Sassy Yoga Newsletter- A sad tribute

Hi Hutch,

I am writing to update you on a couple of things. Firstly, my car and its contents have still not been found. Secondly, my mum is now home and is definitely improving day by day. Thank you so much to everyone who has reached out with concern and kindness to ask about both my car and my mum.

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You may have heard about the young man, Nathan Fitzgerald, who died during a local football game after sustaining multiple head injuries and then falling onto the concrete cricket pitch beneath the oval. The story has received widespread local and media attention because Nathan was from Epping and was also a teacher at Mernda Central College.

Nathan was also engaged to my cousin’s daughter. I had only met Nathan a few times, and he truly was everything the media has said he was: personable, courteous, kind and deeply respectful. Yesterday was Nathan’s funeral. It was both beautiful and heartbreaking. Celebratory, yet sombre. Filled with love, yet marked by unimaginable loss.

The funeral left me reflecting on this quote from the Krishnamurti Foundation:

“Resistance against sorrow is also a barrier to happiness.”

J. Krishnamurti

So what does this mean? We can run, but we cannot hide from how we feel. Freedom comes from meeting our emotions honestly, no matter how uncomfortable they may be, rather than suppressing them. This includes grief, sadness and despair.

“It is only by allowing ourselves to feel sorrow that we leave room for joy to return.”

Lately, I have found myself spending a little more time in pranayama, quietly sipping tea and journaling. Not because these practices remove sorrow, but because they help create space to be with it.

I was unsure whether to share Nathan’s story in this newsletter, but ultimately I decided to do so because this, too, is part of life. As cruel and unfair as it can sometimes seem, joy and grief are both woven into the human experience.

In Buddhism, suffering is not seen as a punishment but as an inherent part of being human, known as dukkha. It arises because we cling to a world that is constantly changing.

Grief, sadness, anger and fear don’t just live in the mind. They find a home in the body too. We feel it in the tightness across the chest, the lump in the throat, the tension we carry in our shoulders, or the heaviness that seems to follow us everywhere we go.

Yoga doesn’t ask us to push those feelings away. Instead, it gently creates space for them to soften, to move, and eventually to be released.

One of the teachings of traditional yoga is that while we can’t always change what has happened, we can change the way we meet it. This doesn’t mean ignoring our grief or pretending everything is okay. It means allowing ourselves to feel it without letting it define us. Yoga gives us the tools to sit with difficult emotions, to breathe through them, and, over time, to discover a quiet strength that has been there all along.

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This week, hug the people you love a little tighter. Tell them you appreciate them. Be kind to one another. None of us knows what tomorrow brings, but today we can choose to be present, grateful and connected.

Thank you, as always, for being such a wonderful community.

Hari Om

Susie x

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