Yoga breathing and yoga crying

I paid $30 to attend a cancer survivorship talk, yoga, and meditation at Breathe Yoga tonight.  In my head, the room would be full of people like me, in headscarves - wanting to use Yoga to reclaim their health.  In reality, there was only one other person with a headscarf out of a room of 30+ people.  The yoga room was at least a million degrees and my hot flashes and I almost bailed upon hitting that wall of heat......but we pressed on.  Dr. Karen M. Mustian spoke for almost an hour.  She has done studies, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology that show proof that yoga helps cancer patients.  Her studies used people who had gone through cancer surgery, chemo, and/or radiation and were done with treatment (except for oral chemo like Tamoxifen).  The three symptoms she was looking to reduce were:  exhaustion, chemo brain (specifically ability to focus and remember), and all over muscle/joint pain.  ME!!!  There were thousands of people in the study, with a group receiving a placebo - which in this case was an oncologist prescribing meds, etc. to try to solve those very same issues.  ME!!!  In the study, the people receiving yoga had to go thtough a specific yoga sequence (breathing, poses, mindfulness) two times a week for 4 weeks.  The time period was kept short because she felt that if people weren't getting relief from these symptoms in that amount of time, they would go to their doctor for medication.  The study worked.  All three of those types of symptoms were reduced or gone with yoga!

After her talk, we were lead through restorative yoga and meditation.  It is sad how difficult it has become for me to move my body.  So much pain. For the first time in forever, I focused on my body, my breathing, and the teacher talking to us.  Nothing else was in my brain.  And I cried silently through the whole thing.  I could feel the tears streaking down my face and neck. I don't even know what I was crying about - the best I can think is that I finally felt understood.  She spoke of women with breast cancer all just living life and feeling great - and bam - you find out you have cancer.  Then, you have disfiguring surgery and chemo or radiation that makes you sick.  Your body gets put through a lot of stress and works against you.  It is a hard place to climb out of.  I listened and I cried.   Thankfully they had the lighting very low!  I left feeling taller and lighter.

I need to fit yoga into my life.  And massage, acupuncture (got an appointment next wednesday!), meditation, mindfulness, and chiropractic care.  Don't worry, I'm not going to run off by myself, traveling the world, writing "Eat, Pray, Love Part II".  But, I'm starting to feel like I could!! :D