Diagnosis and the Shock of a Changing Body

In 2007, six months after my daughter was born, I felt very sick. I was a brand-new, first-time mom, not sleeping well and feeling unwell. It began with an upset stomach and I was extremely exhausted. I spent hours in the bathroom, thinking I had the flu. However, as my symptoms worsened, I knew something was wrong.

I made an appointment with my primary doctor. Based on my symptoms, she recommended a colonoscopy. I was 42 years old, lived a very healthy lifestyle with no real health history, but I followed her guidance and had the procedure.

Soon after, my doctor diagnosed me with Crohn's disease.

Living With Autoimmune Uncertainty

Living with Crohn's disease for the past 18 years, I know firsthand that autoimmune conditions can have unpredictable symptoms like flares, fatigue, and grief over a changing body. Living with an autoimmune condition can create all kinds of emotional challenges like depression, anxiety, and fear.

As a yoga practitioner, I understood the power of the mind–body connection and the healing potential of yoga. I was fortunate enough to draw on my diverse yoga training to support myself through flares and fatigue. Through meditation, I cultivated mindfulness and awareness, which helped me meet uncertainty with openness.

These practices offered a way to stay present in the unknown while still being in my body. They gave me hope.

A Different Understanding of Hope

Deep in my heart, I know the tension people might feel around ""hope."" Hope can feel both essential and exhausting. The cultural pressure to ""stay positive"" can invalidate real suffering. Conventional narratives of hope can silence grief and anger, and increase shame during flares or setbacks.

Yoga therapy offered me an alternative from this narrative, instead providing a path that honors my current physical capacity, allows fluctuation, and values rest and pacing. I learned that real hope meant making room for disappointment and giving myself permission to change expectations. It meant accepting that hope which excluded truth would not be sustainable.

Hope does not simply mean believing things will get better in the conventional sense. It can mean staying in direct relationship with what is.

As a yoga therapist working with many clients, I have come to understand yoga therapy as offering a different kind of hope: not cure-focused or rooted in denial, but grounded in relationship with the body as it is.

As anyone with an autoimmune illness knows, chronic stress and nervous system imbalance can fuel cycles of inflammation. As I explored my own nervous system, I noticed that when my body felt under threat, my symptoms increased.

I discovered that hope begins with feeling safe, both in my surroundings and within my own body.

I came to see that my body was doing its best to protect me. This was not about blame. Yoga therapy became a way to be present not only with symptoms, but also with feelings, sensations, and memories. It supported regulation, resilience, and my capacity to care for my systems, rather than trying to fix my pathology.

Yoga Therapy as a Practice of Relationship, Not Outcome

Yoga therapy differs from general yoga instruction through its personalized approach, designed to support specific physical or mental health conditions. Practices may include adapted postures, breathwork, and meditation, tailored to the individual or group.

Yoga therapy is typically offered one-on-one or in small groups. The goal is healing, functional improvement, and the development of self-care skills. Yoga therapists receive advanced training in anatomy, physiology, and disease beyond standard yoga teacher certification. The focus is responsiveness and meeting the person in front of you.

Key principles for working with autoimmune conditions include:

• Emphasizing listening over forcing

• Offering choices so poses support the student's current capacity

• Cultivating curiosity as a pathway to hope

Hope emerges through learning to trust the signals the body and mind communicate, tracking moments of ease rather than constant progress, and building agency through choice. During one Crohn's flare marked by deep fatigue, I chose a practice centered on rest. I practiced for 20–30 minutes daily instead of my usual 60–90 minutes. By listening to fatigue and allowing a shorter practice to be supportive, I built self-trust. Resting poses became a lived experience of hope.

I call this a sophisticated hope. It is a cultivated, seasoned hope informed by experience and knowledge.

Finding Support Through the Mind–Body Connection

During another digestive flare, I noticed how scared and alone I felt. I had connected with a health practitioner who had lived through her own experience with Crohn's disease. I reached out, and together we made a plan to support my system. We focused on tools from mindfulness and nutrition.

Feeling more resourced, I used two yoga therapy sequences to soothe my belly, support my nervous system, and address my fatigue. This gave me hope that healing was possible—and I did heal.

The Deep Fatigue sequence I kept to 15 minutes and used a rolled blanket to help me connect with different areas of my body. I found that fatigue could be a great teacher when honored, and I started to get to know my fatigue levels and what they needed.

The Abdominal Restoration sequence helped me practice self-stewardship and bring kind awareness to my digestive upset and my recovering abdomen.

Stay tune for the release of Yoga for Deep Fatigue and Abdominal Restoration with De West on Yoga International.

Somatic Experiences of Hope: What It Feels Like in Movement

Hope can appear in subtle ways: a breath that feels less guarded, a posture adapted to meet fatigue, or a pause that prevents overexertion. These are direct, somatic experiences of hope.

In yoga therapy, the term somatic refers to an approach to practice that prioritizes internal sensation and awareness over external form, alignment, or physical performance. The core of the practice is about the ""living body"" as experienced from within (soma in Greek), rather than the body as an object to be externally observed. Somatic yoga shifts the focus from achieving a ""perfect"" pose to a mindful exploration of how each movement and stillness feels internally. By noticing direct experiences we can shift from a negative bias to noticing what is happening in our bodies in the moment. That can help us feel what is happening in the body and our nervous system state.

Hope is closely linked to states in the nervous system. By noticing our nervous system states and tracking internal sensations, we can tune into the subtle cues of hope.

Hope ebbs and flows from day to day, situation to situation, and pose to pose. We can notice when hope feels louder or quieter, when it comes and goes. Sometimes hope is restraint rather than effort.

In autoimmune illness, hope is often sensed before it is thought.

Living With Uncertainty: Yoga Therapy and Flexible Hope

Autoimmune symptoms fluctuate, and diagnoses can evolve. Uncertainty is ongoing. Yoga therapy supports adaptability, continual reassessment, and allowing movement to change with the body. That flexibility is itself a practice.

Hope can be reframed as trust in our ability to adapt. Hope can build confidence in self-supporting skills and response, even when outcomes are unknown. Hope lives in responsiveness, not prediction.

Hope as a Practice, Not a Promise

Yoga therapy does not promise a cure. It offers compassionate presence, tools for regulation, and a way to stay connected to life as we change. Hope is a daily practice of listening, adjusting, and remaining in relationship with the body.

Hope is the belief that we have the capacity to influence our well-being. It is active rather than passive. Hope motivates us into action and is a strong predictor of well-being and recovery.

Perhaps the deepest hope yoga therapy offers is not that the body will never struggle again, but that we will know how to meet it when it does.