Navigating Grief

In this episode, Alex shares a dharma talk she wrote during her yoga retreat on the nature of grief. In this dharma talk Alex shares the differences between major and secondary grief and describes how we have all experienced grief to some extent during the pandemic. Alex relates grief to dukham, and sukham, from Pantanjali's yoga sutras, and she offers four different causes of dukham, or suffering, and ways to process it.

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Hi friends, this is Alex McGrobb, founder of the Mindful Life Practice, and you're listening to the Sober Yoga Girl podcast. I'm a Canadian who moved across the world to the Middle East at age 23, and I never went back. I got sober in 2019 and I now live full-time in Bali, Indonesia. I've made it my mission to help other women around the world stop drinking, start yoga, and change their lives through my online sober girls yoga community. You're not alone and a sober life can be fun and fulfilling. Let me show you how. Hello, hello, everyone. Now welcome back to another episode of Sober Yoga Girl. It is Tuesday, July 5th. This episode is going to drop in a couple days. And I just got home to Toronto from a pretty big adventure. I visited British Columbia. I went to a wedding, saw a bunch of my high school friends, visited family, flew down to Denver, and then went to Mexico for my yoga retreat. And of course, if you're following me on Instagram, you know what happened there, which is that on the morning of my Mexico retreat, which I have been planning for six months, traveled around the world for, I woke up sick and tested positive for COVID. Now, thankfully, I'm healthy, I'm well, I didn't have a major experience of COVID. Like some people have gotten really sick from COVID. I fortunately was okay. And what was also amazing was that a lot of my yoga teacher training graduates were actually guests on the retreat. And for many of them, they had an opportunity to teach yoga for the first time. So there were some beautiful manifestations that came out of my sickness. Everyone had a great time despite me being sick and got really amazing feedback on the retreat. And I'm actually already planning next year's Mexico retreat now. I'm also planning a New Year's Eve retreat. Um, I have a few retreats coming up in Bali that I've planned on my own, and one that I'm guest teaching on Ellen from Sorriety Sisterhood's retreats. I'm also planning a spinning retreat with my friend Mim. I'm considering a retreat in Morocco. So there's just a lot of cool, exciting things coming up. I did want to share with you for today's episode a Dharma talk that I wrote during my quarantine on grief. And this is because, as you can imagine, flying all the way around the world to teach a retreat and then testing positive for it and not being able to see my guests was like a heartbreaking experience. And so I just want to share with you something that I wrote about grief during that time when I was in isolation. So I've had a lot of time alone over these past three days, and I think it's the most time I've spent alone in this entire pandemic since I am usually on Zoom with everyone from the Mindful Life practice. And during my isolation, I've had a lot of time to experience grief, to process grief, to move through grief. And I think I didn't even realize it was grief until that's what Lena said it was. So since Sunday morning when I found out I had COVID, I have moved through several emotions: shocked, denial, deep sorrow, and acceptance. But then Lena gave it the name of grief, and identifying it as grief tremendously helped. So since she gave me that name of grief, I've thought a lot over the past few days about the nature of grief. And I think we sometimes think that grief only pertains to death. So dictionary.com defines grief as intense sorrow, which is caused by someone's death. Now, grief can absolutely be caused by death, and I'm sure we've all experienced that at least some point in our lifetimes. But I also think grief goes beyond death. We all felt grief during this pandemic, even if someone we know didn't die. Grief is a natural human response to loss, and it's the emotional experience when someone or something we love is taken away. So during this pandemic and each of our lifetime, some of us lost loved ones, some of us lost our jobs, some of us lost partners, some of us lost friendships, some of us lost time with our loved ones, some of us didn't see a baby be born, a grandchild's first steps, some of us missed the vows of our children, some of us didn't get to hold a parent's hand through death. Some of us spent so much time with our loved ones in isolation that they drove us crazy, and and our relationships became fundamentally different, and we grieved that change. And some of us spent so much time alone during this pandemic that we lost friendships beyond Zoom and we grieved that loss. Some of us didn't finish out a school year with our students and we grieved that too. Some of us got sober in the pandemic and we grieved the person we lost, our identity as that party person before sobriety. And some of us got sober and we grieved friendships lost in sobriety. And some of us lost our sobriety and we relapsed, and we probably grieved that too, and then we gained it again. So I was thinking today about how grief is highly personal. We all grieve different things in our life, and some people might feel no grief about the same moment that others feel tremendously. But despite the individual experience of grief, it's also highly universal. Everyone's grief is different, but we all know grief. And grief over the past two years has been spent collectively and in solitude, together and apart. So there are two things that I think society fails to teach us when it comes to grief. The first is what grief is or isn't. It's been so ingrained into me that grief only pertains to major losses like death that I couldn't comprehend that grief was what I was experiencing on Sunday until Lena defined it for me. And then I was speaking to Neve, who is a trained counselor, and she defined for me secondary grief. And this can refer to numerous small losses that don't seem like major grief, but they are in the end. Now, the second thing we're taught about grief or deep sorrow or tremendous emotions is that as children that they aren't okay. And because we aren't comfortable being around other people's sorrow, we rush to make it better. Because this is what our parents and our teachers did. Our default is to tell people that it's okay, and we're trained to suggest that they look on the bright side. But the thing about grief is that when you're in the thick of it, there is not a bright side. It just needs to be felt, to be seen or heard, or held, because some things in life are just shitty, like losing a parent or a friend, and no amount of positivity will make it better. So in sutra 11.5, pantanjali describes human suffering as dukkha, which literally means tightness in the chest or constriction in the heart. And if you think about a time when you were upset and what it felt like in the heart, this is dukkha. And there are four causes of dukkha outlined by Pantanjali. So, number one, when the circumstances suddenly change that affect you and you weren't expecting it. It's like when you're a kid and your mom suddenly takes you to leave the park when you weren't expecting, you thought you'd have more time to play. This is kind of like when COVID originally hit and we were all suddenly put into lockdown. The second is longing. So you suffer when you want something you don't have. It could be longing for anything a job, a toy, a promotion, an event that you missed while in lockdown. The third is samsara. This is habit. Now, this is when we repeatedly cause ourselves suffering with a habit that harms us. So this would be like addiction to alcohol or drugs or eating junk food. And then the fourth cause of suffering is when you're imbalanced. So this is like when a toddler misses her nap, when you're awake all night and you can't sleep, when you're sick, like if you have coronavirus. And when I reflected on all of these today, I thought about how I've experienced almost all of these in a week. Right? My circumstances suddenly changed. I longed for something I didn't have, and I also got coronavirus. So Sunday was the day that this retreat started, and it was root chakra day. And on this day of my retreats, I build the foundation and I bond the group. I build trust by having people share. And once we built that initial trust, day two is the sacral chakra. And this is when we go with the flow, we get creative and we express ourselves. And usually by that point in the retreat, even if it's only a weekend away, I typically have gotten to know my guests each so deeply on an intimate level that I know their suffering. I know their dukkha. I know their stories. And if they're processing grief, I know it. If there is a mountain in their life that they're climbing, I know what it is. If they're making a tough life decision or at a fork in the road, I know what that is. And I hold space for all of this. And on this retreat, for the first time, I do not. And this has been my grief. So this is my sixth yoga retreat, but it's a really special one. It's the first time I'm meeting so many of you in real life after two years of friendship, whether it's been on Zoom or Facebook or Instagram. It's my first friendship where I've flown around the world, my first retreat with this many guests. It's my first retreat in this career that I've spent eight years building. But what I am grieving right now is not this retreat. And it's not the hike to South Beach or the trip to Toto Santos. It's not the yoga classes, it's not the meals shared. What I am grieving is these little moments in between and during all of these things when I, as a retreat leader, connect with everyone individually on a retreat. It is when you open up and you share your suffering, and I hold space for this. My grief is that I see all of you in front of me, but I don't see you. I don't know what you came on this retreat to manifest. I don't know what you dream of. I don't know what heartbreak you're healing. I don't know what challenges you've overcome, what risks you've taken, like leaving your kids, or what fears you've overcome, like your first vinyasa practice, what grief you might be carrying, like the loss of a parent, and not knowing this is my grief. And I'm so grateful for all of you for being so incredible and teaching practices. And I appreciate that you've all been amazing, and you want to make sure that I know that you're all happy and you're making the best of a shitty situation where you don't have a retreat leader that you thought you would. And you've had these wonderful opportunities to step outside of your comfort zone and teach yoga the first time in person. And I know that there's going to be more retreats in my life, and this is only the start of a yoga career, and I'm gonna have more. And you know, there's a lesson in everything, and the universe has my back, and I know that one day this is going to be a hilarious time, a hilarious story about the time I got COVID on my retreat, but it is not that day yet. And it's only been about 50 hours of me processing grief. And the unusual thing about this situation is that typically as a retreat leader, I don't show up with grief or trauma or emotion or suffering on my retreats or even in my yoga classes, right? I usually teach from the scar of the pain and not the wound. And this is the first time that it was beyond my control, right? This happened simultaneously as the first group was landing on the airport and on the way to Yandara. And so you are witnessing me my moment by moment experiencing this grief. And I'm looking for a lesson in this, but I haven't found it. You're live with me as I process this grief, not after the fact. And I will find and share that lesson when I found it, but I haven't found it yet. And for now, I'm just processing grief. So I realized today that the interesting thing is that my most recent retreat in May was also an experience of dukkha or suffering, but in a different way. So one of my guests had traveled all the way from the USA to Bali to honor the one-year anniversary of her son, who passed away by suicide in May of 2021. And the whole week we held space for her to process her suffering for her shares, for her tears, for her vulnerability, knowing that nothing other than our presence, no words, could make up for this enormous loss she was facing in her son. And with this guest, her suffering would come out of nowhere. She'd be tearing up, and then there'd be moments of spontaneous joy. She'd be singing in the car and then sobbing while spreading Judson's ashes. Towards the end of the retreat, she belly laughed for what she said was the first time in a year. And then moments later she cried. And this is suffering. This is grief. So my teacher, Rolf, he taught me that all things come in twos. So salt comes with sugar, sunshine comes with rain, happiness comes sadness, and dukkha, darkness or suffering, has a pair too, and it's called sukka. And sukka is the light. And today I experienced the first sukkah or the light of this week. So I got a chance to sit with Julie today for an hour when she came to pick up her towel. And the first time since we arrived on this retreat, I felt like I had finally made a connection. So Julie so vulnerably shared with me her losses, her struggles, her setbacks, her heartbreak, her limiting self-beliefs. And I just sat with it. And I just want to thank you so much, Julie, for taking that time with me today because I feel that this hour has been such an important spark for me. So I finally had an opportunity to connect with someone since coming on this retreat, which is what I've been yearning for. I want to hear your stories. I want to be reminded that we each carry our own sorrows. And I feel like my story of grief of testing positive for COVID and being in isolation, it's somehow taken up the narrative of this week. But everyone has a story of sorrow and suffering and grief, not just me. So inherent in Sutra 11.6 is what Pantanjali says is that there's no hierarchy in suffering. So no one's experience of suffering is less legitimate than another. Pantanjali would say that each person's experience is valid and each person's experience is unique. And when you accept that, you can avoid comparing or judging, right? No one's suffering is greater or less than anyone's. We all just suffer. And instead of comparing, we can just have empathy for everyone's suffering, for everyone's sorrows, for the discomfort that everyone has experienced at some point in their life, including our own suffering. And the one thing that I want to share is that I know that all of you want me to feel better, but I will feel grief this entire retreat. And that's unavoidable. I think I'll sweep under a wave of grief and then I'll come above it. I'll think I'm at the surface and I'll think I'm fine and swimming along, and then boom, something will hit me, right? Like last night I held a circle and I thought I was okay. And then a few minutes later, we went to a sound bath and I couldn't stop crying. And this is the nature of grief. This is human suffering. It comes in waves when you least expect it. It will smack you under the surface, and then you'll think you're coming up for air, and then boom, it's gonna smack you again. So there's no way for us to experience darkness, there's no way for us to escape darkness or suffering because this is human nature. We all are gonna live with it all at some point in our lives. This is the human experience. And the only way to move through our suffering is to just do the inner work here and now. You have to sit with your suffering, you don't have to force it to heal. Just keep swimming upwards out of the grief. Just ride along with each wave and allow the waves of grief to wash over you. Don't try to push through the waves, just ride with them, but resist being carried by them through the rest of your life. So Pantanjali also provides us different strategies to overcome our suffering or our dukkha. And dukkha comes with its pair, which is sukkha or joy. So after this Dharma talk, we did a practice on my retreat. We gave our darkness or our suffering to be transformed through the light. So we practiced some rituals. We did a bit of meditating, we did a bit of journaling, we did some sharing, and then some releasing with a bonfire on the beach. And it was so beautiful. So we made a list of all the things we were letting go of, anything that we were holding on to that was no longer serving us. And then we all took a turn to throw it into this bonfire on the beach. And then we had this new moon, we had this moon milk for new intentions with the new moon. It was like one of the most incredible, beautiful, um, heartfelt nights I've ever had on a yoga retreat. And the beautiful thing was that after this experience, I ended up getting to have one-on-one time with all my guests. So we sat six feet apart with me in a mask outside, and I shared, you know, already that no one on the retreat tested positive for COVID. So we were managed to keep um everyone safe while I was recovering, but I also got to have a bit of human connection from a distance, which was really beautiful. And I think it was really just what I needed, right? I wanted to connect with all these people on my retreats. And I felt at the end of the retreat that I had left with what I had wanted, even though it looked a little different than what I was expecting. So that is my Dharma Top on Grief. Please let me know, shoot me a message, shoot me a comment if that resonated with you, what your feelings and responses are to that. Now I'm super excited that because of this experience of having all of my YTT students step up and lead parts of my retreat, I realize that there's a lot of space for my yoga teacher training students to take leadership roles on retreats. So I'm actually going to be starting a new program for my YTT grads to join me on retreats as assistant teachers. So if you're someone who's graduated from my YTT, if you're curious about coming on as an assistant teacher on a retreat, please shoot me a message. I would absolutely love to chat with you more about this. And next yoga teacher trainings are starting next week. If you want to do an online 200-hour or 30-hour yoga teacher training, I would absolutely love to have you. So please shoot me a message if it's something you're curious about. Join our incredible Sober Girls Yoga community of women around the world. We also have our general minds life practice community with women, men, sober, not sober. So it's just an awesome community all around. Thank you so much for tuning in. I really appreciate your support, your commitment, listening to the show, and joining all of the online amazing programs that we have to offer. And if you have any feedback, if you like this, please share, subscribe. It really helps to hear your responses. All right, have a beautiful week, everyone. And hopefully, by the next time you hear me on the show, my voice has gotten totally back to normal. Hopefully, I'm not like wheezing, coughing anymore. Um, but I appreciate your presence and your support. Have a wonderful week, everyone. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Sober Yoga Girl Podcast. This community wouldn't exist without you here. So thank you. It would be massively helpful if you could subscribe, leave a review, and share this podcast so it can reach more people. If we haven't met yet in real life, please come get your one week free trial of the Sober Girls Yoga membership and see what we're all about. Sending you love and light wherever you are in the world.