This journal can help you or a loved one work through the numbness, despair and disorganization of grief, using your head (thinking), your heart (feeling), and your hands (acting).

You who meant so much to me can never be replaced. What am I going to do now that you are gone? Can what happened to you happen to me?

Are these thoughts on your mind?

I won’t share details of my personal experiences with grief, other than to say that they started when I was seven and lasted for the next twenty years. For decades after, I guarded myself against feeling grief, showing no response to any bad news - like this …

When they tell me you are dead,

my skull will shrink, my eyes will burn.

I’ll try to moan, but my throat will close.

I’ll not believe that you are gone

while I still live.

That’s what I’ll feel.

Here’s what I’ll do.

Thank you, I’ll say, for telling me.

Does this mean you’ll have to move?

Have you called Cousin Louise?

I’ll continue setting the table

for one less.

I created this journal to help you work through numbness, despair, and disorganization by using your three basic human talents - feeling, thinking and acting; or if you like, your heart, your head and your hands. It provides pathways to accepting your emotions, dealing with your new reality, and caring for yourself. Creating it has been difficult, but it has helped me move out of the past and into the present. I hope it does the same for you.

Included

A mini-workbook to get you started Clear, useful, valid, small steps Short practices to develop skills Simple but profound prompts, no BS, no jargon Pathways to change your way of thinking and acting Recommended reading to dig deeper