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Sacred Grief: Exploring a New Dimension to Grief

Leslee Tessmann
Loving Healing Press (2008)
ISBN 9781932690538
Reviewed by Mary Durfor for RebeccasReads (10/08)

The thing that we, as humans, believe sets us apart from other animals, our language, is also the thing that prevents us from attaining that state which we all seek – being in the present.  Our habitual judging and assessing, over years, becomes less childlike and inquisitive and instead becomes automatic categorizing and labeling.  So, instead of simply feeling our grief, we judge it based on past experiences or assess its effect on our futures. 

Because our culture collectively frowns upon public displays of grief, we strive to ignore the pain, resist the presence of the feelings of grief, and thereby succeed in prolonging the entire process.  We want our pain to go away as quickly as possible.  We are afraid that it will never end.  Because of this, our suffering becomes a part of our life to be indulged and endured, since it is now a tangible part of our lives.

The author’s belief that once we accept grief as sacred, we can learn to simply allow ourselves to experience the feelings and honor them, be open to them, and be content with them, is the premise of the book.  She uses her own varied life experiences of deep grief to explore these aspects of how we can best acknowledge and live with our feelings. 

The author purports that just as a child must accomplish certain growth and development tasks in order to develop into a mature adult, so grievers must accomplish specific tasks to be able to move on with living, filled with peace and acceptance.  While some people can complete the tasks of grieving on their own, many can benefit from participating in an environment that supports the work of grief, such as support groups or therapy, hospice or medical centers, or spiritual or religious organizations.

Her premise is further expanded upon by her explanation of how she is able to divest herself of the distractions that prevent living in the moment.  These include memories of past experiences, opinions, and assessments of how things should or shouldn’t be, including oneself. With grief, one necessary task is to create a new relationship with the person who has departed (life, or a relationship), and this is not an easy task. Difficult enough with a living person, or a person with whom a relationship is maintained, now a very new relationship must be developed.  One has to take a leap of faith and enter a freefall to discover what’s next.  It’s a difficult step, and takes a lot of courage.  The reward is sacred.

The “middle way” described by the author gives us permission to embrace, accept, and honor the pain and joy that is part of grief, while acknowledging that sometimes there is a need to withdraw from the pain, as a human being, but to still respect that the pain and longing are sacred to the process.  Compassionate living is the reward for all of the hard grief work.  Consider the interconnectedness of the entire universe.  The way we each handle our grief has the potential to affect everything and everyone.  Allowing grief to actually become our friend allows us to live in a friendly world. 

The book wraps up with a chapter on self-reflections, which provides a study guide for individual or group use.  Having personally experienced the deaths of both parents and parents-in-law over the last few years, I welcomed the wisdom offered by this insightful book.  Grief is a very personal journey, but books such as this one offer meaningful help in completing the tasks of grief, understanding effective ways of experiencing the pain, and presenting the way to acknowledge and appreciate the joy which is there also.   Readers will learn and grow by savoring the book’s offerings. 

    

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