5 Ways That Yoga Eases Kids' Grief

Yoga  = Helping a Grieving Child

The following excerpt from Phil Catalfo's article "The Longest Goodbye" introduces us to the concept of yoga as a tool for processing grief.

"We don't get to live and not lose," says Ken Druck, a grief counselor in San Diego. "If we care about anything, we're going to experience loss." An outgoing, impassioned man, Druck knows loss intimately. His elder daughter, Jenna, was killed nine years ago at age 21 in a bus accident in India while in a semester-abroad program. Druck channeled his grief into creating the nonprofit Jenna Druck Foundation (www.jennadruck.org), which offers free support services to bereaved families. Yoga is central to the foundation's work.

Two years after Jenna's death, Druck was still so emotionally wounded he was shutting down. "There were nights when I curled up into a ball on the floor, racked with pain," he says. "My shoulders were pulled in, protecting my heart and gut. And my thinking was obsessive—I was having flashbacks to the phone call telling me Jenna had been killed." 

Not long after that, a friend suggested he try yoga, so Druck signed up to study with Diane Roberts, the owner of Foundation Yoga, in north San Diego County. Within the first 10 minutes of class, tears were streaming down his face. "I just let grief have its way with me," he says softly. "There was nothing to do but let it happen. I relaxed enough to breathe, and realized I'd contracted around my wound." Since then, Druck has come to value the way yoga allows grief to be expressed; today, the foundation offers yoga classes to grieving families. "Through yoga, people can learn to modulate the breath, the pain, and the obsessive thinking," he says."

The rest of the article, in Yoga Journal offers some keenly interesting perspectives which you might enjoy. 

In this piece,  Catalfo suggests that there are five ways that yoga could ease grief, whether you're a child or an adult:

1. Yoga may ease suffering.
2. Yoga may help us learn compasssion while we grieve.
3. Yoga may help relieve the physical pain we often experience with grief.
4.Yoga may help us move towards acceptance of our new reality.
5. Yoga may help us move forward in our life journey.

These are some of the reasons that our new workshop "Bernie's Buddies Grief Workshop for Kids" includes yoga. Angela is a certified kid's yoga instructor  - perfect for grieving kids!

This unique workshop also offers grieving children the opportunity to learn to communicate with a deaf therapy dog (see my last blog)  and to use creative arts to process their grief.

There is more information about the workshop and an easy registration process at Bernie's Buddies website, www.adventureswithbernie.com

HEADS UP - the first session is NEXT THURSDAY, November 7. Register today to ensure that there is a spot for you - the workshop is limited to 8 children (plus their accompanying adult).

This is going to be such a GOOD workshop - a big gentle dog, yoga, and creative arts all for grieving kids.

Wendy
CT, B.Ed, B.Mus