ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth Straka, Ph.D. lives in the Northeast, where she offers workshops on Being Present with Loss and Grief and Cultivating Compassion for healing and resilience. Her loss and grief workshops are for those who have lost a loved one and individuals who are caregiving a person with a terminal illness. She facilitates caregiving support groups to teach awareness of compassion for oneself in caregiving, offers cultivating awareness walks in nature, provides individual grief care, and Reiki sessions.  She is the founder of the Growlove Portaling Awareness Project (growloveportalingawareness.com)

 In helping others, she has an intuitive gift for seeing and identifying interrelationships within conditions or situations, and is known to communicate with compassion, attention, and insight as she provides heart-centered care and support.

 Elizabeth holds a PhD from the University of Oregon. She taught, presented nationally, consulted, mentored, and published before she returned to direct practice as a speech-language therapist. In 2024, she left her speech-language practice to focus on her compassion, loss, and grief offerings.  

 After making her way through grief, she found herself writing Joy at the Edges of Grief and ultimately seeking ways to support other caregivers or those grieving. The book shares her experiences and insights in caregiving, loss, and healing. The lessons she learned about the power of mindful awareness and gratitude are truly transformational and applicable for those caring for a loved one or coming to terms with their own grief and loss. Since writing the book she completed Compassion Ambassador certification through the Center for Altruism, Research and Education (CCARE) which further informed the development of her  loss and grief workshops and strengthened her understanding of how compassion naturally arrived when she practiced awareness and gratitude in caregiving, loss, and grief.  She found the neuroscience of compassion supported her unique model of grief healing that she shares in her book. Visit her website at edgesofgrief.com to learn more.