Some feelings need more than words.
When grief felt heavy, movement often helped me process what I couldn't think my way through. Sometimes it looked like a walk, a stretch, a deep breath, or simply stepping outside for a few minutes.
This space is filled with gentle ways to reconnect with your body, release what needs releasing, and create a little room to keep moving forward - one breath, one step, one moment at a time.
I've invited some of the women who have inspired me in my movement to share their perspectives here.
Lauren was one of my mom's closest friends. They had the joy of working together for more than a decade, and over those years, I was lucky enough to get to know Lauren as well.
After my mom passed, Lauren continued to show up for my family in countless ways, and our relationship grew even stronger. Then, after the loss of her own mother, we found ourselves walking a similar path - leaning on one another as we learned to navigate grief together.
Throughout her journey, Lauren found healing through yoga, movement, and sound meditation. I invited her to share her story in hopes that it might offer comfort, perspective, or encouragement to someone else walking a similar path.
Her reflections are shared below, along with information about her classes and offerings if you feel called to explore movement as part of your own healing journey.
I am a yoga teacher so it was very helpful to immerse myself in the body movements and mindfulness practices. A fast paced yoga class was helpful to avoid the painful emotions and just get me focused on the present moment. The slower, more restorative classes would soothe my soul and give me an opportunity to show myself that I was ok with the quiet and stillness. I began to feel more connected to child’s pose and warrior pose, allowing myself to show both humility and strength. I also felt more connected to throat/heart opening poses like fish pose and camel. But most of all, connecting my root chakra reminded me of where I originally came from, in poses like tree and easy pose (sukhasana). I also relied on a few mantras during yoga class: I am surrounded by love and I am whole. Finally, with some hip opener poses (like reclined bound angle) I could feel a sweep of emotions and I just allowed myself to feel whatever came up. Yoga was the perfect place to express feelings because no one needed to know I was sad, because the feeling would pass, and no one needed to feel the need to fix my brokenness.
I started to feel a movement of my grief around 6 months after my mom’s death and it felt a bit like a cage had opened. It started to become important to me to support others going through feelings of loss, seeing where listening to others helps them process their difficult emotions. But also realizing that creating healing opportunities for others could be equally beneficial. I have found healing through sound meditation to be particularly beneficial to others experiencing grief, but also for people experiencing the burnout of life. I decided to become a sound meditation facilitator and I play crystal bowls, gongs and other instruments to help bring peace and stillness to others. The frequencies of these instruments allow your mind to switch to a new state of calm, allowing your parasympathetic nervous system to become activated. In this state, your body relaxes, your heart rate drops and cortisol levels are reduced. Additionally, your mind quiets as your brain focuses on the variety of sounds either consciously or unconsciously. The benefits last even after a session with people describing great sleep after a session. Typically everyone who participates experiences some benefit so I perform sound baths as well as attend them for my own healing.
I’ve also found it helpful to not answer the simple question of “How are you?” with a general answer. I would take a moment to reflect on things and give an honest response. Sometimes just by honoring my truth I found I was able to process things more accurately.
All in all, losing my mom has been one of the most challenging things I’ve had to cope with. But having a mix of strategies and supports helped me to find my way through the darkness. Today, just coming up on her one year anniversary, I can smile and appreciate all we had together, while also acknowledging I miss her deeply, but also recognizing she is in her eternal home. And that gives me hope and the belief that we will reunite one day and I will be so very happy."
Connect with Lauren
200hr RYT
Certified Sound Bath Facilitator
themantraroomct.com on Tuesdays and Sundays
Keep your eyes open for her next sound bath experience
"My mom passed away suddenly from a heart attack. Although she was 78, it was totally unexpected, and I found myself really confused initially, as well as incredibly sad. I knew there would be a lot of things to take care of to prepare for the services to celebrate her life, but trying to comprehend the loss while moving forward with the new realities was a massive undertaking. Luckily my boss was understanding, but I still found myself working at times because it was easier than cancelling and trying to reschedule some of my large scale trainings.
It all felt very overwhelming. The amount of tears, the amount of sadness that I held in my heart, the realization slowly day by day that my mom wasn’t coming back, and the fact that no one understood my pain. It was becoming clear that each family member was experiencing a different version of reality. At first I was simply noticing the differences but over the first few weeks, the differences felt like a mystery that I wanted to explore. I began to find comfort connecting with people who had also lost loved ones recently. Through those coffee dates or phone calls, I began to find more acceptance of my feelings and the deep hole I felt in my soul.
During those initial first weeks I felt more divinely connected and was looking for signs everywhere to help me feel that I wasn’t alone. One sign was finding a bereavement pamphlet in a special church on Enders Island, CT. It offered a monthly book study on Understanding Your Grief. Although I couldn’t attend the book study, I ordered the book and and formed a small group to read and journal about our experience. It has taught me so much and has been a great tool for me to explore all my grief.
One of the most valuable strategies was giving grief time to express itself. I did things like make a digital photo album of our favorite pics, buy my mom’s favorite powder, and make some of her favorite recipes. Surrounding myself with her, I felt more connected and less alone. I started to find gratitude for the time I had with her, gratitude for our connection, and for all the ways I could still try to connect when I needed her.
Sometimes I would just feel sad or down and wasn’t exactly sure I knew how to express it to someone else. In those moments, I found myself comforted by Anderson Cooper’s All There Is podcast. Hearing about his process of healing grief, plus all the gusts he brings on, was enlightening. Although I didn’t know them, sometimes listening to someone fully express themselves and their experiences with mourning and grief felt instructive. As someone new to these feelings, the podcast helped guide me and model that healing is possible. It also helped me to see outside of myself and my pain, which at times was very helpful.
"Mourning (mourn·ing): “the act of sorrowing” ~Merriam-Webster
After a fire devastates a forest there is a thick layer of ash that is left behind which seeps down into the charred soil to nurture and feed the previous life that escaped the flames only by the roots. From this ash new, lush, more alive flora grows over the graves of the previous life that was cut down by fire. From the fire of our own lives so too may we allow the ash that coats our skin to sink deep and heal us, but first we must allow ourselves to burn.
Listen to your body. Many of us may have heard this phrase spoken to us before, but how can we do this in the midst of mourning? Mourning is more than just the death of a loved one; it is the loss or death of any thing in your life, be it a pet, family member, an opportunity, a goal, our health, aspirations & dreams, a thought, a job, an object. Mourning is not reserved for the deepest tragedy of losing the life of someone we cherish, it includes them. In our society, especially the American society that I was born into, we are often told, encouraged, to speed up our mourning, to hide it, to wipe our tears away quickly and wash our face. We are told how uncomfortable people become when we share our sorrow and our memories. There is an unspoken rule to stuff these feelings down, hide when you cry, and most of all do not make it someone else’s problem. However, there is such beauty in the sorrow and ache of mourning. There is something so effervescent and gorgeous about how we as humans are one of very few species who experience mourning. There is only mourning in life, to be alive is a gift in that we were able to love something, and hope and dream for something so passionately, that it devastates us when it is lost.
Connect with Jaylene - Owner of Wabi Sabi Yogi
500hr RYT
Reiki I Practitioner
Certified Sound Healer
jaylenebaterna@gmail.com
themantraroomct.com on Thursday mornings
twisteddogyoga.com on Sundays and Thursday evenings
About 6 months after my mom passed, I found my way into Jaylene's Hatha yoga class.
Looking back, I don't think it was by accident.
What began as a yoga class became so much more. Through gentle movement, thoughtful mantras, and the space she created, I found moments where I could simply breathe, feel, and make room for my grief. Week after week, her classes became a place where I could reconnect with myself while learning that healing doesn't always come through words.
I invited Jaylene to share a piece of her perspective because her classes have been such a meaningful part of my own healing journey. I hope her reflections encourage you to explore movement, mindfulness, and self-compassion in whatever way feels right for you.
Her story is shared below, along with information about her classes if you feel called to join her on the mat.
To experience loss in this lifetime is to experience being so fully alive, being so present and here, that the body is in physical, emotional pain to be living without it. Understand that your emotions do not make you weak, they do not dampen your spirit or your sunlight. They are a reminder that you are here, taking breath into your lungs. Do not tuck yourself into corners or make your sorrow quieter for the sake of others. Even shared loss will be experienced so uniquely by each individual, like a fingerprint, that the joining together of mourning will look like a painting of a million colors.
A mosaic made up of every singular experience pertaining to that loss. Allow yourself to wail and cry and stomp your feet. Allow yourself to find joy in the length of time it takes you to find your breath again. Forgive yourself for the time you lose in your sorrow, because time lost is simply time spent healing. Sitting and doing
“nothing” is sitting and allowing the full weight of your body to be supported by your bed, or a chair, or the people in your life. It is giving yourself permission to take up the space you occupy when you simply cannot pick
yourself up off the floor. There is no shame in mourning. There is no shame in being stuck, or feeling the weight of the universe in your chest. You are inherently human, your mind is complex and there are a plethora of emotions
- some we cannot even give names to - that occupy the space in the wrinkles of your brain. Thus, listen to your body. Let your body tell you when it is ready to be plucked from the lush earth. When it is ready to eat five meals a day or sing off key. Allow your body to move in ways it hasn’t experienced since you were nine and forgive the amount of energy you may have lost in the years since then. Give yourself the space to grow and retreat, to shape shift into the next version of you. Forgive yourself for the things society has told you are bad and wrong, that each day you must grow larger, stronger, further. You are a complex spirit on this planet that spins at over 1,000 miles per hour in a massive collection of stars that make up one single galaxy in a void of space full of galaxies.
Forgive yourself for what you may have missed out on during your mourning and absolve yourself from the “what if’s”.
Most importantly, remind yourself to breathe. Breathe full into your belly, allow your belly to
expand on the inhale and to soften on the exhale. Do not shrink to fit someone else’s
expectations of you, and do not force growth that your body cannot handle in this moment.
Growth will come after the flames."
