The Artists’
Grief Deck

Helping others will help yourself.

Focusing on others can be a great way to enable healing.

Consider doing random acts of kindness: donating supplies to an animal shelter, delivering flowers to a nursing home...

We’re taught at a young age in school that form is in flux. Water can change its physical state from solid to liquid to gas a million times and never lose any part of itself. We forget this fact in...

Radical acceptance is a path. Equanimity is a goal. Five hundred years ago lived Akbar, third emperor of the Mughal Empire in South Asia. Seeking wisdom from his advisor Birbal, Akbar asked, “What w...

Sometimes our thoughts can tangle us up, and we need a way to break the cycle. Try drawing with both your hands to make you stop thinking and to help you relieve your emotions and stress onto a paper....

Music has the ability to help us feel our emotions without much thought or effort. It meets us where we are. Make a playlist of comforting, familiar songs. If the list is too overwhelming, focus on on...

2019, the year that brought me to my knees. The year I entered a major depressive episode with which I am still struggling. Living and working with chronic illness was killing me... my body and brain...

Cross your arms as if you are giving yourself a hug, gently tap your shoulders with your hands until you start to feel a little bit calmer....

I comfort myself by… I find hope in… My friends give me…...

I grieve not only for the losses of the present but also for what could have been. If I stay too long in my head imagining the things I won't ever have, I can lose myself in a spiral downward. When I...

"It takes 1,000 people for one person to grieve." Martín Prechtel Your village exists to witness this time. Your village existed from the moment you came here. Look around you. We will carry your gri...

“Flowers in April” addresses the grieving process of losing a loved one and the search of closure. The owl in the painting represents silence of solitude to the people who passed away during the p...

The process of grieving is a natural one. Whenever I feel out of control of my life and my circumstances, I remember that there’s entire natural world out there that keeps moving without me. To remi...

In time of pain and strength, you are always growing. Growth happens in hardship and joy. Growth is non-linear - you flourish even if you can't see it. Our growth is interconnected and rooted in one a...

It’s okay if you’re angry. Angry at the person for dying. Angry at yourself for not saying the right thing. Angry at the doctors for not catching it sooner. Angry at friends for not understanding....

Take a moment. It’s actually okay! I know it feels like you are in a fog. Or numb. Or lonely. Or maybe you feel everything’s a bit meaningless. I’m really sorry. It’s not easy. Right now I wan...

Dealing with sudden change...

Hold a hand, Hold the hand of your lost one, your beloved, the hand of the being who haunts you. And when you become accustomed to the deep presence of the absence hold any hand, your lover’s hand,...

One question I have about death is… I wish I could ask the person who died…...

What do we do simply for beauty or love or joy? What do we do to enrich others? We spend so much of our lives shuttling ourselves from home to work and back again, sometimes losing sight of our humani...