Living with chronic pain is frustrating and exhausting. Once-enjoyable experiences become shadowed with discomfort or impossible. The stress and anxiety of dealing with chronic pain often makes it worse, in a vicious cycle.

Doctors can do little besides offer medication and surgery, which may not work or cause new problems. The world of alternative medicine is vast and confusing, often involving expensive supplements or therapies of unknown effectiveness.

Many have found yoga and mindfulness practices to be powerful tools for reducing or resolving chronic pain, stress and anxiety. Not only are they affordable and accessible, they affirm our capacity to heal ourselves.

In this 4-week workshop, Rhoda Miriam will share a set of practices she has found helpful for working with her own chronic pain.  They are also helpful for anyone (everyone?) coping with stress and anxiety in these chaotic times.

• Rebalancing muscle tension through gentle, sustained yoga poses;
• Deep nervous system relaxation through breathing techniques and guided relaxation (yoga nidra);
• Pain Reprocessing Therapy, a method for reprogramming the brain’s neural pathways through mindful attention, thereby shifting the experience of painful symptoms.

All sessions take place on Zoom and will be recorded for those who cannot attend live.

Participants may wish to schedule a one-on-one yoga therapy session with Rhoda where she can customize the practices for individual circumstances. She will offer a discounted rate for up to 30 days after the series concludes.

Cost: $95 / members save 15% / sliding scale gladly offered

 Student Story

My name is Betty Douglas. I’m a retired Clinical Social Worker with a specialty in geriatrics, having practiced for 30 years in a health care setting. I have participated in several of Rhoda Miriam’s 4-week series on Yoga for Managing Chronic Pain. I was initially attracted to these series for relief from pain but as I have continued with each series, I find that I’m also learning tips and techniques for managing stress and anxiety as well. As we age, chronic pain can sometimes occur and stress seems to be an unavoidable part of life. Although we cannot always control pain or stress in our lives, we can develop insight into how these impact us personally and how we respond to them. The insights and practices provided in these series have helped me to develop skills to better manage my pain, stress and anxiety, to feel more comfortable and to function more easily in my daily life.

Rhoda has extensive training, knowledge and expertise that she easily shares in her lectures, yoga practice and especially during discussion sections. I have found that, as I take each series, there is some helpful review of previous material but always something new is introduced. Rhoda shares techniques that can easily be incorporated into everyday life and utilized throughout the day. I have developed insights into my own response to pain and stress and I have learned simple, helpful relaxation and breathing techniques, movements and postures that help me to better manage my response and find relief. For this I am very grateful!

Betty Douglas, Chicago

Also in July

• July 1, 8-9am
• July 15, 8-9am

Mac-talla is a dynamic movement practice. Drawing from eclectic somatic traditions, each session incorporates mindfulness, visualization, and rigorous physical exercise. Mac-talla invites us into resonance across material, energetic, emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies. Aerobics meets ritual. Open to all levels of fitness and imagination. Expect to sweat.

Cost: $30, members save 15%, sliding scale gladly offered

Grateful Yoga is exciting to introduce this innovative method to the community, offering a blend of cardiovascular vigor and imaginative inquiry. If there is interest, it may become a regular class in the fall.

More about Mac-talla

Mac-talla is a Scottish Gaelic word for echo, or reflected sound that returns to its first observer. The idea is that we are always in a resonant space, but that sometimes we experience fracture. This fracturing is a painful and unsustainable mode of being. Through breath, focus, and movement, Mac-talla invites us into awareness and integration. We reclaim the resonant, dynamic space that holds both actor and witness, vessel and spirit, intent and flower, givenness and transformation.

Your teacher

Sarah Tolan-Mee is a somatic practitioner and creator of Mac-talla. She guides creative artists, entrepreneurs, techies, humanists, Pulitzer Prize winners, and MacArthur geniuses in various awareness and movement modalities. She has conducted workshops locally and internationally for arts institutions, theaters, colleges, non-profits, teenagers in detention, and refugees seeking asylum. Her training includes Alexander Technique, Somatic Experiencing, Release Technique, Laban, Malian dance, Michael Chekhov Technique, and physical theater. She has a BA from Brown University and an MFA from The Juilliard School, where she worked extensively with Moni Yakim.

Weekly Class Schedule

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