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The Grief Club: The Secret to Getting
Through All Kinds of Change
GPN client Melody Beattie is a leading
journalist and best-selling author. The Grief Club is Melody's
profoundly personal, and powerfully healing book to help readers
through life's most difficult times. Chapter 4, "Changing
Bad into Betterment," chronicles Mark's transition from
skydiver to soccer coach to spine patient, to disabled and
depressed, then on to his new life and new career as a patient
advocate.
After Melody Beattie's young son died,
she found herself welcomed into a new club -- a circle of people who
had lived through the tragic oss of a child. This was not the first club
in which Beattie unwittingly found herself. Years earlier she took part
in a Twelve Step group, at first balking, then later embracing the healing
principles she now credits with saving her life. Through these and other
experiences, Beattie discovered a secret for getting through life's losses:
by being present with and for others who've been there. If we're alone,
we can't see who we are. When we join the club, other people become the
mirror, she writes. Through them, we see ourselves and gain an understanding
of what we're going through, she adds. In turn, with time, we become
that mirror for others. |
