By Has anyone ever recommended that you write about your grief? Journaling has proven is a proven method for releasing feelings of anxiety and despair onto a piece of paper rather than swirling in our bodies.
According to the University of Rochester Medical Center, journaling is a helpful tool for expressing our emotions and can help you: manage anxiety, reduce stress, and cope with depression. Further, it can help control these symptoms and improve your mood by helping you prioritize problems, fears, and concerns. Sometimes when we are so lost in grief, we forget that there is any solution at all.
If journalism isn’t your thing, maybe you are considering writing a personal essay about your experience with death and loss? These tips can be used for any kind of writing on the subject of death, dying, and grief. What I’ve learned in my two years of writing specifically about death, and nearly a decade of freelancing, is that even the driest of topics will benefit from your vulnerability as a writer.
A Guide to Writing on Death, Dying, and Grief
Curate the Vibe
Before you begin putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard), it is imperative to curate the vibe. As I write this, I am sitting at the Subaru dealership waiting for an oil change. I can’t exactly light some candles and dim the lights, but I can find the most comfortable chair near an outlet, grab a coffee, put on my headphones with some instrumental music that matches the energy of what I’m writing, and do my best.
Even the driest of topics will benefit from your vulnerability as a writer.
If you have the luxury of curating your physical space a bit more, get comfortable. As someone with ADHD, it can completely pull me out of my thought process if my back starts aching because of my sitting position. I love to set a pillow and my heating pad behind my back, make something warm to drink, and make sure the space around me is clean and organized so I don’t have to think about all the other tasks I need to do.
Use a brand new journal that you’ve dedicated specifically to writing about death and grief. If you prefer typing, set yourself up with a window cleared of any other tabs and full screen the document.
Write Around the Grief
As you begin to write, you might find it challenging to go head first into the topic you set out to write. In 2020, I took a poetry workshop led by Megan Falley who often instructed us to completely throw out the first third of our poems. The beginning of the poem was often just us walking the path to what we actually wanted to write about, navigating around the topic until we found our entrance.
So maybe you don’t even write about death or grief for the first few paragraphs, or first few pages of your journal. That’s okay! Even in writing around it, you will likely be touching on the themes of grief because it is an experience that seeps its way into every other part of our lives. You never have to explicitly say the words unless it feels good to get them out.
Your journal does not care about the quality of your writing, it just wants to be itched by your pen.
Another writing technique I have had many mentors teach me is continuous writing. Keep your pen moving, even if what you’re writing is “I don’t know what to write” over and over again. You could even try writing the word “grief” or “death” over and over and see what comes of it. Writing, especially a first draft of something, should never be perfect. It doesn’t even need to be that serious.
Let it Be Bad
That brings me to the next point which is to let your writing be bad. No one ever has to read your work, and even if you’re writing this for publication, no one ever has to read this draft. You will have plenty of opportunities to revise your writing.
If you’re journaling, let it be especially bad. Fill the page with cliches and run-on sentences. Your journal does not care about the quality of your writing, it just wants to be itched by your pen. Scribbles, all caps, rage-filled venting, it’s all valid. This can even be something you absolutely never want to be found by someone else. The great thing about paper is that it is flammable. Write it down.
Don’t Be Afraid of the D Word
Many of us have been taught that death is a heavy or taboo word. We have found ways to soften the idea of death in phrases such as “passed away” or “moved on.” While these phrases certainly have some metaphorical beauty, don’t be afraid to say the word. When people offer their condolences for the loss of my partner, I usually make an effort to say the word died to them. I want them to know that it’s okay to talk about it, that it is simply a fact and it isn’t something I am trying to bury within my language.
You can write around death, and you can pull the word straight from the heart. The important thing is that you’re being honest with how you’re feeling. Trying to talk (or write) yourself out of your actual feelings can have the opposite effect. If you’re writing this for a potential future reader, remember that your readers are intelligent. They will be able to sense your dishonesty and lose the essential emotional connection of your piece.
Write With Your Body
In my many experiences with varied degrees of grief, I have realized that all of my grief is stored somewhere in my body. Sometimes my grief is the pounding headache in my temples. Sometimes my grief is the queasy feeling in my stomach. As I write, I like to connect with those parts of my body and translate their communication into a language I can understand better.
In meditation, a technique that has been useful for me is a body scan. Taking the time to bring my awareness to every part of my body– from my toes to the top of my head. Often grief is tension, and as I intentionally release that tension I can access what it’s been holding onto.
Share It (if you want to)
Of course you never have to share your writing with anyone, but something that has been so healing for me and my community after my partner died has been sharing our experiences of this grief. I’ve had friends tell me that reading my work about grief has helped them sit with their own in completely new ways. Bereavement can be an incredibly isolating experience when we keep it to ourselves. The truth is, nearly everyone is grieving in some way. Reading your words about it might be the thing that gets them writing about their own.
Comments