FUN AND CREATIVE HEALTH FOR WIDOWS
1. If you get the bad feelings out, the good feelings can come in.
This is what they used to say at my son’s preschool. Obviously, as a psychologist, I am going to say there are no bad feelings. But let’s be real: grief has a lot of bad feelings: anger, sadness, despair, numbness, loneliness, to name a few. If you don’t get those feelings out, they can destroy you inside. Depression is anger turned inward. And when regret, anger, and sadness are left to fester, they turn to bitter resentment. As one of my colleagues in substance abuse recovery used to say “Better out than in.” Art provides that out. The blank paper, canvas, journal provides a non-judgment space in which you can rage, despair, and get the bad feelings out — without hurting yourself or anyone else.
In the early grief after my husband died, I experienced so much anger. It was hard to know what to do with it. I wanted to cut it off, bypass it, or have it not be there. But it was there. And …
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