3 Activities to get Unstuck when Grieving

Time doesn’t heal wounds or fill a void. Grieving doesn’t stop with the memorial services, funerals and burials. Grieving takes time and happens at our own pace. With time, we hope we will feel better.  But, often we don’t.

Others are back to their routines, except us. We are alone with our thoughts, memories and pain. What do we do now?

When we’re grieving, we need to know what to do to process our loss. While there are many things that help in the grieving process, at Light the Way we like to teach people three powerful activities to help them grieve well. I want to share these activities with you today.

Activity #1 - Acrostic Epithet

The acrostic epithet activity comes from the Jewish tradition to help the grieving person have a well-balanced view of the person who died.  Often, after a death, we tend to think of the person as all good or all bad. This distorted view of a person can get us stuck in our grieving. As we allow ourselves to think about the person and write about them, it helps us to see the whole person. Seeing the whole person aids in healing.

Here’s how to do it:

First, get a sheet of paper and place in long way front of you, and write the alphabet, from A-Z, down the left side. Next to each letter, write a word or phrase about the person that corresponds with the letter. For example, A-often angry. Or H-they had a great sense of humor. If you want, write more than one phrase or word for each letter. Allow yourself to see the positive and negative attributes of the person. Make note of how you are feeling while you write. Take your time. When you are done, we encourage you to read it out loud to someone. By reading it out loud it helps us to externalize the grief and helps the healing process.

Activity #2 - Relationship Timeline

Timelines are helpful in our healing. They are outlines, an overview of your relationship with the person you lost. It covers the duration of the relationship. relationship.

Here is how we do it:

Take a sheet of paper and lay it in landscape orientation. Starting from the middle of the left edge, draw a straight line across to the other side. Starting on the line on the left side of the page, make a notch, and note your age of your first memory of the person. On the line on the far-right side make a notch, and note your age of the last memory you have of the person. Between these two notches represent your ages throughout the duration of the relationship.

Think about the happiest memory you have of the person. What age were you? Place that age on the timeline, relative to the first and last memories, and draw a perpendicular line to the top edge of the page. Write a brief description of the memory.

 Think of the saddest memory, and repeat the above instructions, but this time, going perpendicular to the bottom edge of the page.

Continue remembering memories. Happy memories go above the line and sad memories go below the line. The lines are different lengths, measuring the degrees of happiness or sadness. Make a brief note of the memory.

As you remember memories you can add them to your timeline. If you’d like, you can share the timeline with a safe person. Being able to remember is a comfort and helps in the healing process.

Activity #3 - Write a Letter

Writing a goodbye letter may be the most challenging grieving activity. As such, it’s good to do this exercise after doing the first two.

Take a sheet of paper. Write a letter to the person you are grieving. Pour out your heart, the good and bad. Don’t screen your thoughts, don’t judge what you write. Let it flow. Use the relationship timeline to help reflect on memories you want to include in your letter.  Are there regrets? Write them down. Grateful?  Write it down. Desire forgiveness or want to forgive? Write them down.

Take your time, allow yourself to feel. Once done, read it out loud to a safe person. We have found the letter writing to be a powerful tool in the healing process.

What’s next?

Don’t do these activities all at once. Take your time. Have a safe person to be with you as you do these activities. Please know that grieving isn’t a linear process. There are up and down days and moments. When we grieve well, the good days eventually get a little better and last a little longer.

These activities can be done any time in the grieving process, and more than once. Is there someone or something you need to grieve? Give them a try and pay attention to your emotions. Is there someone you know who may need help in grieving well? Suggest one of these activities to them. Is someone you know stuck in their grief? We can help. Have them call us.

Written by: Cindy Picht, LPC, CEO