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The Weaving of Love and Loss

Posted on May 3, 2018 - by Mary Jane Hurley Brant

When we open ourselves up to love, we open ourselves up to loss. That is why loss hurts so much – it’s connected to the greatest mystery of all: love. So it’s understandable that the deeper the love we felt for someone the deeper pain goes when they die and leave us. The death of a loved one shocks us physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. After those first four hits, grief arrives and is quickly followed by the mourning process. This process of grieving and mourning a loss is found across cultures. What does that mean? It means that […]

Grief Gift: How a Friend Can Help

Posted on May 3, 2018 - by Jane P. Williams

Our overwhelming feelings of loss during grief often make any grief gift hard to imagine. We search our inner world and wonder how we will put the pieces back together. What can possibly bring us any feeling of gratitude? Suddenly, our thoughts turn to our friend — the person who is with us, fully present, right now. This person can focus solely on our grief with no preoccupation or telling of his or her own suffering. Our comforter offers no platitudes and simply recognizes our need to be heard. We can tell our grief story over and over and our […]

Say What?! The Outrageous Things People Say to Grievers

Posted on April 23, 2018 - by Brenda Tobias

I used to keep a list of the most outrageous things people said to me regarding my husband’s death. At some point I stopped, realizing that it was not exactly the kind of collection I coveted. People say stupid things. I know I have. When it comes to grief and loss, we can all be a bumbling stumbling fount of misfires. Grief scares people right down to the core. Don’t even get me started on death…geez, the lengths we go to to avoid it! Grief and loss are just too radioactive to some. I can now laugh at my […]

Life After Loss the Afterwards

Posted on April 23, 2018 - by Laurel D. Rund

On February 11th, 2018 it was nine years since my husband, Marty, passed away. I saw a post on Instagram the other day which took my breath away because the words define “the afterwards” of life after loss. Ode to The Afterwards “Grief is not a task to finish and move on, but an element of yourself. An alteration of your being. A new way seeing. A new definition of self.” Up until the last year of my husband Marty’s life, I had been working as a businesswoman in the corporate world. Luckily, the Universe handed me the gift […]

Trauma/Heal The Body

Posted on April 17, 2018 - by Heidi Horsley

In episode 48, Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley interview Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma. They also speak with Dr. Lyn Prashant, PhD, who uses yoga and massage in conjunction with her certification in grief counseling to holistically help heal the body after a trauma or loss in her Integrative Grief Therapy practice. Dr. van der Kolk explains that it’s not just fight vs. flight, but also elements of freeze and give up when the body faces a trauma. There comes a point when the body/mind […]

Death by Hospital Error: What are your rights?

Posted on April 2, 2018 - by Gloria Horsley

Reading several articles in the Wall Street Journal Health and Wellness section recently sent a chill through me as my husband of 57 years, Phil, is recovering from cervical surgery and recently survived some of the life threating health care facility acquired diseases mentioned in the article; all in the course of four weeks. He acquired pneumonia in the ICU, the flu in a rehabilitation center and a staff infection in a skilled nursing facility. In the February 17, 2018 article Hospitals Pneumonia Is a Lethal Enemy there were two quotes I found highly disturbing. One from Marin Kollef, Director […]

Moments of Silence: The Grief Process

Posted on March 30, 2018 - by Mike Russell

Deep within the crevices of our soul, we long for the moments of silence that can take us away from the sights, sounds and feelings that are bombarding us all the time. In grief, these bombardments seem to be heightened mainly because we don’t know how to turn them off. You are either too weak, lost, overwhelmed, angry, or rationalizing that you are super-human. There are so many bombs being dropped that it is hard to find a moment of silence. My experiences during these bombardments left me partially deaf. What I mean by that is I could sense people […]

There Was a Door…

Posted on March 29, 2018 - by Linda Freudenberger

I was on the inside perched on the comfy green recliner staring at our newly painted front door. I used to listen to music or the television while I played Word Chums on my iPad but now I sat quietly waiting for you to come home. We had the downstairs painted while we were on vacation. The painter finished the front door when we returned home so we witnessed how he painstakingly sanded the door and then applied 5 coats of the grey paint. He took great pride in his work. We had picked the lighter grey color because the […]

Grief Recovery Programs Need to Include Action Plans

Posted on March 21, 2018 - by Herb Knoll

It’s no wonder so many people fail to complete grief counseling sessions that are staged over a period of several weeks, with many attendees opting to bail out of such programs after just a week or two. Why? I believe one of the reasons is because too many of the programs fail to provide a real roadmap to the healing grievers seek. Those who grieve aren’t interested in hearing a lot of theory or advice that is short on substance. They need actionable options. Proven steps and best practices they can employ as they begin their journey toward some semblance […]

A Book From an Old Soul Who Died Too Young

Posted on March 15, 2018 - by Danny Mayson-Kinder

Our beautiful 12-year-old daughter Billie was involved in a freak horse accident and died on May 29, 2016. I was just about to turn 50 and up until losing Billie, I would have to have been the happiest person I’ve ever met. I never took my life for granted and can honestly say that I was totally content with everything I had. My husband Dave and my girls, Charlie, 15, and Billie, 12, were my everything. Then in a blink of an eye, the world turned black and I became the unhappiest person I’ve ever met. It felt like life […]