The Estranged + Empty Nester Healing Kit
Being estranged or distanced from our children can be incredibly painful every day, but especially at certain times of the year, like holidays and birthdays. Whether your relationship with your child(ren) is complicated, tense, destructive, non-existent, or if you just will be parted from your child(ren) due to life circumstances, I believe there is a tool for you in this kit that will help you to find some comfort and healing.
If you do everything in this kit, you will have a FULL day of ceremony, but you can also spread it out over time, and you can definitely use these practices over and over again.
I sincerely hope this kit will be a balm for you. I’m so proud of you for going on this journey, for committing to yourself and your healing, and I’m so grateful you’re allowing me to accompany you on the way!
Please understand that this work carries potentially re-traumatizing heaviness. The goal of this is NOT to send you into a traumatized state. If you feel you will need extra support from a trauma-informed specialist, I encourage you to complete this work with the help of your therapist, or contact me and we can set up a Life Coaching session during which I can walk you through some Nervous System re-regulation techniques to help you cope.
Prepare the Ceremony Space + Cleanse
These practices are best done in your child’s bedroom or a place in the house that reminds you of your child, but someplace that’s also deeply comfortable or soothing. You’re going to be really stretching and challenging yourself so it’s important to feel as soothed as possible throughout the day.
Before you enter the space, shower or bathe. Water is incredibly helpful for diffusing tense energy, just ask any empath you know! You want to enter into this with a calm and open heart. This is to energetically keep yourself feeling flowy and flexible, which will be necessary as you flow through different feelings and unfamiliar practices.
Cleanse with smoke. Smoke adds a little fire and a little air, ensuring that you are in the energy of fortitude and expression.
I recommend a Rosemary smudge stick. I do NOT recommend White Sage or Palo Santo, as their high demand has resulted in the over-farming of these plants and the ecological destruction of their environments. Additionally, White Sage has ceremonial importance to many Indigenous tribes, so if you’re not Indigenous and you want to be in respectful relationship with this culture, I’d stay away from using White Sage unless invited into the practice by someone of Indigenous descent.
Wear comfortable clothes that help you feel grounded (for example, I have a pink sweater that is basically my adult security blanket. I always wear it when I’m sitting in ceremony or doing hard Shadow Work).
Have plenty of water, facial tissues, a pen and journal, and snacks that you might like as a reward (I like popcorn) available.
You may have pictures of your child or objects that are meaningful to your relationship with your child, if available and comfortable for you.
Include anything else you think you might like, particularly focusing on textures, music, and scents that make you feel loved and secure.
If you choose to use sacred medicine like Cacao, THC, CBD, Psilocybin, MDMA, Ayahuasca, Peyote, Kambo, etc., please use sparingly and with an understanding of what your tolerance levels are, and if applicable, please recruit the help of a “trip sitter” or sober companion, keeping in mind the consumption laws of your area if you are in public.
Please do NOT use alcohol with this Kit. Alcohol is a depressant that can damage neural plasticity, so it’s use is antithetical to this work.
Space Refresh and Cleansing
Oftentimes spaces with a lot of memories in them can become energetically and physically cluttered with miasma that builds over the years. Before you know it, every time you walk into a certain room, you just feel tired, or drained, or sad.
Choose a space in your home that feels particularly heavy, especially if it holds a lot of memories you shared with your child(ren).
Start with going through the space and throwing away old or unused items or putting them into storage if you just can’t part with them. As you pack each item away or put it into the trash, offer a moment of gratitude for the memories it holds, and sit with whatever feelings come up until you can release them.
Next, clean the space, working your way from top to bottom, beginning with the ceiling fans and light fixtures, and ending with sweeping the floor. Make sure to get in the corners of whatever space you’re cleansing. When you sweep, start furthest from the door, sweeping towards the door, until you’ve swept everything out through the door. As you sweep the last of the miasma out the door, say a prayer for all heaviness to leave the space as well.
Once the space is physically cleaned, you may energetically cleanse it using smoke, sound, anointing oils, Florida water, or any other cleansing method of your choosing. Please note the bit I wrote about using Palo Santo and White Sage for cleansing with smoke in the “set the ceremony space” section.
After the space has been energetically cleansed, feel free to sit and meditate into the space, allowing your good vibes to penetrate the energy of the space and imprint a new energy of love, optimism, purity, and alignment into the space.
Journal Prompts
You may choose to do these all at once, or spread them out, as you see fit. Please take your time to feel into these, write intentionally and with curiosity. What you put in is what you’ll get out.
This section of questions is for those who are currently estranged from their child
What was my relationship with my child like when they were growing up? What is it now?
In what ways do I see my child as a reflection of me?
Have I ever projected my desires for my child onto them (for example, encouraging them towards certain careers, hobbies, personality traits, goals, or behaviors)?
If they ever rejected those projections, how would I react?
Would my child say that I was a safe space for them when they were growing up? Would they say that now?
Who was I as a person when I became a parent? What have I learned since then? In what ways have I grown?
What do I wish I could change about the way I parented my child?
Where can I give myself compassion for the parenting “mistakes” I feel I’ve made?
If I could back and say anything to my younger self when I became a parent, what would I say?
How do I feel about the person my child has become?
If I could say anything to my child, what would I say?
Where can I hold myself in radical accountability for the part I’ve played in our estrangement?
This next section of questions is for those who are empty-nester parents:
What is my attachment style? (If you don’t know, take a quiz here)
How might my attachment style have affected the way I parented my child? How might my attachment style affect the way I feel about their absence now?
When my child was growing up, what was the tenet of my parenting style (for example, was I more laissez-faire, more hands-on, a full-on helicopter parent, etc.)?
What are my current and future goals?
Where does my child fit into those goals?
What makes me feel fulfilled?
Where does my child fit into that sense of fulfillment?
What’s my relationship with my child like now that they’re out of the house? What do I wish it was like?
In what ways might my attachment to my child be keeping me from experiencing independence?
What’s my relationship with my parents/what was it when I left the house?
How might my relationship with my parents be affecting my expectations about my relationship with my child?
What communities am I a part of? How can I lean into those communities now to find connection and support?
A Compassion Practice
This is a meditation I have been doing for 6 years, every day. NOTHING has influenced my healing journey more than this meditation: Metta Bhavana. “Metta Bhavana” means, “Lovingkindness” in Sanskrit, and it begins with a benevolent, loving wish for yourself, and then moves to include others. For the purposes of this Care Kit, you may find it particularly helpful to focus on your own parents and and your child(ren) in the first and fourth chapters (you’ll see what I mean when you get there).
A note about compassion: Compassion is NOT forgiveness. If you have been deeply hurt by someone or deeply traumatized by your parents or child(ren), offering compassion in the fourth chapter is NOT the same as offering forgiveness. Compassion is a path to forgiveness, but they are not one and the same. You may be able to offer compassion to your family members now for their hurtful actions, but it may take you years to forgive. Or you may never find it possible to forgive—and that’s ok. You don’t have to.
This meditation is 20 minutes.
Write A Letter
Get your paper and pen ready, stretch out your hands, take a few healing, intentional breaths, and write your child(ren) a letter. This can be a 40 page letter if you need it to be—let it ALL out. Nobody is going to read this, and you’re not going to send it, so you can write anything you want, don’t hold back. After you’re finished with this letter, you can burn it ceremoniously, bury it, tear it into a million pieces, or any other way that feels appropriate for you to dispose of it.
If you’re not sure where to start, you can follow this template:
Dear (Child’s Name),
Here’s what I’m feeling towards you right now:
I am angry about:
I am sad about:
I forgive you for:
I don’t forgive you for:
I apologize for:
I forgive myself for:
I wish:
I release:
Then sign off in whatever way you feel is appropriate.
An Exercise in Releasing Expectations
This is a great practice for anytime, and will translate incredibly well into interactions with anyone, not just your relationship with your chid(ren). Often we as parents project our expectations of society and the way they will receive and treat our child(ren) onto our kids in an attempt to keep them safe from rejection or harm. Some of us project our expectations of what success looks like onto our kids, from the way we teach them to approach school, to the careers we encourage them to pursue, to the romantic partners and friends of theirs that we approve of. But every time we project an expectation onto them, we create a little bit of distance instead of the deepening connection we are looking for.
Turn on a meditative playlist. Maybe some lullabies that remind you of your child.
Lay on the floor on your back, with your arms and legs spread wide, like a starfish.
For the length of two songs, breathe deeply and evenly. Feel yourself being supported and lifted up by the ground. Feel your body sink into peace.
As you feel your body and energy start to shift into peace, imagine that a tunnel of air flows right through you in a big column that descends from the sky, through the middle of your body (maybe your.gut, maybe your heart chakra, maybe your entire center-mass), through the ground you’re laying on, and through the core of the earth until it hollows out a path from atmosphere to atmosphere.
Keep breathing, and allow yourself to feel as hollow as possible. Empty. A vessel. Open.
Let the energy of life flow through this column of air—through YOU—and out into space.
Feel how FREE this feeling is. How light you feel.
This is what it feels like to be unburdened by expectations, but instead to be completely present, open, and flexible.
Now think of your child(ren). Be hyper-aware of the air tunnel. Do you still feel empty, open, and free? Or is that wind tunnel beginning to feel shaky?
Allow yourself to list the expectations you hold for your child(ren). What do you want for them? What do you think they need to do or be or have or know in order to achieve that?
One by one, allow each expectation to travel from inside you up through the wind tunnel and out into space, being purified and released, floating away and leaving you feeling lighter. If the expectation feels like it would rather exit out through sinking down through the earth and out into the atmosphere on the other side of the earth, that’s totally fine, but just keep in mind that we’re looking for a light, free feeling.
Once you’ve released every expectation you have, eat something sweet but earthy, like dark chocolate, or honey. This is a beautiful reward for the senses that will help ground you back down to earth after all that floaty, airy energy.
An Universal Love Meditation
This guided meditation will help you to find unconditional support and acceptance for yourself and others. It may be helpful to think of yourself, your child(ren), or your parents as you work with this meditation.
This meditation is approximately 15 minutes.
A Reverse Cord Cutting (A Bond-Deepening Practice)
A note about this reverse cord cutting: just because you are deepening your energetic bond to your child(ren), does not mean that you can’t continue to give your child(ren) space—especially if they’ve asked for it! This is just a way for you to set an energetic intention for yourself and your relationship with your child(ren), which is more likely to open your heart and mind to the idea of reconciliation (if you’re estranged), and interdependence (if you’re an empty-nester).
Items you will need:
A stuffed animal/toy of your child’s or a picture of your child
a long (4-5 ft is best) piece of ribbon, floss, string, or yarn
Put on a playlist of lullabies that remind you of your child.
Create a physical cord for yourself by tying a ribbon around your waist and then tying the other end around the stuffed animal or picture of your child. As you do so, imagine a warm band of golden light exiting out of your Solar Plexus (your belly) and flowing towards and around the toy/picture. This is an energetic totem for your life-force.
Breathe slowly.
You can hug yourself and rock back and forth if it feels grounding and safe to you.
Summon the energy of your child to you. When you feel their presence close to you, you may proceed:
Read your letter that you wrote to your child (if you haven’t written one yet per the exercise above, that’s ok! write one now, even if you’re just speaking it out loud into the ether).
Feel your feelings fully. If you need to take breaks to cry, yell, breathe, laugh, or process, take those breaks unapologetically.
When you feel you have expressed everything you need to say, take some time to offer gratitude for this energetic connection.
Lovingly feel each inch of the cord that runs between you. Offer your energetic bond your hope, happiness, and investment for a future full of unity and harmony between you and your child(ren).
You can sit here in love as long as you want, feeling the loving feelings flow through you, and when you’re ready, you can lovingly untie the ribbon or string and place it on your home altar or somewhere else of significant importance in your home.
A Mourning Exercise for Those Who’ve Lost Their Child
My therapist said to me once, “Grief is just love with no place to go.”
And I took that even further, realizing that this means that my heart is so big, so full of love, so capable of loving others, and the object of my love was so worthy of love that I could hold this much grief over the loss of them.
With that in mind, here’s a beautifully simple way of celebrating that love, and allowing your grief to become less bitter, and more bittersweet:
Make a list of everything you loved about your child.
Make a list of your favorite memories with your child.
Make a list of all the things you are grateful to your child for.
Burn the list, preferably outdoors in a fire-safe container. Allow the smoke to drift up and carry your love and gratitude into the sky, up into the heavens, out into the Universe.
Bury the ashes at the base of a plant, and allow those ashes to help new life continue to flourish.
I hope this Kit has been healing and soothing for you, and I’m sending you so much love. Should you need additional support, you can book a session with me by clicking the link below.
All my Metta, Maria
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