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We’ve collated a list of applicable UK-based charities and organisations, below, that might well be of use at some point in your grief healing journey. These are all committed to providing valuable assistance during this challenging journey.
Additionally, we’ve compiled a selection of books on bereavement and trauma to aid you in processing your loss and finding healing. These resources encompass various perspectives, offering insights into coping mechanisms and pathways toward recovery. Among these valuable reads is Julia’s own memoir, Precious Scars, published in 2023 by Mirror Books. It shares a personal narrative that may resonate with those enduring similar pain. More information about it and other useful books, together with Julia’s specific recommendation for each, can be found below.
Before reading The Book of Forgiving, I thought that when you forgave someone, you absolved them of what they had done.
This book showed me that you can forgive anyone and yet they still pay for their actions.
This was of immense importance as it helped me to forgive my ex-husband while not negating my wish for him to serve time behind bars.
By forgiving him, I was able to find closure and to move on with my healing journey. Otherwise, I would have still carried hate with me, which can lead to someone in grief remaining stuck in the past rather than healing.
I have know author Ben Goldsmith for a long time. After the loss of my twins, he was the first person I talked to who had also suffered the loss of a child, and who had decided to write a book about it.
His book is beautifully written and I love the message of hope it gives as well as his passion for nature that is evident throughout. As I have written about elsewhere on the site, I found that immersing myself in nature helped the healing process, be it walking in the woods or mountains or swimming in the ocean.
As with Ben Goldsmith, I have had the pleasure of meeting Maike Mullenders.
And also as with Ben, I found her writing on processing her own trauma to be helpful in my own grief journey.
In both cases, to be able to learn from people who have been through deeply traumatic events and who have decided to share that with the world, has been of immense help and comfort.
I had been aware of the importance of breath for creating a state of inner peace for a while, and a breath worker recommended I read The Presence Process.
I found the book most interesting, though the exercises it prescribes were, at least for me, amazingly difficult. Perhaps the exercises are challenging or perhaps subconsciously my ego does not want me to go into this unknown of finding release from deep-set trauma.
Nevertheless, the journey towards inner peace is well worth the struggle
This book helped me to dive deeper into compassion, for ourselves and others. It helped me to continue to develop in this field and to feel motivated to do so.
Ayya is able to explain this difficult process in such an easily understood way that made it seem simple – which, in reality, it is but it can sometimes seem difficult while in the midst of grief.
I just love Donna Ashworth’s poems. I pick up the book and open it on any given page, and that particular poem always seem to resonate with me and pull at my heartstrings.
Donna is able to express what I feel beautifully and again helps me to realise that there are so many people out there who know exactly what I feel, and that brings comfort.
Donna is able to express what I feel beautifully and again helps me to realise that there are so many people out there who know exactly what I feel, and that brings comfort.
I also wholeheartedly recommend her other books, including I Wish I Knew and Loss.
It took me a while after the loss of my twins to realise that I wanted to write a book. In the beginning I didn’t really set out for it to get published. It seemed more like a personal project for me to get my memories in order and to remember.
But I soon realised that if I was lucky enough to find a publisher then my book would help other parents. I hadn’t found many books about the loss of a child through violence and it always vexed me. Later, I realised that many people shy away from painful feelings and emotions, which is understandable as our natural instinct is to protect ourselves.
So why publish? I wanted to share the message of hope after loss. That if I have been able to continue and make a beautiful life for myself then so can others. Precious Scars was written is to let others know that while you will always carry grief with you, you will learn to do so and, with time, you will become stronger because of it. You will be able to make something beautiful from the shattered pieces of your heart. All you need is patience and love.
