Writing to Heal Your Loss

His anguished voice catching, my firefighter client said to me, "I couldn't bring back that toddler who fell in his family's pool. She was lifeless in my arms no matter what I did. I can't get her out of my head." I asked him, "If you wrote a letter to that little one, what would you say to her? What do you want her to know?"

I am often asked by my clients how to cope with and heal from a devastating loss or when something ends. Research shows that writing about one's loss and grief can be healing for the mind, the spirit, and the body. Putting words down on the page slows down racing thoughts. It can soften the body's felt sense of stress and suffering. Writing helps to untangle the complicated messiness of grief: as one of my clients expressed, " I am both so pissed that she died and I'm so heartbroken at the same time."

You don't need to BE a writer to write about your grief.

How should you write? You don't need full sentences or proper paragraphs, just words scrawled on the page. Writing with a pen held in your hand on paper is better than typing on a keyboard. Writing by hand is a slower cognitive process, which allows for better sorting of one's tangled emotions. The sensory experience of moving a pen across paper is grounding for the nervous system.

Write for yourself in a journal or notebook. I have been a lifelong journaler and I usually begin my daily writing with "Dear Journal---". A journal is always a non-judgemental listener. Write with no filter and no dressing it up for another to read. Don't edit as you write. Be authentic. Let it flow. Naming your intense emotions helps them to be less overwhelming and confusing. Write about what has not been heard or listened to, either by others or most importantly, by yourself. C.S Lewis (famous for writing The Chronicles of Narnia) wrote a raw account of his grief after his wife died called A Grief Observed. The book is compiled from the four journals used by Lewis to vent and explore his grief. He never meant to publish it, but his editor insisted, saying it could help others. My journals also helped me to write my story of how I suffered and healed after my son died: https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Son-Mothers-Reconnect-Overdose/dp/1645381552

The pain, the anguish, the fear we write down is "observed" in Lewis's words, and thus it is witnessed--it is seen. You can begin to face what you name.

Letter writing is also a therapeutic way to express your feelings of grief. Writing a letter to your deceased loved one, estranged loved one, or your pet can be a start toward spiritual and emotional healing. "I wish I would have put down carrying the load of your addiction sooner so you could have completely owned picking it up and carrying it yourself. I was just trying my best to help you." Those compassionate words were ones I wrote to my son Ethan in my journal some years after he died due to an accidental drug overdose. It took me a long time to write those words down and begin to let go of guilt I had been carrying. After I wrote them down, I began the process of forgiving myself.

Go ahead and express in your letter all your sadness, your anger, or your bewilderment over "How could this have happened? Who let this happen? Why didn't God save her?"

Then, consider approaching the story of your loss from the point of view of your loved one. Writing a letter back to you from their voice is a way to tell the story from another's voice---from the voice of whom you are grieving. It was a gift the day I felt my son's voice within my heart responding to my efforts to let go of guilt: "Dear Mom....It wasn't your fault. You helped me so much, I love you." I have re-read these words from Ethan over and over again.

When might you write? Anytime. There is no right or wrong time. Write just one sentence or a whole page. Don't hold back. Write down all that you did not---or could not---say before they died, before the estrangement started, before your beloved pet died. Also give attention to the secondary losses layered beneath the primary loss---friends who stop calling, the milestones your child will never reach, the loss of identity or a role in your life.

Where to begin? Start where your heart guides you. In the middle, at the end---anywhere, really. Here are some prompts to get you started (from Grief's Courageous Journey: A Workbook, by Sandi Caplan and Gordon Lang):

*What were some of the hopes and dreams you had for your relationship with your loved one?

*What were some of the special memories you have of them?

*What were some of the unmet expectations or regrets you had in that relationship that caused you to feel angry, sad, disappointed, or guilty?

Grief is a highly personal and normal response to a life-changing loss.

Writing about one's grief journey is a process that can lead to gradual acceptance of that loss, progressive healing, and finally--- miraculously---even growth.