Bearing the Unbearable

Love, Loss, and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief

Joanne Cacciatore

• Publisher: Wisdom Publications
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781614292968
• eBook ISBN:
  9781614293170
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Social Psychology
• Index: Psychology

If you love, you will grieve—and nothing is more mysteriously central to becoming fully human. 

A 2017 Indies Finalist from Foreword Reviews.

When a loved one dies, the pain of loss can feel unbearable—especially in the case of a traumatizing death that leaves us shouting, “NO!” with every fiber of our body. The process of grieving can feel wild and nonlinear—and often lasts for much longer than other people, the nonbereaved, tell us it should.

Organized into fifty-two short chapters, Bearing the Unbearable is a companion for life’s most difficult times, revealing how grief can open our hearts to connection, compassion, and the very essence of our shared humanity. Dr. Joanne Cacciatore—bereavement educator, researcher, Zen priest, and leading counselor in the field—accompanies us along the heartbreaking path of love, loss, and grief. Through moving stories of her encounters with grief over decades of supporting individuals, families, and communities—as well as her own experience with loss—Cacciatore opens a space to process, integrate, and deeply honor our grief.

Not just for the bereaved, Bearing the Unbearable will be required reading for grief counselors, therapists and social workers, clergy of all varieties, educators, academics, and medical professionals. Organized into fifty-two accessible and stand-alone chapters, this book is also perfect for being read aloud in support groups.

Now available as an online course from the Wisdom Academy and as a journal in Bearing the Unbearable: A Guided Journal for Grieving.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• More praise for Bearing the Unbearable
• Contents
• List of Grieving Practices Mentioned
• Foreword
• Prologue
• 1. The Role of Others in Our Grief
• 2. Public and Private Grief
• 3. Ritual and Artistic Expressions of Grief
• 4. Early Manifestations of Grief
• 5. Nutrient-Deficient Soil
• 6. Cultural Sensitivity
• 7. Bearing the Unbearable
• 8. Pause, Reflect, and Feel Meaning
• 9. The Terror beneath the Terror
• 10. The Pursuit of Happiness and the Unity of Opposites
• 11. Bypassing Grief, Bypassing Love
• 12. Intensity and Coping
• 13. Contraction and Expansion
• 14. The Collision of Love and Loss
• 15. Boundless and Timeless Love
• 16. Personifying Grief
• 17. Pausing with Grief
• 18. The Practice of Being With
• 19. My Heart Cried Many Tears
• 20. The Barefoot Walkabout
• 21. The Vitality of Self-Care
• 22. Self-Care and Sleep
• 23. Ways to Care for Yourself
• 24. Telling Family and Friends What We Need
• 25. Self-Care as Distraction
• 26. Learning, Adapting, and Trusting Intuition
• 27. Re-Grieving
• 28. Surrendering and Stretching
• 29. When We Fragment
• 30. Duration of Grief
• 31. The Courage to Remember
• 32. Joining Hands
• 33. The Power of Unprocessed Traumatic Grief
• 34. Silenced for Decades
• 35. Guilt and Shame
• 36. Inward and Outward
• 37. Works of Love
• 38. Waves of Grief
• 39. “Remember Me,” She Said
• 40. Ritual and Microritual
• 41. Meaning through Compassionate Action
• 42. Kindness Projects
• 43. Through Knowing Suffering
• 44. Fierce Compassion
• 45. The Horse Chemakoh
• 46. The Price of Unrealized Grief and Trauma
• 47. Transgenerational Grief
• 48. Grief Broth
• 49. The Darkness Has Its Gifts
• 50. What I Know
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• About the Author
• What to Read Next from Wisdom Publications
• About Wisdom Publications
• Copyright