Hi again everyone.
Welcome back to the Prescription to Feel Steadiness Series by eMotion.
My name is Katie,
Shawn's sister,
And I'll be moving with you today.
EMotion is an organization on a mission to change the way the world relates to grief and loss,
And the three pillars that define eMotion's approach to this are movement,
Community,
And ritual.
This series includes a little bit of each,
But today we're going to explore the third pillar,
Ritual,
Even more deeply.
So let's get started with our three grounding rituals as we do every session.
If you can,
Find a quiet place outside where you can be still.
You can keep your eyes open or closed.
We'll take three grounding breaths to remind ourselves to be where our feet are.
Take a deep inhale through the nose and a long exhale through the mouth.
Let's do that together three more times.
Now we invite our hearts to honor all feelings as we move today.
We do this by tapping them gently twice.
Finally,
Stretch your arms out wide,
Relaxing your gaze and opening yourself to a community centered on connection rather than comparison.
Let's get moving together.
Whether you're walking,
Running,
Hiking,
Or biking,
Find a place that feels right for you.
I'm going to be walking today.
I'm going to pause for a few seconds as we find our stride.
Today we are exploring the power that rituals have to strengthen trust and connection with ourselves and others.
In the words of Frances Weller,
Rituals allow us to be in contact with what is most vulnerable in us.
Emotion defines ritual as anything that is safe,
Predictable,
And intentional.
Rituals create space to honor parts of our lives that need and deserve more attention.
They are organized ways of expressing our love and our pain in private or in community.
Rituals also offer avenues to connect directly with those we love.
Our capacity to cope grows when we let ourselves remember and allow ourselves to feel.
Rituals create a safe,
Predictable space that can buffer against some of the hurtful cues from the outside world,
Especially those that are coaxing us to move on,
To feel less,
Or to forget.
Rituals also allow us to lean in,
Taking us to the edge of our deepest pain and our deepest heartache,
So our hearts can grow and expand.
They can nourish our yearning.
During my first few weeks in an emotion movement community,
I tried a hill workout ritual.
We were encouraged to do this and imagine our person moving with us,
Cheering us on as we climbed each hill.
As I moved,
All I could imagine was my brother Sean's sardonic,
Teasing voice gently mocking me.
Is that all you've got,
Brat?
That's not even a real hill.
I felt his eyes twinkle as he smiled and winked while ridiculing.
A few days later,
I told my parents about this experience and we laughed together,
Delighting in Sean's sense of humor and big brother teasing.
Rituals like this give me the gift of a continued relationship with him,
One I thought impossible after he died.
They also give my family and me a way to share and speak about him,
Bringing him into our day today.
So whether the grief from the death of an important person brought you here or another kind of heartbreak,
The repetitive,
Predictable safety of ritual can help to hold your heartache.
I hope it helps you to explore your relationship with your feelings,
Yourself,
Your people,
And your pain.
I hope it serves as an anchor in the shifting nature of your grief,
Allowing you the possibility to imagine a new relationship with it.
We're coming to our quiet movement.
At the chime of the bell,
I invite you to try on a ritual,
Something small that you can begin integrating into your days or weeks.
How might you carve out space for ritual?
Are there certain actions or symbols that bring you comfort?
If nothing comes to mind,
This is okay.
Relax and move with your grief in quiet and notice what it's like to invite ritual into this movement.
Okay,
Here we go.
Welcome back.
The late Suki Miller said that,
Quote,
Rituals are the antidote to helplessness,
End quote.
I found a lot of comfort in these words.
During your movement in quiet,
I'm curious,
What came up for you when you were thinking about rituals?
Are there rituals you are already practicing?
Are there any rituals or micro rituals that came to mind that you could try to integrate into your movement?
How does it feel to approach your grief from a place of ritual?
Developing and integrating rituals asks us for our time and attention,
So I invite you to continue to reflect on these questions as you move throughout your day and week.
This brings us to the end of our session today.
As we slow to a close,
I wanted to share some words from the wise Francis Weller on ritual.
He writes,
Ritual is able to hold the long discarded shards of our stories and make them whole again.
It has the strength and elasticity to contain what we cannot contain on our own,
What we cannot face in solitude.
Thank you for joining me in moving with the hardest things together.
I'm Katie,
Shawn's sister,
And this is the eMotion Prescription to Feel Steadiness Series.
We'll see you next time.
Prescription to Feel is a series created by eMotion,
An organization on a mission to change the way the world relates to grief and loss.
Learn more at emotion-mc.
Org or find eMotion on Instagram at weare underscore eMotion.
Thanks for moving with us.
