Memoir: How I imagined my way through grief

My mother died and I began writing a memoir about moving into her home with all her belongings and attempting to make it my own. Utilizing creative and heuristic methodology, I slowly realized the imaginal components to my grieving as well as the healing effect it was having on me. Mourning my mother caused me to mourn my identity---professionally, personally, and emotionally. It put me on the path, that continues past this thesis, of reconstructing myself and my mother as well as knowing her more intimately than I ever could when she was alive. Conversations with the dead, their belongings, and our own memories of them come alive in Technicolor through the imaginal processes of truly felt grief. This thesis is a window into my process of grieving imaginally and thus healing the soul in a holistic way through the art of crafting memoir. As practitioners of depth psychology, with our own self-knowledge and experience, we can guide people to a place of deeper knowing through their own stories and personal myths, while accompanying grief forward on its journey.