Episodes

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

We hear quite a bit about the experience of cancer treatment; the shocking diagnosis, the decisions, the side effects. But how much do we hear about after, when most people with cancer must adapt to a new world view, lasting ...

How can grief be a road to freedom? When Kaye Cleave's 18 year old daughter died, she felt imprisoned by her loss, unable to even connect to any reason to live. Desperate, willing to try anything to find a way through the ago...

The death of Erica Buist's father-in-law sent her into a tailspin. The world suddenly seemed unpredictable and unsafe. She was unable to find her own ground and began to devise ways to stay in her apartment, working at home a...

Facing any significant loss challenges all our abilities and ideas about ourselves and our lives. But what happens when that loss is somewhere across the globe, in an unfamiliar and difficult environment? When Roselee Bloosto...

After a loss, it can come as a surprise that we still feel love for and feel connected to the person who is no longer in this world. How do we continue to find ways to carry out that relationship in our everyday life? Author ...

How does a parent survive watching their 8 year old child hit by a truck and killed? How does the heart heal enough to welcome another child and to love her wholly? Robert Goor wrote letters to his son Andrew naming his deep ...

What is the connection between love, generosity and grief? In countless ways, our hearts close when we avoid the feelings connected to our small everyday losses. But in profound grief, our hearts break open and we learn how t...

What helps people recover from severe trauma? Belleruth Naparstek, a leading expert in healing from trauma, believes methods that employ imagery and activate the intuitive brain work much better than traditional talk therapy....

When Anne-Marie Cockburn's fifteen year old daughter died of an Ecstasy overdose, her grief took her in some unexpected directions. She was compelled to write her way through the grief, overcoming an old hesitation to write, ...

The time after a death is filled with detail, set against the backdrop of emotion. In an overwhelming expanse of paper and planning and demand, we often find it hard to cope. But Heather Vargas and Daniella Guzman, both consu...

What happens when a couple, both dedicated supporters helping others through profound grief and loss, confront their own crisis? Robert and Andrea Zucker, faced with Andrea's cancer diagnosis, have devoted all their time, res...