Community Highlights: Meet Shannon Basham

Today we’d like to introduce you to Shannon Basham.

Hi Shannon, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I started practicing yoga after my dad died when I was ten. Looking back at it all now, it seems like a miracle that I found yoga with Lilias on public TV.

A series of traumatic events had led to my dad’s death, my mother and I were experiencing what we now call PTSD. Somehow that little girl could feel the practices of breathing and movement were helping her.

I would lay on the floor in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep and do yoga Nidra (yoga sleep).

I plowed through but there was a lot of self-medication, and self-flagellation, and thank God for the continued exploration of yoga through the years. In my twenties, I joined the army when I was struggling with my career path. After serving active duty for five years, I moved to Kansas City, Missouri to finish my undergrad and became a half-a-dentist!

Throughout this tenure, the stress of dental school and my failing marriage brought me right back to the yoga mat. Yoga was now supporting me in ways I didn’t fully understand, helping me ride the waves of life.

After leaving dental school and a divorce, I took a corporate job. Although it paid my bills, I still felt lost and depressed. A part of my undergraduate degree was in exercise science and I enjoyed teaching other people about fitness. As a result, I was the director of a dental assisting program in my day job and a personal trainer in the early mornings/evenings.

Helping people learn about exercise helped me satisfy my longing for a sense of purpose. I found that most of my clients needed to work on their core, flexibility, and breathing more (that’s all yoga). I was sharing so much of what I was learning from yoga that I asked my yoga teacher & chiropractor (Dr. Kelli Austin, KCMO) if she thought I could teach.

Her support and guidance changed my life in a multitude of positive ways! In 2009, under the guidance of Prana Flow teacher Gina Caputo, I began my journey as a yoga teacher.

After my yoga teacher training, I taught in all of the places you’d expect to find yoga; yoga studios, gyms, parks, & rec, corporations, and private sessions. My in-depth study about the practice of yoga revealed how yoga had helped me as a little girl and throughout my whole adult life.

The more I learned about my own body and the neuroscience of yoga and understood the body as a whole, the more I wanted to SLOW everyone down so they could feel and experience the benefits of their practice.

Things really began shifting when I had the opportunity to sub for some chair yoga classes. I began to see yoga as the perfect place for aging adults and folks with injuries or other conditions to get fit and experience many other benefits of yoga. Teaching yoga in a chair led me to work with people living with MS and other disabilities, including veterans groups every week.

What I discovered is that I really enjoyed working more with individuals or smaller groups because I could give each person individual attention and specific guidance at that moment. I also enjoyed sharing yoga with folks who might not be able to go to a yoga class in a studio. This was sharing yoga from a therapeutic view rather than the “one size fits all” yoga model we were seeing in magazines and on social media.

I became a yoga therapist in 2017. I’m a Veteran-owned Small business.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
It’s been a long winding, rocky road with so many struggles. My passion for sharing the practices of yoga has kept me going. I feel better in my body at 52 than I ever did in my 20s or 30s! I want others to have this experience!

There were so many shifts of perception that needed to occur.

Most of us know yoga as a “fitness” but I was slowing my students down, moving toward a “therapy” yoga model. All yoga has the potential to be therapeutic and helps the practitioner achieve physical, mental, and emotional balance. The yoga therapy model addresses the specific health, wellness goals & needs of the individual or small group. Yoga is not “one size fits all”.

The yoga model looks at the body, mind, and spirit (breath) as a whole rather than separate, unlike our current medical model in the US. Most of the images of yoga are of young, thin, white, females “performing” yoga. I wanted to focus on folks who were older, less flexible, people living with injuries, conditions, or disabilities, people of color, and all age groups. They didn’t think they could do yoga because they hadn’t seen anyone like them practicing.

I became obsessed with reaching anyone who couldn’t or wouldn’t go to a yoga studio or try yoga. The body postures we see in the media are only the superficial, outer layer of our being and the practice of yoga. The body is a tool and place of entry into the deeper, much more expansive layers of our being.

Most yoga classes were being taught in studios that were not accessible. Many of my students couldn’t physically enter or use the bathroom in many studios and the classes were not being offered to people with disabilities or conditions. Oh and then there is the cost factor of yoga which makes it inaccessible for many.

I was grateful to be teaching my older adults at KU and Fairway parks and recreation but I needed more accessible building spaces for my students with walkers and wheelchairs. I reached out to libraries and churches for spaces to share. I practiced a lot of “Karma Yoga” to make it financially accessible to many of my students on fixed incomes. Karma yoga is the path of unselfish action.

It teaches that a spiritual seeker should act without being attached to the fruits or personal consequences.

Obviously, since Karma yoga does not pay the bills, I was often struggling to make my ends meet and that’s been even more challenging since COVID kicked in. I’ve done a lot of grant writing and asking for donations. I’ve had to ask for help from friends and family which has almost made me give up many times.

As with most businesses the pandemic has been a major obstacle. The irony is it finally got me to offer yoga sessions virtually which had been a goal for years. Zoom made it possible for many of my students to practice from the comfort of their own homes without worries of getting in/out of buildings etc.

I’m so grateful to my students who put their real-life yoga to the test when COVID isolated us all. We were living our yoga to the fullest when we moved online and continued our life-affirming practices during the scariest times of our lives. My teacher Gina used to hold us in planks, shaking like shizzle and she’d say, “This is practice for when shit hits the fan!”

I thought I had lived through so much but the pandemic has given us all the fertilizer to expand beyond our dreams! It’s exciting to have a hybrid live and online business now. It opens the door to so many opportunities for everyone in the future!

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Shannon Basham, LLC?
I’m a yoga therapist and have more depth of knowledge than a yoga teacher. As a yoga therapist, I am sharing yoga techniques but applying them specifically to individuals or small groups as needed. I have over 40 years of yoga experience through the stages of my own life and over 12 years of teaching experience to share.

I help people prevent pain by staying strong, flexible, and breathing more deeply. (yes, fit!). Healthy Aging- Osteopenia, Osteoporosis, Fall Prevention. But I also help folks dealing with pain, including low-back pain, arthritis, and PMS. Chronic Pain- fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. RA, Lupus.

Neurologic conditions- MS, CP, Parkinson’s disease, recovering from a stroke or traumatic brain injury. Mental Health- depression, anxiety, trauma, PTSD, insomnia, and others. Major Illnesses-diabetes, cancer, and heart disease

The yogic model of health addresses the whole body and considers every aspect of life and what is happening at the moment. YOU can do YOGA!!! Yoga is self-care. Self-care is healthcare!!

You can book your session or event thru my website or contact me at [email protected].

What do you like and dislike about the city?
I come from a small town and KC offers that small-town feel with all of the big city FUN! As a singer/musician, I LOVE LIVE MUSIC!!! Kansas City has a hidden treasure chest of jazz, blues, country, rock, bluegrass, classical musicians, and venues!!

We also have an amazing arts scene! And FOOD!!! Whatever you’re craving KC has it!! You can find vegetarians but you know we love our BBQ! The people are what make KC the best! Everyone is warm and friendly.

I’d like to see Kansas City become more accessible to our aging population and other populations living with disabilities. I dream of bringing all of the populations I teach together in one accessible yoga therapy space someday!!!

Pricing:

• 3 donation sessions on Zoom each week for people living with MS and other conditions & injuries.
• $15/small group Yoga Therapy Zoom sessions.
• $90 Unlimited Pass is good for Small Group Zoom Sessions.
• $100/ Individual Yoga Therapy Session on Zoom.
• $120/ Couples Yoga Therapy Session on Zoom.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: https://yogatherapywithshan.com/services
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/yogawithshan/photos/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/home
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRhHkqLTb4djr5R_N0Y-cmQ
• Other: https://www.amazon.com/Swing-Like-Ella/dp/B01K8WNBMI

Image Credits
Sondra Epperly and Shannon Basham