October 17 2022

A second strategy to help us believe that we can handle the difficult emotions of grief is expressive writing. Journaling is often recommended for grievers. Moving our thoughts and emotions from the inside to the outside through writing can be very cathartic and healing. Sometimes people don’t know where to begin with this strategy. To overcome this, I’ll suggest a topic and then invite people to simply write whatever comes into their mind for the next 15 minutes. I encourage them not to judge, edit or even worry about grammar, spelling or punctuation. When the 15 minutes are up, the writing can be put aside to come back to later, thrown away or saved. This strategy helps us harvest our thoughts and allow our emotions while also showing us that we can handle the difficult emotions of grief.