Does this warm – cold – warm – cold – warm – cold weather hurt your body?
This fall seemed particularly bad for fibro flares – we talked a loooooot about that in class…

Registrations for winter yoga session opened mid-November, and last week I wrote about how to pick the best fitting yoga class.

“Ideally,” I said,  “your yoga class walks the razor blade balance between safety and challenge, activation and relaxation.”

Well, what if you’ve got pain?

What if your pain is so severe that you can’t do much?

What if it is so bad that it drains all of your internal resources, muddles up your sleep, your moods, and even creeps into your relationships, alienating you from your loved ones and the things that bring you joy?

And what if you’ve been to all the specialists, and all physiotherapists and so on, and this has got you nowhere fast, and you are now losing hope by the bucketful every day?

Pain Care Yoga is designed especially for you if:

~ you live with chronic pain
~ you have recurrent pain + tightness that comes and goes without any rhyme or reason;
~ weather changes hurt your joints and scramble your sleep;
~ you deal with movement limitations on a daily basis;
~ you have fibromyalgia;
~ you feel weary and drained by chronic illness + stress;
~you are afraid to move (or move more) because you believe you might “tweak something” and hurt yourself;
~ you don’t feel like you can’t ever trust your body and have a sense of foreboding even on those rare “good” days, always expecting your body to betray you;
~ you feel anxious and worried about the future, both near and far;
~ you are ready to do something about any / all of the above!

What exactly is PAIN CARE YOGA?

PAIN CARE YOGA is part pain education, part meditation, part gentle movement, and part magic. It provides practical tools and everyday pain management strategies to help you escape pain, calm the nervous system, and begin exploring the possibility of more movement {and get a better night’s sleep, too!}

Jeff says:

“I did wake up once in the middle of the night thinking that my “phantom” pain was there, but I just thought about the monitored breathing and the next thing I knew it was morning. Redirecting my focus off the pain sent me back to sleep.”

PAIN CARE YOGA addresses chronic and recurring pain by introducing powerful changes right where the pain starts – within the nervous system itself. One of the major goals of Pain Care Yoga is to shift the nervous system from pain producing state of “fight and flight” reactivity toward a calm state of “rest and digest” response.

Our other goal is reducing fear of movement and injury. Pain produces body – wide tension and fear of movement; we begin to move like tin men and women.
PCY works to reduce the fear of movement through off-the-mat pain education and on-the-mat mindful movement. Multiple recent studies have shown that the best pain reduction results are achieved through a combination of pain education and movement protocols.

But pain education is more than simply sharing facts about pain.

To create a sustainable shift in pain experience, one has to find just the right facts, and tell their story in such a way that it reduces suffering.
That’s why Pain Care classes classes are supplemented by off – the – mat learning.

Being able to shift the pain is art and science, both.

It is more than simply sharing information, or guiding your run of the mill movement class.

It is creating a whole and holistic experience of on-the-mat and off-the-mat learning, where pain science facts blend with mindful breathing, weave into gentle movement, and seep into each minute of every class – all to empower you, the student.

Or, like Erna put it:

“I really felt like I was accomplishing something.
Empowered.
Basically making my body work and challenging it.”

So good that I felt compelled to share what I’ve learned and help others to find their sea legs while navigating, living, and winning their battle with chronic pain.