Something new and different

So I am a member of several online grief groups.  I love and adore them. They truly helped me in this horrible nightmare. I am part of a group for all grievers of all kinds. I am part of several widows only groups, widowed with kids group, young widows group. I love them all.

They have some very specific rules, grief groups, the main one is; you have to be in the club. The suckiest club that no one wants to join, you have to have lost a loved one. For my widow groups you have to have lost a life partner, hey I qualify, yay me. No, no yay me.  The second main rule that most of them have is no soliciting or advertising. This makes sense of course you don't want everyone posting about their MLM in a group thats talking about grief. It doesn't fit, it doesn't belong there.

So I wrote a book, a book about my grief, I'm told it's a pretty good book.  I self published it, which means I have to do all the advertising and promotion myself. What better place to tell everyone about my book on grief then in my grief groups. However because of their very fair and reasonable no advertising rules I can't.  I get it, I do, but its a catch 22. Hey guess what, I'm not the only one who wrote a book about grief and self published it. They have no where to advertise either. Grieving people have started their own podcasts, blogs, web groups, all kinds of resources for the grieving that they can't tell the grieving about.

Ok lets get real, of course I want to sell my books, of course I want to sell a million copies and be interviewed by Oprah and have Lin Manuel Miranda turn my story into a hit Broadway musical.  However I think none of that is very likely to happen, so I'm good with just being able to pay my bills and buy my kid a new back pack for school. But if that doesn't happen either it's fine, I can get a real job. You know whats not fine? The 34 year old whose soul mate dropped dead and left her with three kids and she thinks there is not a person in the world who gets how she feels. Whats not fine is the dude whose wife died of cancer, he wrote a book about it, people accused him of taking advantage of his dead wife, actually he just missed her and wanted everyone to know it.

I have found the grieving community to be the most loving community I have ever been a part of. I have never gotten so much support for just putting my pants on. People who understand how hard it is to just breathe. However when it comes to books, or podcasts, or even blogs others have made about grief I seem to get a feeling of an every man/woman for himself . I don't wanna be like that, I don't think it's a competition, I'm not afraid the story of the loss of your child will be more popular then the story of the loss of my husband, and if it is, thats ok. Go you, get on Oprah, sell a million copies, tell people about your grief, cause thats what matters. We have a disconnect in our society that needs to be fixed.

For awhile now I have wanted to do something along the lines of starting an online grief group, but at the same time I didn't want to intrude on the groups I already am a part of and love.  I didn't think there was a need. I have found a idea for a grief group that I believe there is a need for:

Living with Grief Resources Group

This is a resource group, not a personal grieving group. This is a place to scroll through posts about grief things. Wrote a book about your grief? Great post it in this group, advertise it to others in this group. Love that Stephan Colbert interview? Post a link to it here so other people will find it. Have a podcast you do on grief or one you love to listen to? Put the link in this group. Read a great article or book on grief, lets hear about it. Is Dead to Me your favorite show ever, tell people why and where to watch it.  Ideally it will be a whole feed of great resources on grief.  For now I'm going to allow meme's, I may change my mind if it gets out of hand.

Here's how to join: Just ask. I may ask you why your interested but unlike other grief groups you do not have to be in the grieving club to join. Did your best friends husband just drop dead and your trying to figure out how to help her? Join this group. Did you write a book about your grief and you want to get the word out? Join our group.

I'm excited and hope to see you in Living with Grief Resources. Here is the link:  Living With Grief Resources


Hey I wrote a book about my grief. You can read it here:  Carry on Castle