When Grief Becomes Medicine: Reclaiming Ritual in Modern Life

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How ancient practices of storytelling, ritual, and emotional honesty are quietly revolutionising the way we heal and what this means for your own journey.

What if the exhaustion you feel isn't just from being too busy but from grief you've never been allowed to express?

I've thought about this question countless times whilst leading nature quests and ceremonies. I've watched people arrive carrying years of unexpressed sorrow, their bodies tight with the weight of emotions our culture tells us to "get over" or "stay positive" through. And I've witnessed the profound transformation that happens when we finally create space for what's been held back.

This conversation with John (a spiritual translator, storyteller, and grief ritualist) opened something in me. We explored how ancient practices of grief work, men's rituals, and deep storytelling aren't just beautiful traditions from other cultures. They're medicine our modern world desperately needs.

In this post, you'll discover why grief work matters now more than ever, how ritual can reconnect us to our wild souls, and what it means to integrate these profound practices into everyday life without losing their power.

The Hidden Cost of Unexpressed Grief

When we suppress difficult emotions, they don't disappear. They transform into something else entirely.

John shared something that stopped me in my tracks: unexpressed grief manifests as exhaustion and addiction. Not the dramatic, obvious kind necessarily, but the quiet addictions to busyness, scrolling, shopping, anything that keeps us from feeling what's actually there.

Our conversation revealed how traditional cultures understood something we've forgotten: grief needs tending. It requires witness, container, and community. Indigenous practices like the grief rituals John facilitates (based on teachings from Malodoma and Martine) create sacred space for emotions our culture has no room for.

I've experienced this myself at a large grief ceremony, and the collective release was staggering. There's something profoundly healing about being held by community whilst expressing what you've carried alone. Participants in John's rituals often describe experiencing unexpected joy after the grief moves through them, as if making space for sorrow simultaneously creates space for life itself.

Reconnecting with Your Wild Soul

We've become so civilised, we've forgotten the part of us that knows how to howl, dance, and make offerings to the sun.

One of the most beautiful threads in our conversation was about the "wild soul" (that part of us that's never been domesticated, that still knows how to be in right relationship with nature and the elements). John described the practice of making offerings to the sun, a tradition rooted in First Nations cultures, as a way of maintaining connection with the Earth's vitality.

This isn't about appropriating Indigenous practices. It's about remembering that we all descend from people who once knew these things, who sang to the dawn, created altars, and understood reciprocity with the natural world.

I shared my own journey with offerings: using song, creating small altars, acknowledging what I receive from the land. The challenge isn't learning these practices. It's integrating them into everyday life without them becoming just another thing on the to-do list or slipping into "consumer spirituality."

The wild soul needs spaces where it can be expressed. It's the energy that comes alive in ceremony, in nature, in those rare moments when we drop beneath our civilised personas and touch something more primal and true.

Creating Culture Through Ritual and Rites of Passage

Modern society lacks the rituals that teach us who we are and what we're responsible for.

John's work with teenage boys, fathers, and the Earthsong rite of passage for young women illuminated something crucial: we're living in a culture without meaningful initiation. Indigenous cultures use ritual to teach young people their place in the web of life, their connection to ancestors and land, their responsibilities to community.

We've replaced this with... what exactly? Consumer milestones? Academic achievements? Social media validation?

The conversation shifted my understanding of why so many people feel lost. Without rituals that mark transitions and teach us our deeper purpose, we're left creating meaning from scratch in a culture built on scarcity and competition.

But there's hope in the growing movement of people creating new expressions of ritual: father-son weekends, grief circles, nature-based rites of passage. John noted that whilst the internet has made alternative practices more visible, the real challenge is maintaining the transformative impact when participants return to everyday life.

This is where my work with nature quests and ceremonial practices intersects with practical life coaching. How do we create culture that supports integration? How do we normalise making offerings, expressing grief, and living in ceremony without it becoming performative or disconnected from real life?

Three Simple Practices to Begin

The medicine we need is often hiding in the practices we've forgotten. You don't need to travel to exotic locations or spend years in training to begin reconnecting with these ancient ways of being. Here are three simple practices drawn from our conversation that you can start with today:

Witness Your Unexpressed Grief

This week, simply notice where exhaustion shows up in your life. When you feel that familiar tiredness, pause and ask yourself: "What am I too tired to feel?" You don't need a formal ritual or elaborate ceremony to begin this work. Sometimes the most powerful practice is simply acknowledging what's actually present, allowing yourself to witness your own unexpressed emotion without immediately trying to fix or change it.

Greet the Sun

Tomorrow morning, before you reach for your phone, step outside. Greet the sun (out loud if you can, silently if you must). Offer gratitude for one specific thing. It might feel awkward at first, performative even. But notice how this simple act shifts your relationship with the day ahead. You're not just starting another day of tasks and obligations. You're entering into conversation with the world that holds you.

Mark What Matters

Identify one transition in your own life that was never properly marked: a loss, a significant birthday, a career change, a relationship ending. What would it mean to honour that transition now, even years later? You might light a candle and speak what was never spoken. Write a letter to who you were before and after. Take yourself to a place that holds meaning and simply sit with what that transition meant. Ritual doesn't require elaborate setup or special training, just intention and presence, and the willingness to mark what matters.

Conclusion

Grief work teaches us that feeling is healing. Connection with our wild soul reminds us we're part of something larger than our individual struggles. Ritual gives us tools for marking what matters and integrating profound experiences into everyday life.

Start where you are. Greet the sun. Witness your grief. Create small rituals that honour transitions. Find or create community that can hold you whilst you express what's been suppressed.

The world is slowly shifting. More people are recognising that spirituality isn't separate from everyday life, that men need spaces for emotional expression, that we all need practices that reconnect us to Earth and each other.

Ready to go deeper?

🎧 Listen to the full conversation with John to hear the complete exploration of grief work, men's rituals, and bringing ceremony into modern life.

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💬 What resonates most with you from this conversation? Share your thoughts in the comments below or connect with me on social media. I'd love to hear about your own experiences with grief, ritual, and finding your wild soul.