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And get a discount for the new course: https://wisdomexperience.org/tibetan-yoga-2/

Alejandro Chaoul, Mary Taylor, and Richard Freeman in lively conversation discussing Alejandro’s new book, “Tibetan Yoga, Magical Movements of Body Breath and Mind” as well as his longtime work with Sound Healing.

It can be a challenge to quiet the mind. Join Alejandro Chaoul for this grounding meditation designed to help you release distractions as they appear (without judgment), and experience deep stillness. Get better sleep, decrease stress, and relieve anxiety with over 200 ad-free meditations.

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Most of us strive to live our best lives, but what does that really mean? What is it you want for your health? Why is it so difficult for us to strike a balance between our mind, body, spirit, and community? Often, when we try to feed one vital aspect of our well-being, the others are neglected. And if we try to address all at once, we become overwhelmed.

It’s understandable that we all struggle to maintain a well-balanced life, but there are things we can do to make it just a little easier. It may simply begin by looking within — to better understand what we want for our health and why our well-being is so deeply important. The next step is to explore the “what,” any obstacle in your way and then explore the potential “how,” some practices that can draw you in.

What is your great “Why?”

Ask yourself: why do I want to be healthy? Is it so you can keep up with your kids on the playground? Is it to begin a new adventure with your spouse? To travel more? To ensure a long, healthy life with your grandchildren? Take time to reflect and ponder about it, and you are very likely to discover it organically. Then place it at the center of everything you do. You will find that the motivation, inspiration, and dedication to improve your health and well-being will emerge more strongly.

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The Jung Center opens The Mind, Body, Spirit Institute

…Chaoul, along with Sean Fizpatrick, the executive director of the Jung Center, knew that the practices Chaoul was teaching at MD Anderson would also have a place in the community, both for individuals and other companies. The Jung Center already focuses on self-care programs with topics such as psychology and life, so the institute would be a good fit.

“It is exciting for us to be able to share the news of The Mind, Body, Spirit Institute,” Fitzpatrick said in a press release. “We want people to understand they have real options for reducing stress in their lives, and that while the world may be pushing us to keep moving faster and faster, there are solutions which can help them refocus their lives and truly flourish.”…

MasterWord Services, a leading provider of language support solutions, is proud to sponsor “Vicarious Trauma: Healing from Within,” their third annual Wellness Connection Workshop for interpreters and anyone who experiences vicarious trauma in the course of their work.

This is a special presentation by Dr. Alejandro Chaoul, Associate Professor and Director of Education at the University of Texas MD Anderson’s Friends of Integrated Medicine Program as well as a regular presenter at the Rothko Chapel, and David Leslie, Executive Director of the Rothko Chapel.

This presentation introduces participants to techniques, tools and resources—including the healing space of the Rothko Chapel—to create balance within, help you adhere to professional standards or ethical requirements, and minimize or mitigate the effects of vicarious trauma.

 

On Untangle podcast, Alejandro Chaoul is Director of the Integrative Medicine Program at MD Anderson Cancer Center. He was the first to create their Connect with the Heart meditation program for cancer patients, has studied in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and deeply believes in the healing power of the breath and sound. He conducts research on these mind-body techniques.

“Integrative medicine” promotes physical, mental and spiritual health by combining conventional medical treatments with nutritional guidance and traditional approaches, such as yoga, meditation, and acupuncture.

As Roswell Park expands its integrative medicine programs, we are excited to host Alejandro Chaoul, PhD, as the keynote speaker at “Chapter 2: A Cancer Survivor’s Workshop,” to be held Friday, June 16, through Saturday, June 17, at Roswell Park. Chaoul was a pioneer in introducing integrative medicine at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. In the Q&A below, Dr. Chaoul shares how he got his start in mind-body practices and how integrative medicine can help cancer patients and survivors.

Tell us about your background.

I have a PhD in religious studies with a dissertation on Tibetan mind-body practice and its applications in cancer.

What made you want to study that topic and specifically how it relates to oncology?

I started studying the Tibetan mind/body practices for my own interest, both in terms of health and spiritual interest. I was fascinated by the Tibetan culture and their mind-body practices, and that’s what led me to want to study it academically as well. I started by taking my first trip to India in 1989, and I got interested in these practices, in meditation, and later in Tibetan yoga, so I started practicing it.

Years later, in the ’90s, while I was doing my PhD at Rice University in Houston, I realized that there was a large cancer center [including M.D. Anderson] nearby. Soon after, my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and after visiting M.D. Anderson, I asked my Tibetan teacher if it was okay to share some of the practices I had learned with him. With his approval, M.D. Anderson thought it would be great if I offered some meditation practices there.

Can you explain what integrative medicine means?

Before the term integrative medicine was used, there was alternative medicine, which means a treatment that’s used instead of conventional medicine. Complementary medicine would be more of a way of bringing both conventional and non-conventional treatments together, where usually the patient does something on their own, and maybe tells or does not tell their doctors.

Integrative medicine is really to “do it together.” It involves real communication about these therapies, between not only the patient and the doctor but also among doctors and other practitioners. For example, at M.D. Anderson, when the oncologist writes their notes, I can see them, and when I write my notes, the oncology team sees them. We’re all interconnected through the clinical history and the clinical records. Also, in our case, the patient can also see our notes. In that way, we’re all working together for the health and the well-being of the patient.

Would integrative medicine be considered part of palliative care?

Integrative medicine helps all through the cancer journey, so it really depends on how a particular hospital or academic institution decides to classify it. But, yes, there’s a connection to palliative care, particularly in the aspect of supportive care. When you think of palliative care not just at the end of life but really as soon as you’re diagnosed, you can benefit from all these practices and ways of caring that don’t necessarily have to be pharmacological [drug-based].

Do you think people often misunderstand and think that palliative care is just for patients who are approaching the end of life?

Yes, totally. I think there is a misperception that palliative care is provided at the end of life. Palliative care is believed to help with any aspect of pain or other symptoms. Palliative care can start as early on as supportive care. You don’t have to be at the end of life.

I am looking forward to visiting Roswell in June, and sharing these practices with cancer survivors.

Connect with other cancer survivors during a healing weekend featuring meditation, yoga, nutrition information, drumming and much more. Reserve your spot for Chapter 2: A Cancer Survivor’s Workshop today.

Alejandro will be attending First International Chöd-Zhije Conference at Tara Mandala during July 12-16, 2017.

This Historic First International Chöd-Zhije Conference will draw together leading scholars and practitioners researching and teaching this unique lineage in its various manifestations. Keynotes, panel discussions, and small group sessions will be held. They will explore the teachings of 11th century Tibetan yogini Machig Labdrön and her teacher, the renowned Indian yogi Padampa Sangye, the developments of the lineage over the last millennium, the role of women, as well as the application of these teachings to our modern world. Dharma teachings and performances of Chöd songs and dances will foster a rich and
engaged experience. Follow-up retreats will offer the opportunity to learn some of the different Chöd practices.

Never before have scholars and practitioners of this lineage gathered together for a conference. The conference represents a major step in understanding the depth of this tradition and current research. It is designed for those with scholarly interests as well as Dharma practitioners who wish to deepen their understanding of Machig Labdrön’s lineage, and anyone interested in bringing this ancient wisdom into our modern world.

For more details please visit the Tara Mandala website: www.chodhealing.org .

From Houston Chronicle Article by Columnist Lisa Falkenberg, June 2015, in Houston TX.

“I have a little advice: Sit down and be quiet.

No, I’m not channeling my inner Steve Bannon here. Or trying to quash dissent.

But before we can take on the world or the White House or what have you, we have to confront what’s swirling within. You know, the grocery list of responsibilities. The destructive voice of self-doubt. The ruminations stemming from insecurity or post-traumatic stress.

In the past few weeks, I’ve had several people talk to me about the importance of meditation in their lives.

I’m a skeptic about such things. And I’m terrible at relaxing. Either my mind is charging ahead in a caffeine-fueled, Tasmanian Devil tornado or I’m snoring. I’ve known peace, sure – taking Holy Communion, hiking the Santa Elena Canyon, turning in a column on time, a rare event.

But the idea of some mystical middle ground seems as fanciful as Oz.

Still, the testimonials were intriguing. So when I got an email pitch about a free event at the Rothko Chapel – offering a chance to learn how an ancient form of Buddhist meditation can be “medicine” for our mind-wandering and emotional entanglements – I decided to find out more.

The Rothko event – happening today at noon, if you’d like to drop in – will be taught by Alejandro Chaoul, an assistant professor and director of education at MD Anderson’s Integrative Medicine program. Among his responsibilities are conducting research using mind-body techniques with cancer patients and holding group and individual meditation classes.

I attended one of Chaoul’s classes last week at MD Anderson with more than a dozen others, mostly cancer patients and caregivers. We sat in a mirrored, sunlit room, several of us first-timers, while Chaoul explained different meditation styles for different symptoms: Breathing helps with stress. Movement improves sleep. Certain sounds can help with “chemo brain,” cognitive impairment that can follow chemotherapy.

Chaoul likes to mix it up in his class, sometimes incorporating tea or writing. Regardless of style, he recommends 10-15 minutes a day of quiet and focus. Research has shown meditation can lower the stress hormone called cortisol, decrease blood pressure, balance the immune system and even “modify gene expression” to decrease inflammation.

‘Get lost in the shuffle’

Logically, I’m sold. But could I do it?

I listened as the others explained why they’d come. A patient with a rare Stage 4 cancer said she was just there to “de-stress.” A woman brought her sister just to get her out of her hospital room. A wife caring for her husband said she needed to find balance, “because it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle when I’m trying to take care of things.”

On this day, we were supposed to focus on nature. We could find it in a large, framed photograph of blue hydrangea on the wall, or out the window, in the gray clouds or the small garden of branches laid bare by winter.

Chaoul, an Argentine native with his gray hair in a tight knot behind his head, uncrossed his legs in his chair and pressed his socked feet against the linoleum. Half the time, he said, our mind is not in sync with our body. We’re looking at our children, or our spouse, maybe even nodding our heads. But our minds are somewhere else.

“Can you actually be here? Fully here?” he challenged us.

He told us to quiet the chattering in our heads, the “monkey mind.” Breathe lower, he instructed. Relax the eyes, the jaw. Melt the stress.

I was trying, but the monkey kept swinging. I scribbled a question in my notebook that I needed to ask my 7-year-old about school.

Somebody coughed. A cellphone buzzed. The PET scan machine in another room vibrated.

Look at nature, the clouds, the tree, I told myself, indecisive. Apparently the monkey chose the tree, then ran off down a long branch: “The house is clean,” I thought. “I should cook dinner. Too much takeout. What would the little one like? Lately, she’s been eating vegetables. Caldo. She ate caldo the other day. Why does she like that and not my chicken soup? The potatoes. I’ll make something with potatoes.”

“If your mind gets distracted, bring it back with your breath,” Chaoul said.

Practice mindfulness

I try again. Just in time for meditation to be over. He invited questions.

“How do you quiet your mind?” a hospital volunteer asked.

Chaoul described a process that to me seemed like a ballerina’s spotting technique.

She doesn’t get dizzy because each turn, she connects with one stationary point in the room.

The woman with Stage 4 cancer had looked at the photo of the blue hydrangea – her favorite flower, she said. Her mind had gone to the ocean near her home in Alabama, and the walking path that gives her peace.

Someone asked Chaoul if, after 16 years of meditation, he was able to remain in a constant state of focus.

“If you ask my wife?” he said, prompting laughs. He said he has improved through the years and has stopped having panic attacks, once spurred by darkness and fear of death, but he still loses focus and gets angry.

He encouraged us to practice mindfulness throughout the day, even in traffic: “Don’t get frustrated. Don’t grab the phone,” he said. “Say ‘thank you, red light – what a great opportunity to breathe in and out.’ ”

We chuckled. After class, I asked the cancer patient how she liked it.

“For me, I can get lost in it,” said Patti Harris, 70, a retired businesswoman. She said it’s a powerful tool she uses often, along with her faith in God, to try to will the cancer out and keep positive.

Chaoul had told us: “When the mind wanders, usually it wanders into negative things.”

Quieting the noise

Harris knows this. So she doesn’t let it go there: “My friends say: ‘You’re so calm. You’re so at peace.’ Yes, I am.”

I’m not there yet – nowhere near. But Chaoul’s class inspired me to try again at home, with YouTube guidance. Each time, the monkey seemed a little calmer.

Chaoul said he’s seen meditation do everything from relieve acute pain to help someone overcome addiction. He loves doing the Rothko event, because he loves the chapel – a settling, embracing place, he said – and because he can introduce more people to meditation.

On Wednesday, he plans to focus on community as a source of support. It’s a good topic these days. We need each other – even when we’re at each other’s throats. If we can’t find all the answers in the noise, maybe we’ll have better luck in the silence.”

 

 

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