Clarifying Terms:
Grief | Burnout | Soul Remediation
What is Grief?
People grieve differently. Life cycles in degenerative droughts, and Life spirals in majestic, abundant tide pools. In a world full of distractions designed to keep us disconnected from self, each other, and the earth, let’s join in a radical act and connect. Instead of investing in the hollow, expedient rush to get you through rough terrain, let’s slow down and find the sacred and hallow places, fromsoil2soul, by tending your grief landscapes.
Many leading edge grief ritualists, trauma-informed counselors, and somatic practitioners agree that a multi-pronged approach is helpful in tending grief: a combination of solitary time to reflect and integrate, as well as collective time to ritualize grief with community. The definition of grief that most resonates with me is derived from the National Institute for Health and their research on the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual facets of grief. It is the anguish we feel from personal and/or collective loss. Grief researchers share that grief impacts us on one or more of the four levels of our being:
Mental: It impacts our brains, cognitive functioning, and mental health.
Physical: It impacts our physical energy.
Emotional: It impacts the depth and ability to express emotions.
Spiritual: It impacts our understanding of our spiritual beliefs
FromSoil2Soul practices have helped tend hundreds of people. Grief is alive and constantly changing form. This work helps us become versed in how we embody grief. Let’s ferry you through grief’s varied landscapes. However grief is expressing through you, let’s learn its wisdom.
Come gather online to share, reflect, and integrate grief. Join a Grief Garden online weekly on Wednesdays from 4:30-6pm PST.
Click here to join our Grief Garden What’sApp for solidarity and be embraced by a supportive community presence.
If you seek 1:1 Grief Support, please click here.
An Antidote to Burnout — my TEDx during Covid
What is Burnout?
Similar to this expansive definition of grief, burnout also affects the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual landscapes when people push through loss, anxious to get to the other side. Pausing to reflect and integrate is an ancient practice.
1: the cessation of operation (usually of a jet or rocket engine) ~ Merriam Webster
2: exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration ~ Merriam Webster
Web MD defines Burnout as a form of exhaustion caused by constantly feeling swamped. It happens when we experience too much emotional, physical, and mental fatigue for too long. In many cases, burnout is related to one’s job. But burnout can also happen in other areas of your life and affect your health. Burnout can be caused by stress, but it's not the same. Stress results from too much mental and physical pressure and too many demands on your time and energy. Burnout is about too little. Too little emotion, motivation, or care. Stress can make you feel overwhelmed, but burnout makes you feel depleted and used up.
Burnout prevents productivity and can lead to feelings of hopelessness, cynicism, and resentment. Burnout can harm relationships at home, work, and in community. When burnout is paired with grief - is must be fed and nourished with nature’s medicine.
What is “Soul Remediation?” — it’s a term I’ve coined.
When soil is contaminated — by fire, industry, or neglect — we respond with care: feeding the land compost, tending the mycelium, and adding microbes to draw out heavy metals and restore its life-giving structure.
Much like soil remediation removes toxins from damaged land, I would define soul remediation as the sacred art of extracting grief, trauma, burnout and stagnation from the deep layers of the self. Soul remediation practices are acts of restoration.
FromSoil2Soul practices aim to pause and bear witness to depletion. In our sessions, we listen deeply and aim to decontaminate what is toxic. The goal of this healing practice is to help YOU put down all you hold: in other words, to extract what’s no longer serving, compost what can be transformed, and begin the return to solace.