Grief Portals: Entering the Well of your Sacred Heart | Alive Again 3
When we allow ourselves to grieve, we un-stuck the energy. We let it flow. We learn to tenderly meet our sadness and hurt parts. We develop the capacity to be with life, no matter what it brings.
When we allow ourselves to grieve, we un-stuck the energy. We let it flow. We learn to tenderly meet our sadness and hurt parts. We mother the younger parts of ourselves who desperately need our affection. We develop the capacity to be with life, no matter what it brings.
This essay was originally released spring 2023, and as the wheel of life is turning once again, I’m back at the beginning, calling upon the most enlightened one of all: The Fool.
Here’s to our great, collective leap into the unknown.
May we trust. May we laugh. May we dance. May a new way be shown.
XO
-Madison
Grief Portals: Entering the Well of your Sacred Heart | Alive Again 3
In the last Alive Again essay (which you can read right here if you missed it) we talked about how normal it is to feel frustrated, stagnant and stuck.
Feeling stuck doesn’t mean you are stuck– feelings aren’t facts. So don’t mistake it as the end of your journey.
In all great myths the hero/heroine feels like they want to give up right before the breakthrough. Instead of throwing in the towel, they usually find a mystical guide who reminds them of their strength, teaches them some magic, tells a few jokes and helps them alchemize all their angst and doubt into a whole, integrated victory.
All of that to say, feeling stuck, stagnant or overwhelmed is actually a sign you’re being initiated.
You’re becoming a masterful, clear, embodied sage with a beginner's mind and an open heart.
This is the start of your journey, not the end.
As hopeful and lovely as that sounds, moving from the tired, problem-focused stage of “whats the fucking point” to the open, alive and willing stage where “you make it look so easy” isn’t for the faint of heart.
In fact, it might break your heart– in a good way.
Moving to the stage of competence, where you’re open-hearted, wise and embodied means your heart has to actually open… and in softness comes grief.
We already talked about how a tender-hearted soul might have to develop calluses to buffer the world’s pain. And how that hardened, closed and protected heart serves a purpose, until it doesn’t. If you’re resonating with these emails, chances are you’ve moved past the stage where closing and protecting your beautiful heart from hurt is necessary. It's now keeping you feeling stuck and frozen instead of open and willing.
❤️🔥 As you know, the only way out is through. And in this case, “through” means into the well of your own heart to soften, grieve and eventually, open.
Breaking open can also feel like a break down. Softening our frozen places leaves us feeling tender, exposed and weary.
This is normal. This is to be expected. This is not a problem. Nothing has gone wrong.
Can I share a bit of my personal experience with this?
A few summers ago I found myself in what I’d now call a mild depression rooted in grief I was refusing to feel.
I’d never felt this way before and it didn’t make sense to me; I was taking care of my health, getting good sleep, moving my body, making a lot of money, doing everything “right.” I was high functioning! I was happily in my new loft space which was decorated with a gorgeous boucle couch and fresh flowers. I was in a new relationship, going on trips again for the first time in a few years, devoted to a daily spiritual practice and my business was booming. Life was “great.”
Despite everything in my life bursting with beauty, my body just wanted to sleep. My heart was heavy. I couldn’t find that “spark” of pollyanna I’d lived over 3 decades with.
You see, with all this goodness, safety and stability I’d worked for in my life– I finally had capacity to digest the 4 years prior, which included a divorce, coming out, going no contact with an abusive family member, a pandemic, the death of my dog, 3 moves, the death of 2 grandmothers, 2 years of trauma and somatic attachment therapy, a not-so-pretty breakup, and an autism diagnosis.
Life got good!
The world opened again!
And I tried to jump back into it like nothing had changed.
Yet everything was different.
I was different. The world was different. And while being healthier than ever mentally, physically and spiritually, I had a lot to grieve. Grieving would have been a healthy flow of energy in this case. Instead of flowing, I judged it.
Resisting this grief brought me to my knees– condemning it as wrong, a problem and a sign I wasn’t doing something right only made things worse… until I surrendered.
Once I let go and let myself go into the grief portal, energy began to move.
I sat each day for a tea ceremony and wept. I cried more that summer than I have in my whole life. I wrote and wrote and wrote; digesting a lifetime of heartbreak, shame and abandonment I’d never had the capacity to feel.
I grieved for all the versions of me who didn’t feel safe, and didn’t know love until now.
I found mentors who reminded me that grief is healthy.
They helped me re-mother myself. They taught me how to be present with pain. They taught me how to alchemize it all. They showed me how it was all happening for my benefit.
(They were my musical guides, leading me to wholeness).
I found on the other side a greater capacity for compassion, a greater connection to my True Self, to spirit, to others and the ability to open to life’s beauty even in the midst.
Grief portals bring us into presence.
Grief portals bring us into reality.
Grief portals bring us into connection.
Grief portals open our ❤ Sacred Hearts❤ .
When we allow ourselves to grieve, we un-stuck the energy. We let it flow. We learn to tenderly meet our sadness and hurt parts. We mother the younger parts of ourselves who desperately need our affection. We develop the capacity to be with life, no matter what it brings.
We grow ourselves up.
Resisting the grief or ruminating on wrongdoings is what makes us feel so stuck.
Feeling the grief? Moving it through? Tending to our Sacred Hearts?
Whole worlds open as a result.
What about you?
Who were you in 2019 that you are no longer today?
What has changed? What has been lost?
Which of your desires, ambitions and values have shifted– if not all of them?
The last 6 years have changed us, each of us, and we cannot live out our aliveness without acknowledging, grieving, honoring and letting go of who we were and what we used to want.
We cannot keep squeezing ourselves into lives too small for us, into ways of working that harm us, into relationships that can no longer “meet” us, or into dreams that no longer serve us.
Lucky us, this is not the end of the road.
It’s an opportunity for an up-level. It’s a sign of transformation! It’s a chance at alchemy!! This evolution is happening for our benefit.
And sure, it’s heartbreaking.
It’s heartbreaking because it’s breaking you open to more.
If you’re somewhere between stories and have been feeling stuck, stagnant or overwhelmed, perhaps there is something for you to grieve.
Here’s what to do next:
If you desire some support in the process, here is a menu of options that often support me. Pick 2 to try for yourself.
🌈1- Welcome it. All of it.
The more you resist what’s already happening and all that’s already happened, the more you live with unnecessary tension and pain. It’s happened. So put your hand to your heart and welcome it.
“I welcome you, loss. I welcome you, shame. I welcome you, regret. I welcome you, anger. I welcome you, longing. I welcome you, apathy. Welcome. I see that you’re here. You are welcome.”
🌈2- Let the Earth compost it.
Perhaps you don’t have to carry it all yourself. Go lay on the Earth and feel your body pressing up against hers. Imagine the magnet at her core, gently pulling out all the density, heaviness and all you can’t digest. Give it to her, she knows what to do.
🌈3- Don’t disassociate. Don’t discharge. Open, open, open to presence instead.
So many well meaning teachers offer tools that help you either bypass your sensations or some version of “shake it out” where you scream and jump and exercise the “bad” feelings out. Nothing wrong with catharsis, but try this and see how it feels:
Neither disassociate or discharge it. Simply open to presence.
Notice the beautiful things around you. Notice how you’re actually safe with the sensation. Notice how there’s nothing to “do” but notice. You are safe with you.
🌈4- Enter the well of your own Sacred Heart - a soul retrieval of sorts.
Listen to this hypnotic visualization, where I’ll guide you to connect to Your Sacred Heart, and take a journey to integrate your younger parts back into wholeness. With binaural beats & set at 528 hz, you'll sink into theta wave brain state, able to relax, receive & change the subconscious with ease.
🌈5- Ask: “If this was happening for me, what might I be learning?”
That’s not to say “everything happens for a reason.” We can’t know that. It is, however, a great tool to re-access your agency, gain perspective and support yourself to make meaning that bolsters you. It’s a way to have a little more control about your mindset, which is known to lower stress and make you more resilient. :)
Now, I’d love to know, who are you today that you were not in 2019 - leave a note in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.
Let it be Easy,
Madison
❤️🔥🕊️🌈
New article:
I recently hit publish on this baby & didn’t send it as an email because I’d already sent it out to my marketing list. Read it on substack here.
Current offerings:
THE FORTRESS—
This orientation to life & this kind of healing is what I facilitate on inside The Fortress— my year-long membership program for alchemizing shame and living your liberation. Registration is closed until May, but you can hop on the waitlist right here.
PRIVATE COACHING—
Delightfully full. Please register your interest for future openings here.
