Body Care for Optimal Pelvic Floor Function Series
With Elyse Sparkes
4 Thursdays in September:
7th, 14th, 21st, 28th
5:30pm-7:00pm PST
Via Zoom

This month you’ll learn basic anatomy, breathwork, and simple movements to help restore your pelvic floor function. Your pelvic floor supports the organs of your pelvis, coordinates to help with proper bladder, bowel, and sexual function, and helps both stabilize and mobilize your pelvis, sacrum, and spine. Spoiler: it’s not just about kegels! Your whole body has a part to play in keeping the pelvic floor area healthy, balanced, and able to do its job well. This is for you if you experience incontinence of any kind, chronic constipation, pain during intercourse, unexplained hip/back/tailbone pain, experience pelvic organ prolapse, or just want to better understand your pelvic anatomy to be able to advocate for your healthcare, feel empowered, and increase your body connection and awareness.

WEEK 1: Pelvic Floor 101

What/where is the pelvic floor? Why is it important? How can I feel what’s going on “down there”? My abs feel like they’ve gone numb… how can I engage them? Should I be doing more kegels? These are all questions we’ll address in week #1. We will start with basic education, anatomical awareness, and simple breathwork and movements to help you connect with and access your pelvic floor and deep core musculature.

WEEK 2: Hip Helper

In this class we’ll focus more on a movement sequence for hip mobility and stability, and overall hip strength. Muscles surrounding the pelvis (such as glutes, hamstrings, abductors, adductors) are all so important and influential to the pelvic floor area. We will also do some assessments to address things like hip asymmetries and pelvic positioning.

WEEK 3: Chest, Ribs, Scapula – Oh my!

In week 3 we’ll dive into thoracic mobility, gentle self massage, and breathwork. Lack of mobility around the rib cage, chest, and shoulder blades can impact the function of your diaphragm and the pelvic floor area. We will focus on getting more movement into these areas through a focus on rib cage alignment, thoracic rotation and side bending, increasing range of motion at the shoulder joint, and strengthening the upper back.

WEEK 4: Feet + Floor + Full Body

To tie it all together we’ll zoom in on our feet and discover the multitude of connections between the feet and the pelvic floor. You’ll practice exercises that can help improve your gait, balance and stability, and glute engagement. Then we’ll zoom back out and look at the body as a whole, putting it all together for overall optimal core and pelvic floor function.

Throughout the series it will be helpful for you to have:

• A chair
• A tennis ball or something similar (rolled up pair of socks works)
• A yoga strap, long resistance band, or long scarf
• A folded yoga blanket or towel

Elyse Sparkes is a Certified Restore Your Core® Movement teacher, Certified Personal Trainer, and Registered Yoga Teacher. She’s passionate about helping people sneeze without peeing their pants, reduce chronic constipation, and enjoy intercourse without pain. She created the #BeKindBodyMind movement to help people be more kind and compassionate to themselves, increase mindfulness as they exercise, and approach movement for mental health and overall healing. She currently lives by the beach in Ventura, CA and works with people virtually through workshops, group programs, and private sessions. Find out more at www.elysesparkes.com

Monthly Clear the Clutter Support Group
Monday, October 2^nd
12:00pm – 1:00pm (PST)
via Zoom

Need help/support decluttering your home? Grab a box, a stack of papers or bag to declutter and join us for our monthly support group zoom! You will also be put on our weekly email list to post your Before and After pics.

Please note: this is not a workshop, it is a space where Living Beauties can support one another and hold each other accountable on home projects, no matter how big or small.

To learn how to sign up for this program, please contact [email protected].

Spirit of Yoga: Back into Balance Series
With Sharon Holly & Alison Crowley
4 Wednesdays in October:
4^th, 11^th, 18^th & 25^th
5:30pm-7:00pm PST
Via Zoom

Please join us as we look and explore our lives through the lens of yoga philosophy. Concepts such as: The Kleshas (the nature of stress), and The 7 Limbs of Yoga (everyday practices to relieve stress) will be introduced to provide support on the healing journey, as we aim to bring more balance & peace into our hearts, minds and spirits.

Sharon Holly is a Living Beauty, Certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT) & Yoga for Cancer/Oncology instructor.  On her healing journey with breast cancer in 2011, Sharon found the Living Beauty Serenity Yoga Retreat not only a tremendous part of her healing process but also inspirational, setting her on the path of her life’s purpose…teaching fellow survivors/thrivers. She feels blessed to be able to give back the gifts that were so readily given to her and continue to help her heal.

She currently teaches small group classes and private yoga therapy sessions in-person and online, through her own company, Healing Breath Yoga Therapy as well as through various yoga studios, PT offices and cancer centers including: TCRF/Magnolia House, CSC-LA & Cedars-Sinai/THO.

Sharon holds certifications in both adult and children’s yoga as an     E-RYT/CYT-500, Amrit Yoga Nidra, Certified TRE® and The Resilience Toolkit Provider and is a member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists. To view a schedule of classes, please visit: www.sharonholly.com

Alison Crowley is a Certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT) with the International Association of Yoga Therapists and a Registered Yoga Teacher with the Yoga Alliance (E-RYT 500). Since 2007, she has specialized in working with people living with cancer. Alison co-created, developed, and teaches the yoga therapy programs for Cedars-Sinai/Tower Hematology Oncology, Cedars-Sinai/Brandman Breast Center, Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute/Cedars-Sinai, Tower Cancer Research Foundation, and Center for Radiation Therapy of Beverly Hills/Vantage Oncology. Alison was inspired to become a yoga therapist by her mother’s chronic illnesses and dedicates her work to her memory, Meribah Cloud Crowley.  She thanks her family, friends, teachers, and is especially grateful to her students, who teach her so much about resilience and kindness every single day. For more information, please visit www.bolsterandbridge.com

To learn how to sign up for this program, please contact [email protected].

The 8 Limbs of Yoga through Movement, Breath & Meditation
With Sharon Holly & Alison Crowley
4 Thursdays in October:
5^th, 12^th, 19^th & 26^th
6:30pm-7:30pm PST
Via Zoom

These gentle movement classes will offer an opportunity for anyone new to yoga or those who would like to deepen their yoga practice, by bringing yoga philosophy concepts into the asana (physical movement practice). This will deepen and inform how to bring greater peace and ease into our bodies, minds and spirits on the mat and into our worlds.

Sharon Holly is a Living Beauty, Certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT) & Yoga for Cancer/Oncology instructor.  On her healing journey with breast cancer in 2011, Sharon found the Living Beauty Serenity Yoga Retreat not only a tremendous part of her healing process but also inspirational, setting her on the path of her life’s purpose…teaching fellow survivors/thrivers. She feels blessed to be able to give back the gifts that were so readily given to her and continue to help her heal.

She currently teaches small group classes and private yoga therapy sessions in-person and online, through her own company, Healing Breath Yoga Therapy as well as through various yoga studios, PT offices and cancer centers including: TCRF/Magnolia House, CSC-LA & Cedars-Sinai/THO.

Sharon holds certifications in both adult and children’s yoga as an     E-RYT/CYT-500, Amrit Yoga Nidra, Certified TRE® and The Resilience Toolkit Provider and is a member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists. To view a schedule of classes,   please visit: www.sharonholly.com

Alison Crowley is a Certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT) with the International Association of Yoga Therapists and a Registered Yoga Teacher with the Yoga Alliance (E-RYT 500). Since 2007, she has specialized in working with people living with cancer. Alison co-created, developed, and teaches the yoga therapy programs for Cedars-Sinai/Tower Hematology Oncology, Cedars-Sinai/Brandman Breast Center, Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute/Cedars-Sinai, Tower Cancer Research Foundation, and Center for Radiation Therapy of Beverly Hills/Vantage Oncology. Alison was inspired to become a yoga therapist by her mother’s chronic illnesses and dedicates her work to her memory, Meribah Cloud Crowley.  She thanks her family, friends, teachers, and is especially grateful to her students, who teach her so much about resilience and kindness every single day. For more information, please visit www.bolsterandbridge.com

To learn how to sign up for this program, please contact [email protected].

First Fridays Chat n Connect
Friday, October 6^th
4:00pm – 5:00pm (PST)
via Zoom

Are you looking for connection to other women who have or have had cancer? We’re here! Every First Friday of the month from 4:00-5:00pm, you are invited to “drop in” to a Zoom meeting where you can chat with your fellow Living Beauties and create community online. There is no set program, nor is this a support group, just the opportunity for loving connection with women who “get you.”

To learn how to sign up for this program, please contact [email protected].