Grief and love are sisters, woven together from the very beginning.
― Francis Weller
Grief, I've learned, is not just for the grievers, the bereaved, the widows, and widowers.
It's not a title given to us when we lose someone. It's not something we experience alone in despair. Instead, it exists within the context of others—within the space of our interconnectedness.
Grief is for all of us, and it extends beyond our assumptions of what grief should be.
Of course, we can grieve the death of a loved one, but we can also grieve the death of a marriage, a love, and a friendship. We can grieve a miscarriage, a stillbirth, and an abortion. We can grieve not becoming a parent, and we can grieve our life before parenthood.
We can also grieve our own youth and the times when things felt simpler, more innocent, and comfortable.
At any given moment, we are missing the old days, missing an old friend, missing an old self. Sometimes we want back the things we miss, sometimes we don't, and other times we've never had them in the first place. Regardless of our desires, we can still grieve.
We have an inherent desire to better ourselves, to grow and learn and heal. As we shed our old skin and flourish into new iterations of our being, it is okay to also long for our past selves—past selves with old friends, parents now gone, or lovers who served their purpose.
That longing for what isn't, for what was, for what could have been—that's grief.
We all hold it.
We hold it in our bodies.
Grief is expansive and all-encompassing. It is as universal as it is individual.
It's that feeling that's not exactly sadness but more intricate than despair. It's the agony of longing for a different outcome, of dreaming of an alternate reality, of accepting things as they are. It's the profundity of heartache—the vacillation between destruction and reconstruction stitched together with nostalgia.
The difference between sadness and grief, as I see it, is love.
To grieve is to have loved deeply and to continue to do so in the face of change. To grieve is to say I love you over and over and over again through the heartache. To grieve is to accept impermanence as the only permanence and to keep loving anyway.
We will always be changing, moving, and evolving. That is life. We will always be losing things that we can never get back again. That's what it means to be alive. Through it all, we love, and we grieve. ✨
✨ yoga etc. is my newsletter on yoga, social justice, collective wellbeing, and collective healing. Every week, I share a piece of me—a weekly dose of mindfulness—hoping it resonates. The best way to support my work is by sharing this newsletter with those you think might find a piece of them. ✨
Yoga of movement ✨
I'm back home and so excited to see you! You have two chances to practice with me online this week:
And, as always, I have some lovely pre-filmed classes. I picked out a few special ones for you this week:
15 min ✨ Ebb + flow through the spine
15 min ✨ Soothe + slow down
45 min ✨ Hips + heart flow
75 min ✨ Side body flow
Please try to sign up at least 3 hours before the start of class, and if you can't make it in real-time, you'll get the recording in your email.
I'm also available for private and corporate classes. I'm offering complimentary corporate classes to nonprofit and not-for-profit organizations. Reply to this email if you're interested!
Yoga of action ✨
I'm tithing 10% of my income from my online yoga classes to organizations that fight against white supremacy. Every month, I'll pick a new organization and highlight it below. If these organizations call to you, please consider contributing (no matter how small).
My November donation will go to The Afiya Center, an advocacy organization dedicated to transforming the lives of Black women and girls through reproductive justice. The Afiya Center provides refuge, education, and resources on reproductive justice, HIV programming, abortion access, and maternal mortality for Black womxn and girls in Texas, where abortions have recently been banned after six weeks.
Have a suggested organization? Leave a comment to share.
Yoga of words ✨
Grab a pen, grab your journal. Have a seat somewhere comfortable. Close your eyes, take a breath in, and let it go. Your weekly writing prompt is below.
What stories have you told yourself about your grief that may not be 100% true? (10 minutes)
Feel free to share what you've written by clicking the link below. But, of course, you’re also welcome to keep this practice as just yours.
Other musings ✨
Gardening for climate resilience (Instagram)
The pressure to pass as a trans woman (Refinery29)
Skincare culture is just dewy diet culture (The Unpublishable)
Continued resources by the Climate Resilience Project (Google Docs)
Loving our grief with Michelle C. Johnson and Tema Okun (Michelle C. Johnson)
On repeat: Actual Life 2 by Fred again.. (Spotify)
I'm here for you—for class, advice, or anything you need or would like to share. Always a phone call/text/DM/reply button away.
LBC ✨
P.S. If you like this newsletter, please share it with your friends! And if someone sent you this newsletter, you can subscribe below!
I find this so timely as I've just finished watching a beautiful series called Move to Heaven on Netflix. It's a wonderful take on grief and parent/guardianhood. Thank you always for sharing such inspiring letters. Love to you my friend.