Working with our high school participants, we provided them with a 3D shaped star and asked each of them to paint what their grief looked like. Not knowing how to do what we were asking, this participant was instructed to paint the star without even thinking about her grief - just have fun with it.
When she was done, she described her star. It was painted all bright colors that represented her life "for the most part it's happy (bright colors)". Then she explained the black handprints that she had painted randomly over the bright colors, "that's my grief.... it's PART of my life - but it doesn't consume it.
Before today, I thought my grief was the biggest part of my story - this showed me that my grief touches all the parts of my life - it just doesn't CONSUME it!" It was the process of creating that allowed this participant to be able to realize that her story was so much more than just her grief. This testimony proves that Hope does outshine grief.