Tuesday, April 28, 2015

"SATURDAY NIGHT WIDOWS" - A NEW APPROACH TO GRIEF RECOVERY

Six women--none of whom knew each other previously--come together to form a new model of grief support as they collaborate on life's greatest devastation to debunk the myths surrounding the grieving process.  Today's Blog is a critique of Becky Aikman's landmark book, Saturday Night Widows, and how she rebelled against the conventional methods used for decades to help women cope with the loss of their husbands. Having begun this journey myself 4 1/2 years ago, I can attest to the many myths that abound and how the "experts" promote them in counseling widows to cope with grief:

Myth #1 - Widowhood is an "older woman's" dilemma
Myth #2 - You must go through the Five Stages of Grief to recover
Myth #3 - Rehearsing your tragedies promotes healing
Myth #4 - Grief is about becoming "Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows" 
Myth #5 - Grieving women suffer from Depression
Myth #6 - There's a timetable in which you're supposed to predictably behave, recover and move on.

Here's a video clip from an interview conducted by Katie Couric (a widow herself) with the very real "Saturday Night Widows":



I highly recommend this book not only for widows, but for women who don't know what to say or do when someone they care about is facing this journey.  After all, "Losing a loved one is a normal transition in everyone's life.  Always has been." ~ Becky Aikman


FOLLOW BECKY AIKMAN ON FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/authorbeckyaikman

ORDER THE BOOK
http://www.amazon.com/Saturday-Night-Widows-Adventures-Remaking/dp/0307590437/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365293977&sr=8-1&keywords=saturday+night+widows