Showing up on your mat when life gets hard: A conversation with author Julie Shaw on yoga, cancer, and finding your footing
What happens when a yoga therapist with decades of experience becomes a cancer patient herself? She takes notes — and writes a book.
Join Sequence Wiz host Olga Kabel, C-IAYT, for a live conversation with Julie Shaw, C-IAYT — certified yoga therapist and author of Hello, Nausea. How Are You Today? How Yoga Helped Me Through Cancer. When Julie was diagnosed with breast cancer, she turned to what she knew best to navigate months of treatment — her decades-long yoga practice. The result is a candid, practical book that pairs personal stories with accessible yoga tools designed to help anyone living with cancer find steadiness amid the storm.
In this conversation, Olga and Julie will explore:
- The full emotional spectrum of a cancer diagnosis — and why every response is valid. Reactions can range from numbness and hopelessness that make it hard to engage with treatment at all, to fierce optimism that can help a person stay buoyant — but may also lead them to deny the reality of invasive treatment and how it affects the body. We’ll talk about how yoga can meet a person wherever they are, without judgment and without forcing any particular attitude.
- What it’s really like on the inside — Julie will share what surprised her most about being a patient, even as a seasoned yoga therapist, and how her professional knowledge was both a resource and tested by the reality of treatment.
- Yoga as a practical tool, not a cure — how specific yoga tools — breath, movement, rest, and meditation — can address the most common and debilitating symptoms of treatment, including pain, nausea, fatigue, changes in body image, and the anxiety and depression that frequently accompany a diagnosis.
- How to adapt practice for what’s happening right now — Julie’s approach is intentionally flexible, with combinations of breathing exercises, yoga postures, mindful awareness, and meditation that can be tailored to individual needs at any stage of treatment.
- What yoga teachers and therapists need to know — how to support students who have been diagnosed, what to avoid, and how to create an environment where students feel safe to show up exactly as they are — whether that’s frightened, numb, angry, or tentatively hopeful.
- The identity and meaning dimension — cancer shakes a person’s sense of self to the core. We’ll talk about how yoga philosophy, not just yoga poses, can be a grounding resource when everything feels uncertain.
Whether you are a yoga teacher wanting to better support your students, a yoga therapist working in clinical or private settings, or someone who has been personally touched by cancer — this conversation will leave you with real tools and a deeper understanding of what it means to practice alongside someone who is facing one of life’s hardest passages.
When: Friday, April 3 at 2 pm ET / 11 am PT
This event is free and open to all Sequence Wiz blog readers.
When certified yoga therapist Julie Shaw was diagnosed with breast cancer, she leaned into what she had relied on for more than three decades: her yoga practice. In her new book, Hello, Nausea. How Are You Today? How Yoga Helped Me Through Cancer, Julie shares a candid, compassionate, and often humorous account of her cancer journey, offering accessible yoga-based practices designed to support readers through treatment and recovery.
With over 35 years of yoga experience and certification as a Viniyoga Therapist, Julie brings both credibility and relatability to the page. She is a member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists and a lead faculty of the American Viniyoga Institute’s® accredited yoga therapy training program.
Sequence Wiz readers gets a special $10 off discount on Julie’s book! (regularly $35, with discount $25)
