“Why does grief feel so much like stress?”That’s what I kept saying after my mother died. I wasn’t feeling what I expected to feel. I had some Platonic ideal of grief in my mind, and imagined when she was finally gone I would feel some kind of sharp, searing pain. And that there would tears. Lots of tears. Instead, to be honest, I didn’t feel that different than I felt during the last few months that she was alive.
My mother’s death wasn’t a surprise. Her doctor had told her that her breast cancer had metastasized and that she only had a few months to live, and she accepted that. So after discussing the situation with her, my brother and I arranged for her to have hospice care in her home. For those of you who don’t know how home hospice care works, all your health care provider provides are short visits twice a week visits from a hospice nurse who arranges for needed medications and makes other comfort care recommendations, twice a week bathing by an aide, and a 24-hour call-in service for emergency consultations. All other care-giving as well as food preparation and housekeeping needs to be provided by family. So my brother and I took different shifts spending time with her, and also did a number of chores, such as shopping, errands, bill paying, and so on. We also hired professional caregivers for her, at first just for the daytime and then as her needs increased for the night as well. And of course as her illness progressed, various emergencies cropped up, which required immediate attention and changes in her routines. An urgent call could come at any time of day or night, and there was always a quality of always “lurching from crisis to crisis” as I put it.
Yes, it was a very stressful time for me, as well as sad. But for my mother’s sake—as well as mine—I wanted to be at my best for her—I focused my yoga practice on stress management. Because supported inverted poses work so well for me, in addition to my regular yoga practice, every day I practiced a very long Legs Up the Wall pose, usually 25 minutes, with an eye pillow and breath awareness. Although I sometimes cried in the pose, I always felt much calmer afterward.
But after my mother died—we knew the end was close so we were both able to be there—there was so much to do! Besides all the typical stuff, I had to move my father, who had mild dementia, into my house, and prepare for Christmas with dear friends from out town and my son’s first visit home from college during his freshman year. Then the sewer went out, I had a house full of people, and we couldn’t use the toilets….
So my feelings of stress continued, along with the symptoms I typically experienced when I was stressed out: trouble sleeping, feeling hyper and agitated, loss of appetite, and so on. But I didn’t cry anymore, though my face hurt from all the crying I’d done before my mother had died. That’s when I started saying, “Why does grief feel so much like stress?”
However, while I may have been confused about the nature of grief, at least I knew enough to continue to use my practice to manage my stress levels. I pacified my nervous system with inverted poses and calming breath practices, and avoided poses that tended to agitate me, such as active backbends and Sun Salutations. I didn’t think at the time I was practicing yoga for grief, but for the way I was experience loss and grief, it seems I was. I observed my current emotional and mental state and practiced accordingly.
So as I start to explore the topic of yoga for grief, I will be sure to keep in mind that how each person experiences grief is different—and will probably vary with individual circumstances of a particular loss, such as the relationship you have with the person, the age they are when they die, and the circumstances of their death, not to mention your particular personality and your stage in life. So, as with all “therapeutic” yoga practices, yoga for grief must be a personalized practice based on your needs and abilities that either you put together yourself or that a teacher helps you design you from a wide range of possible options.
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