Metabolizing Grief

What happens when years of unprocessed sorrow, a new understanding of how his mind works, and a decade of wrestling with loss converge into unexpected wisdom about what it means to live with grief? In this conversation with pastor, artist, and author John Onwuchekwa, we explore how grief—like metabolism—requires daily practice, not one-time solutions.

Sometimes the most profound insights emerge from the most unexpected connections. During a recent conversation with John Onwuchekwa—pastor, artist, social media grief advocate and author—he described how living with ongoing challenges gave him a startling picture of grief: it isn’t something you “fix” or cure, it’s something you carry and learn to digest, day after day.

The Grief Connection

John’s journey began with what seemed like an unrelated health issue. For three years, he experienced the frustrating reality of working “twice as hard for half the results.” As an athlete who had always been active, this decline was bewildering. When doctors finally diagnosed him with a thyroid condition, the treatment was surprisingly simple: a daily pill that would replace what his body could no longer produce.

“There is no cure for it,” John explains. “But there is a pill that you can take on an empty stomach. because my metabolism didn’t work right. But now with this pill, it’s like, oh, it helps me to metabolize..”

This experience became a powerful metaphor for understanding grief. “I think it’s the same thing with grief. If we don’t have a fluency in grief... our soul is not able to metabolize sadness, sorrow. It just sits at the bottom of our soul.”

Language as Medicine

But what serves as the daily pill for grief? For John, it’s story—the fundamental purpose of language itself.

“I think if we remember that language was created for the purpose of story—stories we both hear and share—those are the things that help us to metabolize grief, sadness.” He references poet Natasha Trethewey’s insight from Memorial Drive: “to survive trauma, one must be able to tell a story about it.”

This isn’t about finding closure or “getting over” grief. It’s about developing fluency—the kind that requires daily practice, not one-time mastery. “It’s not a one-time decision,” John emphasizes. “It is this posture, and a direction, and just a habit that you... cultivate.”

The ADHD Revelation

The conversation took an unexpected turn when John shared how his ADHD diagnosis came about through his daughter’s experience. When his wife read the symptoms aloud, she kept looking at John meaningfully. His initial reaction was denial: “No, I’ve written two books, I’ve got a Doctorate in Ministry... I don’t have it, right?”

But when he finally got tested and started treatment, the experience was revelatory—reminiscent of getting glasses for the first time as a child. “I saw the leaves on the trees at a distance... and thought, all of y’all have always just seen leaves like that?”

This brought clarity he’d never experienced: “It’s not that my brain is empty, but it’s that my head is quiet when I need to do things... this is how people get things done on time. Their head is quiet, and it is not an obstacle course.”

The Art of Integration

What makes John’s work so compelling is how these experiences converge into something larger than their parts. He’s currently writing a book to his deceased brother, explaining the past ten years since his death. But here’s what’s remarkable: he’s also teaching himself to draw portraits so he can illustrate the book himself.

“I don’t have many pictures of my brother. Of me and him... I drew a whole lot when I was a kid, so I’m teaching myself how to draw portraits... So that, as I write the book, I’m gonna write the book to him to explain to him this past 10 years of his death, and I’m gonna draw both me and him in the book.”

This integration of multiple forms of expression reflects John’s broader philosophy about healing. As a pastor for close to 20 years who has transitioned into what he calls “non-therapeutic human wholeness,” he sees himself working at the intersection of faith, art, and emotional healing—using artistic expression not just for entertainment, but for soul healing.

Process Over Outcome

Perhaps most importantly, John’s approach emphasizes process over outcome. He cites research showing that “people are more likely to achieve their process goals than they are to achieve their outcome goals.” Instead of saying “I want to read 50 books this year,” say “I want to read 20 minutes each day.”

“It’s less about the thing that I want to do out there, and more about the person that I want to become each day, and if I just keep my eyes on each day and the next day, then I wind up being better than what I thought that I could be.”

The Universal Language

What strikes us most about John’s work and the way he educates people through social media and speaking engagements is how he’s found grief to be perhaps the last universal language we have left. He recognizes that “regardless of your faith, background, creed, belief, or orientation, like, it hits people, and at that point, people just want to be seen and heard and know that there’s somebody that is fluent in grief in a way that helps.”

In a world increasingly divided by specialized knowledge and tribal affiliations, grief remains the great equalizer. John’s unique background—having served as a pastor while also developing his artistic voice—positions him to speak across traditional boundaries. As he puts it, “No matter what you think, [you’re] gonna end up there.”

His mission is beautifully simple: to help people become more fluent in this inevitable human experience, not through clinical intervention, but through the ancient arts of story and image—the very tools humans have always used to make sense of what seems senseless.