register here
Inspiration from Eve Ensler!
Well Being Program: Making Peace with Your Body
The Well-Being program is designed as a smart approach to optimal health and
weight loss. Optimal health includes achieving a sustainable weight, eating sensibly
and pleasurably, participating in the activities you love, and feeling happy and at ease
in your body. The ultimate goal of the program is to improve the relationship you have
with your body. When we treat our bodies with love, deeply committed love for the
self, we will find for ourselves the definition of what a healthy sustainable weight is.
The weekly classes provide an opportunity to talk about the changes and challenges in
our lives. We discuss exercise, food, meditation, stress relief, and managing the
challenges of day-to-day life from a yogic perspective. We learn mindfulness techniques to help us on the path to awareness and healthy eating. We do not offer a one-size-fits-
all approach. If one existed we’d all be fit and healthy to begin with. Rather we
support each other as we each seek a way of eating and moving that works for our
bodies and our lives.
The recipe for Well-Being is simple but not easy. The primary ingredients
are commitment and community. You make the commitment . We create a community together. We listen to each other. We show up for ourselves and for each other. With the commitment and community in place,
the food and exercise work are easy, even fun and pleasurable.
I have lived this program for many years now. I know that it works. I’d love to bring you
along on the journey!
We set aside time each week to talk and to move, to meditate and to laugh. We find the way to peace with our bodies through inquiry and dialogue.
The next eight week sessions:
Wednesdays: 3/14/2012-5/2/2012, 7pm- 8:45pm with Lisa Wells. Wednesdays register here
or
Fridays: 3/16/2012-5/4/2012, 10:30am-11:45 with Angie Greenwood. Fridays register here
We ask that you commit to attending weekly to the best of your ability.
Yoga classes and/or Private Yoga Coaching on a monthly basis is greatly encouraged. You can join the classes at our studio or continue with your own practice. Private coaching and instruction is available $65/hour or $300 for 5 one-hour sessions.
About Lisa Wells:
I am a PhD scientist, a registered yoga teacher (RYT500), a certified Spiritual
Director, and have trained as a DanceAbility and Soul Motion Instructor. Those are just the
academic credentials. I grew up in an alcoholic, food addicted, physically abusive household.
I have had PTSD and situational depression. I learned to use food and substances to self-
medicate from a very young age. I have been alternately obese and anorexic at different
phases of my life. I have physical limitations that arise from being physically abused as a
child. Those are my historical credentials.
I have been a practicing yogini for 20+ years. I have used the spiritual tools of yoga and 12-
step programs to rebuild a healthy life. I have created a healthy eating practice and exercise
program that noursishes, pleasures and sustains a healthy weight. I am not immune to the
desire to be ‘thinner.’ I still battle the demon in my head that says I would be happier ‘if only.’ I
have used yoga practices to build a stronger and louder voice that keeps me on this healthy
path and has done so for years now. These are the important credentials: I have learned a
path to making significant change in the self.
The work of yoga rebuilds our bodies and our brains. That change can’t happen overnight. It
takes at least a few months to find a solid path and the changes continue for years. It is a
very good life. Join me on it!
About Angie Greenwood:
Everyone has a story; everyone has obstacles in their journey with which they must deal. The thing is if your obstacle happens to be your relationship to food, then there’s very little privacy surrounding how you deal with it. This is especially potent if you have a 5’4″ frame on which even a couple of pounds show, and you choose to get up in front of classes several times a day to teach, and those classes are concerned in someway or another with the physical body. The pain of it touches me even as I write this. I have gained and lost the same 5-10 pounds almost annually, almost of my adult life. I bear the scars of pageant life, of being valued because of appearance and equally dismissed because of appearance. I learned early to turn to food for comfort and escape.
I did not choose this battle, but I do choose to end it. Here is my greatest qualification, when I follow the guidelines proposed by the Well Being Program, I am happier, more content, more at peace. Here is what I offer, it is possible to end the war with ourselves. It is not easy to do. It takes time. It takes patience. It takes perseverance. But it is possible to end the war.
Yoga’s greatest gift to us is a set of practices leading to the realization that we are more than meets the eye. We are so much more than a number on a scale. When we calm our minds and learn to live in this realization, the war ends.