By Laura K. Cowan
Through the pandemic, many people have reached out to healers and wellness teachers for self-care techniques and help through crisis. One such teacher, Julie Woodward of Mindful Awakenings, seemingly does it all. She teaches yoga for resilience, mindfulness meditation, and leads nature immersion hikes that help us all re-anchor ourselves in the present moment and recharge through times of stress.
How do you know which self-care and healing modalities are right for you at this time? I sat down with Woodward to talk about her newest class, which combines several of the techniques she teaches for relaxation and self-care. This new class is called Embodied Resilience in Uncertain Times: A Mindful Yoga Practice & Discussion. The class is eight weeks long, and is part yoga practice, part mindfulness class (with two individual coaching sessions included), and part support group. Think you might need some extra support to get through the late stages of the pandemic? Here’s what it’s like inside this new mindfulness coaching class offered by Mindful Awakenings.
Laura Cowan: How did you come to teach this class?
Julie Woodward: In the beginning of the pandemic, I had been teaching yoga and mindfulness for resilience, which provides mindfulness tools for grounding and self-compassion. During the pandemic, that class became virtual. I could see my experiences and students were changing in a dramatic way. Students wanted to be with the group. I saw them asking, “How can I live through this?” “How can I be my best self?” Our survival as a species lay in finding new tools. Buddhist scholar and ecopsychologist Joanna Macy’s The Work That Reconnects covers some of these topics: how do we handle times of crisis? How do we consider the possibility of creating a more sustainable future? People were in trauma and shock, and a regular class wasn’t sufficient. I wanted to provide a format for addressing isolation, fear, shock, powerlessness, as well as stress that was becoming chronic, feelings of being overwhelmed, trauma, addiction, death or illness of loved ones, and job loss. How do we manage this?
Laura Cowan: That’s a lot to teach in one class. How does it come together?
Julie Woodward: I taught movement, breathing, and meditation, then added reflection questions at the end. I invited people to talk about what they were going through: what did you find most calming last week? An open-ended question invites discussion.
Laura Cowan: So, tell us what a class with you is like.
Julie Woodward: The workshop I’m currently running combines class time and individual coaching. In the first and second class sessions, I teach mindfulness of body, grounding, and breathing to be more present. Then we discuss what makes it hard to be present. In the fourth class session, we cover how to begin again when we get off track. After that we cover mindfulness-based stress reduction, including emphasizing that we are not our thoughts. Then we cultivate compassion, gratitude, and opening to larger meaning in our experiences. Each class has a specific practice of yoga, yoga breathing, and mindfulness tools incorporated into it.
Laura Cowan: It sounds like the social aspect became valuable to students during the pandemic.
Julie Woodward: I teach ways to soothe stress through social connection in these classes and how to relate to ourselves in a more compassionate way with a larger perspective. We have conscious discussion of topics with guidelines for discussing from the heart and listening to respond without judgement or advice. We all know we’re social animals, and we’ve had a lot of isolation. This is a deliberate reintroduction of connection.
When we connect with each other, something magical happens that allows us to see things with new eyes and find ideas we wouldn’t discover on our own.
Laura Cowan: How do you manage your own stress in the middle of facilitating these classes during such a hard year?
Julie Woodward: I’ve been facilitating groups of people dealing with big life changes for about 20 years. I was a medical social worker and worked with people who had lung disease, so I learned to do movement and breathing practices that helped calm people.
I don’t teach at people. I welcome people into the space and invite them to engage and bring themselves into the space with this safe structure for dialogue. We listen with heart, speak from the heart. We might ask, “What do you find most important to you right now?” When the class is structured like that, people are invited to tap into their best resources. People bring their greatest wisdom, and the group moves together and shifts perspective.
Laura Cowan: With all the difficult changes people are facing right now, what do you do if people show up with a major trauma that needs more support than the group can offer?
Julie Woodward: People show up with trauma they may not have articulated before, and there’s a way of holding the class that creates a safe container and gives people permission to be as they are and not follow instructions if it doesn’t feel comfortable. The first phase is to stabilize the nervous system in yoga. Most students I’ve met with privately before, too, so I know what they’re dealing with. The beginning of a class session allows mind-body meditation to connect with a warm centered space. The feeling is of lovely supportive holding. It flows naturally. I know my students and care for them a lot. They tend to sign up for sessions year after year. When I’m coming into a class, it’s like being with a family I care about.
Laura Cowan: How can people know if this is the right class for them?
Julie Woodward: All people who feel called to create something, to give something, would fit in this class. It tends to attract people who already have some self-care practice. If you want to feel better and be more resilient through current events, process emotions and the ramifications of what’s happening, this is a great class for you. Also, if you want to generate a creative process for creative projects, this can help. Providers and caregivers might find respite here. Most students are mental health providers, authors, and engineers.
Julie Woodward is a yoga and meditation teacher and holistic health coach in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with a passion for the healing power of nature. She is co-founder of the Ann Arbor Center for Mindfulness. Woodward draws on over 30 years of experience, study, and training in neuroscience, clinical social work, yoga, and meditation to support people in creating the life they envision for themselves. Woodward’s integrative approach utilizes embodied mindfulness practices in individual coaching sessions, mindful yoga classes, mindful nature hikes, and workshops to help people connect to all of life. Learn more about current class offerings at juliewoodwardmsw.com.
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