The Art of Living Conference Curriculum

CURRICULUM:

Josie Gardiner & Joy Prouty– Breakout Session

Research reveals that regular exercise can reduce cancer recurrence and extend your life. Exercise can help you recover energy, strength and flexibility after cancer treatments and regain the quality of life. This program will help you learn about the components of fitness necessary to design a program that is safe effective and fun. 

 

Zumba Gold is a fitness program specifically designed to take the exciting Latin and International dance rhythms for everyone to enjoy.  Bring a pair of sneakers and enjoy a party like atmosphere.  It is exhilarating, easy and effective; and great for the mind, body and soul. Anyone can do it!  Join Josie and Joy, Zumba Education Specialists and co-developers of Zumba Gold, and have some fun!

 

Keith and Virginia Laken, authors of MAKING LOVE AGAIN, Hope For Couples Facing Loss of Sexual Intimacy, will present their story on how they learned to regain, reframe, and redefine intimacy in their relationship after Keith’s treatment for prostate cancer.  Their presentation deals with the physical, emotional, and psychological issues that impact, in one way or another, couples who face the changes and challenges of cancer and its life affects. 

Book – Making Love Again:  Hope for Couples Facing Loss of Sexual Intimacy

Ann Webster, Ph.D. – Breakout Sessions

To survivors of cancer, health is not simply the absence of illness. Survivors face all sorts of physical, psychological, social, behavioral, and spiritual challenges.  It can be difficult to maintain optimism and resiliency.

A diagnosis of cancer unleashes a cascade of emotions that ebb and flow long after treatment ends.  The end of treatment can mark a new beginning in our attitude towards life, ourselves and those around us.  At times our new sense of the world brings joy and inspires us, and at times it saddens us and fills us with fear.  Managing the ups and downs of the emotional aftermath of cancer is an important skill in the quest for well being.

In this workshop we will review the “normal” emotional consequences of a cancer experience.  We will then explore the many tools available both within ourselves and in the community that can not only help in the management of this new collage of emotions, but can help harness them in the service of living a fuller, more authentic life. 

This interactive workshop will provide couples, who have been together through the cancer journey, an opportunity to discuss the issues they now face as they transition out of the world of cancer treatment.  People often describe this period as finding the "New Normal".  During the treatment period, couples have often had to make many changes in their lifestyle, their roles, their identities and their relationships. Old patterns may have changed forever. Now, as they enter the next phase of living without the challenges that treatment imposed, they often find new challenges.  In this session, couples will be able to share their experiences, hear from others and learn ways of coping as couples who have survived cancer.     

You've survived...now what?  Differentiating the things you have to do, the things you want to do, and the things you were born to do in a post-cancer mindset.  Everything you accomplish from here on will depend upon two things: 1) How you see your situation now and 2) How you act in response to it.  Attendees will learn the "secrets" to living life without fear after cancer. [EACH attendee will receive a complimentary e-book just for attending.]

Book – Jumper Cables for the Soul, Little Book of Chemo Meditations

 

At the young age of 26, I was a single and fighting cancer.  I wanted a girlfriend SO badly!  I thought a girlfriend would be something “stable” when everything seemed so “unstable”.  I tell my story of rushing into a relationship when my self-confidence was the LOWEST it had ever been in my life.  What happens during the refraction period?  This is the most difficult time to grasp your own identity which has been shaken through your diagnosis and ultimately affects your self-confidence, self-worth and definitely dating?  We will discuss the challenges faced by me as a survivor in addition to those of many others that I have met along the way and yours too.   

This seminar will discuss the financial ramifications of cancer and address common concerns of both survivors and caregivers.  The topics covered will be employment discrimination, continuing care, disability, insurability, credit, and debt. 

Over the past decade, complementary/integrative therapies such as acupuncture, massage, and music therapy have become part of cancer care in many academic and community health settings.  Learn how these therapies can help you regain a sense of wellness and well-being as you move beyond active cancer treatment into survivorship.

A panel of cancer survivors will share the greatest challenges they have encountered in living beyond cancer and the resources they have used to meet them.  Throughout the morning, conference attendees are encouraged to write comments on card provided, regarding their own challenges.  These cards will be collected before the afternoon breakouts.  The panelists will address a random selection of comments submitted.

 

CLICK HERE to register online

CLICK HERE to register by mail
($25.00 Registration Fee.  Please register by May 20, 2011)

For more information call Green Associates
at 617.482.3044 or email life.beyond.cancer@green-associates.com