Embodied Grief: Listening in Troubled Times

Lesson Description

They say we are all in this together. As we peer out our windows, as we meet eyes on our solitary walks, what is this feeling we are all sharing? Grief. Mostly unacknowledged, un-practiced and untended, the grief of our collective lived experience lies here in our bodies. Even as shock begins to dissolve, the breath stays shallow, the throat tight, the spine rigid, the heart armoured, the whole body, heavy. How do we listen for this grief? How do we serve it? Not just to calm it, get over it, or distract ourselves from it, but to turn toward it, tend to it, nourish and praise it, not only as a feeling but as a skill badly needed by both our bodies and our culture. Perhaps this is what our isolating days ask of us? To stop. To tune our ears to the hum of grief. To tenderly widen ourselves as compassionate mature beings, able to see each other and to know hard things. To cultivate our capacity to feel and carry our grief, and to be deepened in our humanity by our willingness to do so.

Instructor: Anne Pitman

Anne Pitman (M.Sc., C-IAYT) is the Director of the School of Embodied Yoga Therapy (www.embodiedyogatherapy.com) with over 35 years experience in teaching inquiry-informed embodied yoga, and pioneering integrative yoga therapy in Canada. She is a practicing Yoga Therapist at the Ottawa Integrative Cancer Centre (www.oicc.ca) and has extensive experience compassionately accompanying people living with cancer, anxiety, complex pain, PTSD, as well as tending to the grief that walk alongside mortals, in troubled times. She is a graduate and ongoing scholar at the Orphan Wisdom School where she practices an attunement to both living deeply and dying well. Her “7 Short Practices; A Gentle Companion for Yoga Home Practice” and meditation cd, “Into the Body”, are available at www.annesyoga.com.

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