Post by Maureen Pollard, MSW, RSW
Creative Outlets for Grief
In the depth of raw, deep grief it can be hard to find words to express your feelings. Perhaps you are not much of a talker, anyway. Maybe this terrible tragedy has left you speechless. There may be no words for the terrible experience you find yourself caught up in.
In times like this, expressive arts can provide a way for the feelings to flow. Such a release of feelings can ease the pain a little, as you put move some of the painful emotions gripping your heart out into the world. Making art can help shift the emotional burden you’re carrying, making it more manageable. Your creative pieces can help people understand what you feel like.
Music
Sing your sorrows out by making up lyrics to a familiar tune that brings you comfort. As your own words flow with the music you can feel the emotions flow, too.
Alternately, maybe you have a brand new melody rolling through your mind with words and phrases joining together to express your feelings. Writing your own song can be a powerful path to share your experience.
Drawing and Painting
Whether you prefer pencils, oil pastels or paints, creating images and using colour can be freeing. Sometimes an abstract piece that is full of colour or dark with shadows shows your internal landscapes as you navigate your grief. Other times it can feel comforting to create an image that is symbolic of your memories of the person who died and sentiments related to your grief.
Collage
Creating memorial collage, or a scrap-book style memento is an alternative to drawing and painting for those who feel more comfortable selecting images and words and arranging them together. Using photographs, personal mementos, old magazines and craft supplies, you can create a beautiful tribute to your person that honours your relationship and memories.
Dance and Theatre
Choreography of a series of movements especially designed to express the range of your feelings or in memory of your loved one. Creating scenes that represent important moments in your relationship, or incidents of your grief experience. Through physical actions such as these, you may gain a sense of relief as you embody emotion and bring your inner world to life.
Poetry
A poignant turn of phrase. A description that creates a vivid image. Words that link together thoughts, feelings and illustrations of your experience of love and loss. Poetry can be short and simple, or it can be long, meandering through events. It can rhyme, but it doesn’t have to.
Journaling and Memoir
Writing about your feelings and experiences can be healing. If you take time regularly to create a safe and comfortable space to write in, with privacy and permission, you can begin to understand what has happened. Writing can help you make sense of your story, and move it out into the world in a way that helps you feel relief. When your story is written and rewritten until it offers insight and recovery, it may even be ready to share with others to offer support, understanding and hope for those who come after you in your particular experience of loss.
It can be painful to talk about grief. Yet healing usually involves finding someway to hold the pain, to express the experience and shift your perspective in order to ease the burden of carrying loss that is yours for life. If talking is too hard, experiment with making art.
Remember:
- There is no way to do this wrong. All of your art is meaningful and important just because it is yours.
- You don’t have to share any art you don’t want to. This process is for your healing first and foremost.
- Your grief is your own to navigate, in your own way, at your own pace, with expressive art or without. You are always free to choose.