After this When life is over, where do we go?

Smith (Rules of Inheritance) lost both her parents and her best friend before she was 25 years old, and she eventually became a hospice grief counselor. The birth of her daughters reawakened the deep, unresolved grief of her losses and anxiety regarding her own mortality. Rather than succumb to fear and dread she began to explore possible avenues to reconnect to her departed loved ones and to better understand what happens after we die. Smith began by discussing death and the potential of an afterlife with religious leaders. Not content, the author engaged trance mediums including the famous John Edwards, participated in past-life regressions, and attended soul-retrieval workshops. Although not all of her experiences were positive, each activity led her closer to understanding the eternal nature of the human soul and the permanence of our connection to others through love. Poignant letters to her daughters encapsulate the learnings from each of these experiences. VERDICT Readers seeking solace to their grieving or those who simply wish to explore life's greatest mystery will find this a thoughtful, compassionate, and well-written work.—Janet Tapper, Univ. of Western States Lib., Portland, OR [Page 93]. (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The author describes her experiences with mediums, psychics, and past-life regression therapy, discussing how such explorations of the afterlife can have a positive influence on those dealing with grieving and loss.

The therapist, bereavement counselor and author behind The Rules of Inheritance explores the afterlife by participating in past-life regressions, sessions with mediums and psychics and the ceremonies of organized religion.

In After This, acclaimed author, and therapist Claire Bidwell Smith confronts the question she encounters every day in private practice—what happens after we die?  In an exploration of the afterlife that is part personal, part prescriptive—Smith invites us on her journey into the unknown. She wonders: How do we grieve our loved ones without proof that they live on? Will we ever see them again? Can they see us now, even though they are gone?Chronicling our steps along the path that bridges this world and the next, Smith undergoes past-life regressions and sessions with mediums and psychics and immerses herself in the ceremonies of organized religion and the rigor of scientific experiments to try and find the answers. Drawing on both her personal losses, recounted in her memoir The Rules of Inheritance, as well as her background working in hospice as a bereavement counselor, Smith attempts to show how exploring the afterlife can have a positive impact on the grief process.

In After This, acclaimed author, and therapist Claire Bidwell Smith confronts the question she encounters every day in private practice—what happens after we die?In an exploration of the afterlife that is part personal, part prescriptive—Smith invites us on her journey into the unknown. She wonders: How do we grieve our loved ones without proof that they live on? Will we ever see them again? Can they see us now, even though they are gone?Chronicling our steps along the path that bridges this world and the next, Smith undergoes past-life regressions and sessions with mediums and psychics and immerses herself in the ceremonies of organized religion and the rigor of scientific experiments to try and find the answers.Drawing on both her personal losses, recounted in her memoir The Rules of Inheritance, as well as her background working in hospice as a bereavement counselor, Smith attempts to show how exploring the afterlife can have a positive impact on the grief process.