Yoga for Grief

We suffer because we want things to be other than they are. Grief is a normal and natural process after experiencing the loss of someone or something significant. Each person grieves differently, depending on their personality, life experience, and coping skills. But all people will experience grief at some point in their lives. Yoga can help one to get a handle on healing.

Grief affects one physically, mentally, emotionally, and perhaps even spiritually. There’s a plethora of thoughts and emotions that can feel overwhelming. Sleep, appetite, energy levels, and motivation can be affected by grief, leaving one feeling down, angry, anxious, sad, and exhausted. Grief is not comfortable, but it is normal. The only way out is through.

Yoga offers many tools to heal the body, mind, and spirit after suffering a loss. Yoga brings one into their body, in the present moment. The breathwork associated with yoga practice calms the central nervous system and quiets the mind. The movement allows us to stretch the tight tissues in the body, strengthen the muscles and vital organs and shift energy, so one can feel better in their body, mind, and spirit.

Yoga is a Sanskrit word, which means “to yoke” all aspects of our being, body, mind, and soul, with the divine. It is this union that creates a compassionate space within the practitioner to heal. It is within this space that we can know our eternal selves, the Self that transcends this world. We can connect to the oneness, to the light dwelling within. The light that brings us all back home someday. In this light there is peace.

Yoga grants opportunities to be present and patient with yourself. We learn to cope with unpleasant sensations by practicing deep diaphragmatic breathing, to regulate the nervous system. Sensations are impermanent. The comfortable and the uncomfortable sensations we experience will eventually come to pass. Deep, even breathing, long smooth exhales anchor the body and mind, as to not be swept away by the symptoms of grief.

Movement, especially accompanied by intentional breathing, shifts the energy in the body. Physical activity assists the brain in creating the feel-good chemicals dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. We literally need to move through the grief. It does not have to be strenuous. Just start putting one foot in front of the other. Start where you are, how you are. Even if that’s just stretching your arms overhead, pointing your toes, and flexing your ankles, while laying in bed.

Practice. Do a little; then do a little more. Gradually, the energy will start to shift, and you will feel the life force coming back to your body.

When we want things to be other than they are, we suffer. It is normal to want what we lost, but eventually one must learn to accept and let go. It is important to understand that life is impermanent. All things will come to pass.

We will ache when we lose someone or something important to us. It’s a part of being human. Surviving the pain comes from acceptance. There are many things we simply cannot control, such as the impermanence of all things. We must let go of what we cannot control, to stop suffering. This is not denying the pain of our loss, nor forgetting. But rather to cease grasping.

Acceptance brings us to terms with the nature of reality, impermanence. Nothing in the physical world lasts forever. The grief, too, will subside in time. Be well.