Gifts Of Grief: Preface

Preface to the author's book, Gifts of Grief, how he came to use journaling as an expression of his natural emotions following the death of his wife Kristine. Including a three minute quiet time for meditation to allow the reader to access their natural emotions.

Transcript

This is Jacob Watson.

This is the first in a series of recordings from my book Gifts of Grief,

A Man's Revelations After Sudden Loss.

Preface.

It's interesting to look at the word preface.

Preface.

The face before you were born.

A story here.

Several years ago I encountered an older woman who had known me as a child.

She looked at me and said Dickie,

Which is the name that I was using then,

You haven't changed at all.

What she was seeing was my preface.

My preface.

And I deeply appreciated that.

The wrinkles didn't make any difference because she was seeing my essence.

Something much deeper than my feelings even.

Certainly my intellect and certainly my physical self.

She was seeing my core.

You could call it even my soul.

I was grateful for her for that.

The preface of Gifts of Grief began as a desperate attempt to survive the loss of my wife Christine.

I wrote in my journal every day because I was a journalist.

I kept the journal every single day and wrote in it what I couldn't tell Christine because she was no longer here.

I wrote my deepest feelings,

My essence.

Over time I noticed a peculiar fact that I was writing less each day.

The first month after she died I wrote a lot.

The next couple of months still a lot.

Then it tapered off.

Four or five months later I was writing less.

And seven or eight months later I was writing even less.

I had less to say because my essence had less to say.

My writing was one way that I expressed my inner self.

There are lots of other ways,

All of them artistic.

And what was important was that I had a way to express my inner my soul.

It could be dance,

Photography,

Art in the form of painting,

Drawing.

The point here is to find something that works for you,

Some mode of expression,

For that's what your essence is asking for,

Expression.

Of course,

Writing every day gave me the illusion of being in control,

When in fact I wasn't in control at all.

But as a writer I knew how to write and I did write every single day.

It felt natural to write and so as I look back on the first year,

My desperate year of surviving by journaling,

I thought well maybe this is a book.

And then I realized that my children were in the book.

As a grieving father,

I was trying to help them deal with their feelings of grief at losing their mother.

And I realized I can't speak for them.

They have their own grieving work to do.

So I spent months getting my children out of the book,

Editing them out.

If they wanted to tell their own story,

They could do so,

But it would be in fact their own story.

Then I realized that as long as I was in touch with my inner self and finding ways to express it,

I would be fine.

The two ways that occurred to me were dreams and my artwork,

Painting.

I recorded my dreams and listened to what my inner self was telling me and I expressed that by my painting.

It was as if my preface,

My preface,

Was finding ways to express itself without my intellect,

Indeed without my emotions.

I remembered a model of health that I used when I was teaching Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's workshops,

Life,

Death,

And Transition.

It's called the Gestalt Awareness Cycle and it's something that Christine and I used when we were teaching workshops together.

The idea is a circle and a very thin slice of awareness at the very top of the circle and that slice of awareness is the present moment.

And your natural emotions,

Whatever they are,

Are inside that circle and they move slowly around until they come up to that slice at the very top and they are expressed one way or another.

They are either expressed by words or art,

But they are expressed.

The point is movement and the idea is that as soon as you express one feeling,

Another comes up to be expressed.

Only one feeling can be expressed at a time and it moves around to that slice of awareness at the very top in order to be expressed.

And the health is in the movement,

The movement of the feeling around to the slice at the top.

Why?

Always to be expressed.

When the feeling is not expressed,

And that happens sometimes,

It collects.

It's like it collects in a great dark cloud in that circle,

Just waiting to be expressed.

And if it's not expressed,

It becomes physical and it becomes a problem,

Meaning that it is lurking,

Unconscious,

And unbidden.

Again,

The health is in the movement,

Keeping the feeling moving and finding a way to express it.

In addition to dreams,

My artwork,

Painting,

Flourished.

I began to paint abstract canvases.

It was as if it didn't matter what came out.

What mattered was that it came out,

That it was expressed from my inner self to my outer paper or canvas.

I had to let go of my intellect,

Which of course was a positive thing.

I had to let go of what I thought should come out,

Even the feelings.

It mattered less.

What mattered was the expression,

Was that I found a way to put outside what was inside.

Sometimes I didn't even know what was inside,

But out it came through my arm and the paintbrush.

With a friend's encouragement,

I found paintings that I had done years ago,

And instead of keeping them up in the garage,

Hidden,

I brought them out and hung them in my dining room and in my study.

My inner self was available for me to see every day.

I would walk by it on the way to the kitchen.

I began to see the preface,

The preface of my inner being expressed all around me,

And I began to use it every single day,

Especially when I didn't know what it was or couldn't figure out what I was supposed to express.

That was valuable to let go of those restrictions,

For that's what they were,

Precepts that compromised and cut off my expressions.

Now,

I'll offer you some time to go back and find your expressions,

Whatever it is,

This time,

Of course,

In words.

In this time of meditation,

About three minutes,

Find a way to express what is inside.

Let go of any judgments of what you should say or what you want to say,

And let express what comes out.

It will mean taking a new look at yourself and giving yourself permission to express whatever it is,

Even and especially when you don't understand what it is.

This is a time to trust yourself,

For meditation can never be a failure.

It's a way to find whatever it is that is wanting to express itself.

So,

Let that happen.

As your meditation time comes to a close,

Thank yourself,

Thank your inner being,

Your preface,

Your preface,

For finding and expressing what it is that is your soul,

Your true self,

Your self without judgments,

Without even understanding,

But your true self.

Here it is.

You have the health in these moments of letting the awareness cycle work,

So that you can express at that top,

That top slice of the present,

Whatever it is that needs and indeed wants to be expressed,

So that you have the movement of health to be healthy and to be aware of what it is and to express that,

Your true being.

In this way,

You have found the permission and the expression of your true nature,

And once you have done that,

It can continue.

It doesn't take much,

It could be dreams,

It could be expression in the artistic forms,

But whatever it is,

It's your true self,

Your essence.

Reviews

Thank you for sharing such a sacred and intimate experience, Jacob! I look forward to your next tracks! 🪷