16. Creativity in Grief - Claudia Coenen

Human beings are by nature creative and imaginative. Because grief is a holistic experience that affects every level of our being and it requires an outlet, tapping into a creative process can be extremely cathartic during our grief journey. Creativity can really help us process our emotions and find a way through. Be it journaling, drawing, dancing, singing, or even having a mindful walk in nature, any big or small creative is valuable.

Claudia Coenen is a certified grief counsellor and thanatologist with a Masters in Transpersonal Psychology. Her life experience as a performer, mother, chef and widow informs her work. Claudia has a private practice in Hudson, NY where she helps people move through grief, cope with illness, and relationship issues, often bringing simple art modalities into her sessions.

Claudia leads workshops and talks on the effectiveness of expressive arts in bereavement and is part of the Virtual Funeral Collective that produced the informational paper entitled Death, Grief and Funerals in the Covid Age, a resource guide for funerals, dying and grief during the pandemic. (www.covidpaper.org) While working in a hospice program with patients and their families, Claudia developed The Karuna Cards, a deck of creative ideas for grief and difficult life transitions and is the author of Shattered by Grief: Picking up the Pieces to become WHOLE again. Her new book, The Creative Toolkit for Working with Grief and Bereavement: A Practitioners Guide, was released in print on July 2020. All three are available for purchase on Amazon, at Barnes and Noble and through this link: https://www.jkp.com/usa/catalogsearch/result/?q=claudia+coenen

You can book sessions with Claudia and find out more about The Karuna Project on www.thekarunaproject.com where there are lots of information about Claudia's work, her publications and links to articles as well as videos, podcasts and interviews.

Check out the free online event hosted by Grief Dialogues on Thursday October 29th 1pm-2pm NZT where Claudia Coenen will be a panelist together with Robert Neimeyer. You can register here: https://letsreimagine.org/58851/8-am-time-to-talk-about-traumatic-loss

If you would like to get in touch, please visit www.crazygrief.com and drop me a note. I would really love to hear from you. And please subscribe, share and rate this show so I can continue to produce more meaningful conversations about grief.

With lots of love,

Tatiana xo