November 2025

Sitting with Grief: The Sacred Practice of Presence

Dear Yogis/Yoginis ,

Grief usually arrives like an unexpected ocean wave—sudden, overwhelming, pulling us under. Our instinct is to swim away, to escape to shore, to find any distraction that keeps us from drowning in its depths.

But what if we could learn to float?

The Invitation to Be Still

On our mats, we can practice something radical: to learn to be present with discomfort. To hold a difficult pose and discover that our first instinct - to flee, to fidget, to abandon - is not our only option. We can stay. We can breathe. We can witness.

This is not stillness as numbness. This is stillness as spaciousness - a sacred container large enough to hold what feels unbearable.

Grief Asks for Presence, Not Solutions

When loss carves a hollow space in our hearts, we often try to fill it quickly. We add layers of busy-ness, of forced positivity, of spiritual bypassing. We tell ourselves we should be over it by now, should be stronger, should be different than we are.

But transformation doesn't come from adding more layers. It comes from the courageous act of removing them - of sitting in silence with the raw truth of our pain.

The Practice of Radical Acceptance

Present-moment awareness teaches us something profound: we can accept this moment exactly as it is, even when it breaks our hearts. Acceptance is not resignation. It is not giving up. It is the brave act of saying, "This is what is true right now. I will not abandon myself in this moment."

Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us: "The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion." We cannot change what has been lost. We cannot rush through grief's timeline. But we can choose, in this breath, to be present with what is.

The Alchemy of Stillness

Here is one of grief's deepest teaching: when we stop running from the darkness, something miraculous happens. Not immediately. Not easily. But gradually, in the crucible of our stillness, transformation begins.

The heaviness doesn't disappear, but we discover we can carry it. The sadness doesn't vanish, but we find we are larger than our sadness. In the space created by our presence, new possibilities emerge—not to replace what was lost, but to honor it while continuing to live.

Even this grief, as all-consuming as it feels, will change. But only if we let it move through us rather than storing it away in the hidden chambers of our heart.

“All Conditioned things are impermanent" remains a constant reminder from the Buddha's teachings, that our grief too will transform.

When Impermanence Deepens Gratitude

When we truly understand nothing lasts forever, no one last forever, we can appreciate what we have WHILE we have it.

This THANKSGIVING's gathering what if we let impermanence soften our irritations? That uncle's repetitive stories, a sibling's need to control the kitchen, the predictable complaint of a parent - these quirks won't be here forever. Can we pause in our usual reaction and judgements, take a breath and simply witness each person's uniqueness? Their annoying habits are as impermanent as everything else. One day we might ache for these very moments we now find frustrating. Can that awareness help us be a little more forgiving, a little bit more present to the gift of being all together?

Your Mat as Sacred Ground

So come to your mat, not to escape your grief, but to practice being with it. Let your mat be not a battlefield where you fight against reality or build up your ego, but a sanctuary where you learn the ancient art of sitting with what is and continue to love yourself as you are, with your gifts and your imperfections.

In that stillness, in that brave presence, you are not alone. You are held by something larger—the same consciousness that moves through all beings, the same breath that connects us all.

B.K.S. Iyengar offers us this truth: "Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured."

Grief cannot be cured. But in our presence with it, we discover we can endure far more than we imagined. And in that endurance, we find not just survival, but a deeper capacity for love, for compassion, for inner peace, for pure joy, for the full spectrum of what it means to be beautifully, heartbreakingly human.

May you find the courage to be present.

May you know that even in grief, you are whole.

With love, acceptance and presence,

Evelyne