Quality of Life

SOFT SESSIONS use meditation, gentle movements and management techniques to build awareness and explore what it is like to accept current limits but still find hope, calm, joy and compassion and improve quality of life with ME/CFS.

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS or CFS/ME) is a complex, multi-system medical illness with many physical, including neural, demands. Numerous symptoms are associated with a heightened sympathetic (fight/flight) tone. SOFT SESSIONS gently offer you activities to help you practice sensory, circulatory and autonomic regulation, and build coping strategies.

The foundation program is SOFT BEGINNINGS, a 10-session program that can be undertaken in a self-paced mode or a live online group setting with accompanying support meetings led by an occupational therapist (OT). Each one-hour session in the program is themed and comprises gentle movements (drawing on yoga, Feldenkrais, Pilates, fascial and vocal health) plus a matching meditation designed to be reassuring and supportive. A Companion Guide for each session offers you further ideas to ponder and may assist you in expressing the complexity of ME/CFS to your family, colleagues and health teams.

We also invite you to enjoy opportunities to gather socially through inclusive live online sessions and informative meet-ups where you can lie down or rest anytime you choose.

Developed by people with lived experience of ME/CFS and focusing on helping you 

  • better understanding of pacing strategies.

  • enjoy community meditation and gentle movement classes without triggering PEM.

  • experience more frequent “uplifting moments”.

These three pillars reflect recommendations for ME/CFS management by leading ME/CFS clinicians and researchers and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, under the proviso of ensuring suitability for individual needs. 

The foundation program is evidence-informed and sessions are respectful of neuro and energy variation. Accordingly, SOFT SESSIONS do not aim to increase hours of activity: it does NOT use Graded Exercise Therapy/GET. The sessions have been trialled by your peers with ME/CFS but they are NOT a medical treatment for ME/CFS or Long COVID, nor a cure. The program may be suitable for people with mild to moderate ME/CFS and those with fluctuating severity. However, we suggest people with severe ME/CFS refrain unless they are able to tolerate audio input, imagine movements and/or find meditation beneficial.

All care is taken in the presentation but please understand you have your individual needs. Our symptom profiles are individual so the responsibility for what you choose to do is yours alone. You know your body, so please utilise your hard-earned knowledge, and liaise with your doctor and health team, so you can choose what is suitable for you. Remember what you can do one day may be different from another day. Please use your sessions to build your understanding and self-care.

Soft Sessions

Our Aims

Explore inclusive, non-prescriptive, non-judgemental options for improving symptom management using meditation, pacing guides and gentle economical movements.

  • Build awareness of activating parasympathetic and sympathetic tone

  • Promote fascial health and blood flow

  • Care for neurology including body mapping and proprioception

  • Explore which strategies empower you to move without triggering Post Exertional Malaise or Orthostatic Intolerance

  • Encourage spinal flexibility and multi-directional movements

  • Find more joy in the small things, glimmers and uplifts, and restore balance in living more fully while respecting limitations due to illness.

  • Contribute to evidence-based strategies for coping with ME/CFS

The seeds of this project came from Jane Taylor’s lived ME/CFS experience, professional Pilates teaching, science training and study of Yoga for ME/CFS plus she has gained from others living with chronic illness. These developed across the years with the added wisdom of experienced teachers of Pilates, yoga, Feldenkrais, and practitioners in massage, psychology and academics researching ME/CFS and fascia. It is based on a biomedical understanding of the illness and deep respect for the difficulties people with ME/CFS face with symptoms and lack of support.

The project has been enriched by the Physio and Feldenkrais expertise of Jodie Kranz, Rebecca Rae- Hodgson’s well-attuned occupational therapy skills and lived experience of ME/CFS, and the sensitivity and generosity of meditation teacher Samantha Corrie. We all sincerely look forward to the arrival of cures, meanwhile, these sessions aim to improve how people live with ME/CFS.

Our Story

Evidence Building

There is currently no cure and no globally recommended treatment for people with ME/CFS. Research into physical changes, causes, clinical support and self-care strategies for people with ME/CFS are increasing in sophistication - hopefully, a cure will come soon. Meanwhile, pacing strategies that are tailored to individual needs, and adaptable to changing circumstances, can benefit those of us living with the illness. New research also indicates that having more frequent moments of “uplift” has some benefit. Avoiding (or reducing where we can) triggering Post Exertional Malaise or causing harm through Graded Exercise Therapy and difficult medico-social settings can also reduce the burden on our systems.

SOFT SESSIONS plan to assess the effectiveness and suitability of its programs and thereby contribute to the growing wealth of knowledge about ME/CFS. Please read more about how we plan to do this here.

If you would like to participate in research trials to assess SOFT BEGINNINGS please contact us. It would be great to have you join the process and monitor your progress.