Rituals

Enter the ritual

How do you heal a broken heart? We don't know. Try everything, see what resonates, then do it over and over until it's yours.

Heartbreak Healer tastes like wandering a moonlit English garden. Calming but not sedating. Uplifting but not energizing. With a little bit of magic. These are the rituals we built around it. Borrow them, bend them, make them yours.

Hatchet Granny was Carrie Nation's nickname. She spent the first decade of the 1900s walking into Kansas bars and destroying them with a hatchet. What drove her to do that? THAT is Hatchet Granny.

More human than human. The sheer will John Wick runs on. Coming back different, the way Catwoman comes back. Powered like Kill Bill. Something breaks you, you don't give up, and you come back holding the hatchet.

So how do you heal a broken heart

We don't know. Each person is different, but what we can tell you is to try everything, see what resonates, and then do that thing over and over and over again until it's yours. Move through it. And it can feel like molasses, like you are drowning in a sad swamp, in an abyss, and it feels suffocating and like a deep dark damp sponge on your heart. Don't give up. Stay. Things will change.

Also, heartbreak. Take it seriously. Heartbreak syndrome is real. The medical name is takotsubo cardiomyopathy, and the American Heart Association lists a death in the family, a divorce, a breakup, and betrayal among the things that set it off. Your heart can literally break. Don't blow that off. If your chest hurts, go get looked at.

When I felt so broken I thought I'd never recover, I visualized my heart as kintsugi, the Japanese art of putting broken things back together with gold so they're more valuable after the break than before it.

My experience isn't unique. But it was unique to me. Don't give up. Things always change.

Ritual No. 01

The protection bubble

Every morning · five to ten minutes · sixty-six days

Gather

  • A meditation you like.
  • A mantra that resonates. Borrow one until yours shows up.
  • Your coffee, with a splash of Heartbreak Healer in it.

The ceremony

  1. Sit up. The phone stays wherever it slept.
  2. Run your meditation. Five minutes counts.
  3. Roll the shoulders, shake out the hands, unclench the jaw.
  4. Close your eyes and build the bubble around you for the day. See it hold.
  5. Say your I am statements out loud. I am powerful. I am protected. Everything is working out for me.
  6. Ask it: universe, show me how good it gets to be.
  7. Drink your coffee. Ready for the day.
Ritual No. 02

Move the energy

Middle of the day · five minutes or the whole afternoon

Start

  • Hand on your heart.
  • You are calm. Everything happens for my highest good.
  • I love you. I love you. I love you.

Then move it

  1. Talk about it, out loud, to someone who can hold it.
  2. Go dancing. Scream into a pillow. Go to a class.
  3. Curl up in your bed soup and watch a sh1tty horror movie.
  4. Hum until your chest buzzes. Cry, actually cry.
  5. Make yourself a fun drink and treat the making as the ritual.
  6. Activate all five senses before you go back to your day.
Ritual No. 03

Tend the shell

Night · fifteen minutes

Gather

  • One candle
  • Rosewater in a mist bottle
  • Facial gua sha tools
  • Tea, with a splash of Heartbreak Healer stirred through while it's hot

The ceremony

  1. Overhead light off. Lamp on. Or candle.
  2. Spray your face with the rosewater until it's properly wet.
  3. Gua sha, slow. Along the jaw, down the neck.
  4. Sip the tea between passes, both hands on the mug.
  5. Palm flat on your chest. Slow circles. I love you. I love you. I love you.
  6. Finish the tea. Lights out. Blow out the candle.
Ritual No. 04

The release

Full moon · about twenty minutes · after dark

The pour

  • Ice, wide glass
  • 1 oz Heartbreak Healer
  • 5 to 6 oz very cold seltzer, poured slow
  • A strip of lemon peel, twisted, dropped in

The ceremony

  1. Kill the overhead light. Light the candle. Phone in another room.
  2. First sip before anything else.
  3. Write down everything you want to let go. Don't make it poetic.
  4. Read it out loud, once, to nobody.
  5. Burn it in the metal dish, safely, water right there.
  6. Finish the drink and do nothing else while you do it.
  7. Blow out the candle. Say it out loud.
Ritual No. 05

The summoning

New moon · about twenty minutes · one glass

Gather

  • Heartbreak Healer over ice, seltzer to fill
  • One candle
  • Good paper this time. This one you keep.
  • Something to seal it. Optional.

The ceremony

  1. Light the candle in a dark room. Make your own moonlight.
  2. First sip. Ask it out loud: universe, show me how good it gets to be.
  3. Write down what you're summoning. Name it like it's already on its way.
  4. Read the list out loud, once, like you mean it. Read it again.
  5. Fold the paper toward you. Seal it.
  6. Put it somewhere you'll see it without trying.
  7. Finish the drink to what's coming.

Heartbreak Healer is a botanical mixer. It is not medicine and it doesn't treat anything. If you're pregnant, nursing, or taking medication, talk to your doctor before drinking anything with reishi in it. And if what you're carrying is heavier than a candle and a good glass, talk to someone who can actually help. In the US you can call or text 988, any hour.

Send me yours. If you built a ritual that carried you through something, put it here. Yours might be the one that gets somebody else off the floor. Send it through the contact page