A family (a mom and two daughters) decided to create a divorce ceremony for their sister following a difficult marriage and divorce that took place during Covid. This story is a compilation of each of their experiences.
A Divorce Ceremony Story
Divorce and separation has a lot of stigma around it. People want to show up and support their loved ones, but they don’t necessarily have the language or understanding on how to do it in a meaningful way.
We hired Megan to guide us through creating a unique and meaningful divorce ceremony for our daughter/sister, who had gotten married and divorced while living abroad during the Covid pandemic.
Megan first met with our sister to better understand what she hoped for and what she wanted to avoid. She then met with the three of us so we could help design and lead the ceremony, something we weren’t sure we could do at first. She helped instil a sense of confidence in us, reassuring us that we could lead the rituals ourselves, which I believe created a more intimate and meaningful experience for us all.
Megan offered to host it in her backyard sauna spa, a sacred space that includes a dry sauna, a cold plunge tub, and a fire pit with chairs in a circle, perfect for connecting and sharing.
The setting created a supportive and healing environment, and also allowed us to move out of the deep sharing and into a relaxing evening, having fun and connecting about other things in life too.
Rituals To Release
The first ritual was around releasing what we each wanted to let go of, which our mom guided us through. This was especially meaningful for our mom and divorced sister because they were both holding onto a lot of difficult emotions surrounding her experience.
We each wrote a word that we wanted to release onto a rock (the rocks were collected from a very special beach that our family cherishes) and then in a circle we shared what we hoped to let go of surrounding our sister’s divorce. We then took turns yelling our word while throwing the rock into the forest. It was so powerful, there were lots of tears and laughter!
This ritual helped all of us bring some closure to this difficult chapter of our sister’s life, releasing any feelings of guilt, anger, worry and grief.
Rituals To Be Present
Next, we created a ritual designed to keep us in the present. We led the group in a mindfulness exercise where we closed our eyes and took some deep breaths, connecting our feet with the ground beneath us. We invited our sister to look around the circle and take in each person who showed up to support her and share their love.
We then sang a song and invited everyone to sing along if they felt like it. This song now holds new meaning for us and has become an anthem for resilience and strength.
Rituals To Share Wishes
Our last ritual celebrated our hopes and intentions for our sister. We brought different coloured pieces of paper and invited everyone to write a word of strength or hope they held for our sister. We each shared our hopes with her and put them into a glass jar, which we then gifted her. We told her to pull out a piece of paper whenever she needed to feel support and love from this circle.
This was a lovely ritual because we were also able to include some friends and family who couldn’t be there. They sent their thoughts and hopes for our sister ahead of time, and we felt their presence. This was very moving for our sister, to know others were sending in their love and support from afar.
The Ceremonial Effect
We then relaxed and enjoyed each other’s company while basking in the loving energy of the evening. Our sister was nervous to attend at first, and when she arrived she was visibly tense.
Over the course of the evening, her shoulders relaxed and you could see her release and share in a way that was beautifully vulnerable. It seemed to be very healing for her, and we felt that she left feeling lighter, more loved and very connected.
As her friends and family, we were able to show up and support her in a way that felt really intentional, and we couldn’t have done without Be Ceremonial.
We each needed to heal and move forward in our own ways, but also to publicly acknowledge what we were each holding. This ceremony gave us the opportunity to move through the pain and sadness and get to the other side of this experience.
We wouldn’t have changed a thing; the impact was priceless. In the end, we all realized that it’s just as important to acknowledge and recognize the hardships we go through as it is to celebrate the wins.
We drew on the rituals in the App as well as Megan’s guidance and support. It was really empowering to have some simple rituals to guide us that we could then make our own.
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You can create your own Divorce Ceremony using our guided ritual app, or reach out to Megan for support curating one unique to you.
