Breathe

Breathe is written for anyone living with grief, anxiety, bereavement, regret, sorrow, disappointment, or depression, at any level of intensity. Drawing on true accounts, biblical teaching, and clinical pastoral methods, it helps readers see that spiritual pain is a normal part of human life. That pain includes the mental, emotional, and psychological distress of regret, guilt, and heartache.

The book is built around steps meant to be repeated as often as needed. Practicing them helps readers develop self-care and self-soothing and gives them safe ways to grieve and manage spiritual pain. The author draws on non-drug, cathartic techniques that have brought relief and comfort to the many families and patients the author has supported. Coping methods and strategies are included, along with guidance on letting go of unforgiveness and guilt, and an explanation of the body's built-in survival systems, which the book presents as capable of comforting a person much as medicine can.

The book addresses every kind of grief, from everyday frustration to crisis and trauma. It is laid out as a workbook and journal in a single volume, making it well suited to grief and bereavement support groups, church and community grief groups, and pastoral leaders who walk alongside grieving people.

The material grew out of an action research project, and the findings and research cycles also formed the author's doctoral dissertation. Peer-reviewed and reviewed by scholars, the work changed the chaplaincy support the author provided as a police chaplain, hospital chaplain, and hospice chaplain. The author now hopes to bring it to the general public during a time of widespread despair that feels unending.

Breathe does not replace care from physicians, psychologists, or psychiatrists. It offers additional steps toward comfort, along with first steps for people who need consolation right away.