Feels Like Healing

In this podcast, I wanted to talk to creative people about how grief and loss has manifested itself in their work and how creativity can be an immense healing tool for all of us when dealing with grief and loss.

My Dad died back in 2006, when I was 21, due to Multiple Sclerosis. Yet it's only now, fifteen years on, that am I finally able to open up about him and how his death inextricably shaped my life from that moment on. Having posted online about my grief for the first time on the anniversary of his death last year, the level of responses from people made me realise that these were subjects that we all struggled to talk about.

Music had always been a big part of my life ever since I was a teenager and I first discovered the Beatles and Bob Dylan, but I'd never considered trying to do it as my job! However when my Dad died, I felt compelled to do 'something' in my life which would make me feel alive.

Little did I know then how much I needed music and songwriting in my life to help me process the death of my Dad, even if I wasn't writing about it directly, the simple act of being creative was a huge catharsis to me. I hope the listeners to this show will draw comfort in the commonality of all our experiences of struggling to deal with loss, but will see how that loss can be turned into something powerful and healing.