CREATIVE WAYS OF DEALING WITH GRIEF

‘Go in the direction of relief’ has been a guideline for living I have always found enormously helpful.

I’m fairly sure, though not certain, that I can attribute it to Abraham Hicks, and a talk I listened to over a decade ago. I’m entirely sure that it’s often served me well. Not sure which of two decisions to make? Think about which one feels like more of a relief – and go in that direction.

This advice failed me, absolutely, when my mom died suddenly in 2019. In the 13 days between her diagnosis (four different kinds of cancer) and her death, I kept grasping around for relief, but there was none to be found. And in the dark and seemingly endless days of grief that followed, I looked for relief the way you’d look for a pinprick of light in a dark cave.

In retrospect, it’s not surprising that the only moments of relief I found were in moments of