Kelly Inselmann

Kelly Inselmann has worked as a Psychotherapist and Yoga Teacher integrating the practices of therapy and yoga through her clinical work for 15 years. She has extensive training in individual and group psychotherapy. Prior to beginning her private practice in 1998, she worked with trauma victims through a variety of non-profit and local government agencies. As a yoga teacher she holds both a 500 Hour Yoga Teacher Certification and an International 200 Hour Kundalini Yoga Teacher Certification, and she has been a Yoga Alliance member since 2002. In addition, she is a registered Yoga Therapist (500 level). She is the founder of the Yoga and Talk™ therapy model and has offered group programs since 2002 to a variety of demographic groups including adolescent girls, adult women, children in the schools, people in recovery, and cancer survivors. Kelly lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and daughter.

Meditation and Memory: Cutting Edge Research

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Can the cognitive side effects of cancer treatment be improved or lessened by daily meditation? This is the question we are attempting to answer by studying Kirtan Kriya, a kundalini yoga meditation, through the Brain ABC Study (Improving Brain Function after Breast Cancer) at the University of Texas School of Nursing.

Ashley Hennehgan, PhD, MSN, RN is the researcher leading the study as part of her valuable work studying survivorship after cancer.

I met Ashley when I participated in her prior study on chemobrain in breast cancer survivors several years ago. Dealing with “chemobrain” myself, I wanted to understand and contribute to the data being collected.

I helped her recruit more participants from my classes and groups and then asked if she’d be interested in studying a kundalini yoga meditation, Kirtan Kriya, that was found to reduce inflammation and improve memory.

Fast forward a few years and I’ve been collaborating with her on a PILOT study of the effects of Kirtan Kriya on the cognitive functioning of breast cancer survivors. The results are just beginning to come in and they are very interesting.

 

It’s funny how many full circle moments you experience with the privilege of getting older and emotionally navigating the cancer experience.

11 years ago, I was completing 12 months of chemotherapy and Herceptin. Perhaps the most devastating side effect of a difficult journey was how cognitively impaired I felt. My questions and concerns about chemobrain were dismissed.

I was told that chemotherapy did not cross the “blood/brain barrier” and that any cognitive symptoms must be due to depression or anxiety. I remember looking in the library at MD Anderson for anything I could find on chemobrain.  There was very little.

I was used to having a great memory. I could remember all the details of my client’s stories, plan and strategize my work, speak with confidence in workshops and yoga classes.

But after treatment, my ability to plan or prioritize was noticeably impaired, as was my short term memory. I would forget conversations I’d just had and could no longer remember people’s names or simple words.

Recently, a yoga class student shared her sorrow and fear about memory problems as she goes through chemotherapy. I told her that the cognitive challenges were among the most difficult part of treatment for me. While I have never gone back to how I was before cancer, my executive functioning and memory have improved tremendously over the years.

What’s more, I’ve learned to treat the challenges with patience instead of fear and alarm. Meditation certainly helps!

Stay tuned to learn more about our chemobrain research in upcoming months and for the possibility of an expanded PILOT program that will include survivors of many different cancers.

You can find information on the current study here:https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03696056

Are You Easily Shocked?

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Learning that you or a loved one has cancer is a shock. Most survivors measure their lives as before and after cancer, often commemorating the day of diagnosis as their “cancerversary,” the day their lives changed forever.

The word cancer itself, until very recently, was whispered and avoided for the fear it could inspire.

People who were very ill were sometimes not even told their diagnosis for fear that

the truth would create unbearable emotional distress.

What does emotional shock look like? It can vary:

  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Memory lapses
  • Confusion
  • Feeling shut down or numb
  • Inability to function
  • Fear, anger, difficulty controlling emotions
  • Feelings of helplessness
  • Feeling outside of your body
  • Difficulty remaining in the present moment
  • Laughing, crying, screaming
  • Being in denial and moving along as though nothing has happened.
  • At a moment when you most need to be clearminded in order to make complicated decisions on treatment, you may feel foggy, overwhelmed or emotionally disregulated.

It’s a challenge, but this is the time to get grounded.

Getting grounded means taking measures to feel connected to your body, your breath and the present moment.

In a moment of overwhelm, here’s what I recommend for getting grounded:

  1. Rely on your community – start talking and sharing what you feel with safe people. Do not try to go it alone if you can connect with others. Get and give hugs and healthy touch (try a massage!).
  2. If you don’t have much social support at diagnosis, reach out immediately for support groups in person and online. Find spaces that are encouraging and uplifting at this point in the process.
  3. Do practices for connecting to your body and breath , and through your body to the earth and nature. Walking, running, swimming, meditation, yoga, connecting to pets or children.
  4. Check out this video for one guided practice:http://www.kellyinselmann.com/monday-morning-videos/move-the-body-balance-the-mind-warm-ups/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Art of Saying No

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So you want to say no, but you don’t know how?

If you are unsure whether you should make others comfortable at your own expense, read last week’s post here http://www.kellyinselmann.com/monday-morning-videos/can-boundaries-improve-your-relationships/?fbclid=IwAR2H7X9QkWEv137hzdRV6AmBgPTQuIDU-ABZBLb5ozbGeFzydbukQ-4AC7Y

Many people don’t get early training in saying no or asserting yourself. That’s ok-but there’s no time like the present to start!

In the service of your health and emotional wellbeing, you must be willing to take the time and space you need to heal.

And that means being willing to choose to prioritize your peace of mind and energy and to reclaim your time. Giving yourself this permission can be the hardest part for some people.

Does this mean never help or be there for another person? Of course not!

But I will wager most of you are already well trained and adept in the art of putting others first.

Allow me to share a few of the phrases that make it easier for for me to protect my energy:

  • I’m so sorry to interrupt, but I’m going to have to hang up now. Talk to you later. Then hang up!
  • I really want to hear more about this, but I’m going to have to call you back (take a nap, get on to my next activity). Then move along.
  • I wish I could sign up, but I’m still healing/resting/receiving treatment.
  • I wish I could, but I can’t.
  • I’m not in a position to volunteer right now.
  • No thank you.
  • “No.” It can be a complete sentence!
  • I’d love to, but let me think about it. I’m still healing.
  • Do not raise your hand or sign your name if it’s not going to bring you JOY (or save an actual life).
  • Try to avoid giving long explanations that will tempt others to keep asking.

It’ s crucial to get used to the idea that you may not receive as much (or any!) praise and thanks for saying no.  Some people may even push back with annoyance or hurt.

But as you stop overcommitting, you are making space for joy, delight, and healing.  You are preparing for the moment that you can say YES and mean it.

It is your right and responsibility to keep setting limits on activities that drain your energy.

They may not thank you for saying no, but that’s OK!

Can Boundaries Improve Your Relationships?

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Do you ever feel depleted by relationships that are draining? This can be a signal to notice whether you are maintaining healthy boundaries.

When you hear the word boundaries, what comes up for you?

Boundaries are guidelines, rules or limits about how you want to spend your energy and how you will allow others to treat you. They can be either explicitly stated or simply understood by the parties involved.

Healthy, appropriate boundaries create more safety and enjoyment for everyone in the relationship. Expectations are clear and the needs of both parties are more likely to be understood and met.

For example, Sandra had friend who was eager to “cheer her up” but her way of doing so felt intrusive. She called too much and seemed to want a lot of reassurance and attention from Sandra who was fatigued at the end of chemo. She acted hurt or offended if Sandra couldn’t connect with her as often as she wanted.

Boundaries can be tricky during the cancer experience. On the one hand, you may need assistance more than ever. For some, learning how to ask for help and be the recipient of assistance feels very vulnerable even with kind hearted people who could potentially be uplifting in your moment of need.

Sometimes, though, you may end up relying on people with whom you have a complicated relationship. You may even question whether the “assistance” is worth the interaction.

Part of taking care of yourself emotionally and physically is having healthy boundaries. You may not realize this, but there is no relationship or dynamic that you cannot stop and re-evaluate.

Another common challenge is Rebecca’s experience of family and friends wanting her to “get on with life” and “embrace the new normal” when she still needs time and space to heal, eboth physically or emotionally. You may not yet be ready for lots of social activities or to resume family or community responsibilities that aren’t urgent.

When thinking of which boundaries (and relationships) to maintain, I like the questions posed by yoga teacher Donna Farhi:

When attempting to determine what is a healthy boundary for yourself, feel in your body and ask these questions:

 

When I consider doing xyz, does this cause energetic discomfort or uncomfortable feelings to arise in my body?

 

When I consider not doing or allowing xyz, what feelings arise in my body?

 

Am I unable to assert my boundaries because my primary concern is about protecting, not hurting, or offending the other person?

 

When I honor how I feel in an unqualified way and imagine the outcome that would allow me to respect my boundaries, how do I feel in my body?

 

This week, experiment with noticing your own boundaries in relationships.

Where might an adjustment need to be made so that you feel freer energetically?

Stay tuned for next week’s post about strategies for speaking up!

 

Befriending Discomfort and Each Other

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The cancer experience almost invariably brings discomfort. From initial diagnosis through treatment and after, physical and emotional discomfort can be a side effect.

I’ve been invited to present on my work at the International Yoga Therapy Conference and plan to share 3 healing elements from trauma psychology (which derived them from eastern mindfulness practices) to address working with discomfort. I teach these in every class and group to address side effects, anxiety and depression, and PTSD.

These Elements of Befriending Discomfort are:

Getting “Grounded”

Becoming the Observer.

Allowing Everything to Be (just as it is in this moment).

All of this is easier said than done. That’s why we need places to practice!

How can you learn these practices with me?

  1. Join the JoyBoots Community List and receive a free weekly Monday newsletter with meditations and inspiration for emotional recovery after cancer.
  2. Try the Tuesday online LIVE JoyBoots Sanctuary Community from the comfort of your own home.
  3. Attend the Wellness Warrior Yoga class on Wednesdays at noon at YogaYoga Westgate (open to women and men)
  4. Schedule an individual session with me at Cancer Rehab and Integrative Medicines. Office hours are Thursdays or online.kellyinselmanntherapy@gmail.com
  5. Get on the preregistration list for my 6 week online course, Healing Well: Reconnect with Your Life After Cancer which begins again in July.kellyinselmanntherapy@gmail.com

My groups and classes are lively and full of smart women who have made strong friendships and support one another as well as welcome newcomers. All programs are open to women who have experienced any type of cancer.

Befriending discomfort is an ongoing practice of bringing light and compassion to yourself and your human experience.  It’s also allowing others to connect with you, even through the pain.  Sharing the burden can mitigate the pain.

 

The Benefits of Interrupting

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Is interrupting always rude? Raised in Texas to have good manners, I learned never to interrupt, to be a good listener and to make a lot of space for others.

But having survived cancer and hit the half century mark, I’m starting to think differently about interrupting.

Particularly when it’s in the service of my mental, physical and emotional health.

If you are like me, it’s easy to operate on automatic pilot, attending to the same tasks, driving to the same places, cooking the same meals, distracting yourself in the same ways, listening to the same people, even thinking the same thoughts.

Do you have any thoughts that are repeated over and over? How are they serving you?

Cancer and other difficult situations can shock you right out of your everyday illusions, waking you to appreciate what you have taken for granted, challenging you to deepen your awareness of the present moment.

Difficulties and tragedies awaken your ability to more clearly see the patterns in your life and make different choices.

What are the patterns to interrupt?  For example, our pattern of shallow breathing which reinforces anxiety, ruminating negative thoughts about the past or future, restricted range of movement, repressing emotions, making others comfortable at your own expense, isolating yourself,  and ignoring your own intuition.

I love to teach yoga and meditation, breathwork and mantra as tools that disrupt the status quo inside of you.

These practices create a space outside your normal pattern, even if for just a moment. It is in these moments that you begin to observe your patterns. By becoming the observer, over time, you are able to choose different habits of movement, thinking and breathing. And meanwhile you are experiencing moments of greater calm and openness.

These moments have a cumulative effect and over time can strengthen and stabilize your mind and energy.

You don’t have to only behave according to the cultural customs you learned. As long as you are alive, you can try new things if you can momentarily disrupt how things have always been.

5 Tips for Joining a Cancer Support Group

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Having cancer is an intensely personal experience. As a woman in the JoyBoots Sanctuary Community recently said, confronting cancer has been “the most intimate and personal experience I’ve ever had.”

You are aware of how your body functions like never before. The breasts, colon, lungs, blood, or bones you took for granted may become a source of pain, vulnerability, shame, or loss. You may also have feelings of intense gratitude and appreciation for your body.

You are probed and investigated by tests and procedures that confront your sense of privacy and body integrity.

There’s a certain amount of dissociation required at times just to endure an intrusive, painful or frightening test or to get through a difficult day, week or month.

Your emotional response is deeply personal and unique as well.

Some people immediately turn to community to ask for support and prayer, sharing their experience openly. They gain energy by connecting with others and feel strengthened by the social contact, both with fellow survivors and with supporters.

Others prefer to keep their experience private and confidential, choosing not to tell loved ones at all or keeping their experience to a small trusted group, avoiding public disclosure. Depending on your career or security at your workplace, you may not feel comfortable with colleagues or competitors hearing of your illness.

In my 10 years facilitating Yoga and Talk Therapy groups, retreat and classes for survivors, I’ve met people with many different approaches to emotional survival and healing.

You get to CHOOSE the unique ways you feel safe, resilient, strengthened

and/or healed.

When I was diagnosed, a local support group was recommended to me by an acquaintance who said: “This is a great group. They don’t just sit around ‘boo hooing’ all the time.” At that time, with a new baby and stage 3 breast cancer, I worried that I wouldn’t be able to put on a positive front in order to fit in. I was doing plenty of that to get through each day. What I actually needed was a place to be real with my feelings both positive and “negative.”  I ended up dropping into a few support groups but didn’t connect deeply for fear of overwhelming others who were trying to be “positive.”

On the flip side, I hear from people who worry about getting “triggered” by hearing the experience of others. They worry it will make them more anxious or turn them “negative.”

One friend shared she was worried that joining a group would make her identify as a “victim” when she had fought so hard to stay positive and focused on a good outcome. The idea of sharing in a group was scary and irritating. She felt it would mean she’d have to reclaim a “cancer identity.” She worried that hearing the feelings of others could overwhelm or depress her.

Folks who are highly empathic worry they will take on the pain of others and may assume this is inevitable.

My experience with groups is that they are invaluable – both as SANCTUARIES to feel safe and connected with others who deeply understand and as LABS where you can experiment with sharing your thoughts and feelings in real time, taking risks to connect, learning from others to grow in your understanding of yourself. When it’s a good fit, a group is uplifting, energizing, and connecting.

Here are my top 5 tips for approaching cancer support groups:

1.Be willing to experiment. Try something once to see if it’s a good fit. Not all groups are well run or have healthy dynamics so it’s ok to be choosy. Even if it’s a good fit for someone else, it may not be for you. That’s ok. We are all different.

2.Ask questions and express your concerns to the leader, whether a professional or a peer. I love it when people talk about their fear of taking on the feelings or responsibility for other members because it gives me a chance to help them have healthy boundaries. We can come up with a strategy so I can step in and give them space to talk about it. Learning how to have these boundaries can translate to many relationships in your life.

3.Realize you can set boundaries. I remind people they have joined my groups first for their own healing not just to show up for others. You should not join a group assuming it’s your role to fix anyone else or take on their burdens. Just as nobody can “fix” you, don’t expect this of yourself.

4.Allow others to have their own experience. Just because someone else is caught in anger, anxiety, fear or even the “positive” feelings of gratitude, contentment, acceptance, doesn’t mean that has to be where you are. Everybody is different.

5.Talk about your feelings with the group as they come up. If you are feeling overwhelmed, share this with the group. If you are feeling content or having an insight, share it! You will likely be a voice for the whole group and your courage in sharing will lead to deeper connection.

So often a life threatening illness can leave you alone with your thoughts, fears and hopes, grief and gratitude. Coming together with other survivors helps you express yourself, tolerate and even celebrate your feelings and experiences, and find deeper meaning that can enrich your life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cosmic Perspective

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Those who see the cosmic perspective as a depressing outlook,

they really need to reassess how they look at the world.

Because when I look up in the universe, I know I’m small but I’m also big. 

I’m big because I’m connected to the universe and the universe is connected to me.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

First Things First

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First things first.

After you have cancer, you begin to re-think your priorities in life.

Which relationships are most important? How do you want to spend your free time? What has been left undone?

What must you say “no” to in order to say “yes” to what really matters?

You may have some physical limitations: fatigue, pain, insomnia, other side effects. You may be dealing with “chemobrain” or struggling with anxiety or depression. Making adjustments so that you can get through each day.

After cancer, I became adept at looking through my weekly calendar and crossing out non-essential activities in order to have more unscheduled down time.

Because: first things first. I need time to just “be” and not feel constantly rushed.

What will enable you to live and enjoy the best life you can? It’s a good question for everyone to ask themselves, cancer or not.

Recently, Michelle came to our weekly yoga class and shared that she was feeling well enough to get a part time job. She was very excited for the new opportunity. But, she announced, she’d taken the job on one condition. She told her boss up front that every Wednesday she had to have a little extra time for her lunch hour so she could go to yoga class. Because she’s determined to prioritize her health and emotional well being and the weekly yoga helps her do so.

First things first.

Where can you set limits in your life this week to protect your energy and free up valuable moments of your life?

What would you really like to say “yes!” to?

DISCLAIMER
I’m a licensed clinical social worker and yoga teacher practicing in Austin, Texas. My writings and videos represent a combination of my own personal opinions and my professional training, but they do not reflect professional or medical advice. Interaction with me via the vlog or blog does not constitute a professional therapeutic relationship. For individualized professional advice, you should seek the services of a therapist who can dedicate the time necessary to get to know you and your physical and mental health needs. I do not assume liability for any portion or content of material on the vlog/blog and accept no liability for damage or injury resulting from your decision to interact with the website.

© 2024 Kelly Inselmann. All Rights Reserved.
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When I remember my Joy Boots… I feel grounded, connected to the earth and my place in it. I accept my body with its vulnerabilities and sensations. I am aware of my breathing and able to breathe deeply. I am connected to my own life force energy.

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