We all experience grief.
Whether it's the death of someone dear to you, a divorce, being fired from a job you loved, or any number of losses that have been piling up over the years, grief weaves itself into the fabric of our days. It can be easy to feel weighed down by it all.
But it doesn't have to be that way.
This short, inspiring, yet pragmatic book can transform how you relate to grief.
Because the purpose of life is not to "be happy."
The purpose of life is to live.
Genre: PSYCHOLOGY / Grief & Loss
His name was Rafael Bejarano.
He was a musician and a shaman, and he carried the warmth of the sun in his eyes.
I met Rafael at a retreat in January, 2015. He performed during the opening ceremony, and it was amazing. He radiated a childlike sense of wonder and delight at the world around us, and the music he brought forth from his hand-carved didgeridoos was nothing short of transcendent. Beyond hearing the sound, I could feel the resonance as it vibrated my very being, loosening and releasing all tension such that there was nothing left but the magnificent joy of the moment.
It was magic.
A few days later, I saw on his Facebook page that he’d performed a concert that weekend to raise funds for a school in Mexico, and that both the concert and where he lived were a short distance from my parents’ house. I was so excited. I told them and my husband about Rafael and declared that, next time he held a concert down there, the group of us had to go so I could share this glorious experience.
Then, that September, Rafael was one of several people gunned down by the Egyptian military in a case of mistaken identity. They’d thought that the van carrying him and several other peaceful pilgrims belonged to a faction of rebels, and they shot it full of bullets.
Just like that, he was dead.
I was devastated—to the extent that I was confused by the intensity of my reaction. I mean, I’d only met him once. I didn’t even know him. It wasn’t just that I felt like I didn’t have a reason to grieve, but that I didn’t have the right.
So why couldn’t I stop crying?
