Second Firsts

A deeply transformative guide to overcoming grief, based on the author's personal experience and her training as a therapist and crisis intervention counsellor. With boundless compassion and gentle guidance, it explores the world before and after loss, and leads the reader out of the 'waiting room' in between into a new life of hope and love.

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I know you are afraid.

I know you are grieving.

But you are not meant to grieve forever.

After studying to become a therapist and crisis intervention counselor - even doing her master's thesis on the stages of bereavement - Christina Rasmussen thought she understood grief. But it wasn't until losing her husband to cancer in her early 30s that she truly grasped the depths of sorrow and pain that accompany loss.

Rasmussen discovered that there were two worlds: the world before loss and the world after loss. And she realized just how easy it was to become lost in the gap between them, a space she coined as "The Waiting Room." It took wading through her own grief and exploring the world of neuroscience and neuroplasticity for her to develop her Life Reentry Model - a way to break grief's spiral of pain and to live and experience the life that you are now living.

Using practical exercises and stories drawn from her own life and those of thousands of clients, Rasmussen guides you through the five stages of Life Reentry in a way that both honors your suffering and rewires your brain to help you align your world with your passions, values, and survival going forward.

With warmth, compassion, truth, and determination, Rasmussen will help you move past your pain and step firmly onto the path of resilience and possibility.