A woman’s guide to healing after life’s most challenging seasons
“A heartfelt and essential guide for every woman's journey toward wholeness and resilience.”
—Sara Gottfried, MD
“A must-read for anyone seeking solace and rebirth after a challenging season of life.”
—Elena Brower
After experiencing serial heartbreaks in every area of her life over a span of five years, Sara Avant Stover felt deeply impacted by our culture’s dysfunctional relationship with loss—especially for women.
We’re encouraged at every turn to hurry up and get on with it. But by trying to power through these messier seasons of life, we’re denying ourselves the very answers to our healing and growth.
In a heartbreak-illiterate world, Handbook for the Heartbroken offers solace and support through personal, professional, and collective losses of all kinds—including the end of a relationship or a job, death of a loved one, a natural disaster, infertility, abortion, or a financial crisis.
Buy the book from your preferred bookseller above, then forward your purchase receipt to hello@saraavantstover.com to receive the below limited-time gifts.
unthinkable, both past and present. With personal stories, anecdotes from clients, spiritual teachings, practices, and journaling prompts, here is a trustworthy guide to help you embrace the harder seasons of life and become a wiser, more mature, integrated human being.
Handbook for the Heartbroken will show you that it’s only through fully turning toward your heartbreak (with support, courage, and compassion) that you can heal. Within the loving pages of this book, you’ll have full permission to fall apart—and slowly, organically find your way back to greater wholeness.
An intimate and supportive mentor, Handbook for the Heartbroken will be with you when you struggle to survive your darkest hours. A sacred container for your heartbreak experience, at times this book will also mother you with a gentle power, providing fiercely loving guidance to help you continue moving forward.
Blending her expertise in Internal Family Systems (IFS) and various wisdom traditions, Sara Avant Stover identifies the three main phases of heartbreak: devastation, transformation, and rebirth. For each phase, she offers gentle lessons and supportive practices to help you navigate the
Conclusion: Preparing for Our Ultimate Heartbreak
Finding Forgiveness
Restoring Trust
Coming Alive
Supporting Others
PART III: REBIRTH
Heartbreak Story: Career & Finances
Navigating Shock
Bowing to Grief
Validating Yourself
Asking for Help
PART I: DEVASTATION
Heartbreak Story: Abortion
Allowing Anger
Living with Loneliness
Processing Pain
Creating Ritual
PART II: TRANSFORMATION
Heartbreak Story: Fertility Journey
Heartbreak Story: Breakup & Betrayal
Introduction: Reframing Heartbreak
“Heartbreak is an inevitable part of everyone’s life journey. It’s by returning to our essential qualities like patience, open-heartedness, and trust that we can truly heal.”