Episodes
May 3, 2017
Middle Life Maze
Finding recovery, purpose and peace all the way to the end of our lives can be challenging. Aging, with its accumulated losses and disappointments, finds us. Navigating the territory of life's difficulties in midlife carries ...
April 26, 2017
Once We Were Sisters
When you watch someone you love live, and ultimately die, in an abusive relationship, how does it shape your own life? Sheila Kohler's sister was her childhood friend, her confidante. Living parallel lives, her sister Maxine ...
April 19, 2017
Tug at My Heart
One crushing event by itself would have led Deb Hart into a dark night of the soul. But how could she absorb two terrible losses; the death of her son at 22 and a breast cancer diagnosis? She asked all the usual questions; wh...
April 12, 2017
Surviving the Storm
As the life span of people diagnosed with cancer has lengthened, questions arise about what life looks like after. A physical illness is also a life event, a story that often needs to be told and existential questions that ye...
April 5, 2017
Every Breath I Take
How does it feel to live with life-limiting illness from your first day? How does it influence the way you look at the world and what you believe. And what is the impact of living with an illness that so many people die of, t...
March 29, 2017
The Roadmap Home
In a childhood filled with loss, neglect and longing, perhaps the biggest loss is a connection to one's own heart. Hardening to cope with what is lacking, we can become rigid, avoiding our deep feelings and most precious long...
March 22, 2017
Words at the Threshhold
Some people think that dying people increasingly speak nonsense, losing their grip on reality. But Lisa Smartt, a linguist trained to pay deep attention to words, realized as her father was dying that what he was saying was c...
March 15, 2017
Making Healthcare LGBTQ-inclusive
Regardless of changes in the legal rights of LGBTQ people, end of life can feel like a step backward, with biased health care workers and lack of resources. How can we educate health facilities and workers to deliver appropri...
March 8, 2017
May Cause Love
The war between so-called pro-choice and pro-life forces in America seem divided beyond repair. But where does that leave women who have made the often painful and important decision to have an abortion? As Kassi Underwood sa...
March 1, 2017
Quiet
Sometimes a moment comes when we can no longer stay silent about what we have been through. Then it's time to speak out and claim our own courage and resiliency! Such a moment came for Milck, a musician who had experienced ph...
Feb. 22, 2017
All the King's Horses
Barry Milazzo's beautiful son was born healthy and strong. But after two childhood immunizations, he became severely disabled, unable to communicate, walk or meet virtually any developmental milestones. With his faith severel...
Feb. 15, 2017
There is No Good Card for This
When our friends and loved ones face a crisis, we often don't know what to say. Do we say anything at all? What if we say the wrong thing? Nearly everyone who has faced a hard time has heard things that weren't so helpful. Bu...
Feb. 8, 2017
Last Acts of Kindness
What more is to be learned when an experienced hospice and palliative care nurse is diagnosed herself? And how does that bring a deep richness to the world of her patients? Having learned the poetry of sitting with those faci...
Feb. 1, 2017
Heart Centered Wisdom for End of Life
Keeping our hearts open with people at the end of life brings blessings not just to them but to us as well. Accompanying people as they ail and die can be deeply rewarding and few feel this as keenly at Deanna Cochran, who tr...
Jan. 18, 2017
Grief Dreams
The dreams we have of loved ones after they die have a deep impact, connecting us to the person we've lost. Sometimes there is a special quality to the dreams, feeling more like visitations. But there is sometimes a hesitatio...
Jan. 11, 2017
Namaste Care
Bringing compassion to the end of a life impacted by dementia presents unique challenges for families and caregivers. How do we face the inherent losses and frustrations with grace and create a warm and loving environment to ...
Jan. 4, 2017
Magic, Miracles and Martinis
When you're used to being certain, successful and on top of things, uncertainty is a new and unfamiliar territory. Amy Van Atta Slater entered that territory when illness, loss and divorce converged to create a very uncertain...
Dec. 28, 2016
Losing Aaron
Watching someone you love struggle with a mental illness is wrenching and frightening. Ingrid Blaufarb Hughes knows that all too well! Her son, Aaron, struggled with schizophrenia until it finally led to his death. She stood ...
Dec. 21, 2016
A New Map
When Dorothie and Martin Hellman faced the collapse of their marriage, it had to die in it's old form to make room for a new way of loving and relating to each other. But what started as a very personal path back to their mar...
Dec. 14, 2016
If You Sit Very Still
When Marian Partington was 25 years old, her 21 year old sister vanished. She and her family would not know what happened for 20 years, leaving them in a state of suspended animation, moving forward and yet not. As Marian liv...
Dec. 7, 2016
Estranged From Family
On both sides of a family estrangement is the painful experience of missing what society leads us to believe is a given; that family sticks together. Sometimes, though, it becomes too painful to continue, either temporarily o...
Nov. 30, 2016
It Only Hurts When I Can't Run
How does a person who has been mistreated and neglected early in life create something better for themselves? Certainly part of it is being willing to face what happened and discover who you are separate from what has happene...
Nov. 23, 2016
The Faces of Loss: A Post Election Conversation
The rhetoric and actions of our recent election cut to the core of my own life and the safety of my family. Will my wife be stopped by police because she is Hispanic? Will my son-in-law and my grandchildren have to register b...
Nov. 16, 2016
Unlocking Your Future
Divya Parekh is a gifted business woman, working to inspire people towards their best selves. How did her own experiences of illness and difficulty release her into her own best future? Learning to support herself through the...