94: Releasing Leyden’s Soul, Part 2 - The Ceremony

Foreign.

Welcome to Grief and Guts. I'm your host, Melissa Dugulecki. It is my honor and privilege to serve you by sharing stories, tools, interviews, and strategies that will help you transition from what do I do now?

How do I get through this?

Those feelings of overwhelm and uncertainty to truly standing in your power. From my grief journey in losing my daughter laden in 2014 that I learned.

Practiced, was exposed to all these tools.

But they are not grief specific. In fact, they apply universally to all of our unique situations. You've already done the hard part by showing up, by opening up to something new. So without any further ado, let's get to the good stuff that's going to help you in your journey. Let's dive in.

All right, family, got part two coming your way.

If you didn't hear it, go listen.

To last week's episode before diving into this one. If you did, thank you for showing up again. I am super excited to share this with you, not only because I'm ready. As I talked about, it took me two weeks to process this, even a little bit longer, to be honest, but two weeks of taking the podcast off before I was ready to even record about it, which I don't know that I've done that. Andrew, can you verify, have I ever done that two weeks off in a row? I don't think so. And we're coming up on two years now, so that's a long time. That's a long time. But I hope that exemplifies the importance of staying aligned, of giving yourself space and permission when you need to and then of communicating, right?

Communicating your needs and not apologizing for it. Not over explaining, just stating these are my needs. This is what I did.

And now here's where we're going from here.

So without any further ado, I am.

Ready to dive into the ceremony. Are you? Here we go. All right, guys. Last week we left off. I had arrived to the ceremony. Now, as I told you, I brought some artifacts for the altar and as I was told to, so I had to bring paper and pen. I brought a photo of Laden. I brought a small necklace that had her ashes in it. Just a small amount of her ashes in it. One of her hats and a couple crystals and a little locket photo of her. Right? Just a few little things. As I mentioned in last week's episode, I didn't have a lot here, right? This is at home. I would have brought in like, you know, those giant, massive posters I have of her photo collages and like close Ups of her face. So I'm like a little mama bear still, right bereaved mama bear. So I get to the start running with these things. I was able to sit with my friend and I think that's really important because I was scared, I was nervous, I was intimidated. And he and I talked about it like, are you going to come in? Are you not going to come in? And it was like, I think this is important. As much as I would have loved to have had my friend in there, I wouldn't have had the same experience for myself because I would have been worried about how my friend was doing, how my friend was feeling, what was happening. And so I want you all to take some time to think about it. So often we always think we can't do things alone, but many times doing it alone is going to allow us to go deeper. And this was something. This was my work to be done. This was my work to be done. Not to ask someone else to carry. Now I could ask somebody else to support, but not to carry. So support by being there before, support by being there after. I was able to do some processing with him, right? But the actual ceremony, that stuff that was for me to carry. And I think for any of you, what are you going through? Where can you ask for support and where do you have to carry it? This goes back to the topic of personal responsibility, which I actually hated in my grief because I'm like, are you kidding me? My daughter just died in the case of catastrophe, and now I have to take personal responsibility for my grief. This is like, I want to redo okay universe, like, what's this? Right? And we don't get that. And so I will say taking personal responsibility and always looking at things for like, where am I responsible? What do I need to do? Has really changed my life, right? And a lot of the coaching that I do, whether it's the one on one mindset and move the mindset in 90 day, it's really supporting people with that because it's not easy, right? It's not easy. And we got to get through the shame and the guilt and the fear. So anyways, get to the ceremony. I go around now this takes place in like this private little area in the jungle of Tulum. There's an altar set up, There's a fire going that's heating wood. And then there's this little igloo. And these little igloos are where they do their temescal ceremonies. And the temescal ceremony is when they do four rounds north south, east, and west. And you're all sitting in the little igloo. You're sitting on the ground on the concrete floor. Floor. And in the center is, like, a little place where they put the hot coals. So the hot coals are being heated outside of the igloo. And then every round, they put in some coals. You set intentions, there's some guidance. And then, like, a lot of just space for meditation and going within and releasing. And it's like asana times a million, right? They do this four rounds. It gets increasingly hotter as you add more and more coals. Now, this was not a temazcal. This was a different ceremony, but we were using that space. So just so you can envision, like, this tiny little igloo on the ground, a little fireplace to the left of it, and then to the right, this, like, very beautiful altar and a blanket and flowers and all this stuff. So I brought Leyden's artifacts, and I said, here's her picture. Here's her hat. Here's some crystals, Here's a locket, and this little necklace here that actually has some of her ashes in there. And when I said that, I saw Diego look at Abuelo. So those are the two men leading the ceremony, Diego and Abuelo. And I look. I'm looking at each other. I'm like, oh, gosh, do they think I'm crazy for bringing those? I got a little self conscious. I'm like, all right, focus. And first thing I had to do is Diego had me write a letter to Leyden about my intention for the ceremony and why I wanted to release. And a part of me wishes. I took a picture of this letter because it was so beautiful. And a part of me knows that it was just meant to be for that moment between me and Layden. But I wrote, you guys know me. I use a lot of words, right? So I wrote a long letter. It was, like, front and back. And I just expressed how grateful I am for her, and I believe she came in for a purpose. And while I still feel guilty about it and weird as to, like, well, why did she have to leave? I have to surrender to that, right? I have to surrender to that. And so really just trusting the universe and trusting her and trusting myself and saying, you know, I'm gonna make a promise to release you. I want you to go do what you need to do, and I'm gonna do what I need to do, and I'm okay. And just this whole letter thanking her, talking about my journey, talking about the challenges, thanking her for the things I've learned, talking about how different my life was. So it was very beautiful. I was obviously crying. I think I had mentioned I had to bring a bunch of apples. So during this time, Diego had sliced all of the apples so that the tops were pretty much off, and then he cored them. And so in the center of this clay plate, we put one of the apples, and we put my letter inside of it. So my letter goes inside of this cord apple, and then we make, like, almost a flower of apples around it, and they pour honey on it, so it kind of seals them all down, and we put some flowers on top of it. They basically cleanse me with copal. It's like, it's used here to energetically cleanse, kind of like sage could be used or Apollo Santo. But it goes all around your body, and it's like the smoke of the caul tree, and it basically, you know, energetically cleanses you. And so they do that, you know, at a pretty high level of detail to make sure, like, you're super cleansed. You go to the fire, you set an intention, you say a prayer, and then we go into the igloo, and I'm like, oh, man, now what? And so we go into the igloo, and basically Abuelo starts talking and chanting. Now, he only speaks Spanish, and I'm very basic conversational. So Diego's, like, translating, and he's saying, like, well, why are you going to release? Why are you declaring release? Like, asking me? And I'm like, why do I feel like I'm being interviewed here in court? Like, come on, this is hard enough. And I said, you know, it's time to let her go and doing her work, and I want to be selfless and yada, yada, yada, and this whole thing. And Diego repeats it back, and Abuelo comes back, and he basically says, I need you to be more tangible. How are you going to let her go? And how is she going to know that you let her go? And I was like, whoa, buddy, back off. I realized he's doing his job right. Like, I didn't really want to release. I kind of wanted to release, but, like, I didn't really want. It's like, I like the idea of it, but I didn't want to do it right. You know, I see so many people, and whether it's in coaching or business building, like, they like the idea of it, but they don't really want to do it. And I get it. That was me. That's why we have Coaches or abuelos to help us do it. Otherwise I definitely wouldn't have. So we go through. And I got more specific and basically declared that I was going to stop asking Layden for help and protection and rather reassure her that I'm okay. Right? That I'm okay. I was going to start praying to all my spirit guides and to all of my guardian angels rather than just to lay down, because she's been my. She's been my soul. My soul prayer for a while. So I made these and I made some other agreements. I talked about how I was going to live my life, how I was going to live my life in a way that she didn't need to worry, and commitments I made for my own emotional health, my own physical health, and what I'm going to continue to do to invest in that and to tend to that so that she doesn't have to worry and how I would care for myself. So it was interesting because I felt like, yes, I'm the mom, but I'm releasing my daughter from being, like, protective over me. It was very full circle. It was very emotional. So, so we do this. We come out and we are supposed to throw, like, the flowers that were in the ceremony and a couple other things into the fire. And this was a part that. That is very to talk about. And I'm like, you know what? If I'm going to share, you're just going to share it all. So the tobacco leaf is very long here. It almost looks like a banana peel, but fatter and dried out. And so tobacco is used here very spiritually. It's not, you know, they use tobacco as part of a masculine energy, like natural tobacco, not cigarettes. Natural tobacco, masculine energy in a spiritual way. And so the tobacco leaf has a very spiritual means. They have the tobacco leaf, and we put some stuff in it. And then they took the necklace with Leiden's ashes and they said, you know, pour them in. And I was like. I looked at him, like, no way. No. And I looked at Diego for help, and Abuela looked at me, and he said, you just declared releasing her. You have to release her. She has to know you mean it. And I'm sitting here like, I wish I didn't bring these ashes. Why did I bring them? Why didn't even tell them. This is why. They gave each other that look before. They didn't think I was crazy. They just knew that they were going to have me do this. And I had no idea. I felt blindsided. All of these things going through my head, and I Just, like, checked in with my gut, my intuition. I took a breath and I'm like, yeah, this is what I have to do, right? This is what I have to do. And so I emptied them into the tobacco leaf, and we went and offered it up to the fire in a, you know, very spiritual way. We then took the clay plate with all of the apples and my letter to Laden and the honey, and we went out and we found a place where they dug a hole. Diego dug a hole, and we placed the clay plate and the apples with the letter and we buried it. And it was basically the practice and the spirituality of it was making an offering to the earth to give my daughter back to the earth and to recognize that she never truly belonged to me. We're all just borrowers of this earth and of this land. And she wasn't my property or my possession. She was her own being, and she was a part of this universe and something greater. And so that act of giving her back to the earth was really hard because I have clung so deeply to what I've lost, what I've lost in learning from her, of course, and sharing and growing. Inspiring. I certainly don't sit in victimization, but that was really a shedding of essentially identifying myself primarily as a bereaved mom. That's still hard for me to say. I'll be honest. It's still hard for me to say. And, you know, as Diego helped me, you know, as we talked about, and I will say after. After that, we went back and he did. He gave me a hug and a big kiss on the forehead, and he said, you are so strong. And I thought, thank you. Because here, this whole time, I'm thinking, I'm crazy that this was so hard. Like, I was thinking, there's something wrong with me, because this was so hard. It was so, so hard. And he and I talked for a bit and talked about how, you know, for me, I'm essentially. He doesn't want me to, in his words, hide behind Layden's shadow, like, her death. Like, he doesn't want me to hide myself behind that. And he felt like I was doing that. And that was the messages he was receiving, that I was hiding behind that and not fully stepping into my own self, my own power, my own identity, and fully helping the people here on this earth. That I can help in this lifetime. Right? That I can help in this lifetime. And so, you know, I think what led me to do it was to feel like, as Layden's mom, it was my responsibility to set her free so she could do her work. I wasn't really interested in myself, right? It was like, well, of course, if this is holding Laden back, I can't hold Laden back, right? I need to do what's best for Laden. But I really did, I really will say I did take away a big part of. Of understanding that for myself. How am I living my life in a way that carries my daughter but doesn't hide behind our story, Right? So how am I carrying her in a way that. That carries her, right. That doesn't hide behind our story? And that was probably the most emotionally intense experience I've had, you know, since losing Layden. In the earliest days of my grief, there was a lot of mixed emotions. There's a lot of guilt, almost guilt in multiple ways. It's funny. And as I mentioned, I had my. My friend there. And so afterwards, we. He held space to be a listener. Remember, we talk about teammates to be a listener. And really let me process. Let me process and just go through everything, you know. And what, you know, I said was I was feeling guilt in so many directions. Like, guilt like I should have released her sooner, or guilt like guilt like I wasn't letting her do her work and I didn't even know. But then I felt guilt of, like, abandoning our grief community, right? Like, if I'm releasing a lot of my grief, am I abandoning it? And so these were all things I had to work around. Like, it took a lot of processing time. I felt a lot of grief and sadness. I felt a lot of grief as if she was more gone, as if she had died even more than she already died because I was letting her go further and further away. And that's scares the crap out of me, and that hurts me, and it makes me so sad. But I have. I've changed the way that I talk to her and pray to her, and I still talk to her and pray to her every day, but very differently. Instead of asking for signs or help, I share that I'm doing well and what's going on, and I share my trust and I share my love, and I share my encouragement for her to do what she needs to do. And so that's been a huge shift. And I have to say it. It's hard. Probably hear the emotion in my voice, but it feels like the right thing to do. It feels like the right thing to do. And, you know, I don't know if you believe in coincidences or not. I really don't. And, you know, everyone said whether it's for my L necklace or these ceremonies that, you know, this would be opening up space. And I don't think it was coincidence that just a few days after the ceremony, a dog who had been abandoned found his way to me. He found his way to me and I took him in. And I've been fostering him short term. We're not sure on the long term plan, but I've been fostering him short term and helping him get the care that he needs. And this dog just clearly needs love. He follows me everywhere. He's so protective. He just wants to share love. He wants to give love, he wants to feel love. He wants to be against my leg all the time on my lap if he could. But he's huge. And I don't know. I don't know that it's coincidence that he found his way right into me. Literally. He jumped into my car when I wasn't even looking and that was that. And then as girl, this little girl, the daughter of a woman who I've gotten to know through where I am down here in Tulum, she manages a lot of the properties and they're from this area, they're from Tulum. And so her daughter doesn't speak a lot of English, but through that communication barrier, she's grown comfortable with me. But all of a sudden, for the first time after seeing her at the ceremony, she always would wave to me and sing at me. The first time I saw her after the ceremony, she came running up and I think she's about five years old, about four or five years old. She came running up and just jumped on me, full hugs, legs around me, head on my shoulder, just this ball of love. And I thought, whoa, maybe this is something I opened up, right? And so I want to share that with you guys because I didn't go into the ceremony thinking, well, maybe I'll open up space for more love for people who need it here or animals who need it here. Maybe I'll open up more space to share differently. I didn't go in for that. And this is where I really talk and teach about not being attached to the outcome. I was attached to the process, right? The process of releasing laden soul. I didn't know what that was going to look like. I didn't know what it was going to feel like. I didn't know it was going to work or not. I still don't know where can you detach from outcome and attach to the process and just trust? It is not easy. It is not easy. And for me it started in My grief journey, showing up to do my grief work. Like, will this even work? Will I ever feel better again? I don't even want to get out of bed. I don't want to be happy. I don't. Holidays. Forget the holidays. Who could possibly celebrate Christmas? My daughter died, right? Why is the world going on? That was my reality. Right? And so wherever you are, I honor your journey. But at all points, whether I was in that place or in this place now, one thing that has helped me tremendously at every single phase and stage is detaching from outcome and attaching to process. Not trying to control, not trying to predict. Right? But what do I need to do right now to go through? What do I need to do to show up each day? How do I need to use my energy today to be the best version of myself, to be the most aligned version of myself? And if you can do that, friends, you are going to create so much opportunity, so much flow, so much alignment, which will bring a lot of clarity, growth, expansion and ascension. Thank you guys for sharing in this unbelievably just deep chapter of my journey. I'm so grateful to share with each and every one of you. I am here for each and every one of you. Please reach out in the coming episodes. Guys, we're going to get into a little bit more support around the holidays and then talking about the new year. So good stuff to come. Thank you for being here, sending you all love. Keep showing up. Let me know how I can support you. Catch me on Instagram and we'll talk soon.

Thank you all so much for being here at Grief and Guts. As Layden's mom, being able to spread the stories, the strategies, the lessons I have learned through Layden and from Layden is the thing that means the most to me in this world and allowing my daughter's short life to have long and lasting impact by shining her light. Truly, nothing means more if you align with and believe in the work that we're doing here in these moments.

Messages.

The best way to give back and to spread this out into the world is to rate and review on Spotify and on itunes. Thank you for taking just a moment to do that. Feel free to shoot me a message. Let me know what you want to hear more of, what you want to see more of. I am here to serve. I'm grateful to do so and I'm cheering you on in your journeys.

Always.