Using Therapeutic yoga to assist with my client with her continued recovery from knee surgery as well as transitioning into retirement from a career of over 35 years. Including meditation with imagery into the practice to assist with the big changes in her life.

We will be meeting twice a week for 60 minutes over the course of 4 weeks.

This client is a 66 year old widowed female. She had a knee replacement surgery a year ago and still feels pain that can be described as achy. She also retired this month and is feeling stressed about the transition. She has always been very active and since her knee surgery is feeling stiffer everywhere but mostly in her hips. This client tends to push herself to do all the same exercises she always has and then burns out and needs rest for a few days and struggles with inactivity.

This client is a career woman who has been running her own business on her own for many years, she is a influential figure in her community and is used to being in charge of herself and others.
I envisioned a bit of push back when it came to slowing down her practice and adding more meditation.
We thoroughly went over her intake to talk about the plan so she can see that she has input and control over her practice. We discussed the therapeutic and restorative asanas and how the imagery in meditation can be very beneficial during these changes in her body and her life.

Nearly 400,000 hip replacements are performed each year. But the number of knee replacements is even higher—nearly 700,000. Joint replacement will probably become the number one elective surgery in the coming years—much of it due to wear and tear caused by arthritis, an active lifestyle, or bearing too much weight on-

We use hatha, we do some moving asanas then restorative. Raja yoga in meditation to assist in her self transformation in a mind body connection to understand to be in the present moment is where she can begin to ease the minds chatter. Juana yoga is being used to help her understand that she is not her career or injury that knowledge of her true self is a way to manage stress and respond in more positive ways.

This was a client I honestly had to meet where she was at and build in certain practices over time. When she could begin and see results is when she was able to surrender a bit more into therapeutic approach.

I offered my client some warm up exercises before leaving bed because that is when she is the most achy. We also came up with her imagery together so that she could use it in times of stress or at bedtime. We also are going to maintain our practice once a week moving forward and I offered her to bring a friend.

I applied the plan the way I intended but the time to work towards the goal was much longer. We were first going to work over the course off 4 weeks and it was double that and we are still working together months later.
So I can say the goal is being achieved but not completed.

This client is used to a fitness routine with a lot of strength and movement. If i didn't meet her with a physical practice to start and slowly incorporate more restorative and longer meditation she would have bailed on the plan. So that was an interesting adaptation.

If faced with the same situation I would take the same approach. This client needed to feel like she was in control of her plan even with my own ideas behind it. This is a big part of understanding the whole person and being able to meet them where they are. She also needed to feel the benefits of the therapeutic approach in her body and mind to prove that it worked for her. The plan has worked and is continuing to work for her. She uses her imagery when she wakes up in the middle of the night and its very helpful, if i installed my own it probably wouldn't work for this client. Every other session she comes with a friend and it has been a really positive way for her to adjust to retirement.