S3E12 Giving Grief a Voice with Creative Expression with Susie Stonefield

For many of us, grief can be hard to access. The depth of our pain creates resistance to honoring what yearns to come forward. How do we enter these spaces feeling safe to give voice to grief in a way that effectively soothes the wound left in the wake of loss?

Join Amanda and her guest Susie Stonefield, transformational creativity and grief coach, for a compelling conversation about using art to excavate feelings hidden deep within, with the intention of putting language to emotions you may not know are living inside of you. The second half of the show focuses largely on what this work looks like in groups. Susie teaches us how to be a responsible and impactful facilitator as well as participant in this sacred space. 

Key points to listen for include:

• The desire to avoid feeling pain and how art is a powerful tool to dig into the dark places, transform your experience with grief, and ultimately transform your life.
• The power in witnessing others in their grief without the need to fix or change them; the art of holding space in silence especially if it feels discomforting.
• How to allow someone the full expression of their pain without trying to make them feel better.
• Art as an instrument for self-awareness, and for birthing new light into ourselves and the world.
• The importance of acknowledging, honoring, and allowing whatever you are feeling to come up and out with judgment.
• The ancient Japanese art of Kintsugi as a metaphor for the beauty of grief. 

About Susie

Susie (she/her) is a transformational creativity and grief coach. Her passion is making people cry with art supplies. In one-on-one coaching programs, intimate small group Deep Dives, and immersive retreats, both in person and online, Susie guides her people to find freedom, relief and lightness in their lives through the intuitive process of art journaling. Susie has decades of experience teaching, developing curriculum, and creating heart-centered circles. She holds degrees in fine arts and education, certificates in person-centered expressive arts facilitation and grief counseling, is a California native, and calls the unceded territories of the Mechoopda people (the big/small town of Chico, CA) home. She is a late-in-life queer cis woman, mom to three amazing humans, and a guitar-wielding song leader on the side.

Find out more about Susie at https://www.susiestonefield.com/. She has on-going online and in person programs including small group grief programs, multi-day retreats, and 1:1 coaching. Susie has created a workbook just for my podcast listeners. You can find it here: Grief & Creativity Invitations Workbook (https://www.susiestonefield.com/podcast-gift1.css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}