The soul, made of playfulness, humor, and creativity, needs replenishing during grievous times. Art is especially therapeutic. Grief therapist Colin Caffell gave clay to his clients, inviting, “Put what you feel on the inside, out.” In this way, they externalized their emotions, and the object they created gave them a visual representation of their sorrow. Many participants from his sessions reported that, beyond being therapeutic, working with clay was delightful.
Feeling delight, however, can sound distasteful to the newly bereaved. Not only do they wonder if they will ever laugh again, but complicated dialogue is often nerve-racking. One way that Dianne nurtured her soul and brought humor back into her life was by sitting back with a large bowl of popcorn and watching Bette Midler videos.
Some survivors return to a favorite childhood entertainment—painting, playing the piano, watching cartoons—to nurture themselves. To this day Raymond retires to his room with Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge comic books, like the ones his grandmother read to him when he was a child.
Others partake of activities they missed as children. “My parents forbade me to eat ice cream or junk food of any kind,” one psychologist explained. “Asking for it only got me into trouble. So, after my father died, I drove myself to McDonald’s and ordered my inner child a kid’s meal with an ice cream cone for dessert. I sat there, almost forty years old, and thoroughly enjoyed treating my little one to something he had wanted all those years.” Nurturing the child replenishes the soul.