Each of us can play a role in transforming the culture of grief.
This workshop is an opportunity to open your heart and engage in a conscious conversation on mindful grieving based on the Center for Somatic Grieving's unique Mindful Grieving Yoga Therapy Program. We will explore our personal and collective stories of loss as you learn new tools for holding space for grief in your yoga classes and your personal lives. This workshop will also provide inspiration and a framework for what it means to grieve in community and how grief can serve as a catalyst for personal growth and transformation.
This experience offers an intimate, safe container for your grief to be felt, expressed, shared and healed. Throughout this journey, you will learn to be a witness for yourselves and each other, cultivating compassion, self-awareness and connection within the group. Through this process, trust is created, which invites greater vulnerability and authentic sharing to take place. Through yoga, meditation, journaling and sharing, you will receive a greater understanding of how our emotions are held in our bodies and how yoga offers an ideal container for mindful grieving. As you explore the relationship between our thoughts, emotions, spirit and physical bodies, we will create a learning community in which to integrate your personal experience of loss into your teaching and your life!
In this workshop, we will explore the following themes and practices for mindful grieving:
Creating a Safe Container to Grieve In
Presence & Body Awareness
Unconditional Love & Acceptance
Exploring Grief As a Teacher
Evolution of Identity Through Grief
The Process of Change
Meditations, Journaling & Asana Practices
Introduction to Group Facilitation and Deep Listening Practices
Facilitated Sharing Circles
Taught by
Wendy Stern
As founder of the Center for Somatic Grieving and the Grief Support Network, Wendy has dedicated her life’s work to supporting people to heal and transform through the process of grief. Wendy’s mission, programs, and network of resources are inspired and informed by her personal experience of loss, and her professional background as a yoga therapy practitioner, yoga instructor, yoga teacher trainer, and group facilitator.
Wendy has devoted the last 20 years to being a student and teacher of yoga. She has a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and is certified as a yoga therapist, teacher, Reiki practitioner, and facilitator of yoga therapy groups for grief support and self-empowerment. In 2007, when her son Noah passed away, her grief propelled her into a process of profound transformation, which has brought joy and gratitude back into her life.
In her own words,
“Supporting people to heal and transform through the process of grief is my purpose in life. I have known the dark night of the soul, and through the darkness, I have come to know my own light. It is my greatest desire to support others to do the same."