Mourning Movement

My guess is that no one reading these words is a stranger to grief. It visits us for many reasons — the loss of a loved one, say, or a breakup, a job change, a scary health diagnosis, or a cross-country move. It can take many forms: A shape-shifting force, grief may show up as anxiety, anger, irritability, numbness, sadness, fatigue, detachment.

In the winter of 2023, grief came to me in the form of a deep, dark pit.

I’d been in the grief pit before, and it was no surprise to find myself there again. My beloved cat and companion, Ursula, had just died. I was trying, and failing, to sell the manuscript of my novel. From afar, I witnessed humanitarian atrocities in my familial homeland of Iran, in Gaza, in Sudan, and beyond; at home, I witnessed the continued erosion of civil and reproductive rights.

On macro and micro levels, all I could see was loss. I felt helpless and so very tired.

The grief pit, dark and cool and comfortable in its own way, was a respite from it all. I could cry, and I could sleep. I could let the soft dirt and loam ­ensconce me until I felt better. Every day, I couldn’t wait to get home and close my eyes and return to this liminal space.

From past experience, I knew that eventually I’d feel rested enough to get up, reach for any number of handholds — my family, my friends, my therapist, my gym, my creative work — and pull my head back up into the light, ready to offer care to myself and my communities.

Except this time, once I finally stood up in the grief pit, I couldn’t find purchase. I couldn’t find my usual handholds. I couldn’t make out any trace of light. The more I clambered, the more the wall around me crumbled.

At the same time, the dark of my pit didn’t hold the same comfort it once had. I felt stuck. Unable to move, yet unwilling to stay.

For some time afterward, I walked through life as if walking along a hedgerow: one foot planted in the “real” world, functioning well enough to avoid drawing the concern of those close to me; the other foot sunk into the muck of the grief pit.

One day, on a whim, I googled the phrase “mourning movement.” I don’t know where this came from, but I suspect my training in trauma-informed movement practices and sacred deathcare struck an unconscious trigger.

The search yielded a particularly compelling result: grief-movement training, a multiweek course offered by yoga instructor and grief coach Paul Denniston, founder of Grief Yoga and author of Healing Through Yoga. It was billed as a program that uses movement, breath, and sound to help transform grief, no matter its reason or expression, into love and empowerment. I promptly signed up.

The course proved to be a new handhold — another tool in my self-care kit when it feels like the only option is despair.

“We’re not denying the struggle and the pain [of grief and loss],” ­Denniston said in one of my first classes. “The mission is to use movement, breath, and sound not to run away from the pain, but to take the pain and release it. We are intentionally grieving and healing.”

This intention was front of mind as I went through my training to become a certified grief-movement guide. And it’s front of mind now as I set out to share some of what I’ve learned with you, dear reader, in hopes that you might also find the healing you seek.

Grief Movement Seated Flow

The following seated flow is an invitation to get curious. Before you begin, take a comfortable seat and notice your breath. Notice your feet on the ground and your sit bones on your chair.

• Place your hands on your belly. Take a deep breath in. Sigh it out.
• Place your hands on your chest. Reflect on someone your heart loves and misses, or maybe this practice is just for you today. Speak their name (or your own) out loud.
• Breathe.

Spend one to three minutes on each of the following movements.