Yin Yoga is a passive yoga practice that emphasizes flexibility in joints and connective tissues. Rather than working muscles, joints and connective are stretched. This is achieved by holding poses for 3 - 10 minutes in a passive way. I have found this to be a very powerful but excruciatingly emotional exercise.
Yin Yoga is way for me to actively connect and wrestle and dance with my physical body and emotional being at the same time. I have always had extremely tight muscles and joints, but the emotional pain of grief has debilitated my life at times and prevented me from doing even most basic activities. My body is hurting and most all of the poses in Yin Yoga hurt without me having to put forth any effort. Matter of fact, the pain does not even allow me to to enter into the basic parts of most of the intended pose.
I set Finn as my intention for yesterday’s practice. My intention was just to breath and bring my focus to him. This turned out to be a an ideal intention as it was not difficult to lose focus on something as big in my life as him. Plus his life and death is the root of a lot of my physical pain.
Something spectacular happened during this class. Each pose brought on new stories about Finn. So many stories and memories from his short 4 month life came to me during these 90 minutes. I felt joy, sadness, happiness, fear, laughter, tears, and so much more. During more intense moments I only had feelings or emotions. Some of the poses were so painful that I could barely hang on, In these times, I would just spell out his name over and over. This session turned out to be a wonderful and powerful journey through his life.
I left class deep in the Shadows of Grief. I was completely physically and emotionally wasted.
That night, I had the blessing (remember up is down and down is up while slogging through grief), of twice waking up crying in my sleep with dreams about Finn. Since most of my crying is in my sleep, I find these times to be sacred. The next week turned into a very productive one free from the Shadows of Grief.
So, I have found something very powerful here. Using physical release to work through emotional drama. Yin Yoga is an ideal way to work through physical pain to bring of emotional scars and is a new tool for me in learning to live through grief.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Shadows Of Grief
Life since my son Finn died is ugly and dark and at times unbearable. But, I can find grief to be beautiful. When I am missing Finn the most, when I am actually crying and when I can feel his body snuggled on my chest, when my entire body aches because he isn’t here, then I am living. I honor and treasure these moments, because while I do feel pain, I also feel good, I feel alive. At these moments, Finn without a doubt is real. Finn is real and I am living. This is a blessing and it is beautiful.
After these moments, my body and mind and soul is trashed. My mind is complete mud. My body feels totally flattened. I lose all feeling about almost everything. I have spent most of my grieving journey thus far in this dark lonely achy place. This is what makes grief so hard. At these times, I may not have memories of Finn. I may be tired of thinking about him. I stop caring about the things that are important. The biggest being myself. I don’t like living. Life is ugly, dark, and lonely. This is what I call the Shadows of Grief.
It is not the grief that is awful. It is the dark and lonely shadow that is formed because of the towering grief. For me, grief is bright and beautiful. While grief does hurt, I find it inspiring. It reminds me of what is important. It is when I feel my sweet son Finn and that is what makes it beautiful.
I have found it extremely helpful to make the distinction between grief and the Shadows of Grief. I don’t want grief to bring me down. I strive to learn and grow and be inspired by experiences with and without Finn and to use these to enrich life. But, I can now recognize that when I am in the Shadows of Grief, I need to lose expectations. I need to be patient to myself and to those who are important to me. I need to be kind and gentle to myself. I need to hold with all my might the thread of hope that soon I might find hope. There are days that I can wake up with hope. Then I know I am no longer in the Shadows of Grief.
So I continue on my journey of embracing grief and learning tools and practices to not allow the shadows of grief to shut out life.
After these moments, my body and mind and soul is trashed. My mind is complete mud. My body feels totally flattened. I lose all feeling about almost everything. I have spent most of my grieving journey thus far in this dark lonely achy place. This is what makes grief so hard. At these times, I may not have memories of Finn. I may be tired of thinking about him. I stop caring about the things that are important. The biggest being myself. I don’t like living. Life is ugly, dark, and lonely. This is what I call the Shadows of Grief.
It is not the grief that is awful. It is the dark and lonely shadow that is formed because of the towering grief. For me, grief is bright and beautiful. While grief does hurt, I find it inspiring. It reminds me of what is important. It is when I feel my sweet son Finn and that is what makes it beautiful.
I have found it extremely helpful to make the distinction between grief and the Shadows of Grief. I don’t want grief to bring me down. I strive to learn and grow and be inspired by experiences with and without Finn and to use these to enrich life. But, I can now recognize that when I am in the Shadows of Grief, I need to lose expectations. I need to be patient to myself and to those who are important to me. I need to be kind and gentle to myself. I need to hold with all my might the thread of hope that soon I might find hope. There are days that I can wake up with hope. Then I know I am no longer in the Shadows of Grief.
So I continue on my journey of embracing grief and learning tools and practices to not allow the shadows of grief to shut out life.
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