 Grief as a Catalyst for Transformation
There is a great power and potential that lies within a broken heart. When we experience grief, our hearts feel like they crack open and grow bigger… if we allow it. And within the brokenness lies the potential for radical change to occur. In some ways we have to change, because it is too painful to stay where we are. The pain is what urges us to evolve so that we can ease our own suffering. We are never the same once grief happens. There is no going back to who we once were, and for many of us, this loss of innocence and our former identity is another loss to grieve. For some people, there is an inherent identity crisis within the grieving process. The person you once were may die with your loss, which can increase the anxiety, fear, and sadness of the loss itself. However, with the death of your former identity, there is also the opening for new parts of yourself to emerge. Kintsugi The Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with gold paint - purposely highlighting the broken parts. Let this be a metaphor for the process of healing, resilience, and finding beauty in the brokenness of grief. You are not broken, you are grieving. And you are beautiful.
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 Let’s talk about perinatal mental health for a sec. And about the grief of getting what you want.
After my first son was born, I didn’t know who I was outside of being his mama for a long time - like almost his first whole year of life. It took a lot of tears and anger and feeling like a lost and wandering dirty mess before I realized that trying to do self-care the way I did before he was born just wasn’t feasible. There was a little respite sometime around his first birthday and then... I got pregnant again. Trying to do self-care with a toddler and pregnant? Is that a joke? What does that even mean or look like? More often than not it meant laying on the couch while he played around me because I was too sick to even move. Super fun. Super self-care ish. There was grief here. I had what I wanted, I was a mama. And I was no longer the person I was before. I had to mourn that but it felt so taboo and not allowed - how dare I show any emotion other than elation? Especially after it took so long for my first boy to be here. Especially after we were able to get pregnant on the first try the next time around. How dare I have any thoughts other than bliss... and yet... My mental health was not great. Who even WAS I?! It took a while to even find the words to express how I felt. And when I finally did it seemed I wasn’t actually allowed to feel that way. Nobody really wanted to hear it. There was a lot of "Well at least you have your babies," or "Motherhood means totally giving up your own wants and needs." (Spoiler alert - I DO NOT BUY IT! NOPE!) So… I stopped waiting until I had the “perfect time” and a whole hour and the house was clean and both kids were asleep (lol) etc etc etc…. And I just got on the floor and the who-knows-what-covered living room rug and moved my body. Just a little bit. Just a moment. Just a breath. I stopped worrying about what the toddler or the baby needed for distraction or trying to entertain them while I stretched and breathed because what I learned very quickly (when I actually finally just did it) is that when I settled myself, they both were settled. When I play, they play. When I get to the floor, they climb on my legs and my head and want to explore my body and be a part of what I’m doing. They are curious and joyful and at ease and so too can I be. The thing is, your bodily autonomy and your alone time are SO IMPORTANT and…. Sometimes it’s just not going to happen even though you desperately need it. So in those moments, don’t wait. Get on the floor and take care of your body and mind and heart and soul. You so deserve it, mama. I love you. I see you. I hear you. You matter. I began dabbling in yoga in college and created a more consistent practice beginning in 2014. What began as a personal physical and mental health journey turned into a love for yoga and Reiki, and a desire to share the benefits with everyone around me. This took years, but here we are! In 2016, I began my Master's program in social work and quickly discovered how the body is so often left out of mental health work. So, I got my certification as a yoga teacher with the intention of combining the two. To further my knowledge and desire to support people experiencing grief and loss get in touch with themselves and their bodies, I began my yoga therapy training in the spring of 2020. I believe that Yoga Therapy and Reiki are such beautiful medicine and that they can truly transform the relationship we have with our body, mind, and spirit, as well as the connections we have with the people around us. I'm passionate about making sure that everyone in every body can experience movement and healing in fully present and intuitive ways. I am deeply passionate about supporting people experiencing grief and loss create meaning and find acceptance and ease. I have a long list of grief experiences throughout my life in a variety of different ways. It has been through these moments of challenge that I've slowly learned to talk about grief and death and sadness and how to fully embody the experience. Grief is not taboo. Grief needs to be talked about, to be held and seen and heard. I believe one of the most profound ways to engage with grief is by getting into your body and being with the process - and letting it be messy. And I'm here to be with you in that, every step of the way.  ...not at the very beginning but more recently. In the fall of 2020 I experienced my first miscarriage. This was the first moment in my life that my grief completely swallowed me whole. I had experienced a lot of loss before that, but losing a baby was a different story entirely. I didn't start to heal until I was sitting in a chair getting tattooed (a little honeysuckle flower for my lost little one) and receiving Reiki that I realized how much I had been holding all of my grief in my body and how I hadn't let anyone touch me. I sobbed. And then I was able to pick up the pieces and start to put myself back together. After my second miscarriage about a year later, I moved more quickly through my grief. Not because it was easier, it was just very different. And at that point, I had deeply reconnected with my body and knew what I needed to offer myself to live on - live on, not move on. Almost a year after that, my son was born. In my life, I've had to say goodbye to many loved ones. I remember ice cream sundaes in hospice with my Nana, talking about dragons and love with my cousin, joking and making plans for wigs with my Aunt and her cancer diagnosis. I remember FaceTime calls with my grandfathers - one during Covid and one when I was very pregnant with my son - unable to be there in person to say I love you. I remember wearing yellow to the funeral of friend who took his own life - yellow to honor his favorite color and his light. Saying goodbye and holding space for my loves and my losses has been woven into my life from a young age. I'm grateful to my parents for not shutting away grief but instead teaching me that we lean into our love and we grieve together. Because of this, it's how I showed up for myself and it's what I bring to holding space for others. I let grief be loud. Or quiet. Or joyful, scary, messy, devastating... I let grief be whatever it needs to be. I lean in.  "The session was a centering and refreshing change to traditional therapy. Being able to sit in and move slowly through sensation is something I would probably never be able to start doing on my own. I felt like this was definitely opening a door to something that could be really helpful for me."
"I was so pleasantly surprised at how much emotion I was able to access with a few simple postures." “These sessions have been incredibly valuable. I’ve accomplished more in these 3 hours of yoga therapy than I have in years of therapy.” |
Meghan Colliershe, her, hers Archives
April 2025
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