Sound is integral to life. Upon our first breath into the world, we let out a wail. 

Lament also starts with a wail, says Stefan Andre Waligur, a member of the Benedictine monastery of Shantivanam in India, who has studied and researched the practice of lament. “We need to wail—just wail when we’re in the throes of grief,” he says. 

Lamentation is an expression of grief, sadness or pain. It’s “crying with words.” This entails plentiful wet tears and intense sound to unleash what’s inside of you. “The entire repertoire of the heart needs to be released,” emphasizes Waligur. “It’s passionate and poetic.”

An ancient tradition led by women, lament expressed the despair of entire communities and families. Men would step back and give the women space to enact the custom. “Lamenting helped to sustain the community,” Waligur says. “It was a powerful healing experience.”

Women cried out and wept, carrying and tending to the sorrow of a culture. As funeral keeners, they would yell and bellow, yank at their clothes, and fall onto the ground in fits of fierce sobbing, exteriorizing the grief of everyone.

“Lamenting is really about opening your heart,” he explains. “Letting it out is the way.”

Waligur suggests five ways to lament and acknowledge grief.

Use Your Voice

With lamentation you’re processing emotions through sound or song. So, sing or call out. 

Hearing your own voice is therapeutic. Find a word or phrase and recite it again and again. Repeating a mantra is a way of embedding something and becoming one with it. Repetition is a form of prayer and worship—it’s a holy exercise. 

Create an Altar 

Lamentation is a type of ritual, so use the corner of a room in your home to make a sacred space for ritual and healing. Add photos, candles, incense, flowers—whatever has meaning for you. This is a holy place, a mini temple that holds you while you grieve. 

Cultivate your own daily ritual—whether it’s kneeling while saying a prayer, rubbing a stone or lighting a candle. Find what works for you.

Look to Poetry

Poetry is a container that serves the passion of lament like “the banks of a river moving the grief where it needs to go and flow,” Waligur notes. 

Drink in the verses. Say them aloud. Let the energy of the lyrics permeate your body. Move with the tone and cadence. 

Write your own poem or lament. Say it out loud.

Practice Silence 

Silence promotes truth. And this helps you attune to your feelings, bringing you back to yourself. 

Carve out time for silence three times a day for 10 minutes. 

Through stillness and quiet, you’re getting in touch with the most important thing: your heart. “You’re listening to your heart…learning to feel,” he explains. And by tapping into your inner self, you access and generate the means to grieve and heal. 

The more you sit in silence, the easier and richer it becomes, and the more benefits you reap.

Gather Together

Just as lamenting was done on behalf of a community, find or start a group where members gather to reveal pain. “Sharing sorrow in a communal setting enhances our own experience of lament,” says Waligur. This can be a weekly or monthly gathering to express individual or collective loss through singing or chanting. 

“You’re never alone, you’re not isolated,” says Waligur, adding that your ancestors, spiritual guides, and invisible helpers are always present to assist you through grief. “You have help in the unseen world.” 

Robin Fasano is a regular contributor to Natural Awakenings.