The “C” word. The “Big C.” Cancer. This is not a diagnosis any of us want to hear during a trip to the doctor’s office.
Cancer kills an astronomical amount of people annually, that much is obvious. It is a killer that doesn’t discriminate by age, race, or gender. It is a killer that has touched each of our lives—a friend at work, a stranger at the grocery store, a parent raising money for his or her cancer-afflicted child. Even as I write this, I think about the four times cancer has touched my own life.
This is not an easy subject to write about, but it’s a subject that has come to represent a common thread in the grand tapestry of humanity. Cancer is something many of us fear, and it has taken from all of us someone we love.
Receiving a cancer diagnosis is much like being thrown on the top of a speeding train: You have no idea what’s coming, and there is no way to make the train stop. For some it can feel like being handed a time-stamped death sentence.
Before I continue, I must disclose that I understand each cancer diagnosis and reaction is completely different, individual, and therefore unpredictable. I want my readers to understand that any personal comparisons I make to cancer come from a place of empathy, not from a place of immediate experience.
According to the dictionary definition of cancer, it is a malignant or invasive growth that spreads and kills. But what you won’t find explained in this definition is that cancer spreads beyond the person afflicted, creating an equally diseased state among all loved ones and friends.
Battling cancer is much like fighting an actual war, everywhere you turn there is another enemy soldier waiting to attack, and you rebuke their efforts with repeated chemotherapy and radiation. It is a war that many have fought bravely, and with the strength and determination of 10,000 armies. It is a battle that is emotionally and physically draining, and the battle for keeping hope is even greater.
Cancer is a stress-inducing word. I become anxious and stressed just thinking about it. Therefore it would only make sense that a cancer patient would become overwhelmed with the stress of battling disease, coping with emotions, and keeping a strong will for themselves and their families.
Thanks to recent research and advancements in technology and medicine, battling a cancer diagnosis has become more feasible in today’s world, and newer developments have been put in place to help patients manage their stress levels.
For the last three years, Mission Hope Cancer Center has offered free yoga classes to their patients, and will offer a Relax and Renew Workshop on May 24 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Mission Hope Center. The workshop will combine gentle, restorative yoga postures. All proceeds from the workshop will be donated to the cancer patients of Mission Hope.
Vicki Forman, owner and yoga instructor at Yoga for Mankind studios in Orcutt, has spent the month of April willingly donating her time to teach restorative yoga and meditation to the patients of Mission Hope on Tuesday mornings. Forman has worked with Mission Hope for the last three years, and is a well-practiced yoga instructor with an impressive 20 years’ worth of teaching behind her.
According to Forman, restorative yoga is a practice that teaches people how to relax deeply through a variety of yoga postures. Recent studies from the National Institutes of Health report that combining traditional cancer treatments with restorative yoga have been linked to reduced cancer symptoms; it helps improve the overall quality of life for the patient.
Forman shared that yoga can be used to control physical functions such as blood pressure, heart rate, breathing, and metabolism. More importantly, it can lower levels of stress and help increase feelings of relaxation and well-being.
“Restorative yoga is more about being still and present in the body than moving actively pose to pose,” Forman said. “Restorative poses are normally held for five to 10 minutes so the student can get the healing benefits of the yoga posture.”
Mission Hope patients are thankful for the yoga teachers who have donated their time to teach at the yoga center.
“As a cancer survivor, it’s especially difficult for me to relax,” said Alison Hood, a yoga student from Santa Maria. “This class truly helps; the stress melts away.”
I am pleased to hear that Forman and other yoga instructors are donating their time to help bring comfort and stress relief to some of the bravest soldiers out there, cancer patients. Yoga is a healing and relaxing activity, and how it helps the mind and body is just starting to be understood.
We can all use some rest, relaxation, and restoration. To do so while supporting cancer patients is an opportunity to show our commonality and compassion as humans to fight something we all fear, have experienced (directly or indirectly), and worry about daily.
For more information on the Relax and Renew Workshop to Benefit the Mission Hope Center, please contact Vicki Forman at 680-6542 or go to the Yoga for Mankind website at yogaformankind.com.
Sun contributor Kristina Sewell is ready to feel the restorative effects of yoga. To contact her, email the editor at clanham@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 21-28, 2015.