Yesterday, I finished reading “Finding Your Own North Star” by therapist Martha Beck, PhD. I bought the book because it looked empowering and this proved to be true. In fact, the entire book is about personal empowerment and building a new life after a “cataclysmic event.” During this time we are stressed and have to let go. If you identified yourself with your job and lose it, Beck explains, your identity shifts.

According to Beck, each person’s essential self is determined before birth. As she writes, “You are designed with the ability to find the life you were meant to live.” This resource is filled with activities, exercises and tests to help you get to know yourself better.

Since I was reading for content, I only did one exercise, “Questions for Testing Your Social-Essential Self Connection.” I turned out to be very connected. How can this book help you navigate through grief?

First, it helps you understand that death changes your identity. You may be a widow now, or a widower, a bereaved parent or grandparent. “The only way to accept this fact is to grieve,” Beck notes.

Grief has bult-in stress and it’s awful. Yet you have to manage it. Beck tells readers to make getting away part of each day, “going inward, turning into your essential self.” My essential self loves to write, read, cook, and browse antique shops.

Handling guilt, which you may or may not have, is another way of coping. Friends may not understand the depth or length of your grief, for example. This makes you pull away from them, something you feel guilty about and don’t need. You goal is to take stock, gather strength, and move on.

Beck recommends writing, and I agree. After my daughter, father-in-law, brother and former son-in-law died in 2007, I decided to write my way through grief. I wrote and wrote and wrote. Some days I wanted to quit writing, but I didn’t, for I knew it would eventually help me.

As you are writing and coping with loss, never lose sight of you, or what Beck calls “the essential self.” This self will keep you moving forward on the recovery path. Expressing your grief with words will help you identify feelings, problems, family dynamics and, with the passage of time, solutions.

Keep in mind that your life has changed and you have changed. If you’re like me, it may take months for you to see these changes, But in time, they will become part of your essential self — the new and improved you.

Harriett Hodgson 2012

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Harriet Hodgson

Harriet Hodgson has been a freelancer for 43 years, is the author of thousands of articles, and 42 books, including 10 grief resources. She is Assistant Editor of the Open to Hope website, a member of the Association of Health Care Journalists, Alliance of Independent Authors, Minnesota Coalition for Grief Education and Support, and Grief Coalition of Southeastern Minnesota. She is well acquainted with grief. In 2007 four family members died—her daughter (mother of her twin grandchildren), father-in-law, brother (and only sibling) and the twins’ father. Multiple losses shifted the focus of Hodgson’s work from general health to grief resolution and healing. She has appeared on more than 185 radio talk shows, including CBS Radio, and dozens of television stations, including CNN. In addition to writing for Open to Hope, Hodgson is a contributing writer for The Grief Toolbox website and The Caregiver Space website. A popular speaker, she has given presentations at The Compassionate Friends national conference, Bereaved Parents of the USA national conference, and Zoom grief conferences. Her work is cited in Who’s Who of American Women, World Who’s Who of Women, Contemporary Authors, and other directories. For more information about this busy grandmother, great grandmother, author, and speaker please visit www.harriethodgson.com.

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