Crying after a client session

I recently completed a six month Grief Ritualist training with Francis Weller and team, and in the closing ritual, we met with an ancestor who gave us a gift of grief, which would be ours to tend as we moved into the world.

The ancestor who appeared to me represented the pure peaceful innocence and oneness of the natural world, of source. Her gift of grief was the grief of incarnation, of separation from our erotic natural innocence, of knowing we are truly all connected as one thriving living organism, that we belong to and of the earth and the natural world. The grief of our soul for the violence of this world, coming from a place that never knew violence.

I'd been journeying with this theme in my personal world for 6+ months prior (forever?!), but it felt big to have this grief formally gifted to me by an ancestor, as mine to tend in the world.

I wondered, 'How the heck is THAT going to show up in my work?! It'll take a while for me to integrate that into my work!'

Two days later, in the very next client session...

My client came to her sixth session with grief for the awareness that she had never fully been in her body spiritually. Her soul had never fully landed on earth, or felt a sense of belonging or safety. And her intention for our next series of sessions was simple:

To practice being present and embodied.

To feel her soul full inhabit her body, so she can feel whole, well and offer her fullest contribution to this world.

Thanks, ancestors!

And it gets better...

Three sessions after this intention, she felt like she wanted to move. So we followed that instinct. We followed her body's natural pendulation, between gentle movement and rest, expression and containment, and found cues of presence & safety... for the whole session.

This was the first time this client wanted to move and be in her body in a session. It was the first time she had the capacity stay in connection with her body for a length of time. It was the first time it felt okay to drop a little deeper into rest, and not feel like she would cease to exist. It's the first time her soul felt like it could try out residence in her body. And it felt easy, right and natural for her.

I cried after the session, for the honour and joy of witnessing her process of landing soul in body.

Cyring to share the gift of my grief, for the beauty of this slow, profound process of turning towards the hard stuff, which is just another doorway to love. Tiny titrated movements in each session that seemed like very little was happening, so small she couldn't see progress, and I kept pointing to subtle indicators and reminding us both (!) to trust the process. To trust her body’s innate wisdom, that it knows what it needs: gentleness, slowness and deep presence.

Those tiny movements created enough breathing room for aliveness to mobilise, in the form of anger, expressed through boundaries. This created more safety, capacity and holding to feel a little more, and move a little more. To connect a little more with the internal experience, as well as engage more vibrantly with people and the external environment. Until here we made it here, with a soul starting to feel like a body could be a home, like it could belong, could be seen and heard and felt, express itself authentically, giving and receiving, and taking its place in the thriving living organism of this world. Incarnating more fully.

There has been grief, for all the time spent feeling separate, and for the relief of coming closer to home. Letting go of control, and opening up to more love for self and other.

This kind of shift means we start to experience our internal sensations, and the external environment, as less threatening. We become more resilient and capable of showing up for those who needs us. And we start to flow more with life. Feeling more supported by spirit, more rooted, and trusting our intuition, we connect with our innate, ancestral gifts and express them more fully.

Despite the slowness, this shift happened over the course of 9 sessions, about 4 months - it’s really not that long, after a lifetime of feeling unsafe. Of course there’s more work to do, to embed this shift and grow it, but there’s no going back now. Once we’ve made these changes in the baseline of our nervous system, we can’t undo them. We experience the world in a different way, with less reactivity, with more capacity to feel and connect and act, we build momentum for a more alive, loving, just society, living in harmony with the earth.

We re-humanise, where our existing systems have dehumanised.

This kind of work doesn't enforce a permanent ceasefire or immediate climate or social justice. But it is essential. It creates the conditions for a groundswell of fully alive humans who treat each other and the great mother earth with love and respect, who know what peace truly means, alive and on fire with strength and integrity to take direct action. Who know how to grieve, so they can love fiercely.

I adore this work, slow soul work, composting and turning over old roots, planting seeds of a better future for every being, in every single moment. Letting my presence light fires along the way, burning the excess and making space for the seeds to grow.

Lighting fires until there’s a raging inferno.

Grieving what needs to be let go.

Loving the seeds as the ecosystem grows.