So Now What, Harnessing Grief After Life’s Major Losses by Alexandra McGroarty - Self Help - What Does it Mean to Harness Grief?
by Alexandra McGroarty
Genre: Self Help
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Date of Publication: April 25 2023
ISBN-13: 978-1639888825
Number of pages:112
Word Count: 20,000
Cover Artist: Jenna Gelow Designs
What Does it Mean to Harness Grief?
When faced with the tragic loss of a loved one, we can find a path that strengthens us, utilizes our experiences, and continues a meaningful relationship with that person.
Author Alexandra McGroarty learned how to do so and is now gratified to share her insights. With her earned understanding, Alexandra offers her judgment-free, open-hearted, and fair-minded approach to living with and moving through grief, in whatever form it may take, in whatever way you choose.
Guest Blog by Alexandra McGroarty
What inspired you to write this story?
I never thought I would be writing about grief…much less my own. As I know now, grief is inevitable. At some point in our lives—often unexpectantly—it will come knocking at your door. For me, it didn't tap lightly. I was completely blindsided by the death of my husband, Michael, who was only thirty-nine when he passed.
Throughout the book, I strive to be candid about my experience. I lost my soulmate- and that nearly leveled me. Though, because of the strength of my relationship, through perseverance, support, therapy and a variety of other coping mechanisms I walk through in the book, I have lived and continue to live my path through grief. Through my experience, I strived to create a guidebook to help individuals navigate the foggy, often solitary journey through grief.
While there is no tangible checklist or magic number of months/years that you may experience grief, I hoped to provide a framework to aid readers through the various stages of grief, including addressing the death-denying culture of our Western world, embracing guilt and anger, how to support a grieving child, finding connection with the deceased, and much more.
Excerpt:
There is an unwritten rule that in the first chapter of any book on grief, the author must explain what grief is—as if the readers of the book don’t know. Grief affects everyone at some point. We reach out for guides like this, not for definition, but for reassurance, companionship, answers. We may already be going through life’s hardest tests. Our grief affects our every waking moment—and every sleeping moment—and ruthlessly changes us from the inside out.We absolutely know what grief is.
Out of nowhere, when I was only thirty-one years old, I lost my husband, Mike, to a sudden tragedy. Mike was thirty-nine—a young man still—and our children were only four and six. That man was and is my soulmate. To this day, I am gratified for having known and loved him. And losing him was a blow that almost leveled me. Within a matter of hours, I went from being a happy wife to being a widow. I was in a state of shock—nothing had prepared me to lose someone so close to me.
At that time, I had dealt with loss before, but none had so mercilessly turned my life upside down. I was shocked to the core, unable to process the truth until days—maybe weeks—later.
Then I found myself coping with not only my grief but our children’s as well. I was trying to run a business at the time and had multiple responsibilities and roles. Some days I felt like hiding in bed, but I simply could not—too many others relied on me. The road from that time to now was a long and complex one, full of discoveries—some painful, some remarkable—that I want to share with you. I write this book for anyone who has suffered a loss. Your grief experience is yours alone, but you need not be alone in living with it.
About the Author:
Alexandra founded McGroarty and Co. Consulting and serves as the lead Human Resources consultant. Alex is a certified Diversity Professional as well as a Certified Professional Coach. She recently obtained a graduate certificate from Cornell University in sustainability. Alexandra lives with her two children, Lucas and Ava, their two dogs, Sugar and Fiona, and a feisty cat named Scrambles, in New Jersey. In her free time, she likes to spend time with family, travel, and volunteer in the Greater Philadelphia area.
interesting
ReplyDelete