“I started practicing yoga only a few months ago, after listening to family and doctors tell me that I should try it to help reduce my symptoms of PTSD. I didn't believe it would help.
In the few months that I have been attending Sue's classes, I have noticed a several subtle differences that made me feel almost like a new person.
Through breathing and meditation practices, I am able to fall asleep - I have struggled with insomnia and sleep disturbances since returning from Iraq. Additionally, my anxiety has decreased significantly, and I am able to manage my anxiety, far better than anything I had been able to do before. In general, I would say yoga really has transformed my mind, body and spirit. I am less, irritable, tense, depressed. I feel that I am far better able to cope with events that I have no control over now. “
--Liz Thompson, U.S. Marine Corp, Served in Iraq
“From the moment I started doing yoga and meditation I saw results specially with my sleeping problems, little by little learning how to live the moment and push all thoughts aside I learned how to feel again, control my anger and slowly started feeling like my old self.”
-- Sgt Hugo Patrocinio, U.S. Marine Corp, Served 3 tours in Iraq
I served in Iraq as an artillery man with India Battery 3/10 2nd Marine Division. Form my service I have been diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and PTSD. I was having trouble sleeping and outburst of anger. My life was being swallowed up by heavy drinking and other high-risk activities. I was in and out of veterans counseling. Nothing seeming to help until I was introduced to the “There and Back Again” program. I was at first skeptical of the healing power of yoga. But I couldn’t function the way I was going any longer. The program gave me the tools to deal with how I was feeling without having to go back there. From this program I am now able to work with a counselor and I have the ability to center myself and deal with life on life’s terms.
--Paul Bradley, U.S. Marine Corp
Upon arriving home from Iraq, I on edge, had nightmares, felt disconnected and depression. Originally, I turned to self medication to survive being home. After a month of self-destruction, I realized that I needed help. I began counseling through the VA. Counseling was very effective and helped me with some of my ailments, but I still didn't feel whole. I wasn't sure what was missing or what I could do to better myself. I met Sue Lynch at the Women's veteran conference in Holyoke in June of 2009. I went to her "There and back again" informational session offered, and I immediately wanted to participate in the program. It took me until October to be able to participate. Sue helped me enroll in the "Finding Inner Peace" yoga training school. At first I didn't expect anything more than flexibility, maybe a little weight loss and some relaxation. What I got from the teacher training was much more. I found that I am calmer, I sleep better than I ever have, I can effectively handle stress, my body feels better, my mind is not racing anymore, I can concentrate and I am happier. I have truly found inner peace from yoga.
-- SGT Samatha Lord, U.S. Army National Guard
I spent ten years of my life wearing a uniform and serving my country, in peace and in war. After returning home and getting out I found even the simplest of tasks difficult, and my stress level was at an all time high. I was irritable, angry and needing a way to cope. That is when yoga came into my life and saved me. Just taking the time to do something for myself, to breathe and stretch has brought me back to center. Yoga has given me the strength both outside and in to regain my life. Namaste.
-- Denise Moquin, U.S. Army Reserve
“A lot of times when we are sent somewhere away from our families for a period time, and you mixed that with combat, injuries, and scared memories of brothers we loose….it makes it so hard to come back home and try to live a normal life in the real world. I say try to live a normal life for the fact that we aren"t normal when we come back. A lot of times when we come back some may have physical injuries that are apparent, or some may have internal injuries, and some may just have extreme emotional injuries. So what happens? We come back and we feel lost because we feel that no one is listening to us, and we feel like no one understands because let me be honest, unless you've been over there, and have been put in bad situations than you will never fully understand how we feel when we come home and how we'll feel years from now. Meditation/yoga are the things that calms the soul. To just sit there and close your eyes and just breathe relaxing all your muscles and letting go of any stress. That's all we really need some times is a break from life to just sit in peace to gain a little bit more understanding to remember who we are inside. That's how it was for me and at first I didn't get it, but the more I did it you could start to see a change in my life for the better. Overall, I truly believe that yoga, meditations, and various of other forms of practices helps to save lives everyday. I know because it saved my life. It gave me hope and the strength I needed to reconnect myself to world again.”
-- Lance Corporal LaDon Williams, U.S. Marine Corp, Served three (3) tours in Iraq
