GRIEF MAKES YOU STUPID...

a creative prompt & coaching tool
from Kara L.C. Jones

This week's prompt came from my good friend E who wrote me saying, "You know how grief makes you stupid, and how it doesn't hurt sometimes when you are perfectly still but as soon as you try to do anything else, things get really difficult?"

This is such a normal part of grief. We can't concentrate. We feel cross eyed because we can't see anything correctly. We sprawl out on the couch, zapped after doing nothing at all, but simply looking around at the piles of things to be done. We re-read the same line over and over again.

We often experience this immediately after a trauma. But it also seems to be a re-occurring phenomenon that creeps up around anniversary dates, holidays, or any time a subsequent loss touches on something from a previous loss. Again, very normal experience for grief process.

But so rarely are we fully allowed to FEEL all this. Either others censor us. Or we are so used to limits of others that we begin to censor ourselves. We/They judge, we find ourselves stuck, not able to give ourselves permission to grieve in the moment.

So this week's prompt is about allowing yourself to notice when grief makes you stupid. Simply notice when you find yourself feeling semi-okay while sitting perfectly still on that couch. And then notice fully how very much it hurts to move, how difficult it is to make your energy push against the river.

If this experience isn't currently happening for you, let your mind touch on a past experience of this. Sit with the memory long enough to remember if you struggled with the experience or found a way to allow yourself to grieve in that moment.

From these experiences, I offer the following creative prompts:

*If you are experiencing this now, can you just allow yourself to sit still longer? Can you mindfully and purposely stay still? Can you allow yourself to be as still as you need to be as often as you need it through out the day. Can you lean into the sense of stillness instead of fighting it.

*If you are not currently experiencing this, but rather touching on a past event, can you explore that now? Can you make a collage of images that express what it felt like? Can you make a piece of art that might be helpful as a point of meditation for the next time you feel like that?

*No matter where you are presently, can you personify the part of you that wants to be/is still? And then can you personify the part of you that seems to keep urging you to move and get things done? Sit them both down in front of each other. Try interviewing them. Ask each what it wants. Where do they live when not in your present moment? Why do they come out? What do they feel they are doing for you when they come out? Take the time to ask, listen, and write down whatever answers are whispered in your ear. You never know what you'll learn in a spontaneous interview like that.

Know that there is no right or wrong way to play with this experience. It is all just about exploring where you are, where you've been, what you are learning. It is just a process of taking an askew view and seeing more consciously what is already happening anyway. No judgments. Just noticing and playing with the notices!

When you are done, please feel free to come and share your process and results on MotherHenna.blogspot.com or Kotapress.blogspot.com or over at the MISS Creation Station forum!

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Blessing to Each of You!

Reiki to you:
HON SHA ZE SHO NEN
HON SHA ZE SHO NEN
HON SHA ZE SHO NEN

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DISCUSS?

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