Healing Through the Shadow of Loss - 9780892811977

A guide to achieving wholeness through the process and purpose of grief 

• Brings new understanding to the profound mystery of loss shared by all human beings

• Offers sensitive and practical advice for experiencing grief and how to prepare for the healing journey that follows

• Winner of the Independent Publisher Award in 1999

• New edition of Good Grief, published Oct 1995

We grieve only for that which we have loved, and the transient nature of life makes love and loss intimate companions. In Healing Through the Shadow of Loss Deborah Morris Coryell describes grief as the experience of not having anywhere to place our love, of losing a connection, an outlet for our emotion. To heal grief we have to learn how to continue to love in the face of loss. Embracing loss allows us to awaken our most profound connections to other people.

Part of the grieving process is finding our place in the world again following a loss. We tend to define ourselves in relation to those we love--as “Laura's mother,” “Jim's wife,” or “Stacey's friend.” The loss of a loved one is jarring to these foundations and can make us question our own sense of reality. In addition, the body must adjust to the sensory changes of having lost a part of our life, a part of our daily existence. Coryell draws attention to our society's tendency to rank losses in a “hierarchy of grief.” She reminds us that all losses must be grieved in their own right and on their own terms, and that we must honor the “big” losses as well as the “small” ones. Paying attention to even the most minute experiences of loss can help us to be more in tune with our responses to the greater ones, allowing us to once again become part of the rhythm of life from which we have become disconnected.