Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Betty Sleeth (left) and Sandy DeRyke work in Los Gatos, but are carrying Deepak Chopra's message throughout Northern California.

Spirited Journey

Body, mind and spirit become healing forces

By Kristin Von Kreisler

With microphones attached to their lapels, Sandy DeRyke and Betty Sleeth of Los Gatos stood together on the stage of a ballroom at the Burlingame Hyatt Regency.

Before them were lighting and audio-recording technicians--and a sea of faces. Though Sleeth, a massage therapist, and DeRyke, a physical therapist, had no idea exactly how many people were in the audience, 530 had registered for Deepak Chopra's seminar, "Journey to the Boundless."

The women were going to teach his meditation techniques.

"This seminar was a big step for us," Sleeth explains.

Until then, she and DeRyke had taught meditation to classes of 30 at most, in one small room. But, Sleeth adds, "We knew teaching all those people at the seminar was just what we were supposed to be doing. We were eager and excited. We'd earned the right to be there and be heard."

And so they had. For the past two years, Sleeth and DeRyke had been studying with Chopra, a physician and spiritual teacher who was recently featured in a Time Magazine cover story and who has sold 6 million copies of his books. Chopra is frequently featured on PBS television stations.

Sleeth and DeRyke had attended courses and workshops at Chopra's Center for Well Being in La Jolla--and had passed all his exams and requirements to become his meditation and mind/body educators. (He has trained and certified only 22 other people to have both these specialties.)

During Sleeth and DeRyke's training, Chopra had also had a profound effect on their lives. Before DeRyke met Chopra, for example, she says she believed her purpose in life was to help people recover from injuries by connecting to their minds and spirits. But she felt alone on her professional journey and often questioned herself about being on the right path.

Chopra's teaching, which emphasizes the connection between the body, mind and spirit, gave her the support she needed. "Since meeting Deepak, I'm aware that everything is possible in life," DeRyke explains. "If I have a purity of purpose and motivation, whatever I need to carry out my work will be available. If I ask, 'How can I help?' the helping just happens. I'm comforted by knowing I'm on a journey that helps me and the people around me."

DeRyke actually came to know Sleeth in 1990 by trying to help her. Sleeth had ruptured a disc in her spine and had had two surgeries, which had not relieved the pain. For two years, DeRyke, as her physical therapist, helped Sleeth understand how her mind and emotions were contributing to her back pain, how for physical health she also needed spiritual health.

"Helping people discover the spiritual power within is where real healing and wellness comes from," says DeRyke, echoing Chopra. "I try to have one foot in traditional western medicine and one foot in whatever there is to get even more success as a physical therapist. The two approaches of the spiritual and medical complement each other."

That seemed evident with Sleeth, who slowly recovered. And in the process, she and DeRyke became close friends and then a professional team that combined both the women's strengths and backgrounds in new, productive ways.

DeRyke had grown up on an Iowa farm and graduated from the University of Iowa, where she majored in physical therapy, she says, because she wanted to be in the medical field, but she didn't want to be a doctor or nurse.

After working as a physical therapist in Hawaii and Colorado, she moved to California in 1986 with her husband, Joe, and her two children, Darcy and Dajon. Three years later, she opened Myofascial Physical Therapy at 20 S. Santa Cruz Ave. in Los Gatos and was "thrilled," she says, to be a businessperson.

Sleeth had been reared in Marin County, gotten a bachelor's degree in biology and physical education at Chico State University, a master's in health sciences at San Jose State University--and then international certification in massage therapy. For years, she had taught biology and anatomy/physiology in Fremont High School in Sunnyvale. Educating was her life's focus.

After they became friends, Sleeth and DeRyke--with firm backgrounds in science and health and with collective skills in business and teaching--took a bold step in a new direction together: They attended a year-and-a-half course in interactive guided imagery, a technique that helps people use their imaginations to "see" ways of relaxing, for instance, or focusing attention or working out physical problems.

The women were so impressed by the health benefits of imaging that they founded a production company, Biopsykinetics, and made six audio tapes, on which they take turns guiding listeners on imaginary mental "trips" to better health. The women also used guided imaging in five-week courses they started teaching in 1993, called "The Power of Choice," which helped students "get clear about the basic purpose of their lives, what their values and priorities were," DeRyke explains. "And then they learned how to carry out their purpose."

With Sleeth and DeRyke's firm belief that well-being hinges on attending to the body, mind and spirit, Chopra, whose views are so compatible with theirs, fit naturally into their lives. After DeRyke read his Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, she called his office to get on his mailing list and, by chance, learned he taught courses in La Jolla--and offered certification for health professionals to become educators for his principles and teachings.

In October 1994, DeRyke and Sleeth started his courses and learned his approaches to meditation, exercise, yoga, diet. The women also understood even more than before how connecting with the spirit is so essential for keeping the body and mind in balance. "We learned more about the self and the tools people need if they want to change unhealthy patterns," Sleeth adds.

After studying at Chopra's center and at home, passing written and oral exams, and getting certified as body/mind educators, the women were still so hungry to learn more that they decided to go through the same process all over again to become Chopra's primordial sound meditation educators.

"Primordial sound" involves whispering in the back of your head a mantra that is specifically assigned to you: "It's the sound of the universe at the time and place you were born"--a sound established by ancient Indian sages, Sleeth explains. "When you meditate with that sound, you're in harmony with the universe."

Ultimately, after careful practice and attention, Sleeth adds, "the meditation will enable you to get to the silent space between thoughts, which is the space of pure potentiality."

That means, according to Chopra, the place where you can plant your deepest desires, which will become reality if they're in your and the universe's best interests.

Besides learning meditation from Chopra, Sleeth and DeRyke also learned about ayurvedic medicine, the 6,000-year-old east Indian science of self-healing, which Chopra has become so famous for applying to western medicine and to modern life. That medicine, of course, is closely allied to spirituality.

"Because Deepak can talk about quantum physics and spirituality," DeRyke says, "he reaches medical professionals who are used to analytical thought. And yet, he expands their thinking to be more spiritual and to encourage the body/mind/spirit potential for self healing."

One of the key words that comes up again and again in the women's talk about Chopra is that word "self," as in "self reliance" and "self empowerment" and "self trust." Chopra, whom Sleeth says "has little ego and does not want to be a guru," taught her and DeRyke to rely on themselves and their own wisdom.

Then, in turn, they were to help patients reach inside themselves to discover their own wisdom and self-healing potential.

"Deepak wants us to believe in ourselves and to understand our own spirituality--and then go out and teach what we've learned and elevate the consciousness of our community," DeRyke says. "He wants us to assist others to assist others to assist others. And he wants us to let go of the outcome of our work, to trust and not to try and control what will happen."

In their attempt to assist others to assist others, DeRyke and Sleeth have been traveling all over Northern California in the past few months, teaching Chopra's approach to meditation and mind/body health. On Aug. 24 and 25, the women will teach Primordial Sound Meditation in their Los Gatos office. On Sept. 16, they'll start an eight-week course called "The Magic of Healing," which will focus on ways to help people listen to their "whispers" of pain, stress and fatigue before they become "shouts" of injury and illness, Sleeth explains.

She and DeRyke are also sponsoring two free community activities in their office: a group meditation on the first Tuesday evening of each month, and a discussion of Chopra's "Seven Spiritual Laws" on the second Tuesday evening.

One of DeRyke's favorite laws is the "law of detachment": "You make a choice about what you're going to do about any given thing, and then you check to see that your heart, not your mind, agrees with the choice," she explains. "And then you go ahead with what you've chosen to do without worrying about the outcome of your action. You're detached. You just let it unfold."

While letting it unfold, you also can consider Chopra's "law of giving," a law Sleeth finds very meaningful: "You don't have to give materially, but rather you give the gift of yourself," she says. "You're kind to people you meet. You give them energy, concern."

You also remember to give your talents. "We all have a gift to offer, something we can do better than anyone," DeRyke says. "When we discover it, we must offer it to the community and know it serves a purpose."

DeRyke's and Sleeth's gift of teaching what they've learned from Chopra serves a purpose, as does their work healing patients' injuries. But don't call the women "healers," a term they say applies no more to them than to any doctor, other health practitioner, or person.

According to DeRyke, "I'm not a healer. I'm a catalyst." When she works with patients, she says, "The healing doesn't come from me. It comes from within them." Deepak Chopra would certainly agree.

For information about DeRyke and Sleeth's classes and community service activities, call 354-3558.