December 27, 2010
Dear Solar Yoga Family,
     Thank you. I wanted to thank you for having your studio right here in Longmont, ten minutes from my home. I feel so blessed to have a studio I can call my yoga home to develop my practice. In my need to thank you and honor your teaching, I wanted to start from the beginning, so bare with me.
     I started yoga and meditation at 15. I wouldn’t say it was a practice, just a way to calm myself and get to sleep at night at first. As I grew older, left home and all that, I did start going to recreation center classes and doing videos. You opened Solar, and I had gone to some of your classes here and there with friends. But, of course, it is cheaper to run to the LRC for a little yoga.
     In 2009, I learned what PRACTICE meant with yoga. I was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer in April. When I was cleared physically after my mastectomy, a friend brought me to several classes. They were hard. I found the restorative one you had on Wednesday mornings to be one I couldn’t live without and got addicted to go when I felt up to it. By this time I was going through chemo and not feeling up to much.
     So jump to 2010. I had my last radiation to a metastasis in my liver right before the end of the year, and I was finally able to work on building up my body again. I was given the label of no evidence of disease (remission) that April, my birthday. I told my mom that all I wanted was a punch card to Solar Yoga to see if I could go regularly enough to start making yoga a PRACTICE, not just something to do because it feels good. And so that is what happened. Besides, my oncologist prescribed I do yoga three to four times a week. Better listen to those doctors. Maybe I can get insurance to cover class costs…I jest.
     So here is where the big thank you comes into my biography. Your studio rocks because of the teachers and the environment has taught me the mental part of yoga. I sit in class and the instructor seems to have something to say that is just what I need. I laugh because I will be like, “Dang, she is reading my mind again. Wait, I am in a room of thirty hot sweaty people. She is reading everyone’s mind. We are all thinking the same thing. So, heck yes, I can let go of the drama and just feel the sensation.”
     The drama, the ego, the language in your head. Staci just talked us through sitting in frog pose for like five minutes last night. And you know what; it was pretty easy for me. Just a bit over a week ago, I was strapped down to a radiation table again. This time a metastasis tumor was in my brain stem. It is, no was, pressing on my left 6th nerve on my left eye creating a double vision. I was under this tight cage over my face for almost an hour and a half while they radiated that sucker right out of there. The thing they don’t tell you is how you are going to mentally get through that all, especially when you’re i-pod goes nuts. I had all these great ballads I knew the words to from Norah Jones, Sheryl Crow, Corine Rea Bailey, and the like. But my i-pod started playing Lady Gaga. I was supposed to be calm and not move! I started to panic. The drama came in, and I started to freak out. I started to cry. But, then I heard my yogis from Solar Yoga. “Stop the drama and just breathe into the moment.”
     So, yes, there is a lot of drama in my life. But, I thank God for yoga as a practice for helping me physically and mentally put a few more years on it. Thank you for teaching me both. And thank you for being a place that is so loving and embracing that I feel great just walking in the door. I don’t feel judged when I fall on my bum because I see double vision right now. And, forget the fact that I was thinking I had a pretty good eagle pose because now my brain won’t let me cross my body all over this way and that way. I could have been so frustrated and given up. But, no, I know I can someday figure out how to cross my body however it is going to cross itself because this is a practice. It is like a living organism that will grow, wither, and then grow again.
    Thank you for being ten minutes from my front door. See you next class.

Namaste,
Sara L. B. Brown