Living Yoga’s 2015 Yogathon

What is the Yogathon?

Since its inception in 2010, the Yogathon’s purpose has been to bring awareness to the long term effects of trauma and how they impact those within our community.  Through Living Yoga’s trauma informed yoga programs, students are taught mindfulness, impulse control, and wellness practices.  These life changing skills support students in making more life affirming choices and become the building blocks of their healing process.

To anyone and everyone seeking to create collective social change through personal healing, please consider supporting Living Yoga and their 2015 Yogathon by helping our Yogathon Ambassadors, Kate Busby and Alison Alstrom, raise money for this cause. There are two ways to get involved:

912A5717 (1)1) PARTICIPATE: Register online (remember to pick Team Vira or Loom!) and set a goal for your yoga practice in the month of April. It could be to practice as many times as you can in the month of April, focusing on a specific posture, or to commit to a meditation practice. What you choose as a goal is personal and completely dictated by you. Then let your friends, family, and coworkers know how you will “Practice with Purpose” in the month of April and ask them to support your practice with a donation to your Living Yoga page. April has already started but you can still REGISTER NOW!

2) DONATE: If you don’t want to commit to setting your own intention and fundraising efforts, just help others! Donate any amount to one of our two TPY teams and help them reach their goals. All funds go directly to Living Yoga.
DONATE TO LOOM! (Alison Alstrom)
DONATE TO TEAM VIRA (Kate Busby)

Kate head shotA message from Kate Busby (Team Vira):
I don’t know about you, but yoga has helped me through some really difficult times in my life. In fact, I’m not so sure where I’d be without this practice. If you’ve also experienced the healing power yoga, then I invite you to share it with folks in our community who really need it.

As Yogathon ambassadors, Alison and I have both started fundraising teams. My team is Team Vira. Vira is a Sanskrit word that means brave. (You’ll recognize it in pose names like Virabhadrasana I, II, III/Warrior I, II, III as well as Virasana/Hero’s Pose.) It honors the courage it takes to meet ourselves as we are and to do the work of yoga.

There are few things more meaningful to me than the tools, and access to the tools, that support reconnection with self and re-engagement with the world in the face of overwhelming pain. Yoga is one of these tools and by joining Team Vira or making a donation to the Living Yoga, you are helping bring those tools to people who are suffering and looking for a way through. Think about what yoga has brought to your life, and then pay it forward!

alisonA message from Alison Alstom (Team Loom!):

Living Yoga is a remarkable Portland-based organization that seeks to make the gifts and tools of yoga accessible to underserved populations. This is an offering that goes deep, because the tools of yoga are tools for a better life. Living Yoga’s annual Yogathon is a fun way that you can help to raise money for and bring awareness to their programs, while spending a month committing to your practice, and considering how it has touched your life.

When Michael Faith asked me to be an Ambassador for this year’s Yogathon, I was honored, and of course I accepted right away. When he told me that as an ambassador, I would be making “yoga related goals” for the month of April, and talking about them, and the Yogathon, on social media, I panicked a little.

But then I realized this was an opportunity to articulate some of the most powerful teachings I have received from my relationship with Yoga, and some of the more subtle gifts a sustained and dedicated practice can offer.

So I went all in.

Here is a link to a blog that I’m keeping for the month of the Yogathon. It’s about my personal practice. Please support this cause and set your own goals this month.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.