The Modern Loss Handbook: An Interactive Guide to Moving Through Grief and Building Your Resilience

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If you have a performative role, like being a professor, maybe you could switch into a more administrative role for a period of time,” Soffer says. “That way you won’t feel so exposed.” Let’s face it: most of us can’t handle talking about death. We’re awkward and uncertain; we blurt out platitudes or say nothing at all; we send sympathy bouquets whittled out of fruit. Enter Rebecca Soffer and Gabrielle Birkner, who can help us do better. As Soffer tells it: “Life and death are intimately linked; this book will help you weave your grief into your life in a way that is practical, creative, comforting, provoking, a bit fun, and, finally, hopeful.” THE MODERN LOSS HANDBOOK is here to assist in building resilience and finding meaning: the ultimate goals in the wake of a loss.

One minute, she was writing about death at a remove. The next, she was coping with the sudden, violent deaths of two of the people closest to her: planning their double funeral, cleaning out their house, communicating with police and prosecutors seeking justice on their behalf. We are founders of two well-established communities for grievers, Modern Loss and Motherless Daughters, who have been working for years to help people connect with each other throughout the longevity of their loss and dispel the narrative that grief is something to get over, or leave behind. We also have suffered multiple personal losses, some at a young age. And we believe that promoting the need to shut off the valve of mourning after a certain period of time, and implying that a natural human experience is somehow unnatural, is outdated and potentially damaging to 21st-century mourners. Think like a crab. Remember that if something isn’t resonating with you, you can always pivot and see what works better.” Because if Rebecca couldn’t have parents, dammit, she could at least have chocolate cake—not to mention friends who understood the particular nuances of going through profound loss way before they expected to.

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Advice you won’t find in Soffer’s book? How to move on in a traditional sense. "Even if it was a negative relationship, you still examine or contend with it," she noted. In the book, "Take Your Grief To Work Days" and advice for responding to “grief voyeurs” who ask unwelcome questions about your loss also are covered. Rebecca Soffer’s new book is called T he Modern Loss Handbook: An Interactive Guide to Moving Through Grief and Building Your Resilience, published by Running Press. For more information about Soffer’s work, visit www.modernloss.com.

The truth is, it’s not that we can’t imagine the experience. It’s that we don’t want to. In saying that the deep loss someone is feeling is too unbearable to picture, what we’re really doing is drawing a line: not mine, not ours, only yours. Perhaps we think we might prevent this pain, this chaos, this fear and uncertainty, from reaching our own lives. But if this global pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that grief doesn’t work that way. Grief belongs or will belong to everybody , if not today then someday. No one wants this book but I do recommend it as a professional for other therapists and anyone helping another heal as an incredible resource And I can recommend it personally as someone who is grateful to have this book as help for our own loss. In the section about staying connected to yourself I describe different types of traditional therapies, along with DIY therapies, creative therapies like music therapy, and even cathartic destruction, writing, and all the rest. The good news is, I tested them all. I went through the whole thing after I wrote it, and it was still germane to me 15 years after I lost my parents. Staying connected to the world around you is really vital because if you don’t stay connected to the world you feel like you’re losing yourself. You’re still in this world. That’s the section where I go very deep into the importance of navigating your social dynamics and friendships, because those are definitely affected when we’re dealing with loss. This book offers direct, practical, and funny advice on how you can live a life without your special person. The author talks about how to honor their memory, deal with triggers, and manage your career and relationships. The author shares everything she learned from her own experience with grief and from the experts she worked with across the spectrum of wellness and therapy, mental health, suffering, the arc of loss, and the incredible members of the Modern Loss community. The handbook also includes prompts, projects, exercises, and different ways that will help people deal with loss on their own timeline and without judgment.

One moment managing, and going about the business of living, the next sobbing with a pain out of nowhere unable to breathe and then like the clouds parting, a wonderful memory and I am able to go on. And then it repeats. Turn to a friend (either in person or online) who has experienced parental death. For example, the Modern Loss community hosts an international gift swap ahead of trigger holidays like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and National Siblings Day. "People send each other gifts and a card to make the day less crappy," Soffer said. "When you give or create space for a community to form around a painful experience, really amazing things can happen." She said the project has led to many friendships, romances and business ventures. Know that grief isn’t linear In the interim, I had started thinking about how nice it would be to have a community that wasn’t anchored in religion or psychology. A space that was centered around human storytelling, where anything goes as long as you’re not hurting yourself or anybody else and done in a way that was really casual. Sometimes you have an idea and it just doesn’t go away for years—that’s what was happening. So, in 2013 I approached Gabi, who is an excellent journalist and editor, and said, “We’ve really got to do this thing.”

Rest assured we will return to our regular programming of thoughtful essays and in-depth interviews with notable humans. But first, thank you for allowing me to pause and appreciate a moment like this one alongside this community. They don’t come along all too often. Modern Loss is all about eradicating the stigma and awkwardness around grief while also focusing on our capacity for resilience and finding meaning. In this interactive guide, Modern Loss cofounder Rebecca Soffer offers candid, practical, and witty advice for confronting a future without your person, honoring their memory, dealing with trigger days, managing your professional life, and navigating new and existing relationships. You’ll find no worn-out platitudes or empty assurances here. With prompts, creative projects, innovative rituals, therapeutic-based exercises, and more, this is the place to explore the messy, long arc of loss on your own timeline—and without judgment. At the time, she had just earned her graduate degree and was working as a producer for "The Colbert Report" television show. "I was building and losing at the same time and it felt like this very tenuous space to live in," she recalled.

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Another idea: Discuss with your boss a two- or three-month period that will not count towards your annual performance review. Another section I felt important to me was working through to see if seeking a professional to help deal with grief would be a good fit. This project grew out of two friends’ separate experiences with sudden loss, and their struggle to find resources that weren’t too clinical, overtly religious, patronizing or, frankly, cheesy. That might include putting together a resource kit, for those who need the tools to cope. It might mean assembling an employee discussion group, for those who need to talk things through. Or it could mean advocating for official company policies, such as paid bereavement leave. Having a purpose like that could give you some direction, in a moment of life which can often feel direction-less. REDUCE THE PRESSURE Corporations are still muddling their way through this era, because grief is such a delicate emotional issue. So if you are going through it on a personal level, you can help them understand what employees need and what they do not, suggests Soffer.

If you are undergoing a loss that has shaken you to your core, the last thing you want to do is recount the event to a hundred different people. That is where a designated ‘point person’ can come in: Someone you trust, who can listen to whatever information you want to be known (and what you do not), and then do the disseminating for you. That saves you time, and emotional exhaustion, and helps you focus on the tasks at hand. ADVOCATE FOR YOURSELF AND OTHERS I can’t imagine.” Families and individuals who have lost children, siblings, partners, and friends hear it all the time, this confession of an inability to imagine the worst, the unspeakable, the most feared event. I understand why people offer the phrase—as an earnest gesture of solace or a filler in lieu of anything else—but it rarely brings comfort. More often, the recipients are left feeling even more isolated at a time when grief has already banished them to a cold, dark place. Join writers Rebecca Soffer ( Modern Loss) and Pete Paphides ( Broken Greek) for a candid, warm, and even humorous conversation exploring Rebecca’s new book, “The Modern Loss Handbook”, and the global movement to destigmatize the universal experience of grief while encouraging people to find meaning and live richly.She recognizes that one size does not fit all. Everyone mourns in unique ways. This is a handbook of many tools and perspectives on the process. The messy truth about how grief touches every part of one’s life isn’t a traditional topic for the dinner table or a blog. It can make Americans in particular very uncomfortable, so we avoid it. Unfortunately, this avoidance leaves us ill-equipped to handle the death of a loved one, despite the fact that we will all face that loss in the fullness of time. The book has a wide range of tools and information presenting more ways to recognize and live with all the other issues and challenges that loss drops on you. Modern Loss is a global movement and platform of content, resources and community focused on eradicating the stigma around grief while also encouraging people to find meaning and live richly. THE MODERN LOSS HANDBOOK does just that by offering a welcoming space in which to grow thoughts and feelings as they evolve and create a personal roadmap toward resilience. Modern Loss is a place to share the unspeakably taboo, unbelievably hilarious, and unexpectedly beautiful terrain of navigating your life after a death. Beginners welcome.