Tips on Grief Journaling and Meaning-Making [Grief] is everything. It is the fabric of selfhood, and beautifully chaotic. It shares mathematical characteristics with many natural forms.

—Max Porter, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers

Grief is a natural healing process. But in the face of almost-unnatural pain, it can seem impossible to live through the days it takes to grieve. And while the presence of family and friends can be a source of comfort, they may not always be there—or for that matter, we may not really prefer to talk about our feelings. But we have to deal with our feelings. And for that matter, we need to acknowledge them. Our overall well-being depends on us processing our grief, else we end up avoiding them altogether. Among the healthy ways we can go through the grieving process is writing about everything that has to do with our loss. It will not be easy; we may have to drag ourselves kicking and screaming into it, but it will be worth it in the end. Here are a few tips on how to make grief journaling work for you:
  • Write as though no one’s reading.
Because no one is. A grief journal is a private room, a house off the grid that only you know the way to . . . You may eventually want to share it with those you love and trust, but this possibility shouldn’t even cross your mind as you’re writing. Say what you need to say even if you would rather not. There is no need to be afraid if you say something unpleasant or painful. You’re supposed to be brutally honest—with yourself, about everything.
  • Don’t back off.
Nothing is taboo. There are bound to be things that surface that make you recoil or want to run away altogether, but the point of grief journaling is to help you bring up things that you need to make sense of and come to terms with. Remember, no one’s reading. Draw blood if you have to. Surgeons cut in order to heal; maybe you need surgical precision to cut away all the layers of negativity and unresolved feelings related to your loss.
  • Set logic aside.
If things take a bizarre or surreal turn, then take that turn and see where it leads. At its most painful, grief usually doesn’t have much logic to it. It takes distance from the loss to be able to make sense of things; and even after time has passed, some parts of your loss may still fail to make sense to you.
  • Avoid pauses.
There is no need for editing in grief journaling. The writing should be raw because you’re writing about raw emotions. It’s counterproductive to stop so you can take out what you find unnecessary or inappropriate. If you edit as you write, you end up disrupting what should be a cathartic free-flowing activity. There is no place for proofreading in a grief journal. Style and grammatical accuracy is not a priority. This writing has a different purpose. If you’re the kind of person who gets uncomfortable over a misplaced comma or a misspelling, let it go. Meaning-making All the above tips can help us put together everything we need for meaning-making. In the field of psychology, meaning-making is “the process of how people construe, understand, or make sense of life events, relationships, and the self.” To do so requires unblinking honesty and frankness, balanced with a capacity to forgive (the one we lost, the ones involved in one way or another with our loss, ourselves) and the desire to move on and live. Psychiatrist and holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl insisted that meaning can be found everywhere, “even in the most miserable experiences of loss and tragedy.” Allow yourself to listen to your self, because sometimes that’s what spells the difference between an unprocessed grief and a grief that we have come out the other side of, with a deeper appreciation of what is or who is gone and what we still have left. Explore how Journalz can help you with keeping a grief journal for meaning-making and healing.
Read more on grief and the importance of mindfully living through it in our series of articles on grief journaling.