Grief Journaling Without Words

When you lose someone important to you, it can be overwhelming to try to put what you feel into words. Sadness, anger, regret, helplessness. You are being bombarded with your own emotions, as well as those of your loved ones, and at first, it may feel suffocating and incomprehensible to try to express your grief. 

Allow yourself to take it slow and mourn in your own way. If you don’t feel ready to use journal writing therapy to explore your feelings yet, find another way to communicate them: through art.

Grief Journaling With Your Artist

• Look around your house to find an artistic medium that works for you – a box of crayons, a tin of watercolors, a stack of magazines, an album of photos or just a plain old pencil. Clear off a table as your workspace and arrange everything you need to get started.

• Open your journal and take a few moments to breathe and reflect on your loved one who passed away.

• Start small and begin creating pictures, designs or collages with the materials you have selected. Try not to think too much about what you’re doing— just act intuitively.

You might begin by sketching a memory you have of the person you lost, then switch to cutting pictures out of magazines that resonate with you, then change to painting geometric patterns around the border of the page. This is perfectly fine; there is no right or wrong method to art journaling. Let go of your linear adult thinking and try to channel your creative inner child. Along the way, if you feel the desire to write, give into it and incorporate words into your art. Keep creating until you run out of steam.

• Leave your artwork for a day and look at it again with fresh eyes. What does it say to you? How does it express what you were feeling at the time? How does it differ from how you are feeling today? Repeat the process as many times as you like.

Have you ever used art as a form of grief journaling? How do you handle grief with art, with words or….? Please share your experiences in the comments. It will help a lot of us especially this time of year!

You can find another journal writing blog article here on Grief Journaling.