Story Time

Hi, I’m Stephanie

Let me tell you a little of my story & how I found my life’s purpose (as cheesy as that sounds) of practicing & teaching yoga for chronic pain.

I was diagnosed

with JRA at age 13

What is JRA?

Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. Its an autoimmune disorder affecting the joints of the body, more specifically the synovial lining of the joints, resulting in heat, swelling, sensitivity, limited range of motion & constant pain. 

I was diagnosed with “polyarticular” JRA, meaning I had 5 or more affected joints at the time of diagnosis. I can also remember having extremely sensitive skin (esp on the soles of my feet). I couldn’t touch my bare feet to the floor & can remember having to crawl to get around sometimes to save my feet the pain.

At 13 I was a newly teenage gal living in a small Midwest town. I had been a competitive dancer since age 5, a budding snowboarder at the time, and an all-around lover of any & all movement. 

My condition was severe enough to require the help of Dr.s hours away & medication from the get-go. I recall feeling very much like a human guinea pig before we found any treatment that worked. Eventually, we discovered a combo of meds (antineoplastics & biologics) that greatly eased my pain and restored some normal function. I have since had a long and very bumpy road with meds, & still require them to function well this day.

So… Why Yoga?

If I had a very painful degenerative joint disease, why did I decide to take up a career in movement?!

The short-long of yoga finding me is that I took ‘Hatha Yoga 101’ as a college course at age 19. I had never tried yoga, but since it looked like another cool way to move through space, I gave it a go.

It didn’t take me longer than the first class to realize that yoga was so much more than physical movement.

I kept up my own personal practice for another 5 years, having to take private lessons and adaptive yoga classes around several flares in my RA. Yoga kept my body gently moving and gave my mind the tools to handle an unpredictable disease.

I enrolled in a yoga teacher training program at the Yoga Center of Minneapolis in September 2012. Even in my primary training, I could begin to create a teaching voice for adaptive, modifiable & subtle body yoga. I began teaching one short month into my program.

Age is wisdom

Its hard to quantify the things you can learn from time spent – but I believe if you are paying attention, you should be getting wiser as the years tick by.

Years with RA

Years teaching yoga

Fast Forward

So now, years later, I pass the gift that was given to me on to new practitioners. In particular, those who live in chronic pain and limitation. If you found your way here- that may be you. I see you. I feel you.