How to Keep Writing When Grief Knocks You Down

Your pain has a pattern

In late September, I gathered with a group of women on a farm in upstate New York to celebrate the bounty of the harvest season. Under the gentle autumn sun, wildflowers burst in the fields, fruits were ripe for picking, and cows frolicked in the meadows – but I was not okay, and I came back feeling like I was picking glass out of my skin.

I was going through a private grief that felt like it was turning my insides into a black paste, gouging slices out of my body like cake.

The cause of my grief is not the point. The timing of it was.

You see, it was a season of harvest for me too. I had work to do, writing to complete and responsibilities to fulfill to keep the pot boiling. But all I wanted to do was curl into a ball and stay there.

Looking back on how I got through that period, I see how my instincts guided me, honed from years of healing practices:

I stayed present and paid attention

I have learned that there’s no point in trying to bypass the crippling feelings. To resist is futile because resistance only creates more pain. So I didn’t fight it. Instead, I said yes to the grief. I made a point of observing the freeze sensation in my body and even made an exercise of putting it into words. Describing the sensation loosened its grip.

I remembered what I know about the rhythms of nature

Just like a storm is always followed by sunshine, grief is always followed by sweet relief. It’s a pattern I've seen play out so many times that I sometimes welcome the darkness because I know what brightness lies on the other side.

I re-prioritized my tasks

I made a list of everything I needed to do over the coming days and put them in order of importance. When I was at my lowest, I tackled the easiest or most routine tasks—the ones that required little emotional or intellectual investment. I left the rest for when I was feeling stronger.

This is how I write through tough times. I’m often called upon to be my most productive, communicative and expansive when I’m feeling the worst. But devoting yourself to writing means learning to show up without being at the mercy of your emotional state.

If you find yourself needing to write through sorrow, I may not be able to offer you solace, but I encourage you to remember these principles:

· Anchor yourself in the moment.

· Trust in nature’s rhythms—darkness always gives way to light

· Focus on what you can do today.

Grief, like the seasons, has its time, but it doesn’t have to stop your progress as a writer. Writing through it can be your spark of light. Relief might come in a change of perspective, or words flowing onto the page.

Your turn

If you have your own ways writing through grief, I would love to hear how you do it.