Four of my coaching clients are facing *major* health crises now…. either for themselves or helping a loved one through a challenging time. All of these women are bright entrepreneurs with successful businesses and they all initially hired me to do more traditional life and business coaching work together. But in recent months the coaching conversations have shifted in their focus, and we’ve been talking a lot about how to live in the both/and.
- I have cancer AND I’m running a million-dollar business.
- My child is requiring a lot of my attention AND I’ve got to keep showing up fully for my clients.
- My spouse has been in and out of the hospital AND I know it’s essential that I care for myself (so that I can care for our children, my business and for my partner).
- I just had surgery (again) and I need to prioritize my recovery AND delegate my workload to others.
As much as we might want it to, life doesn’t stop when we are faced with a crisis of any kind. Kids still need to go to school, employees still need to get paid, the lawn still needs to get mowed, and the dog still needs to be walked regularly. The “show must go on” and yet, something needs to change or be modified to accommodate the necessities of navigating turbulent times. This is where delegating projects, asking for help, learning to say no and letting go of unnecessary tasks is critical for survival.
One of the more challenging aspects of managing a health crisis is dealing with the grief that comes with it. Grief can appear as sadness, sorrow, depression, anxiety, fears, worries, sleeplessness, and so much more. But grief rituals don’t have to be complex to be profound.
Here are five simple ways to process your grief:
1. Lie down on the ground. Sometimes, what you are facing is so overwhelming that you don’t feel you can stand upright. Instead of sitting, take yourself outside in your backyard, a local park, or your favorite spot in the woods and allow your body to rest on Mother Earth. You can lie on your back and take deep breaths. My preferred way to connect with the earth is to lie prostrate with arms and legs stretched out and give myself over to a full body surrender. Often, when you do that, you’ll feel your body relax and you may start to cry or moan. That’s not only OK, it’s encouraged. Allow your body to release the pain, fears, worries, and suffering that you are feeling and ask Mother Earth to take those emotions and transmute them for you.
2. Light a candle. This simple act can help to lift your spirits when the world feels dark and overwhelming. Lighting a candle can help with calling on God/Spirit, focusing prayers, clarifying intentions, and offering gratitude. Candles give us hope in the darkness and show us that we can always find the glimmer of possibility or the spark of what’s to come.
3. Hug a tree. This has been my personal go-to of late. I’m navigating my own grief process right now as I’m in the middle of a divorce and moving. While our situation is loving and mutual, it’s still incredibly painful. When I’m in Asheville, I walk through a beautiful cemetery overlooking the mountains a few times a week. Every time I go, I stop and visit with “my tree” and I hug it. Sometimes I hang on for dear life and cry buckets of tears. Other days I simply give it a hug and say “thank you.” I feel a sense of profound peace every time I visit my tree.
4. Do a flower release near water. Find a waterfall, river, or creek and take some flowers. I like working with white roses or white carnations but any flowers with meaning to you will do. Stand at the edge of the water and speak aloud your sorrow, your pain, and your grief and blow it into the flowers. When you’re ready, release the flowers into the current and watch them go downstream. Ask the spirit of the water to carry those concerns and help to wash them away. I wrote about a ritual I did to honor the babies I miscarried in God Winks and White Roses.
5. Find a sacred place and sit. One of my clients is Catholic and she was telling me about a statue of Mother Mary that moves her every time she is in her church’s sanctuary. When we were discussing her grief about her recent health diagnosis, she said “That’s what I’ll do! I’ll go sit with Mary!” Whether it’s a house of worship, a sacred space outside (a favorite meadow, stone circle or patch of wildflowers) or your personal altar in your bedroom, take time to just sit and pray, meditate or journal. Giving yourself permission to just BE will allow the grief to flow through you in ways that it can’t when you’re busy DO-ing.
Grief is a fact of life. We can’t avoid it and we can try to deny it, but it ultimately catches up to us. Best to give it space and room to flow and you’ll navigate it with more grace than you could imagine.
Let me know if any of these ideas resonate for you or if there’s a special grief ritual that you do, I’d love to hear about it. Comment and let me know.
Sending you gentle thought and tender hugs,
Elizabeth
P.S. I’ve been doing more intuitive work for these clients, too, helping them receive messages from the spiritual realms that can support their decision-making processes. Sometimes it appears in the form of symbols, imagery from special geographic locations that have meaning to them, or messages from a loved one who has crossed over. I never know what will appear in a shamanic journey for a client, but it’s always profound. If you’d like to experience that type of guidance, schedule a session with me. I’d love to support you.