hey there!
Self Educated, Lateral thinker, Lecturer, Educator,
Body expert, Yoga Teacher and Mentor
62 and loving Life
Much happens during these years of self-discovery,
"The good the bad and the ugly",
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She wants to erase her family history, start anew, she wants to NOT know...anything. She thrives in the unknown. She can reinvent herself from scratch. She can be free to be whom she wants to be, she is a warrior at heart. But no matter how far she travels, no matter the beauty, the wonderful people she meets, geography won't free her. She can't wash away the sticky conditioning, that she feels bubbling just underneath her skin. The daily pains of living with a bipolar mother, her depression, her frightening fear of Life, her instability, the medication, the irrationality, the absence of touch, the absence of kindness and softness. She wants to erase the injustice of being "less" than a boy! less than her brother. She carries the psychological and physical abuse of a grandmother with whom she must live 3 months per year. She knows her own violence when, at 11, she knocks her out!. She knows only to defy, to be strong, to fight before you feel more pain. She kicks, she screams, she rebels, she bullies, kindness is a weakness. She is angry. She defies the world and carries her defiance throughout her travels until a rape cracks her soul open. She wakes up from who is she. She won't be a victim...never. The impact is so powerful that she is going to understand this new way of being, this new state of consciousness, of looking at herself, life. She on a mission. She discovers kindness to herself, the true power of forgiveness the freedom in acceptance and non-judgement. She tames herself, nurtures herself, it's the beginning of her spiritual journey.
Our Past Shapes Us
Yoga steals her heart
She has a profound need to settle. She takes refuge in marriage with a kind and devoted man. and they have two beautiful children. She discovers Yoga and enters the Australian Iyengar Yoga Institute one year later in the hope that her teacher and mentor, K.Parry, a direct disciple of BKS Iyengar will pick her as one of the four apprentices she is going to train for the next four years to become one of the future Australian Iyengar Teachers. The training is tough, The selection is severe, and many months later she is chosen!
Challenges Shape us
She dives into the next four years of intensive training with Kay Parry, BKS and Geeta Iyengar, and the best senior teachers in Australia at the time, with complete dedication and passion. she soon starts training the young teachers that have started to flood the many yoga schools flourishing all over Sydney.
One day, an offer to book a free One on One session with Sylviane at one of the Teacher Training course is going to skyrocket her interest in healing.
Students are queuing, it's a revelation.! Her reputation precedes her but she flies under the radar, she is still learning, growing.
When asked about her spiritual practice
"I am not aligned with any religion, I don't like to be given answers by other humans... I trust only Life.
"It robs me of my own power of learning and this feels to me very constricting. Plus, It's not my experience, it is theirs. My father used to give me mind-twisters to solve, even from Einstein! And I would spend days trying to find the answer.
That being said, if I inquire into an experience that matters to my life, I will try and find if someone has had a similar experience and have advanced in its understanding. I read a lot and I do listen to some wonderful spiritual teachings from Eckart Tolle, Krishnamurti or it can be a person I meet at the supermarket! But I am highly critical of what people say is THE truth! There are as many truths as they are minds. But I can be so uplifted, by people who have had similar experiences and can articulate their thoughts in much better words than I can... its a thrill!
My Life experiences have revealed that there is much strength in listening and respond from a space of awareness rather than react from my past conditioning. Iyengar Yoga taught me so much. Feeling the body with such alertness and presence, in such subtle ways, observing, listening to what is, finding peace in the midst of pain and hard work was invaluable practice. I am a great fan of Life - the Life that I am and that I am part of. Nature is my mentor! My house opens onto the jungle and I can spend hours just marvel. This is where I find exaltation, peace, gratitude, beauty, bliss and profound insights...
In 2007, at 50, She falls!
And everything breaks loose
She severely damages her lumbar spine, sacrum, and lumbosacral nerves complex.
Paralysis from the waist down to the pelvic floor and total loss of bowel control.
The diagnostic is bleak, is a surgical emergency! She knows it, but she refuses. She knows the possible side effects, she has seen it in her students, in her patients.
She trusts in Life, in the body, in her mind and inner strength. She just needs the right kind of information to support the healing.
For her, it is another pivotal moment. She needs to heal a body broken and now paralysed by a lifelong lack of support and self Love. She is now divorced but this time, no one can rescue her.
She needs to be alone.
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Other health challenges follow shortly after the accident and add themselves to the debilitating spinal condition. A "dormant" Hepatitis C virus and a "dormant" shingle virus, wake up in the midst of menopause and chronic fatigue,
"How many time-bombs were hiding in my body?!"
IT DEMANDS YEARS OF UNWAVERING WORK AND SOLITUDE
And at 60, she has created a NEW LIFE and NEW HEALTH
C"est La Vie!
She soon discovers how poor and ill-equipped conventional medicine is when it comes to chronic pain conditions.
It will take a few years of research, learning from the best, applying it, listening to the response of her body, to her true self.
Awareness and the power to look at her body and at herself as a Life process, always asking to shade old conditionings and align with the demand of higher consciousness is at the heart of her healing.
She does not disconnect this process from the physical, On the contrary, through gentle and powerful alchemy, she can put the puzzle together. An injury cannot be separated from the larger context of the human posture and The biomechanics of the human posture is inevitably linked to our mindset and belief systems. A Psychosomatic methodology slowly emerges. She calls it the "biomechanics of beliefs". She opens a clinic in the northern Peninsula of Sydney, dedicated to chronic pain. The results are remarkable. She helps many including high performing athletes and yoga practitioners.
Today she lives between Bali, Sydney and France and work with people from all over the world.
"If you listen deep enough into nature
You learn that anything is possible" SGJ
