The Beast of Grief (and how Yoga and Meditation Help)

In Buddhism, there is a great deal of awareness around death. Some practices help understand that death is inevitable, and an important transition, and that it will happen to us, and all those that we love. In the process of building this awareness, we are inevitably brought back to the value of the time that we all DO have on this earth. When we remember that death is real and on the horizon for us all, in some shape or form, we can have a much easier time appreciating ourselves and our loved ones, and dwelling in the present moment. Thinking about death and its inevitability, IMPROVES our lives. Those that practice Buddhism most often have a meditation practice, which helps to learn how to access an internal state of peace and grace, and that skill can be a great comfort to a person who is declining or dying, as they understand and work to accept what is happening. I read a good chunk of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche a year ago, and this book does a great job explaining the Buddhist approach to death and dying, as well as contrasting how death is handled in the Western world.

Death and dying are certainly handled without the same embedded acceptance in the Western world. It is often seen as tragic, something to avoid speaking about, something to keep out of sight as much as possible. Social systems like nursing home and institutional hospice networks often allow people to outsource the deaths of loved ones, and to look away. Burial customs can be a somber affair, and after the funeral, all are urged to “return to normal”, only to be rocked by waves of under-processed emotions for months after, which are often handled in isolation, or numbed with wine, food, social media and streaming television.

When you do lose someone precious - and you will, we all will - you will have choices around how to receive and process the news, how to show up for the grief and how to help support the members of your grieving community. You will have the choice of whether to grieve consciously or under layers of numbness. These choices will seem like weak consolation prizes compared to the choice you did not get to make. You’ll see quickly that they are so important, allowing you to not only get back up after a loss, but to evolve your compassion and understanding of this world.

So how do we make the conscious, awakened choices around handling our grief? It starts with feeling our feelings, as they come up, without shame, guilt or labels. I was driving in my car and was overtaken by hard sobbing last week, days after the unexpected death of my dear friend. I let it out, and even yelled to his spirit: “Do you see how STRONG I am being??” Vulnerability is strength. Feeling is brave. Do not shutter your grief to spare stressing your loved ones - they benefit from seeing your true state, and are better positioned to support you. If you grieve openly in front of children, you are modeling to them that grief needs room and expression. The more you resist holding in your strong feelings as you grieve, the more free you will become of them with time.

Grieving consciously means not hiding from any part of the story of the death. It means that you do not get to wrap the death in your guilt and illusions of what might have been if only you did x or y. It means accepting that death is bigger than we are, and thus carries a certain amount of great mystery, to which we can surrender. It even means that we recognize a loved one’s exit as a sacred process, not unlike their birth.

An awakened grieving process requires times of sitting with oneself, within the sadness, anger and pain. We must be alone with the worst of it so we can fully feel / express it AND so we are left with the pure bad-assery of having taken ourselves through it. While those close to us can and should serve as a great comfort, they are not to be used as a distraction or for constant companionship so you never have to be alone with your grief. Get one-on-one with your grief, and show it that you will be distraught and broken apart at times, but never defeated.

Allowing yourself whatever is needed to move through grief is also key to conscious processing. Maybe eating and working has to be put on the back burner for a bit. Maybe you can’t follow a group conversation for now. Maybe you get the sudden urge to paint the walls of your house. Listen to these things - it is very much your brain helping you cope. Lean into them. Resist apologizing for them. There is no comparing coping, and rushing back to the usual to-do’s can be an avoidance, a bypassing that will actually extend and exacerbate the effects of your grief.

Find ways to get the emotions out of your body - crying, dancing, singing, breathing, shaking (somatic or using a vibration plate), walking, working out, yoga asana practice, drawing, painting, writing, composing - they are not meant to stay within you. Held / trapped emotions become aches and pains that the body has to live with, and old stories and excuses in the mind that keep us in depression and victimhood.

Finally, coming back to yourself fully and with gratitude for what IS and WAS - your work, your home, your passions - is not only grounding and helpful to living your life, it also honors the one you lost in a most beautiful way. And part of that coming back is to also enjoy all the people around you, those that helped you grieve, those that are grieving alongside you, those that can share their memories and stories.