Throughout history and across cultures, rituals have been essential to the grieving and healing process surrounding death. No matter where we come from or our cultures, there is a shared basic understanding of what funerals entail: we come together to mourn the deceased, offering support and sympathy to the bereaved.
Everyone experiences loss, whether it's the loss of a loved one, the ending of a relationship, the loss of a beloved pet, or a severe setback. Rituals and traditions in the grieving process can help us process the loss and the emotions surrounding grief.
What is a Ritual?
Rituals are symbolic gestures or activities that help us, together with friends or family or alone, express our thoughts and feelings about life's most meaningful events. Many of us have probably encountered times when words are inadequate, and we turn to rituals to express what we feel or wish to say.
Most rituals share common aspects, such as typically being public events. Family members, friends, Church members, villages, elders, and sometimes entire nations gather, and these groups share strong emotional or philosophical ties. These groups can create or enact a ritual that supports shared beliefs and values, uniting us.
Other activities such as releasing butterflies, wearing something that belonged to a lost loved one, laying flowers, planting a tree or creating a memorial garden, and eating at a loved one's favorite restaurant—may not be in public but are still considered rituals.
Rituals are symbolic. Not just with objects but the very acts of ritual.
Rituals and Grieving
What makes some people appear to be able to remain strong and move forward after a loss? Many grief-stricken by the loss of a loved one, struggle through long periods of depression, developing what is called "complicated grief," while others appear to be able to continue and begin to heal as they adjust and settle into old routines or develop new patterns, recovering a semblance of order despite continuing to mourn.
Psychologists who study grief and mourning note that no single factor can predict who will cope well and who will not. Too many variables, from personality to social aspects, mental health, and even the stress level before loss, can play significant roles in how we deal with mourning.
There is, however, a hint. A 2014 study (1) published by Michael I. Norton and Francesca Gino at Harvard Business School found that some mourners were more emotionally resilient than others, and those who appeared more resilient all have something in common. Following their loss, they all performed rituals.
These rituals, however, may not be what many of us expect.
Many may have thought of public displays of grief, such as funerals, wearing black for a certain period, or religious customs, such as sitting shiva in Judaism (where guests visit the bereaved for seven days.) Norton and Gino asked 76 research participants to write about a significant loss they suffered, explain how they coped, and describe any rituals they did.
The researchers were surprised at the results as many of the rituals described were not the public ones that some researchers expected. Instead, they were private rituals that were personal and performed alone.
For example, one of the participants wrote that following a harrowing breakup, they returned to the location of the separation each month on its anniversary to help cope with the loss and think it over. Another person, suffering from a breakup, gathered the photos they took as a couple and destroyed them, burning the small pieces in the park where they first kissed. Another participant, a woman who lost her husband, continued washing his car every week—just as he did when he was still alive.
These private rituals were no doubt painful, and we might expect that performing them and writing about them would make the mourners even more depressed by reminding them of who and what they have lost. But that did not happen. After people performed a ritual, even after writing about their loss, more reported that they were less likely to feel powerless.
How Rituals and Traditions Ease Grief
Public mourning rituals have a clear purpose, and so do private rituals. One of the most common responses from people mourning a loss is feeling like the world is out of control. Rituals help us overcome intense grief by counteracting the emotional turbulence and chaos that follows loss. Rituals trigger a specific feeling in those who mourn—the feeling of being in control of their grieving and their lives.
By performing our private rituals, we can begin to regain our footing in a world that often feels impossible to navigate and emptier than before, starting the journey toward healing.
Source:
1. https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/norton%20gino%202014_e44eb177-f8f4-4f0d-a458-625c1268b391.pdf