Yoga & Grief: Developing Grief Fluency as a Yoga Teacher – Professional Development Webinar Recording with Sandy Ayre

Yoga and Grief: Developing Grief Fluency as a Yoga Teacher

Grief is the internal and natural response to loss. For those who have suffered a death loss, or a major life transition have likely felt grief. Further, the covid pandemic has been a time marked with global loss and grief, bringing these experiences front and center in the lives of many people. Inevitably, everyone will be faced with a situation of loss and resultant grief.

Unfortunately, North America is a largely death phobic and grief illiterate culture, making it challenging to know the best way to help. Grief literacy and fluency is something that is needed, now more than ever, for us personally and professionally.

People often join yoga as a way to learn how to soothe themselves or cope with challenges, yet if we succumb to some of the misconceptions we hold in our society, our yoga classes won’t be as supportive as they could be.

This virtual learning experience is designed to improve your understanding of grief; both death related and non-death related. In this virtual workshop, you will learn about grief and loss, the historical significance of death symbols and rituals, and how in modern culture we have lost many of these helpful rituals, and adopted many unhelpful strategies and cliches to avoid the pain caused by grief. We will explore simple ways you can make your yoga class a grief-safe experience for people and increase your fluency about how to helpfully support those who are grieving (and self-supporting ourselves).

For more information see Sandy’s article in the 2023 Spring Yoga Bridge newsletter.

About the Teacher: Sandy Ayre is an OT, 750-hour YAA certified yoga instructor and lives in Edmonton. She currently teaches yoga as a supportive modality for grief online. You can find more about Sandy at www.yogaforgriefsupport.com.