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    Sacred Grief: Exploring A New Dimension to Grief
    Sacred Grief: Exploring A New Dimension to Grief
    Sacred Grief: Exploring A New Dimension to Grief
    Ebook134 pages2 hours

    Sacred Grief: Exploring A New Dimension to Grief

    By Leslee Tessmann

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Are you ready to discover what lies beyond the ordinary experience of grief?



    Sacred Grief offers an intriguing exploration of the far-reaching ripple effect of our present-day opinions about surviving grief's emotional roller-coaster and the unnecessary suffering our judgments unconsciously promote. You'll find comfort in discovering that there's another dimension to this universal experience--a dimension that fosters trust, kindness and compassion, peacefully heals, and steadfastly moves you towards your soul's deepest desires and dreams.
    Praise for Sacred Grief
    "Because we will all have the experience, Sacred Grief is a compelling guide for everyone searching for the sweetness in life's great passages."
    --Gregg Braden, author, The Divine Matrix and The God Code
    "Sacred Grief is a holy handbook for gleaning the gifts of the journey called grief."
    --Mary Manin Morrissey, Co-founder, Association for Global New Thought
    "Sacred Grief is a welcome departure from the conventional advice about 'surviving' grief."
    --Jill Carroll, Ph.D., Executive Director, Boniuk Center for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance, Rice University
    "I highly recommend this book to anyone that has experienced any type of loss in their lives and is willing to look at the loss through a different set of eyes. Tessman, in Sacred Grief, will lead the reader to a place of compassion for oneself, create a relationship with his/her own grief, and ultimately create a place of understanding and a healed soul."
    --Irene Watson, Managing Editor, Reader Views
    SEL010000 Self-Help : Death, Grief, Bereavement
    FAM014000 Family & Relationships : Death, Grief, Bereavement
    SOC036000 Social Science : Death & Dying

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLoving Healing Press
    Release dateApr 1, 2008
    ISBN9781615999569
    Sacred Grief: Exploring A New Dimension to Grief

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    Reviews for Sacred Grief

    3.5/5

    3 ratings6 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Sacred Grief: Exploring a New Dimension to GriefBy Leslee TessmannLoving Healing Press April 2008This was a publisher ARC and I wish someone had given me this book fifteen, twenty, thirty, or even 45 years ago. While Freud and Kubler-Ross had much insight into grief and grieving and changed the way we grieve and watch/help others grieve, this book moves beyond the processes in which we can become trapped to free us.The concept of each moment being sacred is not new. In fact, Ram Dass’s book Be Here Now has had a great impact on many people and many movements since its first publication. However, the concept of grief as sacred, to be embraced, as moments of recognition, is very new and very needed. In addition to the references to AA and Al-Anon, to Chodron and Williamson and T. Moore and C. Myss, I would place this book squarely in the middle of the centering prayer movement, begun within the work of Thomas Merton and carried on by Thomas Keating and his brothers from the monastery out into the world. The Appendix with its self-reflective questions for each chapter, intended for journaling, for use with a partner or a group, would be as much at home in the context of spiritual direction and discernment as in the world of psychology, as some of the choices in the too-short bibliography indicate.The very last page of the regular text states: “The true essence of world peace lies in being with things just the way they are. Achieving that will require compassion on the part of every human being to have a world that is willing to be with things exactly as they are for longer than a few fleeting seconds” (121). She talks about hiding for twenty-five years, about losing herself in her attempts to keep herself safe. Those pieces of information tie me to her uncannily, as does the fact that I’m reading this book at almost the same age that she was when she wrote it.Her short list of “rules” on pages 25-26, juxtapositioned with the “shoulds” on page 21 are familiar inhabitants of my world. More importantly, however, is Tessmann’s recognition that there are the big griefs in life – deaths, unwanted divorces – but also the little griefs that come with inevitable changes in our lives, daily grief that must be handled in order for us to find peace.It has been a couple of months since I read this the first time, in one long night, laughing and crying at the content. It has taken time for me to work through the concepts in my heart as well as in my head. I recommend the book for anyone and everyone who has experienced loss in his or her life.Thank you, Leslee Tessmann for a book that is both beautiful and useful. Thank you Loving Healing Press for publishing such a magnificent book.F. Holt 8/12/2008
    • 4/5
      Sacred Grief takes a different approach to the grief process from many other books on this very delicate topic. An approach that leaves we thinking, "now why didn't I think of that"?In this slim volume the author shares her story and her process or more aptly, refusal to process her myriad of losses and grief’s. In so sharing the reader is able to see that it is possible to just let the grief be what it is. When we begin to realize that grief is an emotion like any other emotion we have, and that there is no need to hide from it or fear it, or worse suppress it, we have taken the first step. It is “sacred”, “precious”, and to be respected. We need to allow ourselves the freedom to “be” in the very emotional moment of grief washing over us, whether we are experiencing a devastating death of a loved one, the loss of job, or the waning of a friendship. They are all losses on some level whether we choose to deal with them immediately or many years down the road. It’s not so much a matter of when but a matter of how. The author found for herself and hopes that the reader too will find that if we stay present and honour all of our emotions not matter what they are only then will we begin to heal, find peace and even grow to develop wider compassions that ripple out to the our global community. A great book for those seeking an alternate perspective on dealing with grief and loss. A simple approach that makes a lot of sense.
    • 4/5
      Sacred Grief was such a thin volume that it lay undisturbed for a week or two after it arrived by mail in what I thought was a stack of catalogs. When I finally unearthed it, I found its basic tenet -- to embrace as sacred the good, the bad and the ugly feelings that come with grief -- whenever they present themselves -- to be a very healthy approach to picking up and carrying on after a great loss. The author's insights about the gift of compassion that comes to those who have experienced a loss certainly square with my experiences. I had a bit of a love/hate relationship with the plain language in Sacred Grief. At times the book seemed to repeat itself, or try to clobber me over the head with a concept. Ultimately, however, I was won over by the simple, direct appeal.
    • 5/5
      Sacred Grief presents a message that is not often heard in Western culture; this message is one that touts the importance of living in the present. Where grief is concerned, the author writes that we need to respect it and experience it when it is present, but we are not to indulge it or suppress it. How are we supposed to view grief? Summed up nicely in chapter eight, we need to experience it, realize it has an honorable purpose, and accept that it is supposed to be a part of our life, but it is not supposed to consume our life. A word of advice on chapter eight, if you are in a hurry to get right through this book and skip right to that chapter, you will miss out on some important concepts the author discusses earlier in the book. It would be difficult to get the full impact of this chapter with out understanding how the author worked up to it. Also, don’t be fooled, like I was, in thinking you will be able to read this book in one day. It may be small (only 172 pages) but it carries a lot of weight. I had to read it twice, and could have even read it a third time as the author provides many fresh and intriguing ideas for consideration. I would suggest this book for any one that is currently in the grieving process, but I would also suggest it for some one currently removed from the grieving process. Being armed with the information in this book would help a person when they do face that inevitable and sacred part of life, grief over some type of loss.
    • 5/5
      Review of “Scared Grief”I really enjoyed reading the Scared Grief, what I enjoyed most was the way the author explored the subject of grief. We have all experienced grief at one time or another but have likely never gave the feeling any analysis. The book gave me a new understand of grief. I especially liked the chapter on separating facts from fiction with its explanation of the scared. There were a lot of illustrations that helped define a difficult subject to for me.I highly recommend this book.
    • 1/5
      Author Leslee Tessman is clearly a woman in search of something. Her book Sacred Grief is the reflections of a life lived with much pain and grief. There are honest and open expressions of her personal relationship with grief. While we all develop ways of dealing with our own personal emotional realities, the conscious or subconscious methods that we often fall into are not always helpful. Tessman recommends accepting grief as a friend. Embracing the ebb and flow of emotions that come and allowing them to lead to inner healing and peace. The path that she has found, and now wishes to help others discover, is presented in her own language and not that of the standard professional counselor. Her language and reasoning are at times hard to follow. The book also includes some personal experiences and techniques that will prove unsettling to many Christians. Although there are some helpful concepts offered in the book I cannot recommend it.

    Book preview

    Sacred Grief - Leslee Tessmann

    Preface to the Second Edition

    Sacred Grief is a book whose message and time have come. Up until now, human beings, particularly in the Western world, have turned to established theories about the grief process. Sigmund Freud’s early research, observations, and findings regarding the tasks of grief and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ writings on the stages of grief are justly credited with expanding our capacity to overcome the unexpected and devastating losses in our lives. However, we live in such complicated times that the difficult and truly unimaginable circumstances surrounding today’s losses challenge us to go deeper and take a fresh look at what the grief process is all about.

    Along with the profound losses attributed to disease, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, accidents, domestic violence, and divorce, we are now dealing with aggressive and untreatable cancers, gang wars, high school shooters, and acts of terrorism. We are also dealing with a new breed of ferocious natural disasters that have taken a catastrophic toll on the environment as well as the inhabitants of the places they strike. At the time of this printing, recent flooding in India has affected up to 20 million Pakistanis, covering almost a fifth of the country and destroying or damaging more than 250,000 homes. In January of 2010, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude crumbled buildings and homes in Haiti and left more than 230,000 dead, 300,000 injured, and 1 million people homeless. And it’s not just what’s happening now. The long-term aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is evidenced by the New Orleans Police Departments’ ongoing challenge to bring calm to the escalating violence caused by criminals, gangs and drug dealers that have slipped through a battered and struggling criminal justice system, and a suicide rate in Orleans Parish the last two years that was almost twice as high as it was prior to the levees breaking in 2005.

    In most cases, grief associated with these types of events and losses is deep, long-lasting, and complicated. Many of the above-mentioned situations have left a wake of children confronted with the loss of parents and siblings to circumstances beyond one’s imagination and comprehension, as well as left parents grappling with the violent or traumatic circumstances surrounding the death of their child or children. Global conflicts have surpassed the horrors of past wars: Viet Nam was a catastrophe and Iraq is a living nightmare, continuing to take its toll on returning soldiers and military personnel who are now dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression and drug and alcohol abuse, and whose lives have been interrupted and dramatically altered since troops were initially deployed there in 2003.

    Given all of these sobering facts, it seems logical to conclude that we are faced with a large part of humanity dealing with deep, complicated, and, most likely, unresolved grief. If that’s the case, we now need to consider that our current understanding of the grief process is not enough to move us through the depth and complexity of these losses. In fact, it seems that we are being forced to give up understanding the process and just be with the pain, because with many of these circumstances there is no understanding.

    Mostly what there is, is pain, but human beings don’t like experiencing pain, so we tend to go to great lengths to do whatever we can to avoid it. Rather than work with the body’s natural healing process, we search for answers and explanations in a desperate attempt to understand and strike back at that which took the life of a loved one. Unfortunately, the pitfall to this normal reaction is that the drive to understand now becomes the means to either indulge or suppress our pain and grief, rather than resolve and move through it.

    You would think that it’s enough that we endure the natural suffering caused by life’s unexpected twists and turns. But we’re human beings with language so, unfortunately, we add to it by layering non-stop judgments of what we are experiencing on top of the natural suffering already there, which produces yet more judgment and an endless cycle of self-induced suffering. Before we know it, grief becomes a dirty or bad word, or worse—the enemy.

    The choice to relate to grief this way may be unconscious, but nonetheless it is still a choice, and the reality is that the impact of relating to grief as the ‘enemy’ can be harsh: long periods of depression and dissociation, panic and anxiety attacks, complex emotional and physical health issues, and the acting out of anger, blame, guilt, self-pity, and sadness for a significant portion of our lives. Our most cherished relationships, our personal development, and the fulfillment of our lives are drastically impaired, if not completely cut off. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, I assert that the natural unfolding of our lives would have us say No more! Thus, Sacred Grief.

    I lived a large portion of my life as I have just described. The circumstances may not have been as complicated as those we face today, but the result was the same—a tremendous amount of unnecessary, self-induced suffering, and a delay in the natural unfolding of my life. Ever since discovering this, my journey has been about exploring what moved me along that path and my relationship to grief. Sacred Grief recounts that journey and invites readers to consider what might be possible if we were to consciously create a friendly relationship to grief. A relationship whose context would be more than just a process; it would be sacred. As such, reverence and respect would be given to every loss, emotion, and moment of our grief.

    Sacred Grief presents an intriguing discussion of what gets in the way of moving through grief with compassion and kindness. It doesn’t assume to tell you how to create a friendly relationship to grief, but rather nudges you into the unfamiliar and uncertain, that fertile space of creation. Moving into that place allows your perception of grief, death, and loss to shift such that you can willingly work with grief on its terms—its duration, depth, and expression—with trust, kindness, and respect. From there, Sacred Grief opens the path to surrender, a surrendering that brings peace and allows you to experience grief with curiosity rather than disgust, and embrace its unexpected, exquisite gifts.

    Sacred Grief stands on the shoulders of contemporary authors such as Thomas Moore, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Steven Levine, and Ram Dass. It also expands on Sigmund Freud’s and other contemporary psychologists such as J. William Worden’s observations and significant writings regarding the tasks of grief. In 1969, Kübler-Ross brilliantly laid the groundwork for defining, understanding, and working with the stages of death and grief. However, it’s time to take that work a quantum leap further by taking a closer look at our relationship to grief. Sacred Grief opens the door to exploring a new dimension to grief and the possibility of using language to consciously and willingly alter our relationship to a process that is such a pervasive part of our everyday lives. This exploration is the missing piece that will allow us to declare sacred as the context to our grief, and ultimately to our lives.

    The personal result of reading Sacred Grief is movement forward with your life with peace, purpose, and passion, intimately aware of the sacredness and fragility of every given moment. The global result of Sacred Grief is an eternal well of compassion and a global shift as mankind makes peace with and moves through years of unresolved grief. Over time, that shift will create a massive ripple effect that will allow each and every human being to participate in the natural unfolding of our planet. Ultimately, if we allow grief to become our ally or friend, we might actually experience the world as our friend, no matter how it looks. For that to happen, we have to give up our expectations and agendas. The true essence of world peace lies in being with things just the way they are. As such, it will require compassion on the part of everyone to experience the workability of the world, no matter how it looks, for longer than a few fleeting seconds. Our global existence therefore depends on compassion. Sacred Grief boldly asks, Are you willing to join forces with your grief so that the world can evolve and experience itself as all that it can be? That is a question whose time, like Sacred Grief, has come.

    Leslee Tessmann, October 2010

    Introduction

    Going Beyond Survival: Exploring a New Dimension to Grief

    Well, here it is—another book on grief. I suspect that’s one thought that may have crossed your mind when your eye caught the title of this book. Another thought might have been something like, Sacred? That’s interesting. I can’t imagine relating to grief as sacred. Finding that concept interesting indicates curiosity, and curiosity will make all the difference as you read on and explore further. Finding the concept unimaginable indicates no prior reference point to what a sacred relationship to grief might look like. That dimension or space of can’t imagine is the perfect place from which to create an experience full of endless possibilities and unexpected discoveries.

    Unlike many of its predecessors, Sacred Grief is not about the grief process. Rather, it is about our relationship to grief. Most of us aren’t even aware that we actually have a relationship with grief, so how we typically relate to it is unconscious and automatic. We experience and move through the process via knee-jerk reactions to a vast array of emotions based on our opinions about what grief should and shouldn’t look like. These opinions ultimately become the essence, or context, of our relationship to grief and have a tremendous impact on the quality of our lives and our experience of

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