A loss means a before and after in our lives.
Whether it is the loss of a child, a partner, a father or a mother, there is always a before and after. In the aftermath there is a great void because we have built a relationship with goals, with hope, with experiences that, not being present now, create a void.
There are people in whom the void stayed for a very long time and who enter a depression or situation of permanent sadness. Others manage to accept that emptiness that connects them with a creative part. Thus, something new is created that is not comparable with past experiences; it’s like a new life.
What can we do after a loss?
Everyone has to recognize their resources. We all have resources to a greater or lesser degree.
What are those resources?
It is the basis that we have learned from childhood given by our parents, environment and genetics. That substrate is from which creativity arises, which is the ability to do something new and useful using that substrate that I have always had.
Now I can set myself new challenges to get out of the void and enter a new path to explore. What matters is the journey, not where you arrive. But not everyone uses their creative resources to go that route.
Why?
Because the new path, like everything new, like sowing on a new land, requires tillage, it requires time. Most people do not make an effort or prefer to stay recovering previous experiences that no longer exist driven by routine activities that do not lead to enjoyment; I go through the path in the same way, I repeat and copy things.
Creativity is the challenge
It is proposing something to myself that, even if it fails and does not arrive, will give me the satisfaction of what I am doing. And that is what allows me to get out of the void and is what is generally called working through grief.
What is grief work?
It is coming out of nowhere to build something new with the resources that I already have or with those that a therapist, a friend can help me to find …
Creativity is doing something new.
It happens when I start something new that is beneficial for me and others… that is creativity.
Thank you for your reading,
Ivan Gomez Garcia
Director of Creative Accompaniment
Psychologist expert in Psycho-Oncology and Palliative Care
Gestalt Psychotherapist (AETG-FEAP)
Learning to live again wholeheartedly includes letting love flow freely in and out of the heart.
Elizabeth Berrien
