When coach and storyteller Marianne Christensen lost her husband to cancer, she decided that she would not push the grief away — but neither would she allow it to steal her joy for life. Through conscious grief work, in which she worked with different stories, both a new insight and the concept of “Organic Storytelling” gradually emerged.

By Sannie Terese Burén, featured in Magasinet Psykologi 06/2013
Photos Alex Tran

In the late summer of 2008 Marianne Christensen travelled to England full of anticipation. She was about to begin a three-month course at The International School of Storytelling — something she had long been saving for  — and had even taken leave from her job to attend. But after three weeks her husband, Leif, called.

He had been to the doctor. He had cancer.

Marianne returned home immediately.

It soon became clear that nothing could be done, and Marianne decided to face the reality that her husband of nineteen years would soon die.

“For a short while I tried to save him with green smoothies and healthy food,” Marianne says with a small, ironic smile.

“But he had no interest in eating all that healthy food and said: ‘Let me have a glass of red wine instead!’ One day I heard an inner voice saying: ‘Who on earth do you think you are, believing you can control life and death? There are other forces taking care of that.’ And that was a huge relief.”

Leif’s illness became a kind of turning point in their marriage, Marianne explains.

“A love grew between us that we hadn’t felt for a long time. We had actually been on the verge of separating, but the moment I heard he was ill, I knew I had to be there.”

Even so, Marianne found it difficult to see herself as the devoted wife who should always be there for her husband.

“We had always been very equal. Like many couples, we lived partly our own lives. But suddenly I had to take on the role of helper — and in the end even help him get dressed.

Marianne found support in an Indian story about a woman named Savitri who marries a man she knows will die within a year.

“Even so she wants to marry him, because, as she says, there is no reason to refuse happiness just because you know it will end. And that was what I thought: “I will not grieve now. I will make the most of the time we have left. For me it meant bringing joy into everyday life.”

Whenever things felt difficult, Marianne thought of the story of Savitri, who follows after Death when he comes to take her husband’s soul. Death stops her and says that she cannot follow him into the realm of the dead. But she replies that a wife’s duty is to remain at her husband’s side. And she keeps following, because she longs with all her heart to bring him back.

“Before, I would probably have thought it was a rather sentimental story. But in that situation, it made so much sense. In the story Savitri eventually persuades Death to give her husband back. And that can happen in fairy tales — but not in real life.”

Marianne, who has long been interested in the healing power of stories, began to see her own life as a series of chapters in a book. It helped her to think that she was in the process of closing a long chapter titled “Marriage with Leif” — but that there had been chapters before, and that new ones would follow.

This way of thinking inspired Marianne to try to bring their relationship to a close in the best possible way.

“We often sat together like this: he in his armchair and I on a footstool, holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes. We talked about many things and were able to bring our marriage to a close. It was a great gift.

“I was the one who insisted,” she says. “As I told him: when you are no longer here, I need to know that nothing has been left unresolved.”

In the end Leif slipped into a kind of unconscious state. During the last days of his life Marianne sat by his bed, writing answers to questions such as “What has he given me?” and “What have I learned?” in a little black notebook.

“It was very moving to sit there beside him and go through all the years we had spent together. I remembered how we first fell in love. During the first seven years of our marriage, I was often so happy that I had to pinch myself.

“In the beginning we were so good for each other. But later we began to argue a lot, and I started making too many demands on him. He did not want to hear it and shut down. We never really talked things through. But in the end we did.”

Eight months after the phone call to England, Leif died at home — he was never admitted to hospital or hospice. When the practical matters and the funeral were over, Marianne began to wonder what the next chapter of her life might bring.

She was determined not to push her grief away. But at the same time she would not allow it to take her joy of life either — perhaps even the opposite.

One of the first things she did was simply not turn on the television. Before it had always been on.

“The silence was wonderful,” she says. “My husband loved having music or the TV on at all times, whereas I need quiet. And in that way, I slowly began to rediscover myself — what I want. It was a lovely process.”

Leif was nine years older than Marianne. That made her think: What if I only have nine years left to live?

“The thought of how fragile and short life is made me realise that I have to spend my time on something I truly care about,” Marianne says.

She once again took leave from her job and travelled back to England to complete the storytelling course. The plan had been to return to her work as an adult educator, but she was not offered the subjects she wanted to teach. So, she resigned.

“I receive a small pension after Leif. That gave me the financial freedom to take the leap and work full time with what I truly care about. I feel very grateful for that — and I know that both coaching and storytelling make a real difference for the people I meet.”

Whether Marianne works as a therapist or as a storyteller, she uses stories in a way that allows them to end well. When stories end well, people begin to heal themselves from within, she believes.

“When we tell stories that end well, wellbeing hormones are released in the brain. They help us relax and feel safe. Through stories we are also presented with new possibilities, which quite literally create new connections in the brain. We may start to think: if the girl in the fairy tale can do it, perhaps I can too.”

One of the most important things for Marianne in her own grieving process was holding on to certain stories that she told herself again and again. But gradually new stories also began to grow out of her own experiences.

She later gathered these stories into a performance titled “A Piece of My Heart”, where she uses the heart as a metaphor and tells the story of her loss.

One particular moment gave the performance its title, Marianne explains:

“Four or five days before Leif died, he suddenly lay there just looking at me, and I felt something very strong in my heart. Something passed between us. Either he gave me a piece of my heart back — something I had once given to him — or he took a piece of my heart with him when he died.

“I am still not quite sure which it was. But I was deeply moved. It was one of the strongest moments of love in my life.”

One day Marianne was invited to tell her story “A Piece of My Heart” at an event organised by body therapist Hanne Kjemtrup. Afterwards the idea emerged to create Organic Storytelling together.

From two different perspectives, Hanne and Marianne explore the function and symbolism of different organs in the body.

“We begin with the organ’s physical function in the body,” Marianne explains. “Then we present it through symbolic stories, exercises and factual knowledge. And every time several of the participants have a huge aha moment.”

So far, the two therapists have worked not only with the heart, but also with the lungs, the spleen and the skin — which is the organ that currently fascinates Marianne the most.

“The skin is our boundary both inward and outward,” she explains, before telling the story of King Lindworm.

“King Lindworm has become so thick-skinned that he has turned cruel. Then he meets love — someone who truly sees who he is, not just his façade. She washes him with milk and softens his shell, and in that way the prince he really is begins to appear.

“Our skin protects us from the outside world, but it also holds everything together. Many things are already present in our language — for example being too thick-skinned or too sensitive. Sometimes it is also reflected physically in the body. People with severe eczema, where the skin breaks open, might benefit from looking at whether they struggle with boundaries in other areas of their lives.”

Through her collaboration with Hanne, Marianne has discovered a new and more playful way of working. In that sense, the Organic Storytelling project is also a direct result of the transformation that Leif’s death brought into her life.

“Before, I often tried to live up to his expectations of who I should be — and more generally to adapt to other people’s expectations. When he died, I realised that if life is this short, I have to take my own expectations more seriously.

“And that has gradually developed over the past four years. Today I simply do what I feel like doing, as long as it does not harm anyone else.”

Marianne experiences this as a powerful force that helps her make the most of her life.

“Perhaps it is selfish, but so what? I do not have to live up to anyone else’s ideals or norms. I stand by who I am now and have found my authenticity.

“That has been the greatest gift — that I now feel at peace with myself.

“And it has come from working with stories and constantly asking myself the question: what do I want now in my life? Not what is the meaning of life? — I tried asking that as well, but it did not lead to anything very meaningful.

“So instead, I began asking: how can I simply be myself — how can I become the best version of myself?

“And the only way I can do that is by being honest. With myself first and foremost.”