I love Monday mornings …
I hear excited and happy greetings from clients at the Vitanova Foundation addiction recovery facility where I teach yoga, while I am still in the driveway getting out of my car. Their smiles, excitement, and anticipation of another subtle or great shift in their awareness, welcomes me … what a rewarding way to start my day.
I feel very blessed to be able to share Kundalini Yoga with people who are working so diligently on their recovery.
Vitanova is a long term addiction recovery facility located in Woodbridge, Ontario. I have been privileged to teach the Beyond Addiction program there in the format of weekly 1.5 hour classes since 2011. As I interact with Vitanova clients each week during their six month residency, I gratefully witness the positive effects Kundalini Yoga has on their recovery.
When I initially started at Vitanova, I had only one to three clients at most in the class. Today, I have 15-30 regular participants in each session. As clients share the benefits of Kundalini Yoga and other tools offered in the Beyond Addiction program with their peers, the class size grows.
Recently, the Vitanova program decision-making team implemented compulsory attendance at the introductory Beyond Addiction workshop, so that each newly admitted client has the opportunity to benefit from participating in Beyond Addiction classes.
After each introductory workshop, clients are required to sign in for the initial series of 6 classes. They can continue to attend indefinitely if they choose. Clients who graduate from the Vitanova residential program and continue with the after-care day program can also continue coming to the yoga classes.
A once weekly yoga session is very beneficial, but greater momentum can be gained through daily classes. My hope is to have the Beyond Addiction program as part of the ongoing recovery curriculum at Vitanova and to offer it to clients in a two hour session each day, and then to spread the program to other facilities so more people can be helped by these marvellous techniques.
– Anna Madejak (Basantdeep Kaur) [email protected]
(with Dr. Gabor Maté in the photo below)