Ritual As A Grief Tool

Ritual As A Grief Tool

At every point in the human journey, we find that we have to let go to move forward; and letting go means dying a little. In the process we are being created anew, awakened afresh to the source of our being

— Kathleen R. Fischer

As humans we experience loss, and with loss comes grief. When grief shows up, it shows up in multitudes and is compounded by past losses (processed or unprocessed). For a long period in my life I didn’t know what to do with my grief so I tried hiding from it. Grief in turn showed up as anger and anxiety. Acknowledging and accepting my grief has been messy, beautiful, devastating, hard work and forever a learning process. But as I have gone through the different motions of engaging with my grief as well as supporting others in theirs, I have noticed one thing that has been very supportive: the tool of ritual.

Hear me out, the word ritual holds a lot of weight sometimes but to me ritual means intention, comfort and honoring emotions that are coming up. This has been a vital process in engaging with and accepting emotions as they are and how they are coming up. Ritual is an amazing tool if you feel called to it. It can make you feel held, comforted, and even loved as you make space for grief. 

I always ask, “what do your senses need for comfort as you do the hard work of being with grief today in its raw form”. What images bring you comfort? What scents? What type of touch/pressure/temperatures feel soothing? What do you want to taste? What do you want to hear?

If ritual is something that you would like to take part in but are feeling lost, here are some things that can help you get started. I invite you to move around your home or ask your care constellation to support you by putting together things that would bring you the most comforts as you get ready for your ritual. Collecting items from your care people can also help you feel their presence in the ritual.   

I urge you to look into pulling in/recreating cultural, ancestral and comfort practices that you grew up with, just like my clients and I did when curating rituals for ourselves. With my experience of growing up near big bodies of water, for example, it made sense to pull shells, rocks, and even lake/ocean water as items I would bring into my ritual.  

Ways to Move Through Grief

Following are just a few examples of how ritual has been a beautiful tool for loss and grief for myself and my clients as we cradled and embraced grief. I hope that these will give you some ideas for yourself.

Hair ritual—Many parts of South Asia use warm oil in the hair as a care ritual for generations. Being South Asian and taking part in this ritual growing up, my client wanted to recreate this for themselves for comfort and it helped the grief pour out of her. She spoke out loud about entangled past and present losses she was experiencing as I applied oil to her hair. 

Taking grief walks— when my heart is heavy, but my body needs movement, I love to take my heart for walks in the most comforting places: into nature, by the water, through the city where there is art and people around you. These walks are also a great time to collect items that come your way that you find significant: feathers, shells, rocks, lake water, fallen bark, pinecones etc. Don’t forget to thank the land by either leaving something significant or even collecting garbage that you see along the way.  

Baths as a ritual — If your body and heart need a bodily release of tension you can connect with water through taking a warm bath with dried organic items that feel the most significant or even floating in the lake (if you have access to it) 

Massage as a ritual— Another way to bring warmth into the body and release tension. You can do self massages with warm coconut, mustard or almond oils to your neck, heart center, hands, and feet (points that need the most comforting and circulation through grief). As you do these self massages you can also imagine releasing what you need to release, with deep breaths and again surrounding your senses with comforts. 

Food as a ritual — Some clients have identified specific comfort food they grew up with, and as part of their ritual they took their time to find ingredients and cook everything from scratch. Going as slow as possible, getting lost in the cooking and then consuming the meal. 

Somatic release as a ritual —  somatic movements can be helpful to release and process energy stored in our bodies such as: shaking, swaying, dancing, singing, stomping in loudness and/or in silence. Allowing whatever grief sensations arise in your body and surrendering to the way you experience it without judgement. Our somatic releases have been a part of us since birth. As newborns, our bodies release tension through tremor, shaking and other reflexes.   

Writing practice as ritual —one of the rituals I took part in when I went through loss was letter and poetry writing. I poured my hopes, dreams, grief, loss, wants and desires for comforts onto paper. I burned some of the writing away and added it to a plant. To watch my loss, nurture the plant and become part of an organic being.  This was a cathartic experience. 

Resting as a ritual— Being with grief and loss is very exhausting work, part of the work is to rest as you need, to listen to your body and provide rest however it looks. Either through sleep, lying down, reading etc.

Written by J Haque @dai_doula