workshops & classes
for cancer patients, survivors and care-givers
Learn how to use the many tools of yoga to manage side-effects from diagnosis, through treatment, and into sur-THRIVERship.
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Yoga for Cancer on Zoom
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TUESDAYS, 12:00-1:00 pm EST
FREE to all patients, sur-thrivers and caregivers. Sponsored by the NorCal CarciNET support group. |
Gentle yoga practice and education on how yoga can help reduce treatment side effects. Learn simple and effective evidence-informed yoga practices that may reduce pain, fatigue, lymphedema, neuropathy, anxiety, and insomnia. The combination of intention setting, movement, breathing, sound, mudra, and guided visualization creates a positive connection with the body and soothes the mind and spirit. Open to cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers looking for a way to incorporate self-care into their healing journey and build community. Join us from anywhere in the world! Contact teacher at [email protected].
- 1st Tue - Subtle Yoga (techniques to promote healing and calm such as sound, breath, and mudra)
- 2nd Tue - Restorative Yoga (reclining guided meditation)
- 3rd Tue - Yoga Nidra (reclining guided meditation)
- 4th Tue - Mat Yoga (gentle floor work, seated and standing poses using a mat, blocks, blankets, and pillows for support)
- 5th Tue - Chair Yoga (seated and standing poses supported by a chair)
Healing Yoga for Cancer 10-wk Series
Healing Yoga for Cancer 10-week series is a gentle, evidence-informed yoga practice and education on how yoga promotes immunity and reduces treatment side effects. By using yoga therapy self-care techniques, you will experience a deeper, more compassionate relationship with yourself. Each week, we will focus on a different topic, including lymphedema, anxiety, pain, cognitive fog, digestive distress, depression, neuropathy, fatigue, and insomnia. Open to cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers looking to incorporate self-care into their healing journey and build community.
About Your Teacher
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Cheryl Fenner Brown, C-IAYT, ERYT 500 specializes in working with patients and survivors and people with chronic health conditions in the Triangle area. Her students appreciate her educational style and compassionate approach to practicing yoga as self-care. Her 700-hr Hatha training at Piedmont Yoga Studio and 1000-hr Integrative Yoga Therapy training inform her unique blend of alignment principles with subtle energy work. She teaches classes, privates, and offers self-care retreats and enjoys mentoring teachers in a 100-hr Adaptive Yoga Mentorship. Her Healing Yoga for Cancer Survivorship feasibility study was presented at IAYT's Symposium on Yoga Research and the Society of Integrative Oncology's annual conferences in 2015 and highlighted in Yoga Journal. From this work she developed a 50-hr Healing Yoga for Cancer teacher training and programs for survivors that are offered nationwide. She currently works as a Master Faculty Teacher for The Mindfulness Center. Email Cheryl.
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Student Testimonials
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I have done two classes with Cheryl and have enjoyed them both. She is very knowledgeable and helps you practice safely. Very relaxing, instruction on mudras, restorative poses, and meditation, plus more.. - Vicki Egnew, Pleasanton, CA, 2020 Cheryl is by far the best, most educated and compassionate yoga instructor out there. Cheryl does free yoga classes for cancer patients. I am one of those patients. Cheryl keeps it nice and easy for us, but not too easy. I have known Cheryl since she started yoga classes at the Cancer Support Community in Northern California. Cheryl now lives in North Carolina and I follow her on Zoom. Check her out, you won't be sorry." I had the opportunity to take yoga classes with Cheryl when I I was physically vulnerable and worried that the exercise if not do it right could be more harm than good. Cheryl always approaches her classes with high sensitivity and even thought she pushes to do your best she always does it with care and respecting what your body can do in each instance. I highly recommend her! I appreciate how Cheryl cultivates community by involving participants and weaves yoga philosophy and a variety of practices throughout. Just finished eight sessions of therapy yoga for cancer patients and about to start another. Cheryl is a great teacher and am learning a lot. Not to mention so relaxing! No worries if you've never practiced before-anyone can do this. Just sign up! Cheryl is a wonderful yoga teacher. She gives you several ways to approach poses, if you are having difficulty with the first way she presents a pose. I really enjoy her classes and am missing them. Both my loved one & I attended classes. No matter what was going on in our bodies and minds we *always* left the class feeling better. Cheryl's gentle and compassionate approach has helped my loved one feel stronger in ways she didn't think was possible. I appreciated Cheryl's deep knowledge, flexible problem solving, positive encouragement, & spiritual grounding. I feel more grounded and renewed after attending and have made a gentle yoga a part of my stress buster tool kit. Thank you Cheryl! My experience with Cheryl Fenner Brown specializing in helping those who have had cancer has been very positive. She has been very attentive to the needs of each person she encounters in her yoga sessions. She has a wide range of experience with yoga and its poses she offers to her students. Because cancer has many varieties, the needs of her clients vary widely. She wants to do the best for each person and has a knowledge base to accomplish that. I take yoga at the Cancer Support Community with Cheryl. She is very knowledgeable about yoga during cancer treatment and in recovery. She gives us pose modifications if there is some poses that are difficult to do because of limitations. I have taken yoga for a long time and Cheryl's class is perfect to take to ease back into it slowly. It's hard for me to explain how much difference you've made in my life since I joined your yoga class for people who have cancer in 2008. I have a brain tumor and my sweet husband Jamie was diagnosed with a brain tumor, Glioblastoma Multiforme, exactly one year later. Both of us attended your class at the Piedmont Yoga Center and it helped us so much. We met others struggling with cancer and observed the ups and downs of treatments. Since I began attending the class, I needed deep rest. I had accumulated stress, and was having trouble relaxing. I was tired, too. Cheryl's class allowed me to get the rest I deserved in the present moment. I could leave all of my problems and worries outside and focus on following Cheryl's instructions for healing. Cheryl very gently and carefully teaches tools (healing tools) that can be used at home. I felt as though I was able to let go of emotional pain and negative thoughts. It was really amazing that letting go of these things was so effortless. This class gave me a place to let go and renew. I couldn't go often, but the healing stayed with me long after leaving the class. I even went through yoga withdrawal when I couldn't go. The assistants are very helpful at all times. They seem to have radar and keep an eye out for any discomfort that arises. It is very pampering to have such wonderful assistants who have the skill to assist you if you are feeling awkward or not quite right. I had no reference for mudras or yoga nidra when I first came to the class. I feel I have benefited from everything that was offered and have experienced deep healing. Once, after class, I looked in the mirror at myself after a yoga nidra session, and the whites of my eyes were no longer red and tired looking, but a true "white" as they are supposed to be when we are beaming with health. I hope that the class continues to be available for those who need it as there are less and less resources available for people who are recovering from cancer, chemotherapy or radiation. It is truly a gift of renewal and rest for the body and spirit. |
This class is so beneficial - Cheryl provides a welcoming environment despite my medical limitations and does an outstanding job of providing context and demonstrating so that the poses/forms make sense. Her classes are restorative and relaxing. I am grateful for her beautiful spirit and kind heart. - Meribeth H., 2020 Cheryl led a beautiful and relaxing class for cancer patients and survivors. Thankful that I got to experience one of her classes. "I've thoroughly enjoyed Cheryl's yoga classes for folks touched by Cancer, and was surprised how well this worked over zoom. The classes are gentle, restorative, and I came away feeling totally refreshed. The best yoga class that I've taken. Very gentle, slow paced and easy to follow. I feel wonderful after each session. I encourage anyone interested in feeling better to attend a class. I always feel better during and after class. I am so grateful to have met Cheryl. After my first round of cancer treatment (brain tumor) I found it hard to get myself motivated to move again. Thankfully I met Cheryl and taking her class got me back in touch with my body and how wonderful it can feel good to move. I love her approach and the way she teaches us to move in a gentle, focused way. Cheryl is a gifted teacher and it is THE one class I make sure to attended weekly. The hardest part is getting yourself to the class, once there your body will thank you. After taking years of yoga, I was skeptical about a class for cancer patients, but this ended up being EXACTLY what I needed as I was going through chemotherapy while raising my newborn. I look forward to this class every week. It is a brief respite from the multiple stressors of my life. It is a time to get out of my head and into my body (in a nurturing, relaxing, compassionate way). The mudras and breathing exercises help create a spiritual opening for release of pent-up emotions. I feel incredibly well cared for and don't have to worry about injury or overexertion. The program gives you an oasis to relax - to engage in mindful rest - while at the same time giving you tools to slip into mindful rest where ever, when ever. The techniques used have greatly benefited me as I have gone through further treatment and recovery. Quantifying [the benefits] is hard -- being at peace while you have to undergo a 45 minute body scan. Finding a place within yourself to rest on a 10 hour flight home after treatment. I have very little stress or anxiety doing any of those things now that I have tools to take me to another place if needed." It's been invaluable - not only learning the healing and gentle forms of yoga, but also I look forward to it each week. It offers respite from the hectic world of cancer treatment. After finishing treatment, I continue to train myself to relax and do the poses. The small class (sometimes only me) means the teacher and assistant can dedicate so much attention and really they both compliment each other, like a soft hug around the room. Cheryl & Sharon are gentle and compassionate. As I've gone through chemotherapy, Cheryl's yoga class has been wonderful - it's helped me to relax and let go of my anxiety, soothed my stiff muscles, given me yoga tips that I can use at home, and provided a caring attention that I find very healing. It has been a true refuge. Your class was very important to getting me started on a positive road to recovery. When my second cancer was diagnosed I was totally overwhelmed and stressed. Your class was an important to me. It gave me tools to stay positive, relaxed, and introduced me to a yoga regime that has become important in my life. I now do yoga 4 times a week and am feeling stronger than I have in a very long time. Thank you. Yoga with Cheryl was so great! She is an excellent instructor and has a really calming voice. I was having a rough week and her yoga session was exactly what I needed to take a break and recharge. I highly recommend her! Cheryl is awesome and the Bay Area and I will miss all she brings to the yoga room of great instruction. Thanks for all the love you bring, Namaste! |
