How Learning to Say Goodbye Taught Me How to Live

Book excerpt: Loss can either break you open or break you downyour choice. If you choose to allow it to break you open, you can discover who you truly were meant to be before time and the world made you forget. How Learning to Say Good-bye Taught Me How to Liveis a narrative journal of the many spiritual lessons and gifts I received during a period of tremendous loss in my life and how they were put to the test during my best friends battle with cancer. It chronicles the close friendship we shared during this traumatic time and how we worked to stay conscious and move forward with our inner growth despite our pain. When we are asked to say good-bye to what was, we are offered an opportunity to experience what can beif we do the work. Each chapter highlights the various inner battles as well as the gifts that are revealed during difficult times. The lessons include issues of control, judgment, needing to be right, forgiveness, self-love, receiving, and the power of our beliefs. The gifts include partnership with your Higher Self, true intimacy, the power of play and laughter, faith and patience, angel whispers, co-creating, and much more. At the end of each chapter is a list of questions and thoughts that aided me to go deeper with the work. KIRKUS INDIE REVIEW (OCT 2017) Heartfelt reflections on the lessons and strength to be gained from grief and loss. McClung muses on the spiritual insights learned during the last six months of her best friends life in this debut memoir. McClung has written a thoughtful think piece that also serves as a touching tribute to one of my greatest teachers during the worst times of her life. The questions the author presents readers arise appropriately from her narrative and also have universal relevance, including When is the last time you said you were sorry to yourself or to another? McClung offers many well-sketched, even funny, anecdotes, including her outburst in Target by phone with Rob about buying her outfit.