In the beginning of my yoga career, I got a job at an independent living/assisted living/nursing home/hospice facility. I was hired to provide chair yoga therapy sessions for small groups, offer massage therapy, aromatherapy, and homeopathy under the supervision of the head nurse practitioner, and to lead poetry and creative writing groups. They referred to me as their “alternative person.” 😍
It was my first professional yoga therapy gig – and it turned out to be an intensive educational experience. Over the course of nearly six years I learned about degenerative disease processes including Alzheimer’s, dementia, depression, anxiety, cognitive decline, diabetes, stroke, arthritis, and much more. As much as I was learning from the incredible staff, my clients taught me even more about living and dying with dignity. It was an amazing experience to learn so much about elders and the processes of aging.
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The facility, which was in a suburb of Philadelphia, was run by Quakers and it was very progressive. They believed in the Edenization of elder care and they tried really hard to create a vibrant, homey community.
Employees were encouraged to use the onsite daycare and their kids were strolled through the halls on four-seater buggies to visit with the residents, staff, guests, and their parents. There were therapy animals who visited every day, lots of musical guests including a harp player who often came in when someone was dying in hospice, gardening opportunities, a great rec therapy program, live entertainment, dances, and even decent food.
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Right after I was hired, I was instructed to attend the employee orientation/training for a week. They taught us a lot about elder care and chronic conditions, but the highlight was definitely the afternoon we spent experiencing life as an older person with health challenges. The trainers gave us thick, scratched up glasses (to mimic cataracts), we put a couple of popcorn kernels in each sock (to imitate having corns), we put socks on our hands (reduced peripheral nerve function, arthritis, and fine motor challenges), and some earplugs (to simulate hearing loss).
Once we were all ready to go, we were given walkers and paraded around the facility. The staff was savvy to the role play. When we approached a nurse, aid, or other staff member, they jumped in to patronize us. In obnoxiously loud or sticky sweet voices they’d ask, “How’re you doing today honey? Did you have a good bowel movement this morning?” or comment “Watch out for this one, she’s a problem!” or “This one stinks, she must need a diaper change.” It was eye-opening, provocative, and made some of the residents laugh.
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Then they marched us into the dining room and sat us down at a table and pretended to forget about us. They talked to each other about their weekend plans, pretended to make phone calls, and left the room for unknown reasons. Then they gave us some food but intentionally forgot to give us utensils. When someone asked for one they told her she was a troublemaker and asked if she forgot to take her meds.
I was 30 at the time and the experience opened my eyes to the lives of older people and the micro-aggressions and dismissal they are often subjected to. Our culture tends to treat old people like annoying inconveniences at best, pariahs at worst.
While traditional cultures value their elders for their wisdom and experience, Americans often don’t. We tend to warehouse our elders – which is a reflection of the deep dysfunction of our youth obsessed, death denying, death defying culture, as well as the fact that many families have to work as well as care for parents and children at the same time and it’s impossible to do it all.
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Pretty soon after I started working at the facility, I made two good friends – Elizabeth, who was 93 and Marie, who was 100. They had been friends since before they both moved in. Elizabeth was kind-hearted with a passion for spirituality. She loved to poetry and literature. One day she wrote an essay about a little side table that had appeared outside her bedroom door.
She told me that the staff sometimes rearranged common area furniture, so she wasn’t surprised, but she believed that everything happens for a reason.
When that little table showed up outside her door, she took it as a sign. “It was an inverted pyramid with three shelves,” she said. “The bottom shelf was small and wooden, the middle was a little bigger and also wooden, and the top shelf was the biggest and made of glass. I meditated on it until it finally revealed its secrets to me – it showed me that it was a metaphor for human life. All of us are made up of body, mind, and spirit. The body is represented by the smallest wooden shelf, the mind is the middle shelf. They are solid, but they can change a little. But the top, glass shelf, that represents the spirit. And the spirit is limitless.”
She told me that the table stayed outside her door for 3 days, just long enough for her to contemplate its significance. And then it disappeared.
Elizabeth’s close friend Marie was born in Germany but moved to the U.S. in the 1930s. During WW2 she was harassed for being German, even though she was a Quaker pacifist. She didn’t marry until she was in her 40s because, she said, “I had other things to do.” She told me that she and her husband gave themselves what she called a “natural” wedding. They stood out in a field, held hands and said vows, and then rode their horses off into the sunset.
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They had a farm and after the war they adopted several German war orphans. Marie was a big fan of chair yoga and tried to come to every class. She also enjoyed the self-massage I taught her and practiced it regularly. She preferred homeopathy to western medicine when possible. She loved the Quaker tradition and told me that she believed that pacifism was the next step of human evolution.
It was hard to let go of Elizabeth, Marie, and the many other folks who died during my time at the facility. They had enriched my life in ways that I hadn’t expected. Sure, I taught them chair yoga and there were many regulars who believed in the practices, but they taught me SO much more – invaluable lessons about life, love, friendship, and thriving while aging. It was such a privilege to spend time with them, listen to their life stories, and soak up their wisdom.
They changed my perspective on what it means to age. They helped me understand that while aging can be difficult, it can also be a dignified, spiritual experience.
I’ve taught chair yoga in several other settings since that time – mostly to seniors, but also to vets, mental health professionals, and folks with TBIs, strokes, and/or cognitive challenges.
I learned to not make assumptions about people based on their age or their ability. I learned that I didn’t want to teach chair yoga exclusively for fitness or exercise. I learned that chair yoga is an opportunity to help people feel better in their bodies and mind, and it’s also about fun, celebration, laughter, caring, and sense of meaningful community.
Please join me for a 12 hour, online Chair Yoga for Brain Health Training, Sept. 10, 24 and Oct. 8.
CHAIR YOGA FOR YOUR BRAIN & NERVOUS SYSTEM
SUBTLE® YOGA FOR ENHANCING TRAUMA RECOVERY
Five Ways Yogic Meditation Benefits Your Brain – eBook
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Absolutely amazingly beautiful,thoughtful,and inspiring.
A wonderful part of your life’s story! Thank you for sharing. Very profound. 🙏🏻💜🙏🏻
This is absolutely beautiful and sparks many moments from my life. Thank you Kristine. I’ll be in this class! Namaste.
Thank you for sharing Kristine! Thoughtful, inspiring and helpful 🙏
I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Well written…thanks for sharing these stories and inspiration. Two beautiful examples of humanity.
A beautiful post Kristine, written with your huge heart to the fore. I am loving teaching chair yoga to my wonderful group, I never quite know what is going to happen and what spark of delightful chatter will come up. All my group live independently but have various aches, pains or ailments.
In the worst imaginable storm, when I was reluctant to get out of my car into torrential rain, thunder and lightening, the two most incapacitated turned up.
We have shoes, sticks and bags stuck under the chairs, blankets on knees. The room is alive with chat when we start and so still and calm when we end, no one wants to leave.
One lady has several times had a phone call – she doesn’t know how to turn off her phone, and I love that she says she is in a yoga class, she is very immobile, she tells them she is in a yoga class, which I reckon is the last thing they expect to hear. It was suggested by another yogi she tell them she can’t chat as her lover has just walked in the door.
My eldest yogi is a 95 year old man who shuffles up to do all the standing work, when I took my 12 year old grandson along I realised there was 83 years age difference between them. They all looked for him the next week as they loved him being in the class. We start the class with a poem and end in deep shavasana and in between we have oiled each joint, given healing self-massage and done our range of Kristine-style movements, noting the pause and how it feels within. Each class is truly a gift that feeds my soul. Thank you for all your wisdom and teaching.
Wow WOW, Sheila. If I wasn’t committed before, I sure am after reading your comment. My idea is to teach a chair yoga club to my middle school girls group and then take them to our local assisted living home as a community service (and enlightenment) activity. Can’t you just see them sitting every other chair with the elders?!
Lisa, superb idea!
Sheila, this is astounding! You are also big hearted and compassionate as well as innovative. Bringing your 12yo to classes is such an inter generational gift 🙏🕉💞
Thank you, what lovely comments to read. I think the generational ideas are great, and interesting to watch who is more flexible and confident. My grandson, Ben, was not as spry as the older yogis, although he had not done yoga and is quite shy, but he gave it all a go as he was made so welcome. Most of the class are onto great grandchildren now. Ben was with me for the school holidays (I am in New Zealand, so different academic year), I think they are all hoping he will get back one day. I think one of the most important parts of the class is the social aspect, they even send apologies when they can’t get there.
I am very lucky as it is a funded class, paid for by charitable groups, so my yogis only donate a gold coin – or koha as it is known here. That money then goes into a bank to cover any gap weeks in the funding. It makes it accessible for my Golden Age yogis. I feel it a total privilege to be able to off this class.
This was so wonderful to read Kristine .. what an amazing adventure you were on . How progressive of a facility back then wish there was more of them around . Thank you for sharing
Having a rough few days with my vestibular issues but “this too shall pass and I’ll be back on my mat soon !!
Love this. I have had the privilege to work with the elderly over the past 23 years. I find them fascinating, funny, loving , they are amazing companions and excellent guides. I have care
for the elderly and I am always mindful of respecting their space and to only do what they struggle with to help. Their independentance is so important in keeping them young and stimulated. We have a lot to be thankful for our elderly generation, we must not forget that.
Even in the most stagnant environments there is healing where there is love . Your experience was a real testimony to this. Your friends and your client group whilst written off by a ageist health care system were inspiring souls. As formerly overly competitive Ashtanga Diva, I tried one of your chair yoga sessions, the other day. I was sceptical at the beginning by the end I felt so peaceful and grounded. Im open to learning more both for me and my clients.
Kristine,
I loved this blog post…especially your reflections on your relationship with Elizabeth and Marie.
Susan
Well expressed, I love reading your shared experiences. Most of what you’ve achieved is not on my path formally this life-time, yet, I want to receive as much as I can so I can make some progression this life time. Being present in the present moment is amazingly enriching. Looking forward to the chair yoga sessions.
So touching! Thank you Kristine
Chair yoga is my favorite class to teach. I stepped up to teach it when there was no one else more than 10 years ago and have only grown personally and professionally since. The class participants are warm, embracing and wise. They are also open to anything and everything I bring to them. The fellowship is enriching. Give me active older adults any day of the week. All you said in your article and much, much more.
What a wonderful story. I recently started teaching a class in an assisted living/nursing home. It is a seated general fitness class, but I incorporate some yoga and tai chi. Some residents come early to chat while I’m setting up, and some stick around to chat afterwards. It is very rewarding to work with the elderly, getting a little exercise and socializing is so important to their well-being. This week I am starting at another facility.
Sweet article, K. Loved reading it and learning more about your experience, the wise elders, and this progressive facility. Their employee orientation/training was /is brilliant!
it was really eye-opening! thank you Karen. xoxo
Thanks for sharing your experience, Kristine. How can I join this Chair Yoga online class?
Hey Jenny! Here’s a link: https://go.subtleyoga.com/chair-training
Thank you so much for sharing – you continue to inspire and amaze me – validating my passion for holistic health. Much gratitude!!
Thanks so much Rita!