| I found my first retreat online by googling breast cancer and yoga weeks after my diagnosis. I attended my first retreat in July 2011 just 4 weeks after my surgery and it has forever changed my life in so many ways. Mohonk was my third retreat and I have already made strong bonds with women in this amazing community. I am touched by each person’s story and inspired to be stronger and continue my path of healing. Mohonk was extra special because it allowed me to spend time with my family in NY before and after the retreat on a very difficult weekend. It would have been my brother’s 46th birthday but he passed 4 years ago Sept. 14th. I have also been wanting to visit my 94 year old grandmother who has not been well and she lives just over an hour from the retreat. September is also the time for my 6 month follow-up visits with doctors and tests (1 1/2 years since cancer) and having this retreat to look forward to kept me sane in a very challenging month. Mohonk is a magical place and everyone who worked on the retreat was so incredible. I felt loved, nurtured and cared for throughout and especially in the yoga sessions. Each retreat I reminded how healing yoga is and continue to feel empowered knowing that I can be an active participant in my healing process. I am also a yoga teacher and was so inspired by Tari after my first retreat that I enrolled in her training. I received the gift of being asked to assist on my second retreat and look forward to continuing to assist on future retreats. I can’t thank Tari, Amie, Denise, Sadara and the entire staff enough for what I receive at each retreat.- Sharon, California |
Since my diagnosis I’ve felt displaced and detached from my family, friends and colleagues. For the first time I felt normal among a community of women who understood my experience – past, present and future. Learning yoga postures – which I can do despite difficulty raising arm from surgery and radiation -, as well breathing and meditation techniques, I now have tools to gain physical and emotional strength. I am no longer a cancer patient but instead a warrior ready for a lifetime of fighting to live, laugh, love and be present. Thank you to Tari, Denise and the Retreat Project Team!
-Mitchelle, New Jersey
Y4C has helped me in many ways. The retreat was an extension of the profound ways that this program has changed my perspective on life. The retreat itself boosted my confidence in terms of my physical abilities. I look foreward to the yoga teacher training and then the Y4C training so that I can bring this gift to other people who have been afflicted with this disease.
– Andrea, New York City