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3 Healing Grief Rituals
By Emily R Long
Rituals can be extremely healing during the grief
process. My definition of a ritual is basically a
symbolic action by an individual or groups of
individuals to honor or pay respect to someone or
something. Rituals can be a great way of acknowledging
and honoring a change or transformation in one's life.
In terms of grief, the most commonly thought of ritual
is a funeral or memorial service. Funerals and memorials
services are great and can be very beneficial in helping
us along on our journey through grief. However, the
rituals that I am sharing below are more personal,
creative rituals that people have come up with to help
them heal their grief. These rituals can be used for
situations of grief other than the death of a loved one.
Here are a few of the rituals my clients have shared
with me...
1. Letters
Writing a letter is a common ritual I hear about and it
is one that I have done myself.
Letter writing is a great way to say all those things we
didn't get a chance or simply didn't say to someone -
whether it's someone who has died, someone who has moved
away, an ex-partner, or even to ourselves at another
time in our lives. It can be a way to complete
unfinished business.
Some people share their letters with others, some write
it and then throw it away, and others create another
ritual and bury it or burn it. It's a very personal
process and it's important to do what feels right and
true for you.
2. Bury the Past
A few years ago, I met an amazing woman who was
overcoming an addition to benzodiazepines. She was
completing her treatment when she shared a ritual that
she'd performed. She told me that she'd kept a bottle of
pills in her home throughout her treatment for two
reasons - one, to prove to herself she could be around
it and not use and two, so that if she felt she couldn't
handle it she would have them there to take. She said
that she had decided that she didn't need that safety
net anymore and she no longer wanted to be that person
who needed pills or to prove her worth to herself. So,
she had taken that last bottle of pills and gone for a
hike in the mountains. After a while she stopped in a
random place a little ways off the hiking trail, dug a
hole, and buried her last hold on her old addicted life
and said a little prayer of good-bye. She told me that
as she turned away and walked back down the mountain,
she felt as if she'd left the grief and pain of her old
self on the mountain.
Other people I've talked to have done similar rituals
but instead of burying whatever object they felt was
tied to their pain - they burned it (safely!), gave it
away to charity, smashed it, threw it out, etc.
3. Creating a Grief Space
Grief can be overwhelming and chaotic. Unfortunately, we
often cannot just stop all the activities of our lives
(such as work, school, family responsibilities, paying
the bills, feeding the dog) while we process our grief.
One ritual that can be helpful is to create a grief
space and spend a set amount of time in that space each
day during which we allow ourselves to let go of all the
other activities in our lives and simply grieve. One
teen I worked with would go down to a river by his home
after school, settle himself down among the trees out of
view of anyone who might walk by, and let himself cry
for 20 minutes or so. For those 20 minutes he stopped
holding back his pain and stopped thinking about school
and his family and all the other stuff in his life so
that he could completely and totally grieve for that
space of time. He told me it helped him function for all
the things he had to do, "it's like a pressure valve -
those 20 minutes keep me sane."
The amount of time and the specific space will vary from
person to person - and this doesn't mean that you won't
grieve as you continue doing all the other activities of
your daily life. This ritual simply ensures that you
give yourself permission to process your grief wholly
and completely without getting as overwhelmed.
There are dozens, hundreds of other rituals that can
help heal grief. What rituals have you created to help
you?
Emily Long is the President and Founder of International
Association of Grief Support Providers (currently in
start-up). She is a National Certified Counselor and
earned her master's degree in Community Agency
Counseling from East Tennessee State University. Emily
has worked with diverse populations in standard and
alternative mental health settings that include
inpatient hospitals and outpatient clinics, crisis
intervention, in the schools, and on a therapeutic ropes
course doing individual, couple, family, and group
therapy. She has worked with children, adolescents and
adults. |
