Lost in Grief--and A Way Out

Not quite 2:00 a.m. The rawness of my grief struck home, deep in my belly. The fear I had not allowed myself to feel in the hospital with Dad engulfed me. I felt the tearing of my heart as I tried to care for my father, prepare my brother, console my mother--and keep my commitments to my fledgling business.  Hardest was the sense of failure, failure to be there for my Dad in the way he needed me, failure to communicate with the hospital staff and arrange for my 86 year old mother to talk with the doctor.


Daylight now, and I came across this idea from Kara Jones,  a grief counselor who is going through her own grieving process:

When you feel yourself lost in grief stuff -- especially when you feel it physically like, feeling it in the pit of your stomach or when you have a gut instinct -- try mapping your body.  Take a large piece of butcher paper and have someone else do an outline of your body.  Then you take your time and fill in the body outline with words, collaged images, sketches.  Focus on the places in the body where you were "feeling it in the pit of your stomach" or "seeing red," that kind of thing.  Let yourself see the reflection of your body and feelings in the body outline.  Play, experiment, let yourself write words and then collage over them, then write more words.  There is no right or wrong way to do this.  It's just a way of getting outside endless rounds of unanswerable questions or the hooks that have you stuck feeling one way or another.

I think I might make a paper doll instead of a full sized body outline. Maybe dress her/me in ... not black.... Tulip colors, White sail against Blue sky colors, colors of the adventures we had together when I was growing up with my father..