Moving Beyond Grief: The Spiritual Practice of Letting Go
Join Harmony Slater for a deeply transformative conversation with author and mentor Sara Avant Stover. In this heartfelt episode, they explore Sara’s powerful book, Handbook for the Heartbroken: A Woman’s Path from Devastation to Rebirth , offering profound insights into how grief and loss can be the gateways to our greatest personal and spiritual transformations.
Sara shares her personal journey through heartbreak, revealing how loss—whether through death, the end of relationships, or major life changes — often triggers a deep identity crisis. Drawing on wisdom from yoga, Buddhism, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, Sara offers compassionate strategies for navigating grief, understanding trauma, and embracing emotional healing as a sacred rite of passage.
Listeners will learn:
- Why grief is essential to personal evolution
- How IFS can heal past traumas and reintegrate lost parts of ourselves
- The risks of spiritual bypassing and how to cultivate true emotional integration
- Practical tools for befriending difficult emotions and finding inner harmony
Sara Avant Stover also shares her personal experiences studying yoga with renowned teachers Richard Freeman and Mary Taylor, offering a poignant reflection on community grief within the yoga world.
Whether you're experiencing loss, supporting someone who is grieving, or simply seeking deeper emotional wisdom, this episode is filled with soulful guidance and actionable insights.
Connect with Sara Avant Stover:
- Website: saraavantstover.com
- Book: Handbook for the Heartbroken
- Podcast: https://www.saraavantstover.com/podcast
Resources Mentioned:
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00:00 - FHP_Sara Avant Stover
04:18 - Introduction to Sarah Avant Stover
05:06 - Sarah's Journey with Yoga and Richard Freeman
06:46 - Discussing Grief and Loss in the Yoga Community
07:58 - Understanding Loss and Identity
09:24 - [Mid-Roll Sponsor Break 1]
11:12 - Introduction to Internal Family Systems (IFS)
13:39 - Using IFS for Healing Past Trauma
19:29 - Guided IFS Practice START HERE!!!
25:52 - Sarah's Personal Story of Heartbreak and Transformation
31:01 - The Importance of Rest and Balance
35:38 - Teaching While Healing
40:08 - Trust and Surrender in the Healing Process
Sara Avant Stover
Author, Level 3 Certified Internal Family Systems Practitioner, Expert in Women's Spiritual Leadership
Sara Avant Stover (she/her) is a Level 3 Certified Internal Family Systems (IFS) Practitioner, intuitive business strategist, and expert in women's spiritual leadership. She's also the author of three books: The Way of the Happy Woman , The Book of SHE , and Handbook for the Heartbroken.
After graduating Phi Beta Kappa and Summa cum Laude from Columbia University’s all-women’s Barnard College, Sara had a cancer scare, moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand, and, there, embarked on a decade-long healing and spiritual odyssey throughout Asia. Since then, she’s gone on to uplift tens of thousands of women worldwide.
Sara specializes in supporting women to discover and fulfill their true potential at the intersection where entrepreneurship meets personal and spiritual growth. Through her work with spiritual women entrepreneurs, she creates transformative containers that blend practical business strategy with deep inner healing work. She has been featured in The New Yorker, Yoga Journal, The Huffington Post, Newsweek, and on ABC, NBC, and CBS. She lives in Boulder, CO, and is online at SaraAvantStover.com
