Episodes

What if painful grieving was not inevitable? What if the person you loved most in the world died, and you did not descend into the pain everyone expected? For Jen Mathews, grief came not as a sadness but as a revelation. When her beloved died, she felt more connected to life, more passionate about her spiritual values and more alive. In this hour, we’ll talk about how this could be, and the work Jen does to favor such a result in others. What do laughter, spiritual practice and mindfulness do to...

Facing challenges in our lives, the need for support becomes clear. But what we receive may or may not truly do its job.

When Karen Trench's beloved husband died by suicide, her life as she knew it ended. But somewhere deep within her a new life began to form. By surrendering to her grief and longing she began to follow her instincts towards healing and creation of a life worth living. Out of her anguish, blessings began to emerge. She discovered her true capacity for love, faith, forgiveness, surrender, transformation and a deep connection to herself and her life. By allowing her grief to teach her, she found a n...

When Michelle Hoffmann's husband died, she joined a club no one wants to be a member of; the widows club. But over time, she noticed that her community was directing new widows to her for help - they had observed her finding her way forward.

When loss comes to our lives, it often feels as if we'll never recover, let alone find meaning and purpose in the loss. But out of her own loss, Lily Myers Kaplan found over time that she had been given a legacy, passed on for her to continue.

When Charles Fontenot's son died of cance, it sent Charles on a quest to discover who he is. Grief showed him that he didn't really know himself.

The so-called justice system in our country has led to an unjust prison pipeline, undermining families and communities. Communities of color and other marginalized communities are especially hard hit. What is the history that led to these outcomes and how can we restore justice to communities that have felt the impact the most? World Trust, an organization founded by Dr. Shakti Butler, is impassioned about bringing heart to conversations about oppression. Their fifth film, Healing Justice, bring...

Imagine your beloved husband never comes home from a brief drive to the lake. And this leads to weeks of uncertainty and questioning about what has happened. And then his body is found. And all of this happens in the public eye. How do you talk about what is happening with your two young children? How do you prepare for the birth of your third child? How do you get from one day to the next? When Katie Stifter faced the unimaginable, it was her family, her community and her faith that held her th...

Ken Ross grew up immersed in the work of his mother, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Unlike most people in the West, he was immersed in a world where death, dying and grief wer openly talked about and explored. How did he come to view his unique experience with the pioneering author of On Death and Dying? We will talk about his mother's work, his childhood and how he carries her work forward, honoring the legacy she left. We'll also explore how he thinks his own perspective on end of life has been formed...

When Elena Schwolsky's husband was diagnosed with AIDS, the work she had been doing as a nurse for kids with AIDS suddenly came home. After he died, she wondered what would come next for her. The desire to find a way forward pushed her to take a chance on 6 months in Cuba, a place she'd felt a deep connection to ever since a visit in her twenties. She would go and work with Cuban people living with AIDS- in a new and unfamiliar environment with very different ways of addressing AIDS. In the sani...

After Roselee Blooston's husband died, she wrote a memoir about her experience going forward from his death and dealing with the government of Dubai to settle is estate. Then her life continued forward and she became committed to sharing a novel she had already written with the world. But the subject of the novel was relevant to what she'd been through. Her legal drama , Trial By Family, touches the subjects of family, loss, and the effects of complicated grief. Diving into these territories eve...

After a loved one dies, what should we do with all that STUFF? And how about our own stuff, which we will some day leave behind? How does a loss change our relationship to stuff, both that of the person we lost and our own. Reflecting a deep personal experience with how possessions changed meaning for her after her husbands's sudden death, Rachel Kodanaz helps us approach what to keep and what to let go of with compassion and understanding. What gives a particular thing meaning and when the mean...

Some traumatic losses are beyond our imagination until we experience them. Bonnie Hirst's life was thrown upside down when her daughter was arrested for murder and then left changed forever when she was found guilty and given a life sentence. How could Bonnie, a mother with a close relationship to her grown daughter, and a deep lifelong faith, make sense of such a terrible tragedy? Navigating her way down a path with no light ahead of her, Bonnie had to change, to redefine what she believed abou...

In 1972, a plane full of young people on their way to a rugby tournament crashed in the Andes. What followed was 72 days of survival in a rough and inhospitable environment. Those who did not die in the crash itself were in constant peril from freezing cold, hunger, avalanche and injury. How did the survivors manage to stay alive and, ultimately, bring about their own rescue? And what did that icy mountain have to teach them about love, community and the resources each of them had within them? F...

Sarah Neustadter was part way through her training to be a psychologist when the love of her life suddenly died of suicide. In the early days after he died, she wrote emails to his account, which remained open even after his death. Though she believed he likely knew every painful feeling and thought racing through her, she found comfort in describing the experience and remembering her love for him. Over time, the writing helped her to walk forward and led to a time when she thought of him less a...

How can we live well to the ends of our lives? And how are we affected by societys view of being old and being elder? As Louise Aronson aged herself, her view of these questions deepened. As a gerontologist she had already been keenly aware of the differences in this stage of life and how they impacted her patients. But as her own experience changed her viewpoint she realized that even the care offered during this part of our lives is based on knowledge that may not apply to the old or the very ...

In the confusing landscape of childhood sexual abuse, it is often easier to block the experience than continue to try to make sense of what is happening. Patricia Eagle did not uncover the memories of her fathers abuse until well into her adulthood, although it affected her ability to take care of herself and make the choices that were best for her. Her mother further contributed to her confusion by calling sexual touching being mean and failing to intervene between Patricia and her father. Thin...

A childhood of abuse left Lisa Braver Moss with doubts about her worth, fears and a driving need to succeed in school and get free of her family. As time went on, she understood more about that experience and began to make some sense of it. Her path to her own best life ultimately led her to want to capture her experiences and her novel, Shrug, is the result. What is it like to write fiction based on painful experience? How did the story develop and what fed her as she was revisiting those diffi...

When Karen Stefano was attacked on her way home at 19 years old, those moments led to fear; of footsteps behind her and of the dark. Only later would she understand that she carried the imprint of her attack with her. When her life felt, again, uncertain, the symptoms returned and she knew that only if she faced her early experience head-on would she be able to move forward. But how would she make sense of the impact on her life? How would she come to understand why she'd become a defense attorn...

What helps us to choose courage and resilience over resignation? What helps us to pick ourselves up when we're knocked down? Living with a child who was diagnosed with a mental illness at a very young age, then facing her own health challenges made it clear to Ann Grady that she would need to develop both her courage and her resilience! As she researched what it took to live her life positively and optimistically she realized these were skills she could get better at. SHe could practice and, whe...

Religions like Jehovah's Witness promise their followers certainty and safety. Leaders demand obedience to proscribed standards of behavior, beliefs and practices. But what happens when a follower begins to doubt? For Amber Scorah, leaving the Witness meant giving up everyone and everything in her life. On top of this severing of every tie, she would have to live with uncertainty in a way she never had before. Growing up in the culture, which she now saw as a cult, brought what she thought of as...

LGBTQ+ people face discrimination, marginalization and oppression often from a very early age. Gay men, in particular, have also lived with the trauma of the AIDS epidemic. Those in the oldest generation, who experienced a crushing amount of loss and the fear that this new disease created faced perhaps the most extreme set of emotional consequences. But two generations since, those who came out after AIDS was better understood and young gay men today still grapple with the mark those times left....

When hospice is the best possible choice, families are often lost in a sea of confusion, not even sure what hospice is. At the same time, reading long descriptions of the services and goals is sometimes beyond them. After years of work in chaplaincy and hospice (and his own personal experiences of loss), Larry Patten thought he could help. What resulted was a clear, readable guide to what hospice is, and isn't, written with the uninformed in mind. Taking a light tone and sharing short chapters, ...

Poetry is a language perfectly suited for grief, resonating with deep experience without needing to be too literal. we hear our own experience captured and are comforted in companionship with this resonance. But can poetry also offer a jumping off place for exploration of our mourning? Out of her belief that it can, and does, Kim Langley has created a book full of poems written by grievers, adding suggestions for how to add to the readings in our own voice. through her careful selection of the p...