Dying to Live: Love Stories by Jaqueline H. Becker PhD
What's It About?
The author is an enthusiastic and intelligent chronicler of her own story, exposing warts as generously as proclaiming victories.“We each hold the ageless keys to resurrect the true meanings of love and death from the frozen heap of our misaligned priorities and hardened hearts. Ah yes, we must do this individually or it will not budge the archetypes of destruction that surround us.”
Jaqueline H. Becker, PH.D., has struggled for a lifetime to get her arms around the concepts of love, life and death, through experience, emotion and contemplation. And now she is sharing those feelings of heartbreak, joy and discovery so that others may benefit in her new memoir, Dying to Live: Love Stories (Vanguard Press).
In dissecting her life from childhood to her adulthood much like she does for others as a private-practice psychologist, all the while wrestling with abuse, betrayal, sexual identity, family, friendship, professional work and relationships, she is not only conducting an internal self-cleansing but also providing readers with valuable nuggets of knowledge and insight for their own growth.
Collection of “Love Stories”
In the shadows of COVID, she notes that as a society, “our collective lack of Spirit-driven personal and collective love has left us untethered, floundering in a sea of questions about our values and priorities.”
But within that context, she has found her rallying cry. “After all my twists and turns, excruciating agonies, exquisite joys, accomplishments and failures, this fight for love is actually my raison d’etre. Many are on a similar expedition.”
Becker has structured her work in a collection of vignettes, what she calls “love stories,” tracing back to what she knew or thirsted to know about her father, who was off to war, to the people she called friends, and how their relationships prospered or sometimes crumbled. But in every instance, there was a takeaway — something to be gained.
She writes of her inner reflections, of her struggles to interpret signs and substance, and is influenced by the Spirit that visits her, comforts her, and reassures her.
Leaves Us With Joy, Gratitude & Hope
The author is an enthusiastic and intelligent chronicler of her own story, exposing warts as generously as proclaiming victories. The writing comes from the pen of a person not afraid of self-reflection — to the contrary, rather obsessed by it and celebrating it — in words that clearly show an appreciation for language and a confidence within it.
And through all the narrative, as painful as it can be (but what learning process isn’t?), she leaves us with joy, gratitude and hope.
“We are now poised,” she writes, “to reverse centuries of misguided allegiance and realign our priorities to consciously choose love — real, hard-earned love; love that we win on the battlefields of our inner lives.”
“We will do this so that our children can inhale what love looks like, sounds like, and feels like, when it is guided by purer principles than those now being revealed by the unconscious ravages from time immemorial. This is our moment to rise higher than most of yesterday’s teachings.”
About Jaqueline H. Becker:
Jaqueline H. Becker, Ph.D. (+MS in Education, MS in Psychology), is a Licensed, New York and Connecticut State Psychologist in private practice, corporate consultant, and was formally a special education teacher. As well, Dr. Becker has been an assistant director and clinician for a division of a private school that specialized in serving emotionally, socially, spiritually and academically challenged students. As a guest on professional panels, TV, radio, and quoted in print, Dr. Becker is widely cited as an expert on bullying, children, parenting and interpersonal relationships. Her keynote presentations and workshops are both powerful and fun.
