You were one of the lucky ones. You found a partner or friend with whom you shared a deeply profound connection. You understood, opened fully to, served, and challenged one another. You were the heroes of each other’s lives. You lived a grand adventure together. But now that your partner has died, what felt like luck may have turned to wretched despair. How do you go on? How do you live without your champion and other half? The answer is that you mourn as you loved: heroically, grandly, and fully. In this compassionate guide by one of the world’s most beloved grief counselors, you’ll find empathetic affirmation and advice intermingled with real-life stories from other halved soulmates. Learn to honor your loved one and your grief even as you find a path to a renewed life of purpose and joy. Dr. Alan Wolfelt is a speaker, grief counselor, and Director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition. He is the author of When Your Pet Dies , Understanding Your Grief: Ten Essential Touchstones for Finding Hope and Healing Your Heart , and The Depression of Grief: Coping with Your Sadness and Knowing When to Get Help . He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado. When your Soulmate Dies A Guide to Healing Through Heroic Mourning By Alan D. Wolfelt Center for Loss and Life Transition Copyright © 2016 Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-61722-242-9 Contents Preface, Introduction, Chapter One: Soulmate Love, Chapter Two: Heroic Mourning, Chapter Three: An Introduction to the Six Needs of Heroic Mourning, Chapter Four: Heroic Mourning Need 1: Acknowledge the reality of your soulmate's death, Chapter Five: Heroic Mourning Need 2: Embrace the pain of the loss, Chapter Six: Heroic Mourning Need 3: Remember your soulmate, Chapter Seven: Heroic Mourning Need 4: Develop a new self-identity, Chapter Eight: Heroic Mourning Need 5: Search for meaning, Chapter Nine: Heroic Mourning Need 6: Receive ongoing support from others, Chapter Ten: Reaching the Goal of your Quest-Reconciliation, A Final Word, Using This Book In a Soulmate Grief Support Group, CHAPTER 1 SOULMATE LOVE "A soulmate is someone to whom we feel profoundly connected, as though the communicating and communing that take place between us were not the product of intentional efforts, but rather a divine grace." — Thomas Moore Love and grief are two sides of the same precious coin. One does not — and cannot — exist without the other. They are the yin and yang of our lives. Because human beings die, for those of us who continue to live there is no such thing as love without also, eventually, loss. After a death, the stronger the love that bound two people who are now separated, the stronger the grief in the survivor. As we began to consider in this book's Introduction, soulmate love is an especially profound kind of love and connection. I am not someone who generally believes it is helpful to rank or compare loves and their subsequent grief, but I will say that in all my many years as a grief counselor and educator, the people who came to me for help with some of the most devastating, overwhelming feelings of grief and loss were grieving parents and grieving soulmates. But before we begin to consider how to cope with your overwhelming grief, I would first like to back up and talk some more about the love that characterizes soulmate relationships. Love is what makes life meaningful. Deep love seems to make life deeply meaningful for soulmates. But how is soulmate love so strong and deep? In this chapter we'll review some of the most common characteristics of the soulmate relationship, which, when combined, form such a potent bond. As you'll see in later chapters, this review will be essential to our understanding of the flipside of soulmate love: soulmate grief. Along the way, I'll invite you to write a little about your own singular soulmate experience with each of the characteristics. Remember-there are no rights and wrongs here. Your soulmate relationship may not have featured all of these characteristics. In addition, other attributes that you felt were central to your relationship may not be listed. The uniqueness of your special relationship could never be fully captured in a few pages, anyway. You know that, and I know that. Rather than being an exhaustive or definitive list, the characteristics that follow-presented in no particular order-were simply those that most stood out to me in my work and communications with grieving soulmates. [] Shared values The soulmate relationship is typically built on a bedrock of shared values and beliefs. Without this foundation, a soulmate relationship may not be possible. "We iteratively sought out and agreed upon fundamental truths in raising our family. When a crossroads came, we prayed and sought counsel about which path to take. Our prayer life together matured as we aged." — Bob Troublefield Following are some of the most common shared values I was able to gle