Hi, I'm Stephanie

Let me tell you a little of my story and what led me to find my life’s purpose (as cheesy as that sounds) in practicing and teaching yoga for chronic pain.

I was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis at age 13.

This news came as a devastating blow to a lifelong mover. I had been a competitive dancer since age 5, a budding snowboarder at the time, and all around lover of any reason to jump up from the couch. Not to mention a newly teenage gal living in a small Midwest town… it was rough.

What is JRA?

((modern termenology is JIA, juvenile idiopathic arthritis))

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA)  is an autoimmune disorder affecting the joints of the body. In the simplest explanation, a confused system overproduces white blood cells to attack the synovial lining of joints, typically causing painful inflammation, degradation & permanent physical limitation. The ‘juvenile’ title is given to those diagnosed before age 17.

I was diagnosed with “polyarticular” JRA, meaning I had 5 or more affected joints at the time of diagnosis. I also had some systemic effects. Extremely sensitive skin (esp on the soles of my feet) is the one I remember most vividly. I couldn’t touch my bare feet to the floor & can remember having to crawl to get around sometimes to save my feet the pain.

My condition was severe enough to require medication from the get-go. As we tried and modified different combos of drugs, I felt very much like a human guinea pig. After a few months of giving some less intense drug treatments a try, we found a combo of medications (antineoplastics & biologics for those curious) that greatly eased my pain and restored some normal function. I have since had a long and very bumpy road with meds, & still require them to this day.

So… Why Yoga?

So, if I have disintegrating joints, why did I decide to take up a career in movement?

The short-long is that I took ‘Hatha Yoga 101’ as a college course at age 19. Being a lover of any and all forms of movement, I registered to explore a new one. It didn’t take me longer than the first class to realize that yoga was so much more than physical movement. I probably got a little lucky with an amazing first teacher – she put a great deal of focus on the subtle body (layers of you beyond the physical body) which made this modality accessable and meaningful to my condition.

I kept up my own personal practice for another 5 years, having to take private lessons and adaptive yoga classes around several flares (periods of time when syptoms go haywire- for RA this includes uncontrollable inflammation & increased damage to affected and sometimes new joints). Yoga kept my body gently moving and gave my mind the tools to handle an unpredictable disease.

I enrolled in a yoga teacher training program at the Yoga Center of Minneapolis in September 2012 and began teaching one short month into my program.

Age is wisdom

Its hard to quantify the things you can learn from time spent – but I believe if you are paying attention, you should be getting wiser as the years tick by.

Years with RA

Years teaching yoga

Fast Forward

So now, years later, I pass the gift that was given to me on to new practitioners. In particular, those who live in chronic pain and limitation. If you found your way here- that may be you. I see you. I feel you.