Profile on Yoga for MS in Kripalu’newsletter!

My class Yoga for MS: Self-Care and Inner Resilience was profiled in Kripalu’s newsletter with this picture of me and my mommy. Because her living with MS and also being my first yoga teacher has so profoundly shaped my work and helped me continually rediscover ways to tap the wholeness of the individuals in class.

Link to Kripalu’s Instagram Post of the Profile

Kripalu Donors Help MS Patients

Schwartz TFD grant supports online yoga

Deborah and Wendy

Three thousand miles away from our currently quiet campus, Kripalu donors are lending a gentle and powerful hand to patients coping with chronic illness in isolation. Thank you!

Deborah King, a graduate of the Kripalu School of Integrative Yoga Therapy, teaches yoga at a multiple sclerosis center in Seattle. A donor-supported grant from Kripalu’s Jonathan P. Schwartz Teaching for Diversity Fund (Schwartz TFD) was intended to help expand the program.

Once lockdown orders were issued, Deborah and the center pivoted quickly, using the Schwartz TFD grant to buy a webcam and a laptop computer, making it possible to offer the classes online.

Your gifts share power

Deborah’s mom Wendy was diagnosed with MS in her 40s. Deborah has seen firsthand how stress aggravates symptoms of chronic illness. Online yoga classes, focused on breath-oriented movement, have been a godsend to her students.

“It’s not about fixing the illness,” she says. “It’s about learning to work with the symptoms as messages, learning to read the body. People who face the unfathomable are very open to the subtle nuances of practice.”

Growing up, Deborah witnessed her mother’s encounters with the “unfathomable.” Today, she carries Wendy’s words in her heart: “Gentleness is far more powerful than pushing.”

Your gifts help Deborah share that power with the world.