Download or read book Grief A Mama s Unwanted Journey written by Shelley Ramsey and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2013-09 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grief: A Mama's Unwanted Journey is not for those looking for pat answers, quick fixes, or easy solutions to work through, but for those on the journey through the sting of death. It is also for those who may one day walk arm in arm with another down this horrible road, facing grief's raw and searing pain. "Great grief is a ferocious fire. It can be a destroying or a refining fire-or both at once. This book combines searing honesty with wisdom and consolation. Most importantly, it offers realistic hope that while grief and suffering are real words-about the lost one and those who have lost-they do not have to be the defining or final words. That final word is love, something that even suffering does not erase." -Daniel Taylor, author of The Skeptical Believer "'We cannot walk out of the cemetery and into life as we knew it. We must take time to grieve.' So says my friend Shelley, who knows the path to her son's grave well. If you are tired of platitudes, tired of the trite but untrue, this book is for you, as real and raw as it gets. Grieving moms, walk with her, learn from her successes and her mistakes, and hold her hand on the unwanted journey in the storm-tossed life-boat of grief. She will guide you safely back to sanity's shore." -Dane Skelton, pastor of Faith Community Church and author of Jungle Flight: Spiritual Adventures at the Ends of the Earth

Download or read book Grief a Mama S Unwanted Journey written by Shelley Ramsey and published by WestBowPress. This book was released on 2013-09-09 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grief: A Mamas Unwanted Journey is not for those looking for pat answers, quick fixes, or easy solutions to work through, but for those on the journey through the sting of death. It is also for those who may one day walk arm in arm with another down this horrible road, facing griefs raw and searing pain. Great grief is a ferocious fire. It can be a destroying or a refining fireor both at once. This book combines searing honesty with wisdom and consolation. Most importantly, it offers realistic hope that while grief and suffering are real wordsabout the lost one and those who have lostthey do not have to be the defining or final words. That final word is love, something that even suffering does not erase. Daniel Taylor, author of The Skeptical Believer We cannot walk out of the cemetery and into life as we knew it. We must take time to grieve. So says my friend Shelley, who knows the path to her sons grave well. If you are tired of platitudes, tired of the trite but untrue, this book is for you, as real and raw as it gets. Grieving moms, walk with her, learn from her successes and her mistakes, and hold her hand on the unwanted journey in the storm-tossed life-boat of grief. She will guide you safely back to sanitys shore. Dane Skelton, pastor of Faith Community Church and author of Jungle Flight: Spiritual Adventures at the Ends of the Earth

Download or read book When Tragedy Strikes written by Laura Diehl and published by Morgan James Publishing. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “If you have suffered great tragedy and struggle to connect with God in your grief and disappointment, When Tragedy Strikes was written for you” (Wayne Jacobsen, author of He Loves Me! Learning to Live in the Father’s Affection). After the death of a child, there is no closure. It is like learning how to live with an amputation—you are forever changed and need to learn how to live a new “normal.” There can be a feeling of desperation to find someone farther ahead on the path who can understand the crushing pain that makes you feel like you can’t even breathe at times. Laura Diehl was plunged into that place with the death of her daughter, and meets the deep need to connect with others who have experienced what cannot be put into words. When Tragedy Strikes is the raw account of her journey from deep darkness back into light and life, extending a hand of hope to those traveling on the path behind her, who need to rebuild their lives after the death of a child.

Download or read book Modern Loss written by Rebecca Soffer and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-01-23 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inspired by the website that the New York Times hailed as "redefining mourning," this book is a fresh and irreverent examination into navigating grief and resilience in the age of social media, offering comfort and community for coping with the mess of loss through candid original essays from a variety of voices, accompanied by gorgeous two-color illustrations and wry infographics. At a time when we mourn public figures and national tragedies with hashtags, where intimate posts about loss go viral and we receive automated birthday reminders for dead friends, it’s clear we are navigating new terrain without a road map. Let’s face it: most of us have always had a difficult time talking about death and sharing our grief. We’re awkward and uncertain; we avoid, ignore, or even deny feelings of sadness; we offer platitudes; we send sympathy bouquets whittled out of fruit. Enter Rebecca Soffer and Gabrielle Birkner, who can help us do better. Each having lost parents as young adults, they co-founded Modern Loss, responding to a need to change the dialogue around the messy experience of grief. Now, in this wise and often funny book, they offer the insights of the Modern Loss community to help us cry, laugh, grieve, identify, and—above all—empathize. Soffer and Birkner, along with forty guest contributors including Lucy Kalanithi, singer Amanda Palmer, and CNN’s Brian Stelter, reveal their own stories on a wide range of topics including triggers, sex, secrets, and inheritance. Accompanied by beautiful hand-drawn illustrations and witty "how to" cartoons, each contribution provides a unique perspective on loss as well as a remarkable life-affirming message. Brutally honest and inspiring, Modern Loss invites us to talk intimately and humorously about grief, helping us confront the humanity (and mortality) we all share. Beginners welcome.

Download or read book Toxic Mom Toolkit written by Rayne Wolfe and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2013-12-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Toxic Mom Toolkit by Rayne Wolfe takes on super toxic mothers with humor, kindness and practical tools to help readers build a peaceful and happy life. The book includes Wolfe's memoir of growing up brave and scrappy in 1950's San Francisco, the daughter of three mothers: an absent birth mother, an abusive adopted mother and a wonderful step-mother. Coupled with her honest memoir, are mini-memoirs of women from all over the world, whose stories of growing up with toxic mothers shine light on the varied ways in which toxic parents can hurt, damage and undermine their children even into adulthood. There are helpful self-tests; positive affirmations and prompts; tools for contact and boundary setting; and lots and lots of wisdom wrapped in laughter. Toxic Mom Toolkit offers readers a starting point for the messy work of gaining perspective, setting boundaries, and breaking the cycle of toxic parenting. Join the Toxic Mom Toolkit community on Facebook.

Download or read book Transcending Loss written by Ashley Davis Bush and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1997-08-01 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Compassionate, poignant, and practical. . . . Transcending Loss will be a great blessing on your lifetime journey of recovery.”—Harold Bloomfield, MD, psychiatrist and author of How to Survive the Loss of Love and How to Heal Depression Death doesn’t end a relationship, it simply forges a new type of relationship—one based not on physical presence but on memory, spirit, and love. There are many wonderful books available that address acute grief and how to cope with it. But they often focus on crisis management and imply that there is an "end" to mourning, and fail to acknowledge grief’s ongoing impact and how it changes through the years. “This is a book about death and grief, yes, but more important, it is a book about love and hope. I have learned from my experience and interviews with courageous people about pain, struggle, resiliency, and meaning. Their stories show over time, you can learn to transcend even in spite of the pain.”—from the introduction by Ashley Davis Bush, LCSW

Download or read book Anxiety The Missing Stage of Grief written by Claire Bidwell Smith and published by Da Capo Lifelong Books. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With this groundbreaking book, discover the critical connections between anxiety and grief—and learn practical strategies for healing, based on the Kübler-Ross stages model. If you're suffering from anxiety but not sure why, or if you're struggling with loss and looking for solace, Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief offers help and answers. As grief expert Claire Bidwell Smith discovered in her own life—and in her practice with her therapy clients—significant loss and unresolved grief are primary underpinnings of anxiety. Using research and real life stories, Smith breaks down the physiology of anxiety, providing a concrete explanation that will help you heal. Starting with the basics questions—“What is anxiety?” and “What is grief?” and moving to concrete approaches such as making amends, taking charge, and retraining your brain, Anxiety takes a big step beyond Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's widely accepted five stages to unpack everything from our age-old fears about mortality to the bare vulnerability a loss can make us feel. With concrete tools and coping strategies for panic attacks, getting a handle on anxious thoughts, and more, Smith bridges these two emotions in a way that is deeply empathetic and profoundly practical.

Download or read book Dancing at the Pity Party written by Tyler Feder and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-04-05 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This acclaimed graphic memoir that Kirkus calls “cathartic and uplifting” is the tale of losing a parent and what it feels like to grieve and to move forward. “I can’t recommend this kind, funny, and poignant memoir enough. It’s an intimate, life-affirming story of resilience that feels like a good friend.” —Mari Andrew, author of Am I There Yet? Tyler Feder had just white-knuckled her way through her first year of college when her super cool mom was diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Now, with a decade of grief and nervous laughter under her belt, Tyler shares the story of that gut-wrenching, heart-pounding, extremely awkward time in her life—from her mom’s first oncology appointment to her funeral through the beginning of facing reality as a motherless daughter. She shares the sting of loss that never goes away, the uncomfortable post-death firsts, and the deep-down, hard-to-talk-about feelings of the grieving process. Dancing at the Pity Party is a frank and refreshingly funny look at what it’s like to grieve—for anyone struggling with loss who just wants someone to get it.

Download or read book The Unwanted Gift of Grief written by Tim P Van Duivendyk and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-02 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learn how to embrace the painful gift of grief and use it for transformation and healing as you journey through the wilderness to a promised life The Unwanted Gift of Grief is a passionate, practical guide through the grieving process for those who have suffered loss—and those who suffer with them. Rather than talking people out of their grief and pain as a way to make them feel better, this unique book invites them into the grief and pain as a way to healing, transformation and hope. Using real and in-depth ministry and counseling conversations, it identifies the journey through the wilderness of grief. This powerful book is equally valuable as a gift from a minister to a grieving person, as a professional guide for ministers and counselors, and as a training tool for lay ministers and congregation members. Built on the ministry concept of “sojourning,” The Unwanted Gift of Grief offers guidelines to be used in helping people in their journey through the adjustment period that follows a loss, a time that may include the darkness of disbelief, frustration, anger, sadness, depression, and healing light as they make their way through the wilderness of grief. Topics examined in The Unwanted Gift of Grief include: grief as gratitude and gift how family and culture can affect grieving different pathways through grief everyone grieves differently sudden loss, slow losing, rejection and suicide identifying the agony and characteristics of depression grief factors that affect marriage and sexuality saying “Yes” to death factors of faith, science and miracles the labor and contractions of dying and death the hope for healing and cure how to help: the Sojourner’s Process Guide the Grief Date: A Guide for Couples fifty ways to make it through the wilderness and much more The Unwanted Gift of Grief is an essential resource for anyone lost in the wilderness of loss and grief, and for professionals, lay ministers, family, and friends who care for them.

Download or read book The Law of the Garbage Truck written by David J. Pollay and published by Sterling Publishing (NY). This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Law of the Garbage Truck, David J. Pollay shows us that by refusing to let others dump their "garbage" (negativity, anger, resentment) on us and letting it "pass by" instead, we become happier and more successful, both personally and professionally. And when we stop dumping garbage on others, we improve our relationships, strengthen our businesses and bring our communities together. This remarkable book shows us how to use this Law and helps us to avoid getting dumped on by rude, thoughtless and angry people, stop reliving the negative and fearing the future and focus on what can be controlled, not the negative things that can't be. It will help increase productivity, respect and cooperation and allow readers to gain the courage to enjoy every day and make a difference. Includes two powerful, insightful quizzes designed to help determine how much garbage you are accepting and how much you are dumping.

Download or read book Notes on Grief written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the globally acclaimed, best-selling novelist and author of We Should All Be Feminists, a timely and deeply personal account of the loss of her father: “With raw eloquence, Notes on Grief … captures the bewildering messiness of loss in a society that requires serenity, when you’d rather just scream. Grief is impolite ... Adichie’s words put welcome, authentic voice to this most universal of emotions, which is also one of the most universally avoided” (The Washington Post). Notes on Grief is an exquisite work of meditation, remembrance, and hope, written in the wake of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's beloved father’s death in the summer of 2020. As the COVID-19 pandemic raged around the world, and kept Adichie and her family members separated from one another, her father succumbed unexpectedly to complications of kidney failure. Expanding on her original New Yorker piece, Adichie shares how this loss shook her to her core. She writes about being one of the millions of people grieving this year; about the familial and cultural dimensions of grief and also about the loneliness and anger that are unavoidable in it. With signature precision of language, and glittering, devastating detail on the page—and never without touches of rich, honest humor—Adichie weaves together her own experience of her father’s death with threads of his life story, from his remarkable survival during the Biafran war, through a long career as a statistics professor, into the days of the pandemic in which he’d stay connected with his children and grandchildren over video chat from the family home in Abba, Nigeria. In the compact format of We Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele, Adichie delivers a gem of a book—a book that fundamentally connects us to one another as it probes one of the most universal human experiences. Notes on Grief is a book for this moment—a work readers will treasure and share now more than ever—and yet will prove durable and timeless, an indispensable addition to Adichie's canon.

Download or read book The Wild Edge of Sorrow written by Francis Weller and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and be stretched large by them. As seen on All There Is with Anderson Cooper Noted psychotherapist Francis Weller provides an essential guide for navigating the deep waters of sorrow and loss in this lyrical yet practical handbook for mastering the art of grieving. Describing how Western patterns of amnesia and anesthesia affect our capacity to cope with personal and collective sorrows, Weller reveals the new vitality we may encounter when we welcome, rather than fear, the pain of loss. Through moving personal stories, poetry, and insightful reflections he leads us into the central energy of sorrow, and to the profound healing and heightened communion with each other and our planet that reside alongside it. The Wild Edge of Sorrow explains that grief has always been communal and illustrates how we need the healing touch of others, an atmosphere of compassion, and the comfort of ritual in order to fully metabolize our grief. Weller describes how we often hide our pain from the world, wrapping it in a secret mantle of shame. This causes sorrow to linger unexpressed in our bodies, weighing us down and pulling us into the territory of depression and death. We have come to fear grief and feel too alone to face an encounter with the powerful energies of sorrow. Those who work with people in grief, who have experienced the loss of a loved one, who mourn the ongoing destruction of our planet, or who suffer the accumulated traumas of a lifetime will appreciate the discussion of obstacles to successful grief work such as privatized pain, lack of communal rituals, a pervasive feeling of fear, and a culturally restrictive range of emotion. Weller highlights the intimate bond between grief and gratitude, sorrow and intimacy. In addition to showing us that the greatest gifts are often hidden in the things we avoid, he offers powerful tools and rituals and a list of resources to help us transform grief into a force that allows us to live and love more fully.

Download or read book Ambiguous Loss written by Pauline BOSS and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a loved one dies we mourn our loss. We take comfort in the rituals that mark the passing, and we turn to those around us for support. But what happens when there is no closure, when a family member or a friend who may be still alive is lost to us nonetheless? How, for example, does the mother whose soldier son is missing in action, or the family of an Alzheimer's patient who is suffering from severe dementia, deal with the uncertainty surrounding this kind of loss? In this sensitive and lucid account, Pauline Boss explains that, all too often, those confronted with such ambiguous loss fluctuate between hope and hopelessness. Suffered too long, these emotions can deaden feeling and make it impossible for people to move on with their lives. Yet the central message of this book is that they can move on. Drawing on her research and clinical experience, Boss suggests strategies that can cushion the pain and help families come to terms with their grief. Her work features the heartening narratives of those who cope with ambiguous loss and manage to leave their sadness behind, including those who have lost family members to divorce, immigration, adoption, chronic mental illness, and brain injury. With its message of hope, this eloquent book offers guidance and understanding to those struggling to regain their lives. Table of Contents: 1. Frozen Grief 2. Leaving without Goodbye 3. Goodbye without Leaving 4. Mixed Emotions 5. Ups and Downs 6. The Family Gamble 7. The Turning Point 8. Making Sense out of Ambiguity 9. The Benefit of a Doubt Notes Acknowledgments Reviews of this book: You will find yourself thinking about the issues discussed in this book long after you put it down and perhaps wishing you had extra copies for friends and family members who might benefit from knowing that their sorrows are not unique...This book's value lies in its giving a name to a force many of us will confront--sadly, more than once--and providing personal stories based on 20 years of interviews and research. --Pamela Gerhardt, Washington Post Reviews of this book: A compassionate exploration of the effects of ambiguous loss and how those experiencing it handle this most devastating of losses ... Boss's approach is to encourage families to talk together, to reach a consensus about how to mourn that which has been lost and how to celebrate that which remains. Her simple stories of families doing just that contain lessons for all. Insightful, practical, and refreshingly free of psychobabble. --Kirkus Review Reviews of this book: Engagingly written and richly rewarding, this title presents what Boss has learned from many years of treating individuals and families suffering from uncertain or incomplete loss...The obvious depth of the author's understanding of sufferers of ambiguous loss and the facility with which she communicates that understanding make this a book to be recommended. --R. R. Cornellius, Choice Reviews of this book: Written for a wide readership, the concepts of ambiguous loss take immediate form through the many provocative examples and stories Boss includes, All readers will find stories with which they will relate...Sensitive, grounded and practical, this book should, in my estimation, be required reading for family practitioners. --Ted Bowman, Family Forum Reviews of this book: Dr. Boss describes [the] all-too-common phenomenon [of unresolved grief] as resulting from either of two circumstances: when the lost person is still physically present but emotionally absent or when the lost person is physically absent but still emotionally present. In addition to senility, physical presence but psychological absence may result, for example, when a person is suffering from a serious mental disorder like schizophrenia or depression or debilitating neurological damage from an accident or severe stroke, when a person abuses drugs or alcohol, when a child is autistic or when a spouse is a workaholic who is not really 'there' even when he or she is at home...Cases of physical absence with continuing psychological presence typically occur when a soldier is missing in action, when a child disappears and is not found, when a former lover or spouse is still very much missed, when a child 'loses' a parent to divorce or when people are separated from their loved ones by immigration...Professionals familiar with Dr. Boss's work emphasised that people suffering from ambiguous loss were not mentally ill, but were just stuck and needed help getting past the barrier or unresolved grief so that they could get on with their lives. --Asian Age Combining her talents as a compassionate family therapist and a creative researcher, Pauline Boss eloquently shows the many and complex ways that people can cope with the inevitable losses in contemporary family life. A wise book, and certain to become a classic. --Constance R. Ahrons, author of The Good Divorce A powerful and healing book. Families experiencing ambiguous loss will find strategies for seeing what aspects of their loved ones remain, and for understanding and grieving what they have lost. Pauline Boss offers us both insight and clarity. --Kathy Weingarten, Ph.D, The Family Institute of Cambridge, Harvard Medical School

Download or read book Surviving My First Year of Child Loss written by Nathalie Himmelrich and published by . This book was released on 2017-09 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The death of a baby, whether through miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal loss, or the death of an older child, is the worst experience a parent can endure. This book includes twenty-six heart-wrenchingly honest essays by parents who convey their personal challenges and the ways they coped during the first twelve months of child loss.

Download or read book A Journey Through Grief written by Alla Renee Bozarth and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-09-20 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For those of us working through the heartbreak of grief, author Bozarth offers wise and comforting advice. For those of us working through the heartbreak of grief, author Bozarth offers wise and comforting advice.

Download or read book No One to Call Me Mommy A Journey of Hope and Healing Through the Pain of Infertility written by Debra Busetti and published by Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.. This book was released on 2023-02-09 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Girls grow up wanting to be mothers. From a very early age, we play and pretend with our dolls. In teenage years, we practice mothering skills while we babysit. Motherhood is one of the crowning glories of being a woman. But what if it doesn't happen for you? You never hear the words, "You're pregnant" or feel life inside of you, and infertility moves in. Infertility is a life-questioning event. It invades the physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual being of a woman. Women who face it tend to crawl into a protective, isolative shell. No One to Call Me Mommy provides companionship, strength, and a voice to break through that isolation. It is not a book about infertility; it is a book about hope and healing through the journey.

Download or read book The Long Goodbye written by Meghan O'Rourke and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-04-14 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Anguished, beautifully written... The Long Goodbye is an elegiac depiction of drama as old as life." -- The New York Times Book Review From one of America's foremost young literary voices, a transcendent portrait of the unbearable anguish of grief and the enduring power of familial love. What does it mean to mourn today, in a culture that has largely set aside rituals that acknowledge grief? After her mother died of cancer at the age of fifty-five, Meghan O'Rourke found that nothing had prepared her for the intensity of her sorrow. In the first anguished days, she began to create a record of her interior life as a mourner, trying to capture the paradox of grief-its monumental agony and microscopic intimacies-an endeavor that ultimately bloomed into a profound look at how caring for her mother during her illness changed and strengthened their bond. O'Rourke's story is one of a life gone off the rails, of how watching her mother's illness-and separating from her husband-left her fundamentally altered. But it is also one of resilience, as she observes her family persevere even in the face of immeasurable loss. With lyricism and unswerving candor, The Long Goodbye conveys the fleeting moments of joy that make up a life, and the way memory can lead us out of the jagged darkness of loss. Effortlessly blending research and reflection, the personal and the universal, it is not only an exceptional memoir, but a necessary one.