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Class OverviewAre you trapped by your limiting beliefs? We will begin to take steps towards tapping into our intuition so we can be responsible for our well-being. (Check out the Top 10 Big Ideas from the class below!) Your ProfessorDanielle Orner is a writer, actress, motivational speaker, yogi, vegan and cancer survivor. She is an inspiration to people who want to live a healthy lifestyle and make impossible things possible.How to Tune into Your Body for Intuitive WisdomIn our culture, we’re bombarded by advice about our bodies. Photoshopped pictures create unattainable ideals. Pharmaceutical companies promise us better living through pills. Our government is in a constant debate about our bodies. We have more knowledge, more choice, and more freedom than any other generation. Yet, we are sick. We are over-worked, over-medicated, and over-stressed. Connected to the world, we are still lonely and lost. Many people don’t tune into their own voice until a trauma rocks them out their unconscious conditioning. You don’t need to wait for your body or your life to crash before you start making changes. Whether or not you’re experiencing trauma, you can shift the way you view the world. My paradigm shift took over a decade. After being diagnosed with bone cancer at age 15, my lower right leg was amputated and I spent nine months getting chemotherapy. It took four more recurrences in my lungs for me to take an active role in my healing. This journey took me places I never thought I’d go – onto the pages of magazines as an alternative model, into raw cooking classes, to a yoga teacher training, and to speak with parents of terminally ill children. I don’t know which one frightened me most: taking photos that showed my leg, walking into my first yoga class, or returning to my memories of the hospital in order to help others. Are you trapped by your limiting beliefs? You may have never questioned where all those messages of who you should be are coming from. Perhaps, you’ve gotten so used to your body feeling horrible that you’ve begun to believe it’s normal. We will examine all the messages we take for granted. We will begin to take steps towards tapping into our intuition so we can be responsible for our well-being. The Top 10 Big Ideas1Reclaim Your Body For the amount of time we spend talking about the body, most of us feel disconnected from our physical selves. Shame causes a startling number of people to never look at their naked bodies when they shower or in mirrors. Studies have shown that we have distorted views of ourselves. When we draw our faces we make ourselves more “ugly” than when others draw us. We’ve also lost touch with basic cues like whether or not we are hungry. Yet, health studies continue to emphasize the importance of the mind/body/spirit connection. For everything from stress reduction to a better sex life, we need to learn to tap the messages of our body.2Redefine What it Means to Be Healthy (and Beautiful) In our culture, healthy means “not sick.” We don’t know how good we can feel so we settle for a life filled with side effects. We undergo unhealthy processes to achieve attractiveness. We’re used to shocking health warnings on products. How should a healthy person look and feel? Can we still thrive even as differently-abled people? Together, we can create better definitions for diverse beauty and vibrant living. 3Recognize Negative Labels and Let Them Go Often, we don’t change our lives because we are afraid of social repercussions. What will people say? Social pressure has the power to keep us trapped in old dysfunctional ways of operating. If you want to make any change, you need to realize where the negative messages are coming from so you can deactivate them. Positivity is not enough. You need to acknowledge hurtful messages to heal. 4Have Partners Not Authority Figures I used to believe doctors were gods. When they insisted I shouldn’t be feeling pain, I stopped mentioning how much my body hurt. It took me a long time to realize doctors are educated people who are doing as much as they can within the paradigm of modern medicine. This revelation was horrifying but freeing. We want to believe someone out there has all the answers. It’s so much safer to be the victim or the good patient. But your life requires you to participate. You may have gurus and guides but only you can walk your path.5Healing Begins on Your Plate You can’t eat junk and expect to feel great. There is no trick or secret. Your diet is immensely important not only to your health but to the health of this planet. I loved switching to a whole-foods plant-based. I’m still in awe of the difference simple shifts make.6Drop All Thoughts that Begin With “I Am Not the Kind of Person Who…” What you’re really saying is “I am too afraid.” For a decade, my life was ruled by fear. Fear of getting sick again. Fear of never being loved or being thought of as sexy. I avoided so many experiences. You may think a small life is easier to control but it’s really just confining. Your not in charge; your trapped by fear. 7Perfection is an Illusion Stop comparing yourself to others. I was terrified of yoga teacher training because I was the only disabled person in a room of former dancers and gymnasts. Then, I heard how much they worried about their bodies. This is the great lesson of yoga – you learn to let the poses serve you, not the other way around. 8You’ll Never Do a Headstand if You Are Afraid to Fall The people who grow and learn are the ones who are willing to be beginners again and again. You won’t achieve anything new if your aren’t willing to make mistakes. 9Yoga is for Every Body One of my teachers told a great story about how her friends kept telling her they couldn’t come to yoga because they weren’t flexible enough. She’d say, “by all means, wait until you are flexible and then come to my beginner class.” This is such a common flaw in our thinking. We expect to be masters before we are willing to try. The basis of yoga is breathing – as long as you are breathing, yoga is for you. 10Life Begins Now What are you waiting for? I kept thinking my life would start when I was out of the hospital. Ten years after my diagnosis, I received my last treatment. I spent a decade of my life holding back. Whatever you are waiting for (the job, the spouse, retirement), realize you aren’t guaranteed a future so don’t put off living until then.