Yoga for Troubled Breathers with Cindy Lewis

Michele Lawrence
You're listening to this is yoga therapy. I'm your host, Michele Lawrence. And I've had the opportunity to interview many of those who are making a difference at the intersections of yoga and health. And I'm here to share with you their stories and conversations. Thanks for listening. 
In today's episode, I interviewed Cindy Lewis, Cindy's a yoga teacher, yoga therapist and founder of my yoga spring, Cindy began practicing yoga formally in 1999. informally since the 1980s. Today, she offers yoga therapy services tailored to individual needs, and also specializes in yoga programs for troubled breathers. And I put those in quotes. It's great to learn more about you. And have you on the podcast today. Cindy, I'm excited to talk with you. 

Cindy Lewis
It's nice to talk to you too. Michelle, thank you for having me.

Michele Lawrence  
You bet. So I'd love to start by having you share with our listeners a bit more about yourself, you and I just met. And I'd love to learn more about you too. So perhaps you can share with us where you're from? What's your yoga background? And how did you end up here in this world of yoga therapy.

Cindy Lewis
I have been practicing yoga since I was really young. And I did it for my own health reasons. As a really young person of seven years old, I got bit by a tick and ended up with an anaphylaxis allergy from this tick bite that gave me an allergy to meat. And I kept having these anaphylaxis problems without knowing what they were. And that happened in 1976. And I noticed when I tried my first yoga class with a friend of my sister, that it really helped. And she got up really early, and my sister would get up much later. And they were like 10 years older than me. So I ended up practicing with her every day. And she had a three hour practice she did every day. And it was one of those things where I was noticing how much better I felt. So I kept that going. And it was amazing. And then I was doing retreats and workshops and things like that. And I went to this retreat with this one teacher, which was a combination retreat and training. And I was like going for my own personal benefit. And she asked us to teach and I was like, and I remember I was kind of resistance. But I taught my kids because they were little back then. And then I had a friend of mine who was going off on vacation. She told me my substitute teacher disappeared. I have seven yoga classes, I need somebody to sub you could sub them. And I'm like, well, I've never really taught a class to adults. And she's like, it's okay. It's no problem. It's just old people. sitting there going, Okay. And she let me go ahead and give it a try. At the time I was injured and I couldn't do forward folds. I couldn't put my head below my heart. I was in this place. And I couldn't practice anything. And she had told me just have somebody else do the demo. And you'll just talk them through it. So I went in, and I went with the attention of teaching and I couldn't do any of the poses. But I talked to the students through it. And I was surprised because when I came in, I was sitting in the waiting room waiting to teach my very first class and this lady top sat next to me and she looked at me. And she goes, are you the substitute teacher? And I said yes. And she looked me up and down and said, we'll see how you measure up. And I started teaching this class and these people loved my class. But I was watching them the whole time. I wasn't doing any of the moves. But I had practice for so long. It was already in my body. Right? Sure. So I knew exactly what to do next, and this and that and the other. And so it just happened really organically. And next thing I know, when my friend came back, she decided to stop teaching and next thing I knew I had like seven classes a week. And that's how I started teaching.

Michele Lawrence  
Well, that's a great story. How did it take you to eventually this world of yoga therapy, studying yoga therapy, becoming a yoga therapist?

Cindy Lewis
Well, it was really organic for me because the whole reason I started doing yoga was for my own therapy. Sure. And I was more drawn to people who were doing more therapeutic type work. And I was already an energy worker. And I started to see the correlation of prana and yoga and how the flows work in the body and you It was just such a beautiful marriage. And then I just was more and more interested. So I'm probably one of those people who have way too much training. Is there ever too much? I don't know, sometimes I'm wondering because I go to classes nowadays. And I'm like, I've heard that five different ways, do I really need to be here anymore. But every once in a while, I find something really intriguing. It's like, awesome. And every teacher has their things that they share, every teacher has something to offer to me, in particular, I always get a glean of something. But when you're going through these long, expensive trainings, you think, alright, there's a point where you reach a point where you're going, Okay, I've heard this information, like 10 different ways already. Maybe I should move on to look at something else. If I'm really craving something, what is it I'm looking for in this training? And so there's a little evolution that happens. And for me, I have well over, gosh, close to 2000 hours in training that I've had.

Michele Lawrence
Great, well, let's talk more about yoga for troubled breathers.  I met you and became aware of your work at the recent global yoga therapy day conference where you gave a presentation on the subject. But how did this word come about from you like I understand that it's born out of personal experience, right, even from that young age. But tell me more about the evolution of that. And we'll dig into it a little bit more as we go along in the podcast today to?

Cindy Lewis
Well, how it came about is, first of all, when I was having trouble with my breath work, because I had lost 20% of my lung capacity due to scar tissue because I had an undiagnosed allergy to meat. And that meat allergy caused me anaphylaxis. I was a meat and potatoes kind of person. And I ate meat all the time growing up, and I got this tick bite at the age of seven. So by the time in my 30s, I'm having all kinds of health issues because of it. And over the years, I would have all these breathing problems, and I go to a yoga class. And there was always the teacher who thought they could help me. And they do this or that I can't tell you how many times I go through all these trainings, because I've been through so many trainings, and I go to these trainings, and the teacher would bring up me up on stage going, I'm going to help you breathe, and they would fail miserably. And I'd end up in tears, it was heart wrenching. And it was really kind of traumatizing, because they didn't understand how to work with somebody who's truly having trouble breathing. And I noticed in my classes when I go to all these classes, and the teachers are fabulous, right? They just aren't used to dealing with these people who are in the out French, and they have trouble. So I'd walk out a class. And there's always be a group of like six or seven of us, you know, I'd go to these big classes. And we'd all huddled together and talk about our challenges about braiding in the class. And there'd be a group of people, but nobody would want to say anything to the teacher because we love the teacher, right. And we love the class. But we couldn't do what they were asking us to do, it would send me into panic mode. And I'd end up hyperventilating if I tried it, and you could feel it coming on. So it was a real struggle. And there was a lot of misinformation out there telling people put them on their back, open up their chest and try them breathing that way. And that was a perfect way to start a panic attack. It was just not working. And I kept seeing this over and over and over again. And then I started teaching and when I started teaching, I found that I didn't teach breathing like everybody else did. I didn't because it was uncomfortable to teach it that way. I was teaching things in a much different way. And then I noticed that most of my students who came to my class were all people who struggled with breathwork this one lady, I remember her she was started yoga at like 86 years old. It was the very first yoga class with me. And she came in she says, I think I might be too old to start yoga. I told her I said, No, you're not you can start. And it was a gentle yoga class. And she was really in good shape for somebody who's 86. She could do a forward fold, stand up, do all kinds of things. And at the end of class, somebody had worn some perfume or something in it. It kicked in her asthma. And she was like, Oh my gosh, I remember I looked at her and I held her hands and I said you want to try breathing technique with them. And she's like, okay, she had been my student for several months, and she goes, everything else you do seems to work. So I said, Okay, let's do it together. And we did the breathing technique. And afterwards, she was like, oh, it went away. It's never done that before. And she was just an eye. And then she wrote me this wonderful little review and sent it out there knew what she was the very first review I got. 

Michele Lawrence
Wow, I'd love to know more. Because what everything that you're saying right here is so interesting to me. Like when I even first met you, and you told me about your presentation, the term troubled breathers was like, Oh, yeah, I've encountered trouble breathers out there, right. And yet, I'm not trying to say that all quote unquote, troubled breathers are the same, right? There's got to be a variety of reasons for that. And there's, I'm sure many different ways to approach the breath. We know that many different techniques that we learn as yoga teachers, and yoga therapists, but sometimes it's still a challenge to know what to do, right. And so I'd love if you could give us some examples or some tips or techniques on how you approach this work. Does it take on a different approach? based upon where the difficulty the trouble arises? And then where do you go from there? Well,

Cindy Lewis
I've been working with a lot of different people over the years. And I think the, the big thing that I've noticed is tension in the breath. Now, if you look at what pranayama is, which is the breath work, and pranayama is all about the energy flow through the breath, it's a merry enough of like the energy work and the breath work, and you're trying to integrate these two things together. When you're bringing all this energy, work and breath work together, it really makes a huge difference. So one of the keys to breathwork is you can't do it if there's tension in the breath. So if you're finding a person who is really struggling, and those are the people I work with is the people who truly struggle with breath work, and they're the people who need the most help. And I know I've experienced and I've seen it in the world a lot is the teacher won't know what to do about it. And they'll just kind of throw their hands up in the air. And that is so disheartening for the person who is trying so hard, and they're having such a difficult time. And that adds more tension to it. So the thing is to approach it with a compassionate heart to understand that, they might not be the right fit for you. But there's people out there who can help these people with, with breath problems. And if you really want to learn how to help somebody who is truly struggling. And not everybody is because some people are more interested in this part of the OS No, or that or something else. But this breath work and working with these people takes time and patience and getting to the point where you can calm the lungs down, and then move from a place of calmness. So that might mean observing the breath. And that is the first practice I do with these people is just to sit and watch your breath, which is really hard for an advanced Yogi to do. Because to sit, the first thing they want to do is start going to into a four part breath or start lengthening the breath or do something, manipulating the breath in some way. But when you're having this kind of trouble, any kind of manipulation causes the tension. So you need to come from a place of Okay, we're going to sit still. And we're going to observe the breath. And then you have to do the energy work from the inside out, to get the breath to relax. And you teach people how to relax their own breath. And once they get to that you can make sounds, it depends on what's going on. You might work with sound, you might work with speech, you might work with different things, you might start working with breath work, he might not add counting is a big trigger for some people. He could take these approaches in different ways. So there is this wealth of information that is out there. And it's really intuitive. I mean, when I start talking to people, they always say that so simple. And that's the thing is these tools and techniques are so simple, but I also have to say at almost every time I teach, advanced yoga teacher, they're going, this is the hardest work I've ever done. And here's the thing is, I know when I worked in all these breathing techniques and stuff, everybody would always come at me with all these different things. But what I needed to learn is how to relax my breath, and the counting and the this and that, that everybody's rhythm is different. And the way I teach is I allow the students in my class, to breathe at their own pace, I always tell them what kind of breathing we're going to do. And I let them go at their own pace, if you count if you are doing a specific rhythm, which is a wonderful tool. Once you get beyond that point, I mean, I love breathing exercises, and doing all these different kinds of breath. But when you're working with somebody who is truly challenged in the breath, you have to let them go at their own pace. And you have to observe and watch what their breath is doing. To help them kind of move through it, you can do a group, but I was only able to do a group after I'd been working with hundreds of people doing this work. When I first started, it was all one on one, and really working with the people one on one. And it is amazing. I mean, I can think of Oh gosh, several people come to mind whose transformation was pretty astounding. But I think the integration of remembering that prana living energy of the body and the breath work are intertwined. And they both have to be worked on in order to create that healthy breath.

Michele Lawrence
Anytime someone tells me like, it's so simple, right? We have to start with something so simple. I like say Yes, right. Because in my own personal experience, my story is different than yours and the next person and the next person. But it truly has been the simple things that I've learned through my studies of yoga, that have made the biggest difference in my life. It is not mastering shoulder stand, or headstand, it is not these advanced practices that have made the biggest difference in my life. It's the simple things. And so I'm hearing that in what you're saying, like that's where you start. And yeah, there's many, many breathing techniques that are way more complex than that. But it sounds like you've been able to do some really profound things with folks by starting at that simple place

Michele Lawrence
 Yeah. And it's one of those things that most yoga teachers are not taught. You're right. And I hope to change that and how we teach yoga therapists anyway, in the fact that I've seen it, obviously now from my own personal experience, but I've seen it in our students and the mentoring work that they do these amazing things that come about through the simple shifts that they can work with people to make. Yeah. So I'm curious if we can apply the work that you do and have cultivated here over the years, to those who with COVID are who are recovering from it, since we know that the breath can be so impacted by this virus,

Cindy Lewis
oh, my goodness, yes. As a small child, I had pneumonia and bronchitis on a regular basis, included with my loss of 20% of my lung capacity in and out probably cause the 20% of my lung capacity. But doing that kind of breath work, I found that the best techniques to apply this to somebody with COVID is to have them sitting in a chair, maybe putting their elbows on the table, so they're slightly leaning forward, and then practice the breath work. And it is amazing what can happen with that work. And you'll notice that people who have a lot of fluid in the lungs and stuff, you'll have to shift them, you have to shift to down you have to come up, you're kind of like helping the body get rid of the excess fluid in the lungs, helping the body get rid of that excess inflammation in the lungs. So one of the things that I would have them do is apply energy work the movement of prana by touching the parts of the lungs that need that extra help and then breathing into that hand and just holding it there and be in that spot. Hold that hand there. Practice relaxation in the lungs, not trying to make the breath bigger, because that causes fighting with the body, not trying to make it smaller, not trying to manipulate it. Just breathing into the hand. Well and you will find that People after just a short period of time, their lungs will start opening up. Now, of course, there's a lot of things that go with that. So for instance, don't be drinking a lot of milk products or things that cause more phlegm and all the typical things that they say. So you're trying to stay with that, creating more openness, drink lots of fluids, your broths, things like that, as you're working your hands through each part of the lung as you're creating a more open space. And the thing with people who have COVID, you're going to notice because the lobes in the lungs are split up in different sections, it's the back lower lobe that's mostly towards the back of the lungs that you're going to be wanting to work with. And it's hard for somebody to put their hands on those parts of the lungs. So if they have a loved one, or somebody with them, that person putting their hand on that part of the lung, do one side at a time, and have them practice the breathing exercises while somebody touches lightly just to create an energetic circuit and get that prana flowing through that part of the body. Wow.

Michele Lawrence
So cool. And I I have to see. And I imagine that this work is very rewarding, right? You're offering someone a way back to their breath. And what's more important than that. So I'd love to hear some of the rewards and success Have you witnessed, you've already shared the story about your 86 year old yoga student and what you're seeing with folks with COVID. Any other cool stories that you want to share with our listeners?

Cindy Lewis
I've had some really amazing experiences. And with breathwork. In particular, the thing that comes to mind is my dad was dying. And he was in a hospital bed. And they told me that he was going to be dead in the next three days or so. And of course, I flew down to be with him. And I started doing this breathwork energy work with him. At the time he was unconscious. So I started out just doing energy work and he was unconscious. He was on a ventilator. His arms were purple, his legs were purple up to his knees. And I just thought, How can I help him. So I started doing yoga therapy. So I started moving his hands and just holding his hands and sending energy to him and work the other arm. Then I started working his legs and just trying to get the energy flow back into his legs. And I don't know, I wasn't aiming to do anything in particular, I knew he was passing away, but it was just instinctual. And I sat there by his bed for one day. And then one day, his hands and feet which were purple up to his elbows and his knees turned back to pink.
When it was just the energy, the movement, the body coming back. And then the next day he woke up. And he had been unconscious, they told me for a month and it took them a long time to get in touch with me. And I went down there and I was like, wow. And so he woke up. And he was really mad. Because my dad was a doctor because somebody had stuck a tube down his throat. And this was not the way he wanted to go. And so he was pretty ticked off about the whole thing. And so I sat next to him, and I put my hands on him and I just breathed with him and just worked on on the breathing and the sitting with him. And we were working in shifts. So I would stay with him for 12 hours. And then my sister would stay with him for 12 hours. And we were rotating and there was another person who stayed overnight. And we were rotating through this way. So they had tried to remove the ventilator from his lungs and everything that came out of his lungs was black. It was all septic. Everything was septic, his whole body had been septic and they were surprised he had come back at all the second and they he couldn't sustain it without the tubes so they re intubated him. And then they tried again. I wasn't there at the time. And again, he couldn't breathe on his own. So they put it back then the third time, I was with him. And I sat with him and we looked at each other's eyes. I had one hand on his chest, the other hand on the shoulder and I just said I want you to breathe with me. And we both sat there and we just stared at each other and breathed as they remove the tube and he was able to take it out. Wow. And he lived for another three years and his body functions which he didn't have control of bowels and urines before that. But they all came back. It's like his body rested enough to reset the system. And he was fine for another three years. And he did amazing. The thing that the doctors down there were really shocked at is every time I placed my hands on him, and I just rested with him, they could see the difference in the monitors that were monitoring his heart rate, his pulse, everything was so relaxed. Every time we just had that physical touch, which just creates an energetic circuit, it's something we're all capable of everyone is capable of creating this energetic connection, which is the whole basis of pranayama, which is, the reason the breath work is usually the breath work leads to better energy. And that's the whole pranayama piece, helping my dad with this breath work. And doing that openness of the breath was really amazing. And I've seen this, over the years with several people. I've worked with this one woman who was in a wheelchair, she was paralyzed from the waist down, she got paralyzed because she had diabetes, it was out of control. And I think she got an overdose of some meds. And it caused her to be paralyzed from the waist down. She was walking into work one day, and poof, all of a sudden her legs gave out underneath her. And she could never move them again. And she was paralyzed in a wheelchair for a year. And it was a very depressing thing. And when I met her, I went into go meet her and we started working together. And it was this creating union between the mind and the body. Because she looked at her body like it was this foreign object that hated her. And this is the thing is a lot of people this psychological view of how they look at their own body is like it's something that's in my way, or something that is doing something bad. I just want to toss it away and get a new one people say, and the truth of the matter is, is that you only get one body.

You'd better make friends with that. Yeah. So it's creating that union of mind and body. And this woman when I was helping her create union, a mind body and create that connection. And we worked on breathwork. And which breathwork is the gateway again to pranayama. It was really interesting because her legs had atrophied completely. I mean, all you could see was bone, and feet. And so what I did with her is I put my hands on her calf, and we were practicing pranayama. So we're sitting there and I'm practicing breath work with her. And within about, I don't know, it was less than a minute, all of a sudden her tissue on her leg just plumped up. It's like her calf came back. It's all pumped up. And she looked down. How do you do that? What just happened? She kind of figured it out, she was just blown away. And I'm sitting here going, it's the energy in your body is coming back to you. You're using pranayama. And I was directing it towards your legs by creating an energetic circuit here. Then she goes to the other one do the other one. We did the other one, the other one popped back to we went and made our way through her whole body going from place to place to place it was really funny because she worked with a physical therapist at the same time. And the physical therapist ended up by the end of this, she would send me homework assignments work on this area. Well, that area. And so we work on different areas. And we'd be working with the breath and working with the body. And the energy would go to the different parts of the body as we learned how to work with the thing. And the key is, remember, you cannot run energy through you. If you have any tension, which is what I told you earlier. If there's tension in the body, it won't work. You have to be relaxed. And this is the key to everything is letting that energy flow freely, being one with everything around you letting that energy come through you recognizing that we share this great world. And that means that you can't be looking at one person on the planet and saying I love everybody but you It means you have to love everyone. You have to be open to the energy of the whole planet, not just the pieces you like.

Michele Lawrence
Those are just some amazing stories, Cindy and a really important message at the end. I'm really touched by what you've shared. And I thank you for sharing that and for the work that you do too. And that remembering that you so beautifully put there in front of us. And I'd love to just know a little bit more about what your daily practice looks like. We train that in our programs that really becoming a word As a yoga therapist doing this sacred work in the world, right starts with you, you the yoga therapist and having your own practice that can then inform you and then make you that vessel that can hold space for others. So tell us what your daily practice looks like I'm curious.

Cindy Lewis
Every day, I practice that same message that I just told you being everything. And some days, it's hard because somebody really ticks you off, especially in today's politics. But remembering that everybody is coming from a place, usually of wanting to do good, or they're so damaged, that they don't know anything else, but doing bad. And knowing that everybody is part of this planet. And so I practice every day, I practice that connection with the whole world around me with every piece of this planet, opening myself to be one with the universe one with everything. And I know it's kind of become a Folk Park kind of thing, being one with the universe. But it's just a part of my truth. This is what I practice on a daily basis is being one with the universe. I also practice. I do breath work every week, several times a week, some weeks more than others something as low as three times a week, some every day, I do some sort of mantra work on a regular basis. Right now I'm doing this practice that is specifically made for people who have dementia or Alzheimer's or memory issues. And it's a really fun little practice that I've been doing every day now.

It's going great. Every time I practice that, it's just this kind of evolution happens and it's fun. I love the message behind it that be your true authentic self. Be who you are, and accept yourself for who you are, and that you don't have to be somebody else.

Michele Lawrence
Oh, that's so lovely. Cindy, I really enjoyed speaking with you today and learning about what you do getting a little glimpse into who you are. And I imagine our listeners enjoyed it too. And if they want to get in touch with you and learn more about the work that you do, you can go to Cindy's website, which is my yoga spring.com Thanks so much. Thank you. If you'd like to learn more about who we are and what we do, visit us at inner peace, yoga therapy.com

Transcribed by https://otter.ai