Something makes me believe that the most creative person might have had to go through the most painful grief. And I say that because I know what I do when I am immersed in the sorrow I can’t handle. Best of my paintings, poetry or anything really have not been out of love. They have been created to in the process of forgetting something that I want to but can’t. It feels easier to focus the whole of my energy into the process of making an art with beautiful bright happy colors. I lose myself into the process and it helps me process everything with calmness. It helps me see my emotions flow. It allows me to stop clenching tightly things that I could never control anyway.
How long do I indulge then? Well, for as long as needed. Sometimes many days or a couple of weeks straight! Yes. Depends on the grief that has knocked my doorstep. Does it help? Of course! Doubtlessly. It is really way way way better than telling my sad story to someone and adulterate my feelings with their opinions.
What I have understood about expression of emotions is that yes, there is nothing wrong in expressing it to people around you who are your support system, but also, it rarely help process all the emotions to a deeper level. Specially the strong ones. And more importantly, specially when the emotion is extreme and intense, you need more than someone just offering you a shoulder to cry on and two ears to absorb the words you have to share.
Processing grief is painful. But it has to be done and in the right way. You can’t run away from it. You can’t sleep it away. You can’t drink it away with alcohol. You can’t air it away with sex. It waits for you to be at rest one day and hits you as hard as it hit you when you started running away from it.
Processing grief is painful. Specially when it is coming from losing people who are alive. Because death takes away everything and settles the account. Life sets it to hope. And there is nothing as powerful but also as painful as hope.
And that is exactly where creativity helps. It helps you calm your nerves down and allow yourself to feel all the emotions without overwhelming yourself. You get a change to be quiet. Not just physically but also also in your head. The chaos settles and you get the opportunity to see your thoughts, witness the truths without any biases and understand yourself better. And trust me, once you see everything hidden behind the biased mental chaos, you just cannot unsee it.
The next and final step that comes is complete surrender. You let it go. You let it flow. You allow life to happen. You don’t heal just then. Healing takes time. Healing takes days, months, years and sometimes decades. But the battle ends right there. The acceptance is what you needed anyway, all throughout this process. Life will heal everything in its own time. For now, you feel good enough to live happily. And that’s really more than enough.
