Grief needs an outlet—creativity might be yours
Today, I painted for almost an hour. No formulating strategy, no written words, no overthinking—just color. Blues and greens. Some gold. It felt like a break for me, from the constant cycle of creating, analyzing, or critiquing. I wasn’t trying to be good at it. I just let it be.
They say creativity will eat you alive if you don’t let it out—kind of like grief. If you keep it bottled up, it festers and turns into something heavier. When you let it move through you, even if it’s messy or uncomfortable, it loses its grip.
Grief, like creativity, doesn’t demand perfection—only expression. If you just do without judgment, you get better at both.
Grief? Just grieve. Give yourself grace. You don’t have to be “good” at it. It will suck at first.
Art? Just make. It’s also going to suck at first. But that’s not the point.
Art and grief. Grief and art. Or change. Or anything you need to process. Sometimes, art is just permission to be bad at something when you won’t let yourself be bad at grieving. It teaches you to let go.
This is why I love teaching journaling. People tell me all the time; I suck at journaling. But you can’t. There’s no wrong way to get something out of your head and onto the page. You don’t need full sentences. It can be scribbled words, fragments, or just writing down what’s making you mad—and then burning it. It doesn’t have to make sense. It just has to be released.
If you’re holding onto something—grief, guilt, anger—try putting it into color, words, movement. Let yourself be bad at it. Let yourself feel. That’s where the healing starts. All of it will suck. That’s OK! Honestly, it’s kind of the point.
As an aside, if you’re punishing yourself for something that happened in or around your loss, if you can’t let go, no matter what you do, that’s not something you have to navigate alone. Complicated grief is real, and a therapist can help. They help me!
But for today? Just start somewhere. Even if it’s just a single brushstroke or a single word.