A few years ago, after receiving many requests, I finally wrote an expressive arts grief course which is now a module in my year long expressive art and writing course. Because I have walked along the road of loss in my own life many times, and I also worked with people at the end-of-life for ten years, I often felt too close to grief. Yet, once I decided to write the course, it flowed forth with ease and clarity.
I have travelled through the grief of losing loved ones many times, and each time the process has been so different. The loss of my mother deeply infected my heart chakra in a very painful way and the loss of my father opened up my third eye and crown chakra in a beautiful and inspiring way.
Yet, despite all my varied grief experiences, I know that there is a human map for processing grief. Recently, I reread my grief e-course, and I must say, I think it is a beautiful program for healing grief. It is simple enough to read, understand and implement while intensely grieving the loss of a loved one.
Since grief manifests in so many ways, I have written a human roadmap of healing tasks that you can attend to, in order to complete your various types of grief. In the course module, there is a beautiful new PDF for you to download. And, if you have not yet taken my year-long course, it brings me such joy to share this free excerpt from my grief course with you here.
Featured Module Excerpt:
The Dance of Emotions, Energy and Action
Before you begin the activities in this course, I want to share the creative way that I work with arising emotions. Spontaneous art and writing are such profound ways to work with the grief because they get your emotions moving, providing greater access to insights for healing.
Receive, Direct, Create
1. Receive Information: Emotions have a purpose, and they need to be fully felt. Emotions also carry important information about how to guide your life. Locate the place in your body where your emotion resides. Engage with your emotion by acknowledging it with gratitude and openness.
The information contained within an emotion will make itself known through your imagination in the form of pictures or sudden thoughts. You might even be able to see the link to how a limiting belief is causing your emotion. Note all emotional insights in your grief journal.
2. Direct the Energy: When an emotion is felt but not listened to, the energy builds internally and causes agitation. Acknowledge the emotion, and express it in your spontaneous art and writing. Even if you do not yet understand what life-forward movement the emotion is indicating, listen to emotional energy by doing one of the creative exercises in this course each day. Release your painful emotions through word-play and image-making.
3. Take Creative Action: Each negative emotion contains the seed of a healing antidote. A negative emotion always indicates that a higher heart-centered action is needed. When you bring all of your emotions into your heart, you can access ideas about the creative action you need to take to uplift you out of emotional pain.
