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F or 15 years, Donna Lampano, an executive clad in a suit and shod in high heels, faced VIPs, the press and affluent clients in deluxe hotels. Last March, Lampano, now a yogini named Sister Tara Moon, spoke on yoga and well-being as a volunteer and workshop facilitator at the Bureau of Corrections Correctional Institution For Women. It was part of boosting the mental health of “persons deprived of liberty.”
“I left the corporate world to follow my calling,” says Lampano. “I was looking for a deeper purpose where I could be of service. There was a voice inside of me saying, ‘Share the practice and spread the yoga love and healing.’”
Lampano’s corporate background is prolific. In advertising and promotions, she worked with no less than the late ad maven Roberto Caballero’s agency and was also head of Rustan’s Weddings and Beyond. In the aughts, she started as a public relations assistant at Heritage Hotel and moved to senior managerial positions in Waterfront Group, SM Investments Corp. in hotels and resorts and property divisions, Mandarin Oriental and Manila Hotel.
To cope with the pressures, she took up different yoga, meditation and healing practices and even teacher training certificate courses. In 2019, Lampano chucked the suit in favor of the kurta. She embarked on intense teacher training in Rishikesh, a city at the foot of the Himalayan mountain range, which is the center for yoga and meditation.
“When I arrived at the foot of the mountains, I cried. I felt as if I had lived there for years. Tears of joy and peace rolled down my face,” she recalls.
From traditional asana to restorative yoga
Her scope as a certified teacher and healer is wide—from the traditional asana and intense Ashtanga to restorative forms of yoga. Likewise a yoga therapist, Lampano works with her clients’ doctors who recommend healing modalities that would complement their medical protocols.
Yoga therapy is a mind-body approach that involves physical poses and movements, yogic breathing, meditation, kriyas or purification techniques that boost the immune system. She also performs sound healing to regenerate the patient.
“As a certified yoga therapist, we work with the medical doctor to address the symptoms of the patients. On the other hand, a yoga teacher holds classes for groups or individuals,” explains Lampano.
She cites the case of a patient with an advanced stage of breast cancer who needed restoration after chemotherapy and radiation. “I designed a specific program of meditation, sound healing, yoga nidra and gentle yoga movements to promote lymphatic flow,” says Lampano.
Yoga nidra is a form of meditation that soothes the person. “It guides the patient to enter into the different brain states until the brain waves reach theta, the healing state. The patient is half asleep and half awake, yet is aware of what is going on,” she explains.
When working with patients with Parkinson’s disease, Lampano teaches exercises that not only reduce tremors and other motor symptoms and but also promote joint mobility. The chakras, the energy centers governing the organs, are activated through breathing exercises.
“We need to remove blockages to promote the free flow of prana, the life force,” she says.
Sound healing
Lampano studied sound healing from grand master Shree Krishna Shahi, a third generation sound healer from Kathmandu, Nepal. Sound healing is an ancient tradition of using vibrations from handmade bowls made of seven different metals that stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system or the “rest and digest” functions. Each bowl represents a chakra in the body.
Depending on the audience and place, Lampano uses the traditional Himalayan singing bowls for their restorative powers. Crystal bowls are used for meditation in large venues.
“When clients have insomnia, sound healing helps them relax and calm their nerves. Their mental, physical and spiritual systems respond to the sounds as opposed to physical exercises, kriyas or pranayama (breathing),” says Lampano.
The sound healing can be combined with reiki, energy healing through hand movements. As a complementary therapy, reiki has been found to decrease blood pressure, anxiety, pain and improve sleep. While other reiki healers get drained from their clients’ energies, Lampano has learned to protect herself.
She learned her lesson after a session with a client in an advanced stage of cancer. Feeling fatigue and heaviness in the stomach, she went to the toilet to expel dark and watery excrement. Although it proved her tolerance with patients, Lampano learned her lesson, so she has since been performing reiki on herself and meditating before meeting her clients.
Meanwhile, she continues to share by being a resource person for yoga and health and giving group classes at the Buena Vista Clubhouse in Merville, Parañaque. Next month, she bids farewell to the community with a yoga session as she prepares to move her healing practice closer to nature in Lipa, Batangas.
Yoga fellowship is on Aug. 13, 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Check out Sister Moon Tara on Facebook or @sistermoontara on Instagram. Lampano in Rishikesh, India