holding on and letting go

july 9 | weekly warm-up

Reflect on non-death-related types of grief and loss. Some ideas include:

children growing up, moving away from your hometown, illness/loss of health, change of job, moving to a new country, graduation from school, loss of financial security, relationship breakup, friendship breakup, deterioration of physical surroundings, changing religions, unpursued dreams, collective grief, or whatever else comes up for you.

Think about how this loss shows up in your life as a source of motivation. For example, from a creative perspective, the loss of my mother motivates me to write about mental health awareness.

Similarly, but from a daily life perspective, the loss of my youthful flexibility motivates me to stretch and move my body regularly! Haha! Take whatever approach you like to reflect on how loss motivates you.

“You see, love and grief are two sides of the same precious coin. One does not—and cannot—exist without the other. They are the yin and yang of our lives… Grief is predicated on our capacity to give and receive love. Some people choose not to love and so never grieve. If we allow ourselves the grace that comes with love, however, we must allow ourselves the grace that is required to mourn.” – Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph. D.

We can’t talk about grief without talking about love. For the next few weeks, we will ponder this connection and write about how loss affects the way we live and what we create. We will explore how memory informs grief, how death shapes life, and how we acknowledge the grief that doesn’t come from death but things like change, identity loss, and unpursued dreams. You will come away with ideas for how to write about grief for both personal healing and literary endeavors.

Grief, aging, and mortality are subjects that I ran from in my thoughts and avoided in my writing until my father died in 2017. Since then, I’ve opened the door to this taboo area in my mind, with a desire to make peace with it and ease my fear of it. Aging has shown me that grief and loss are part of life and love. When I lean in to my values, I know that holding back on love to avoid the pain of grief is not an option for me. I love big, and I fall hard. I have big joy, and I carry deep sadness. In the words of Rumi, “Life is a balance of holding on and letting go.” Writing is how I manage the tension between the two.

Going into this series, I want you to proceed with care. Obviously grief is a heavy topic, so pay attention to your emotional and physical reactions to what comes up for you. Keep in mind that there are different types of grief, and you can use the exercises to journal about loss in a way that you can handle emotionally right now. For example, in addition to death, we experience grief about relationship breakups, loss of financial security, graduation from school, leaving a long-term occupation, changing religions, and more.

According to Nikki Moberly of Better Up, “Grief can be triggered by any event that involves an identity-altering type of loss. This can include living through a natural disaster, a divorce, one’s own illness or that of a loved one, and certainly the death of a family member or loved one.” The article describes 12 types of grief. and breaks down the nuances and universality of how we experience it. From anticipatory grief, which is the anticipation of a significant loss like the diagnosis of a terminal illness, anticipated layoffs, or impending divorce; to collective grief, which includes events that cause entire communities and large groups of people to suffer.

From a writer’s perspective, whether you are writing about yourself or a character, grief is a catalyst for change and transformation. For this week’s exercise, you will reflect on a source of loss that is also a source of motivation in your life.