Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Soul Sustenance: Love Never Dies

Dr. Jamie Turndorf was married with her beloved husband Emile Jean Pin for 27 years. After he recently died, she has discovered that relationships do not end in death. His miraculous manifestations, often in front of witnesses, have proven to her that there is life after life. Dr. Turndorf’s experiences with him have led her to develop a groundbreaking form of grief therapy that diverges from the traditional Western approach (grieve, let go and move on). By contrast, her method guides people to reconnect and, if needed, make peace with the deceased. Her story and new grief therapy method are presented in her latest book Love Never Dies: How to Reconnect and Make Peace with the Deceased, which was published by Hay House in August 2014.

I enjoyed reading the book. I was filled with empathy for Dr. Turndorf's experiences, and also the possibilities and hope that her story carries for all who grieve - whether it's for a spouse, a family member, or a friend. I had a chance to interview her to learn more.

How did you come to be known as Dr. Love?
In the early 80s, I had a premonition that I would be offering love and relationship advice to the world over computers. This was an odd notion, since it was nearly 15 years prior to the birth of the Internet. The day the internet was born, I immediately realized that the Internet was the way I would be bringing my advice via computer! Just prior to this time, I had invented a parlor game called LoveQuest: The Game of Finding Mr. Right, and around this same time I began hosting a radio show on WEVD in New York City called Ask Dr. Love. I trademarked the name Ask Dr. Love for use over the web, and in 1995, I launched Ask Dr. Love, the first relationship advice site. Soon, I was known as Dr. Love, which doesn't displease me since Dr. Turndorf is often mispronounced! And, I also have childhood trauma around the name Turndorf. Kids used to tease me, "Hey Turndorf, you turn me off...or you turn me on!" Another reason to love the name Dr. Love!

Why did you decide to write the book?
I didn't decide, I was called to write it because: 1) My husband's miraculous manifestations, often in front of witnesses, proved to me that we don't die and our relationships aren't meant to end; 2)  Knowing that the Western grief therapy approach to grief (grieve, let go and move on) leaves the bereaved at a greater loss, I knew that I had create a method to help the bereaved say hello, not good-bye to loved ones in spirit; 3) As a therapist I also know that there isn't a soul alive who doesn't harbor unfinished business with someone who has passed. Knowing that Western grief therapy offers us no way of making peace with the deceased, I created a technique called Dialoguing with the Departed that enables the bereaved to heal unfinished business with anyone that's passed. The healing and peace that my method is bringing the bereaved is astonishing and very gratifying.

You and Jean had very different religious backgrounds, and you speak in the introduction of using the term God generically. Were you ever concerned writing this book that you might not be taken seriously by people of different religions?
Soon after Jean left his body, I was told that the Dalia Lama publicly prayed for Jean naming him as "one of the 50 people of all time who was one with God." God is love. God doesn't endorse one religion and reject another. As Jean told me soon after he left his body, "We're all one family, all one religion, that religion is love." People who are truly religious know this truth. They also know that our purpose on earth is to perfect our ability to love ourselves and others more fully. True religion is not about dividing us, it's about uniting us in love with those who walk the earth and those who walk in spirit. 

What is the biggest thing you hope people take away from this book?
We are supposed to reconnect and stay connected to those in spirit.

I learned this lesson on my first night back from Italy--following Jean's bodily death from a bee sting. As I lay alone in our bed, crying and sleepless, I suddenly heard Jean quoting a passage to me that I didn't recognize. The next day, I went to meet with his priest (who I'd never met before) to prepare the readings for his funeral. I told the priest that Jean had been speaking to me from the moment he left his body. The priest lifted his eyebrow in obvious skepticism.But when I repeated what Jean had told me, the priest blanched and said, "Dear Lord, Jamie. At first I didn't believe you but I do now!" He told me that I was quoting an obscure biblical passage from the Communion of Saints. Like I knew!

I was raised by two atheists who taught me not to believe in God or the afterlife. I never went to church or read the bible. Whereas, for most of his life, Jean had been one of the most famous Jesuit priests in history. He had been a religious pioneer who taught at the Vatican and founded the Liberation Theology movement designed to fight church oppression from within. Despite his background, we never discussed religion when he lived in a body.

It actually took me a year to understand why he quoted this and only this passage to me. As I discovered, he was providing the biblical proof for why we are meant to reconnect and stay connected to loved ones in spirit. In short, the Communion of Saints says that our loved ones in spirit are one with--or in communion with--God and the saints. Because we are meant to stay in communication--and communion--with God and the saints, we are, therefore, meant to stay in communication and communion with loved ones in spirit who are one with God and the saints!

Jean wants the world to know that what we've been told about the afterlife is dead wrong, if you'll pardon the pun. Heaven is a state not a place. Heaven is all around us. Heaven is here and now. This means we aren't meant to wait until we die to be reunited with loved ones in heaven. We aren't meant to be separated from those we love in spirit. So, Love Never Dies: How to Reconnect and Make Peace with the Deceased was born. I am so excited to help the bereaved discover to reconnect and transform their grief to joy.

Known to millions as “Dr. Love” through her website AskDrLove.com — the web's first and immensely popular relationship advice site since 1995 — Dr. Jamie Turndorf has been delighting readers and audiences for three decades with her engaging blend of professional expertise, spicy humor and ability to turn clinical psychobabble into easy-to-understand concepts that transform lives and heal relationships with spouses, partners, friends, family and colleagues.


Her methods have been featured on all the national networks, including CNN (who recently dubbed her their Resident Love Doctor), NBC, CBS, VH1, Fox, on websites like WebMD and iVillage, Discovery.com and MSNBC.com, and in Cosmopolitan, Men's Health, Glamour, American Woman, Modern Bride, and Marie Claire, to name only a few. She also writes a column called “We Can Work it Out” for Psychology Today online.


Her “Ask Dr. Love” radio show can be heard in Seattle on KKNW and on WebTalkRadio.Net, which broadcasts in 80 countries worldwide. Dr. Turndorf is the author of the Hay House book Kiss Your Fights Good-bye: Dr. Love’s 10 Simple Steps to Cooling Conflict and Rekindling Your Relationship, which has been endorsed by New York Times bestselling authors Jack Canfield, Dr. John Gray and John Bradshaw.

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