This process is designed help you honor your grief, not to eliminate it. The goal is to tend to it, witness it, pay your respects to it.
The goal is to release the shame of having grief. Grief is good and natural.
The goal is to release the fear that your grief will consume you. It will not.
The goal is to let your grieving self know that they are not forgotten. They are waiting for you to acknowledge them.
Step 1: Decide you want to engage with your grief
This is a powerful form of self-care
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We live in a grief-illiterate culture. We have been taught to ignore our grief- to keep calm and carry on- to show up and continue producing. It is no wonder that under the weight of capitalism, our grief is experienced as an inconvenience.
Repressed grief hardens in us- it calcifies around our soul. It blocks us from feeling the full spectrum of emotions. It goes unnoticed. Over time, repressed grief builds up layer by layer and restricts our personal growth, hardens us into unhealthy patterns, and can cause addiction, chronic fatigue, pain, and illness.
Making the choice to engage with your grief is powerful activism in a world that works very hard to keep you unfeeling and unconscious.
Making the choice to engage with your grief is healthy for your body and mind.
Step 2: Name your grief
Attuning, defining, seeing
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Grief can form from so many experiences and is not always about having something and losing it. Grief can also be present for something you never had to begin with.
Set an intentional time and place to get curious about your grief.
Ask yourself:
What do I long for more of in my life?
When have I felt heartbroken?
When have I not allowed myself to feel sad?
When have I felt lonely or abandoned?
What color is my grief?
Where does grief live in my body?
What shape is it?
How does it feel at different times throughout the day?
Write as much as you can. Write about the things you didn’t expect to. List them. Draw them.
This is a difficult exercise. Practice aftercare in whatever ways you can. A bath, a walk, a movie, do whatever helps you to rest your nervous system.
Step 3: Prepare your altar
Grief takes physical form
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With a clearer image of your grief, you can prepare your altar. This process brings your grief into the three dimensional world through objects and spaces. You are building a physical portal through which to tend to your grief.
Identify a space and gather objects that resonate with you.
You may choose a low table placed in your bedroom and adorn it with images, heirlooms, and candles.
You may choose a mantel in your living room and adorn it with sea shells, poetry, and statues.
You may choose a rocky beach on a Tuesday and draw a circle in the sand.
Do what feels right for your grief. No altar is wrong.
Step 4: Ritual at the altar
Our ancient grief practices awaken in us
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Okay, so you have your altar. Now what? Start crying over it?
At your altar, you can sit, bask, sing, cry, rock, speak, mumble, pray, write, hum, scream, laugh, stretch, dance.
It can be extremely difficult to drop into our grief- to locate it under the many layers of distractions, avoidance, and time passed. Explore your ancestral lineage of grief practices. What did your ancient ancestors do to drop into their grief? All ancient traditions did this in their own, beautiful ways.
My Irish ancestors practiced keening to help grieving people access their grief. Keening was a ritual practice in which a group of women would loudly wail, speak words or phrases, sing, and cry. This usually happened at funerals and was performed by women who were hired to keen as a service- who may or may not have known the deceased person. Their orchestrated, rhythmic cacophony of grief would fill the space and allow the mourning community to express themselves in whatever ways they needed to. It was an ice-breaker. It was an act of public bravery- grieving so that others may have permission to grieve. Leaving behind the impulse to ‘be strong for each other’ and instead seeing grief as the thing that required personal strength- the keening women facilitated grief as an act of public service. They were skilled grief workers. For them, I am so grateful.
Being present at your altar, no matter what presence looks like for you, is the act of being in conversation with your grief.
If ritual embodiment feels hard to find, the most powerful thing you can do is to simply listen. There is no right or wrong way to use your altar.
Step 5: Move through time
Grief as a guide and mentor
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You do not have to do hard mental labor to learn a lesson or create a silver lining.
Your grief, once recognized, will shift and move and reveal itself as it evolves with time. Your grief is a guide- pointing you towards possibilities- perhaps for understanding, for joy, for pleasure, or for becoming more whole.
This is the gift that we can unlock by being with our grief- returning to ourselves.
on loop
a lovely podcast about keening, if you’re interested:
Q: What are your loss rituals? What were the loss rituals of your family or ancestors? I would love to know! You can tell me in the comments or you can send me a private message.