Spiritual practice to nourish the self for emotional health and grief relief
I was truly good friends with my mother, and when she died of a stroke at 54 (I was 20), I was certainly not prepared for life without her. For two-and-a-half years, I lived in a state of denial, completely disconnected from my feelings. When I finally was able to be with the pain of grief, I discovered that my sternum (breastbone) had actually popped out. In essence, what my mind could hide, my body showed with pristine clarity: I had a broken heart.
As life went on, I began working with Lyn Prashant, an outstanding therapist and creator of the Degriefing Process, a comprehensive mind-body approach to grief therapy. She asked me to develop a yoga practice to address the body-centered effects of grief, I could draw on my own training as a somatic psychotherapist and yoga teacher as well as my own personal experience to build a sadhana (spiritual practice) for Yoga for Grief Relief.
Grief takes place throughout the body, mind and spirit. The complex response is integrated in the limbic system, a series of interconnected structures deep within the brain.
Loss and Grief
After our initial shock, grief can initiate apathy, confusion, fear and intense sadness. Physically, we experience symptoms including low energy, increased physical pain (especially in the mid-back and the pectoral or chest muscles), and altered circadian or daily rhythms (specifically the breathing, circulatory, and sleeping patterns).
Grief is a human reaction to any loss, even though it is more often acknowledged and understood when we grieve the loss of a dear one due to death. We may feel awkward grieving the loss of a ring. The truth is that the body-mind reacts with grief to the loss of many things or ideas: a pet, a job, a train, a dream or youth. If that ring is the one our dear grandfather left us and we’ve been wearing it at all of life’s important occasions, then it has even deeper meaning.
New grief triggers old. Every time we face a new loss, we are confronted with the grief of previous loss, in our own life as well as the grief we carry as a family, community and even a species.
The Yogic View of Loss and Detachment
From the yogic view, all suffering comes from our attachment, and detachment is a necessary part of releasing the suffering of grief. There is a misconception that detachment means not loving, or a lack of caring. At its purest level, detachment is the acceptance that everything is impermanent. At one level or another, everything must end. It is one of the laws of the universe. When we accept this, understand it, we can access an even deeper sense of love without clinging. When we acknowledge that something will not be with us forever, we can enjoy it even more when it is available to us.
In the midst of the emotional shock and trauma of acute grief, it takes time for the understanding of this transformation to occur. This can take place through our practice, and through support, such as at Arizona Pain Relief Scottsdale AZ. Through working with professionals and through the strength of our personal practices, there is not one set formula to overcome grief. It is generally accepted that we experience stages of grief. These include accepting the loss and working through the pain of grief to eventually reinvest the love energy.
In my experience, the process of eventual detachment is better accomplished in two stages. The first is detached attachment, when you are still bonded with the object, person or idea yet you know that it will disappear; secondly, true detachment occurs.
We don’t just get over our grief. Instead, we change our relationship to it. When we lose something or someone, and that identification must change, we have the opportunity to rebuild ourselves. We identify ourselves partially through our attachments; any loss forces us to a new identification, carrying the seeds of change. When we are able to transform grief, we can reshape our reality and more delicately match our true nature. To do so, we must nourish ourselves. A method for this is sadhana (spiritual practice).
Yoga for Grief Relief Sadhana
The yoga for grief relief sadhana I developed as a result of my experience contains five components: Pranayama, Asana, Phatkarma, Relaxation and Sankalpa. Spiritual practice to nourish the self for emotional health.
- Pranayama are exercises involving the breath. They restore our sense of control by accessing or controlling our prana (vital life force). Given that breathing is automatic and unconscious, bringing awareness to the breath helps unite the gap between our conscious and unconscious selves.
- Asana are physical poses. These manage the symptoms of grief by addressing pain, lack of prana, and structural adaptations our bodies contort into, such as hunching or contracting the body around the heart.
- Shatkarma are yogic cleansing techniques used to release emotions, thoughts or physical experiences trapped in the body-mind. One shatkarma is tratak: gazing at a candle, flower or other beautiful object. This relaxes the effort in the eyes, and can even induce cleansing tears. Another tratak practice involves specific eye movements. Tratak helps reset and nourishes the pituitary gland reducing the ‘fight or flight’ response.
- Relaxation practices such as savasana (lying down) or complete relaxation are vital for diminishing the stress levels that increase when grieving. Observing the rhythm of the breath, listening to calming music or incorporating guided meditation
recordings can be helpful. - Sankalpa is the powerful yogic principle of resolve, or making a resolution. Setting our intention or saying a prayer, often out loud, can reset the brain and focus the mind.
The image of a windmill, the main asana of the practice, can serve as a symbolic analogy for this process. The forces of the unknown, the wind, power the mechanisms of the windmill, just as the unknown force of loss creates a churning in the depths of our selves. As a windmill utilizes the sometimes wild and destructive force of the wind into constructive mechanical energy, which can transform hard grains to edible flour, the mechanisms of sadhana: practice, prayer, relaxation, resolution and posture can transform our attachments toward a new identity. By addressing the delicate psychoneurological aspects of grief, we can transform the forces of the unknown (death and loss) into understanding of our eternal self.
Antonio Sausys is a somatic psychotherapist with 18 years of experience combining somatic psychotherapy and the teachings and practice of yoga; he teaches Yoga for Grief Relief.satyoga.com. Sausys also founded and produces the International Yoga Therapy Conference. Yogatherapyconference.com