stretching beyond the pain of grief

Enjoy this inspirational article written by a lovely yogini friend. I'm continually amazed at the awesome power of people....and yoga. The article was in last month's Yoga Alliance newsletter. Theresa lives and teaches yoga in Philadelphia.

Stretching Beyond the Pain of Grief
By Theresa Conroy

Donna Giddings arrived late to yoga class—wearing jeans, a flowing camisole, impeccable makeup and a jangle of colorful jewelry.

As I watched this large, buoyant, fabulous woman roll out at a mat and maneuver her tight jeans into a cross-legged position, I nearly giggled. Except I was too choked up to giggle.

I had been waiting months to teach this yoga class.

Donna had gathered with seven other members of the anti-violence group Mothers in Charge, for a special yoga class, “Stretching Beyond the Pain of Grief," held in their honor at Yoga Schelter, in Philadelphia.

The class was a gift to them from Yoga Unites, a nonprofit organization I co-founded that uses yoga for healing.

For nearly six years I had been sitting in front of these women—not cross-legged on a mat, leading them through "Ujjayi" breath—but stiffly perched above a notebook, reporting on the agonizing details of the murder trials of those who had killed their children.

As the criminal court reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News, I had covered countless murder trials, including the one for the man who killed Donna's mother, her son and her son’s best friend.

During that case I had a long talk with Donna. I confessed that I wanted to quit my 27-year newspaper career to make a full-time job out of healing grief like hers through yoga.

She told me that if I ever taught a class like that, she’d come.

She did.

I taught that class right before Mother’s Day, just four months after I left the paper.

I loved my regular studio classes, but I wanted to expand the healing power I had experienced in my own practice. I wanted to share the practice that had soothed my anxiety and eased me through body image issues, infertility and even a smoking addiction.

Jennifer Schelter, founder and creative director of Yoga Schelter, actually began this work in 2001, when she organized a Yoga Unites class to benefit the Anti-Violence Partnership. She then brought the idea of activist yoga to Living Beyond Breast Cancer, a national education and support organization, to create and teach the annual large-group class on the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum.

This year's Yoga Unites for Living Beyond Breast Cancer, which was held on May 20, drew about 500 participants.

Just before I left the Daily News, I formalized Jennifer's idea by turning Yoga Unites into an official nonprofit corporation designed to teach yoga for healing and to raise awareness of health, social and environmental causes.

A few of the mothers seemed a bit skeptical during the class—either of yoga or of the hope that anything could ease their pain. But by the end of class, their faces—the same faces I used to see in court, contorted with pain and tormented by nightmares—stared back at me with easy, soft smiles.

Their shoulders had relaxed. The furrows between their brows had softened. A darkness had lifted.

"I even felt so at peace," Donna said.

Enjoy your Friday friends. :-)