The Artists’
Grief Deck

What do we do simply for beauty or love or joy? What do we do to enrich others? We spend so much of our lives shuttling ourselves from home to work and back again, sometimes losing sight of our humani...

Exercise is an important component to staying healthy and is a natural mood-elevator. What are your favorite physical activities? How could you incorporate more movement into your daily life? Can you...

Take a Cue From Poetry What is your favorite poem? Put it in your own words. In the original poem below, I substitute the word hope for grief from the first line of Emily Dickinson’s poem “‘Hope...

Read your favorite stories aloud and believe with all of your heart your loved one is listening closely to every page....

The work that grief demands ought to be done every day. That work demands attention and love. The only way to navigate the world as we carry the weight of grief is to hold it with love. That’s also...

A meditation in three aspects Science has shown that trauma is passed down generationally through our DNA. In this time of forced isolation, take a moment to meditate on this healing. There are no rig...

My dad passed away a year before Covid hit and what made that time of isolation even harder was that I was also going through a really tough time dealing with his passing. As I was trying to get motiv...

Whenever you are feeling blue, use self affirmations to remind yourself how amazing you truly are. 1) Create a relaxing environment for yourself. Sip your favorite tea, light a candle, put on your fav...

Due to a recent diagnosis, I have lost the ability to perform many tasks as I once was able to. I have used walking aids for the past 5 months, many of my "friends" no longer invite me to hang out, I...

Losses of life interrupt the general flow of our lives. Things are not as they were, and life can feel chaotic. One way of bringing order into the chaos of loss is to establish healthy routines. Set t...

Helping others will help yourself.

Focusing on others can be a great way to enable healing.

Consider doing random acts of kindness: donating supplies to an animal shelter, delivering flowers to a nursing home...

We often ‘bottle’ up our emotions because they are just too much to deal with. We might cork them up and throw them out into the ocean hoping they will leave us forever. But without paying attenti...

When grieving, it feels like you are walking around without skin, everything is extra sensitive. When the world feels too much I go to a quiet spot and escape into a book....

In winter, breathe in the cold, and let the rain shower and cleanse your soul. In summer, bathe in the warmth, and let the light pool and cleanse your soul. That is nature: to be alone, but no...

Think about the feelings inside you that bubble up. Try to give them each their own name. How many feelings can you name? Once you name them, can you let them go?...

Look outside a window. Take note of the neighborhood you’re in, with all your senses. Sense the familiar or unfamiliar smells that are almost barely detectable. Hear the sounds that freely move and...

Explaining how you feel to someone who has never experienced grief is a difficult process. Sometimes the English language does not have the words we need. Photograph yourself depicting what your feeli...

I grieve not only for the losses of the present but also for what could have been. If I stay too long in my head imagining the things I won't ever have, I can lose myself in a spiral downward. When I...

They say that smell is the strongest sense we have especially when it is attached to a memory. In India, I light up incense sticks that remind me of my religious grandmother doing pujas. It almost fee...