Grief is a Sneaky Bitch

An Uncensored Guide to Navigating Loss

Lisa Keefauver

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Year: 2024
• ISBN:
  9781477329320
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Self Improvement

A comprehensive and compassionate guide to navigating loss.

When social worker Lisa Keefauver became a widow in 2011, she was alarmed to discover that even though 100 percent of us experience loss, we're living in a grief illiterate world. In her work as a therapist, and in her search for help in the wake of her own loss, Keefauver began to see how the misguided stories we consume about grief lead to unnecessary suffering. Responding to the problematic narratives that grief is something to move on from after completing the five stages like some sort of to-do list, Keefauver became a grief activist. Through this book and her hit podcast of the same title, she creates a safe place to be inside the messiness of it all, to discover the full spectrum of grief, and to find the tools that help grievers move forward, not on. Grief is a Sneaky Bitch is a comprehensive guide—both a manual full of insights and skills and, even more importantly, a thoughtful companion that helps readers feel seen and held.

Keefauver shares her personal and professional wisdom alongside the lessons she's learned from clinicians, authors, poets, and friends. In place of rigid instructions and must-do checklists, Grief is a Sneaky Bitch invites reflection, encourages self-compassion, and explores the therapeutic power of humor with, yes, a bit of profanity.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• A Brief Note about the Title
• dedications to my grief supporters
• acknowledging my grief guides
• Dedication
• topic index
• inviting you to start here: orienting you to the who, what, where, when, and why of grief
• time in grief: discovering how and why time feels so different
• what the hell is happening to me?: helping you see the 360-degree impact of grief (no, it’s not just all in your head)
• relating to yourself and others (or not): (re)discovering yourself and your relationship to others in grief
• pitfalls and hazards: identifying the grief thief and other speed bumps when navigating loss
• skills and tools that help grief suck less: discovering ways to soften the hard edges of grief
• now what?: bringing curiosity to the emerging story of your life
• a little extra