Grief and Safety Photo Activity. Find Your Safe Place!

Today, I’d like to share with you a grief and safety photo activity. I think this one can be really fun as well as easy because most of us usually have instant access to photography due to this being the cell phone age. You don’t need a lot of materials, just the willingness and time to be free with pictures and photos.

Feeling safe throughout grief is often not easy. Lives have been turned upside and altered so severely that sometimes, they are not even recognizable. You may feel like you as a person are also no longer recognizable. Trying to feel safe among this kind of turmoil feels impossible. We may find that we gravitate towards certain people or places that are comforting because they are familiar. We might also avoid them and seek out new people or places that now feel safe. Or you may be like me and need a whole lot of solitude because any kind of interaction is just too overwhelming. Sometimes silence – just not having to talk or respond or even move, is what allows some of the feeling of safety. When our souls are stuffed to the brink with various degrees of trauma, we just can’t handle the possibility of anything else touching that and adding to it. Or even worse, just setting us off altogether.

Another issue with grief and safety is becoming clumsy or absentminded to the point of endangering ourselves as well as others. In fact, I discuss this a little more thoroughly in my article on how grief affects brain function. The point is that our minds and bodies get so impacted by death that it’s difficult to feel any sense of safety.

Maybe thinking about what gives you a “safe place” feeling can be a way for you to release just a tiny bit of the sadness and anxiety that comes with grief.

Purpose

This grief and safety photo activity will hopefully take just a little of the edge off regarding the trepidation and uncertainty that comes into our lives after death occurs. When you think about a place that makes you feel something that at least resembles the feeling of safety, it brings a sense of stillness and relaxation that is beneficial, if even for only a few minutes.

This is one of the things I love most about art. For a few minutes, I am the one in control of reality. I can do this one small thing, like drawing a picture or taking a picture and I can make the choice. It is up to me, unlike actual reality where grief and sadness can happen and do.

So, this is what I want to share with you, too. For this brief amount of time, I want you to try something that will hopefully allow you a sense of safety and control, even if it’s only a glimmer. Sometimes, with grief, all we can hope for is those glimmers and that one day, they may grow into something much bigger.

Some ideas that may feel like safe places:

• Nature (the beach, the mountains, a fireplace, the moon, fluffy clouds, a treehouse, a waterfall, etc…).
• A cozy but empty room (like your bedroom, or a hotel room).
• Fantasy (an enchanted forest, a fairy tale castle, anything magical).
• An animal shelter (though be careful, you may find it impossible not to come home with several new pets :)).
• A bookstore or library (this would be me)
• An art or crafts store (also me)
• A church
• Bubble baths and candles

Materials

• The camera on your cell phone or any camera of your choice

or…

• Your cell phone or computer with your search engine choice

Extra artsy option:

• Draw or paint your own safe place using your own chosen medium (colored pencils, oil pastels, watercolors, oils or acrylic paints, etc…)

Instructions

There are several different ways you can do this and whatever way you choose will determine what materials you actually need.

You can:

1. Take photos of your safe places yourself. Go for a walk in nature or visit a place that elicits this kind of feeling.
2. Go online and search for images of your safe places. Try Pixabay or Unsplash. You can download tons of beautiful, free images on both of these sites.
3. Print a copy of your favorite(s) and hang them where you can see them everyday or arrange them on your phone or desktop background (this step is optional but can be very soothing to have in your space)

If you chose the “Extra Option” above where you paint or draw your picture yourself, then you already have your very own copy of your safe place to hang somewhere and enjoy! (I want to see! I hope you want to share!)

My Safe Places

I decided to show one of each option that I mentioned above for my safe places just to give you some ideas for yours. I think this is probably one of my favorite therapeutic art activities. It’s not only simple but I just really like the feeling of having safe places. It makes me feel like there’s a place where there are these feelings I can get where for at least a minute or two, I can not be bothered.

My first safe place:

This is a picture I took of one of hallways gardens in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. I used to live in the D.C Metro area for many years and this became one of my favorite places to go. It’s so, so quiet and majestic and of course, full of art. One of my very best days ever was getting the chance to go here all by myself about a year ago. Every time I went before, it was with someone else. But this time, I spent the entire day alone roaming around in here alone. For me, it was pure bliss. I could spend as much or as little time with each painting or sculpture as I wanted without worrying about if whoever I was with was bored out of their minds. I could go eat when I wanted. I was surrounded by everything that made me feel at peace. And I went on a quiet weekday so I felt like the whole museum was almost all mine. It’s not often I feel this level of relaxation. I hope I can go back and spend the day with just me and the Old Masters again.

My second safe place:

I searched online in Pixabay for a really good picture of a bookstore or library because books are really one of my superheroes. I came across this one. It says that this library in located in Prague. I just loved the way this looked and I’d love to see it in person. It almost looks like a magical library, someplace you’d go to find the answers to enchantment and dreams and wishes. I’d like to imagine that there are books that you could open that would tell you all of the mysteries of the universe. But anyway, I’d like to be in any room like this that is filled with books and there are no people in it either. Just me and books. That would be wonderfully quiet and definitely give me a safe place feeling.

My third safe place:

I painted this picture myself a few months ago. I really enjoy doing landscapes or scenic nature in general. It fills me with a very big sense of safety and serenity. I avoid any people or animals in them at this time. I tried to add them before and found that I preferred only the grass, trees, rocks, etc…I don’t even like adding in structures like houses or cottages or anything that is man made. I guess because that indicates people have been there. I only want the untouched nature part. That makes me feel safe. And this is one of my favorite paintings that I made myself. It’s done with oil paints and it’s only 5″ X 7″. And it just makes me feel exactly what I want to feel. Calm, quiet and untouched.

The Benefits

As I mentioned above, daydreaming, imagining and putting into reality the vision or idea of a “safe place” can be really relaxing. When you really think about what that place would be for you, then for a few minutes you are really doing something that taps into the part of you that needs to feel some resemblance of peace and relaxation. And once you find that place inside yourself, hanging up a physical version of it where you can see it everyday may, at the very least, subconsciously give you a tiny bit of that same feeling throughout the day. If you move around a lot during the day and may not see it much, you could try putting it on your phone or computer screen where you could see it from time to time.

So, what’s your safe place? Is it a physical place or a magical world? Or both? I’d love to see your results with this activity so if you’re comfortable in sharing, just send it to me at nikki@grievingarts.com. Or you can just let us know your thoughts in the comment box below. Let us know what would be your safe place and why so we can give you support.

Take care and be safe! 🙂