Hips and Lungs: Moving Through Grief
I'm not crying, you're...scrap that. We're all crying. And that's ok.
Last month, I had the new and novel experience of running out of a yoga studio in tears.
It was the final morning of a three-day Mindfulness and Meditation workshop, and our truly wonderful instructor and guide had Laughter Yoga on the agenda.
One small issue: the previous evening, I’d had a significant, showstopping disagreement with a close and dear friend, the kind that leaves you reeling, wondering if you’ve just ended an important relationship because of imprudently-chosen words. I was shaken, unmoored and unsettled, but arrived in class committed to putting on a brave face. I took my place in the circle, grim but determined to join in anyway, until our instructor turned to me and said, “I feel so sorry for you. You look miserable.”
That was enough to break my resolve, and the dam I’d built up. The water came loose and I fled.
It wasn’t the touchy-feeliest of my classmates who followed me out the door and came to check on me – it was a friend who had served in the military who followed me quietly, handed me a tissue, said “I got you.” But that’s a story for another day.
Today’s story is this: I’ve noticed that I’m not the only one who’s been crying lately. My yoga students have been doing it, too. And my coaching clients. Usually, the tears are followed closely by some variation on: “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”
Friends, there is nothing wrong with you today. There was nothing wrong with me, that day. As a good friend and spiritual mentor said, succinctly, when I described this series of events to her recently: “Complex grief. It is bubbling up out of the body because we can’t hold it anymore.”
Here are two top-of-mind things I have been grieving, lately:
On October 1, after 19 years of federal service, I will officially be off the federal payroll. I’ve left before, a brief hiatus to skill up and realign career with values, but this time feels different. A year ago, I would have told you I was in my absolute dream job. Within the Natural Resource Conservation Service’s Outreach and Partnerships Division, I administered cooperative agreements that connected agricultural producers with conservation programs. I worked remotely, was well-compensated for my skills, and got to tell cool stories and visit amazing farms and nonprofits, all while living a peaceful and abundant life with my husband on our beautiful little West Virginia homestead. At the time, it felt like everything had finally fallen into place, all the dots connected, that I had earned this success. And although the changes of the last year have pointed me in the direction of some much-needed and unexpected growth, I am still sad - actually, maybe more correctly, I am finally allowing myself to be sad, feeling the loss of that strong sense of accomplishment, purpose, and security.
The political situation has been – well look, are any of us feeling particularly okay right now? Part of what I am experiencing in this moment is a profound sense of disruption in personal relationships – particularly with those who I’d classify family – chosen or blood - and whose opinions and safety matter to me greatly. People who may vote like me…or who I have chatted easily and lightly with for decades…or with whom I assume I am philosophically aligned – are suddenly, and often, people with whom I deeply disagree about how to show up in this present moment. Some of these relationships are becoming more distant, while others deepen, but nearly all of them are changing. It would be disingenuous not to spend a little time mourning what was.
As it happens, the Bhagavad Gita has something to say about fighting with your family. The Stephen Mitchell translation presents our hero Arjuna’s dilemma this way: “As I see my own kinsmen, gathered here, eager to fight, my legs weaken, my mouth dries, my body trembles, my hair stands on end, my skin burns…I see evil omens.” Arjuna is overcome with dread over the thought of entering into direct and deadly conflict with his own close relations - some of them dearly loved. Surely this couldn’t be right. Surely the yogic path was kinder and gentler than this - let’s just say it - sh*tshow.
Arjuna’s chariot driver, who by this point in the story we know to be the lord Krishna, delivers a long soliloquy that essentially distills to: I’m so sorry, kid, but this is your dharma. I won’t rehash here what many commentators have said before me, but this is the essence of the struggle of being a thoughtful human in difficult times: eventually, so sorry, you’re gonna find yourself in opposition to your family, and it’s going to be completely awful, and you’re going to have to put your chin up and move across the battlefield anyway. This is worth grieving, even as we continue prepare ourselves for the necessary actions that lie ahead.
Today’s practice is, at least partly, a movement through grief. We’ll both open and find stability in the hips – said to hold powerful emotion, and also so necessary in carrying us, upright, through life’s difficult situations. We’ll also find some opening across the chest , expanding through the lungs. In traditional Chinese medicine, the lung meridian is energetically linked to grief and sadness. As we move today, consider the softening of the hips as an invitation to release tightness that you may have accumulated as you navigate life’s fight-or-flight moments. As we activate the hips, maybe pause to notice the strength to move forward and stand upright that can co-exist with release. And as we open the chest, simply allow yourself to breathe, in and out. In, everything that exists in the world. Out – everything that exists inside of you. Friends: there is nothing wrong with you today. The grief we are feeling is correct, proportionate, and appropriate. And: we must move through it, toward our part in whatever comes next.
Below: audio version of this post + 27-minute yoga practice (hips and lungs focus)
Post audio:
Yoga practice: