Posts Tagged ‘rehabilitation’

Finding Peace in the Cancer Storm

Saturday, February 4th, 2012

 

 

I'm excited to share that the Wellness Community of Arizona has designated me as the fourth and final speaker in their Spirit of Science Lecture Series. The last speaker in the series was Chris Carmichael, who helped the seven-time Tour de France winner recover from advanced testicular cancer is the author of seven books, including The New York Times bestseller, “Chris Carmichael’s Food for Fitness.” 

My lecture/interactive presentation will emphasize the importance of awareness and stability of mind/heart through the harrowing experience of oncology care and life post treatment. I'll expand on many of the creative approaches both patients and their caregivers can employ moment-to-moment in their journey. EmbodiWorks - Whole MattersThese ideas were described on Jeannine Walston's Embodiworks.org site last year here. 

Cancer invites/demands that we respond. So much of rehabilitation in cancer care is about striving, winning, overcoming and fight the war on cancer. These are good and honorable responses, but too little value and opportunity is given the other equally valuable response….that is surrender, acceptance and presence. Herein lies the paradox of "both" …neither the right answer, but each holding the transformative healing potential the diagnosis of cancer brings forward in those with the diagnosis and their communities.

Please forward and share this notice with those you think might benefit from a pleasant evening on Thursday, February 23rd at The Wellness Community of Arizona, 6-8 pm. See the contact info to the right to RSVP as seating is limited. For those that can't attend that evening, the program is being videotaped and will be posted on the The Wellness Community site in the future. I'll post details. 

Here is a flyer to print, post or share: Flyer

Hope to see you there!  We're creating the future of rehabilitation ….today!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What is Yoga Therapy?

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

I will be writing a series on Yoga therapeutics for a local monthly paper, AZ Health & Wellness. 

Here is the link to the first article, "What is Yoga Therapy?".

 

 

Having been on the committee at www.iayt.org that drafted the first operational definition for the assoication, I can now appreciate the time and care we took to formalize a rich and meaningful definition. The craft involved in taking such a deep practice such as Yoga therapy and bringing it down to a operational definition was hard work. By no means exclusive or exhaustive, I'd love to hear your response or questions to this article written 4 years later after we first published an answer to "What is Yoga Therapy?".

Please spread the word!

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Rehab Professionals and the Wellness Industry: Where Do We Belong?

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

When it comes to fitness and wellness, I'm afraid most rehab professionals too easily step into the ruts of the industry rather than consider "What might be?".

I was fortunate enough to be thrust into the wellness arena the first year of my professional rehab career. The US Army was big into the new buzz word of 1982: Corporate Fitness.   OUCH…some one is getting old and hopefully for those of you new to wellness you get some perspective on how "Un-new" wellness in the workplace really is!

What disappoints me is that almost every article on rehab and wellness gravitates to the same old models of flexibility assessment, posture screens, standard ergonomic assessment….YAWN! Is that the best we can do?

So what should we be doing? CREATING SOMETHING NEW & BETTER!

At the AZAPTA Fall Conference in 2009 the theme was wellness and fitness. Here is the short one page position paper I distributed articulating a call for us to step forward to LEAD a true biopsychosocial revolution in fitness. Click here to read. 

Here a couple of things I am creating:

 

 

 

What are you doing to bring forward new programming in fitness and wellness that we weren't doing 10, 15 or 20 years ago? 

Let me know…we can and MUST do better than what is out there now!

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What does Love have to do with it?

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

When is the last time you read about love and treating clients that wasn't about boundaries and ethics?

Have you ever read about love and how to utilize love in clinical relationships?

I haven't.

Yet the majority of people claim some belief in a higher power and over 50% a belief in a god. Most of those beliefs coalesce around values to include compassion, love and caring. So why aren't we as professionals talking about how those core personal beliefs concretely and directly impact our work moment to moment with the client? How can PT's talk about the "The Art of Caring" and then only exhort p-values?

I am asserting you don't have to like all of your clients….but you do have to love everyone of them.

Same goes for your co-workers and 3rd party intermediaries.

Anything less and you are practicing with a serious break in your personal integrity….unless of course you are one of those who don't think love has anything to do with it. 

To practice from that perspective is very difficult. The principle is simple. I work at every day and fail at it multiple times a day. So I get up and try it again the next day. 

And I laugh at me…because after all, if I can't love my human imperfections, no one else has a chance.

Love matters. Period.

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