Loss isn't one-size-fits-all. It comes in a million different forms-and all of them hurt. Whatever your situation, there is hope: you are not alone, you will get through this, and you can experience true joy again!
An estimated two-hundred million Americans face the pain and confusion of loss every year, and most of us have no idea how to handle it. We're thrown into the deep end of grief without a life preserver, desperately trying to stay afloat in a sea of shock, anger, frustration, heartbreak, and hopelessness.
Mark Negley knows what it's like to face the pain of loss and fight to build a new life from the ashes. Over the past thirty years, he has faced cancer, raised a special needs child, lost his beloved mother, nearly lost his wife in a car accident, and supported her through depression and mental health issues resulting from her brain injuries. Tragically, in 2016, Mark received the biggest blow of all when his wife of twenty years took her own life.
Frustrated by the lack of relatable resources to help navigate his grief recovery, Mark set out to redefine the loss experience. After five years of research, in-depth interviews with loss survivors, and leading grief groups, he realized that the problem isn't how we experience grief; the problem is that traditional models make it seem too formulaic. He found that grief recovery isn't a linear progression from one clearly defined stage to the next; rather, it's a series of concentric circles-like ripples in a pond-that emanate from a center point of impact. Those circles form three "interconnected" phases of recovery called Survive, Alive, and Thrive.
