Grief Resources

During this time of COVID 19 pandemic, we realize that people may be experiencing a sense of loss on many levels so we have pulled together some resources. We hope these resources will help you explore the contours of grief when you may be experiencing a sense of loss on a variety of levels. We understand that grief is personal and societal and we hope that exploring these resources will give you some spiritual tools and help you with the complex processes of grief.

Print Articles
Click here for an overview of the many ways  people are grieving due to COVID-19.
Click here for the story of one man’s loss and grief during the corona virus, and how he dealt with his father’s death during these unprecedented time.

 Video Podcast
Click here for a five minute video in which psychoanalyst Ester Perel looks at the idea that  in a time of unimaginable death we can be reminded how to live. Social distance doesn’t preclude our coming together.

 Audio Podcasts
Click here for a 45 minute conversation with grief expert David Kessler, who takes us by the hand and walks us into what he’s learned about love, loss, and finding meaning. “As someone who has a lot of fear about grief and grieving, this conversation is not what I expected”. -Brene Brown 
Click here for a 48 minute podcast from Tom Ashbrook. For such a universal experience, grief is so individualized.  In this 48 minute podcast Tom Ashbrook looks at one of the most human experiences.  It is an exploration for some wisdom on how to make it through, and live again. 

Books
About Grief: Insights, Setbacks,Grace Notes, Taboos, Marasco, Ron and Shuff, Brian. Rowman and Littlefield Publishing, 2014. A thorough look at grief and how it affects different people. Tells about symptoms of grief and how each person grieves differently.   There is no “right way” to grieve.  

In the Midst of Winter, Moffit, Mary Jane, Editor, Vintage Publishing.1992. Death silences not only those it takes, but those it leaves behind: All too typically we can neither express our grief nor express sympathy for the bereaved. In this sensitive collection, loss finds a voice -- or several voices -- in the poetry, fiction, letters, and diaries of the world's great writers. 

The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief, Richardson Jan. Gospeller Press. 2016. These are not sugar-coated blessings, but poems written from the depths of shock, anger and sorrow. They helped me keep breathing, moment by moment into hours, then days, finally back into life. 

The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief ,Weller, Francis. North Atlantic Books. 2015. Stories, poetry, and reflections show how rituals, shared emotional work, and attention to the sacred can help us explore our deepest grief and find release.   

The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully, Ostaseki, Frank. Flatiron Books. 2017. Thoughtful, poignant, challenging, life and love-affirming; this book reminds us that death is always present in life, and can heighten the way we live. Ostaseki co-founded the Zen Hospice and Caregiving Project in San Francisco.  

Ebook
Find your Way through Sudden Loss and Adversity, Click here for a workbook to help you identify your feelings and how you cope with grief and how you can heal.

Songs to Sing
Click here to find a song (and many of those that play automatically afterwards) that is short, simple, and has been serving as a mantra to help accompany me through these times. The artist Aly Halpert shares about this particular song that it is “a song/prayer/meditation to heal personal and societal grief. For ordinary grief, extraordinary grief, the unbearable kind and the unseen kind and the enduring kind, in service of exhales and letting go of what is ours and not ours, of compassion, lightness, & becoming who we are after and through it all.” I hope it brings you comfort.