ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elizabeth Straka, Ph.D., lives in the Northeast, where she educates and guides those navigating caregiving, loss, and grief, and companions those at the end of life. She offers compassion-focused caregiving and grief support groups, as well as workshops that teach others the importance of developing a relationship with grief. She teaches that grief is our wisest teacher. She further encourages community opportunities for conversations about conscious living, dying, grief, and the importance of caring for each other.
Her grief workshops convey her GriefCARE™: Compassion, Awareness, Relationship, Embodiment model, emphasizing that grief takes time and that embracing it and building a relationship with it allows for healthy integration. This process helps you learn how to carry grief and how it transforms you.
Elizabeth is a Grief Specialist, End-of-Life Companion, and Reiki Practitioner. Her experience serving those navigating disability and the grief that accompanies loss and disability significantly influenced her knowledge, understanding, and experience of grief and how grief intersects all aspects of life. Her personal experience in caregiving for her husband after his diagnosis of cancer and then navigating grief after his loss pivoted her to focus on a specialization in loss, grief, and end-of-life companionship. She felt called to help others openly discuss loss, grief, and end-of-life topics, and learn how to navigate all the textures and shades of grief.
Elizabeth cares for others and communicates with compassion, attention, and insight while providing heart-centered service. She finds the service of holding presence and companioning others in loss, grief, and end-of-life to be sacred work.
Elizabeth found herself writing Joy at the Edges of Grief after making her way through caregiving, loss, and grief. The book shares her experiences and insights in her caregiving and grief journey. The lessons she learned about the power of presence, awareness, and gratitude are truly transformational and applicable to those caring for a loved one and those navigating grief.
After Elizabeth published her book, she completed the Stanford University Compassion training with the Center for Altruism, Research and Education (CCARE). The training deepened her understanding of how the elements of compassion naturally arose for her as she navigated caregiving and grief. During this coursework, she bridged the neuroscience of compassion into the content of her book, developing a GriefCARE™ model that she now teaches in her workshops.
