Herbal Remedies for Grief

February is heart health month.  What constitutes a healthy heart? Certainly a heart that beats in a coordinated manner, pumps blood efficiently through the vascular system, and maintains proper blood pressure - is considered a physically healthy heart.  But what about the other aspects of the heart? The emotional and energetic functions that the heart maintains?  The heart is the center of love and of emotional experience.  Feelings such as joy, compassion, understanding and affection all reside in the heart.  Conversely, feelings of loss, guilt, shame and grief are the heart's domain as well.  Whatever emotional place the heart finds itself in, February (Heart Month and home to Valentine's Day) heightens the experience.  This blog is dedicated to the difficult yet unavoidably necessary process of grieving, and the array of herbal remedies for grief.

The Heart Chakra: Open your heart to
joy and happiness instead of
closing down during times of grief.

Herbal remedies  help us to open our hearts to welcome joy and happiness, instead of closing down in times of stress and grief. They ease sadness and heartache while releasing the anxiety and depression that accompany grief and loss.  Time is the greatest healer of all, and offers the promise that the heart will inevitably heal and the grief slowly begin to melt away.  Remember, feeling is healing.  Having feelings means you have a heart and it will heal... with time and of course, the comfort of herbs.

• Healing Heart: This floral tonic lightens and cools the inner fires of grief.  It contains classic soothing herbs for the heart including hawthorn, motherwort, lemon balm and lavender.  Flower essence of Bleeding Heart provides emotional freedom from loss and calms the fear of what's next. 

Rose for Grief

• Heart's Ease Tea: Combine equal parts of the soothing floral herbs Rose petals, Hibiscus flower, Hawthorne leaf and flower and Lavender flowers to make a lovely tea that is cooling and calming to a grieving heart.

• Rose Essential Oil: Rose is the ultimate floral heart healer, and the intoxicating essential oil can be just the ticket to transcend states of grief.  Wear the oil, add to a diffuser or nebulizer, or sprinkle a drop on your pillow to soothe the heart during times of grief. 

• Using Flower Essences during times of grief and other emotional hardships helps facilitate healing on the soul and vibrational levels to encompass full-body healing and ensure no thought patterns become stuck.  Read about Flower Essences for Grief written by our resident flower essence maker, Monica Caulfield of Lifeforce Essences. 

• Nurture Yourself.  Take a candlelit bath with rose oil.  Make yourself a special meal.  Cuddle up in a warm blanket or comfy sweater.  Go on a long walk, basking in Nature's healing energy.  Receive a massage.  Sleep enough but not too much.  Be patient with yourself - allow yourself to feel exactly what you are feeling while remembering that this too shall pass.

- Shared by Lauren H. @ The Herbalist