Grief and Healing with Essential Oils

Priestess Sadie shares a story about working with Cerridwen’s guidance and story to help someone dealing with bereavement and grief.

This is an example of how Cerridwen inspired me to create a healing lotion for a female client age 42, (we will reference my client as Olive, it is not her real name or age so that patient/client confidentiality is respected).

Olive and I met for six months, on-line and in person on a few occasions. Olive signed up for my coaching sessions, and after our second meeting I asked Olive if she felt as though coaching may be something she might consider after working on some of the grief that was present in her session? She went silent for a good minute, wiped her tears, and said yes, I think I need to be in grief counseling instead of pursuing coaching for my business. I offered Olive my assistance with grief counseling, in which I am fully licensed as a professional. 

We switched gears and placed all her coaching paperwork aside until Olive and I worked together to find the core of her grief. It was within the fifth week of Olive’s sessions that it became apparent that the root cause of her grief was not the loss of her parent, it was grief she felt inside from not being able to conceive. 

Her marriage was a lovely marriage with each partner lovingly supporting each other, and living life as two people that enjoyed life fully without children. Olive had initially stated she did not want to be a mother in the early years of her marriage, and her husband was very supportive and never brought up the subject in their seven years of marriage. It was at the point in which her parent passed away suddenly, that Olive became very sad and grieved daily. 

Yes, she missed her parent.  However,, deeper in her grief and unbeknownst to her, was her own grief of not being a parent herself. This is a topic that Olive pondered on without speaking a word of it to anyone. She kept those thoughts to herself. Slowly, those thoughts and feelings got mixed in the loss of her own parent and she focused more on the loss of her parent than what was really happening inside her own heart.

As Olive started to share more about her feelings and grief, I suggested an exercise for her to do on a daily basis to honour her own feelings and body, specifically, around the root chakra/pelvic area and sacral chakra.

• upon waking up, breathe in deeply and exhale slowly and say one thing in gratitude.
• make the first step out of bed with the word of gratitude that came forward in the exhale.
• in the shower, honour each part of the body with gratitude.
• when rubbing lotion on her body, make the motion of a circle with both hands around the sacral area of her pelvis starting from right to left.

Olive did this every day. Each day she reported that she would  cry in the shower and whilst honouring her pelvis in a circular motion. She said it was bringing up a lot of her childhood memories of her own mother not being able to conceive a second child. Olive started to document in a diary her daily healing and each level of grief that would rise to the surface. She learned to honour her feelings in the moment, to be in gratitude for their presence and the teaching that healing herself was not shameful.

One morning I asked Olive if she wanted to create her own body lotion with her own scent to use as part of her morning ritual with sacral circular motions. She was delighted and excited at the thought of creating her own ointment/lotion.

I called upon Cerridwen to ask for guidance. When I asked Olive what her favorite scents were, she did not hesitate to say “I love lavender and roses and vanilla scents.” She then asked me if we can make all three scents for her lotions? She wanted them separate so that she could choose a scent of the day. Well, we did just that. Three bottles with drops of essential oils in an organic non-scented lotion formula. Lavender, Rose Otto and Vanilla.

Three months after Olive started to honour her body each morning, documenting in her diary, and her continued work on grief, whilst honouring each feeling that came forward in gratitude; she mentioned that she felt having three lotions was more trouble than she thought, so she combined all of them together and mixed them on her own. She said she loved the way it smelled and it made her feel amazingly beautiful.

Olive continues to honour her body and she has been mixing her own lotion with lavender, rose otto and vanilla. Olive’s healing has been incredibly beautiful to witness. Her focus in life has shifted, her view of her own family life with her husband has also shifted, and she is open and ready to conceive whenever the timing is right. She is hopeful to be a mother, and she continues to use her lotions daily. After our 6 months, I introduced Olive to Cerridwen’s story. She loved the story, and she has made her own connections with Cerridwen. Olive and I continue to work together, now on coaching rather than her grief counseling. The changes, the shifts and the growth she has made is incredible to witness. I still hear about her morning routine and the words, “I will conceive.”

Cerridwen continues to teach me that when trust, faith and hope is present, Her love has no boundaries.

Recipe:
5 fluid oz/150 ml – non-scented organic shea butter lotion
4 drops vanilla essential oil
6 drops rose essential oil
6 drops lavender essential oil
Stir or whip all ingredients in a bowl and store in a container with lid (preferably a tin or glass container or a non-bpa container).

 

Sadie Whitley, Priestess of Cerridwen

Pacific NW, USA

I am a heart-centred inspirational life coach, metaphysical ordained minister and holistic counsellor, spiritualist and a shaman priestess that works mostly with women to find their joy after grief.  As a Priestess of Cerridwen in Avalon, I assist in healing modalities within the cauldron of Her loving heart.  As a professional cook, I personally love the metaphor of the cauldron brewing healing essences to bring you love and joy to your heart.

Website: joyovergrief.com