A Guide for Finding Hope in the Landscape of Loss

While the experience of loss is profoundly personal, the process of moving through grief is universal. This book has bravery on every page, giving us all the ability to see the author while at the same time see ourselves.

Touching Two Worlds is a tremendous resource for anyone struggling to find their footing in the aftermath of loss. Dr. Sherry finds a balance between practical and mystical, and her willingness to share the details of her own healing journey is an act of courage and generosity. I've spent my career helping clients heal from trauma and grief, and I’m very grateful to have this book as an important new resource.

From experience, going through grief can be a lonely road as most don't understand unless they have also experienced it. Dr. Sherry is both a person with that experience, as well as an expert in the subject. I am grateful she has decided to share her wisdom through this book.

Touching Two Worlds feels like a long, much-anticipated letter from a dear friend, be it one who is exquisitely qualified to share a digestible, functional guidebook for grieving times. Dr. Walling artfully walks the jagged tightrope stretched between love and heartbreak, while offering gentle coaching, compassionate guidance, and honest, humorous reflections to those of us following in her footsteps. 

While grief is universal, few of us know how to do it well. In Touching Two Worlds, Dr. Walling offers practical, compassionate wisdom to help grieving people (and those that love them) feel less alone in the darkness.

As a 15-year-old boy, I lost my mother to cancer. Understanding, let alone the ability to navigate grief and trauma eluded me. Now that I am a Psychiatrist and my life's work is to help people with their trauma, this is the book I will be offering. Dr. Walling’s courage to be vulnerable is inspiring. Her gentle suggestions on how to move with grief and trauma are evidence based and readily accessible. I wish I had read this when I was 15.

The ‘take a moment’ reflections gently move us through spaces and thoughts where it’s understandable to feel ‘stuck’ and ultimately help us find the internal strength to write and rewrite our story. Replacing ‘shock with self-compassion, and helpless fear with tenderness.’ is a transformative gift in the midst of a sea of grief. 

This book is an​ adept, gentle guide on how to love ourselves more openly through deep pain and loss. Dr. Walling is the very best possible advisor for the unwitting “grief club.”

Dr. Walling’s honest, poignant reflection of her relationship with loss confronts the surreal absurdities that come with deep pain and navigates a delicate approach to also help children grieve safely. She writes not just from the heart, but also guides the reader in actionable steps to relate with their grief in a new way.

Touching Two Worlds is a love letter—to the departed and the bereaved, to Life and Death and Grief itself. On these pages, Sherry Walling's heart laid bare is our own, cracked wide open with care and compassion, gently reminding us of love lost and found, here to honor our hurting, our healing, and to call us home.

Touching Two Worlds is a gift to be held with both hands, an open heart, and a recognition that we are not alone. As we stumble through a world soaked in pain Dr. Sherry Walling reminds us that we are not alone, bound by grief we are connected in deep and true ways, an accompaniment that we may not have realized we needed, but deserve nonetheless. I'm filled with gratitude for Dr. Sherry Wallings words, humor, care, and honesty; by cracking open and sharing her specific losses she has connected to a universal truth: we may never avoid grief, but our journey through can connect us more deeply to the people and love we yearn for.

Dr. Walling is a brave soul. Taking something so painful, and often kept in the shadows, she shares her grief to help us cope, heal, and grow. Dr. Walling's ability to put emotions into words is beautiful. Her statement A BALLPOINT PEN burst in the washing machine. Every single item of clothing had ink on it. Death is like that. It leaves a stain on everything in life. I will also say hope is like that. Once you feel it start to grow, it can be nourished and thrive.

This book is heartbreakingly personal, yet perfectly universal. I am eager to share Dr. Walling’s reflections on grief with clients and fellow clinicians. It is a guidebook for anyone looking for hope in the midst of past, current, or impending loss. 

Touching Two Worlds is an honest examination of the grief in losing a father and a brother within a short time frame and the differences when one dies due to cancer and the other to a substance use disorder and mental illness. While providing tips and strategies throughout the book the most impactful section is when Sherry promotes displaying kindness and respect to those struggling with their mental health or substance use. Anyone who has lost someone to suicide will find a connection to this book.

Dr. Walling has written a magnificent guide to grief and grieving. It will surely be a helpful companion to anyone suffering the loss or impending loss of a loved one. Each chapter reads like an opportunity to sit with a friend who deeply understands your pain and who also has excellent plainspoken advice for getting through all the awful situations that grief puts you through. Even if you're not grieving, read it, so you understand better what life eventually asks of us all to go through, and gift a copy to a grieving friend who likely needs it more than you know.

I cried, I commiserated, I laughed, and I mourned. I will draw on Dr. Walling’s pearls of wisdom to help my clients, myself, and my loved ones. Touching Two Worlds will have a prominent place on my bookshelf with many dog-eared pages to return to. 

Three pages into reading this book I already wanted to send it to every grieving person I know, every person who has ever experienced grief, and every person who will ever experience grief. That is to say, I want to send it to everyone.