How much is membership and
how much are classes?
By becoming a member of the Absenger Cancer Education Foundation, you are not just a member, you are a part of the cause.
The Big Picture
Besides supporting an excellent organization that will bring innovative mind-body medicine research to West Michigan, your membership will help you to improve your life.
How Do I Benefit?
Once you start participating in our mind-body medicine programs, you immediately get to use self-management skills and techniques that will allow you to take an active role in your health care and well-being.
Self-management is your ability to manage symptoms, treatments, lifestyle changes, and psychosocial, cultural, and spiritual consequences associated with chronic stress, chronic illness, or condition.
Self-management, in conjunction with family, friends, and health care professionals, is your ongoing effort to promote your health and welfare and to make your life better.
Because there are positive and significant relationships between your ability for self-management and different aspects of quality of life, you benefit directly from participating in our programs.
Early Adopter Benefits
Obviously, running the Absenger Cancer Education Foundation costs money. To offer the best possible services, classes and programs, and for us to pay our awesome staff and keep our lights on, we ask the community to help. For the time being, paid monthly memberships will deliver the necessary funds to give the financial stability a start-up nonprofit such as ours needs.
As an early adopter (the first 150 persons who join) and as long you stay a member you receive special membership pricing and benefits. We will get to the pricing in just a bit. But here are your membership benefits:
- Your membership dues will never increase
- Yoga classes will always be FREE,
- Meditation classes will always be FREE,
- Qigong classes will always be FREE, and you always receive
- 50% OFF of all other services, classes and programs.
It is important for you to know that self-management is not just something that we made up. Self-management in chronic disease is a major enough topic to call for the compilation of a special consensus report by the Institute of Medicine.
The Institute of Medicine’s Consensus Report
The Institute of Medicine (IOM), an independent, nonprofit organization that works outside of government to provide unbiased and authoritative advice to decision makers and the public writes that
- Despite existing national initiatives to help patients with chronic conditions, the health care enterprise is not doing enough for patients (IOM, 2012).
- Chronic conditions are steadily moving toward crisis proportions with medical care costs of people with chronic conditions representing 75 percent of the $2 trillion in U.S. annual health care spending (IOM, 2012).
- There are domains of chronic disease management from a public health perspective for which there is not enough research or program evaluation. Much more needs to be done (IOM, 2012).
However, some mind-body medicine research suggests that mind-body medicine modalities might lend themselves as vehicles teaching effective self-management, which in turn might reduce the chronic disease burden and decrease health care spending.
Who can Become a Member of ACEF?
Q: “Your programs all sound incredible! Do I have to be a cancer survivor or caregiver to join?”
A: No! Anyone can become a member!
Memberships are available to anyone. As mentioned above, yoga, meditation, and qigong will always be FREE to early adopters. Members also receive 50% OFF of most classes, groups, and events. We want to make these programs as affordable as possible because evidence suggests that these programs can provide real health benefits for any person interested in playing an active role in living a fuller, richer, healthier life.
Please note that some programs will only be available to cancer survivors, their loved ones and caregivers due to the subject topic of the programs.
Keeping Membership as Simple as Possible
We tried to keep the membership process as simple as possible. Here is how it works:
You can join via a super-easy online form. It takes less than a minute to complete. Yes, we timed it! Transactions are processed securely using the latest Website Payments Standard technology. Your membership will automatically repeat each month until you decide to cancel it.
Click here for the Individual Membership at $29 month
Click here for the Caregiver Membership at $39 month
NO sign up fees. NO long-term contracts. NO membership gimmicks.
Cancel anytime. No questions asked.
It is as simple as that.
Our Programs and Pricing
Take a look at all the programs we offer.
Chakra Balancing Yoga
To restore the “flow of energy” in your chakra system, you will begin with the root chakra, your “foundation.” With each weekly session, you will move through your body’s energy centers. Your last session will end at the crown of your head. Join Karri every Saturday morning at the center for a journey to unite mind, body, and spirit.
FREE per session for members
$10 per session for nonmembers
Restorative Yoga
Restorative yoga is a gentle yoga practice that uses gravity and the support of props for relaxation. The supportive props allow you to rejuvenate and recover from stress. As you hold the poses with the aid of props, you can experience mind-full relaxation. Restorative yoga lends itself quite nicely to be taken up by cancer survivors, persons with other chronic diseases or someone just getting started with yoga.
FREE per session for members
$10 per session for nonmembers
Yoga Therapy
Unless you, the cancer survivor is already relatively fit, you should begin a yoga program cautiously and very slow. A class at a regular yoga studio might not be right for you because, depending on your diagnosis of cancer, you might have concerns about bone integrity, cardio/pulmonary status, and hematology. Radiation and chemotherapy could have an impact on the poses you can do. However, you need not feel left out to benefit from the positive effects yoga can offer cancer survivors and their caregivers. Before heading to your local neighborhood yoga studio, we can get you started. Karri is a licensed nurse and registered yoga teacher. Karri will work with you, one on one, or in a small group and tailor your yoga practice to your specific needs, whether you are a cancer survivor or not.
$40 per session for members
$80 per session for nonmembers
Meditation Classes (Guided)
Meditation is a mind-body medicine practice that has been used throughout history to increase calmness and physical relaxation. It is important to know that mind-body medicine modalities focus on the interaction between your brain, mind, body, and behavior. Thus, meditation can help you manage stress, improve psychological balance, help you cope with illness, and help you enhance your overall health and well-being.
If you are a business executive or looking to get ahead in business, our meditation groups might be highly relevant to managing work stress and job burnout. A recent article in WIRED magazine pertaining meditation dealt with the benefits of meditation and how cultivating a meditation practice might be good for your career. The article is titled “In Silicon Valley, Meditation Is No Fad. It Could Make Your Career.”
FREE per session for members
$5 per session for nonmembers
Medical Qigong
Qigong, the coordination of gentle body movement, breathing, meditation, and visualization, when integrated with cancer care or post-medical cancer care, is a safe practice. Regular qigong practice may improve your quality of life and help reduce inflammation. Set aside Sunday afternoons for this ancient movement practice for health and vitality. Our qigong class is ideal for anyone trying to jumpstart an exercise program.
FREE per session for members
$10 per session for nonmembers
Group Drumming
We strongly urge you to set aside the last Sunday evening of every month for a special event at the Absenger Cancer Education Foundation. We invite you for a group drumming session. Feel free to bring the entire family. These monthly events are limited to 30 participants, so please RSVP to Werner. A group drumming session may help you cut stress, tension, and anxiety. A drumming circle is also a great community builder.
FREE per session for members
$10 per session for nonmembers
Mindful Eating
Mindfulness training involves purposeful and sustained attention to internal dialogs and bodily cues, facilitating assessment and potential re-patterning of automatic behaviors. This approach could help you change patterns of eating; you developed over years. Rather than cutting calories, mindfulness may help you reduce weight by restoring your ability to detect, and respond to, natural cues of hunger.
We are going to offer the Mindful Eating program in a 6-week format. The small group will meet once a week (for two hours) for six consecutive weeks. New groups are often forming, and participation is limited to 12 participants. Reserve your space early.
Members: $60 for six-week program
Nonmembers: $120 for six-week program
Medical Hypnosis
Medical hypnosis is the most commonly quoted form of nondrug treatment for cancer pain. The National Institutes of Health endorses the use of medical hypnosis for the relief of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. However, hypnosis is not just used in health care. Business executives, sports figures, and entertainment professionals have adopted hypnosis for peak performance.
“When is Hypnosis Used?”
Find out if you could benefit from hypnosis, by scheduling a FREE 30-minute consultation session. The consult will give you the opportunity to ask questions, meet Werner (or talk on the phone with him), and learn more about hypnosis and if hypnosis is indicated for your particular situation.
$50 per session for members
$90 per session for nonmembers
Medical Hypnosis for Smoking Cessation
Because you consider medical hypnosis as a smoking cessation tool and that you are ready to say goodbye to your smoking behavior is very encouraging. We will use hypnosis as a tool to reinforce your intention to kick-the-habit and to change your belief system about cigarettes, quitting tobacco use and smoking behavior.
Members: $10 per group session | $50 per individual session
Nonmembers: $20 per group session | $90 per individual session
Stress Management Tailored Specifically for Cancer Survivors
Good information, self-management skills, and a supportive environment can help you to achieve a higher level of physical, emotional, and spiritual wellness. We designed this class as an 8-week skill-building series. Each class builds on the other, and once you complete all 8-classes, you are going to have an impressive set of stress management skills at your disposal.
During the eight weekly sessions, you will learn how to mobilize the healing power of your mind to reduce stress. You will learn how to promote physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being so you can get on living and thriving in cancer survivorship.
Members: $80 for eight-week program
Nonmembers: $160 for eight-week program
Individual and Group Support
Cancer survivorship support groups are an excellent way to help you mobilize coping resources, adjust to cancer and enhance your spiritual well-being. Cancer support groups also have the potential to significantly relieve distress and promote psychological well-being.
Cancer survivor caregiver groups will help loved ones increase feelings of preparedness, competence, and reward.
Group Support for Members: $10 per session | Group Support Nonmembers: $20 per session
Individual Support for Members: $50 per session | Individual Support Nonmembers: $90 per session
Intimacy & Relationship Support
An all too often taboo subject in a cancer survivor’s journey is sexual health and wellness. We are going to address this issue with an 8-week series that combines evidence-based stress management modalities, education around themes of intimacy and sexuality, in a group setting.
Relationship support can aid in improving personal health and relationship satisfaction. Research indicates that cancer survivorship programs involving both partners may reduce negative mood and partners’ distress, increase positive sexual adjustment and coping skills, and improve partners’ supportive communication.
Members: $80 for eight-week program
Nonmembers: $160 for eight-week program
Music Therapy Group
Stanford researchers found that participants in a weekly music therapy group were less anxious, less distressed and had higher self-esteem. Guided imagery with theta music may offer you self-management strategies and a sense of independence. Music therapy may help ease anxiety in very stressful situations.
$10 per session for members
$20 per session for nonmembers
Now it is Your Turn!
Thank you for considering becoming a member of the Absenger Cancer Education Foundation.
Join now and soon you start putting into practice the self-management skills and techniques that you will learn at the center. Once you do, you will join the folks that already are benefiting from their memberships.
All that is left to do now is to pick the membership that is right for you to start taking an active role in your health care and well-being.
Get My Individual Membership at $29/month
Get MY Caregiver Membership (2 persons) at $39/month
Reference:
Institute of Medicine (U.S.). (2012). Living well with chronic illness: A call for public health action. Washington, D.C: National Academies Press.
