YOGA FOR CANCER

I am at a yoga therapy and research conference this week. I have forged relationships with amazing yoga therapists who specialize in working with cancer patients. I know the masters who train the yoga therapists that work exclusively with cancer.  These are therapists who work in the oncology ward at Memorial Sloan Kettering, and who conduct the research funded by the National Cancer Institute. I have seen the data on the incredible effects of yogic tools during every stage of the process.  These tools include deep breathing practices, progressive relaxation, meditation, restorative poses. But there is something more to the process of yoga. There is something about taking that time to care for and honor your body, even when it is struggling, even when it is full of pain, even when it is letting you down. There is something about sending the energy of your breath to the places in your body that are being depleted by treatment. There is something about doing a twist to massage your liver, which is working double time to filter the toxins of chemotherapy.  But there are also guiding principles in yoga. Coming to terms with ahimsa (non-harming) and what it means in the context of a cancer battle.  Honoring satya (truthfulness) about what is really happening in your life, your body, your mind, your heart, your family. And perhaps most challenging is aparigraha  (non-grasping), letting go of what is no longer possible, or is not possible right now… admitting where you are, what you can do, and when it is time to back off from expectations placed on you by self and others. I want to bring all of this to my mother, but I don’t know how. I want to hold her hand and let the yogic teachings move through me like in a science fiction movie. Or I want her to discover it somehow, completely on her own, as though she never knew that this work has been my life for many years.  But that desire means that I am not practicing yoga myself. My work is to let my yoga be a part of my own healing, my own coping, my own growth as someone touched indirectly by cancer.  So perhaps I actually need Yoga for Cancer for me.