Yoga and Grief: A Compassionate Journey Toward Healing
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About this ebook
The authors share valuable insights drawn from their own life experience as well as from Glorias Yoga and Grief workshops, which have helped many participants to get in touch with their own inner strength and spiritual resources. For those on the dark pathway between grieving and healing, this book can shed light and ease the burden.
Gloria Drayer
GLORIA DRAYER is known for the intuition, empathy and compassion she brings to Yoga Simple and Sacred, her life-affirming approach to yoga retreats, workshops and classes. A certified yoga instructor, she teaches international yoga retreats, as well as weekly classes in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She has lived and taught at Kripalu, the country’s largest yoga and holistic health center located in Massachusetts, and holds a 500-hour certification with Kripalu and Yoga Alliance. Find out more about Gloria at yogasimpleandsacred.com. KATHLEEN DOHERTY is a former hospice nurse, clinical research manager, and student of Gloria’s since 2005. Along the way she has learned that a grief observed is not the same as a grief experienced. She has relied on the concepts of this book – yoga, meditation, and breathing techniques to appreciate days, dark and light. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
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Yoga and Grief - Gloria Drayer
Copyright © 2014 Gloria Drayer and Kathleen Doherty.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Cover photography by: Barbara Conley
Cover design, interior design by: Carolyn Flynn
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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.
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ISBN: 978-1-4525-9120-9 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4525-9121-6 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014901472
Balboa Press rev. date: 2/21/2014
dedication
To my mom, Tillie, for giving me life and showing me grace in dying;
and to yoga, which supports me through the sorrow and joys of my life.
Gloria Drayer
To Jon, with love and gratitude, and to my family for their love and support.
Kathleen Doherty
table of contents
Foreword
Introduction
Notes On Grief
Breathing Techniques
Yoga Postures
Chair
Standing
Floor
Resting
Longer Practice
Chanting
Meditation
Guided Meditation
Seeking Comfort
Healing Rituals
Final Words
Resources
Acknowledgments
About The Authors
51.jpgBlessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Matthew 5:4
English Standard Version
foreword
Grief comes in waves.
When you have lost someone you love, the sadness is a powerful undertow in your life. On the surface, the core structure of your life may seem much as you have always known it. Yet this is incongruent with the deep truth within: Someone you love is missing. You carry within you the profound sense that ground beneath your feet has shifted, as though you are lost in a vast ocean, far from dry land.
You hold the dissonance of the thought that the person is missing, yet the one you love occupies an immense space in your heart, mind, and soul. More than you could ever imagine.
Your beloved one is gone. The stark realization of this can bowl you over when you least expect it. The magnitude of grief is often beyond our ability to articulate it or describe it to another person. You really have to be there, in the grief-body, to know and remember. Even if … even if you have been there before.
During the year my mother was dying, my sisters and I came to call the sluggish and clumsy ways we operated as grief-brain.
We gave each other grace because we understood that a good portion of our thoughts and our ways of interacting was consumed by the sadness that we were losing her.
She was irreplaceable. And we would have to let her go.
Grief is the most visceral of human emotions. I am convinced of that. It holds you in a physical grip, occupying your mind, anchoring itself in your heart, and rooting deep in your soul. It demands that you examine the deepest, darkest and most beautiful parts of yourself. It may be the most palpable emotion humans can feel.
Yoga proved essential for me in the long journey of losing my mother, for its power to ground me in my body, clear my crowded mind, and soothe my soul. Yoga made me brave and strong when I needed to be brave for my mother, when I needed to assure her she could face her death, and I could face losing her.
Stay. Alive,
she whispered to me as she gasped for her last breaths. Stay. Alive!
she repeated, so I would not forget.
Yoga keeps me alive.The sheer discipline of yoga – the strength of its gentle wisdom, executed with mindfulness and compassionate nonjudgment, its balance of effort and surrender – is a map for staying alive. Yoga can guide you through your journey with grief, reconstituting you with new mettle. With each practice, you are made new. The practice can fortify you with a renewed and vigorous spiritual force.
Gloria Drayer brings a gentle, calm, and compassionate spirit to the practice she teaches, and you’ll find that spirit infuses every