There is something sacred and healing about our breath. That is, if we put awareness into breathing correctly. Because once awareness is present, we then have the power to draw in the vital life forces and universal energies. The stress in our lives today intensifies when we breathe in the wrong way. We normally breathe only up to our throat area (called thoracic breathing), which further stresses out the nervous system as vital energy cannot get deep enough. A lot of diseases in our body stem from imbalances (as well as karmic connections to other lifetimes that force us to learn lessons). But many diseases are often also caused by our own lifestyles, emotional blockages and genetic make-up. There are medical studies that show stress influences the immune system and contributes to the development and progress of immune-based diseases such as cancer and AIDS.
Today, cancer is not considered such a frightening disease that when caught early enough, patients have a good chance of being treated and healing occurs. One of the main issues that sick people feel is a sense of losing control of their lives because of life-threatening sicknesses such as cancer in all its forms, heart problems, leukemia and the list can go on.
Patients can bring back their sense of equilibrium and balance just by breathing — but breathing the correct way. It is in yoga classes that I have found the correct way of breathing as Yoga literally means “the science of the breath.” Restorative yoga classes that heal allow the illness to be negotiable, where the patients can learn new ways to visualize, respond to and work with the disease and often very difficult therapies and treatments (like chemotherapy) that cancer patients endure.
Yoga, breathing exercises and meditation can reduce stress and promote healing. In the website of the American Cancer Society (www.cancer.org), it states that yoga, describes as a “complementary therapy... not a treatment for any disease,” can “reduce levels of stress and bring about feelings of relaxation and well-being and enhance quality of life for some patients with cancer.”
It is in moments of silence that relaxation and restoration for healing occurs. These breathing therapies help patients deal with pain and sorrow once the patient begins to learn how to work with his or her own senses and intellect. By controlling the mind through breathing consciously, the mind begins to be still or become more positive (awakened and actively help the healing process), rather than be the hindrance to healing (such as when anger, depression, negative fatalistic thoughts coupled with incessant worrying and thinking ahead to dreadful possibilities crop up). Yoga postures also help patients. These poses, refined through the centuries, are designed to exercise every muscle, nerve and gland in the body. The postures precisely address the tension, holding, and sometimes blockage of energy in any particular joint or organ. When the tension is released, energy can flow more easily in the body and allow patients to experience a sense of well-being and strength — a balance of Body, Mind and Spirit.
Another aspect that supports healing is that of community. People with life-threatening illnesses should actively seek out a loving supportive community. The Carewell Foundation is one such group. All resources and services are geared towards helping people with cancer become more positive and engaged in their fight for recovery. Carewell’s in-house resources and services are provided to community members free of charge. While community can help in emotional support, patients need to move their bodies as the illness forces them to consciously move deeper into their own personal journeys. So, moving meditative therapies like chi-qong, free movement, tai-chi and yoga are the perfect complements as support healing modalities.
Now people who are sick with cancer and other diseases can experience a support therapy group of breathing in Yoga for Cancer sessions, which ECHOyoga is offering. These unique sessions tailor special yoga restorative poses where participants can actually go home with a sequence of postures they can practice every day. We set up ECHOyoga, the wellness program of ECHOstore Sustainable lifestyle, as an answer to the need for yoga to heal, restore and align the Body intelligence to the presence of Spirit alive within each person. “ECHO” here now means Empowerment, Care, Health and Oneness. There are clear indicative studies that show that when people are supported and loved, feel a connection to a community, they are empowered, live longer and more peacefully. They can then become “cancer patients who are well.”
Again, yoga isn’t limited to cancer alone for it is an ancient science that has benefited countless millions of people through time and cultures. What is at its core is the systematic understanding of the breath and how to control and manipulate it (this is called pranayama) to help one’s nervous system be balanced, which will naturally control the constant chatter of the noisy mind. When breath and specific postures come together, not only for the physical movement the practice can give — but for healing — then this will bring back Yoga’s true essence so badly needed in our stress filled and diseased prone lives.
(Yoga for Cancer is a workshop offered on May 14, Friday, at the ECHOyoga Community Center, Penthouse of Century Plaza, 120 Perea Street, Legaspi Village, Makati City. Other workshops that promote healing include Breath and Meditation (May 8), Restorative Yoga and Past Life Regression. Check out www.echoyoga.echostore.ph; call 0906-506595; or e-mail echoyogaworkshop@gmail.com)