Moffa said she often helps her grieving clients create rituals because they mitigate what otherwise might feel like "complete daily chaos." She explained, "If you have one thing that you can hold onto every single day that brings you structure and order and a sense of safety and normalcy, it can really help organize the chaos that you're feeling internally." This can be spiritual (Polanco personally likes candles to deceased loved ones) or simply something in your daily routine such as making a nourishing breakfast.
Polanco said that what people feel is loss, but it's also a realization that they lack control, and she suggested ceremonies as a form of release and reclaimed power. "If you create your own ceremony for the loss, you are kind of taking that control back by deciding how you say goodbye and when you say goodbye rather than having it just be done, and that's it," she explained. Even just writing a letter, she said, is a form of ritual or ceremony worth trying.
