MyLifeYoga

When a loved one departs there is grief. This grief sometimes challenges our faith and shakes us to our core: How can God allow such a thing to happen? Why do good people die early? Why do I have to suffer? Why me?

The following five stages of grief are well known:

1. Denial
The grieving person shuts out reality and refuses to accept it.

2. Anger
Moving past denial, the grieving person is confronted with the truth and is angry with himself or herself, or with others, or with God.

3. Bargaining
The grieving person tries to negotiate an alternative. The person struggles with questions like “If only I had done this, or that…”

4. Depression
The grieving person comes up with questions like: What is the point? Why bother?

5. Acceptance
The grieving person reaches a state where he or she is not consumed by grief. The person accepts the hole in the heart but is able to move on. Not everybody facing grief is fortunate to reach this state. The realization that our heart is a big place where both sorrow and joy can reside simultaneously is a tremendous gift.

How do we ensure that we reach “acceptance”, the final state of the grieving process? How do we make sure that we do not get stuck at some earlier state and consequently live our life incompletely? Remaining stuck in our grieving process denies us from enjoying what we have and what is possible.

Only those who have been through soul searing loss truly understand the full scope of the grieving process. This essay in no way tries to diminish or trivialize the pain or the difficulty of the process.

While the grieving process is well understood, the sources of grief are not well known. If we understand the legs on which our grief stands we are better positioned to deal with it. There are three legs on which grief stands:
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Most of us are under the false impression that Science has “the answers to everything”. It is true that Science is a process by which we expand our knowledge. But it is also true that with ever expanding knowledge comes ever expanding ignorance. For every question to which we find an answer, there are many new questions that come up.

But beyond seeking answers and knowledge of the ‘outside’ there is a domain that seeks to go ‘inside’. This ability to know our internal world is Spirituality. This is a world where instead of knowing by dividing, we know by uniting. This domain gives us the Wisdom to deal with the expanding knowledge and power that comes from Science. It also gives us the Wisdom to deal with our expanding ignorance.

Cara Bradley

Recently I sat with my journal and asked why I continue to teach people how to move and breathe—day in and day out—over and over again. I recalled a quote by Lao Tzu—and the rest, as they say, just flowed out of me:

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want. ~Lao Tzu

I teach yoga because I believe in your capacity to feel healthy and strong and I want to help you feel that too. I trust that when you let go and allow your body and breath to move freely, you will experience a profound sense of being awake and alive like never before. I want to help you trust that too.

I see how you weighed down you get by life circumstances— overloaded with stuff to carry both in your mind and heart. I know that you are bombarded with information about what to believe and how to live. I know how suffocating this can feel and I want to help you free yourself from these illusory burdens.

I teach yoga to help you glimpse the space beyond your busy mind where you are already calm and clear and I trust that with practice you can let go of unwanted emotional baggage and break free from limiting thoughts.

I know that with a little support and a bit of guidance, you can learn to trust that the deep stillness you experience in savasasana is really who you are—at the center of your being.

I teach yoga to help you become familiar with your center of being where you already have the answer—where you know who you are and you know what you want.

Credit: This is by Cara Bradley. She is the founder of Verge Yoga in suburban Philadelphia recently awarded Philadelphia Magazine’s Best of Philly 2014. She has been moving bodies in and out of Up Dogs and Down Downs for 15 years. Over the decades she has been in the trenches of personal transformation and mindfulness as a teacher to thousands of students including CEOs, athletes, and college students. She also trains the Penn State University Men’s Basketball and Villanova University Football teams. Cara shares her daily practices and how she leans into her life as an entrepreneur, teacher, and busy mother on her website and blog.