Synopsis
All of us have encountered grief, either through our own experiences or by witnessing others. For many of us, grief is a taboo subject. We want to talk about it, we just don’t know how. It leaves a divide between those grieving and those who so desperately want to help but don’t know how or what to do.Grief is an emotional reaction (involuntary) and response (voluntary) to loss. It is the physical and psychological experience of an anticipated or actual separation from those (or that) which we hold most precious to us and from a state of being which we believe will no longer exist. Loss is not just about losing someone we love to death. We may grieve lifestyles, our youth, relationships, employment, health or images of our bodies. We grieve a loss of freedom, a sense of purpose/identity, what we dreamed of and didn’t get or the dream that we got when it came to an end. Regardless of who or what we are grieving, whether it be from a massive trauma or a small loss, grief is considered a normal, healthy response.Trauma can be experienced as if we entered into the most massive labyrinth. We are instantaneously transported into a complex, confusing and inescapable maze. When a trauma occurs, we believe that we are now contained in the labyrinth of our minds, only to spend our remaining time trapped in eternity until our physical and/or spiritual death. That is, unless we miraculously find a way out. What makes labyrinths unique is in order for us to find a way out, we must go in. The journey inward towards the center is the path to enlightenment and salvation. Processing and recovering from grief is not a sprint, it is a marathon and requires three necessary and critical components: (1) A willingness to adapt. (2) Patience and time in order to allow the recovery process to occur. (3) Action: obtaining and implementing tools that facilitate one in constructing a new and different life. Grief is the truest, most pure expression of love one has for someone or something. Grief will find us all and has the potential to hijack the life of the living if it’s not dealt with.Grief is the cost of admission to life. From grief comes scars. Some scars are caused by play, some by accident, and some are intentional. Dr. Kübler Ross was right about how people are going to react with grief, but that isn’t enough. We need a framework that provides a direction with what to do with grief and how to live a new life, a different life when every cell in our bodies tell us that it is impossible. Laurie Beth Morales has unusual insight into loss and healing as both someone who hasexperienced some of the most massive, unthinkable traumas imaginable, from the premature delivery and subsequent death of her twin girls and needing to choosewho lives, them or her. Subsequent traumas followed with cancer, infertility and infidelity.As a licensed clinical social worker for 25 years, specializing in trauma and sudden death, no training could prepare her to experience her most massive scar when her ex- husband murdered their 2 sons, Alec five years old and Asher 15 months old. (To learn more about Laurie Beth’s personal experience with loss, please refer to her book "Bulletproof".It is Laurie Beth's aspiration that this manual will serve as an aid to offer guidance through grief. This directive framework is based on my personal and clinical experience of what happens when we encounter an unwanted, unexpected reality and a paradigm to facilitate a safe experience to talk about loss with those who are grieving. It is her privilege to share this concept with you...... Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.
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