Living with MS and how Yoga saved my life.

Since 2006 I’ve found Yoga or I should say Yoga found me and that day changed my life. I was diagnosed with MS in 2002 and for the first four years, like many, I allowed the diagnosis of MS to define me and then one day I searched out a yoga class.

I had no idea what it was, or what it would bring to me, all I knew is that I had this friend who was remarkably calm and she did yoga.

What was it about this practice that kept her so centered?  I’d ask myself.  I found a yoga studio where it was small and simple; it had this amazing energy about it and wasn’t “selling” anything but peacefulness.

I had no idea that yoga would bring me so much more than strength and balance (which is what I thought I was looking for).  It took me and still continues to take me on an unbelievable journey of self discovery, stillness, inner peace and balance of mind, body and spirit.

I took on a yoga practice where most begin, at the beginning and eventually built up a strong practice, however this didn’t mean that I could throw myself into a handstand or many inversions that come so easily to many.  It means that I found this space on my mat that was quiet, balanced and peaceful.  I was not judgmental and I was okay with wherever I was each day and I continue to practice yoga and life just that way.

I was content with me and the MS, it was quiet now sitting in the background and no longer standing front and center, and no longer did it define me. Eventually this yoga practice became a way of life.  It’s not just the asana’s (the poses) but it’s the way I live, by the principles of self love, love of others, non-violence in my words and actions and how I treat myself and others.

I literally, without knowing it, took my yoga off the mat and into my personal world and then out to the world where MS meets Yoga and beyond.

In 2010, yoga teacher and then friend offered me to take part in her yoga teacher training, if not to teach (which I had no intention of doing) but to truly understand why I was doing what I was doing and also to deepen my practice.  I accepted her invitation and in June of 2010 after 6 month training I graduated and became a 200 hour certified yoga teacher.

I decided that teaching the general public was not my purpose or my passion but sharing what I had learned and who I was, the person living with MS discovered that yoga can save the life of someone living with MS as well as significantly change that same life in such a positive way.

I have been actively involved in public service by being a team captain for the National MS Society’s Long Island Chapter’s MS Walk and for the past 12 years have raised over $80,000 collectively.  I also ran a 3^rd party fundraiser from 2008 through 2012 called Healing and Moving for a Cure, where all monies raised went to a program that I started to provide home health aide assistance to those living with MS. 

Then I chose to start a program that offered free yoga classes to those, like me, who live on limited income and have MS to have yoga in their lives. This program is offered free to our local MS Society on Long Island in collaboration with 2 other yoga studios in my area who have also offered their time and selfless service and for that I’m so grateful.  We run the program for 8 weeks twice a year and during this time anyone who has MS, their friends and/or support partners are offered the opportunity to take classes with yoga teachers that I’ve worked with to find out what they can do rather than what they can’t do.  I also teach one of these free yoga for MS classes during these 8 week sessions twice a year.  I am, like them, a body living with MS but I am also an example of how we can learn to live well with MS.  Yoga helped me find my way, my peace, and my balance.

My hope and prayer is that this program that I began here on Long Island could reach across the country and that every yoga studio would offer such a program from the perspective of someone living with MS.  Unfortunately, I can’t be everywhere but I’m hoping one day I can teach other teachers to teach from the perspective of someone living with a chronic illness like MS so that it might open the door for any ‘body’ to enter the yoga studio, knowing that it is a safe place for them to help guide them to that place that is really within themselves but has only yet to be discovered.

Teaching yoga to someone living with a chronic illness can be challenging. There is a ‘knowing’, a gift that comes from having this disease that allows one to offer out the gift that yoga has brought and to be able to offer that out to others.

Yoga is balance.  It is a moving, living meditation. It’s a way to go inside and quiet the mind. For those moments we are on our mat, the MS or the illness or trouble that one is living with can be quieted as well, if only for a moment and hopefully longer.  It takes practice, life is practice…yoga is practice…yoga is where I find my peace, my center and my balance.

Lisa Bachrach-Zeankowski

Celebrating My Life with Grace and Gratitude

11 years ago today, the mystery of all of the symptoms that I was having for the previous 6 years was solved, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. 17 years ago was my onset of this disease. 17 years later I am so completely grateful and blessed, I have learned so much in all of these years as well as I’m grateful for the gifts MS has brought to me. I have met and befriended so many amazing people, I found out that I am so much stronger than I ever thought I was, and not just physically, but mentally. I have discovered that our inner strength is everything and we are not our bodies nor are we the disease or challenges we face. I found out that I have more love and compassion than I ever thought possible and my awareness to the needs of my body as well as the needs of others has heightened tremendously.

MS has taught me self love and self respect, it’s taught me that we need to really listen to our bodies as well as become the very best advocate for ourselves and yes, for others…MS has taught me to live vicariously, fully and totally in the moment and to appreciate every moment, the present is all that we really have and nothing past matters and the future is always uncertain so why worry about it? It has taught me how to handle situations with grace and that we really are not in control, but we are in control of how we prepare and how we react to situations.

MS gave me the gift of being able to stay at home with my kids to raise them and be involved with their school needs as well as their personal needs. MS shares my body with me and we have learned how to co-exist, however MS does NOT define me by any means, if anything it has shown me just how strong I can be and how we (me and this disease) can teach others.

MS is an amazing process and journey, not one to be taken for granted and truly if one chooses to, they can look at their diagnosis as a gift and choose how we are willing to live. I chose to live well and in the best way I know how. I am grateful for the lessons, we have had our ups and downs for sure but in each experience there was a lesson to be learned and one to be shared and taught to others.

I have become an advocate, an activist, a yoga practitioner and a teacher and I have discovered that my true passion is to help others and hopefully bring to as many people as I can the gift that yoga has to offer. I wish to be able to continuously show people through my actions that we are not our bodies but we are spiritual beings living a human experience and that yoga is such a natural way of helping ourselves, mind body and spirit.

My passion is to hopefully inspire as many people as possible to embrace whatever their challenge or obstacle is and open up the opportunity to bring yoga to their lives so that they might experience what I have. Yoga really saves lives as well as shifts how we look at the world and ourselves. Yoga teaches us to live in the moment and to be still and to listen to the amazing silence between our thoughts, as well as it teaches us to listen to the needs of our bodies and yes, yoga has saved my life, in more ways than one and if it weren’t for MS, I’m not sure if I might or might not have found Yoga and all that it has to offer us.

So today I celebrate my 11th year since being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and I celebrate 17 years since my life began to shift and change. Happy Anniversary to us! The journey and the lessons will continue and until the day a cure might be found, we will love each other with the greatest unconditional love we can share.

To quote one of my favorite inspirational teachers, Deepak Chopra, “You can believe the diagnosis but you don’t have to believe the prognosis.”

Today is a celebration of my life and that’s how I am embracing this day that changed my life some 11 years ago and it really did change it for the better Namaste Lisa Bachrach-Zeankowski

Living in Gratitude

Have an attitude of gratitude everyday!  Not just intellectually, but from the heart.

Life is short..live it! Life if precious..appreciate it! Sometimes things aren’t easy, but often times the best things in life need to be worked hard for and earned.

It’s easy to blame, but it’s braver to own it! The ONLY way out is through! There are no mistakes only lessons, and everyone we meet along the way, is a teacher and even if they don’t stay in our lives, they were meant to be in our lives, maybe for a moment, or years but they are meant to be in our life and possibly lead us to our next teacher.

Life is not a destination but a journey LIVE IT, BE PRESENT, LOOK UP appreciate it., inhale, exhale, feel the breath, feel the ground beneath your feet, go hug a tree!!!…

Life is GOOD even when we think it’s not or it’s just too hard, we are blessed, we really are…Be Grateful ….

Namaste Lisa Bachrach

Home Is Where The Heart Is

We have all heard or used that saying “Home is where the heart is”.

Recently I’ve had to really delve deeply into this, and search within my heart for answers to many questions. Am I where I’m supposed to be, doing what I am supposed to be doing and am I happy doing it the way that I am? Now many people would immediately think, oh she must be talking about her relationship, however they couldn’t be further from the truth, but when something tugs at your insides and you’re not sure you are where you should be, it can hurt every relationship in your life, including the most intimate ones and that’s when it’s most important to look inside.

I’ve spent the last 4 months discovering different things, experiencing Yoga in different ways and trying hard to adjust to a new way of learning as well as teaching, and maybe this is where my conflict lies, I’ve been “trying”.

Shouldn’t something that is right come naturally to us? Yes, there are challenges and moments of panic, the ego kicks in and makes you think that you can’t, however this I truly believe isn’t the case here. Sometimes when doors are opened, it’s for a reason. Maybe it’s so you can walk through them specifically so you can experience something new and different?  Maybe it’s even to just show you what else is available to you so that you can decide what road or path it is you want or need to take? Maybe it’s part of the lesson. Maybe it’s just another way to help one recognize their authentic self? Whatever the ‘maybe’ might be, in this case, as in every case, it’s definitely a lesson, there is a teacher or two involved (one of them being yourself) and as always whether the experience has been all good, all bad or a combination of both, something very valuable has been learned.

I have also spent the last 2 months struggling with a decision and even more so over the last month over what to do with this conflict I’m having. I’m not a ‘quitter’, I don’t even like the power that is given to that word and I also struggle with who gives that word it’s power. Is it me, is it my ego or is it my fear of those I love most judging me for what they don’t understand the decision I need to make and they refer to it as ‘quitting’ not understanding that I don’t see it exactly that way? To help me work through some of this I’ve asked my nearest and dearest friends for advice, all of whom have graced me with their wisdom and their understanding. I’ve looked to my mentors and those I respect and I’ve been so lucky to not have any one of them to tell me what it is I should do. Not one of them said “you should do this or that”.

I was  given very good advice, “Lisa, I think you need to get back on your mat, not for anyone else, but for yourself”, how true that is…I miss who I feel I was before this venture that I took on, I miss the calm that was me.

I was told, “look into your heart, it will never lead you wrong, Sometimes we fear doing the right thing for ourselves because ego puts a different view on it. When clear and sitting in your heart center you will have no doubt of what u need to do. Trust yourself.”

And finally the very thing that really made me smile because it echoed the first advice that I was given and deep inside of my heart I knew it to be true; “Get back to your practice. Get back to you.You most certainly will not regret this decision. I am sure and so are you when your ego isn’t shouting obscene things at you.” and finally just a few moments ago I had lunch with someone I highly respect and even though my decision was pretty much already made, I still needed and wanted her wisdom about what it was I was feeling and her thoughts on the choices I have, to either stick it out or let it go. Her soft ears while she listened to me and her advice as always was wonderful, she said  and I’m going to try to get this right..”if you aren’t finding flow; that if you aren’t able to build upon what have already learned, that it’s not helping you to refine your teaching, then your decision to leave is the right one.” She actually said that much more eloquently than I just did, but then again, she’s awesome. 🙂

How crazy is our Ego that we allow it to try to control us, we are aware that it’s happening and yet we still allow it to try?

I guess growth and awareness is knowing that ego is doing this and instead of allowing Ego to get away with it, we do become that change we want to see, we recognize who’s doing that talking,  we overcome that fear and make the choice that ego tries desperately to stop us from making, the one we fear everyone will judge us because of.

We say, you know what, this is what I need, me and it doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks, the best I can hope for is that those who I love, those I am close to will understand that this is what I need and this is what serves me best and will make me happy and bring my Santosha (contentment) back…

I need to be home, home is on my mat, where I began, for myself and not because I have to but because I want to.

I was recently asked to read a book, part of my required reading, The Mirror of Yoga by Richard Freeman. I started to read it about a month ago long before I was told that I had to start reading and long before I was told I had to finish it before our February meeting, I was also asked as homework to tell what it is I got from this book, I’ll get to that in a moment.

I picked up my book where I left off a month ago and the very first page that I read began with a story about a man who kept digging a hole for water for his well, and when he didn’t reach it he moved onto a new hole, trying again and each time never giving it time before moving along to begin digging again. Richard explains that we often do this with Yoga and in life as well.

He says “So it is with the restless ego pursuing yoga, seeking ornaments for an improved self-image and new ways of feeling better, but avoiding the true facts of life. When the school or practice becomes difficult-which is precisely the entry point into reality-it is at this crisis point that you really have to drop your pretenses and keep digging deeper into the experience. However, all too often it is right at this juncture that we tend to give up the practice. We move on to a “better” teacher or a “more interesting” school, rather than sticking with it and investigating the inner work that is the purpose of the school and the teachings in the first place. Of course if the teacher (or school) has not done his or her work of sticking with the practice as the point of difficulty, then is could be time to find a different teacher, and this discriminative awareness-knowing when to stick with it and when to move on- is part of what a good yoga practice teaches.” Richard Freeman

After reading this paragraph, on this page, I sat in amazement; first let me tell you first thought, Universe made it so I read this right now, while I was in all of this turmoil of not knowing what to do, then I thought about the passage.  Am I avoiding the true facts of life, has the school or practice just become too difficult so I’m giving up and saying okay let me move onto a “better” teacher or a more “interesting” school?  I listened to my heart and inside of me, not from my ego, I heard a voice say, no Lisa, He is a good teacher and their school is interesting, the work is not become so difficult that you can’t handle it, it’s just this simple, it’s not a good fit and you are discriminatively aware of this, it’s time to move on and “this is what a good yoga practice teaches.”..you’ve learned well.

Answer to the homework assignment, what did you get from reading this book?  So far, I’ve gotten that what I’m feeling is legitimate and the choice I’m making to leave this program is the right one.  As for finishing the book, I will be finishing the book, not because it’s required of me to do so, but solely because I want to, Richard Freeman is an inspiring writer and I’m sure a great teacher who I will not get the pleasure of meeting in February during our training now that my decision has been made…another time I’m sure.  “When the time is right, the teacher will appear.” 🙂

I have learned so much in the last year and a half, I’ve made new friends, lost some and then found our way back. I’ve met new people, done different types of yoga and read all kinds of books. So many experiences, that have been part of this amazing journey and I’m grateful for every minute. Each day, every minute, every step is a lesson and every single person you meet along the way, IS a teacher and within every experience, whether you deem it good or bad, IS a lesson…embrace it. Never regret…acknowledge it, be grateful for it because it molds us to be the person that we become, the person we keep becoming.

I am so grateful for all of you, my friends and all of the experiences each and every one of you have brought to me, that I know you will continue bringing to me, as well as I am grateful for the journey we are on and look forward to continuing on it with you…

With this, I’m going to take that step back onto my mat for not because I have to but because I want to…

Going back to taking care of me and going inwards

To the teacher(s) and the practice that I know and love;

I’m going to keep walking through the amazing doors that have opened for me and enjoy the view;

I’m going to hope that those I love support and understand why

I’m going to reunite with my friends who I dearly miss….

I’m going to continue my journey and help those with MS through the gift of Yoga as it was gifted to me

One day I will get my 500 hour Teacher Certification but for now…

I’m going home…..where my heart is

Lisa Bachrach

200 hour Certified Yoga Teacher

Long Island Yoga School

Namaste