Welcome
I’m honoured to have you join May ‘We All Heal 2020 – Grief in Isolation’, our mindfulness-based conscious way to give your heart and soul the space to focus on grieving and healing.
This is already the 6th time we will be running May We All Heal (MWAH). You can read more about its origin here.
Thank yourself for being here. Even if you’ve been part of MWAH previously, take a few minutes to read about this year’s event, the possible alternatives to choose from and the most important details.
This year’s event theme: Grief in Isolation
The theme for MWAH 2020 is obviously leaning in on the worldwide topic of social distancing, quarantine — the isolation brought into the world by current events due to COVID19 pandemic situation we find ourselves in. Our last community-written book project Surviving My First Year of Child Loss: Personal Stories from Grieving Parents and the challenges parents faced within their first year of grief would probably look different today than what they looked like a few years ago.
Working with clients in my role as a grief recovery therapist, I hear how the current situation is affecting them, personally and individually, or as a couple with their grief and – to my delight -, there is a lot of relief experienced by bereaved parents as they now have more chances to look after themselves and are allowed to be following their own agenda. Again, the importance of self-care in grieving, in order to grieve in a healthy way.
Prompts
Choose your own prompts
The program contains 31 prompts, one for each day in May. This year, I’ve decided to leave it up to YOU, which prompts or themes you want to explore. You can re-use the original prompts from the companion book, if you haven’t got it yet, go ahead and order it here. The prompts will also be shared on MWAH’s IG channel.
Alternative ways
You can also choose a more personalised way to embrace grieving and healing for yourself, for example:
- Focus on random acts of loving kindness daily for 31 days, following the prompts.
- Write your child’s name in 31 different ways, embedding the prompt in your reflections.
- Write 31 names of children of your fellow mothers-in-loss. You might like to check out #lovesobig hashtag on Instagram (IG) and Facebook (FB) to get an idea of what this could look like.
Share & Hashtags
Sadly we don’t need a village to raise our child because he or she has died.
Instead, we need a community of like-hearted parents who support us through the mothering/fathering** of our child, the child we won’t get to bring up in real life. Please help spread the word about MWAH. Tell your support group and others you know who might benefit from this. You can do this by sharing this page on FB or tagging your friends in IG posts about the project.
Please use the following hashtags when sharing: #MayWeAllHeal and #MWAH2020 and #griefinisolation. This also allows you to find other MWAH participants. Share on your personal IG and FB.
If you are looking for a more private experience, please join our MWAH peer support group and you might like to share there.
Some important details
Let people know what you’re doing
Download this image ‘Dear Family & Friends’ and share it on your social media challenge before you start. It’s good to let them know what you are doing and how they can support you.
What if…
…I can’t do every day?
Don’t worry about whether you can do this every single day or not. It’s not about how many days you give yourself the time to reflect. It’s about the fact that you do.
…I don’t have the companion book?
You can order a soft or hardcover version in the shop. Alternatively, choose a notebook that fits your needs, with respect to size and the paper quality (preferably without any lines or grids to allow free creative expression).
Please note
* ‘Child’ includes baby, babies, child and children, no matter the age or gestation they died.
** Even though this event might appeal more to ‘mothers’ it will support and hopefully appeal similarly to ‘fathers’. Given we are supporting each other through the month of May because of Mother’s day, I might speak more in the female version.