Karen Hoyt is a blogger who has a story about hepatitis C, cirrhosis, end-stage liver disease, liver cancer, and liver transplantation. This excerpt first appeared on Karen’s I Help C blog.

I started October with gobs of hope. My high apple pie in the sky attitude seemed to match Sedona, Arizona’s big skies stretching into heaven above. Nestled into the side of the red rock canyon is a yoga school. Every lesson is planned around studying the mental, physical, and spiritual side of yoga. Ohm…… It was a makeover for sure.

Transformation is a more accurate word. For sure, we did bendy and stretchy stuff from day one. Yoga is so much more than contorting into poses. Turns out the instructors there knew a lot more about me than I knew about myself. The focus was more inward than outward.

So at yoga school, we moved into transformative healing through physical movement that required me to be still. Focus on my body. Calm my mind…. And breathe.

Stillness has a healing quality all by itself. Even with my gimpy left foot and leg, I managed to settle into poses. Lying, sitting, or standing – I got still. I noticed everything that was going on in and through me.

Focus on me. My granddaughter has played Ariana Grande’s hit song, Focus On Me enough that I know that one line. I’m sure the message is totally different than what I experienced at 7 Centers. But I got real with my own truth. These topics may come up in future blogs and you’ll be able to remember where the seeds of thoughts were incubated: 7 Centers Yoga in Sedona, AZ.

To read the rest of this blog where Karen discusses some of the less obvious benefits of yoga, click here.