The Art of Grieving and Becoming

By Kathleen Paonessa Roth

Join me on my journey of grieving and becoming in this self help book designed to help others living with grief. You don't have to be stuck, instead venture into the world of possibilities in this unknown chapter of your life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kathleen Paonessa Roth
• Release date: Oct 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798218299767

Book preview

The Art of Grieving and Becoming

The Art of Grieving and Becoming

The Art of Grieving and Becoming

Kathleen Paonessa Roth

Kathleen Paonessa Roth

Copyright © 2023 by Kathleen Paonessa Roth

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First Printing, 2023

Dedication

Dedicated to John Joseph Roth who taught me so much about health, living and (at the end of his life) about dying. Our fifty-six years together on this earth prepared me for grieving and for  becoming my authentic self. I am eternally grateful.

Kumiko made by John

Kumiko art was developed in Japan in 600-700 BCE. The panels of slots stay in place with only pressure after calculating, cutting the wood, and joining pieces together. The wooden parts are put together by adjusting grooves and angles.

This is a picture of the Kumiko that John made. It represents all that I learned from him during our years together.

Contents

Dedication

Introduction

Thoughts on Grief

1

Gratitude

2

Mindful Breathing

3

Practicing Compassion

4

Self Care

5

Willingness To Take A Risk By Going Beyond Your Comfort Zone

6

The Next Chapter

On A Day When You May Be Stuck

Quotes That Have Helped Me

Acknowledgement

Works Cited

About The Author

Introduction

No one and no event can fully prepare us for the grieving that will take place when a loved-one dies. We all have at one point in our lives a person that we dearly love leave this earthly plane. How can we prepare daily for this event? I read that 80% of people feel unprepared for grieving. This is understandable since we can only imagine what it would entail. What if we could do things now in our daily lives, so that when the time comes for us to enter into the heart-breaking process, we will have things in place? Following my husband’s death last year, I realized that I had developed strategies and actions in my every day life that I could call upon when I experienced the dispirited process of grieving.

My husband died in December of 2021, and in my anguish I was told over and over again that I was so strong. It made me stop and question if I was really strong or in denial of his death. I was sad but continued in the joys of everyday life.To others this made me strong. I came to realize that I had indeed prepared myself over the years by being proactive which truly helped me be strong during my husband’s brief illness, death, and during what is now the first year without his physical presence. This is how this book was born. Many self-help books are written to help people during the grieving process. This book will give you every day easy tools to practice before the grieving process begins. However, if you find yourself in the middle of grieving a loved-one, it is never too late to begin. We can make a choice as to how to live with loss, since it is part of the love for the person who died. We can acknowledge the pain that we feel and change how we react to it.

We all carry knowledge that someday we and our loved-ones will die, and yet we do not prepare for this loss. This is unlike our preparation for events that we know are coming in our future on this earth. We do much to prepare for the birth of a child: mothers prepare their bodies physically and emotionally for this new addition to a family; partners and family members support the mothers before and after the birth.  Why not prepare for the grieving process? This is not a morbid or sad concept. In fact, while practicing these activities, death may not be in your consciousness. What if during our daily lives when focusing on living, we engage in simple activities/ healthy habits that help us when the time comes that a loved-one dies and we find ourselves grieving.