Seeking Healing in Grieving Wholeheartedly

As the school year was coming to a close, I was eagerly awaiting the walk down the aisle to my fiancé and the walk across a stage to earn a Master of Divinity. Time was filled with joy, anticipation, and larger-than-life dreams as I attempted to balance these big changes with my full-time ministry job. In my last quarter at Fuller Theological Seminary, I took a pastoral care class that I had been avoiding. The class was called “Grief, Loss, Death, and Dying.” I just knew that when I took the class, I would experience some loss. About halfway through the quarter, I lost my paternal grandfather. In the middle of messy emotions, I wish I had had a resource like Dr. Audrey Davidheiser’s Grieving Wholeheartedly: Bringing Healing to Every Part of Your Soul.

Grieving Wholeheartedly introduces how Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy helps us grieve by understanding the different parts of our souls and how we may be experiencing multiple emotions and reactions as we grieve. Davidheiser divides her book into four parts. Part One, “Fundamentals,” defines IFS and how it works within the Christian faith. Part Two, “Protectors,” examines different parts of us that wish to protect us from pain, such as our critical voice or seeking relief through shopping, scrolling, drugs, alcohol, or other means. Part Three, “Exiles,” explores the feelings we often keep in the periphery, such as sadness, anger, fear, guilt, and loneliness. Part Four, “The Future,” is hopeful in tone as Davidheiser considers how grieving through IFS can bring healing. Throughout the book, Davidheiser has guided exercises and space to write reflections.

Davidheiser’s poetic writing is gentle and compassionate. Weaved throughout the book, Davidheiser generously takes readers on her own grief journey as she mourns the loss of her father. She clearly explains what Internal Family Systems is and how it can help us with our grief and loss, whether that loss might be through the death of a loved one, a relationship, or another loss. She also lays out biblical support for the practice, demonstrating how IFS fits within the Christian faith. The exercises at the end of each chapter are something that can be revisited again and again throughout the grieving process.

Anyone who has experienced a loss would benefit from this book. The exercises are simple, and the invitation is to go slowly through grief. Even if IFS is a new concept, as it was for me, people can participate in the exercise as much as they are able to in the moment and then return if they feel they need to go deeper. This book is also an incredible resource for anyone in church leadership, from a small group leader to a lead pastor. We all need healing ourselves, and at times we are also called to witness and support another person’s healing; this book is a helpful guide. When loss inevitably comes again, Grieving Wholeheartedly: Bringing Healing to Every Part of Your Soul is the book I will reach for.