Herbs and Processing Grief
Notas do episódio
First, here’s the link to the course Katja mentioned: Working Through Grief
Use code GRIEF to get 50% off! (It’s not very original, but it works.)
This course is full of herbs and holistic strategies to help you navigate grief, as well as a private community where you can talk with people who are going through similar journeys. The course and the community support are yours for life, so you can work at your own pace. We’re here for you when you need us.
Our society doesn’t provide much support for grieving, but here, we can support one another! Whether your grief is based in loss, or trauma; whether it’s recent or in the past or ongoing – we’re here together, and this is a gentle and welcoming space to be held in community.
Grief has many stages, and different herbs are helpful at different points in the journey. Working with herbs and processing grief isn’t a one-size-fits-all sort of task. Getting through a dark day, digging in to a deep place within yourself, and setting aside a heavy heart in service of an immediate need – these are all quite different emotional efforts, and they’re each best supported by different herbs.
Today’s episode is in response to a student question – she asked:
“I’m curious about herbs that are beneficial for grief? I lost my husband earlier this year and have played a lot with nervines which have helped turn the emotions “down”, which has been wonderful and much needed in some situations. But I’m wondering if there are any herbs that you love for processing and sitting with the grief?”
And the answer is, YES!
This episode focuses on those two aspects of the journey with grief – both the processing and the sitting with, which are actually interwoven aspects of working through grief. We can’t sit still with something until we do some processing, but we can’t process until we can sit still with it – so this work happens in a spiral kind of action.
Each time you go around a spiral, you work a little deeper in, or stretch a little further out: it’s not repetitive circling. And what starts as a small motion can unfold into a complete evolution and shift in perspective. Time will get you there; herbs will help you along the way.
You might also like to listen to this episode on grief, from six years ago – its focus was a little different than this one. It was HHP episode 141: Herbs and Grief, at the Death of the Year.
Or you might like to keep these reminders of a few helpful grief-support herbs on your phone or computer desktop: hawthorn, rose, elecampane.
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Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.
You can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!