Women use yoga to enhance grief recovery
ZANESVILLE – In response to the pandemic, two Zanesville women with a common goal of serving their community are pairing their expertise to help those suffering from loss and isolation to find healing.
Starting in April, yoga instructor Sandy Booth and certified grief recovery specialist Becky Joseph will combine their training to offer a twice-weekly, 90-minute class that combines grief discussions and lessons with yoga and meditation at The Yoga Booth.
“I’ve seen transformation in a multitude of ways – physically, emotionally, spiritually – I watch it happen as I work with people. So when I opened The Yoga Booth, I told myself this is going to be a place where people come to feel good, to feel better, to feel welcome, to feel release. Whatever they need to feel whole, I want them to… at least feel welcome enough to find that here,” Booth said.
Joseph, who recently retired from her 40-year career in health care, the latter half spent in palliative and hospice care, became certified in the Grief Recovery Method now works as the aftercare specialist at Snouffer Funeral Home.
In line with the mission at Snouffer to expand grief services beyond the funeral home setting, Joseph and Booth agreed during a yoga class that the environment might be a good place for such services.
“It’s a great thing to marry with yoga because of the transformation that happens in the physical practice and the meditation practice and the breathing practice of yoga,” Booth said.
One hour of the class will be led by Joseph as she guides participants through their workbooks and grief recovery practices.
Joseph explained many people suffering a loss don’t know how to properly cope with the pain and will choose activities to keep themselves busy, sometimes unhealthy activities, like drugs and alcohol or over-shopping.
“You do short-term, energy relieving things to help keep the pain stuffed, and so that’s where learning about loss,
learning about those correct actions that you can take toward your broken heart, your emotional pain, not only from an intellectual standpoint of knowing, but we need to bring it from our head into our heart, and that’s what the collaboration with yoga and meditation will do,” Joseph said.
Booth’s portion of the class will generally be 30 minutes dedicated to yoga, meditation and breathing instruction.
The class is accommodating to all ages and skill levels and welcomes people grieving any level of loss, including lifestyle and job losses during the pandemic or loss of a loved one due to COVID-19.
Working in the funeral industry, Joseph said many families are foregoing calling hours or have to use livestreams
for services.
“During this time it’s not uncommon to have family members that have to Facetime their loved one’s funerals,” Joesph said.
Booth emphasized the importance calling hours has for closure.
“If you don’t get that, how do you ever get complete,” she questioned.
The Grief Recovery Method is intended to help participants find comfort and healing and teach them to memorialize their loss in a way that doesn’t bring sorrow and pain.
With a limited number of participants in the class, the small group environment is designed to safe for everyone to open up and share their experiences.
Those who register are expected to
attend all eight sessions and encouraged to follow along with the assignments.
“I’m not here to heal you,” Joseph said. “I’m here to give you a vehicle and to be a guide towards something that works.” The program is not intended to replace counseling and medical services but rather serves as a supplement.
The classes begin April 11 and run through May 5 on Sundays and Wednesdays at 1 p.m.
The Yoga Booth is located at 1100 Brandywine Blvd. Bldg B.
The cost to participate is $45 for the entire program.
Registration is open now at theyogaboothzanesville.com.
More information about the Grief Recovery Method is also available online.
The Ohio State women’s basketball team played itself into the conversation of contenders for a Big Ten regular season title. Then the Buckeyes went on the road.
Since three straight wins against top-15 teams, Ohio State has lost four of seven games, all of which have been on the road, including a 69-67 loss to Penn State (9-12, 6-10) on Wednesday night.
The Buckeyes (13-5, 9-5) are now well outside the Big Ten race after having a head-to-head edge against the three teams currently at the top of the conference — Maryland, Michigan and Indiana. When the Buckeyes look back on the season, will it be games like Wednesday’s that explain why they weren’t competing for a conference title on the last day?
“Yep,” coach Kevin Mcguff said. “No question.”
Ohio State led by 13 early in the first quarter against the Nittany Lions, but
trailed by one at halftime. From the 4:50 mark in the first quarter to the end of the half, the Buckeyes scored just 13 points and never regained their defensive focus.
After shooting less than 30% in the first quarter, Penn State made at least 42% of its field goals in the next three quarters. Makenna Marisa scored the winning bucket with 1:01 remaining.
The Buckeyes were positioned to have a serious shot at playing for a conference title in the final week of the regular season after those three huge wins in January. A loss at ranked Northwestern made that difficult. A loss at 13th-place Wisconsin on Feb. 10 made it nearly impossible, even before losses at Michigan and Penn State.
All five conference losses have come on the road. Three of them — Nebraska being the other loss — have been to teams in the bottom half of the conference.
Forward Dorka Juhasz said she thinks Ohio State has lost some of its toughness.
“I think we were really good on defense and even if we got beat, we were really tough,” she said. “We got those rebounds, we ran back, we got matched up ... I just feel like that kind of fire is kind of missing right now.”
Ohio State’s 6-0 home record and 3-5 road record in conference shows up statistically. At Value City Arena, the Buckeyes average 87.7 points per game and have shot 47.5% from the field and 36.5% on three-pointers. Away from home, Ohio State allows nearly eight points fewer per game (69.8), but scores 69.4 points per game and shoots just 36.9% from the field and 26.9% from deep.
With Ohio
State’s self-imposed postseason ban earlier this season, the Buckeyes can only play for pride without a conference tournament and NCAA Tournament on the horizon.
They host No. 11 Indiana on Saturday, hoping to spoil the Hoosiers’ bid for a regular-season Big Ten title.
“It’s tough. It’s tough knowing that there’s not a Big Ten tournament, there’s not a postseason after it that we can look forward to,” Juhasz said. “I think we just have to show up and have to finish the season how we want it and how we started this Big Ten conference.”
jmyers@dispatch.com; @_jcmyers