GROW Batch #2 Session 1 marked the beginning of a six-week journey for young women in Yogyakarta to explore grief, reconnect with themselves, and find support through community.
After the first GROW programme in April–May 2026, Talk Mental Health ID (TMH.id) welcomed the return of GROW Batch #2. The programme creates space for young women to explore loss, express emotions, and connect with others.
GROW stands for Grief-informed Resilience, Ownership, and Wellbeing. It recognises that grief extends beyond death. It can also arise from changing relationships, lost opportunities, a diminished sense of safety, or a future that looks different from what we imagined.
On Saturday, 3 October 2026, thirteen participants gathered for GROW Batch #2 Session 1, titled Creating Safety and Naming What Hurts. Before exploring grief, the group began with a fundamental question: How can we create a space where everyone feels safe enough to participate in their own way?
Beginning with Emotional Safety
During GROW Batch #2 Session 1, participants were introduced to the six-week programme structure and established shared agreements to care for one another throughout the journey.
Consent, confidentiality, and the right to pass were central to building emotional safety. These agreements recognise each participant’s agency, encourage respect for personal stories, and allow everyone to choose how they participate.
At GROW, sharing your entire story is never a requirement. Listening, observing, or simply being present are also valid ways to take part.
These shared agreements lay the foundation for a safe, grief-informed support space where personal boundaries are respected and everyone can move at their own pace.
Understanding the Many Forms of Grief
During GROW Batch #2 Session 1, participants began exploring different forms of grief and finding words for feelings that may have been difficult to express.
Grief is not only about death. It can also arise from changing relationships, losing a sense of home or security, unmet expectations, or leaving behind a familiar version of ourselves. These experiences can be difficult to recognise, especially when others do not see them as worthy of mourning.
The first session felt emotionally significant, perhaps offering some participants space to acknowledge grief that had not yet been recognised. Everyone carries a different history and processes loss in their own way.
Sometimes, the first step is simply acknowledging what happened and allowing the experience to matter.
GROW Batch #2 Session 1 focused on emotional safety, grief awareness, and finding ways to express what words cannot yet hold.
When Art Becomes a Way to Express What Words Cannot
Not every experience can be explained through words. Some feelings emerge as bodily sensations, colours, movements, or emotions we do not yet fully understand. When words feel insufficient, creative expression offers another way to explore what is happening within us.
In GROW Batch #2 Session 1, Vina Puspita facilitated a visual art practice introducing two methods: Free Line & Colour and Breathing Tone Drawing. Both draw inspiration from Rudolf Steiner’s artistic ideas and practices, rooted in Anthroposophy and Waldorf education.
Through lines, colours, and breathing-based drawing, participants were invited to express themselves without immediately explaining their feelings. The focus was not on creating beautiful artwork, but on noticing what was present in the moment.
This approach resonates with a 2017 pilot study by Girija Kaimal and colleagues, published in The Arts in Psychotherapy. Studying 26 adults, researchers found increased medial prefrontal cortex activation during colouring, doodling, and free drawing compared with rest. Participants also described the activities as relaxing and reported improvements in their perceived problem-solving and idea-generation abilities. Further research was needed to understand these findings.
Although the study did not specifically examine grief, it offers insight into the potential value of art beyond producing a finished piece. Visual expression can create opportunities for reflection and self-exploration.
Within GROW Batch #2 Session 1, creative activities are not intended to diagnose, treat, or resolve grief. They offer another way to explore emotions at an individual pace, without the pressure to interpret drawings, explain every feeling, or share what feels private.
Sometimes, allowing a line, colour, or movement to emerge is enough to begin noticing what is happening within us. There is no need to find the right words or reach a clear conclusion.
For GROW, the value lies in making room for this process, allowing each participant to explore their feelings in their own way and time.
Continuing the Reflection Beyond the Session
During GROW Batch #2 Session 1, each participant received a digital reflection workbook to use throughout the programme.
The workbook is not an assignment, but a personal space for writing, taking notes, and revisiting feelings that emerge during sessions. Reflection can happen later, in everyday moments, at each participant’s own pace.
What they write remains private, and they decide what, if anything, to share.
Through this workbook, GROW creates space for personal reflection, emotional awareness, and self-paced growth beyond the group sessions, without adding another expectation to fulfil.
Sometimes, growth happens in small moments we experience on our own.
A Moment to Pause Before Going Home
During GROW Batch #2 Session 1, participants gathered for a closing reflection circle to pause, reconnect with themselves, and reflect on the day’s experience.
Each person could share a word, a sentence, or choose to pass. There was no pressure to explain everything they felt.
One question guided the reflection:
“What do I want to carry with me, and what do I want to let go of today?”
Like a brief meditation, this moment offered space to notice what was present before returning to everyday life.
Not everything needs to be resolved in one session. Sometimes, we simply need time to acknowledge our feelings, recognise our boundaries, and process our experiences at our own pace.
A Little Plant to Grow With
Before leaving, each participant received a butterfly pea plant from the Tumbuh Space garden as a companion for their six-week journey.
Like a plant, understanding grief takes time, care, and space. Growth can begin with acknowledging emotions, allowing ourselves to rest, and finding connection through community support.
We are grateful to the thirteen participants, Vina Puspita for facilitating the visual art practice, and the peer facilitators and peer counsellor who supported this shared space.
GROW Batch #2 Session 1 marks the beginning of five more weeks of exploring grief, emotional expression, connection, and growing together.
Growing Together, One Week at a Time
GROW Batch #2 Session 1 was an invitation to begin slowly: building emotional safety, recognising different forms of grief, and exploring ways to express feelings beyond words.
Through this community-based grief support programme, TMH.id creates space for young women to acknowledge loss, honour personal boundaries, and experience the value of connection and peer support.
We hope participants recognise that their experiences deserve space, their grief has its own timeline, and they do not have to navigate it alone.
With five weeks remaining, GROW continues to offer opportunities for reflection, emotional expression, and growing together.
Curious about GROW Batch #2? Explore the programme, its approach, and the six-week journey on our GROW Support Group page.