2004 - Back to life in Madrid

After the March 11th attack in Spain, the people are trying to enjoy life again. Sylvie Dunand French therapist is also willing to be useful. She has organized free post traumatic stress release courses.

"I have seen people who could not cry, they where haunted by the images of the tragedy. Many had busted ear drums caused by the explosion." Sylvie Dunand lives in Madrid and is a volunteer of the Art of Living Foundation. This NGO wanted to help the victims. In halls offered by hotels, she has organized free post traumatic stress release courses. 4 days to teach breathing techniques to 230 grateful victims.

2004 - Breathing Life - Post traumatic stress release courses in Madrid

" My name is Marta. I lost my uncle on March 11th in the terrorist attacks. I have a lot of anger inside and want to get rid of it. I can't go on with my normal life". says this young woman in front of 20 people who are nodding in silence at her confession.

It is a group of housewives, students psychologists, designers. They come together because they have one thing in common: post traumatic stress, as a result of the terrorist attack in Madrid on March 11th. After her confession, which is only one of the painful stories that the bombs have left, Marta is ready to overcome the psychological symptoms which thousands of people, like herself, are suffering after the tragedy. She wants to get rid of the fear and the anxiety that she feels when she goes on a train, the depression caused by the lost of her uncle and her inability to sleep.

The first act of life is to breath in. Every emotion creates a specific rhythm or pattern in the breath. We don't have to be victims of our own mind. "The breathing techniques that we are teaching are helping the victims of 11-M to release their post traumatic stress" explains Sylvie Dunand, representing the Art of Living Foundation in Spain. This organization has also helped the victims of 11-S in USA, the survivors of Kosovo war and in the earthquake in Gujarat (India). We will continue to offer free post traumatic courses in the Hotel Atocha.

2004 - Breathing Therapy for the victims of March 11th

"It helped me to share my pain. I felt very comfortable during the course and could control my nightmares. "

These are some of the impressions of people who have had narrow escapes from the March 11th Terrorist attacks in Madrid. They have just finished a free Post Traumatic Stress Release course that Sylvie Dunand and 2 other volunteers from Croatia are teaching. The 3 of them are members of the Art of Living International Foundation and since April 2nd, they have been in Madrid, helping people to overcome the stress caused by March 11th attack. They will continue until mid May. Survivors have been so shocked, that some of them can't even cry. They take medication to be able to sleep and can't talk about what happened to them.

"More than 100 People have already benefited from this post traumatic course in Madrid," explains Sylvie Dunand, representative in Madrid of the Art of Living International Foundation, NGO in consultative status with ECOSOC, the Economical and Social Council of the United Nations. The AOL is represented in more than 140 countries and has also worked in other similar situations, for example after the Kosovo war, after September 11th in NY, following the Gujarat's earthquake.

In Madrid the volunteers are giving the courses in halls that hotels (like the Hotel Auditorium) are providing without charge. The course consists of breathing exercises, like the Sudarshan Kriya. This is a powerful rhythmic breathing process, which eliminates stress and toxins from every cell in the body.

"It was created in 1982 by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, a graduate in Physics and the only occidental who has acted as Adviser to the board of the Director of Yale University. After the 4 days course the techniques can easily be practised at home. Some people come to repeat the course and bring their family members," says Sylvie Dunand. A woman who has just finished the course explained, that she could actually travel by train again, and even read a book while travelling, almost 2 months after the tragedy.

New York Post, September 11 - Helping New Yorkers Take a Deep Breath:From Trauma Workshops to Food, Art of Living Volunteers Bring Relief

" I will always remember how this city rallied around its firefighters during this tragedy," says Battalion 32 Fire Chief James Bossert in his letter to the Art of Living Foundation's New York chairman Noah Hoffeld. " But I will remember most of all the contribution of your group."

Within hours of the World Trade Center attacks, Hoffeld had gathered people who had taken the Art of Living Foundation's stress reduction programs in his neighborhood and went to work on setting up public trauma workshops-- and on making hundreds of Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, which they brought to the firefighters that day.

"All the firefighters were using the Hooper Street station as a staging area," says Hoffeld. "When we showed up with our duffel bags filled with sandwiches, we saw hundreds of firefighters sitting on the curbs and on the closed off street, looking exhausted. In dealing so thoroughly with the disaster, they had not been able to get any food for their members."

For the Sunday following the attacks, the New York team arranged a music and guided meditation event in New York's Union Square Park that drew more than 2,000 people.

Within a few days, other Art of Living Foundation volunteers from around the country came to help, and workshops to alleviate trauma and stress have since been offered to New Yorkers on an ongoing basis at no charge. These four-session Art of Living Courses include a variety of powerful tools that participants can practice at home, including breathing techniques that help people feel more centered and calm. To date over 1000 people participated in the free trauma relief programs.

Space for the Lower Manhattan workshops was donated to the non-profit Art of Living Foundation by the Holiday Inn, Martinique on Broadway. "We knew this was something that was greatly needed," says hotel executive Tara Williams. "We are all New Yorkers here, and we thought it was important to do what we could to help the city and nation heal."

Notes attorney Allan Kirsten, a participant in a recent workshop: "It was a chance to purge the sadness from my system. (There was) a real serenity, combined with a feeling of energy."