Book picks similar to
Living When a Loved One Has Died: Revised Edition by Earl A. Grollman
non-fiction
death
self-help
grief
Don't Sing Songs To A Heavy Heart: How To Relate To Those Who Are Suffering
Kenneth C. Haugk - 2004
Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life's Ordeals
Thomas Moore - 2004
How you think about this rhythm of moods makes all the difference. Our lives are filled with emotional tunnels: the loss of a loved one or end of a relationship, aging and illness, career disappointments or just an ongoing sense of dissatisfaction with life. Society tends to view these “dark nights” in clinical terms as obstacles to be overcome as quickly as possible. But Moore shows how honoring these periods of fragility as periods of incubation and positive opportunities to delve the soul’s deepest needs can provide healing and a new understanding of life’s meaning. Dark Nights of the Soul presents these metaphoric dark nights not as the enemy, but as times of transition, occasions to restore yourself, and transforming rites of passage, revealing an uplifting and inspiring new outlook on such topics as: • The healing power of melancholy • The sexual dark night and the mysteries of matrimony • Finding solace during illness and in aging • Anxiety, anger, and temporary Insanities • Linking creativity, spirituality, and emotional struggles • Finding meaning and beauty in the darkness
After This: When Life Is Over, Where Do We Go?
Claire Bidwell Smith - 2015
She wonders: How do we grieve our loved ones without proof that they live on? Will we ever see them again? Can they see us now, even though they are gone?Chronicling our steps along the path that bridges this world and the next, Smith undergoes past-life regressions and sessions with mediums and psychics and immerses herself in the ceremonies of organized religion and the rigor of scientific experiments to try and find the answers. Drawing on both her personal losses, recounted in her memoir The Rules of Inheritance, as well as her background working in hospice as a bereavement counselor, Smith attempts to show how exploring the afterlife can have a positive impact on the grief process.
Lament for a Son
Nicholas Wolterstorff - 1987
Though it is intensely personal, he decided to publish it in the hope that some of those who sit on the mourning bench for children would find his words giving voice to their own honoring and grieving. What he learned, to his surprise, is that in its particularity there is universality. Many who have lost children have written him. But many who have lost other relatives have done so as well, along with many who have experienced loss in forms other than the death of relatives or friends. The sharply particular words of Lament, so he has learned, give voice to the pain of many forms of loss. This book, Lament For A Son, has become a love-song. Every lament, after all, is a love-song. Will love-songs one day no longer be laments?
Advice on Dying: And Living a Better Life
Dalai Lama XIV - 2002
It is with these words that "Advice on Dying" takes flight. Using a seventeenth-century poem written by a prominent scholar-practitioner, His Holiness the Dalai Lama draws from a wide range of traditions and beliefs to explore the stages we all go through when we die, which are the very same stages we experience in life when we go to sleep, faint, or reach orgasm (Shakespeare's "little death"). The stages are described so vividly that we can imagine the process of traveling deeper into the mind, on the ultimate journey of transformation. In this way, His Holiness shows us how to prepare for that time and, in doing so, how to enrich our time on earth, die without fear or upset, and influence the stage between this life and the next so that we may gain the best possible incarnation. As always, the ultimate goal is to advance along the path to enlightenment. "Advice on Dying" is an essential tool for attaining that eternal bliss.
Widow to Widow: Thoughtful, Practical Ideas for Rebuilding Your Life
Genevieve Davis Ginsburg - 1997
From learning to travel and eat alone to creating new routines to surviving the holidays and anniversaries that reopen emotional wounds, Ginsburg give guidance on:Dealing with anger and guiltMaintaining family relationshipsDating after widowhoodHandling moneyResponding to others' supportAnd moreWidow to Widow walks readers through the challenges of widowhood and encourages them on their path to building a new life.
Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death
Joan Halifax - 1997
Inspired by traditional Buddhist teachings, her work is a source of wisdom for all those who are charged with a dying person's care, who are facing their own death, or who are wishing to explore and contemplate the transformative power of the dying process. Halifax offers lessons from dying people and caregivers, as well as guided meditations to help readers contemplate death without fear, develop a commitment to helping others, and transform suffering and resistance into courage. She says, "Why wait until we are actually dying to explore what it may mean to die with awareness?" A world-renowned pioneer in care of the dying, Joan Halifax founded the Project on Being with Dying, which helps dying people to face death with courage and trains professional and family caregivers in compassionate and ethical end-of-life care.
Good Grief: A Faith-Based Guide to Understanding and Healing
Granger E. Westberg - 1961
This book describes what happens to us whenever we lose someone or something important. We all need a better understanding of the small griefs in life as well as those larger grief experiences that can overwhelm us. Here is a volume to be kept close at hand. It can be used over the years as you encounter a wide variety of grief experiences or as you assist friends in moving beyond grief to good grief.
Here If You Need Me
Kate Braestrup - 2007
Stunned and grieving, she decided to pursue her husband's dream of becoming a Unitarian minister, and eventually began working with the Maine Game Warden Service, which conducts the state's search and rescue operations when people go missing in the wilderness. Whether she is with parents whose 6-year-old daughter has wandered into the woods, or wardens as they search for a snowmobile rider gone under ice, or a man whose sister left an infant seat and a suicide note in her car by the side of the road, Braestrup provides solace, comfort, and spiritual guidance when it's needed most. And she comes to discover that giving comfort is both a high calling and a precious gift.In her account of her own life and the events of her unusual job, sometimes joyful, sometimes heartbreaking, Braestrup is warm, unsentimental ("No one is immune to the Plucky Widow story!" she acknowledges), and generous. Here If You Need Me is a funny, frank, and deeply moving story of faith and hope.
When Someone Very Special Dies: Children Can Learn to Cope with Grief
Marge Eaton Heegaard - 1988
A practical format for allowing children to understand the concept of death and develop coping skills for life, this book is designed for young readers to illustrate.
Our Greatest Gift: A Meditation on Dying and Caring
Henri J.M. Nouwen - 1994
As he shares his own experiences with aging, loss, grief, and fear, Nouwen gently and eloquently reveals the gifts that the living and dying can give to one another.
Death: An Inside Story
Sadhguru - 2020
But what if we have got this completely wrong? What if death was not the catastrophe it is made out to be but an essential aspect of life, rife with spiritual possibilities for transcendence? For the first time, someone is saying just that.In this unique treatise-like exposition, Sadhguru dwells extensively upon his inner experience as he expounds on the more profound aspects of death that are rarely spoken about. From a practical standpoint, he elaborates on what preparations one can make for one’s death, how best we can assist someone who is dying and how we can continue to support their journey even after death.Whether a believer or not, a devotee or an agnostic, an accomplished seeker or a simpleton, this is truly a book for all those who shall die!>
All Our Losses All Our Griefs
Kenneth R. Mitchell - 1983
Kenneth Mitchell and Herbert Anderson explore the multiple dimensions of the problem, including the origins and dynamics of grief, loss throughout life, caring for those who grieve, and the theology of grieving. This examination is enriched by vivid illustrations and case histories of individuals whose experiences the authors have shared.
Who Dies?
Stephen Levine - 1982
A meaningful insight how to participate fully in life as the perfect preparation for whatever may come next, be it sorrow or joy, loss or gain, death or a new wonderment at life.
Silent Grief: Living in the Wake of Suicide Revised Edition
Christopher Lukas - 1987
As such, it has a lot to offer, and is therefore to be welcomed.'- Well-Being'This book provides deep and valuable insight into the experiences of "suicide survivors" - those who have been left behind by the suicide of friend, family member or loved one.'- Therapy Today'The personal stories are full of pathos interest and will clarify where the death leaves those left behind. The list of self-help groups is world wide and it will be useful that you can point the bereaved and traumatized in the right direction.'- Accident and Emergency Nursing Journal'The authors describe powerfully the effect of suicide on survivors and the world of silence, shame, guilt and depression that can follow. Author Christopher Lake is a suicide survivor and co-author Henry Seiden is an experienced therapist and educator.They use sensitive and unambiguous language to provide an understanding of what it is like to live in the wake of suicide and the struggle to make sense of the world. They also look at how survivors might actively respond to their situation, rather than being passive victims. This book should be read by any professional who is likely to come into contact with people affected by suicide.'- Nursing Standard, October 2007'The book is well written and relevant to both survivors and professionals concerned for the welfare of those bereaved by suicide.'- SOBS (Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide) Newsletter'Silent grief is a book for and about "suicide survivors," defined as people who have experienced the death of a friend or relative through suicide, and for anyone who wants to understand what survivors go through. The book explains the profound, traumatic effect suicide has on individuals bereaved in such circumstances. Using verbatim quotes from survivors it explains how they experience feelings of shame, guilt, anger, doubt, isolation and depression. This book provides good insight into the experience of individuals affected by suicide and can be a useful resource to anybody working with such people - be it prisoners who have lost someone close through suicide or the family of a prisoner following a self-inflicted death in prison.- National Offender Management Service. Safer Custody News. Safer Custody Group. May/June 2007Silent Grief is a book for and about "suicide survivors" - those who have been left behind by the suicide of a friend or loved one.Author Christopher Lukas is a suicide survivor himself - several members of his family have taken their own lives - and the book draws on his own experiences, as well as those of numerous other suicide survivors. These inspiring personal testimonies are combined with the professional expertise of Dr. Henry M. Seiden, a psychologist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist.The authors present information on common experiences of bereavement, grief reactions and various ways of coping. Their message is that it is important to share one's experience of "survival" with others and they encourage survivors to overcome the perceived stigma or shame associated with suicide and to seek support from self-help groups, psychotherapy, family therapy, Internet support forums or simply a friend or family member who will listen.This revised edition has been fully updated and describes new forms of support including Internet forums, as well as addressing changing societal attitudes to suicide and an increased willingness to discuss suicide publicly.Silent Grief gives valuable insights into living in the wake of suicide and provides useful strategies and support for those affected by a suicide, as well as professionals in the field of psychology, social work, and medicine.