Good Grief
and good gratitude
Amy Nachman, one of my longtime Yogis and dear friends, wrote the piece below about her life-altering experience after her husband Alan died in the early fall of 2024. I share this with you as a testament on the importance of community - something I value with the utmost respect and gratitude. My Yoga family is my life. We keep each other company on this lifepath, wherever we may be in the world. They give me purpose and meaning in my life. The holding of sacred space - a Yoga teacher’s main job requirement - can and should happen anywhere in the world. Sometimes it happens in a park in Omaha, Nebraska. Maybe someday, sacred space and community will happen on the Moon.
Amy writes:
After my husband and life partner, Alan, passed away in September 2024, my world shifted in ways I was not prepared for. In the midst of that loss, two things remained constant: my twin sons—and my yoga practice.
Yoga has been part of my life for more than 20 years. Over that time, I’ve practiced alongside a remarkable group of women. What began in a shared physical studio evolved into a virtual space during COVID, but the essence of our connection never changed. It has always been more than a practice—it is a community grounded in trust, presence, and care.
This circle has taught me how to be still with myself. How to breathe deeply. How to listen to my body. And perhaps most importantly, how to create space—for reflection, for emotion, and for healing.
Over the years, yoga has carried me through significant life moments. My teacher, Mel, and I navigated breast cancer at the same time, finding strength in both practice and friendship. Later, when my father passed, yoga once again became a place where grief could move through me—where acceptance could slowly take root, and where I could maintain a quiet, spiritual connection to him.
But losing Alan was different.
I found myself unable to return to the mat. I didn’t have the strength, the words, or the emotional footing to begin processing what had happened. It felt as though everything familiar had been stripped away.
With gentle wisdom, Mel suggested something simple: just sit and meditate together.
And so, we did. In silence. Without expectation. Without judgment. Just being present—together.
That was the beginning.
Slowly—very slowly—I began to move again. Surrounded by women who had walked alongside me for years, I allowed myself to feel whatever arose. Tears became part of the practice. Movement became an expression of grief, rather than an escape from it.
I remember returning to tree pose—a posture I had long associated with balance, rootedness, and focus. This time, I couldn’t hold it. My body reflected what I felt internally: unsteady, broken, searching for ground. Over time, as I continued to show up, something shifted. Not all at once, but gradually—balance began to return.
Grief does not disappear. It reshapes you. It asks you to rebuild, piece by piece. As additional health challenges surfaced—likely tied to the stress of loss—I made a conscious decision to keep yoga at the center of my life. Not perfectly. Not consistently.
But intentionally. It became a steady thread—helping me cope, heal, and move forward.
One of the most meaningful aspects of this journey is that we are aging together. Our bodies are changing, and we honor that—less flexibility, more limitations, moments of discomfort. And yet, we continue. We adapt. We show up for ourselves and for each other.
There is something profoundly powerful about that.
My grief for Alan will be lifelong. That is the reality of loving deeply. But alongside that grief lives something else: gratitude.
Gratitude for a practice that meets me exactly where I am.
Gratitude for a teacher who understands the power of presence.
And gratitude for a community of women who embody strength, compassion, and resilience.
Yoga has not taken away my grief—but it has given me a way to live with it. To honor it.
And, in time, to grow through it.
In both life and leadership, we often search for ways to “move forward.” What I’ve learned is that sometimes, the most powerful step forward begins with stillness.
Titanic Collision Anniversary - April 14th, 1912
One hundred and fourteen years ago today on April 14th, 1912, at 11:40 pm the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg on its starboard bow side, suffering a gash roughly 300 feet in length. Modern sonar studies have shown that the gash was not continuous but made up of small gaps caused by the rivets popping off the hull plates which were buckled by the 7-10 second impact with the iceberg. This breach was fatal because it compromised six of the sixteen watertight compartments. Had it been four or fewer of the compartments breached, the Titanic would have remained afloat.
Titanic Trivia from The Mirror, 1912
The Mackay Bennett, a chartered boat from Halifax, Nova Scotia, pulled 190 bodies out of the North Atlantic, bringing them into Halifax Port. On the boat, they were identified by the contents held in their pockets, toe-tagged, and embalmed. Extending across an area of 40 miles, the bodies found in the wreckage site numbered 306 in total, but 116 were so mutilated by the explosion of the boilers just prior Titanic’s final decent two miles down, they were buried at sea.
The copy of Fitzgerald’s translation of “Omar Khayyam” with Elihu Vedder’s beautiful illustrations, famous as “the most remarkable specimen of binding ever produced,” has gone down with the Titanic. Less than a month ago, the work realized 405 pounds sterling at the auction-rooms of Messrs. Sotheby, purchased by Mr. Lionel Isaacs. The binding took two years to execute, with the exterior having 1500 precious stones.
There was a collapsible (lifeboat A) discovered and picked up over 200 miles from the sinking site by the Oceanic a month after the sinking (on May 13th) which contained three deceased and decomposing men - two huddled together at one end with corks in their mouths and the other chained by the leg to the bulwark at the other end of the collapsible. Two of the men were Titanic firemen; the other was Thomas Beattie, a first-class passenger from Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada. They were buried at sea.
Podcast: Bhadra Yoga House “Little Stinker”
Podcast: Bhadra Yoga House “Jan 2”
Blessings & Love,
