Healing A Broken Heart: A Guided Journal Through the Four Seasons of Relationship Recovery [Paperback]

Sarah La Saulle (Author), Sharon Kagan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 25, 2003

The loss of a love is a nearly universal emotional crisis, whether the end is divorce, desertion, or a mutually agreed-upon separation. At first, friends and family are there to offer a shoulder to cry on, but after a few months there's an expectation that we just need to get over the crisis and move on. Thus, unprocessed, painful feelings are buried, leaving us numb. Or we repeat damaging relationship patterns over and over again.

The situation doesn't have to be like that. Healing a Broken Heart guides those of us grieving for a lost love through four metaphorical seasons of recovery with provocative questions -- and journal pages on which to respond -- to help move us forward.

The four seasons serve as powerful metaphors for the stages of the grieving process. Summer is the season for charting the course of a relationship: remembering hopes and expectations, the warning signs that went unheeded. During autumn, journalers accept the reality of breaking up and acknowledge things about the relationship that didn't serve their needs. Winter brings the pain of grief over the profound loss. Finally, spring -- and, with it, renewal -- invites readers to examine and understand how their family history may have affected their past relationships.

Punctuated throughout with poems and moving meditations, the thoughtful, interactive approach of this book offers the time and space we all need to heal when our hearts are broken.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Matt Groening creator of The Simpsons and Life in Hell This thoughtful book about getting through heartbreak is like a good friend holding your hand when everything seems bleak.

Cynthia Heimel author of Sex Tips for Girls This is a wonderful, smart, and nurturing book. There are no clichés. It is the most helpful guidebook I have ever read.

Laura Davis author of I Thought We'd Never Speak Again If you are struggling to come to terms with a broken relationship, this is the one book you will return to again and again. Whether you are suffering over the loss of a lover or a spouse, this book will help you through the dark and lonely days ahead.

About the Author

Sarah La Saulle, Ph.D., is a marriage and family therapist.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone; Original edition (February 25, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743222180
• ISBN-13: 978-0743222181
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #249,581 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #54 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Relationships > Love & Loss

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Greatest Healing Tool Ever!, October 15, 2003

By 

Meredith Stern (Beverly Hills, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Healing A Broken Heart: A Guided Journal Through the Four Seasons of Relationship Recovery (Paperback)

Healing a Broken Heart is the best self help book I have ever read.

It doesn t just lecture and inform about how to get over a broken heart, it actually got me over one. I hadn t been able to get over a break-up that happened two years ago. I ve been to therapy, to some spiritual counselors, and talked to friends&.nothing helped me to stop obsessing and longing for my old boyfriend until I worked with this book.

I had been stuck thinking about things that happened, things that I didn t get a chance to say, feelings that I never got to express and the hope that we would get back together again at some point. This book handled these issues in a way that got me to clarify and release old feelings and haunting thoughts.

There are people out there who claim to be trying to help by implying that grieving should be done in a particular way and should last a certain amount of time&.that was not helpful to me. What has been helpful is that this book gave me a way to find my own grief process and to do as much or as little work that I wanted to do. The book is divided into seasons and covers any and all material that one might encounter during a break-up from a sweetheart. It allows the reader to choose whatever sections or areas that he/she wants to explore. If someone else just wanted to pick up this book and read the poems and visualizations in it that alone would be comforting and very useful. If someone were inclined, like I was, to do the writing in every chapter they would see all of their thoughts about the previous heartbreak on paper, lifted out of their heart and psyche. It was a powerful, healing and freeing experience.

The icing on the cake is the last section of the book, called Spring. In it the reader explores their family background and relationship dynamics in a way that makes it clear what issues and problems one might be bringing into romantic situations. Since doing this work I have been approaching dating and selecting a partner in a much more present and healthy way than I ever have in my past. Thank goodness there is a method that is available to help someone become conscious of their own issues and to give one a sense of awareness where there previously was very little understanding.

I am very grateful to these brilliant authors for devising a method that offers the heartbroken the same validity for their grief process as people who grieve the death of a loved one. Finally, there is something out there that contradicts the popular misunderstanding that a broken heart should just be gotten over-move on-meet someone else-quick fix-pseudo-spiritual philosophy of our culture. It didn t work for me to try to paste on a positive attitude, when underneath I was still heartbroken.

This book healed me and it works!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great!! 5 Stars!!!, October 16, 2003

By 

Matt Reynolds (Indianapolis, IN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Healing A Broken Heart: A Guided Journal Through the Four Seasons of Relationship Recovery (Paperback)

It's tough for men to find somewhere to express grief over a failed relationship. Even though I have gotten counseling, it hasn't felt like I could cry or get my feelings off my chest as fully as I would have liked. Especially around my friends, even though they are trying to be there for me, it s not a topic that I can really get into with anyone.

My sister gave me the book Healing a Broken Heart because she knew that I was still angry over my ex-wife's affair and eventual divorce. Everyone in my family has suffered because I have been furious with my ex and how she has treated me. I ve tried not to express any of it around my children, but it has been impossible to get over, especially since we share children and have to see each other frequently. I couldn t tell my ex what I was feeling or thinking, I couldn t tell my friends about it, and my family got upset too.

This book was the perfect answer to my dilemma. It has been like having the best friend in the world to help me get through these feelings that wouldn t go away. I worked through three sections of the book, picking the questions that I felt like working on and it was amazing. I have healed from my broken heart by using the tools provided by this book. I feel like I have finally purged myself of the repetitive thoughts that have been torturing me for the last year. Everyone who knows me says that I have changed dramatically and that I am back to my old, upbeat self. More importantly, I feel ready for love again.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars this book healed not only my heart, but my soul, April 24, 2005

By 

LA_city_girl (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Healing A Broken Heart: A Guided Journal Through the Four Seasons of Relationship Recovery (Paperback)

When my nearly 3 year relationship ended, I was surprisingly relieved- it had been going nowhere for quite some time. But even in the midst of my newfound freedom and happiness, I knew that I still needed to grieve and learn from my mistakes. This journal was a godsend to me. I didn't want to read an advice book since that was not what I was looking for. This journal allowed me to reflect upon what had happened and then look toward the future. The various anecdotes and poems were extremely helpful as well. This journal also fit well into my life; I am often quite busy, and it really allows you to do as little or as much as you want/need to at a time. I can honestly say that I am completely healed and loving life more now than ever after completing this book.