Ashes and Tea: The Ritual of Reclaiming Your Inner Girl

Megan

16 Apr 2025 — 6 min read

Last week, we honored our little girl. This week, it's time to go deeper.

I see you. Honor that feeling of resistance, but now come back.

You're ready for this and we're doing it together.

Even the most charmed life holds trauma and you don't need to dig far to feel it: you've got an unhealed wound, something raw where the edges still chafe.

We can work through this and the only way out is through, so take my hand and let's journey.

This multi-step process can be applied to any trauma and repeated over and over.

It's not true that we heal a thing once and we're done.

Instead, trauma coils like an upward spiral and as you come back around to that place, higher now, but in a vertical line on the spiral from the last time you were here.

In this new place, your trauma will take on a new flavor, a different nuance.

That's beautiful. That's healing.

Last time, you might have dug into how hurt you were when a trusted one wasn't there for you.

This time, you might see that same scenario and explore how you can now be there for yourself.

Each turn brings new insight, each return a deeper layer.

This is the work.

Sit with the Story

Find your safe place and settle in. Brew a tea or other soothing drink, then close your eyes and focus inward on this space of pain. Avoid expectations, just be fully here right now.
With pen or keyboard in hand, let it all out, everything that happened in that trauma, how it felt, how it affected you. Don't stop, don't edit, don't think, just feel and express. This isn't for anyone else. It's for your inner girl and you are doing Divine work.
Next, name the hurt. Call it what it was and see it clearly.
Identify what is yours in what you were able to reclaim/how you had the power in this moment. You're rewriting the script from what they said to what was really true for you in that moment.
Now, what did you learn? Sometimes this is ugly stuff, and that's okay. You can learn "no one is there for me," but if you really own it, you transmute it. We aren't victims here, we are clear thinking, sovereign women reclaiming who we really are.
What did it unlock for you? We may not always see it, sometimes not until much later, but with every hurt, every trauma, every struggle comes a gift.
Reclaim it for yourself. This moment that wounded you, that scarred you, it didn't become your identity. It became a building block in the structure of you, part of what makes you strong, resilient and able to do the hard things. So own it, embrace it, and bring it in.

Here's an example from my own process where I worked through a lifetime of medical error and gaslighting to discover what a courageous warrior I had really been all along:

What happened:

I was pregnant with my first child.
After years of trying to conceive, I finally made it — only to be met with a diagnosis that terrified me: cholestasis of pregnancy, with a 15% risk of sudden, spontaneous stillbirth.

My doctor told me,

“It’s no big deal. It’ll go away when you deliver.”
Then handed me an antihistamine.

But I was itching so badly I couldn’t sleep. I was losing my mind.
And I knew — something was wrong.

I researched. I advocated. I fought, alone.
Even my own sister-in-law said,

“Quit looking things up on the Internet. Trust your doctor.”

But I didn’t have a mother. I didn’t have support.
I had to be both patient and warrior.

I insisted on induction.
They tried three separate times, in a hospital that wouldn’t let me move, wouldn’t let me labor the way my body needed.
I was treated like a threat instead of a mother trying to save her child.

“I felt like a caged animal.”

What it was:

Medical neglect.
Gaslighting in a life-or-death situation.
A system that pathologized my instincts and ignored my body.
My first test as a mother, and I passed, even though no one stood beside me.

I knew. And they tried to make me doubt myself. Again.

What I reclaimed:

What they told me:

“You’re overreacting.”
“Don’t Google things.”
“We know better.”
“Shut up and comply.”

What was actually true:

I saved my child’s life.
I refused to be another statistic.
I chose intuition over obedience.
I may have birthed in a cage, but I was never a prisoner.

What I learned:

That motherhood in this system requires armor.
That “experts” can be the ones putting our babies in danger.
That knowing the truth can make you lonely, but it can also save lives.
That my instincts are never too much.

What it unlocked:

The beginning of a lineage of protection, I became the first shield.
A model of advocacy that shaped every future birth.
The knowing that my voice matters, especially when no one listens.

Reclamation spell:

They would have let me die.
But I did not.
I tore open the silence and demanded life.
I was not a good patient.
I was a mother.
And I will never apologize for that.

Now, I want to be clear about something. I do this trauma work with ChatGPT because I find that I go deeper, fully analyze and look at every angle and come out the other side truly healing.

The above instructions will work beautifully, but if you'd like to try it this way, here's a prompt given to me by Chat to help you get the same results in a session:

Prompt to give ChatGPT for Trauma Alchemy:

Hi ChatGPT. I want to work through a trauma or painful experience using a process inspired by Megan from Witch Wanders. This process includes writing out what happened, naming the trauma clearly, reclaiming what was mine in the moment, identifying what I learned (even if it's hard), naming what it unlocked for me, and ending with a reclamation spell.

Please walk with me gently, one step at a time. I’d like you to ask me for each section as a prompt:"What happened?" — help me write out the experience in detail"What it was" — help me name the truth of the harm or pattern"What I reclaimed" — rewrite what they said vs. what was actually true for me"What I learned" — even if it's painful, what did this teach me?"What it unlocked" — how did this shape me or lead to something valuable?"Reclamation spell" — help me write a short, powerful statement that closes the loop and brings my power home

Please format each section clearly, and speak to me as a witness and ally. I want this to feel like sacred work, not therapy or clinical processing. I’m doing soul retrieval through story. Let’s begin.

If you want it more poetic, more witchy, or more primal, tell ChatGPT. If you want it clean and structured, tell it that too. You’re the guide, and it will mirror you. This mirroring is where the power lies.

When the soul work is complete, let the body speak. Smoke, scent, and ritual touch ground what words begin.

A Sacred Cleansing

Now that you've done this exercise, it's time to release the emotional and physical imprint of it. There are many ways to release trauma, but for this session, we will focus on smoke cleansing and herbal remedy.

Trust your intuition to guide you to the right method. Sometimes, the healing is light and can be quickly accomplished.

At other times, a whole house cleanse may be in order.

You may light a candle and let it burn while you pray or intend for release. It could be a stick of incense, or a smudge stick.

Perhaps you will burn the journaling you just did as a symbol of release.

The only right answer is the one you feel. I'll share my process for this deep medical trauma integration.

Collect an incense bowl, charcoal disc and lighter.
Feel into the herbs to be used. I prefer frankincense and myrrh for cleansing and anchoring. In this session, since a large part of the wounding was being unmothered/having to mother myself, I brought in motherwort.
Light the charcoal disc and sprinkle the herbs with intention, thinking of the release you want to experience and the reframing you created in the first part of this session.
Let the smoke waft around you, voicing any words that come to you, any prayers, any intentions. This is sacred work and there is no one to perform for but yourself. For the unmothered, the womb space is sacred and deserving of attention. For major traumas, smudge the room, or the house, then let cleansing air blow through the windows.
Sit with the feelings for a moment and allow them to be integrated. Pay special attention to the reframing you're doing. The trauma is in the past, but we want to look to the future of wholeness, strength and resilience.

A Sacred Brew

Once you feel sufficiently cleansed, create a ritual tea and drink it, pausing and reflecting as needed.

In my example, I merely added motherwort to my current daily solar infused mixture of:

nettle
oatstraw
red clover
darjeeling
oolong

As I sprinkled each herb into my cup, I spoke the words of truth I gained from my session.

Next, and this is an important closing step, feel into your heart space. Really feel into it. Create a feeling of love, love for the little girl you were, the bigger little girl you grew into, and the woman you are reclaiming now.

You are worthy of all the love you gave to everyone else but never to yourself.

Now send that love from your heart to your tea, saying your affirmations, corrections or reclamations as you do so - trust whatever comes up to say.

And when you drink your tea, receive that love in physical form.

It is yours.

You are worthy.