Hi, if you’re new here, I’m Emily. A doula and emotional health practitioner. I write weekly around the transitions of motherhood, sharing recipes, stories and reflections on what it means to thrive in our emotional worlds. My hope is that you’d feel safe, seen and held in this space. Subscribe for free posts or join the Golden Nurture community to have access to paid posts. Thank you for being here!
Grief, has been something that for a long long time, I had no idea how to cope with. The waves would overtake me and I would feel as though I was gasping for air for days after. I was scared of grief, scared of what might happen to me if I let myself feel it. The way I knew how to manage my emotional world was to shove it down for as long as I could until the inevitable outbreak (as my husband calls it. I love the imagery of this!) would arrive.
Things look different for me now. I’ve made friends with the ebb and flow of grief that comes. I’ve created capacity within my own system to tolerate the discomfort of big feelings and I also have a whole list of tools that I feel confident to use to help myself move through the sad, lonely, empty, sometimes angry feelings of grief. I listen to my body each day and attune to the sensations that I’m experiencing, instead of ignoring them until they get so loud that I have no option but to listen.
One of my favourite rituals to support myself when I notice an uptick in grief is a practice that I learned from Sheryl Paul. Her original practice is with stones, I decided to make it my own and use shells because we live so close to the beach and shells feel so beautiful to me. I’d love to share my version and thoughts with you if you’re feeling as though some intentional, simple support with be beneficial for where you’re finding yourself. It’s a practical, embodied way to bring grief from the cognitive level into the body, allowing it to transform and flow through us instead of becoming stuck.
Creating space for ritual in our lives is a way that we develop our relationship to the feminine qualities of creativity and transformation. When we engage in a slow, nurturing, gentle practice we can reconnect to the loving presence of the Inner Mother. Our lives are often so devoid of these intentional practices that it is easy for our emotions to feel stagnated in the body, unable to move or go anywhere, which is essential for them to do. After all, an emotion is just energy in motion. It is possible to relearn how to allow grief to exist in the body, so that it can go through its natural ebb and flow, like a wave. This simple ritual, using water, can reconnect us to this watery flow and also connects us back to nature. An unending source of support and regulation.
The Shell Ritual
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