Surviving Grief

How will I survive this loss? When her life shifted from fairytale to nightmare due to her husband’s death by suicide, Michelle Ann Collins found herself in the darkest place imaginable, reaching for answers to questions like: How am I going to eat, sleep, get out of bed, and do all the things? As a yoga therapist and wellness coach, she had more tools than many suicide loss survivors do, and yet escaping the dark grief cave required the most excruciating work of her life. It may feel like it now, but your life did not end with theirs.

Death is the last taboo in our society, and grief is still profoundly misunderstood. So many of us feel awkward and uncertain around death and shy away from talking honestly with family and friends. Grief Works is a compassionate guide that will inform and engage anyone who is grieving, from the expected death of a parent to the sudden unexpected death of a small child, and provide clear advice for those seeking to comfort the bereaved.

Best-selling author, hospice chaplain, and grief specialist Gary Roe uses his three decades of experience interacting with grieving parents to give us this heartfelt and intensely practical book. In Shattered, Roe walks the listener through the powerful impact a child's death can have - emotionally, mentally, physically, relationally, and spiritually.

The pain of suicide loss is indescribable. It seems beyond survival. Yet with faith, perseverance, and the tools of brain science, there is a way through. It will take time. It will take struggle. But hope is real, for there are things you can do to make it to the other side. If you are struggling with suicide loss or you need to come alongside someone who is, Rita Schulte wants to help you move forward.

Kate Spencer lost her mom to cancer when she was 27. In The Dead Moms Club, she walks listeners through her experience of stumbling through grief and loss, and helps them to get through it, too. This isn't a weepy, sentimental story, but rather a frank, up-front look at what it means to go through gruesome grief and come out on the other side.

Tapping their personal histories and drawing on numerous interviews, authors Brook Noel and Pamela D. Blair, Ph.D., explore unexpected death and its role in the cycle of life. I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye provides survivors with a rock-steady anchor from which to weather the storm of pain and begin to rebuild their lives.

Surviving Sibling Loss: The Invisible Thread That Connects Us Through Life and Death is the gold standard of grief books, helping not only people who are grieving but also their therapists, partners, and friends better support their loved ones. The chapters are deliberately short and full of easy-to-find resources, and the book can be listened to again and again. This structure aids those who are struggling, who fatigue and lose focus easily under the weight of their grief.

Humans are undeniably creatures of habit. So when sudden, unexpected plot twists pull the metaphorical rug from beneath our feet, it can sometimes feel impossible to regain our footing. Therapist and podcaster Jana Firestone knows this better than most, after losing her mum suddenly at the age of 21 and spending many years providing professional counselling to her clients during their darkest days. But in bearing witness to outpourings of grief, loss and pain on a daily basis, Firestone also experienced and observed remarkable resilience, transformation and hope.

The heartache of miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death affects thousands of United States families every year. Empty Cradle, Broken Heart, Third Edition offers reassurance to parents who struggle with anger, guilt, and despair during and after such a tragedy. In this new and updated edition, Deborah Davis encourages grieving and strives to cover many different kinds of loss, including information on issues such as the death of one or more babies from a multiple birth, pregnancy interruption, and the questioning of aggressive medical intervention.

After a significant loss, it’s common to feel like we’re going crazy. The sudden absence of someone we love is not only devastating, it’s disorienting. The first year or two of grief is often unbelievably painful and confusing. We’re in shock, often for weeks or months. Time seems out of whack. We feel powerless, helpless, and ineffective. We can’t think straight; we can’t get anything done. Our moods swing wildly, and we say and do crazy things. We cry, and we cling to objects that belonged to the person who died. We have bizarre dreams.

What if you could use cancer to evolve more fully into love? David Maginley has been there - four times. His cancer led to a near-death experience and a career helping thousands face this disease. Through profound storytelling, David brings you to the core of the cancer journey to discover the hero within.

Stunned and in disbelief, author Shelby Wagner, watched as the young nurses walked away after informing her that “Mr. Wagner didn’t make it!” A once-confident woman is shattered with grief, unable to accept that her husband is "gone". As visions of a lonely and uncertain future danced before her, she asked God why he had not taken her too. But God had plans for her. Wagner's story is provocative and captivating. Her insights and coping strategies are invaluable.

Being suddenly thrust into the world of parental grief is like being transported to a foreign land where you don't speak the language. With that in mind, Claire Aagaard has written When a Child Dies in a simple, straightforward manner, offering information, comfort, and hope for those who believe that none is possible.

You know how devastating it is to lose a loved one. Coping with bereavement is a painful and bumpy journey with many twists and turns. It helps to have an outline or rough roadmap along this painful and bumpy journey, with a few short stories sprinkled in just to illustrate certain points. Give yourself time; handling and overcoming bereavement is all part of the journey.

The greatest fear I had during my grieving was that I was losing control, going crazy, and might make decisions that would harm myself, my family, and my friends. This included suicidal thoughts, which scared the hell out of me. I was desperate to find answers. Quickly, I found those answers would be hard to find, as resources for widowers are minimal and often of dubious value. In Widower to Widower, I've compiled the most vital information I could find on the widower experience into one book, so the listener does not have to search as hard as I had to do.

After losing her long-term partner, Mary Deal shares the turmoil and oftentimes bewildering depths of her grief. This memoir exposes the spectrum of emotions which those suffering loss experience. The author holds back nothing of her odyssey of despair. Her experiences and much she has learned to help herself provide other survivors a chance to see that they are not alone. Though everyone’s grief is different, all grief is surprisingly similar in its basis. Hope is found in familiarity with another’s grief and no one should endure the bereavement process alone.

You've lost someone you love. Your heart is broken. Now you're facing a holiday or special occasion. What are you going to do? How do you handle this? Best-selling author, hospice chaplain, and grief counselor Gary Roe has given you a grief survival kit designed for the holidays. Speaking from both personal and professional grief experiences, he will empower you to navigate special days and seasons with new confidence.

Every day, many people lose loved ones and face the grieving process. They suffer while coping with the loss of a child, spouse, parent, friend, or sibling. It is perhaps the most difficult and devastating challenge any of us face in our lifetime. In this book, the author supports the idea that you can survive and thrive after grief and loss. This is not a predictable five stages of grief book. In The Sun Still Rises, Shawn Doyle uses his heart-wrenching personal story of bereavement to supply you with tools, tips, and techniques for dealing with loss and grief.

Diagnosed with cancer at age twenty-six threw all the life plans Emily had made out the window. In between attempting to fight Hodgkin's lymphoma and working, full-time Emily discovered she was in a deep state of grief. She realized in the middle of it all she had lost herself and would need to not only fight the cancer, but her mind in order to survive.

With raw vulnerability, a deep well of wisdom, and the practical knowledge of someone who's been there, Kim Erickson walks grieving moms through the life-after-death process from how to plan the funeral to how to deal with friends, family, holidays, and birthdays. This is a profound and powerful resource that's invaluable for the mom who has lost a child - and for her friends and family who want to love her well.