Last week five women gathered in the Glendale wellness center Solcare’s, elegant, light-filled space, where pastel-colored mats and other yoga aids were carefully laid out on a smooth wooden floor.
With the guidance of Milwaukee native Julie Tynion’s gentle and nurturing guidance, the women, some seemingly robust and others more fragile looking, practiced yoga, the ancient Indian stretches, poses, breathing and relaxation techniques that have strengthened, energized and boosted people’s immune systems for centuries.
As the class drew to a close, the students reclined in a relaxing pose on their mats and Tynion covered them with blankets in an embrace of physical, spiritual and emotional warmth.
After the Wednesday morning class, The Chronicle spoke with Fox Point resident Tynion at Alterra Coffee in Bayshore Town Center. She explained that after two bouts with breast cancer, she found her way to yoga, which, she said, has brought her “back to her body.”
She said that after two courses of chemotherapy, radiation and more than a dozen surgeries, she felt detached from her body; like she was "just a kind of passenger in it."
"Part of it, I suppose, was an effort to distance myself from all the pain, and part of it was fear; after all, in a way my body had tried to kill me. It felt as though my body and I were existing on different planes," Tynion said.
There is a lot of evidence, she said, that yoga helps women with breast cancer more than any other exercise. And she pointed to an year-long project at New York’s Beth Israel Hospital, funded by fashion designer Donna Karan, which is testing the effects of integrating Western and Eastern medicine, including yoga and meditation, on breast cancer patients.
In addition to her work with Susan G. Komen for the Cure, helping to raise funds for breast cancer research, and After Breast Cancer Diagnosis (ABCD), mentoring other women facing the disease, Tynion is now teaching a free weekly yoga class for women who have survived or are being treated for breast cancer.
“As women, we are taught from a young age to hate our bodies,” she said. And after getting sick she had an even worse body image.
She did not want to go to the gym “for so many reasons” — she felt weak, bereft of energy, and fearful of being exposed to germs among other things. But she missed exercise and, having done some yoga as a teen, she tried it again at home using a DVD.
The benefits of her yoga practice, and boredom with repeating the same limited routine, led her to seek more knowledge.
And that search led her to Solcare, a wellness center that offers a variety of classes and complimentary treatment services including chiropractic care, acupuncture, massage, Feldenkrais, and energy balancing detox among others.
It is a principle of yoga, Tynion said, that when a person is ready to learn something, a teacher will present herself.
Though she went to Solcare with no intention of becoming a teacher, her yoga instructor, Sarah Filzen, who also trains yoga teachers at the Kanyakumari Ayurveda Education & Retreat Center on Milwaukee’s East Side, eventually suggested that Tynion consider taking the center’s 10-month yoga teacher training course.
Continuing to see improvements in her strength, flexibility, balance, energy, and overall health and well-being, Tynion was motivated to share her expertise with other women going through the trauma of breast cancer and its treatment.
She also took an intensive training session on yoga specifically for women with breast cancer at the Om Yoga Center in Manhattan.
Chiropractor Angela Hall, who owns Solcare, was impressed by the health gains Tynion made during the time she studied yoga and tried other treatments offered there.
In a telephone interview, Hall told The Chronicle that she observed how Tynion’s “gotten so much stronger” and how much more vitality and overall spirit she has gained.
“She glows now.” Hall said. Seeing Tynion’s progress “was really enough to inspire me” to offer women with breast cancer an opportunity, on the first Wednesday of every month, to try the other services that Solcare offers, on an individual basis, free of charge.
"Before cancer and yoga, [which she has studied for four years] Tynion said she "took the gifts my body gave me for granted." But through her practice of yoga, which comes from a Sanskrit word that means "to bind," and is intended to integrate the mind, body and spirit, she came to feel at home in and trust her body again, she said.
"I learned to accept it with all its limitations and imperfections, and to love and honor it. It is no longer the body I was born with, but it performs miracles for me every day — allowing me to interact with the world and the people in it, and for that I am grateful beyond measure or expression," Tynion said.
For more information about Tynion’s yoga classes and Solcare’s other services call 414-963-1388.
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