SEATED YOGA GIVES MY HEART WINGS
by Karen DesChamps
Being an educator is my dharma! I knew, from age four onward, that I would be a teacher and so I was/am. Moving through the ranks of elementary school teacher, school resource teacher, to school board level itinerant language resource teacher, I engaged in activities such as aerobics, step aerobics, boxercise and the like. I was a force to be reckoned with, but years later the stress of being a school vice-principal and then acting-principal, coupled with long days, difficult commutes and caring for a family brought me the gift of yoga, on the advice of a friend. I never looked back!
It was yoga that brought me the solace and serenity I needed following an intense day of doing my best for students, their parents, the teachers and my school board administrators. Life was good! But being life, change is the only element that remains a constant and our ability to adapt and grow and transform ourselves requires thoughtful practice. I found yoga to be that practice.
It cradled me and helped me to transition myself after my younger brother violently took his own life. It brought me back to balance following the slow death of my mother, my own personal reoccurrences of cancer and an agonizing end to a 41 year-long marriage that left me in shambles. I thought I couldn’t go on but the worst was yet to come. The biggest challenge of my life was that one year after my separation from my children’s father, I chose to stay at my daughter’s side for 9 months of her receiving almost daily chemotherapy, tests and intrusive procedures, which were necessary to deal with her sudden and unexpected diagnosis of leukemia, and then, at times, her near death.
What helped me deal with the emotional, physical, mental and spiritual strain and impact of these life challenges? Yoga and meditation saved my life. This may seem a trite and overused or oversimplified statement but I swear to you, CY readers, the strength I needed came directly from the universe, the source, God, if you like. Breath work: deep breathing, in my chair, in my cot, or standing in line awaiting another test result, kept my body alive with surges of prana that I could never have attained elsewhere. The asanas, in which I indulged and whole-heartedly embraced, were also in a chair, on the floor of my daughter’s hospital room or in a restroom, if that was the only place I could find refuge. Stillness, awarded via meditation, became my friend as I allowed the fear for her life to live within me. I didn’t battle it. I didn’t fight it. I made friends with it and it gave me the next best steps to trod.
Karen DesChamps
It was yoga that brought me the solace and serenity I needed following an intense day of doing my best for students, their parents, the teachers and my school board administrators. Life was good! But being life, change is the only element that remains a constant and our ability to adapt and grow and transform ourselves requires thoughtful practice. I found yoga to be that practice.
It cradled me and helped me to transition myself after my younger brother violently took his own life. It brought me back to balance following the slow death of my mother, my own personal reoccurrences of cancer and an agonizing end to a 41 year-long marriage that left me in shambles. I thought I couldn’t go on but the worst was yet to come. The biggest challenge of my life was that one year after my separation from my children’s father, I chose to stay at my daughter’s side for 9 months of her receiving almost daily chemotherapy, tests and intrusive procedures, which were necessary to deal with her sudden and unexpected diagnosis of leukemia, and then, at times, her near death.
What helped me deal with the emotional, physical, mental and spiritual strain and impact of these life challenges? Yoga and meditation saved my life. This may seem a trite and overused or oversimplified statement but I swear to you, CY readers, the strength I needed came directly from the universe, the source, God, if you like. Breath work: deep breathing, in my chair, in my cot, or standing in line awaiting another test result, kept my body alive with surges of prana that I could never have attained elsewhere. The asanas, in which I indulged and whole-heartedly embraced, were also in a chair, on the floor of my daughter’s hospital room or in a restroom, if that was the only place I could find refuge. Stillness, awarded via meditation, became my friend as I allowed the fear for her life to live within me. I didn’t battle it. I didn’t fight it. I made friends with it and it gave me the next best steps to trod.
Karen DesChamps