Healing Together Through Our Grief

All of these experiences can cause and be caused by unexpressed grief that can be both personal and shared. While we often think of grief mainly coming from the death of a loved one, we can be going through grief for so many reasons in our lives. This course can help you to understand and feel through your current experience of grieving in order to live more fully. Keep reading to learn more . . . .

The world has been changing at an increasing rate and we are called to continue changing as well to cultivate greater resilience to meet these challenges from a place of greater wholeness. It’s from this wholeness that we are better able to meet our needs as well as those of our families, communities and the collective. Grief comes with all of our experiences of change and is a challenge that we all face now more than ever. Grief can also separate us from our wholeness if we don’t allow ourselves to move through it and learn from it. You are invited to take a step into honoring your wholeness in community amidst the many ways that we can feel torn and drawn in different directions. Let us instead come together both within ourselves and in community to heal together. In so many traditions and for many of our ancient ancestors, grieving is and was a collective practice. For those of us who have been separated from this communal healing practice we can once again return to it in tender, loving and profound ways. 

Join us in this 7 week course to get a taste of the process of healing through grief that can be nourishing and grounding, joyful and expressive, comforting and connective as well as a growth experience. We will be using our bodies, our breath, our knowing and our creative expression as our guides to awaken latent wisdom that can offer us greater resource and resilience amidst the challenges we face. Inspired by the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and somatic movement, this workshop will invite you to learn about and move through the directions and layers of grief in gentle and powerful ways. We are all united through our grief and it is in grieving, especially with others, that we are able to remember who we truly are and what we are here to be and do in service to all beings. 

There will be trauma-informed embodied (somatic) movement, breath and meditation guidance in the form of tools and practices that can support your journey as well as an open space to share your experience in circle each week. We will be supported by the wisdom of the elements and the directions and archetypes as we honor our bodies, the land and the wisdom that we all carry within us as the living Earth. 

The Curriculum:

February 24th – Week 1 – Grounding and Landing into the Grief Wheel together – Commitment, Resourcing Tools, Self Love, Guidelines and Agreements 

March 3rd – Week 2 – East – Air balanced by Earth – Child-  Rooting through Confusion

March 10th – Week 3 – South – Fire balanced by Water – Villain/Fool – Flowing through Scaredness

March 17th – Week 4 – West – Water balanced by Fire – Lover/Beloved – Surrendering through Despair

March 24th – Week 5 – North – Earth balanced by Air – Warrior – Taking Conscious Action through Anger

March 31st – Week 6 – Center – Ethers – Healer/Sage/Elder – Honoring our Connections and Callings

April 7th – Week 7 – Integration & Application in our Lives

Through this course you will receive:

• Tools and practices to address grief and that will support you to heal through your grieving process

• An understanding and perspective of how we are all in grief and grieving collectively

• An experience of how grieving can open us to our joy, our creativity, the beauty of life and our ability to celebrate and connect more deeply

• Learn about and practice cultivating greater awareness with nature, the elements and with the land to deepen your relationship with yourself

• Resourcing your own inner wisdom through our body

• Practices to help you boost your immune system as we go into winter and the busy holiday season

• Connection to others who are willing to feel through their healing and grow together in community

• Guidance for your own personal healing practice at home

Each Session will generally include:

• Grounding and land acknowledgement

• Personal check in

• Sharing about the stages of grief through The Grief Wheel with Elemental, Directional and Archetypal guides

• Trauma informed movement & meditation guidance to address a stage of grieving

• Group circle sharing

• Invitation to personal practice each week

• Visual StoryBoard and resources for each week

• Closing sharing and integration

   

  Acknowledgements:
  

This course is inspired by many traditions and comes directly from Joanna Macy, Ph.D, who is an author, teacher, scholar of Buddhism, systems things and deep ecology. She developed The Work that Reconnects. Hilary collaborated with Grandmother Kaariina Saarinen, a shamanic bloodline chief and pipe carrier, and offered an online Grief Wheel Facilitation Training last winter.

There are also threads from Tibetan Buddhism and Body Mind Centering including . . .

*His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, Lama Willa Blythe Baker, Lama Tsultrim Allione

*Sky Otter (Bill Pfeiffer), Founder of the Sacred Earth Network

*Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Founder of Body Mind Centering, Christine Cole, Found of Somatic Body Training

*Embody Lab teachers of the Embodied Social Justice and Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy Certifications

*All clients & students all are teachers

Here’s what others are saying:

There are moments in our lives that we get handed such a heavy blow that it takes our breath away. For me, coming back to my breath and my body was very scary. In March my family and I lost our home to a house fire and I was utterly devastated. The pain and grief I was holding in my body was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It had been months and the pain/grief felt like it would never heal.

As a licensed therapist myself, I had all of the tools and support a family could need but I couldn’t quite shake the grief and trauma my body was holding. I came across this healing workshop at the perfect time and took a leap of faith knowing I needed additional help to shake these feelings. I felt incredibly vulnerable to expose my grief, my pain and my challenges. As a professional in the community, I was really scared to put myself out there but I knew I had to do something to start healing these broken parts of myself.

Our first class was met with a huge sigh of relief as I connected with other professionals in the community; who were there to heal too! Together we walked (sometimes felt like crawling) through all the feelings. Hilary guided us through meditations and body movement exercises that truly took me from a place of feeling lost, confused and alone to a place of feeling grounded, centered and empowered. I can’t say enough about this dear spiritual healer, that I now call my friend. Hilary is truly gifted in her practice. I highly recommend anyone who has tried all the traditional practices of healing to reach out and connect to this incredible workshop. You owe it to yourself to connect and heal. It is an incredible journey, I invite you to explore with Hilary.

-Rose Wilson, Counselor

I was honestly a little hesitant about doing this program because I wasn’t sure what to expect or if it would help, but I decided I would be open to the experience and see what happened. I am SO glad I did the program. Going through Healing Through Our Grief was so beneficial for me, I feel like a different person from when I started. I was at a low point, muddling through the one year anniversaries of when my dad died, and reliving everything. The guided meditations were productive and the program helped me make space for my big emotions and feel them, while also working through them to a deeper understanding of myself and how to tend to my needs with love and care. Hilary made space for each of us to be on our own journey, while providing loving support and a community for us to lean on. This program was amazing and so worthwhile.

-A.C.

I moved into a new realm of experience and awareness with Hilary. The combination of guided meditation, contemplation, body awareness, movement and sound was a delicious and nutritive feast for my heart and mind. By tracing the emergence of my physical being into the world I feel more connected to the creative process that continues to create and recreate me every day. What a beautiful gift. ​

-C.H.M.

Throughout my work with Hilary I’ve increased my capacity to love myself, and feel the depths of gratitude as much as the depths of grief. I feel lighter, more at peace, kind, and gentle with myself, and in so much gratitude for my life. I’m really grateful for how she showed up and met me where I was, and for holding her own intuitive guidance, and allowing our ebbs and flows to go with the plan or veer off the tracks as needed. I am so grateful for being deeply held, seen, accepted, validated, and supported in my process, allowing an unfolding with ease and gentleness and curiosity in a nonjudgmental space to move, feel excited, and be!

-Jessica Mortel, business owner and healer

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Hilary holds a compassionate and responsibly shared space for learning, feeling, and experiencing a more integrative flow in relationship with our ancestors, the earth, her elements, and various layers of our human community – including the wild interconnected nature within!

– F.S.

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Hilary holds a deeply authentic, grounded and generous human. I felt accepted and met right where I was with no judgment or expectations- safe. She shares powerful practices & tools, a way to live that connects us to ourselves, each other and the world and elements around us. I am grateful and inspired. Thank-you!

-Jenn Evans

The Logistics: 

Friday evenings February 24th – April 7th 5:30-7:30pm

Held at Bayview East Professional Building

1053 North US-31 Suite 1, Petoskey, MI

Self Investment:

Thanks to Rev. angel Kyodo Williams and The Embody Lab for this inspiring this payment structure to help make this course more accessible. The scaled pricing offers three options rather than one fixed price. This structure makes it possible for more people to access the program, supported by the community and those who have access to more resources. Please choose the option that feels appropriate to you and your circumstances. There is also the option for a scholarship if you are in need of a greater discount. Email hilaryjlake@gmail.com if you are interested.

The class is limited to 6 participants. Register early to ensure your spot and
before Thursday, February 22nd at 12pm when registration closes.
Payments are non-refundable once the class begins. 

You can also sign up for a free discovery call with Hilary to ask any questions and get a
better sense if this course is right for you at this time.