Healing Grief & Heartbreak: A Guide

Healing Grief & Heartbreak ~ A Holistic Guide

Grief and heartbreak touch all of us at some point, yet when we’re in it, it can feel like the loneliest experience in the world. Whether you’re mourning the loss of a loved one, the end of a relationship, or a chapter of your life that has closed, the pain is real, and it deserves to be honored.

I originally crafted a version of this guide for our facebook group, but I wanted to take time this morning to extend it a bit because in the last month alone, I've spoken to more than a dozen students struggling emotionally this season. This tells me that now is good time to reflect on how to be with our grief.

This isn't my strongest topic, but one I continue to learn about as time goes on.

Over time, I’ve come to see grief not as something to ‘get over,’ but as a sacred process that asks us to slow down, listen deeply, and nurture ourselves back to wholeness.

In this guide, I’m sharing some very simply tools and practices that have brought comfort and healing to my clients, my community, and even my own heart. May this serve as a gentle companion on your journey.

Be Present With Your True Feelings

Grief is never linear. We're raised with this idea that if we do a certain set of tasks, then grief will go and never come back. In truth, it doesn’t follow a timeline. It unfolds in its own way, asking us to sit with it, honor it, and learn from it.

If you’re here, and walking through a tender, difficult time, I want you to know that you’re not alone, and this guide was created to offer comfort and support as you navigate grief and heartbreak.

It’s okay if your feelings feel messy or larger than life. Grief doesn't always make sense, and it doesn’t always need to be ‘figured out,’ it just needs to be felt. The energy of grief is like water. Sometimes it crashes like waves, other times it sinks deep into the ground of who we are, and still other times it hangs suspended like acloud about us.

No matter what energetic form your grief shows up in, if you can honor it, taking time to witness and reflect upon your experience, it will begin to clear.

Reflecting on your emotions isn’t always easy, but it creates a vital foundation for healing. As you move forward, remember to treat yourself with patience and compassion.

I find that my Reiki self practice is very helpful for this. Forcing myself to sit and be present to welcome a flow of healing energy, is a form of surrender, and it instantly begins the flow of healing and mindfulness.

Remember, in Reiki healing, your brain actually shifts brainwave states during the Reiki process, so your body becomes open to true physiological shifts.

A Journal Ritual for Healing Grief

I like to do this exercise with soft music. Pour some tea. To begin, breathe deeply, allowing the steam from your mug to warm your nostrils and lungs. Our lungs are a primary center where grief is held, so this first step is a way of entering into a conversation with your body.

Now imagine you’re sitting with a mirror version of your self. Let these questions be a conversation between your heart and soul, without judgment or expectation. Pour your feelings onto the page as freely as the tea in your cup. If you'd like, you can speak the words out loud instead. Take your time:

• I’m grieving the loss of…

• I especially miss…

• My favorite memory is…

• What really hurts is…

• I can support myself from that by…

• I feel better when…

• The things that help me most are…

• When I’m alone I…

• What I really want in the future is…

• My support system includes…

• I know that I will be okay if…

• In other parts of my life, I am grateful for…

"When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight." — Khalil Gibran

As you journal, let go of the need to edit or censor yourself. Allow your words to flow freely, knowing that this is a safe space for your heart to speak. When you are done, try reading the words out loud as a way of witnessing yourself even further. If tears come, let them. They’re part of the healing process.

Support Heartbreak with Flower Essences

Flower essences are natural remedies made from the energetic imprint of flowers in water, designed to support emotional and spiritual healing by balancing the body’s subtle energy fields. Work with Flower Essences to help nourish and balance your energy field over the next 30 days.

Flower essences REALLY WORK. The most well-known, sold at your local pharmacy, is Bach's Rescue Remedy. Although it is in no way a substitution for western medicine, it can definitely be used safely in conjunction with it. It helps with both physical and emotional trauma. I keep a batch in our medicine basket at home.

These essences are gentle energy medicine allies to help you feel more balanced as you navigate difficult emotions. They're really at their best when you don't feel anything from the essence, other than perhaps a tiny bit more inner resilience.

For grief due to breakups or death, you can work with flower essence combinations. Ideally, use one combination for the suggested length of time, rather than switching between essences. By using flower essences consistently, you give your emotional body time to integrate their supportive energy.

In the office, I often formulate custom blends for students and clients, but I also like these over-the-counter blends:

• Grief Relief (Flower Essence Society)

• Bach's Rescue Remedy - for immediate trauma and shock

• Five Flower Essence (FES) - when you're in a crisis

• Fireweed Combo (Alaskan Essences) - good of old heartbreak

• Flower Essence sprays by Jane Bell Essences - great for emotional burnout

• Siddha Remedies Emotional Detox (homeopathic and essence blends)

• Siddha Remedies Happy Heart (to be used in conjunction with Emotional Detox)

For relationship grief of any kind, I especially like to include bleeding heart (for heartbreak), baby blue eyes (for father lineage healing and relationship patterns as a result), South African lemon (for deep soul killing resentment), joshua tree (for family patterns), and many others in custom blends.

Aura-Soma is really popular too, but I've honestly only used it once so I can't say much about it.

My go-to blend I whip up for myself includes bleeding heart, poppy, fireweed, rose, and reiki. But I've also used Bach's pastilles in a pinch, and I've noticed that children respond well to Bach's.

Flower essences are pretty profound allies in healing. They don’t take the pain away but can help you feel more balanced and resilient as you hold your emotions with care.

When you work with them, set an intention for your healing. For example, when taking Rescue Remedy, say out loud, ‘I allow myself space to heal gently and fully.’

Move Your Body Every Day

While healing, do a regular practice of morning walks or yoga, as the physical movement helps clear and reset your muscle memory, and the trauma stories in your body.

Movement oxygenates your blood, and flushes your hormonal system with fresh endorphins. We REALLY NEED THIS when healing grief and heartbreak.

It’s so simple, but can be challenging to do, so set an alarm on your phone, or enlist friends to walk or move with you. Your body needs to shed hormones, DNA (if you were in a relationship), and rewrite old neural patterns. That's a lot of silent work going on behind the scenes, so stay hydrated and keep moving.

I know that grief can feel heavy, like it’s anchoring you to the couch or bed. But even the smallest steps—a few stretches or walking to the mailbox—can begin to shift your energy and create openings for healing.

If walking feels too hard, start where you are, even right now. A small stretch, a gentle sway, or even standing to feel the ground beneath your feet can begin to release tension and invite new energy into your body.

Even in the most challenging circumstances, movement can remind us of our strength. Nelson Mandela used daily exercise and mental engagement to maintain his resilience while imprisoned.

Even in the small box of his prison, he kept going, saying, "The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." He was determined that his love for his country could overcome any temporary pain or confinement.

His story shows how small acts of movement can help us rise, no matter the weight we carry.

Heartbreak Is Your Heart, Breaking Open

Remember, when you feel heartbreak, no matter the cause, it’s really that your heart is breaking OPEN. You’re creating more space for love in the future. Don’t skim over your feelings, or your pain.

As Rumi says, "The wound is the place where the Light enters you." What you're feeling now is sacred.

When your heart breaks open, you're feeling an invitation from the universe to love even more deeply than you ever have. You're awakening to a new capacity to hold both the joy of connection and the sorrow of loss. Both are sacred parts of your human experience.

Whenever you feel your heart breaking open, say to yourself, ‘I am growing. I love myself and I will keep growing through this. I am creating space for love and light to enter my life.'

Your heart breaking open is not a sign of weakness, but of your incredible ability to love and grow. Honor this moment as a sacred part of your journey.

Meditation, mindfulness, and affirmations can really help your mind to stay strong as this powerful healing heartbreak is happening. One of my favorite things to do is to play music that feel supportive to my healing psyche. I'll use the music as a way of timing my affirmation work, or mindfulness work. It helps my busy brain to calm down and stay present with heart break as it's healing.

Healing Inner Self-Abandonment

When you show up for yourself during grief, you are teaching your inner child that they are safe and cherished. This is important, because the majority of us have small forms of self-abandonment that have removed us from our sense of inner trust or personal authority.

When grief continues to linger without reprieve, as a result of relationship endings, personal failures, and losses, there is often some form of abandonment at play that's asking to be acknowledged.

Inner self-abandonment happens when we disconnect from our own needs, emotions, or inner truth, often seeking external validation or avoiding discomfort. It’s a pattern of turning away from ourselves in moments when we most need care.

We may have created this habit in childhood as a form of self-protection, or for survival, but it also leads to feelings of emptiness or misalignment. This can amplify existing grief, and it can also create its own form of grief of depression over time.

We don't talk a lot about self abandonment in society, so it feels important to mention here, just in case this is factoring into your current grieving process.

The habits that reflect this energetic pattern can show up anywhere, but can easily be fixed with love and effort. You may choose to silence your inner self:

• In relationships: Staying in a toxic partnership because you fear being alone or don’t want to upset your partner, even though it’s harming your well-being.

• At work: Saying yes to extra tasks or responsibilities you don’t have the bandwidth for, because you don’t want to disappoint your boss or coworkers.

• With friends: Ignoring your own emotional exhaustion to attend a social event because you’re worried your absence will upset someone or make you seem unreliable.

• During conflict: Agreeing with someone’s opinion, even when it goes against your values, to avoid an argument or confrontation.

• In self-care: Skipping meals, rest, or other basic needs because you’re so focused on meeting deadlines or taking care of others.

These patterns are easy to miss in the moment, but over time can add up to exhaustion, anger, resentment, and burnout--all with a heavy dose of grief.

As you give yourself extra love during this time, focusing on what is important to you, you are also healing these forms of inner self-abandonment, and sending powerful messages to your own inner child that YOU will always be here for you, no matter what life throws at you, or what losses you may experience.

Picture your inner child and imagine holding your younger self’s hand. Whisper, "I’m here for you. I won’t leave you. Together, we can heal."

See the softness in their eyes, feel the smallness of their hands in yours. Allow love to stream from your heart to your younger self. Feel the warmth of this connection flow through your body, and let it remind you that you are never alone.

This return to yourself will raise your consciousness and help you attract stable, nurturing life experiences. And people.

Astrology and the Grief of Transformation

Astrology has shown me that some of the most intense life transitions we face are also tied to significant planetary transits. Grief during these transitions often feels raw because we’re being asked to change comfortable patterns and redefine who we are.

I remember preparing for my Saturn returns in my late 20s. I’d read that Saturn, the planet of responsibility and karma, would return to its starting point in my birth chart around ages 29-32, so that I could fully complete emotional lessons from childhood, release grief and attachment, and move forward with creating my own versions of life as a maturing adult.

Saturn doesn’t let us bypass the hard stuff. Instead, it shines a spotlight on where we’ve been running from lessons that will help us take full responsibility for our lives.

During my Saturn return, I faced the grief of letting go of old dreams, roles, and versions of myself I needed to be in order to survive childhood, but that were no longer relevant for who I was becoming. I began to see how I was recreating the same lessons over and over in my life, and how some of the things I wanted would only lead to more of what I didn't actually want at all.

Many of us experience unspoken, undefined grief from our late 20s and 30s. Sometimes it's the grief of taking on big responsibilities before we feel ready. Other times it's the grief of what we're choosing to leave behind. The journaling exercise mentioned earlier can help dissolve grief, especially when paired with mindfulness, meditation, and Reiki.

I'm bringing up the astrology here because it may be playing into some of the losses you're experiencing, and if that's the case, having your astrology chart read by someone who understands outer planetary movement can be a very helpful, powerful way to reflect on, and move through your grief.

The Grief of Midlife

What I didn’t realize in my 20s and 30s was that midlife holds an equally powerful set of transits. The so-called "midlife crisis" is also grounded in a series planetary movements we all go through.

The Uranus opposition between the ages of 38-42 pushes us to make radical changes in life due to a desire for inner freedom. Our Neptune square (somewhere between 40-45 depending on your natal chart) force-starts a realignment with your soul's true identity. Anything that doesn't resonate with supporting your true purpose may begin to crumble or fall away. Where there is resistance, sometimes the energy can manifest physically as heath challenges.

These planetary transits are not easy. They can feel like being dismantled piece by piece, as if the life you’ve built is crumbling before your eyes.

It's not always that way. I've experienced some of these transits as cathartic. By focusing on the part of myself that has been craving deeper alignment and freedom, I've been able to honor what needs to go through tides of grief.

The grief is layered—grief for what’s lost, for what’s changing, and for the parts of yourself you must leave behind.

But all grief has a purpose. It’s asking you to strip away the inauthentic that has become merged with your soul signature, to dissolve the walls between you and your truest self, and to align with the life your soul came here to live.

The pain of grief is from the loss of your old identity. Whether that loss is like a limb, or it's the loss of a set of beliefs that hang on like a long attached parasite, the grief is there to alert you that something very important, something critical to your identity, is changing.

Ask yourself, What is life trying to show me right now? What is this pain asking me to release or transform within myself or environment? These aren’t easy questions, but they’re powerful.

When you approach these astrology transits as sacred lessons from the universe, the grief gives way to euphoric transformation.

What nobody told me back then, and what I want to share with you now, is that simply continuing to live on this planet is a form of spiritual growth and liberation. The energies of your environment will always cary you forward in growth.

During my Saturn return, I grieved for the life I thought I should have, only to discover a life I truly loved once I let go of the old identity. In midlife, the crises we face return us even more deeply back to ourselves, to our most authentic, heartfelt experience of being human--if we can let go of old limitations in identity.

And while grief can feel overwhelming, especially when it's due to death and extreme loss, it’s also a sign that our ego is shedding and we’re actively becoming someone new. Or perhaps, that we are becoming more of who we always were, at the very beginning.

As we let grief flow, it will begin to release and clear. The more we tend our energy with sunlight, healthy food, exercise, friendship, live, and positive uplifting moments during windows of extended grief, the more we help to safeguard our body chemistry from slipping into depression. Grief is our ally in transformation.

My Favorite Books When I'm In A State of Grief

Books have always been a source of comfort and healing for me, especially when I'm grieving. One that I've returned to often is Anam Cara by John O'Donohue, offering soulful wisdom on love, friendship, and the spiritual journey of life.

Consolations by David Whyte is another beautiful collection of reflections on the deeper meanings of everyday words, like heartbreak, loneliness, and solace. Both feel like quiet companions that I've carried with me in my purse at times, to read on a park bench or in a coffee shop.

When I was younger, fiction novels held a special kind of magic for me. Stories like Say Goodnight, Gracie by Julie Reece Deaver taught me how powerful storytelling can be in holding space for loss and healing. Even now, I believe that a good novel can sometimes reach places in our hearts that nonfiction can’t touch.

I also grew up on poetry, and the works of various poets have sustained me throughout the years. In matters of love, I often return to classical poets like Rumi, or writings on the Radiance Sutras.

There’s also a book on midlife that felt so nourishing for me when I turned 41. I can't remember the title right now, but I’ll update it here when I remember.

You'll notice, none of these books are self-help books about how to get out of grief. They are written to help presence us in the process of grief.

These books, and others like them, have been an anchor in my journey, and if you're a reader, I hope you'll find voices of comfort in new books as well.

As You Grieve...

Keep this guide as a companion on your journey. I will continue to add resources as I can. There are so many aspects to grieving, and so many different healing patterns that play out, so trust yourself in seeking out the kind of support you need.

Healing takes time, and there’s no right or wrong ways to grieve. Trust that, little by little, you are finding your way back to yourself. Your heart knows the way, and I am here to support you as you move through this journey.

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DAILEY LITTLE is a healing practitioner, transformational life coach, ordained Priestess, and teacher who founded Healing Heart Reiki to help others navigate life with joy. She offers private sessions, and teaches classes in healing and mindset from a magical peaceful corner of the world in Northern California. For more info see: www.SantaRosaReiki.com