Yoga Helps Addicts, Homeless Find Peace | via CNN Health

Taken from here.

Sylvia Rascon’s students have a diverse background of drug addiction, homelessness and unemployment, but on their mats they have found common ground.

Every Friday afternoon New York yoga teacher Sylvia Rascon offers a free class at the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center. Participants come early to clean off the floor and lay out mats. The room is small, separated by a make-shift partition from the rest of the center, but it is a space where people have a chance to focus inward, rather than outward.

“I always had a low self esteem,” says Dorila Morales, who has struggled with abuse and addiction. “You know, I was always sad. And yoga gave me the light within me. It was a load off my heart. We exercise the outside, but what about the inside?”

Watch the video from CNN Health.

To find out more about teaching yoga in underprivileged communities go to streetyoga.org.