. I have taken other classes of theirs, you pay what you can, as little as $10, and have lifetime access to the course. The more I have worked on every other aspect of my life the more acutely uncomfortable I have become with knowing I was not taking care of my body and this was extremely limiting and I could, bottom line, die many years sooner if I didn’t address it. I paid my $10 and started today.

It is a revelation and I’m here to tell you that no matter how old you are, how overweight, or what kind of physical limitations you have you can DO this. It is set up in 10-10 minute segments, the teacher is incredible, I did my first 20 minute session today and I am so excited and happy and full of joy doing this I simply cannot tell you! Even if I could go out to a class I would what, pay for a class once or twice a week? And what good would that do? I can now do it 4-5 times a week (She recommends not doing it any more than that.) right here in this chair in my studio. And today I did. And if felt so good! You can’t take care of one part of your life and not take care of all parts of your life if you want to be as healthy and whole and as vibrant as you can. I don’t know where I will end up a few years from now but I’m going to tell you that I will be in far better shape than I ever imagined I could be and I am so delighted I am over the moon. And so now I do the ketogenic diet, I take care of my spiritual life and meditate, I teach and I write, and I begin to really live my life, one day, one moment, one yoga pose at a time.

I hope if you have been too sedentary (My son-in-law Jeremy is both a physical therapist and a yoga teacher. He told me, referring to working with elderly patients, who can barely move, that what you don’t do becomes what you can’t do. You’ve got to move!) you will click through that link at the top of the post. I hope you will consider it. I hope you will do this with me. I always ask my students, “If not, why not? If not now, when?” and I had to ask myself, and I ask you the same thing. Are you moving your body every day? If not sign up for the course and do yoga with me! We can do this together. I promise you it’s worth it. And it’s more than time, it is for me anyway. And I am on my way.

The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness: Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda