RamDev – Healing at the Edge – Ep. 105 – Finding Light Through Loss with Wendy Stern

Sharing her personal story with loss, yoga therapist Wendy Stern joins RamDev to talk about somatic grieving through yoga and mindfulness.

In this moving episode, RamDev and Wendy Stern converse about:
  • Wendy’s journey with yoga therapy
  • How the loss of her firstborn child, Noah, propelled Wendy into working with grief
  • Turning to yoga as a sanctuary for exploring difficult emotions
  • How visiting Bali and Thailand showed Wendy that death is just a part of life
  • The way that grief can open our hearts
  • A new appreciation for life after loss
  • What blocks Westerners from enlightenment
  • The split between the intellectual body and the emotional body
  • The tantric 3-step and mindful breathing curriculum
  • The profound changes that come from grieving in the community
  • Evolving our cultural understanding of grief
  • Accepting and acknowledging grief
  • How retreats can accelerate healing
  • Yoga postures for grief

“Until you really have felt loss, until you’ve really inhabited your humanity in that way, for most people there is a place in the heart that hasn’t broken open yet. It’s in those broken places that God can come into each of us.” – RamDev

About Wendy Stern:

Wendy dedicates her life’s work to supporting people to heal and transform through the process of grief. 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. Wendy offers a unique fusion of prana flow yoga and Phoenix Rising, interweaving deep, personal reflection into a vinyasa style class. Through Wendy’s own personal journey with loss, she found herself deepened in her commitment to support others and birthed the Center for Somatic Grieving and the Grief Support Network.

Listen to more from RamDev Dale Borglum:
RamDev talks about how the current state of the world is uncovering so many opportunities for practice, in Healing at the Edge Ep. 48
RamDev gives a dharma talk about cultivating enough faith to face things as they are, and leads a meditation centered on the power of the grounding breath, in Healing at the Edge Ep. 49.
Building a bridge from separation to connection, RamDev offers practices for staying grounded, working with emotions like grief, and transmuting fear into love, in Healing at the Edge Ep. 67.
RamDev shares stories of his time with Ram Dass from the early days of the satsang, and reflects on what Ram Dass meant to him as a teacher and friend, in Healing at the Edge Ep. 42.
RamDev shares a dharma talk on how we can ease our suffering by offering compassion to our fear, in Healing a the Edge Ep. 46.