Synopsis

The Grief Teacher advises you to ignore all adages and platitudes, such as “Time heals all;” “Get over it;” “Keep busy;” “Move on;” etc., that people in mourning often hear from others. What really matters is that you undergo self-examination and find out what you need to learn, what changes you need to make within yourself, after you’ve cried your eyes out; his or her death, though it’s like having your heart ripped out, initially. Then you realize that it all comes with a gift and a message. The “Grief Teacher” can help you, every step of the way, to find the messages. Ultimately you will have an “Ah-Hah” moment, or many, from which you will discover that a change in your thinking must be made. The Grief Teacher helps you to root out the needs that were met by your deceased loved one. With “complicated grief” you feel angst, for your own reasons, and resolving it is difficult. Your mind goes ‘round and ‘round uselessly, looking for answers to unanswered questions that, for tragic reasons, never were answered; then wham! He or she is gone.

The Grief Teacher teaches that first, the dead one is not really dead; he or she is not gone at all, but is very close, they are only gone physically. (The book goes much more deeply into this).

The Grief Teacher is also going to teach you to change your thinking. He’ll show you how to change your thinking and the reasons for it.

If you listen to The Grief Teacher’s gentle injunctions of how to let it all go and find Peace, and a tremendous lightness. You will also be able to find your loved one again, but on a different level. You will learn how to live in the present.

 grief Teacher will also show you how bring up qualities within yourself that you never knew you had: this is another gift from your loved one.

The people who will read this book are looking for relief from the pain of the loss of a child who died from SID, sudden infant death, and the spouses blame each other. Or, they have lost a spouse who they have been with for many years. Some have had more losses than others. And some have lost that one person that he or she feels she cannot live without. And some, after a certain loss that has had complications, such as a long illness; not having had the chance to say goodbye before he dies; or, losing a spouse who has had alzheimer disease and has had to bear the pain that he did not know who she was. There are many circumstances in which any number of deaths can leave the one left behind to deal with a mixture of unresolved feelings such as confusion, hurt, abandonment, the pain of separation, etc., real and imagined or both. It also discusses how to find the key to what happens when the grieving period goes from Major Depression which lasts from six months to a year or two; but, instead goes on for years, as though it would make the unresolved issues go away, such as: the saddest words are the words left unsaid. How does one deal with so many conflicting emotions like guilt, anger, and a broken heart. This book deals with the realities of such emotions and goes into detail as to how one can heal the chaos, and to come to a place of healing and inner peace.

One of the problems that this book addresses is that often the person who has departed had given the mourner the kind of love and understanding that he or she had never gotten from anyone else in his or her life. It has been taken away! The Grief Teacher helps you to slowly bring out a deeper self-understanding and self- love, that bring about peace.

Telepathic communication is not unheard of and for those to whom that comes easily, being a “medium” of a sort, can be extremely peaceful making. It means you still remain in touch with that person’s soul, for love never dies, and their presence can be intensely felt at times even though they have departed the physical body, and thus, the earth plane.

Outline

Chapter 1

Explores various healing rituals from other cultures and tribes.

Chapter 2

Describes how to use “Active Imagination” (a technique discovered and developed by Dr. C.G. Jung) as a healing tool, and a tool for self-study and self-analysis.

Chapters 3 through 10 or 12

In memoir form, describing the surrounding circumstances, the sudden shock and grief, and how that progresses, the difficulties encountered, the feel of a hole in your heart which people think will never go away, and more
 These chapters also give real accounts of the technique of Active Imagination and shows how it can transform a person’s thoughts and emotions, if one does is regularly and writes down what comes out of this technique. These chapters also include other techniques, showing how a new self is born. Life will always be different without your loved one; but now you have changed and become more whole.

Audience

The target reader is someone who has experienced, or is experiencing grief from the death of a loved one. This book will help them to heal, especially a complicated grieving period in which emotions can be intense and thoughts distorted. One’s thoughts must be examined and changed from pathological, circular thinking, to Mindfulness. This book describes how to do this.

The second target reader is other psychotherapists who want to learn more about how to treat their patients who are in grieving states that surpass the DSM-IV’s description of the symptoms for Major Depression, The DSM-V will have a new diagnosis for long term and intense grieving, called “Complicated” grieving. Other therapists will be enthusiastic to hear my new ideas about it, and be able to put my techniques into practice with their patients.

Some are facing the deaths of one after another of family and/or friends which overwhelm them. Others are facing a long and tedious grieving period during which they are afraid to go to sleep for fear the next day will be one of a depression that tuns into despair that reaches increasingly painful proportions. If you are afraid that these episodes will never go away, don’t worry The Grief Teacher has plenty of patience.  And one day you realize that you haven’t had a bad day in weeks, then months, then years. And you look deeply into yourself and realize that you have found yourself again. But it is a new self, with knowledge and wisdom; even a different personality.

Studies show that there is an enormous rash of depression in the world, in people of all ages, all walks of life, and it’s a fact that it is always due to loss. Not always death of a loved one, but loss in childhood that has been repressed but acted out. These losses reflect the parents’ failure to treat the child's developmental needs. Therefore, these children become developmentally “arrested” at many of the psychological phases of development. These losses will result in anywhere from a feeling that they are not lovable, that they are defective in some way, or not good enough. The list goes on. And since they are repressed, they are carried way into adulthood, which affects their choices, self esteem, performance, and happiness in life.

 This book offers solutions, via “The Grief Teacher." 

Competition

Some books that have been published on the subject of healing grief are listed below; a few have helped me, and others have not:

“I’m Still with You: True Stories of Healing Grief Through Spirit Communication,” by Carole J. Obley. Obley says, “We are uplifted and comforted by realizing that the challenges that we face in life can be positively transformed by the magnificent strength of undying love”;

“It’s OK that You’re not OK” by Megan Devine;

“I’m Grieving as Fast as I Can,” by Linda Feinberg;

“I wasn’t Ready to Say Goodbye,” by Noah and Pamela Blair;

“Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way through Life’s Ordeals,” by Thomas Moore;

“Falling Apart without Going to Pieces,” by Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun from Nova Scotia; “The Year of Magical Thinking,” by Joan Didion; “Poor Your Soul,” a ‘flawlessly’ well written memoir by Mira Ptacin; “The Pregnant Virgin,” by Marion Woodman, a Jungian Psychotherapist;

 “The Red Book,” by Dr. C.G. Jung; a lifelong work written in his own active imaginative technique, replete with images, fantasy figures from dreams and visions, spanning his whole life.

My book has some similar ideas in it as in those listed above, but it differs in its content, presentation, overall philosophy, and by the personification of “The Grief Teacher” as being outside of yourself. The first part of my book is research of some rituals from various cultures about how they deal with grief, and the second part of the book is a memoir.

I have written and published the following two books:

“Re-Writing Your Past Experiences,” by Saranya Michele Tracey; self-published by Authorhouse Publishers; 2009; “The Divine with a Thousand Faces,” by Saranya Michele Tracey: self-published by Authorhouse Publishers; 2009.