to what's going on my name is delores b doll and i have the great pleasure today of introducing my real roots in ski who is a resident of wakefield and she comes here today to talk to us about yoga mindfulness meditation things she has integrated into her life in particular after the onset of her diagnosis with multiple sclerosis which she is managing very successfully over the past ten years and she feels thanks to these wonderful tools in yoga and mindfulness meditation so i think it's a real honor for us to be able to slip into your mind and heart and have you share with us your experience tell us if you would to begin with how you got started with  well wanting to take care of myself and be the best mother and be there as much as i could from my children in my family and friends and people that care about me and to take care of myself was really important and with the diagnosis i thought i need to do some research on how to manage my multiple sclerosis or i talk about it as the had to address you know the exercise part and then the nutrition and then how i was going to be able to deal in the world with trying to live a more a less stressful life which is difficult for all of us so i continued to exercise at my local chair doing yoga so this is something you had done before you even had the diagnosis yes i was doing yoga and always exercised i want i think pretty regularly but i increased my yoga practice and i think it was probably after five years of exercise and trying to better myself with nutrition and everything i decided to become certified in yoga and i thought well as long as i'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life i might as well try and do something that's more conducive to my health and as far as my profession and so i started getting yoga certified and taking yoga i love what i do now i try to teach people and others with m s and and then along with that i started meditating because i heard that was also good for the mind in the body connection and i think incorporating it into connecting all three the mind the body and the spirit is very important in all of our lives do you find that the medical approach to  mass mentions this or did you sort of discover this all separate from those who were treating you for the disorder my doctors never suggested for me to do meditation or yogurt they did suggest exercise of course they said that the i robot exercise was better but i feel that the cardio definitely is important but i think that the meditation in the yoga or is very important because of the stress level and because stress is a factor for people with their mass to become less stressful the meditation is very helpful in the yoga or it makes us become more relaxed and in tune with our bodies with to be able to just come first come to a comfort level of what is and what acceptance and accepting of this is this this is what is so then i studied mindfulness meditation and that was a real education about how we react to certain situations and how our body reacts and how our mind reacts and how we could just if we could only just take a step back and breathe a little more instead of doing all this reacting my fantasy as i listen to you is that there would be as a regular part of treatment an integration of all these things rather than having to don't discover them for yourself i think it's wonderful that you did but an approach that would integrate all these aspect medications the adjustment to those it seems as if that big outlook that you have found for yourself would benefit so many people not only a mass it's toward disease in general afflictions of various sorts would you do you think that's true i think it's definitely true i couldn't agree with you more i think  and the science behind what happens when we meditate and how it benefits the different people of all different ages and people that deal with pain and disease and how beneficial that meditation in mindfulness can be living in the present moment without worrying in stressing about everything but it's very difficult to do so meditating is more of a repetitious practice and even finding five minutes a day to calm the mind and just breathe and close in the taking a nice deep breath is so helpful for us when we have when we feel the body reacting in that fight or flight mode you know it talks about all of this indian siegel's book so it's really a great education to learn about so i may want to read that maybe some people in the this correct yes tell us a little bit about that sound so exciting ok my interest became first aware to me when i went to a conference look trying to find out more about d n siegel and his studies it was in new york and it was with jack kornfield who is the buddhist psychology teacher and knows so much more actually studied and we came a monk in and so we actually traveled i traveled with with him and partners asia which is a group that he's working over with burma and it was so interesting going to all the different areas of me i'm in the difference states over in where it's been so shut off for so long with people not being able to be educated in just so many things where the normal civilization has been stifled a little bit so just to be come educated on that and then having jack give us meditations and dharma talks and to learn more about the buddhist and the buddhist way of living the psychology about it was wonderful learning about the different cultures cultural experiences that they they practice is was excellent the food  how they get along with so little and they're so happy it was just an interesting trip and you were there for how long for three weeks that's a good amount of time to be able to take  all the things on all the things but many things yes the swear to god the ghoda is one of the most holy places and it was interesting to walk up the stairs and you have to take your shoes off and cover your shoulders  and they've could it's considered one of the most holy places and to go and just be there and presence of all this gold in the boot is in everybody's so it was quite interesting and then we travelled to mend a leg which is a beautiful area but quite different also by pagodas all over the country and monasteries and we visited nunneries where they help educate the children  they dedicate their lives to studying in the marriage to to raise merry and so that they come back and believe in reincarnation they come back into a better life so i'm not a buddhist but i love learning about the different cultures so so you come back with what in mind that is different from the for your trip i come back with gratefulness and think fullness of america and what we have here but also that we all have to work together more and help each other more and work as a team to not be so self indulged and just be more helpful with each other for the little things in life and be thankful for the little things  because we have so much here we kind of take it for granted sometimes so and and and when one is struck with illness i think people even lose we lose more of a vision th when we're not as afflicted because we're so concerned about just getting through the thinking about the neighbor and thinking about general welfare and thinking about others seems a little more difficult to do so it feeling very blessed that i am not i have relapsing remitting m s and i don't have it as bad as some other people but to help the other people who are much more disabled than i am myself i actually volunteered at the linnet florence sent there for a living with people with a mass and some of the women there couldn't even move from the neck down and they are so happy just to be alive and breathing in to help them deal with acceptance of the way their life is and to be accepting of the breath and the little things in life i'm not sure if that's the question yes i'm answering why or why you wanted me to answer but my question wasn't clear but you  well i hope so i just wanted to say that these people that have to see disability are more in tune to what they have in their so grateful for what they have so but it requires somebody who's been through would you've been through in terms of learning about meditation and your contemplation to actually have that if you need to we i think we mostly need somebody is in sight and can always discover these things by ourselves it's really helpful to have somebody along the steps of discovery of s help us discover yeah well thank you but i don't i think that we can all discover these things whether we have an illness or not because i think every one of us in our whole life somebody goes through a transition where they need somebody or something or they feel that suffering maybe it could be the loss of a loved one could be that they're going to be faced with you know death we're all going to be faced with death at some point in our life so that's a big thing to even contemplate ourselves but realize that we're here for more than just ourselves on this earth i think that's just my interpretation and from the meditation i think as we meditate if we do it repetitiously we can learn each day that from our own insight that we're we're just all the same we all have the same heart we all have the same well maybe we don't have the happy we all have a heart and that we all can feel the same way as others and if we just learn to have self compassion and have empathy then we can learnt to give that to others also so we learn about self compassion through meditation we learn about ourself and insight through ourselves through meditation and yoga and practicing ourselves and being with us cells and being mindful about everything we do living in the present moment not worrying about the past or the future or trying to stay there it's really difficult so what would you recommend to people in the audience if they reading a book about meditation a beginner's book maybe i know john cabot singh has written many books wherever we go wherever you go there you are i've read that one and i did his practice and there's a lot of meditation beginner's meditation things on line and just to sit quietly create a little space in your home maybe with the pillow and just sick quietly and just breathing close your eyes and breathe for five minutes maybe a day can even help you just relax the mind and tell yourself to let everything go and just breathe and listen to your breath and focus on the breath and it's hard to tell your mind to shut down in you know when we tell ourselves well now we want you to do nothing we wish somebody would tell us to do that but when we're told to do that we can't do it it's the hardest thing all over the place it's coming up in the new it's coming up in magazines and books as being so much more helpful and they're learning much more about it every day so how beneficial it is you a medications can only do so much and there are so many other aspects that make us stop other than whether a particular organ is working the way it was designed to work and that the the mindfulness that is a privilege after all and we have a mind and that we could put it to better use than perhaps we do in the process of living a better life for ourselves and those we love boring daycare center in wakefield where elderly people go free for carrying i teach meditation yoga to them and i also teach at a balanced yoga studio in wakefield massachusetts  i do meditation class every sunday evening there also i do yoga or at the corner power club which i just started a six week program there and i'm trying to develop my own business now i just ended my own window treatment business which i used to do curtains and you know sewing and it was just so much work and i thought doing something more conducive to my health for the future is going to be more beneficial to me so i'm trying to get it in the works and i will be getting a website up eventually you know trying to incorporate more business for myself in that field but right now i just think just getting the word out there in like you said to have people incorporate this more into the a life in starting with ourselves on how we treat people in how we are towards others being a little more compassionate and just having a little more empathy towards others and you know when they're we don't know what others are going through sometimes and work so quick to react and think about them and judge and having non judgment about ourselves and others is so important so now when you say you work with the elderly at this particular center do you find that there are people come as we get older in there they've proven also that meditation is definitely helpful in dementia and all timers and that the telomeres and into the chromosomes they can reconstruct themselves and it can help with the you know with avoiding dementia or lessening it delaying it yes and so but working with the elders said have this it's everybody has still has their mind working inside them even if they can't verbalize it and i really believe this and i believe that visualization sometimes is more important that if people can visualize themselves doing things even if they're not able to physically do them that it can still be helpful and it can tilt still connected have some reactive part in your brain or to your nerves that can trigger connectivity and so i try to think that even when people are there and listening and i'm working with them they're all in chairs and they're all you know doing the best they can and i see them trying so hard and it really gives me a lot of hope and i love going there because they try so hard but it's rewarding because i know that i'm connecting with them so hopefully it helps them in i feel they the people that come to me always tell me that it helps so i think to mention even if you have dementia that you can connect with people still interesting sort of possibilities the are there just my own experiences him i learned from my experience and i can't i can't put it down on a medical in a medical book because i don't have that proof but i have my own proof so when i go on mary it's a real pleasure to talk with you today thank you and you came to see us  mindful about everything we do and try and stay in the present enjoy our food which is mindful eating enjoy our breathing which is mindful sitting down and taking a minute to appreciate your breath every day and trying to relax the brain in the mind and and see what happens thank you again thank you so much so folks until next time  what's going on good bye for now