Conscious Grieving is a book for anyone seeking guidance and support after a loss. The acclaimed grief therapist Claire Bidwell Smith combines her deep personal experience of loss with her extensive professional background, offering a new approach to grief that promotes hope and transformation.

What does it mean to grieve consciously? Usually, when we lose a loved one, our grief seems to happen to us, we feel out of control and overwhelmed. Claire reminds us that while loss is something that happens to all of us, how we choose to grieve is up to us. When we consciously engage in our grief, rather than avoid it, we access deep paths that lead to healing.

Presented through a series of carefully considered and brief quests, Conscious Grieving offers a new framework for each stage of grieving: Entering, Engaging, Surrendering and Transforming.

• Entering - we remain present and take care of ourselves as we navigate the shock and turmoil of a new loss.
• Engaging - we navigate the first year after a loss, staying in touch with our needs as more complex emotions like depression, guilt, or anger emerge.
• Surrendering - we face changes in our identity and who we are becoming in the face of loss.
• Transforming - through ritual, honoring, hope, and grace, we learn to carry our grief with intention so that we can continue to grow, heal, and thrive.

Grief demands a lot from us. But the ability to grieve is a birthright. We grieve throughout our lives. We grieve the deaths of loved ones, but also moves, divorces, illnesses, injustices, lost time, changes in the world, and healing from these losses requires us to evaluate everything we considered qualitatively significant.

Healing means making our lives worthy of the pain we endure when we lose someone we love. And transformation through grief is an opportunity available to everyone.