Find gentle, holistic support for your grief with Summer Hearts
Last summer when mentioning a grief event I wanted to attend, a friend sighed loudly and made a face. “I just want to enjoy summer and not think about my grief,” she said.
I understand. While the energy of fall and winter feels more aligned with the energy of grief — the darker days, the slower pace, the chill that invites us to spend more time indoors and in solitude — summer’s vibrant buoyancy can be a great distraction from the sorrows we carry. Vacations, reunions, graduations, festivals and other outdoor activities can be a compelling alternative to the work of sitting with the heavy, tending the cracks in our hearts and lives.
Yet some of the very things that make summer such a fun and busy season can also be sources of grief. The family reunion without grandpa, the wedding a dear one can’t attend because of a debilitating health diagnosis, the vacation home that holds memories of a loved one who’s no longer here, the bike race that was a longstanding tradition with a family member or friend who’s died…. There are as many moments to stir our sorrows during this time of year as there are to spark our joy.
And of course, living through these times of war, genocide, climate catastrophe, an absurd and unsettling election cycle and so much more give us plenty of reasons to grieve.
That’s why I created Summer Hearts, two months of virtual grief care to carry you through July and August. So often I hear from grievers, “I’m afraid that if I let myself feel my grief, I’ll be consumed.” But the truth is if we don’t let ourselves grieve, we risk more harm, to ourselves and to the people we love, than if we keep our feelings bottled up inside. Unprocessed, unacknowledged grief not only becomes frozen and stuck inside us but can manifest in illness and dis-ease in the body and also impact our relationships, our home life, our work life, our sense of identity and belonging in the world — our connection ourselves and what matters to us.
What our grief wants is our attention and care. And that doesn’t necessarily mean devoting significant chunks of time daily or weekly to grieving. It can be small pockets, dedicated spaces where we can drop in to receive some nourishment, to explore where we are mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Our grief needs a container — a space where we feel safe to engage with it through some practice that allows us tune in to the truth of our experience. To honor our emotions and let them move through us . To listen to what our grief needs from us and let ourselves have that, whether it’s extra compassion, time to journal or make art, a walk in nature, more rest. The body can be a container that warms and softens our grief through movement like yoga or dance. Community can be a container that allows us to see we’re not alone. Working with a healing practitioner can be a container that offers support, affirmation, tools and resources to help us find the ground beneath us. Having a container helps us to come into right relationship with our grief.
Summer Hearts is about nurturing that relationship. Throughout July and August, you’ll have access to videos sharing wisdom and practices to help you think differently about your grief outside of the grief-phobic paradigm this society operates under. Videos will be delivered to your inbox weekly, inviting you to explore topics such as grief in the body, the role of joy and pleasure in grief, how you’ve learned to respond to grief and continuing to nurture your connection to your loved ones who have died. You can check out the first video for free here.
You’ll also receive five videos of poems to help you reflect on your grief with journaling prompts to delve deeper into your experience. This offering is based on my Writing Wednesday feature on Instagram where I offer a poem on the first Wednesday of every month to help you reflect on your grief but includes an additional bonus practice, as you can see here with this video included in the series.
You’ll receive a digital grief journal and have access to two live Zoom calls on Monday, July 8 and August 5, at 7:30 p.m. EST. You’ll also receive bonus practices and reflections to help you tend your grief along the way.
There are several ways to engage in this offering:
Sign up for two months at a sliding scale cost of:
Sign up for one month only but still receive all the videos at $129.
Sign up to receive all the videos, the digital journal and bonus practices but not participate in the Zoom calls at $111.
For alternative payment options, feel free to email me at naila@thishallowedwilderness.com with questions.
You may have been told it’s time to get over it. You may be afraid you’re grieving wrong. You might be judging yourself based on the false expectations of others and societal conditioning. You may be comparing your grief journey to someone else’s. You might not even know that what you’re carrying is grief and that it is worthy of honor and care.
This is your space to listen to yourself, to nourish yourself, to acknowledge that your grief matters and deserves to be held with compassion and support.