53 - Megan Sheldon - Be Ceremonial: The Creative Alchemy of Rituals

SUMMARY Megan Sheldon, a seasoned End of Life Doula, Celebrant, and Cultural Mythologist, guides us through the profound significance of rituals and ceremonies in acknowledging life's transitions, especially during moments of loss and change. With her background and expertise, Megan shares insights into the transformative potential of these practices, offering tools and frameworks for creating personalized rituals. She emphasizes their role in processing emotions like anger and grief, discussing their historical absence in modern society and how they were once fundamental in ancient cultures. Megan's personal experiences, including recurrent pregnancy losses and the loss of a loved one, fuelled her passion for empowering others through rituals, showcased by a poignant story of creating a meaningful ritual for her father's dying friend. This episode is a heartfelt exploration of how rituals serve as powerful tools for emotional healing and understanding in life's most challenging moments.EPISODE NOTES In this episode, Megan Sheldon, End of Life Doula, Celebrant, Cultural Mythologist and Founder of BE Ceremonial, an organization that supports people through grief and loss through bespoke rituals and ceremonies, takes us on a journey into the transformative potential of rituals and ceremonies. Megan,  who has her Masters in Cultural Mythology, has helped thousands of individuals connect with their inner creative instincts to craft meaningful experiences by activating the power of ritual and ceremony to acknowledge life's moments, particularly amidst loss or change. Throughout the episode, Megan answers thought-provoking questions that unravel the essence and importance of rituals and ceremonies, delving into the mechanics of their magic, empowering listeners to explore and incorporate rituals into their lives.Megan shares her framework of creating ceremonies (her 1-5 ingredients), tools for building personalized rituals, examples of rituals resolving past traumas, to the societal absence of rituals surrounding significant life events like death and miscarriages. She delves into the lost connection to creativity, exploring how rituals and ceremonies were once integral to ancient cultures but have been largely excluded from modern Western society. Megan shares her perspective on rituals as a means to process emotions, addressing anger, grief, and other overlooked feelings, emphasizing their role in guiding us through life's emotional landscapes. She enlightens listeners on the mechanics of ritual magic and provides guidance for individuals seeking to incorporate rituals into their lives.She opens up about how her own recurrent pregnancy losses and the loss of a close family member led her to turn to ceremony and ritual to make sense of and heal from those losses, and how that sparked a passion in her to empowering others to tap into the power of rituals as a means of authentically expressing and navigating complex feelings. And she shares a deeply touching story about creating a ritual for her father's dying friend, a story that had me in tears. Throughout the episode, Megan touches on various aspects, from the framework of creating ceremonies (her 1-5 ingredients), tools for building personalized rituals, examples of rituals resolving past traumas, to the societal absence of rituals surrounding significant life events like death and miscarriages. She delves into the lost connection to creativity, exploring how rituals and ceremonies were once integral to ancient cultures but have been largely excluded from modern Western society. Megan shares her perspective on rituals as a means to process emotions, addressing anger, grief, and other overlooked feelings, emphasizing their role in guiding us through life's emotional landscapes. She enlightens listeners on the mechanics of ritual magic and provides guidance for individuals seeking to incorporate rituals into their lives. What we Talk About-Understanding and practice of rituals and ceremonies.-The mechanics of rituals and their potency in guiding individuals through difficult emotional landscapes-Megan’s 1-5 ingredients and a list of tools she uses to empower individuals in building personalized and impactful rituals.-How you can begin to invite ritual and ceremony into your life-Societal pressure to pursue constant happiness, leading to the neglect of negative emotions and how rituals can help us learn to sit with the uncomfortable -Examples of transformative rituals designed by Megan, that have supported people to resolve traumatic experiences from their past.About Kate ShepherdKate Shepherd, Founder of Morning Moon Nature Jewelry and Creative Genius Inc., is a celebrated artist and podcast host, making waves in the world of creativity. Her jewelry has appeared in Netflix's "Yellowjackets" and Disney's "Once Upon a Time," while earning recognition from stars like Andie Macdowell (a repeat customer) and Meghan Markle, who once called her on the phone to tell her how much Kate’s jewelry meant to her. But Kate's story is not just one of artistic achievement; her true passion and calling is for supporting the human spirit to return to its creative roots. Kate believes Humanity is Glitching™ because we have collectively become disconnected from our inner creative gifts, and through her podcasts, meditations, writing, and workshops, she dedicates herself to helping as many people as she can to find and activate their intuition and creativity. Despite a challenging childhood and discouragement from early “teachers” Kate forged her own path with creativity at the helm. Her podcast, "The Creative Genius Podcast," empowers others to find their creative voices, too, it ranks among the top 1% of podcasts, globally.Kate resides in North Vancouver with her two kids and rescue dog, Maggie. Join her newsletter for art classes, workshops, exclusive content, and a chance to win a piece of her work.