Hello Mortals, 🥀
Grief is heavy work — not just the grief we carry in our own hearts, but the grief we witness, tend, and hold for others.
Whether you are an artist, a death doula, a grief worker, a nurse, a caregiver, someone who is grieving — or some combination of these — you are familiar with this truth: grief moves through the body. It is physical, energetic, visceral. It can become stuck, heavy, wordless.
As I process the grief of my own personal loss, my nursing experiences, and the grief in the world, I learn that my grief requires a consistent creative practice. It has allowed me to express and feel through the complexity of what words cannot say.
And this is where creativity becomes more than “self-care” — it becomes grief practice.
It becomes a way to metabolize what we carry.
Why Art + Creativity Matter in Grief:
✨ They give form to the unspoken.
✨ They let the body speak when words fail.
✨ They create movement where things feel stuck.
✨ They honor the sacredness of what we hold.
✨ They allow space for both beauty and sorrow.
Creative Invitations:
🎨 Mark-making: paint, draw, scribble — with no goal of “art,” just feeling.
📓 Collage grief: images, textures, pieces of memory.
🪡 Stitch, weave, mend — slow handwork as ritual.
🖋️ Write: poems, fragments, letters to those who have passed — or to yourself.
🧑🏽🎤 Sound: hum, sing, drum, let voice or rhythm move what words cannot.
📷 Photograph: moments of shadow + light — grief in the world around you.
💃Movement: move to the rhythm of a song that reminds you of a loved one, choreograph your own grief dance, practice yoga or aerobics, stretch, walk, or move your body in any way that feels right for you.
For those of us in the work of care — who hold grief for others: Creativity can be one of the few spaces where we are held, too. Where we are not just tending — but being tended to, through the act of making.
A gentle reminder:
Your grief matters, too.
Your body needs ways to release, to express, to move.
You do not have to carry this only in your mind — or in silence.
If you feel called, let yourself make something this week — not for an audience, not for a gallery, but for your own heart.
With gratitude for the care you offer the world — and for the courage it takes to create, even in sorrow,
-Liz 💙