Peace Poetry Contest

Congratulations to the winners of the Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Contest, sponsored the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. The annual contest honors BMK, the late Santa Barbara-based poet, and encourages poets of all ages to “get to the core of the spirit of peace.” To read this year’s winning poems, and for information on the mission and educational programs of the NAPF, visit www.wagingpeace.org.

Journaling During the Pandemic

The emotional impact from COVID-19 may be the “third wave” of the virus, say Gabrielle Birkner and Rebecca Soffer, authors of Modern Loss: Candid Conversation About Grief (www.newsbreak.com). Loss is never easy, but this pandemic has been especially difficult because people who are hospitalized with cornonavirus are isolated from loved ones. Family members have had to communicate on FaceTime and conduct memorial services on Zoom, and “The toll taken on survivors is tremendous,” the authors say.

There’s also “a communal grief as we watch our work, health-care, education and economics systems — all of these systems we depend on — destabilize,” says Sherry Cormier, Ph.D, a specialist in grief mentoring. “It’s important that we start recognizing that we’re in the middle of this collective grief. We are all losing something now” (COVID-19: Mourning our Bygone Lives, by Kirsten Weir, www.apa.org). Acknowledging grief is vital, psychologists say, whether it’s for a person, a marriage, a job, or something ambiguous such as a sense of safety or security. One way to do this is to write about it. Cormier suggests journaling as a way “to put words to losses, and to help identify ways to move forward.”  But, “It’s not about writing perfectly,” stresses Heather Stang, M.A, author of Mindfulness and Grief, who advises keeping “your journal handy, for you never know when insight or something else you wish to record will arise.”

Morgan Ome describes how journaling can assist individuals to reflect on uncertain times rather than just react to them (Dear Diary: This is My Life in Quarantine, Atlantic, 8/6/20). She tells the stories of Angela DePalma, a 27-year old from Dutchess County, New York, who struggled with her grandmother’s coronavirus diagnosis and work-related stress before turning to journaling, and of Justyn Williams, an out of work, 29-year-old actor in Los Angeles who writes twice a day in his journal as “a way to check in with an invisible therapist.”

For the PDF Journal Prompts To Facilitate Coping with the 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic, visit www.conncoll.edu.  For the PDF Navigating Grief: The Mindful Way to Cope With Loss, visit www.mindfulnessandgrief.com.