Coping with Grief and Loss through Design Thinking

Design thinking has helped me create new products, concepts, services and other abstract challenges. And these creative methods of design thinking helped me to focus, arranging values, my values and aims - to practice self-awareness - and to design a 'better life' for myself. In fact, I firmly believe that design thinking may help others as well to deal with challenges in life and for instance grief.

By the way - already two year ago I wrote an article labeled: Every human being is a designer - design your life by Design Thinking and so you can consider this article as a late follow up.

How to use Design Thinking for your life and especially for dealing with grieving?

Empathize and Journaling
Start with empathy and self-understanding - and one method is to journaling.
You may have stopped using a diary once you reached adulthood. But the method and its benefits still apply. And it’s called journaling. It's simply writing down your thoughts and feelings to understand them more clearly. And if you struggle with stress, depression, or anxiety, keeping a journal can be a great idea. It can help you gain control of your emotions and improve your mental health and in our case it helps with grieving.
Empathizing with yourself and journaling will help to surface insights and themes which you are not aware of until they will be visible and obvious - gathered on a sheet of paper - and yes here and there it will be painful - but it will be insightful and delighting as well.
I suggest to write down any thought or feeling that came to your mind without editing.

Defining Needs and Insides
The journal will surface a number of needs. That might be need for the support of family & close friends - you must keep in mind that people who grief less or differently, and even more people who hat no or less relation to the deceased person do not know on the one hand what to say and on the other hand what to do or not to do (in this context a former article: Coping With Grief - How to Deal With Grief - Bystanders, Colleagues etc. from Aug. 2022).
Or it might be the need for rest and taking care of one own health. The need to let go of long-lasting burdens. The need to live a life of courage and without fear. The need to dream and becoming aware of yourself.The needs, want, problems te. and what to address immediately.
And if you like to use as well the technique of phrasing a "How might we..." - A How Might We (HMW) statement turns your problem framing into a question that can be solved. Just rephrase it to a "How might I ..." statement.
By using design thinking explicitly, you would take your problem(s) and put them into “How Might I…” statement(s) in preparation for ideation. Based on your journal, one of youir statements would have been: “How Might I Unburden My Sadness?”

Ideation - Thinking about Alternative, Options and Ideas which might make you feel better 
Ideation, means as next method, to think about, think  up, conceive,  and to imagine (on your own or together with other)  any idea that could easier your situation,m your emotions - make you feel better -  and opens you a paths for yourself / for your grieving. Start to brainstorm ideas as to how you might address each problem / each challenge. For each challenge I suggest to take one sheet of paper - and put your themes either at the top of each paper or how I do it most often put it in the center of each paper. And now generate as many different ideas for potential solutions as you can.
After or better at the end of your ideation and an initial brainstorm, I suggest to supplement it with some ideas from and with person close to you, friends, and or family.

Sampling of Ideas
Give your ideas (that emerged and come up from your ideation) a burst  (How Might I Unburden My Sadness?) - and same as during the ideation phase - don’t do it alone, lean on others, especially close friends and family. And then transform 'your idea' into a routine and as we already know it from other routines - embracing it as a daily routines - and such routines will have positively impact on your mental health

Prototype – Your new Compendium / Playbook for your life after your loved one passed away
Save and store your key findings. Mix, pair, or adjust your ideas. Check, prove and if needed reconsider your ideas - see your life as a path - an individual path which you can go with your own pace - as birth is part of the path of life - death is it as well. Keep, gather your ideas, and use them for ideation and deep reflection. I tell you this because - whatsoever, and howsoever and well tried and tested - your playbook might worked out and how much you like it - life will have few move and play calls you never expected - so keep you playbook with you and in your heart and soul. 

Small steps in the right direction can turn out to be the biggest step of your life

I’m frequently surprised by how often people get in trouble by the prototype phase, thinking it needs to be something super elaborate. Don’t fall into this trap, it doesn’t need to be another version of the next moon landing. It would also be a shame to nail the planning components in designing your life, only to get stuck by trying to create 'the perfect prototype'.

All too often the more common it is, fitting to YOU and YOUR situation. the better. It should just be something, anything that takes some sort of physical form so that you (or others) can interact with it.

• Starting YOUR day Your way - in my case with a good coffee and porridge 
• Getting a good sleep 6+ hours per night
• Here and there a catnap for 15 minutes
• A good song and meditation 
• And regular relaxing pedicure or care cosmetics appointment

One of the best parts of using design thinking for your own life is that you can implement each stage immediately. There is no organizational buy-in, no coordination of facilities, participants, or workshops. The only buy-in and resources needed come from you. I actually started feeling better and more in control even before I tested my prototypes and considered about my playbook. 

Closing thought

Design thinking can help you regain control of your life and believing in yourself. 

Design thinking can play a role in designing your life, whether it’s a better career, a better lifestyle, and as well in challenging times of life after the lost of a loved one.

Coping with challenges in life, in day things, particular tasks or moments - can make you feel strange, numb, lost, ... you name it - you feel it. But it's your responsibility to do something for yourself - and practice self-awareness.