Crying at Yoga Class by Zoe Richmond

It’s the third week of “Yoga for Grief.” I am in a pose to stretch out my hips where the teacher says people tend to carry stress. After class, I ask why, and she says it’s tied to the fight-or-flight response.

“Fight-or-flight response engages the muscles in your hips getting ready to either run or kick,” She said.  “If you don’t do either your hips engage but never release.”

I missed the second class because I had an out of town trip. I missed the first class, well, because I am grieving and my brain is too discombobulated to keep track of schedules.

In the middle of the third class, my heart starts to ache, tears roll down my cheeks. It’s a sad little whimper of a cry. I get up and get a tissue.

And that was the second time I cried over the passing of my mother-in-law.

A Sudden Death  

My mother-in-law’s passing was a horrible shock to everyone. Sure, she was 71.  But she had just returned home from a two-week visit to our home.  She was still vibrant and sharp. I found myself alone at home for days while my husband dealt with the business of death.  I tried to keep the schedule as normal as possible for my three-year-old and two-year-old boys.  After all, there is really no way for us to have a discussion with them.    There was no funeral and a memorial was planned for a future date.

My husband had always been very close to his mother. He was devastated, but I need to keep it together for his sake and our two toddlers.

The following days, I was in a daze.  And the kids noticed.  I was with them, but I wasn’t present.   They knew our family was dealing with “an emergency,” but couldn’t grasp the severity.   My oldest asked, “Mommy are you sad?” and his words were like a dagger in my heart.

It was a reminder; kids have pretty good emotional intelligence.  As much as I tried to show them nothing was wrong, they could still tell something was “off.”

I was off.  I was in perpetual physical pain.  A feeling of achiness consumed my body without end, like after you’ve been in a fender-bender.  I tried medication, chiropractors, acupuncture, stretching.  Nothing got rid of the pain.  Any time emotions would bubble up, I filed them away deep inside of me, with a reminder “I’ll get to that in therapy, right now I have to deal with the kids.”

And as if by divine intervention, I stumbled upon a class called “Yoga for Grief.”   It only took one class to get physical relief.  It also focused my attention on where the pain was actually centered.

(Deb)

Deb deals with Grief 

Deb Althoff, or myyogafrienddeb.com, is the embodiment of following your passion.  After a lifetime of working in Corporate America, she quit to follow her calling of yoga and helping others.

She has been practicing yoga for more than two decades.

“I used yoga as a way to overcome anxiety and panic attacks,” She said. “Yoga helped me.  And because I practice for yoga for so long, I was in the habit of noticing how I held my body and my breathing.  So after my mother’s death, I noticed how differently I held my body.”

Deb easily shares her own story of grief.  Her very vibrant mother was diagnosed with Stage 4 Ovarian cancer in 2011.

“No one had ever been sick in our family before so it felt like the rug got pulled from us,” she said.

Deb started catching herself holding her breath and scrunching up her shoulder.  She had problems sleeping and issues with her digestion.

“I have become very in tuned about outside events affecting me internally,” She said.  “For example I kept getting one cold after another.  Everything about me was off.”

She dealt with “anticipatory grief,” of knowing what’s coming and not being able to do anything about it.  Then after the loss happened, she had to move forward.

Deb had always dreamed of becoming a yoga teacher.  After her mother passed away, it was the push she needed to go from yoga practitioner to yoga teacher.

“I wanted to focus specifically on the mind-body-breath connection that help us heal from past trauma and drama,” Deb said.   “And how we can direct our thoughts and control our breath in order to get healing on a really deep level.”

“I knew I wanted to work with people that were dealing from loss,” She said.

That’s where her workshop “Yoga for Grief” was born.

It’s a very gentle style of yoga with a strong focus on breathing and restorative poses.  After my first class, I found some physical relief from pain.   Listening to Deb share her story made me more comfortable sharing my own experience. It was good to take a moment for myself and cry.  Sometimes it’s okay to cry.  That was something I needed to be reminded of.

A Common Story

I am not alone in having to deal with a death of a parent.  But the grief of a “later mother” may be different.  I felt guilty for my choice to have kids later.  Had I short-changed my kids from having their fraternal Grandmother in their lives longer?   I continue to second-guess my lack of communication with my kids.  Should I have had the hard conversation with my toddlers?  And if so, what should it have been?

These are all questions revisited during my grieving process. And grief is different for everyone.  Turning to yoga provided me the physical and mental space to focus on what I needed to do for my well-being.  Giving myself time to grieve and attempt to resource balance allowed me to go home and focus on the kids again with more intent.  I could be sad, our whole family could be sad, but we could still be present.  Not disjointed.

Before every class, Deb asks students to fill out a survey.  One of the questions asks “the part of me that needs yoga the most is …”

The part of me that needed yoga the most was my heart.  Because I can’t help my family grieve for their loss until I have faced that same grief myself.