Phoenix Rising is a free, self-directed, online yoga course for chronic pain and injury recovery, consisting of step-by-step asana sequences, guided teachings, and supporting perspectives and theory, with a little anatomy on the side, to drastically improve your recovery times and enable you to quantum leap from injury to full mobility.

These principles, when applied, will influence every aspect of your life.

The principles and methods presented here can be applied to transform your relationship with your body.

The principles and methods presented here can be applied externally, to any physical injury, or internally, to shift your perspectives on pain itself. Along the way, you will directly understand what is meant whenever someone says, "I healed myself through yoga," whether from a physical ailment of some kind, or even psycho-emotional trauma that results in depression and anxiety. The mechanisms are the same; the principles are the same.

ABOUT PHOENIX RISING

Each session consists of a discussion of the core concept, and perspectives to apply during the asana sequence that follows. Performed with sincere intent, this combination will shift your mindset and anchor it into your bodymind, and make it real in your everyday life as you move around. Homework is provided as well to help allow the concept to drop in when you are off the mat.

BUILD FROM FIRST PRINCIPLES.

Because this course is focused on allowing the practitioner to find relief from chronic pain in general, and back injury in particular, the guided asana sequences begin very slowly.

The lessons that bookend the asana sequences are still 100% applicable even if you do not suffer from such ailments, and the principles can be applied globally to influence all aspects of your life.

This course is founded on the observation that the majority of recovery—if not the source of the injury in the first place—is due to deeply-held and long-cherished psycho-emotional structures that we call "beliefs."

These beliefs influence our behavior in subtle ways, from unconscious personal bias to triggering emotional responses that dictate our actions.

The asana sequences are suggestions and start very simply, and become more comprehensive over time. You will be expected to practice on your own: the asana sequences are a foundation of your own exploration. The series is set up in such a way that through execution of the suggested sequences, while keeping in mind the principles of the lesson, you will be deeply anchoring in the understandings and takeaways from the lesson itself.

TAKE YOUR TIME

Between each session, especially if you have back pain or a recent injury, expect to take at least one week between classes. You will be performing the recommended sequences on your own, with the video as a reference, nothing more. It is essential that you take your time. Be patient. Reprogramming the bodymind, or reconditioning your body and your mind’s habituated responses to environmental and internal stimuli, takes time.

While you can watch all of these videos and do all the asana sequences that support them in less than a week, the speed at which you run through this series is not the point. The point is to let the lessons anchor deeply in your body and mind and to familiarize yourself with those lessons in order to effect the healing that you desire. This will not happen overnight. The sincere practitioner is not interested in how fast they go, but in how well—expect this series to take over two months, and to revisit certain sections along the way.

The principles presented, when intellectually understood and then anchored in through the asana practice, will drop in and significantly shift your relationship with the bodymind. You will notice this happening when you start applying the lessons in everyday life, and not just as an intent during the asana practice. When you recognize this, understand that your relationship to pain and injury as such is in the process of changing. Shifting your perspectives in this way to provide an increased awareness of and therefore capability to consciously direct your energies in such a way as to improve recovery is not a matter of just getting an intellectual understanding of the concepts involved and generally doesn’t happen overnight.

There is no rush. You have all the time in the world. Only do this if it resonates. If you are forcing yourself and getting down on yourself for not practicing, stop entirely and do not pick it up. This is so essential I will say it again: if you find yourself forcing anything during this series, put it down. Let it go, give yourself a break, feel good at having listened to yourself, and come back to it when you’re excited to do so. To do otherwise is to ensure that you fail before you even begin. Have fun with it! If you’re not having fun, why bother?

THERE ARE ONLY TWO MISTAKES: NOT STARTING, AND NOT GOING ALL THE WAY

Along the way, I will attempt to address the most common errors and to provide essential tips, but it is impossible to cover all niche cases. I must by necessity deal in generalities. I leave it up to you to determine your personal application of the general principles presented in the series, and I trust your maturity in doing so.

You will begin with a brief introduction, covering a few simple but powerful practices such as a body scan, where you learn to shift the focus of your attention anywhere within the body to “tune in” to subtle nuances of your bodymind system, and a breathing practice to assist with this.

Following this, we rapidly build into an increasing awareness of the nature of your bodymind’s conditioned responses to movement and stimuli, and develop flexibility through dynamic stretches while learning potent tools and perspectives such as: visualization, positive reinforcement, and the nature of acceptance.

We will conclude with a full asana sequence, having attained a new level of clarity on the boundaries of your capabilities and having generated significant insight into how and where you can expand those boundaries.

I’ll see you in the first lesson!

Supporting Materials

Course Overview

Session 1: Introduction

• Treatment

• Body Scan & Breathing

Session 2: Awareness

• The Body as Observatory

• Intention

• A Personal Story from Zachary

Session 3: Conditioning

• Spinal Scan

• Components of the Spine

• Spinal Segment Scan

Session 4: The Horizontal Path

• Conditioning as Stored Experience

• Bridging the Body and the Mind

Session 5: Flexibility

• Working with the Neuro-Muscular System

• Using the Power of Visualization to Improve Recovery Time

Session 6: Movement

• Forward Movement Through Positive Reinforcement of Awareness

  • Recognize the “Aha!” moment

• Generate by Seizing the Reins of your Conscious Experience

Session 7: Sustainment

• Developing a Yoga Practice

• Using the Emotional Body to Accelerate Recovery and Release Trauma

Session 8: Conclusions

Zachary’s Intention

The human organism is top of the food chain. The body and the mind operating at peak fitness have allowed us to spread to every corner of the globe and accomplish wonders. This is an example of the modern human body, cultivated by the best that western civilization has to offer – for the overwhelmingly vast majority of us, its potential lies untapped and buried under layers of socio-cultural conditioning and psycho-emotional habit, instead, suffering under completely avoidable chronic pain and back injuries. How can one person who labors under such ailments rise above themselves and master the gap between where they are and where they want to be?

EVERYONE WANTS SOMETHING

You might call it happiness, you might call it joy, or freedom, or peace—it doesn’t matter what you call it. You want it. If you have a back injury that continues to plague you, or deal with some form of chronic pain, you’re not alone. The majority of doctor visits in the West are due to back pain, often from completely avoidable issues. However, only you are the one who feels your pain. No one else does. Sure, people can sympathize, and maybe even relate a little bit, but you are the only one who ever feels what you feel, thinks what you think, and experiences what you experience.

IN OTHER WORDS, YOU’RE STUCK WITH YOURSELF, FOR GOOD OR ILL, AND NOW IS THE PERFECT AND THE ONLY TIME FOR ANYONE WITH A CHRONIC AILMENT OF ANY KIND TO STEP FORWARD AND MASTER THE ART OF HEALING.

And so, I feel the call to share my own experience with back injury and recovery from chronic ailments in the best way that I can: with distillations of ancient wisdom and timeless teachings made available and accessible to the layman, with absolutely no barrier to entry.

In this course, I will present lessons and perspectives on how you can productively engage with and develop the bodymind. Join me for this free online series and reveal for yourself the recognition of your own inner freedom, beginning from the first lesson with simple awareness, and guiding you all the way to a full and comprehensive understanding of your own subtle inner workings, which most likely have, up until now, been completely unconscious. By tuning into the subtle aspects of your bodymind and through exploring the nature of your injury or condition in a gentle, loving way, you will rapidly accelerate your own recovery process.

YOUR RECOVERY IS IN YOUR HANDS, NO ONE ELSE’S

You will be expected to watch and learn, and then execute on your own. Your body is your own. You must listen to it. You must pay conscious attention. To do otherwise is to be slack, to be lazy, and to allow your unconscious to paint upon the canvas of your life. This course is about noticing where in your bodymind you have been doing so, and through that self-awareness, re-orient yourself to be in alignment. This will have massive ramifications on your everyday life and direct, immediate experience of reality.

While I have a heart-felt passion for profound teachings, I will keep this “spirituality-lite.” That being said, there are some powerful mental perspectives and psycho-emotional points of view that are more readily put into practice when you maintain an open mind. Keep in mind that I am not advocating “woo-woo” spirituality, but real spirituality: genuine insights on the nature of direct experience from time-tested and ancient traditions that are just as relevant today as they were thousands of years ago.

100% Donation-Based