Healing Well: Reconnecting With Your Life After Cancer
An online self-paced course designed
for anyone healing from cancer.
Meet Your Guide
Founder of Joy Boots and the Yoga and Talk® Therapy model. She is a psychotherapist and group facilitator, yoga teacher and cancer survivor. She lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and daughter.
As they wheeled me in for the first MRI at MD Anderson Cancer Center, I remember feeling hysterical, like I might laugh or cry or scream. I wanted to shout: “You don’t understand! I’m really healthy!” Instead, I was a good patient. Quiet, compliant and immobile.
But there were other feelings underneath: anger, despair, fear, shame and self-blame, a desire to give up.
What happens to feelings when they are set aside for the sake of survival?
Sometimes they fragment, landing in parts of the body or in the back of the mind, waiting to be remembered.
About 6 months after the end of active treatment, I signed up for a free pilates class. I had never done pilates, but I had done lots of dance and yoga. I figured I could handle it.
Imagine the scene: I’m lying on the pilates table being hooked up to machinery, my body still weak and my mind still too fatigued to follow directions well. If you’ve been through cancer treatment, this might sound a little familiar. And it was familiar to my body—it brought back a flood of memories from chemotherapy treatment.
Frustrated and embarrassed at feeling unable to follow instructions, I started crying and couldn’t stop.
I left that day but returned later to take some private lessons. Eventually, I was able to tolerate the discomfort and begin to befriend my body in this new way.
Recent research in neurobiology finds that ignoring or repressing emotions or memories does not make them disappear. Instead, the limbic system, the emotional part of the brain, stays activated as though the initial experience is actually happening.
You might not be talking about it, but you are still feeling unexpressed emotions, in the mind or in the body.
The Healing Well: Reconnecting With Your Life After Cancer course is a testament to the vision and dedication of Kelly Inselmann, the founder and facilitator of the program. With her deep expertise in yoga therapy and psychotherapy, Kelly infuses the course with compassion, wisdom, and a genuine understanding of the healing journey after cancer.
Why do you need this program?
Because the cancer experience changes us.
You owe this to yourself.
Are you…
- Eager to heal but feeling numb, depressed, and/or emotionally out of control?
- Feeling like no one understands what you’re going through and that you will never get your life back?
- In a constant state of fear for the future?
- Trying to deal with the unique grief and physical pain from treatments and procedures all alone?
- Shaming yourself or lamenting not being grateful for every single moment?
The Healing Well Course will...
Inform your recovery
The foundation of this course is based on the 6 Principles for Emotional Recovery, with easy to understand information and concepts anyone can implement in their day-to-day life. Content is delivered in text and video format with printable worksheets.
Guide you gently
The goal of this course is to help you identify what’s next in your emotional and physical recovery, and celebrate what you’ve already overcome. Gentle meditation practices will further help you to release tension, stabilize your mind, and open your heart.
Encourage reflection
You’re encouraged to discover what’s truly in your heart and mind beneath the surface of the brave face you wear for the benefit of your loved ones. Prompted journaling and reflection exercises will help you to focus on deeper self-understanding, meaning, and healing.
It’s easy to lose touch with yourself in the midst of cancer diagnosis, treatment and recovery. This course helps you soothe, strengthen and lift your body and spirit for every step of the journey with practical tools and practices. Life changing.
- To get honest with yourself about the physical and emotional impact the cancer experience has had on your life?
- To learn to honor the important energy of fear, anger and grief?
- To heal your relationship with your body through more compassion and less judgment?
- To increase your vitality and get your life back?
You are a strong, resilient person.
But you don’t have to go this alone.
This course will be a way for you to learn Habits that will encourage you to Listen to your body. To be inspired and guided by a true survivor. To know moments of joy and laughter in sharing struggles. To Realize That everything is ok in This Moment. To try a little Tenderness for yourself.
Questions & Answers
You should feel open to deepening your understanding of yourself and able to take 10-20 minutes per day to bring the experience into your home. You do not have to feel great to show up. You can come as you are–that’s what this is about. The entire course is private and self paced. You may choose to rest during parts of the yoga–that’s OK.
Those who have completed active treatment OR are in ongoing treatment can participate. The course is more helpful when you have reached a place of stability with treatment where you can reflect on your experience and current emotional needs.
The course is self paced.You will immediately have access to all the material: written lessons on each Step for EmotionalHealing, videos of the 3Ms (movement, mindful awareness practices, and meditations), and prompts for reflection and journaling.
Former participants recommend you take your time. One way is to go through each module for a week or a few days before moving on to the next. If you need to take a break because feelings come up, you can return at any time.
You get to decide your pace. Some people like to skim through and find material that addresses what you are feeling now.
The 6 Steps in the modules are not linear, but the course does build on itself.
If you are at the very beginning of your diagnosis and treatment experience, this course will not be helpful to you yet.
Kelly is happy to meet with people individually at this time and you are welcome to set up an appointment. She is working on a course specific for newly diagnosed people who need a different set of tools.
If you are in a state of acute emotional distress and need more active intervention from mental health professionals, I recommend that you seek assistance in your area.
The course is not meant to be a substitute for ongoing in person individual psychotherapy, face to face social support, or advice from medical providers.
If you are feeling suicidal, I want you to have the attentive support you need from practitioners in your community. Please contact the National Suicide Hotline for referrals online or at 800-273-8255 or call 911.
Subscribe to my mailing list for a free monthly video or blog especially for cancer survivors.
For other resources, check out the American Cancer Society, Cancer Survivors’ Network, and CancerCare. In Austin, there is the Flatwater Foundation, Cancer Rehab and Integrative Medicine, Kairos Therapeutic Retreats, and Breast Cancer Resource Center.
As a nurse and a scientist, I highly recommend this course to anyone recovering from cancer and encourage other oncology healthcare professionals to recommend this resource to their patients who will likely greatly benefit from the content and toolkit provided.
Reconnect with Your Life After Cancer
This is an excellent course focusing on teaching a cancer survivor ways to deal with the multitude of issues one faces in their journey with cancer. It is well organized, informative, encouraging and nurturing. Wish I had this 22 years ago when I first entered the world of cancer.
