



Day 11: A Pink Yoga Story





My student Pam* is similar to many of our students at Adore Yoga; smart, funny, gorgeous and grappling with the day to day challenges of juggling work with two young children. I first met Pam three days after she’d been diagnosed with breast cancer and, like many women in her situation, she’d turned to the internet for information and advice. She discovered that many cancer support groups recommend yoga and meditation and, coincidentally, she’d recently seen an article in the local newspaper about Adore Yoga’s ‘Pink Yoga’ classes for women with cancer. She called us and was soon sitting in the studio, hoping for some solutions.



Pam had two main concerns. Firstly, she needed help managing the anxiety she was experiencing. Secondly, she wanted something practical she could do to give herself the best possible chance of a strong recovery after surgery. Yoga, she believed, could offer her both these things.

We started with some calming techniques to help her settle her mind, smooth out her breath and move into a deep relaxation. I then gave her some very simple exercises that she could do immediately after surgery – small movements with her hands and feet that would develop as her recovery progressed.

The next time I saw Pam was 10 days after her surgery. It had gone well and she was in great spirits. We explored new techniques to meet her immediate needs and, when she started chemotherapy, we took each session as it came. One week she would feel strong and want to give her aching body a good stretch. The next week she felt washed out and needed deep relaxation.

Halfway through her chemotherapy, Pam was hospitalized with pneumonia. It was an anxious time, but Pam stayed buoyant, doing some simple yoga techniques in her hospital bed and keeping us updated with regular, up-beat texts.

By the time her chemotherapy came to an end, Pam was already back at work one day a week. However, she was adamant that there would be no return to ‘business as usual’. Her experience of cancer had taught her many valuable lessons about the important things in life, lessons that had been supported by her yoga practice. She recently enrolled in a weekly group yoga class at Adore Yoga and is feeling her way forward into a healthy, more balanced future.

There’s a long road ahead for Pam – women with hormone receptor positive cancer are now advised to take Tamoxifen, a drug with many side effects, for ten years. But the support she received during her treatment for cancer has given Pam the tools she needs to move forwards with strength, hope and optimism. Yoga was an important part of that support and a significant number of studies now demonstrate the many physical and psychological benefits of yoga for cancer patients.

Our goal at Adore Yoga is to provide all Australian women with cancer access to yoga classes that are designed to meet their specific needs. I’ve met women who have been turned away from general yoga classes when they told the teacher they had cancer. There is a huge variation in the styles, levels and quality of yoga classes in Australia. A woman with cancer is unlikely to want to practice physically arduous asana at 39 degrees. Neither is she going to appreciate an insensitive teacher explaining that her cancer is due to bad karma or that a certain type of crystal will fix things (both, unfortunately, true stories).

To reach our goal of providing quality yoga for cancer patients, we have initiated the Pink Yoga project. Working with Cancer Council NSW, our objectives for this project are:

1. Research and communicate the benefits of yoga and meditation for cancer patients and survivors.

2. Provide high quality, evidence based Yoga for Cancer teacher training.

3. Work with government and private organisations to provide cancer patients and survivors with high quality, evidence based yoga classes.

The flagship event for the Pink Yoga project is Pink Yoga 2016 in Mosman NSW on 26th October, a community event that brings together the Sydney yoga community to support women with cancer, highlight the benefits of yoga for cancer and raise funds for Cancer Council NSW.

If you, or any women in your family, has been touched by cancer, we’d love to see you there (register here). We also run Pink Yoga and meditation classes for women with cancer at our Avenue Road studio in Mosman – all women with cancer, and survivors, are welcome (find out more).

*not her real name.