Permission to Grieve

A powerful permission slip for hearts facing death, divorce, diagnosis, and more

Drawing on her experience as a grieving person and two years’ worth of interviews with grief experts like Megan Devine, Kerry Egan, and Caleb Wilde, Shelby Forsythia makes the case for radical, self-honoring permission—free from personal judgement and society’s restrictive timelines and rules. Permission to Grieve guides you to call your grief out of hiding and invites you to give it permission through thoughtful writing prompts, easy-to-follow exercises, and clever visual illustrations.

In this book you’ll learn:

  •  How society encourages us to practice life-rejection and self-abandonment instead of expressing our grief

  •  The three big permissions that unlock the emotions, identities, and actions our grief wants to express—featuring insights from podcast guests and Shelby Forsythia’s personal grief community

  •  Tips and tricks for practicing permission to grieve in the real world—including how to ask for permission to grieve from friends, family, and coworkers and tools for helping others tap into their own permission to grieve

Permission to Grieve is a book for people who are tired of covering up and pushing down their pain. It’s a book for people who know that there’s a better, more compassionate way to approach the worst thing that has ever happened to them. It’s a book for people who believe that grief is not an enemy to be vanquished as quickly as possible, but an opportunity to connect more deeply with their human selves. Because even in the midst of loss, we can create grace, space, and room to breathe.

A gift that needs to be on the shelves in every hospice and grief-centered counseling office.
— Dr. Sharon Prentice, psychotherapist, counselor, and author of Becoming Starlight

Hold this book close to your heart. It won't take away the hurt, but it will give you a roadmap for how to carry it forward.
— Stephenie Zamora, author of Unravel

In a culture that so desperately wants to push the reality of loss away from our day-to-day lives, Shelby’s book offers education, gentle prompts, tips and ‘permission’ to fully express and integrate the flow of grief into our daily lives.
— Marni Henderson, wellness coach and founder of Coalesce Discovery