The Path of the Broken Hearted with Ally Bogard and Elena Brower

The Path of the Broken Hearted is an online healing workshop for people who are carrying grief and want to meet it with care rather than push it aside. Led by close friends Ally Bogard and Elena Brower, it is an experiential practice that offers a different way of understanding suffering, using safety practice and care for yourself and for our shared heart. Because it takes place online, you can join from wherever you are.

What to Expect

The session is built around several ways of meeting grief, so there is room to take it in through the mind, the body and your own words. Expect:

- Talks from Ally Bogard and Elena Brower on facing the ups and downs of life
- Writing prompts for putting into language what is present for you
- Somatic practice, which turns attention to the body
- Asana, the physical practice of yoga
- A question-and-answer session

The workshop begins at 11am Mountain time, which is 1pm Eastern. The focus throughout is on safety and gentleness, with practices meant to support you instead of pushing you toward any particular outcome.

About Elena Brower

Elena Brower is a yoga and meditation teacher, author and podcast host whose work centers on cultivating attention as a spiritual and creative practice. She spent nearly a decade designing textiles and apparel before turning to teaching yoga and meditation full-time. She has taught asana since the late 1990s, began formal study and practice of Zen Buddhism more recently, and is currently a candidate for Buddhist chaplaincy.

Her teaching draws on yoga philosophy, Zen Buddhism and mindfulness, with an emphasis on what she calls spiritual intelligence: the capacity to meet uncertainty with awareness and care. She has woven together influences from classical yoga, contemporary meditation science and the ceremonial discipline of Zen practice, rather than staying within a single lineage. That background shapes her work with grief, where steady attention and compassion matter more than quick answers.

Before You Go

This is an online gathering, so find a quiet, private spot where you can write, move and be with whatever arises. Since the session includes writing prompts and asana, it helps to have something to write with and a bit of room to move. If grief is close to the surface for you, the pace and the emphasis on safety are there to help you take it at your own speed.