The Wilderness of Grief: Finding Your Way (Understanding Your Grief Series) - Hardcover

Wolfelt, Alan D.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1879651521 ISBN 13: 9781879651524

Verlag: COMPANION PR (CO), 2007

Inhaltsangabe

Based on the author's previous guides to a 10-touchstone method of grief therapy, this book takes an inspirational approach to the material, presenting the idea of wilderness as a sustained metaphor for grief&;and likening the death of a loved one to the experience of being wrenched from normal life and dropped down in the middle of nowhere. Feeling lost and afraid in this uncharted territory, people are initially overwhelmed, the book explains, but they begin to make their way through the new landscape by searching for trail markers&;or touchstones&;until they emerge as intrepid travelers climbing up out of despair. The touchstones for each step are described in short chapters such as "Embrace the Uniqueness of Your Loss," "Recognize You Are Not Crazy," and "Appreciate Your Transformation."

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dr. Alan Wolfelt is a speaker, grief counselor, Director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition, and is the author of Understanding Your Grief, Healing Your Grieving Heart and The Journey Through Grief.  He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado.

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The Wilderness of Grief

Finding Your Way

By Alan D. Wolfelt

Center for Loss and Life Transition

Copyright © 2007 Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D.
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-879651-52-4

Contents

Also by Alan Wolfelt:, 
Title Page, 
Copyright Page, 
Dedication, 
Preface, 
Introduction, 
TOUCHSTONE ONE - Open to the Presence of Your Loss, 
TOUCHSTONE TWO - Dispel the Misconceptions About Grief, 
TOUCHSTONE THREE - Embrace the Uniqueness of Your Grief, 
TOUCHSTONE FOUR - Explore Your Feelings of Loss, 
TOUCHSTONE FIVE - Recognize You Are Not Crazy, 
TOUCHSTONE SIX - Understand the Six Needs of Mourning, 
TOUCHSTONE SEVEN - Nurture Yourself, 
TOUCHSTONE EIGHT - Reach Out for Help, 
TOUCHSTONE NINE - Seek Reconciliation, Not Resolution, 
TOUCHSTONE TEN - Appreciate Your Transformation, 
The Mourner's Bill of Rights, 
About the Author, 

CHAPTER 1

TOUCHSTONE ONE

Open to the Presence of Your Loss

It's as if the realness of what has happened waits around a corner. I don't want to make the turn, yet I know I must. Slowly, I gather the courage to approach.

Someone you love has died.

In your heart, you have come to know your deepest pain. I have learned that we cannot go around the pain that is the wilderness of our grief. Instead, we must journey all through it, sometimes shuffling along the less strenuous side paths, sometimes plowing directly into the dark center.

In your willingness to embrace the pain, you honor it. Crazy as it may sound, your pain is the key that opens your heart and ushers you on your way to healing.

In many ways, and as strange as it may seem, this book is intended to help you honor your pain. Honoring means recognizing the value of and respecting. To honor your grief is not self-destructive or harmful, it is self-sustaining and life- giving!

You will learn over time that the pain of your grief will keep trying to get your attention until you have the courage to gently, and in small doses, open to its presence. The alternative — denying or suppressing your pain — is in fact more painful.

Setting your intention to heal

It takes a true commitment to heal in your grief. Yes, you are changed, but with commitment and intention you can and will become whole again. Intention is defined as being conscious of what you want to experience.

When you set your intention to heal, you commit to positively influence the course of your journey. You might tell yourself, "I can and will reach out for support in my grief. I will become filled with hope that I can and will survive this loss." Together with these words, you might form mental pictures of hugging and talking to your friends and seeing your happier self in the future.

Of course, you must still honor and embrace your pain during this time. You are committing to paying attention to your anguish in ways that allow you to begin to breathe life into your soul again.

In this book I will attempt to teach you to gently and lovingly befriend your grief. Slowly, and in "doses," you can and will return to life and begin to live again in ways that put the stars back into your sky.

Making grief your friend

To lessen your hurt, you must embrace it. As strange as it may seem, you must make it your friend.

When I reflect on making grief my friend, I think about my father. Sometimes when I fully acknowledge that I'll never see my father physically on this earth again, I am engulfed by overwhelming sadness. Then, with intention, I realize that while my father has been dead for over three years, my love for him has continued to grow. My intention is to honor his presence while acknowledging his absence. The beauty of this is that while I mourn, I can continue to love.

"Doing well" with your grief

Shame can be described as the feeling that something you are doing is bad. And you may feel that if you mourn, you should be ashamed. If you are perceived as "doing well" with your grief, you are considered "strong" and "under control."

Society also implies that if you openly express your feelings of grief, you are immature. If your feelings are fairly intense, you may be labeled "overly- emotional." If your feelings are extremely intense, you may even be referred to as "crazy."

As a professional grief counselor, I assure you that you are not immature, overly emotional, or crazy. But the societal messages surrounding grief that you may receive are!

When your personal feelings of grief are met with shame-based messages, discovering how to heal yourself becomes more difficult. If you internalize these messages, you may even become tempted to act as if you feel better than you really do. Ultimately, however, if you deny the emotions of your heart, you deny the essence of your life.

I invite you to gently confront the pain of your grief. I will show you how to look for the touchstones on your journey through the wilderness of grief so that your life can proceed with meaning and purpose.

CHAPTER 2

TOUCHSTONE TWO

Dispel the Misconceptions About Grief

The essence of finding meaning in the future is not to forget my past, as I have been told, but instead to embrace my past. For it is in listening to the music of the past that I can sing in the present and dance into the future.

As you journey through the wilderness of your grief, you will come to find a path that feels right for you, that is your path to healing. But beware — others will try to pull you off this path. They will try to make you believe that the path you have chosen is wrong and that their way is better.

The reason that people try to pull you off the path to healing is that they have internalized some common misconceptions about grief and mourning. And the misconceptions, in essence, deny you your right to hurt and authentically express your grief.

Misconception: Grief and mourning are the same thing.

Perhaps you have noticed that people tend to use the words "grieving" and "mourning" interchangeably. There is an important distinction, however. We move toward integrating loss into our lives not just by grieving, but by mourning.

Grief is our internal thoughts and feelings when someone we love dies.

Mourning is when you take the grief you have on the inside and express it outside of yourself. Talking about the person who died, crying, expressing your thoughts and feelings through art or music and acknowledging special anniversary dates of the person's life and death are just a few examples of mourning.

Expressing your grief outside of yourself is your way out of the wilderness. Over time and with the support of others, to mourn is to heal.

Misconception: Grief and mourning progress in predictable, orderly stages.

Probably you have already heard about the "stages of grief."

The concept of "stages" was popularized in 1969 in Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's landmark text, On Death and Dying. In this important book, Dr. Kübler-Ross lists the five stages of grief that she saw terminally ill patients experience in the face of their own impending deaths: denial; anger; bargaining; depression; and acceptance. However, Kübler-Ross never intended for her stages to be interpreted as a rigid, linear sequence to be followed by all mourners.

As a grieving person, you will probably encounter others who believe that you should experience these or other "stages" in your grief journey. You...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: COMPANION PR (CO)
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2007
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1879651521
• ISBN 13: 9781879651524
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 110
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar