The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
The Calming Tree offers yoga and healing arts
Practicing yoga has the ability to alter lives. So say three instructors at The Calming Tree yoga studio in Mentor, who each encountered transformative experiences through exercise of the ancient art.
Christine Sustar of Mentor opened the studio at 7249 Industrial Park Blvd. in early September after years as both a student and teacher. She sought out yoga in order to bring her to a calmer and more serene place in her life after suffering four miscarriages, coupled with depression and anxiety.
After first being introduced to the physical, mental and spiritual discipline, her body and mindset began to change in positive ways.
“It was like a lightbulb turned on for me. It was like wow, something’s happening here,” she said.
The more she learned and practiced, physical pain dissipated, anxiety lessened and a sense of peacefulness developed.
“I’m a lot more calm now, my husband is happy to report,” Sustar said during an interview at the studio.
She partially attributes yoga with finally carrying a successful pregnancy,
which resulted in the birth of her son Braden, age 7.
“That serene environment to accept the pregnancy, that’s a gift from God,” she said.
Sustar’s husband, Frank, who owns Accell Automotive in Wickliffe, was key in converting the 1,900-square-foot industrial space into the attractive studio partially comprised of a large area for the practice of yoga and two
additional rooms for Reiki and other healing arts.
“I wanted that safe, peaceful feeling to walk in and feel comfortable, and I believe we’ve done a good job,” Sustar said.
Jaimee Bruening of Wickliffe and Mark Mazanec of Parma are teachers on Sustar’s staff.
Mazanec, a former U.S. Marine who held what he calls “a stressful position” as a corporal of the guard at
the White House Communications Agency in Washington, D.C., claims that yoga saved his life.
After leaving the service, he struggled with drug and alcohol addiction. In 2010, as he continued to spiral downward he said he was faced with a choice — possible death from substance abuse or finding something to replace his destructive habit.
Remembering a few yoga classes he had taken shortly after his military duty, he decided to try it again.
“I surrendered to it and became a vegetarian,” he said. Those choices eventually led him on a path to recovery.
He now is registered with Yoga Alliance, a national nonprofit membership trade and professional association for yoga teachers, and conducts various sessions at The Calming Tree. Sustar noted that Mazanec’s class featuring Tibetan singing bowls has already gained a substantial following.
Bruening, also registered with Yoga Alliance, said her journey practicing the art has delivered her to a better place in life as well.
“It’s everything,” she said, and credits yoga with helping to manage her diabetes and giving her the nudge to leave a high-stress corporate job.
“I ended up leaving that job for this … helping to empower other people, helping to find space within them, having a way to work through pain so they are in control of themselves,” she said.
Bruening noted that certain myths surrounding yoga need to be debunked. For example, those who think that they cannot practice the art because they are not flexible, youthful or thin are misinformed.
“Everybody can do yoga,” she said. “We always tailor our classes to our students.”
With the ever increasing hustle and bustle of modern life, yoga provides a respite, Mazanec said.
“The way the world is changing now with so much confusion and anxiety, it’s a way to create a gap. Come in here, spend an hour and when you go back to the world, you can deal with it better.”
For more about The Calming Tree classes, visit www.thecalmingtree.com.
“The way the world is changing now with so much confusion and anxiety, it’s a way to create a gap. Come in here, spend an hour and when you go back to the world, you can deal with it better.” — Mark Mazanek, a former U.S. Marine who claims Yoga saved his life