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.

Jumping out of your skin?

December 9, 2024October 27, 2024 by Kelly Inselmann

This week, I came across a talk I gave to the International Association of Yoga Therapists on the subject of Discomfort. There’s ALOT of discomfort in the cancer experience that normal coping strategies simply do not address. And I’ve been hearing from JoyBooters that the election season has people more stressed than ever.

Listen to my Talk from 2018 about Discomfort and the ways that Getting Grounded, Becoming the Observer/Witness to your Experience, and Allowing Things to BE just as they are can help you contend with it. Even learn to Befriend it.

I feel even more strongly that this is what I need to focus on for my own mental and physical health at the moment.

I do a simple yoga and breath work practice to discharge tension and anxiety, as well as to build back energy and courage. These also help me access my neutral mind where I can rest and become the observer which helps put things into perspective so I CAN enjoy the present moment.

Being in the NOW is easier with practice, designated spaces, and community. You have to be willing to show up for yourself and others.

To keep reading, consider being a JoyBoots subscriber.

Joy Boots for Cancer Survivors

Encouragement, companionship, community and support for cancer survivors.

Election Season? Back to Basics Yoga

October 25, 2024October 20, 2024 by Kelly Inselmann

About 10 days ago, something happened to a loved one that scared and shocked me. It was a life or death situation and I was far away.

The good news is they are perfectly fine, but I didn’t know that for about seven hours, one of which I was driving in the dark to the hospital.

I’m not sharing the details for this person’s privacy. But I will talk about how it affected me! It took me right back to some of my worst moments and memories.

You know those times when you are in fight or flight mode and can’t even articulate a thought?

Once it was over, and I knew they were safe, I found myself frozen. I couldn’t talk about it for several days and I mostly felt numb.

In a short period of time, it really mirrored every other experience I’d had with great fear and loss (or the possibility of it).

Moving my body helped. I forced myself to take some short walks, stretch, and even made it to swim laps.

I tracked how out-of-my-body-and-mind I felt.

What pulls us away from being present?

Fear of loss, fear of what’s around the corner.

Now that things have evened out in my life for the moment, I’m back to recognizing other ways and reasons I abandon myself in the present moment.

I have fear about the election. Along with a host of other feelings: sadness, anger, hope.

And in addition to the election, I know JoyBooters who are contending with cancer or with loved one’s illnesses, or any of life’s other curveballs, are managing some sort of fear.

To keep reading, consider being a JoyBoots subscriber.

Joy Boots for Cancer Survivors

Encouragement, companionship, community and support for cancer survivors.

Step One: Dealing with Reality

October 25, 2024September 30, 2024 by Kelly Inselmann

Or for Gen Xers like me: Reality Bites

Reality is always getting in the way of my plans. The most common example I struggle with is being on time for things. Having a child definitely has made me late alot but her desire to arrive a few minutes early everywhere is teaching me that time can be managed and lateness avoided.

Reality is always there waiting for you to be ready to see it.

“You have to deal with reality or reality will deal with you at the LCM”, said Dr. Robert Svoboda, Ayurvedic Physician and Author, to a group of 80 students at a yoga training in Austin in 2010.

There was silence in the room as people listened and pondered for a few moments.

Finally someone asked, “What’s the LCM?”

“Least Convenient Moment,” he said.

I cracked up along with others in the group. Touche.

Or as my 16-year-old daughter would say: #facts.

Being diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer when my daughter was 2-months-old was definitely the least convenient moment for me.

But is any moment convenient to learn you have a life threatening illness or that your loved one does?

To keep reading, consider being a JoyBoots subscriber.

Joy Boots for Cancer Survivors

Encouragement, companionship, community and support for cancer survivors.

Feeling Moody?

October 25, 2024September 27, 2024 by Kelly Inselmann

Mental health is an essential aspect of overall well-being. The experience of a cancer diagnosis and its treatment can lead to various emotional and psychological challenges.

Here are some key points to consider:

1. Emotional Impact

– Diagnosis Shock: Receiving a cancer diagnosis can lead to shock, fear, and anxiety. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed.

– Mood Changes: Patients may experience sadness, anger, or frustration throughout their journey.

2. Common Mental Health Issues

– Depression: Feelings of hopelessness or persistent sadness can arise due to the stress of the illness and its treatment.

– Anxiety: Worry about treatment outcomes, finances, and the future can cause significant anxiety.

– PTSD: You may develop post-traumatic stress disorder, especially if you experience a traumatic diagnosis or treatment process.

How to Cope?

Engage with family, friends, and support groups. Look into counseling, therapy, or support groups specific to cancer.

Practices such as meditation, yoga, and deep-breathing exercises can help manage stress.

To keep reading, consider being a JoyBoots subscriber.

Joy Boots for Cancer Survivors

Encouragement, companionship, community and support for cancer survivors.

Step One: Being Honest with Yourself about Cancer’s Impact

October 25, 2024September 16, 2024 by Kelly Inselmann

Before you can heal, you have to get real with yourself about what’s wrong.

Seventeen years later, my life is still affected by the experience of cancer. This may not be true for a small portion of people diagnosed, those who are fortunate enough to recover quickly with little medical intervention, but in my experience as a survivor, caregiver/spouse, psychotherapist and yoga therapist who has worked with cancer survivors professionally, most people face an intense reckoning with themselves and with everything they know to be true.

First of all, your body has revealed its essential vulnerability. I was a vegetarian, yoga practitioner, meditator and therapist. And if I say I was shocked by my diagnosis, that would be a huge understatement. Honestly, I didn’t even know what cancer was. It was that far off my radar. I had to Google “what is cancer” to find out it’s rogue cells trying to make you sick, getting together to form tumors.

In my case, my brain was immediately hijacked and I was in a state of fight/flight. Having a 2 month old baby and being a first time mother made me even less emotionally stable with hormones surging and sleep deprivation already in play, along with my heightened terror of leaving my baby without her mother.

One year later, I was finished with active treatment that had included chemotherapy, a clinical trial, surgery and radiation.

And a new phase of emotional recovery was going to be necessary.

To keep reading, consider being a JoyBoots subscriber.

Joy Boots for Cancer Survivors

Encouragement, companionship, community and support for cancer survivors.

Are you fighting to quickly put yourself back in the same environment you were in when you got sick?

October 25, 2024May 6, 2024 by Kelly Inselmann

Should you be fighting to quickly put yourself back in the same environment you were in when you got sick?

Talaya Dendy, Cancer Doula and Podcaster, posed this question in our recent conversation about helping people move forward after cancer.

We talked about how traumatic the cancer experience is and how so many people are not getting the support they need.

It’s important to slow down and reflect and use the opportunity of diagnosis to think more deeply about what you want from the rest of your life.

But this can be hard to do when you are stuck in a trauma response! Why?

Because in trauma, your nervous system gets stuck in fight/flight/freeze.

When you were first diagnosed, how did you react? Did you get angry at doctors who didn’t catch the cancer and write them multiple letters, as I did (fight)? Did you miss appointments, avoid discussing the diagnosis and refuse to share with anyone (flight). Did your response change as time went on?

When you get stuck in fight/flight/freeze is when the problems can start including symptoms like:

Rumination (thinking about the same thing over and over)
Avoidance (of activities, people, feelings)
Feeling numb (inability to feel much of anything- anger, love, hope)
Difficulty thinking clearly or making decisions
Depression
Anxiety
Insomnia
Irritability

Talaya and I also talked about how trauma from earlier in your life prior to cancer impacts people in treatment. As cancer therapists, we are not solely focused on the immediate cancer experience, but the WHOLE person and the experiences that have brought them to where they are today.

To keep reading, consider being a JoyBoots subscriber.

Joy Boots for Cancer Survivors

Encouragement, companionship, community and support for cancer survivors.

How does yoga help the healing process?

April 2, 2024March 11, 2024 by Kelly Inselmann

When you step into a yoga practice that is really attuned to your physical and emotional needs, you feel safe, you can deeply relax, and the mind can go into a neutral space to interrupt usual patterns of worried thinking or self judgment.

In order to heal there has to be a moment of neutrality, an opportunity to become the observer of your experience instead of thinking you can control everything.

Yoga allows people to observe how much pressure they put on themselves and experiment with letting it go, even if just for the duration of the class. It helps them move their bodies to discharge anger, fear and pain.

Kundalini Yoga is known as the yoga of awareness and uses movement, breath work, mantra, and meditation to help you connect to your body, mind, energy and true Self.

“For some people in class, this is the first time they have tried yoga, but they are with a tribe of others who have walked through fire. To be in that environment and to know your teacher and fellow students know what it’s like and are still doing the practices together and rejoicing is powerful.”

~ Judy, Program Participant

JoyBoots & Research

March 11, 2024 by Kelly Inselmann

Kirtan Kriya is a meditation that can help as we live through interesting times to bring stability to the mind and calm to the nervous system.

I conceptualized and collaborated with Ashley Henneghan, NP, PhD, on testing the impact of this meditation on people experiencing chemo brain and I’m excited to share this article detailing the research.

I met Ashley in 2016, by helping her recruit JoyBooters for her study on the prevalence and impact of chemo brain on breast cancer survivors at the University of Texas School of Nursing, where she is now an Associate Professor and Researcher, and Founder of the Henneghan Lab: Cognitive Health Initiative for Cancer Survivors.

We were both yoga and meditation practitioners and began to discuss collaborating to research meditation, specifically Kirtan Kriya, as an effective intervention for cognitive impairment (chemo brain).

Based on prior research from UCLA showing that Kirtan Kriya reduced inflammation and improved memory and cognitive function, and from my own experience practicing and teaching it, I suggested we study its measurable impact on people suffering from chemo brain. See this recent article from UCLA: https://www.uclahealth.org/news/new-understanding-power-yoga

Ashley is a leading researcher on quality of life and wellness after cancer and always has several studies happening at once. Nevertheless, she found a way to get funding for a pilot study on the impact of Kirtan Kriya on post-chemotherapy breast cancer survivors.

My role was to teach the meditations, explore questions or resistances to daily practice with the participants, and check in on them regularly.

Interestingly, the study also found that perceived cognitive changes following (breast) cancer treatment are multifactorial. Higher stress levels, loneliness, daytime sleepiness, and poorer sleep quality are linked to worse perceived cognitive functioning. Also, stress, loneliness, and sleep quality may affect cognitive functioning through a shared psychobiological pathway.

Interventions targeting stress, loneliness, and sleep quality may also improve perceived cognitive functioning in (breast) cancer survivors.

These are difficult challenges. JoyBooter programs can be a powerful tool to address many of these symptoms through community, yoga movement, processing traumatic moments together, and learning meditation tools.

Check out more research articles and resources at Henneghan Lab: Cognitive Health Initiative for Cancer Survivors.

Rest and Resources

March 25, 2024January 31, 2024 by Kelly Inselmann

Rest

Rest can be so under valued in our culture, but it’s crucial for both emotional and physical healing.

Look for opportunities to seek a place of rest in your everyday life, a concept from The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach us about Living Fully.

http://www.kellyinselmann.com/meditations/an-invitation-to-seek-a-place-of-rest/

and Krista Tippett’s On Being Podcast where she interviews Katherine May about wintering.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/katherine-may-how-wintering-replenishes/id150892556?i=1000544477183

Resources

1. Cutting edge research on survivorship if you have been treated for breast cancer in the past 5 years, are over 21 years of age, live in the U.S., and use a smartphone (you may be eligible to participate).
Contact my colleague, Ashley Hennegan, PhD, RN, FAAN, here.

2. Rakefet Laviolette, LPC Associate, is offering a new Group for Caregivers. Details can be found here.

3. Moving Beyond Cancer Coalition Classes : https://www.mbccollaborative.org/classes-seminars

Classes on healthy survivorship, movement and more,

Research Opportunity on Survivorship (with compensation)

March 25, 2024January 29, 2024 by Kelly Inselmann

Many of you know what it’s like to be in the infusion center, walking in with mixed feelings of trepidation and hope. That’s kind of how I have felt moving into 2024.

On the hopeful side, my updated version of the online course Healing Well: Reconnect with Your Life after Cancer is almost finished and I’m feeling proud! It has most of what I’ve learned and taught over the past 30 years as a psychotherapist and yoga/meditation teacher (with 16 years as a cancer survivor) and it offers a framework for validation, resilience and healing you don’t find elsewhere.

I’m so ready to share more widely these valuable tools for reclaiming your time and life. My experience has taught me that we humans need MORE support and connection, not less, in order to feel emotionally healthy, content and joyful.

Speaking of tools, many of you participated in the 2019-20 study conducted by Ashley Hennegan, PhD, RN, FAAN, and me on how meditation can positively impact cognitive function after chemotherapy (AKA chemobrain) and other side effects from cancer treatment. You can see the published study here.

Ashley continues her groundbreaking research into survivorship at the University of Texas at Austin and has asked for our help recruiting participants to finish collecting data. Who’s in? There’s even compensation for participating. The eligibility info can be found here.

And fellow Joybooter, Rakefet Laviolette, LPC Associate, is also offering a new Group for Caregivers. Details can be found here.

Please share these resources widely.