Rituals

Enter the Ritual

To survive heartbreak, Cimcie Nichols founded Hatchet Granny. She surrounded herself with plants, sound, and community, and spent months on a formula that felt like a hug from flowers. Like wandering a moonlit english garden... Calming but not sedating. Uplifting but not energizing. With a little bit of magic.

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.

Your heart is also more than a pump. Researchers at the HeartMath Institute measure it as the largest magnetic field in the body, putting out more electricity than your brain. I believe we carry things in our bodies and all that energy has to go somewhere. The whole job is moving it out instead of drowning in the sad swamp. Smell it, taste it, feel it, hear it. Get all five senses working on it.

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. I hope this helps you, and when you find a ritual that carries you through, send it to us! The form's at the bottom.

Don't give up. Things always change.

Ritual No. 01 · Every Morning · The Protection Bubble

Before your phone. Before your computer. Before the world.

Five to ten minutes. Sixty-six days.

Gather

A meditation you like. Try a few until one fits.
A mantra that resonates. Mine are below, borrow one until yours shows up.
Your coffee, with a splash of Heartbreak Healer in it.

The ceremony

Sit up. The phone stays wherever it slept.
Run your meditation. Five minutes counts.
Do a few body releasing exercises. Roll the shoulders, shake out the hands, unclench the jaw you didn't know was clenched.
Now build the bubble. Close your eyes and imagine a protection bubble around you for the day. See it hold. Call in the abundance.
Say your I am statements out loud. I am powerful. I am protected. Everything is working out for me.
Ask it: universe, show me how good it gets to be.
Drink your coffee. Ready for the day.

Mantras to borrow

Good luck, bad luck, who knows.
Universe, show me how good it gets to be.
Everything is working out for me.
This is the unusual way I am going to get everything I want.

Pick one and stick to it. Do the whole thing every day for sixty-six days. That number comes from Phillippa Lally's habit research at University College London: a median of 66 days before a new behaviour runs automatic, with real people landing anywhere from 18 to 254. So it takes work. It takes discipline. Day sixty-seven, it starts carrying you.

Make it yours: try everything until you find a combo you love. The meditation can change. The bubble stays.

Ritual No. 02 · Middle of the Day · Move the Energy

Grief doesn't keep a timeline. When it lands at 1pm, it needs somewhere to go.

Five to ten minutes, or a whole afternoon. Whatever the day allows.

The ceremony

Put your hand on your heart.
Repeat: you are calm. Everything happens for my highest good.
Then: I love you. I love you. I love you.

Now move it. Pick one and do it all the way: talk about it, out loud, to someone who can hold it. Go dancing. Scream into a pillow. Go to the gym. Go to a class. Go to an event. Curl up in your bed soup and watch a sh1tty horror movie and eat a quesadilla. Snuggle your dog, get a dog. Hum until your chest buzzes. Cry, actually cry, don't swallow it. Make yourself a fun drink and treat the making as the ritual. Get on Insight Timer and drop into a free live session.

Activate all five senses before you go back to your day. Something to smell, taste, touch, hear, see. Grief lives in the body. That's where you meet it and move it.

Make it yours: figure out what time of day you can actually make a habit. Morning person, afternoon person, night person. The one you'll repeat is the one that works.

Ritual No. 03 · Night · Tend the Shell

End of the night, when there's stillness. You made it!

Fifteen minutes.

Gather

One candle
Rosewater in a mist bottle
Facial gua sha tools. Get the real ones, they're worth it. For technique I recommend the videos of our friend Emiko Oye.
Tea, with a splash of Heartbreak Healer stirred through while it's hot.

The ceremony

Overhead light off. Lamp on. Or Candle.
Spray your face with the rosewater until it's properly wet. Find your favorite Squalane.
Gua sha, slow. Along the jaw, down the neck.
Sip the tea between passes and hold the mug with both hands until it cools.
Palm flat on your chest. Slow circles. I love you. I love you. I love you.
Finish the tea. Get ready for bed. Turn out the lights, Blow out the candle.

You don't have to move forward. You just have to look forward.

Make it yours: no tools yet? The back of a cold spoon works tonight, order the stone tomorrow.

Ritual No. 04 · Full Moon · The Release

The full moon is for letting go. Everything you've been dragging behind you gets one night a month with a door.

About twenty minutes. After dark, under the moon if you can get to it.

Gather

Heartbreak Healer, 1 oz
Seltzer, 5 to 6 oz, very cold
Ice, and a wide glass
A strip of lemon peel
One candle
Easy paper, a pen
A metal dish, with water within reach

The pour

Fill the glass with ice. One ounce of Heartbreak Healer over the top, then seltzer poured slow down the inside of the glass so the bubbles survive. Twist the lemon peel over the surface, run it around the rim, drop it in. Stir once, barely.

The ceremony

Kill the overhead light and light the candle. Your phone goes in another room, face down.
First sip before anything else. Pink peppercorn arrives ahead of everything, then the lavender comes in underneath it. Stay there a second.
Write down everything you're feeling that you want to let go. All the grief you're ready to release. Every name, every 2am sentence. Don't make it poetic.
Read it out loud, once, to nobody.
Burn it in the metal dish, safely, water right there. Tear it into pieces small enough that no line survives if fire makes you nervous.
Finish the drink and do nothing else while you do it. This is the hard part.
Blow out the candle. Say it out loud.

Make it yours

Slower: one ounce over hot chamomile instead of seltzer.
Sweeter: one ounce to five of lemonade, extra ice.
With a spirit: an ounce and a half of gin before the seltzer.
Dessert: pour it over vanilla ice cream and skip the glass entirely.

Ritual No. 05 · New Moon · The Summoning

The full moon empties your hands. The new moon is what you reach for with them. Dark sky, blank page, two weeks before the moon comes back to check on you.

About twenty minutes. After dark. One glass.

Gather

Your delicious beverage. One ounce of Heartbreak Healer over ice, seltzer to fill, or a splash in hot tea.
One candle
Good paper this time. This one you keep.
A pen that works
Something to seal it. Ribbon, wax, a paperclip you like. Optional.

The ceremony

Light the candle in an otherwise dark room. New moon means no moonlight, so make your own.
First sip. Ask it out loud: universe, show me how good it gets to be.
Write down what you're summoning. Not what you're escaping, what you're calling in. Name it like it's already on its way. Abundance looks like this. Power feels like this. My mornings sound like this.
Read the list out loud, once, like you mean it. read it again.
Fold the paper toward you. Toward, not away. Seal it if you've got something to seal it with.
Put it somewhere you'll see it without trying: under the candle, in your wallet, taped inside the medicine cabinet.
Finish the drink to what's coming. At the full moon, take the list out and read it before you write the release. Whatever showed up, thank it. Whatever hasn't, it has until the next dark sky.

Make it yours: one thing summoned at a time works too. A single word on a single card can pull harder than a page.

The Fine Print

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. Name on it if you want your name on it. Send it through the contact page.

Thirsty for more? More recipes

Sources

Broken heart syndrome, takotsubo cardiomyopathy: American Heart Association, which lists grief, breakups, and betrayal among documented triggers.

The heart's electromagnetic field: research published by the HeartMath Institute, which measures the heart's magnetic field as the body's largest and its electrical output as greater than the brain's.

The 66 days: Phillippa Lally and colleagues, University College London, "How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world," European Journal of Social Psychology, 2010. Median 66 days to automaticity, individual range 18 to 254.

The farmer and his horse: a Taoist fable from the Huainanzi, compiled around 139 BCE.

Kintsugi: the Japanese craft of repairing broken ceramics with lacquer and powdered gold, keeping the cracks visible as part of the object's history. Described in Britannica.

Carrie Nation, 1846 to 1911: her decade of hatchetation in Kansas bars, and the nickname, are documented in Britannica and the Kansas Historical Society's records.

Gua sha technique: videos by Emiko Oye.