Dr. Thomas’ masterful writing about the practice of mindful photography and reflective journaling benefits people who grieve and those who sit alongside them. Her words are a gift, which when opened, empowers the reader to uncover and make meaning out of often hidden, mysterious layers of personal feelings around death. Viewing the shared images makes readers’ hearts swell with emotion. This book is an awakening that is good for the soul.
In lucid, nearly meditative language and with engrossing images, Jessica Thomas ushers reader into the quietly compelling practice of mindful photography and, in doing so, opens doors of perception to deeper realties that await discovery for all those who grieve. Part guide and part fellow traveler, Thomas draws on her own life losses to build a bridge of compassion to those of her readers, inviting curiosity about the correspondence between the visual world without and the personal world within. The result of this reflective practice is greater wisdom, self-care, and the discernment of new and resonant meaning in the face of impermanence and change.
Uniting the processes of transforming, grieving, and reflecting, Jessica Thomas brings us into a novel and powerful way to integrate and understand the experience of grief and the counterinstinctive secret blessings that it holds. It has been said that the degree to which we do not accept life as it is given to us—rather than what we wish and even insist that it be—keeps us from moving through the experience of loss to the other side of grief's sorrow and pain. Thomas's approach holds great promise in deepening our understanding and attaining this most often hidden and truly sacred side of the grieving process.
I am pleased to recommend Dr. Jessica Thomas’s Choosing Light: Transforming Grief through the Practice of Mindful Photography and Self-Reflection. I come to this having worked with her and the innovative study she completed on her PhD dissertation on this same topic at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in 2016. She has continued to explore and develop her project in ways that make what she has done in the field of psychotherapy and contemplative photography even more profound and relevant to the needs of a broader public. I am especially pleased to see how her project has evolved to include ways photographs help facilitate personal growth through ongoing bonds with departed loved ones.
Dr. Thomas presents a fresh, innovative, and impactful vision for the use of mindful photography in processing loss and grief. This book provides an extraordinary new set of tools for counselors and individuals that creates an intersection between psychology, spirituality, and art.
Contemplative photography, or mindful photography, is a series of methods for letting go of discursive fixation and releasing into the vividness of direct experience. It is also a way of expressing that vividness to others. Entering into direct experience creates space in the mind for perceptions, feelings, and emotions to be accommodated and recognized. In Choosing Light, Jessica Thomas puts these powerful methods to use to help people deal with the great challenges of death, grief, and loss. I commend this important effort.
Choosing Light offers a gentle invitation to those who are stepping into the realm of grief to slow down and find anchors of connection and support. Grief is disorienting, and most are left wondering what to think, feel, and do. In the pages of this book, those who are grieving and those who support them will find not a prescription, but options for what we might do in and with our grief.
As the Social Activities Coordinator for Alzheimer's San Diego, I had the honor of observing the facilitation of Dr. Jessica Thomas's Mindful Photography, a program offered for our care partners. The four-week program was powerful because not only did it offer support, but it also transformed each person's 'lens' and way of seeing their role as a care partner, and their relationship with their loved one. The practice outlined by Dr. Thomas offered a gentle and creative path toward empowerment as care partners became aware of their ability to choose how they want to perceive their experiences, create meaning, and gain insights through the world of photography. During the course of the four weeks, we saw significant shifts in perspective, as care partners transitioned from feeling frustrated in their current situations to feeling gratitude for the present moment. At the end of our four weeks, one of our care partners emphasized, 'This program has truly changed how I see life. I am a much happier person now.' I could not recommend Dr. Thomas's book Choosing Light more, and we are so grateful to have had the opportunity to experience the wonderful program.
In a dominant culture so uncomfortable with death, where ancestral mourning rituals are long forgotten, creative practices like the mindful photography and reflection skillfully taught by Jessica Thomas can offer a transformative portal to meaning-making and healing. I engaged in this practice, with Jessica’s support, while mourning the illness and death of a close friend; it helped me slow down, notice the beauty, shed some tears, and think about life and death in fresh ways.
