An Invitation for Your Grief
Writing & IFS both shift the needle of suffering
A lot has to happen for a child to reject their mother. All of it happened to me by the time I was 2 years old. Most of us would rather blame ourselves than accept our parents as fallible, culpable or just plain wrong. But my autistic mind refused to believe how bad she said I was. I chose instead to blame her. My mother and I had a volatile relationship including physical and emotional abuse and loads of screaming. At 11 I started fighting back physically. By the time I was 13 I'd left home for good.
In my second year of college in 1984, my mother heard I got my first apartment. In some strange act of denial possibly mixed with contrition (or love, or longing), she drove up to Boston calling me from the road to say she was dropping in to give me a brand new "cable-ready" digital TV with 99 channels! I had no television at the time. I've always had a fraught relationship with screens. But I agreed to be home to accept her gift. She made it sound super-casual as if she was just swinging by from Philadelphia. There was a guy waiting downstairs. She said they were getting married. I didn't believe her, but she did marry him a month later (9 months before she died). She didn't stay but a minute or two which suited me just fine.
She also gave me a ceramic seagull. It was one of those sculptures you might find in a fancy store near a beach, a place where they sell those beautiful blue- or green-glazed mugs that I might have enjoyed owning. She thought this bulbous useless seagull with its bulging eyes and stick legs was a riot, a real character! She unwrapped it and placed it on my bookshelf. The ugliest rendition of a seagull I've ever seen. If it was onstage in the Chekhov play, it would have gotten laughs.
She did not say, "Congratulations for getting into the Acting Program at BU." She did not say, "Maybe one day you'll be in the play The Seagull, and then you'll know why I got you this." She did not know there was such a play, or that it might have a role for me. She didn't know that the seagull she bought would become a hideous reminder of how little she knew me, and how unseen I felt (much like Constantin, the character in the play whose mother cannot see him or understand why he shoots himself).
And then she died. I was 19. The grief I've known has had its own wild life. Of course I sought therapy, but there were no grief counselors back then, no understanding of complex grief as far as I could fathom. But I soldiered on. This July I'll mark 40 years. My grief has changed enormously over the decades. I have a much better relationship with my mother now than I ever did.
One of the most painful parts of grief is figuring out how to remain in relationship with the deceased. If that is desirable. For the first 20 years of her death, she haunted me, taunting me to stay connected. I ran from her, refused her, repulsed. Once I became a mother, I was furious with her for new reasons that opened me up to a different way of relating. Anger, for me, was actually a step forward. Writing about her helped so much. Poetry, plays, and most recently fiction have been and are still a healing modality for me. And IFS which helps us learn to attach to ourselves, to heal the attachment wounds from terrible parenting by reparenting our own young parts, has worked beautifully.
Brave Space offers support for anyone trying to write their grief. The IFS-informed coaching that I do offers ways to heal from attachment wounds. Either or both are the gentlest ways I know of transforming toward greater wholeness. I would be honored to help ease your suffering.
Classes!
I’m offering 3 different Sunday classes this winter via Zoom:
Artistic Statement Seminar January 26th 2 PM - 5 PM ET Magical Dialogue February 23rd 2 PM - 5 PM ET Events & Reversals:Making Things Happen March 9th 2 PM - 5 PM ET More Info Here & this Spring: "STRUCTURE'S NOT A DIRTY WORD" TUESDAYS 3-6PM ET VIA ZOOM MARCH 18 - MAY 20 FOR THE DRAMATISTS GUILD INSTITUTE (MORE INFO WHEN THEY POST)
The Prompt:
This is a Grief Prompt, whether or not you are actually grieving, you could do the prompt for a character you’re working with who is grieving or anticipating grief.
Make a list of all the safe places you can think of, both those you actually know, and those that you imagine. These could include your own heart as a place, or a fabulous four-poster bed with a canopy and beautiful bedding surrounded by a moat, or fortresses, or safe forests, magical streams, fortified fields, gentle gardens, comforting clouds, someone’s embrace, whatever works as a safe place, up to you! Don’t forget to list the places where you’ve had wonderful experiences and good memories with people you love.
Bring up the person or pet you’ve lost, (or your character is grieving), or you or they are anticipating grieving. See them in your mind’s eye. Feel how they arrive in your consciousness. Where they show up might also be important. They might arrive in your shoulder or your knee or your head, and you might want to move them into your heart (there are 4 rooms in there). Or you might not be ready for them to live in your heart yet. Maybe you want to keep them in your hip for a while. Up to you. Or maybe there’s a place on your list where you can spend time with this person or pet. See if they would be willing to go to that place. See if there’s a different place that they might choose (on or off your list). Decide if that place would also work for you.
Once you’ve chosen a place together (make sure you both agree), imagine it more fully in writing. Let them help if they have ideas about it. Or if it’s a real place where you’ve both spent time, then check in to see you’ve described it accurately in both your visions of it. Yes, even if you’re doing this with your pet, they will respond to you in your mind, although you might have to ask simpler yes or no questions.
Now that you have a fully fleshed out place and some agreement between you and whomever you are grieving, go there. Spend some time with each other there. If it’s a scene of dialogue or a poem that wants to be written, write it. If it’s a painting that wants to be painted, or a drawing or a dance or a ball toss, anything at all, make it. Do it. Let it happen in a creative visualization that can be externalized as writing or art.
Take as much time as you need, in successive layers, to get it to be what you want it to be. Remember, first drafts are only drafts. Rewriting and revising is part of the process. Each time you work on it, welcome the one you’re working with, and thank them for all they add to this process each time until you’re done.
With prompts, grounding practices, & discussions, Brave Space invites playwrights, poets, painters, potters, novelists, memoirists, musicians & artists working in any medium to make meaning in a safe community. Begin and/or bring your projects to completion. Or use Brave Space as a body-doubling space to get other things done in community. $5-25 suggested per session. 4+x/week! On or off camera. No commitment, drop-ins welcome. Try it!
Brave Space Schedule: (it’s warm in Brave Space!)
1/19 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
1/20 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
1/22 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/workshop
1/24 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
1/26 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
1/27 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
1/28 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/workshop
1/29 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space
1/31 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
Friday 3pm ET Brave Sharing Salon
2/2 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space w/Sharing! (a week early)
2/3 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
2/4 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/workshop
2/5 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space
2/7 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
Each week Wednesdays (moving back to Tuesdays 1/28) includes fast feedback for up to 1 page (@300 words) of writing or to discuss a craft issue/get help on your project.
Each month there are 2 Sharing Salons: Second Sundays (730pm ET) and Final Fridays (3pm ET) for sharing up to 10 minutes of work (up to 1500 words).
artwork by Scott Sherman at ScottShermanStudio on Instagram
Opportunities:
Writers & Artists Opps!
(1) January 16: NEA Translation Project Fellowships
(2) January 16: New Work Development Artist Residency
(3) January 19: *NEW* Residency Unlimited (RU) 2025 NYC-Based Artist Residency Program
(4) January 20: *NEW* Printer’s Row Art Fest Artist Application
(5) January 27: The Sculpture Center 2026 Revealed Emerging Artists Open Call
(6) January 31: Staten Island Arts Grants
(7) January 31: Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship
(8) January 31: The Charles S. Longcope Jr. Writers and Artists Grant
(9) February 1: *NEW* Wave Farm Residencies
(10) February 5: South Arts Cultural Sustainability Grant
(11) February 10: MacDowell Artist Residency
(12) February 13: NEA Grants for Arts Projects (GAP) Submission
(13) February 14: *NEW* Manifest Gallery: Watching, a Call for Works about Observation…
(14) February 16: *NEW* Manifest Gallery: Magnitude Seven Submissions
(15) February 19: *NEW* Bethany Arts 3rd Annual Emerging Artist Fellowship
(16) February 28: *NEW* Columbia Center for Science and Society Environmental Humanities Grants Applications
(16) April 1: *NEW* The Democracy Cycle 2025 Open Call
Film Opps:
(1) Rolling: Film Industry Watch Scholarship & Sponsorship Opportunities for Aspiring Researchers in Film Studies
(2) Rolling: Film Independent Sloan Distribution Grant
(3) Rolling: Panavision New Filmmaker Program Grants
(4) Rolling: Film/ADE Fund Grant
(5) Rolling: Basel House of Film: Filmmakers Residency
(6) Rolling: The Gorilla Creative Film Scholarships
(7) Rolling: *NEW* British Urban Film Festival Applications + Application Discount
(8) January 24: New York African Film Festival
(9) January 26: 71st International Short Film Festival Oberhausen
(10) January 30: TIFF Slogan Science and Technology Writer Fellowship
(11) January 31: *NEW* The WAM Coalition 2025 Collaboration Awards
(12) January 31: *NEW* Tel-Aviv International Student Film Festival Call for Entries
(13) February 4: Chicken & Egg Films - Research & Development Grant
(14) February 12: *NEW* Sundance Institute 2025-2026 Feature Film Producers Fellowship
(15) February 13: Melbourne International Film Festival 2025 FINAL Deadline
Amazing People Doing Amazing Things:
Take a Poetry Workshop with Only Poems.
See A Knock on the Roof at New York Theatre Workshop.
The Femme Collective presents January, The She-Wolves and Broken Thread at the 14th Street Y! Get Your Tickets! The Femme Collective is a groundbreaking partnership between MultiStages, The Neo-Political Cowgirls, and Eden Theater Company. Together they represent a united front in reimagining the theater industry’s future. Born out of the financial and cultural challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, this innovative collaboration between three women-led companies seeks to redefine theater through shared resources, amplified diversity, and community resilience.
Robin Rice’s play PECKING ORDER runs at 59 E 59 - 1/29 - 2/15, get your tickets here!
Very touching Emma
Wish you well with your endeavors
Grief support is greatly needed and beneficial