Permission to Grieve

by Nina

“Unacknowledged and unheard pain doesn’t go away. The way to survive grief is by allowing pain to exist, not in trying to cover it up or rush through it.” —Megan Devine, from It’s OK That You’re Not OK

A friend of mine wrote to me recently to tell me that my post Heartbreak, Grief, and Stress “really resonated” with her. She explained that her grandmother, who is one of her very favorite people, is 102 and has been in a decline in recent weeks, and now my friend thinks it’s “almost time.”

But although she added that my post was “reassuring and uplifting,” she did go on to say that she was having a hard time right now “learning to let go.” She explained that when she told a friend about her grandma, her friend said that it is “her time” and “you can let her go.” And she said she hears the same thing from people about how she’ll be needing to “let go” of her daughter soon because her daughter is graduating from high school this spring and will be moving on to her next phase in life.

I think I surprised her when I said that I thought maybe it wasn’t that helpful for friends to tell her to just “let go” of people who are so important to her. I explained that it was my understanding from reading about grief and talking to experts about grief that grief needs to be fully felt and that it should take as long as it needs to. As Dr. Lynn Somerstein said in Grief and Yoga:

“Grieving is an organic process that needs to run through the body/mind in its own way and its own time, and like a deep yoga practice it effects every cell.”

I didn’t say one of the things that I was thinking, which was that her grandma isn’t even dead yet, so why should my friend be expected to just “let her go”! Grief is a completely natural emotion, which is a recognition in your body and your mind that you have experienced a serious loss. And the more important the person is to you, the stronger your grief will be. Who cares how old they are!

Sorry, I just had to rant briefly about that.

Mainly I wanted to say that Bonnie Maeda, who teaches yoga for grief and used to work as a hospice nurse, always speaks as grief as something you “move through” (see Grief and Yoga: An Interview with Bonnie Maeda, RN). I’ve been using that term myself since she taught it to me. And now that I think about it, moving through grief is probably the natural way we all have for “letting go” of important people or things we’ve lost. After all, the five stages of grief include “acceptance.”

So let’s all give ourselves permission to grieve for as long as and as much as we need to! And if someone advises you otherwise, even as you assume they probably mean well and just don’t want to see you suffer, their advice could very well be counterproductive for you because it may make you feel like something is wrong with you. Besides, as Megan Devine says in the opening quote, stuffing down your feelings or pretending they don’t exist won’t make the pain go away.

And, of course, we should all be careful ourselves not to tell others that they are grieving too much or for too long but instead just offer support by holding space with a non-judgmental approach (see Beth’s post Holding Space and Erin Collin’s post A Hospice Nurse on Yoga). Finally, we should all keep in mind that for everyone grief can be experienced over losing anything important to us, including, as Florence Williams said in her book Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey, both individual and collective grief:

“We can experience the collective grief wrought by war, violence, and natural disasters, the grief of losing species and habitats to which we feel deeply akin; there’s the collective and individual grief of racial and social injustice, the individual grief of core relationships blown up through death or chronic illness or by someone’s choice.”

There are, however, many ways you can use yoga to make yourself more comfortable when you’re grieving.

1. Being present with grief. The first way is that you can use yoga to provide yourself with safe, comfortable, and self-compassionate ways to grieve. Allowing yourself to “witness” your grief in a nonjudgmental way can help you move through your grief and may even reduce the intensity of it. Some grief experts refer to this as “holding space” for grief, a practice they consider to be essential. See A Hospice Nurse on Yoga for Grief for some ideas.

2. Supporting yourself. You can use your yoga practice to take care of your body, mind, and heart during times of grief. Although there are many ways to do this, one particularly beneficial way is to practice yoga for stress management (see Stress Management for When You’re Stressed) because reducing your stress levels can help improve physical symptoms (insomnia, lack of appetite, etc.) as well as feelings of agitation and being overwhelmed.

3. Moving through grief. When movement is something that you always find helpful, you may be able to encourage your grief to move through you physically by using gentle movements, whether gentle stretches, easy poses of any kind, or moving with your breath. This can be especially helpful when you’re feeling stuck.

4. Taking a break. A mindful asana practice can provide some temporary respite and may even make you feel lighter afterward. You can just practice some of your favorite yoga poses mindfully—which means focusing either on your breath or on other physical sensations you experience as you practice. But if you’re feeling fatigued be sure to take it easy, practicing less challenging poses and using lots of props.

5. Accepting impermanence. During 2020, Barrie Risman and I talked about how we both were surprised to find that yoga philosophy sustained us through that difficult year more than any other aspect of our yoga practices. So, if you feel up to it, reading about the yoga philosophy or even taking a course on yoga philosophy may provide you with some comfort.

 

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