Healing MS with Dru Yoga and Dru Meditation

“From wheelchair to walking in under a year? Even as a seasoned observer of yoga’s tremendous health benefits,I wouldn’t have thought it likely that someone could use yoga to make such a dramatic change in their health in such a short time.” Andrew Wells, Co-Director Dru Australia; Foreword, A Journey to Peace through Yoga.

Lynnette Dickenson is an inspirational Dru Yoga and Meditation graduate from Australia who’s been visiting the Dru Yoga Centre in Snowdonia for the past few days. Here’s her story.

I first discovered the healing benefits of meditation in 1998, when I was liberated from a lifelong struggle with bronchial asthma during a meditation retreat in Byron Bay, Australia, but without the support of an ongoing program my practice soon lapsed and then disappeared altogether.

Then in 2004 living in Britain and in hospital in excruciating pain, I again discovered the deep peace that can be experienced in the stillness of meditation. I continued my practice after leaving hospital, using it to relieve the angst of a life with Multiple Sclerosis; transforming emotional and physical pain and dysfunction into peace. Although it was still difficult to independently maintain a personal practice.

However, an MS exacerbation in 2006 left me in an electric wheelchair, exhausted and again unable to maintain my practice. I was unable to attend classes and felt isolated, like I had lost my best friend.

At the beginning of 2007 I attended a Dru Meditation weekend and again in excruciating pain, I felt the healing deep peace of meditation. I knew that if I could learn how to live in that place, I could accept and manage the traumas of MS and the rest of my life; and then I could teach the same skill to other people in crisis.

I decided to enrol in the Dru Yoga Teacher Training (DYTT), being promised I could effectively take part in the course by visualising the physical postures. In May 2007 I began the DYTT and rediscovered the peace of Dru practice.

I went home and visualised, meditated and relaxed to experience that peace in my everyday life. The structure of being in a course with a list of practices and homework, supported my home practice in a way I had not experienced in my previous attempts to develop a personal practice.

Within twelve months of visualising, meditating and relaxing, I had returned my wheelchair and was teaching in the local high school. During this time I had begun to shed layers of emotional trauma and rediscover my body and energy system in a way, I had previously not thought possible.

I felt it was now time to systematically approach my meditation practice with the same depth as I had my yoga practice, and enrolled in the Dru Meditation Teacher Training (DMTT). I began DMTT in May 2008. Again the structure of the course supported my daily meditation practice and gave me a direction to directly explore the layers of my being.

By the end of 2010, I had completed both the DYTT and the DMTT, and developed a deep and complete understanding of my kosha system and a full toolbox for managing the flow of energy through my system, and a language to express my understanding.

The structure of the course has supported me to continue my personal practice and I now teach Dru yoga and meditation to a wide range of students around Australia, specialising in students experiencing chronic illness, depression, disability and PTSD. My story is chronicled in A Journey to Peace through Yoga, available at Dru Worldwide.