Yoga Renewal Series: Grief, Gratitude, & Metamorphosis

Join the Yoga Renewal Series

This weekend, lets be vulnerable.

It was March 12, 2009.
I was holding my daughters lifeless body, I was struggling between the why did she die and the bliss of having her in my arms. Not that knowing why would make a difference. I imagine that today she and my 4yr old daughter would be spitting images of each other.
As I labored that day, all I could think about was my mom, who had passed away over 6 yrs earlier. And in a similar way, just this last week, I found myself pulling over with tears running down my face, feeling sorrow over a friend who had passed away in a motorcycle accident just after high school. The motorcycle who was just ahead of me zoomed along, and I recognized that my grief was around what a difference my friend was both going to make to the world before he had died.... and to the difference he had made in his short life.
And that grief does not stop with the death of living beings, but with the death of experiences, and even with an unprecedented change ones life.
Grief does not move along a road and find a stop sign and just stay there. It comes with you, and hopefully not from a place of dwelling and inability to let go.... but from a place of gratitude and heart-felt remembrance. Though there may still be tears and heart ache as we remember.
I write this deep & personal experience to you now because I am seeing a lot of grief in the world, we are in good company with each other in our grief. To this end, I am offering medicine in the form of a FREE Renewal Yoga Series: Grief, Gratitude, and Metamorphosis. This is a FREE 3 class series offered by me to acknowledge the grief, gratitude and metamorphosis in the world right now.

"Courage and loss and grief...they are reminders that we are ALIVE." - Brene` Brown.

I have found such vulnerability in myself and others... I have pulled to the side of the road weeping. I have exploded with joy over springtime wonders. I feel an evolution within myself, and have heard this mirrored in others around me. Its a beautiful time to go deep....so let's do it!

Friday May 29th 5pm: Yoga of Grief

Be in your body as you explore the feelings that lay under the surface through breath, movement and creative yoga asana. Get curious about the feelings tied into loss of loved ones, and loss of experiences. Grief is the most circular of emotions, it comes up again and again in different forms throughout our life, and the way to move from our head to our heart lays in the medicine of movement and creativity. Some of you have lost loved ones, and have been unable to attend their services. Some of you have divorced. Some of you are missing your child's graduation. Your grief is real. It deserves to be honored, and even celebrated. Recordings will be available.

Saturday May 30th 5pm: Yoga of Gratitude

One of my favorite Niyamas is Santosha- contentment. However contentment can be very far away from our human experience without a connection to Gratitude. How lucky are we to have had these past experiences, people, even ideas in our lives? What is showing up in your live RIGHT NOW that can inspire Gratitude? Allow Gratitude to become the chrysalis for your evolution. Recordings will be available.

Sunday May 31st 5pm: Yoga of Metamorphosis

How do we emerge from the chrysalis with eyes wide open? Can we bring consciousness to our experience of emerging? This past week, I was honored with watching my son unravel the silk from a silkworms cocoon. It was laborious, and so very beautiful to expose the precious silk in the thinnest strand you could image. Such beauty would have been missed had we just tried to rip it open. Consciousness can be found in the flow of our fascia, the connective tissue webbing of our physical self. Let's move slowly, and uniquely, so that we can witness our unraveling, and practice on the mat so we can witness our, and others, unraveling into our world with gentle empathy and compassion. Recordings will be available.

Register HERE and get your zoom link right away. I am so glad to be in service at this time!

xoxo

Elizabeth Ruff ERYT 500, LMP, Soma Practitioner

Check the “Yoga For Healthy Neck And Shoulders” on the previous blog!