Grief & Ritual
Earlier this year, I invited you to join me in a set of dialogue sessions to help deepen my understanding of John Verveake’s work on ritual.
Cecily Engelhart was one of the people that responded to the call. Our spots were already full, but something about Cecily’s email caught my attention. She was talking about grief and the way ritual was an essential part of her own dealings with loss.
I knew I had to talk to her.
The more healing work I do with others, the more clear it is to me that life will break each of our human hearts. We all experience loss, too many of us experience horror. Trauma grips our young heart, often at very young and tender ages. And we lack access to the language and, most importantly, to the tools and rituals to help us process grief and turn it into wisdom.
Our capacity to heal, to experience post-traumatic growth, to become strong, wise and whole every time life breaks our heart, that too is an essential part of being human. It is the very process that makes us full grown humans.
Cecily is Native American, she is a member of the Lakota nation. She is blessed by an unbroken lineage of people who refused to forget the role of ritual. And in this interview, she shares her experience with us.
I met Cecily through her work at HOPE Nation, where she partnered with my friend, Stephanie Gutierrez, also interviewed on the podcast. And right now she is lit with a fire to live her vocation as coach and creator of Dream Life Strategic Planning. A process designed to help you bring ALL of your life’s experience to the fulfillment of your dream life.
Enjoy our conversation, and please share it with a friend if it is something that moves you. Friend to Friend. That’s the way the good stuff spreads.
bio
Cecily Rose Engelhart (she/her, Ihanktonwan Dakota & Oglala Lakota) is a Master Certified Life Coach, known by clients as “Your Dream Life’s Hype Chick.” She helps people who are feeling burnt out, trapped, and drained of enthusiasm to decolonize, dismantle systems of oppression, and cultivate more joy.
As a sought after coach and speaker, she helps clients worldwide to activate their agency and transform their futures. She also takes great pride in her work at regional and local levels serving Native and rural communities. Whether coaching, consulting, or facilitating, she brings both pragmatic and playful energy to a space in order to make sure clients reach their goals – and have a whole lot of fun along the way.
She has over 20 years of work experience ranging from florist to nonprofit professional, barista to facilitator, filmmaker to communications manager. She’s valued the lessons from every single job and sees each one as an integral part of her growth both personally and professionally.
When Cecily isn’t coaching, she hosts events in the 1904 Victorian home her family bought and is restoring on her reservation. She can also be found spending time with her family playing games, cooking, baking, and dancing in the kitchen. She the owner of Rosie Matȟó, her jewelry and home decor business, is also currently penning her first two books, and in the early development stages of her Native travel show.