How creativity helps us navigate grief and loneliness

In times of grief and loneliness, finding ways to process these profound emotions can feel overwhelming. For many, creativity offers a unique and healing pathway to explore and understand these feelings. In this post, we talk to Xanne and Alice, members of our Marmalade Trust team, who share their personal journeys of using creative expression to navigate loss and loneliness.

By knitting, crocheting, and creating in various forms, they found that visualising emotions through art provided not only a comforting outlet but also opportunities to form new connections along the way. Whether it’s through knitting or another creative medium, their stories remind us of the transformative power of art in the face of life’s toughest challenges.

Anticipating loss and loneliness

Xanne

Waiting for a grief that I knew was coming felt like living in an alternative dimension – everything looked the same, but nothing felt right. It became harder and harder to find any joy, anxiety became my permanent companion and I felt overwhelming murmuration’s of anticipatory grief; disbelief, anger, sorrow, regret, and loneliness, all coming in unpredictable surges.

Often, I found it impossible to see that the sorrow and loneliness would ever end. Then, I heard of an unexpected way to navigate emotions—by knitting them into something useful. I taught myself to knit two basic stitches during lockdown and then, several years later as life felt on hold, knitting became more than just a hobby for my hands.

I began using different colours of wool to represent each emotion as I felt it. Each time a wave of feeling came over me, I chose a colour to match it and started knitting, adding rows and rows until the feeling changed into something else. At first, the colours changes were dark and chaotic but, slowly, this process helped me see that, no matter how powerful or painful my emotions are, they come and go.

I could look back at how the red, blue/black and grey rows that dominated at the beginning, became further apart as, first occasional and then more regular, rows of yellow, green and peach came along.

If you’re experiencing loss or loneliness, perhaps you might like to try visualising your feelings, whether through knitting, painting, writing, or any form of expression that feels right to you. It’s not about pushing through your feelings or trying to make them disappear, but about giving them space to exist and trusting that they will change with time. The process of knitting my grief taught me that no feeling lasts forever, and that healing, though slow, is a continual process - one stitch at a time.

An outlet for the loneliness in grief

Alice

Using creativity was a powerful antidote after my sister died. It gave me a productive outlet for my feelings of loneliness in grief.  It also opened me up to new connections. 

As a newbie to significant grief and trauma I felt isolated and lonely. I worried I was the only person feeling this way.  Engaging with creativity helped me to manage difficult feelings and led to a stronger sense of belonging.

My family and I set up a WhatsApp group and we all taught ourselves to crochet. We then signed up to a free Crochet Along (CAL). This is a space where people make the same pattern together at the same time. Coincidently, the teacher had experienced a similar grief and trauma to ours.  She had started the group in tribute to a friend who had died by suicide.  It was great fun and comforting to be a part of this group online. 

Th WhatsApp group was made up of cousins, my aunt, friends, my mum, and siblings.  In the end we all made a beautiful blanket that we all call our ‘Jess blanket’ as this was my sister's name. Inside each of those stitches so much is represented in the connections we made and continue to make with one another. 

After this CAL, I used my new crochet skill to mark World Suicide Prevention Day.  I created yellow crochet roses and carefully placed them in our local woods on trees.  My Cruse Suicide Support group gave me permission to put a picture of our loved ones, who had died by suicide, and a positive message taking us forward.  We walked as a group on Suicide Prevention Day, through the woods and found the pictures of our loved ones and read the comments below.  We were connected on Facebook by other wood walkers who said the route was powerful and made them stop, think and take the messaging home. I think she would have been proud of the connections I have made in the CAL and for this wood walk.

My new crochet skill has led to me teaching others and creating many more crochet pieces.  My most recent crochet circle comprises 20+ amazing volunteers for our charity.  They have created 230 connection coasters for the Marmalade Christmas hampers this year.  Gifting these to others to encourage connections when we have also made great connections creating them has been a wonderful process and will hopefully encourage connections for our members in the coming year. Go get creative!

If you’re navigating grief and loneliness, creativity may offer you an unexpected companion along the way. Whether it’s through knitting, writing, painting, or joining an online group, expressing your emotions in a creative form can provide a valuable space for release, reflection, and connection. Xanne and Alice’s journeys show that even amid sorrow, creativity can foster new beginnings, helping us find connection with others and, most importantly, with ourselves. So, pick up a needle, a pen, or a paintbrush—and allow yourself to express, create, and heal, one stitch at a time.

A huge thank you to Xanne and Alice for sharing your stories and inspiring others.