Our community is encountering a grief journey today as many hearts are outstretched for a dear family whose fight with cancer entered a new chapter.
Grief stands witness to testify to a life that has been lived out loud and even within death, there’s a continuing legacy that shines on. The impact of an individual is a powerful testimony and it deserves the honor of stepping back into those places where you received imprints from another as you speak it out loud and connect to their legacy.
There have been some difficult deaths traveled over this past year especially and something I began doing was testimony walks to be part of grief heart work.
I thought I’d share this process with you in case it could encourage you as well as you deal with grief.
Choose a location that connects to you. For me, that’s nature, so I hop on a trail where sunlight has room to come through tree lines and it leads me to a stream of water of some kind. It’s where I can receive the right kind of quiet for my heart to hear what it is needing to say.
I connect to pictures and visuals, so I bring my phone with me to document a testimony walk. I turn off notifications and put it on airplane mode so there are no distractions. I bring a mug I love to place items in.
A grounding exercise that keeps me present to the “right now” emotions and helps me lay down anxieties of future grief is that I collect things I find on the walk. When I find something like a feather or flower, I speak (or you can write in a journal you bring with you) the memories that I have of that person. I’m very specific with this part, voicing things like:
I love how you said hello to people. You made each person you encountered feel like they mattered, and you took time to say what you noticed in someone and it left an imprint forever.
Then I take that testimony and apply a legacy charge to it:
The way you were present with your hello is something I want to take notice of in my days as well. I want to make sure that I give room, unhurried, to sit with others the way that you did.
From here, I form the things I collected into a portrait that I print off to either hang up where I can see it or print and keep in a testimony journal I have of loved ones who have gone on before me.
I end this time with a song that either reminds me of them, a connection we share, or one that encourages me right now, and I just let it play and I sit. Most of that time, I’m straight up bawling, like the ugly cry messy kind, and it is a place where I feel the acceptance to let myself cry and not have to shoulder up in strength to anyone else. It is a therapeutic place for me to give space to say, “It is ok to be sad,” at this time.
Something to keep in mind with grief and loss is that we are impacted by many kinds of deaths.
- Friendship – this is where you have a richness shared with someone
- Global impact – where you do not know a person personally but you feel the grief in their death
- Community – you may not hang out in your free time with this person but your paths cross in your everyday life and you share a love for your surroundings together
These testimony walks can be carried out for any kind of grief you may be experiencing.
