Refuge Yoga
for People Living with Chronic pain
Refuge Yoga utilizes asanas (postures), meditation, and breathing techniques to help you find more comfort in every day. Together we will adapt asanas to serve your body's unique challenges, explore techniques to calm your body's pain messages, and cultivate your ability to cope with pain more gracefully.
Monthly Workshops
Please join us on the first Tuesday of each month for our Monthly Refuge Yoga Workshops! Open to anyone, each workshop focuses on a theme (such as neck care, low back care, gentle hip opening, etc.). Monthly Workshops are a great opportunity to experience Refuge Yoga before committing to the 6 week Deep Dive. If you've already participated in a Deep Dive, this is the perfect place to refresh and deepen your skills.
Deep Dive
We're all complex beings. The deep dive is a 6 week series that gives us time to explore our unique needs. We will work together to build a sustainable practice that is informed by our full experience. While our Monthly Workshops focus on a specific area of the body, the Deep Dive focuses on all of you. Stay connected for information on when our next Deep Dive will be offered.
Investment
$30 for Monthly Workshops / $210 for Deep Dives. We currently accept cash, check, Venmo, and PayPal. A sliding scale is available in cases of financial need, and donations are gratefully accepted to increase our sliding scale offerings.
Who we are
Brandon carruth, BA, CYT
My yoga practice is centered on finding respite from all the outcomes of chronic trauma - physical, mental, or emotional. I began in my living room in 1996 and continued a gentle asana and meditation practice until my successful diagnosis and treatment for Lyme Disease in 2008. The sudden relief I experienced gave me new insight into the recovery process and led to an intensive study of anatomy, ergonomics, dietetics, and postural modification. The culmination of this study was completing my yoga teacher certification. The focus of my teaching is helping students build skills and confidence to trust their intuition, redefine their relationships with their bodies, and rediscover the joy of play.
kallie england, lmsw, cyt
When I began practicing yoga in 2009, I was living in pain nearly every day. In 2013, I committed to a regular yoga practice and slowly but surely my pain story changed. Yoga was such an integral part of my journey out of chronic pain that as soon as I completed my MSW, I moved to Ananda Ashram in Monroe, NY, to pursue my 200 hour teacher training. After my training program ended, I continued living at the Ashram for four months, studying Sanskrit language & Vedic Philosophy and teaching asana at the Ashram's yoga school. I moved back to Ann Arbor to take a job as a therapist for people living with chronic pain and I return to the Ashram often for advanced study. I am deeply grateful for the role yoga has played in my life and consider it an invaluable tool for living well, with or without chronic pain. When I teach, I strive to create a safe and sacred environment in which physical, emotional, and spiritual transformation can occur. It would be a privilege to help you discover how yoga may help transform your journey.