Yoga For Grief Support
  • Home
  • Classes
    • Group Yoga For Grief Support >
      • FAQ
    • Online Yoga Programs >
      • January-April-Schedule
      • Navigating Grief
      • FAQ and Policies
    • Guided Audio Practice - Online >
      • FAQ and Policies
    • Workshops and Speaking Engagements
    • Mentorship for Yoga Teachers
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Newsletter
  • About
  • Contact

Inhale/Exhale: Amy's Story

1/17/2019

2 Comments

 
This guest post was written by Amy Ebeid
On June 23, 2018, I lost my breath.  One minute I was driving my two boys (8 and 6) to go see the newest Star Wars movie for their first week of summer vacation…and then a phone call…and then I was gasping for air and sobbing hysterically.  My mother was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer on June 23. She had an annoying cough for 6 weeks and some dizziness and then suddenly our lives completely changed.  She was 69 at the time of diagnosis.  The week before…we had been planning our usual weekends at the beach, discussing the boys’ schedules, gossiping about the news, and ordering matching flip-flops.  It disappeared in that moment on June 23.  My beautiful, non-smoking, non-drinking, only organic eating mother had over 100 nodules in her lungs and suddenly I also couldn’t breathe. 
 
 
The tightness in my chest and the shortness of breath (obviously massive anxiety) continued as my family fell apart and we began to try and process this diagnosis.  I took my children to swim team practice and ignored their swimming as I googled words and phrases like “metastatic”, “pulmonary nodules”, “adenocarcinoma”, and “brain mets” on my phone. I blocked out the laughter at the pool and held my breath as I obsessively looked up every single statistic and research and treatment and prognosis for lung cancer that I could find.  I held my breath throughout the day and ordered my eyes to stay dry as I made my boys breakfast while simultaneously texting my mom and my dad and my brother to determine the next doctor appointment, the plan of attack, any new symptoms, and on and on.  I went through all the motions of motherhood, while telling my mom that she could beat this disease, and through it all…I couldn’t breathe. 

My kids would go to sleep at night, my role of mother would end, and the tightness in my chest would explode. I would sob to my husband, to my friends, to my brother, and to my parents.  You know this kind of cry.  The ugly, hysterical, loud, frantic, unable to breathe cry.   I cried as the reality that my life would never ever be the same punched me in the stomach.  My husband would rub my back and remind me to breathe mainly because I sounded like I was hyperventilating.  And I just didn’t know how.  I didn’t know how to breathe in a world where I would lose my mother to lung cancer.   

See...my mother was my best friend.  I called her multiple times during the day, sent her funny memes and articles, watched my children absolutely adore her, planned for her and my dad to visit, and sat by her side on her porch at the oceanfront in Virginia Beach, where they lived.  There was no future that didn’t include her.  She was my rock.  My person.  Our matriarch.  I knew what a diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer meant and I couldn’t accept it.  I was suffocating at the idea that eventually I would have to figure out who I was without my mother.   

I held my breath for the first initial weeks.  I love running, but whenever I tried to run, by myself or with friends, I still couldn’t breathe and would feel like I was having a panic attack.  I knew I needed exercise, so I reluctantly went to my yoga studio during the first week of July.  Something quiet felt appealing.  Yoga has been a part of my life since 2000.  I even went through teacher training, completed my 200 hours, and taught yoga to children.  It has always been a quiet form of exercise and an occasional way to calm my worries.  On that particular day in July, I hid in the back corner versus my usual front and center spot.  And then something amazing slowly began to happen.  As my body began to flow with the music through Sun Salutation A and B…I began to breathe.  I listened to the instructor’s cues of “inhale” and “exhale” and air suddenly began to move through my body.  Tears mixed with my sweat as I began to cry, but I kept breathing.  Slow and steady.  I placed my hands on my stomach during Savasana and felt the air rise and fall.  And suddenly I knew what my own treatment would need to be during my mother’s fight with lung cancer.  I needed yoga to help me find my air and learn to breathe again. 

I went to yoga almost every single day that summer and continued my practice into the fall.  During that time, my mother completed brain radiation and began chemotherapy.  In September of 2018, she suddenly went into respiratory failure and was subsequently hospitalized.  I continued going to yoga when I was home and if I was in the hospital with her…I remembered my practice and found a way to sit with my hands on my stomach and tell myself “Inhale, exhale.  Inhale, exhale.”  I sat with my mom and held her hand then called my kids and listened to their stories about their day.  I went to lunch with my dad and sobbed in the car with him and then face timed my boys and laughed about their new Lego creations.  Inhale.  Exhale.  Inhale. Exhale.  I watched my mom’s chest rise and fall with the help of a high flow oxygen machine and matched it with my own breath.  Inhale. Exhale.  And on and on. 
​

We take it for granted.  The inhale and exhale of our breath.  Breathing helps you stay present.  It’s how we relax our minds, lower our stress hormones, and center and ground ourselves.  I couldn’t function in those early weeks of June because I forgot to breathe.  I either sobbed and gasped for air or I was so desperate to not fall apart that I clamped my lips together and just shut off.  My daily yoga practice was the greatest gift I found during my mom’s battle with lung cancer.  It helped me survive. It helped me still be me.  It helped me still connect to my kids and be their mother. It helped me even smile and laugh with friends occasionally or forget for a brief small second that I was losing the most important person in my life.  And on October 23, 2018, I sat with my mom and my family in the hospital room she had been in since September, holding her hand as hard as I could, and as I cried and silently told myself ‘Inhale exhale”…I watched my mom take her last breath.
​ 
 
It’s been almost 3 months since I lost my mom.  And grief is the hardest, most painful emotion that I have had to learn to carry. It hits in the most unexpected times and I feel gutted all over again.  I miss my mom more than I ever imagined I could miss a person.  And still every day…I pack my bag and walk into my studio and practice yoga.  My instructors know about my loss and I speak to them openly and honestly about my sadness.  No pretending or faking.  Yoga helps me be present.  I move through my heartbreak and loss by helping my body relax and let go of its pain.  I let go of my survival mode and allow myself vulnerability and to just be where I am.  And at the end of each class, I lie still during Savasana and talk to my mom in my head.  Inhale Exhale. Hi mom.  I’m finding my way.  Inhale Exhale.  I miss you so much.  Inhale Exhale.  You were truly the best.  Inhale Exhale. Maybe I will be ok. 

- Amy

Picture

​Amy Ebeid is a clinical psychologist in Fairfax, Va. She has been in private practice since 2005 and specializes in trauma and women’s issues. Amy also completed her 200 hour teacher training certification for yoga in 2017 and hopes to incorporate trauma sensitive yoga into her clinical work.

Website:  
www.ebeidpsychology.com
​
2 Comments
Jay resnick
1/17/2019 06:46:48 pm

Amy- what a wonderful essay. I am very moved.

Reply
Christop Herryan link
3/30/2020 07:13:00 pm

Really inspirational blog. i understand, i have gone through this as well. My mother was detected cancer but by god grace she is fine now.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Get new posts by email:
    Powered by follow.it

    Author

    Sandy Ayre
    Occupational Therapist
    Yoga Instructor
    Death and Grief Studies Certificate

    Sandy offers in-person Yoga for Grief Support classes in Edmonton, and world-wide online. 

    ​Learn more about her here.


    Categories

    All
    About The Class
    Authenticity
    Book Recommendations
    Care-givers
    Coping With Grief
    Guest Posts
    Inspiration
    Mind Body Connection
    Mind-Body Connection
    Music
    Nature
    Prayer Flags
    Spirituality
    Taking Yoga Off The Mat
    Videos
    Yoga Philosophy
    Yoga Poses


    Archives

    December 2022
    March 2022
    August 2021
    May 2021
    December 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    June 2017
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    December 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    October 2013
    September 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011

Classes

Group Yoga for Grief Support
Online Yoga Sessions
Guided Audio Practice
Workshops

Helpful Info

Resources
Blog
Newsletter

About Us

About Sandy
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
© Yoga for Grief Support in Edmonton
  • Home
  • Classes
    • Group Yoga For Grief Support >
      • FAQ
    • Online Yoga Programs >
      • January-April-Schedule
      • Navigating Grief
      • FAQ and Policies
    • Guided Audio Practice - Online >
      • FAQ and Policies
    • Workshops and Speaking Engagements
    • Mentorship for Yoga Teachers
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Newsletter
  • About
  • Contact