~ Resources on Journey of Hearts™ ~

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.

Gaining Knowledge to Regain Control
Journey of Hearts™ was designed to be a Healing Place with resources and support to help those in the grief process following a loss, crisis or a significant life change. We believe that "Ignorance is not bliss." Education is one of the best ways to understand the grief response and aide people in recovering from loss. Understanding a situation, a condition, a new diagnosis or a disease which may be causing a grief response allows for a sense of peace and calm from knowing what is going on, or what to expect, rather than continuing to fear the unknown.

With understanding a subject, whether it is depression, grief or a medical condition, comes acceptance. A person no longer has to fear the unknown and allow the imagination to cloud the reality. Knowledge provides a way to overcome that fear and begin healing from the loss or the significant change. Gaining knowledge can help to return a sense of control over seemingly random occurances, e.g. new medical diagnosis, a sudden, unexpected loss or death, or a change in life circumstances. By being able to assume control one is more likely to accept the life change and begin adapting to the change.

Journey of Hearts™ Resources
This website contains a variety of different resources and Grief AIDEs that have been e-reasearched and compiled to help visitors to the site to help in the education process. These resources include informative and helpful articles along with links to disease-specific websites for more information on a particular disease, or a variety of different types of losses. These resources are not meant to be substitutes for medical information received from a physician, healthcare or mental health provider.

This website contains a variety of different Grief AIDEs to help in the education process including information, techniques for coping, resources, and links to other websites. Grief AIDEs help people understand and work through the grief process following a loss, how to survive present and past losses and how to cope when old losses become felt anew, or new losses occur.

Medical Resources
Resources for this listing of Medical and Medically Related Resources were selected to provide additional information on a wide variety of losses including new medical diagnoses, dealing with sudden, uexpected loss or looking for disease-specific information. Due to the fluxuating nature of the Internet, websites may change, without leaving updates, and information becomes outdated rapidly. The sites selected for inclusion are those that tend to be more stable—the not-for-profits and organizations.

There are over 100 categories on topics related to loss, resources for helping to deal with loss or links for helpful adjunctive therapies. The topics range from Aging and AIDS to "Xtras". The best place to start is with the overall listing on the Medical Resources Index Page to determine how we have classified various topics.

Other helpful resources or topics of loss that should be included in our resource base can be e-mailed to Journey of Hearts™ at designer@journeyofhearts.org with information and URL's. We will do our best to include them in the list.

Please note that since this site exists to provide education and educational materials on grief and loss issues, sites that are primarily commercial ones are unlikely to be included in our resource base.

Medical Internet Resources
This section contains articles, presentations and information on several of the issues we have determined to be of concern in dealing with the Medical Internet namely using the Internet for Web-education, the emerging field of Medical Internet Ethics, and using the Internet for obtaining Medical Information.

Other Resources
Among the "Other Resources" are articles on a variety of topics including: Inspirational; On Loss; On Children, Loss & Grief; On Death & Dying; On Sudden, Accidental or Traumatic Death; On the Workplace; On Humor; On Medical Training and those written About this Site. Also included are our book recommendations and a link to the resources created for the 9-11: United in Courage & Grief. In addition there are links to the poems, quotes, stories Journey of Hearts.™ Finally, there are a variety of different suggestions for "Things to Do," "Ways to Cope" and "Ways to Remember" and a listing of online memorials (now listed under "M" on the A to Z page.)

The "Normal" Grief Response
At Journey of Hearts™ a person is educated about the "normal" grief response, including what to anticipate in the transformational process that occurs following a loss. In addition, the grieving person is encouraged to draw upon or discover their internal source of strength to help them through shock and the grief reaction as well as finding their own healthy way of coping with a loss, crisis or significant life-change.

Somewhere in time the truth shines through And the spirit knows what it has to do Somewhere in you there's a power with no name It can rise to meet the moment and burn like a flame And you can be stronger than anything you know Hold on to what you see Don't let it go Performed by Steve Winwood Lyrics byJames Horner, Cynthia Weil, & Barry Mann. From the movie "Balto"