NEW WAY TO ​GRIEVE

Professional Endorsements

New Way to Grieve by Paulette Kranjac is a book for those who have grieved, are grieving, or will be grieving. Of course, this description encompasses almost everyone and it includes those who are actively on the grieving continuum; from those who are demolished by their loss, to those who would prefer to avoid and deny it. In her work, Kranjac makes it clear that to be alive is to grieve. However, the essence here is about changing our relationship with grief, almost embracing it as part of the human experience. Utilizing her own bereavement experiences as a foundation while incorporating her own research and training, Kranjac has written a primer for people caught up in, or surely going to be in, the process. Written from the heart, this work includes a wealth of real life experiences, some of a very personal nature and other touching vignettes based on the author’s interactions with bereaved others. Her in-depth exploration of the bereavement experience provides scores of helpful suggestions and exercises designed to assist anyone going through grief, normalizing thoughts and feelings be they from a place of anger, guilt, denial, despair or whatever. One important “takeaway” from this work is to acknowledge the gratitude we have for those in our lives right at this very moment and, as much as possible, living life to the fullest and being present to it. For no one knows just when the “bell will toll” for them or for their loved ones. Therefore, without just sitting here and waiting for the other shoe to drop, we might as well be prepared and perhaps just a bit more appreciative.

​​— LAWRENCE M. TUNIS, ED.D, LMFT

New Way To Grieve is an easily readable and down-to-earth book for those whose spouse/partner has died. The book comes after the death of the author’s husband and explores her bereavement journey as she navigates the grief process. Paulette Kranjac writes from her heart sharing what she has learned, offering the bereaved suggestions and exercises. Her book is uplifting, hopeful, and empowering for the newly bereaved and those who may be ‘stuck’ in their grief. Using the often-cited metaphor of grief coming in waves, Ms Kranjac describes herself as a surfer, successfully riding these waves despite recognizing that this was not the life she had planned or envisioned.

— DR SHERRY R SCHACHTER, PHD, FT, RN 

Executive Director, Emerita
​Calvary Hospital/Hospice

New Way to Grieve is life-giving and life-changing. Paulette has done what Psalmist proclaims, 'Divine One-you have transformed my grief into a machol, a circle-dance'. Indeed, as Kranjac shares her own tragic story, we feel as if she is showing us the new way or the natural way to work with loss, longing, and letting go. The grief work she describes so intimately is indeed an allowance and a permission-giving for feelings to arise, be felt before moving and morphing into some new. That is a circle dance, a machol. New Way to Grieve is a record and an invitation. It is the story of one courageous woman's journey into the heart of unimaginable grief. And it is an invitation to doing the hard but necessary work that grieving requires. May all who mourn be comforted and may all who grieve be supported and held as they care for their broken heart.

— RABBI DAVID INGBER

Founder and Senior Rabbi, Romemu