Below is a collection of resources
I hope may help you on your grief voyage.
Take what resonates and leave the rest. Share with friends and family you think might need a hand.
PODCASTS
Here’s a podcast I’ve had the honor of being a guest on speaking to grief and loss.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7fhI1IebmU9jP70Y2PVgee?si=314dfcb54e464f03
FAVORITE BOOKS & OTHER RESOURCES
I am in no way affiliated with any of these authors or content creators, but have found there expressions helpful in my own grieving processes.
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By Sloane Crosley
How do we live without the ones we love? Grief Is for People is a deeply moving and suspenseful portrait of friendship, and a book about loss that is profuse with life. Sloane Crosley is one of our most renowned observers of contemporary behavior, and now the pathos ever present in her trademark wit is on full display. After the pain and confusion of losing her closest friend to suicide, Crosley looks for answers in philosophy and art, hoping for a framework more useful than the unavoidable stages of grief.
For most of her adult life, Sloane and Russell worked together and played together as they navigated the corridors of office life, the literary world, and the dramatic cultural shifts in New York City. One day, Sloane's apartment is broken into. Along with her most prized possessions, the thief makes off with her sense of security, leaving a mystery in its place.
When Russell dies exactly one month later, his suicide propels Sloane on a wild quest to right the unrightable, to explore what constitutes family and possession as the city itself faces the staggering toll of the pandemic.
Sloane Crosley's search for truth is frank, darkly funny, and gilded with resounding empathy. Upending the "grief memoir,"Grief Is for People is a category-defying story of the struggle to hold on to the past without being consumed by it. A modern elegy, it rises precisely to console and challenge our notions of mourning during these grief-stricken times.
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Sitting with Sadness contains 45 prompts and 7 wishes to navigate hard days and sleepless nights—when you worry about forgetting but remembering hurts too much.
From Carissa, " I am a big fan of therapy. This deck won't replace that. But with any luck, it will give you some tools for remembering, loving, and holding close someone who is no longer with you. And, to grapple with all the messy feelings that a person's loss might stir... we want to make space for it all.
With all my heart,
Carissa xo"
52 paper cards with prompts2 paper instruction cards
3.5 x 5 inches
Contained in a paper box & wrapped in plastic
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By Heather Christle
Heather Christle has just lost a dear friend to suicide and now must reckon with her own depression and the birth of her first child. As she faces her grief and impending parenthood, she decides to research the act of crying: what it is and why people do it, even if they rarely talk about it. Along the way, she discovers an artist who designed a frozen-tear-shooting gun and a moth that feeds on the tears of other animals. She researches tear-collecting devices (lachrymatories) and explores the role white women’s tears play in racist violence.Honest, intelligent, rapturous, and surprising, Christle’s investigations look through a mosaic of science, history, and her own lived experience to find new ways of understanding life, loss, and mental illness. The Crying Book is a deeply personal tribute to the fascinating strangeness of tears and the unexpected resilience of joy.
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By Janine Kwoh
Based on her own experience with grief—the author’s partner died when both were in their late twenties—and those of other Grief Club members, Janine Kwoh uses brief writings, illustrations, and creative diagrams to explore the wide range of emotions and experiences that grief can encompass. For anyone who has lost a loved one or who is close to someone who is grieving, Welcome to the Grief Club is a book of solace, connection, hope, and reassurance. It addresses with empathy and honesty the aspects of grief that so many of us experience but that aren’t widely discussed: the variety and volatility of emotions—sadness, anger, guilt, joy; the physical symptoms of grief; and how grief isn’t linear, but it does change and soften over time. It affirms that there is truly no right or wrong way to grieve and assures us that the things we feel that surprise us or seem strange are often common and always valid.
Humor helps us to survive, and the book uses a lighthearted approach to cover powerful topics, like supremely unhelpful things that people say to those who are grieving, grief trigger bingo, and everyday acts of resilience. This book is a companion that says,I see you and you are not alone, from one grieving person to another. It is a gentle reminder to give yourself permission to grieve for as long as—and in whichever ways—you need.
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By Courtney Ellis
Through the painful days of the pandemic stuck in her home, Courtney Ellis found herself looking down in despair. Soon after, her beloved grandfather died unexpectedly.It was around this same time that Ellis took up watching birds. "Took up" might not be exactly right―as she puts it, "the switch flipped," and she’s been borderline obsessed with birds ever since.
Looking Up is a meditation on birding as a practice of hope. Weaving together stories from her own life, including the death of her grandfather, with reflections on birds of many kinds, Ellis invites us to open our eyes to the goodness of God both in the natural world and in our own lives. By "looking up" to the birds, Ellis found the beauty and wonder of these creatures calling her out of her darkness into the light and hope of God's promises.
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By Mary-Frances O' Connor, PHD
In The Grieving Brain, neuroscientist and psychologist Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD, gives us a fascinating new window into one of the hallmark experiences of being human. O’Connor has devoted decades to researching the effects of grief on the brain, and in this book, she makes cutting-edge neuroscience accessible through her contagious enthusiasm and guides us through how we encode love and grief. With love, our neurons help us form attachments to others; but, with loss, our brain must come to terms with where our loved ones went, or how to imagine a future without them.The Grieving Brain addresses:
Why it’s so hard to understand that a loved one has died and is gone forever
Why grief causes so many emotions—sadness, anger, blame, guilt, and yearning
Why grieving takes so long
The distinction between grief and prolonged grief
Why we ruminate so much after we lose a loved one
How we go about restoring a meaningful life while grieving
Based on O’Connor’s own trailblazing neuroimaging work, research in the field, and her real-life stories, The Grieving Brain combines storytelling, accessible science, and practical knowledge that will help us better understand what happens when we grieve and how to navigate loss with more ease and grace.
HELPFUL WEBSITES & ONLINE GROUPS
Megan Devine’s website: www.refugeingrief.com