Grief and the Creative Process

“Grief is subversive, undermining the quiet agreement to behave and be in control of our emotions. It is an act of protest that declares our refusal to live numb and small. There is something feral about grief, something essentially outside the ordained and sanctioned behaviors of our culture. Because of that, grief is necessary to the vitality of the soul. Contrary to our fears, grief is suffused with life-force.... It is not a state of deadness or emotional flatness. Grief is alive, wild, untamed and cannot be domesticated. It resists the demands to remain passive and still. We move in jangled, unsettled, and riotous ways when grief takes hold of us. It is truly an emotion that rises from the soul.”

~ Francis Weller: https://www.francisweller.net/

Art: Jowie Lim @JowieLimArt

(Quote and Image originally posted on The Cosmic Dancer)

I saw this quote on Facebook this morning, and I thought of the multiple writers I’m currently working with who are moving through the grieving process—in their lives and/or in their writing material. It seems to be a common theme these days; I know I have my own layers of grief, too. Through our conversations and our editing, I’m exploring the link between grief and the creative process.

The thing I notice most is that grief is not linear, not logical. It is unpredictable. It is pure emotion and, in that, pure energy.

Sometimes I grieve and I don't even know I am—it's just a particular feeling moving through my body. I think I’m fine…almost. For a day, or week, I’ll tell my friends, "I don't know why I'm feeling so, I don't know, funky." I’ll sense a heavy, buzzy feeling gathering in my body, like clouds on the horizon. And then, if I can find a moment, I sometimes remember to slow down enough to just ask my body about it. What are you actually feeling?

I’ll just sit there. I’ll try not to do anything. Just sit there. In stillness, with that funky feeling. To see if anything tiptoes towards me.

Only then in the stillness will I recognize the sensation as grief. Oh yeah, it’s you.

A memory often then comes from my body's storage: grieving a childhood moment; a friendship lost in high school; a confusing argument with a friend that has my harsh inner voices all riled up; a choice made; a missed opportunity.

Acknowledging the feeling or the memory from a place of stillness seems to let the energy go. Grief is just energy. Acknowledging the reality of grief’s presence is an intimate moment with my own body. The tears come. And, with them, some strange kind of relief. Relief because my body knows I finally have the capacity to feel whatever has been lost, tucked away, and that I am now strong enough to be with it. From stillness comes movement.

The movement is the scary part, and that’s what I think we—I—my writers—resist. The unpredictability of that movement. Grief can look and feel and be expressed so many different ways. About things lost, things discovered, things forgotten. Grieve about the past. Grief about future that will never come to be, or never even has the opportunity to maybe come to be.

In the movement of the energy, time changes. I like to say that grief is a time-traveler. In grief, I have tapped into timeless time—the pain and love and sorrow and ache and anger becomes *everything.* Time balloons, and a moment becomes an eon with only sensations and pure, primal acknowledgement of what is. And sometimes times slows down instead, and a few minutes become hours. Forward and back into memories and raw futures.

My friend, Laura Kalpakian reminds me that grief evolves, too. It’s not always disorienting or challenging. The sensations of grief soften with time. Even if the grief never disappears completely, it becomes a thread, a tether, to what once was. A reminder of the love that is still here, the connection with a beloved or a part of myself or a dream that will never completely disappear—because it ties me, still, to what was before.

So, for all of you writers who are working through your grief to get to the page, or who are water-coloring your grief onto the page through words, I offer this:

Grief is just an energy. Simply. stay. with. the. process.

Be still. Let it approach you. Let it say its name. Then let it move you. Allow your relationship with the nonlinear quality of grief teach you about the nonlinear practice of harnessing creativity. Let grief change your size, your volume, your direction. Allow it to surprise you. Invite it, ultimately, soften and enrich you, and to give you a line forward as well as back.

As Francis Weller says, "[G]rief is necessary to the vitality of the soul. Contrary to our fears, grief is suffused with life-force.... It is not a state of deadness or emotional flatness. Grief is alive, wild, untamed and cannot be domesticated."

You cannot organize grief into a time schedule or force it into a plot line. (That can come later in the editing process; but not yet, not now.) So take your time and be gentle with yourself. Grief reminds us of our primal, animal ways.

So, dear writers, buy a good pair of spiritual rain boots and a good brimmed hat made of courage, put your attention in your feet to keep yourself grounded no matter what. Allow your relationship with grief to teach you how to keep your hand moving across the page. Surrender to your vital, creative process.