Easing Grief with Yoga – by Kathryn Merrifield with Jennifer Swain
“Yoga is an internal practice. The rest is just a circus.”
– Light on Yoga by B.K.S. Iyengar
Some time ago, I wrote an article about yoga and my experience with grief – the passing of my father who encouraged me to start taking yoga after injuries that made me stop cycling and running – two of my favorite pastimes that slowed me down and calmed me and made me write more effectively and clearly.
I realized with that short essay, that yoga has a strong connection to my emotional expression now. I found that I came to my mat feeling like my head was caught up in a tornado and ended my practice with a realigned spine, the air passing easily in and out of my lungs, and my shoulders normally set below my ears (where they had crept with stress).
Caught up in the idea about yoga as a vehicle to grief relief, I began talking to my yoga friends and instructors about it, and found that a woman from class that I had seen but barely knew, had written an essay on the subject to complete her yoga certification. That person was Jennifer Swain, and her husband, Michael, passed away in 2008 after a fight with pancreatic cancer. She spent one and a half years in a cancer ward while he received treatment. During that time, she explained that her body went through changes reflecting what unfolded for her emotionally as she coped with letting go of her husband and watching her two children, then sixteen and fourteen years old, do the same for their father.
After Michael died, she began what she describes as a rigid exercise schedule of running, swimming, walking the dog very early in the morning. She would need to move the moment she woke up. During that time, she also began taking yoga at The Wainwright House and The Rye YMCA – both Astanga and Vinyasa classes.
One of her yoga teachers, Lois Wald Ps.D., a clinical psychologist turned good friend, reminded her that, “it’s okay to slow down and allow yourself to feel what’s going on.”
Like many athletes new to yoga, the tendency is to look at yoga like another form of exercise – to muscle through the postures. From my own experience, repetitive injury is the best lesson in the body’s limits and the need to attend to form, rest and movement. It seems to be the only way I learn. Like Jennifer, pain got me to the mat and to the soft landing place that yoga has to offer – a place of surrender.
Jennifer settled into a consistent yoga practice. The result of that was not the immediate relief of grief, but rather the release and surrender to it. Slowly, she blended the other forms of exercise with yoga then began teacher training through Kaia in Westport, Connecticut.
“I never would have done this had it not been for the death of my husband. Not that I’m at all grateful for that, it just is the way it is.”
Grief or grieving is the human process of dealing with loss. Emotional suffering is a natural response to a loss of any kind, but especially the loss of someone or something to which a bond has been formed. We form attachments to a relationship, a pet, our health, a job, a relationship, or a financial situation but in all probability we will lose one of these things.
The act or unconscious attachments we have to believing things will stay the same can lead to an almost unnatural response to changes and losses in our lives. Responses to grief vary from person to person and there is no evidence that there is one right way to respond. The stages of grief have been outlined in five distinct stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Grief is complicated and varies greatly from person to person. The grief of an adolescent may be different from the grief of an adult. The loss of a parent, sibling, spouse, child, or marriage can all bring with them different sets of behaviors.
Jennifer and I found common ground sharing the ways yoga helped us through grief: the loss of her husband and the loss of my father six years ago. The loss of anything, really.
When I lost my father to cancer six years ago, I began reading a book about grief as a way to connect to the process and understand what I would go through. It was not the first time I that someone I loved had died. There was only a wide open patch of nothing. Reading about death and grief, helped me realize that all I could do was to be patient with the process – be patient with my anger, exhaustion and sadness at the loss of a conflicted father-daughter relationship. Almost every day, for the last two years of his life, we talked on the phone. Often, the longest conversations between us occurred when I was driving to and from yoga or swimming. It was similar to Jennifer’s experience in that cancer ward. But different because of the distance.
Exercise has always been a reliable safety valve to me, a release to otherwise detrimental stress. Admittedly, I sometimes rely on it too much. Jennifer found, and I did too, that yoga integrates the mind and body purposefully winding breath around movement. At the very least, you must breathe. Any yoga instructor will tell you that it is perfectly acceptable to attend class and lay on the floor in savasana and simply breathe.
The breath, or Prana, is the restorative link that connects the physical body with the spirit. The simple act of pranayama calms the mind and warms the body. It requires surrender to breath. Pranayama calms the panic and overactive mind that can accompany loss or death of a loved one. Trauma depletes us physically, mentally and emotionally. The emphasis on the breath in yoga is the link to a spiritual realignment of the body and mind, both of which suffer a state of exaggerated imbalance through the process of caretaking and death.
“You can’t make a career out of grieving,” either, Jennifer said. We sat down for the second time to talk about this essay. She quoted a Chinese proverb: “You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from passing over your head, but you can prevent them from making a nest in your hair.” Also true.
My favorite yoga instructors, the ones that seem to integrate the teachings into their own lives, and live, breathe and speak it, have a way of setting intentions for a particular practice with a reading or acknowledgment of the present: the chaotic or subdued energy of the season, the extreme heat, the frigid cold. The combination of meditation and asana revive the body as well as the mind. The teachings from the yoga sutras feed the wandering mind by giving it something to grasp. It is what loss needs. The focus on the present and the acceptance that things are always changing, combined with the wisdom of the yoga traditions, are enormously helpful. The perspective that yogic teachings have on death and dying are so contrary to western beliefs but are also soothing and helpful to the experience of loss. Death is part of life.
Vairagya, or non-attachment is one of the main teachings of yoga. If we can embrace the almost counter-intuitive concept that things are in a state of constant flux with results both good and bad, we can begin to think about death differently. This is not to say that we will be free of the pain that accompanies loss, but we can alter our perspective of the event and transform our response to meet the changes.
The inevitability of death is integral to the human experience. But, to the living, any death is hard to deal with, especially if it’s either sudden or violent or entirely contrary to what makes sense according to merit or age or immense love. The use of yoga in concert with other channels toward healing can help open the body and the mind to accept the harsh reality of loss and transition, whether it’s talking to a friend, a clinical psychologist, or an individual, or group of people (formal or informal), who have experienced a similar loss.
An asana practice clears the channel for grief to pass through. Yoga will not save its practitioner, but rather soften the passage of painful emotion. Postures done with props, specifically blocks and bolsters, can open a body held rigid in the throes of sadness. The asanas (poses) need to be less strenuous – grieving itself expends energy. The practice should be geared to rejuvenate and heal.
Supta Baddhakonasana (Lying Down, Bound Angle): Lie on your back with a bolster under your spine, beginning close to the earth so as to feel grounded and safe. Poses begun on the floor will engender safety and grounding. It is a reassuring place to start when life off the mat becomes chaos.
Supta Virasana (Lying Down, Hero): Sit on the floor between bent knees, spreading about eighteen inches apart, and place a bolster under the bottom so as not to stress the joints. This pose can be used for meditation and pranayama (breathing).
Janu Sirsasana: (Seated Head to Knee) Sit with one leg extended and the other bent and placed into the upper inner thigh and groin. Gently twist and fold over the extended leg with a flat back.
Paryankasana One: Same as Supta Virasana but with one leg extended while the other remains bent and close to the thigh. Bend at the hips over the extended leg.
Marichyasana: Sit with the left leg extended, the other bent and pulled into the abdomen. Bend at the waist and reach the same side arm around the bent knee toward the back where the other hand grasps the wrist of the hand wrapped around the bet knee. This can reduce stiffness in the back, neck and shoulders, areas aggravated by the stress of grieving.
Ika Pada Rajakapotasana (One-Legged King Pigeon). Right leg bent with chin parallel to the front of the mat. Left leg is extended straight behind, toes on the floor, with even hips. Inhale with one breath, shoulders back and up, then bend over the front leg. This pose is restorative as the opening of the hips can help release suppressed emotions.
Uttanasana (Standing Forward Bend): Standing straight, bend at the hips until hands rest evenly on two blocks placed in front of each foot. This pose relieves anxiety and slows down the heartbeat.
Heart openers will help one to heal and to open up to all the positive things in life. When we grieve we often round our shoulders and pull inward.
Matsyasana (Fish): Lie on your back, legs extended straight in front. Push into the elbows and arch the head back.
Dhanurasa (Bow): Lie on your belly, legs bent and hands grasp tops of feet. Legs pull up rather than the arms pull the legs into the body. The position naturally raises the body off of the floor.
Urdhva Dhanurasana (Wheel): Lie supine on the floor, knees bent and set hip distance apart. Plant hands equidistant of shoulders behind the head and push up and into wheel pose where the heart, chest and throat are open.
Poses that require balance may help to restore one’s balance. They build confidence and create openness to new experiences.
Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon): Leg straight and planted on the floor. Bent at the hip with same side hand on the floor, opposite leg straight (parallel to floor) and opposite extended straight above.
Salamba Sirsasana (Supported Headstand): Arms bent, hands grasp (in a concave shape) around the crown of the head. Legs extend straight above.
Vrksasana (Tree): Standing tall, left bent leg and place foot on inner thigh. Reach and extend both hands straight above head.
Crow: From a squat position, place hands on the floor in front of you, feet together. Shift weight to the hands and lift feet off the floor, knees in the pockets of the underarms or resting along triceps.
Side Crow: Variation of crow with legs extended to one side, hands planted in front the same way.
The above represent simple explanations of the poses as they would be photographed, and are not specific instructions. Asanas should be performed with the consult of a certified yoga instructor together with mindful breathing.
The postures don’t relieve the feelings but the combination of asana and pranayama help access them. Dr. Lois Wald added, “Holding postures longer than usual fosters a sense of surrender which can allow deeper feelings to emerge. All you can do is feel it no matter what you try to do or not to do.”
1. Slowing the breath allows us to let go and simply be;
2. Relaxes rigidity and tightness in the body that occurs as a result of trauma;
3. Focusing on drishti (gaze) and breath helps empty the mind of chita (monkey brain);
4. Mindfulness of the chita allows its release;
5. The community of like-minded people create a supportive environment – typically, yoga practitioners have an interest in improving themselves.
Yoga itself is not the relief. “Yoga can help in the transformation of grief from the overwhelming feelings of grief. The understandable wish is to deny these feelings. It’s a slow process of learning to feel the grief and incorporate it in healthy ways,” said Dr. Wald.
There is no magic concoction that allows for grief to subside. Once the feelings present themselves, what do you do with them? Here are some essential ways that helped us better take care of ourselves:
1. Talk honestly with someone you trust (friend or therapist);
2. Get sleep;
3. Be alone when you need to be alone.
4. Be with people more than you think you need to be;
5. Engage in physical activity, apart from yoga, that makes you feel good;
6. Get outside;
7. Do the things you love even when you don’t want to – everyone has different methods of self-nurturing;
8. Be patient. It will take longer than you think it will to feel normal;
9. Accept help;
10. Eat nourishing food.
Injured or not, we just keep breathing and moving… arms, legs and lungs. That’s all it is. That’s all of it.
Namaste.