Good Grief ― The Guide and Journal

Good Grief: The Guide and Journal, a two-book pack, offers Good Grief, a foundation for understanding the natural process of grieving, along with The Good Grief Journal, a pathway for expressing, exploring, and growing from a significant loss.

Good Grief has helped millions of readers find comfort and rediscover hope after loss. It identifies ten stages of grief--shock, emotion, depression, physical distress, panic, guilt, anger, resistance, hope, and acceptance--but, recognizing that grief is complex and deeply personal, defines no right way to grieve.

The Good Grief Journal offers a meditation on each stage of grief, followed by prompts and questions to help journalers reflect deeply on the nature and effects of their loss. Scripture passages, poems, and quotes from a variety of sages and artists offer further inspiration for this journey of discovery.

The meditations and prompts in this journal are intentionally nonspecific. They can be adapted to suit both the nature of the loss and the needs of the grieving person.

Whether mourning the death of a loved one, the end of a marriage, the loss of a job, or other difficult life changes, readers will want to return to these wise resources year after year as they are changed by their journey.

Granger E. Westberg was a widely respected pioneer in holistic healthcare and the interrelationship of religion and medicine, and founder of the parish nurse program.

Jill Alexander Essbaum is an award-winning poet, best-selling novelist, and recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. She has a masters of arts in religion from the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest and teaches in the University of California--Riverside Palm Desert MFA program. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband, Alvin, and her cat, Mavis.