Being Creative Within Your Grief

Creatively Coping with Greif

Extraordinary artistic expression from a bereaved mother's point of view.

At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arise from a single source. When you are an artist, you are a healer; a wordless trust of the same mystery is the foundation of your work and its integrity.

From my own experiences, I have learned how important it is to be creative within our grief. It wasn't until I reached a huge point in my healing that I could look back on myself and see just how much my creativity had helped me in coping with my grief.

I have expressed my grief through so many creative ways. I think for me, it truly began with taking care of Kyle's grave. It was never just simply going to the cemetery, taking flowers and replacing things. It was something more than that. It was in the huge ways that I maintained it. It was making special things, keeping fresh flowers 24/7, it was always an endless change and a day by day process for me. Not only was I allowing the expression of my feelings through by being creative, it also allowed me to bring emotions to the surface and embrace them.

Within the first month of Kyle's death, I decided to put a small ceramic egg on his gave. I would write him a note with every visit and leave it in this egg. The egg was eventually replaced with a big ivory water tight and weather resistant box. Almost 5 years later, and this box still remains; and I still leave him a note with every visit.

I worked at playing the guitar. I paint and I'm also a writer and working on my first book. I stayed very creative, produc-tive and expressive with my grief. What has since amazed me, is the fact that I had no idea that I was actually being creative. It was just something I did, and it was by nature. I had no idea that I was actually, blindly contributing to my own healing process.

I have since incorporated this technique into my studies, and when on a whim, began to reasearch this theory I was surprised in my findings. I was dead spot on with the thoughts and ideas with Doctors and Grief Specialists. Creative projects can help a grieving person find a way to express grief. Remembering someone, whether in writing, song, or other artistic media, can be very therapeutic. A grieving person may not know the words, or the words do not exist, to adequately express the deep emotion of grief. Turning to other means of expressing the grief can help bring that grief to life. Creative expression can also help lift a grieving person’s spirits; this can help bring the inner chaotic emotions deep inside to the surface by discovering original ways of expressing intense, difficult emotions. Creating expressions of grief or experiencing the unique endeavors of others, is a reminder of the recuperative power of humans — the ability to create beauty or find hope in loss and tragedy. I feel so passionate about this process, because I know first hand how much it helps us.

Each of us possesses our own special talents and creative gifts, whether you are a writer, dancer, actor, gardener, cook, painter, musician or photographer.

Finding creative ways to expess ourselves within our grief serves us in so many ways .. The possibilities are endless.