Episodes

We've all heard about the sandwich generation; parents of young children taking care of aging parents. What if you add Alzheimer's and a PhD in studying the brain? How do the two experiences, watching a brain fail and watching brains grow, collide to create a unique experience in a studied observer of the brain? Sybil Lockhart brings a keen eye and a big heart to her experience supporting her mother and raising her very young children. Don't miss our conversation about loss and gain, love and mo...

When the person you love most in the world faces a crushing pancreatic cancer diagnosis, how do you cope? How do you face it? How do you take care? Deitrich Stroeh faced the loss of his beloved wife by accepting the heartbreak and caring for her fully in the three months before she died. He then entered the land of heartbreak, sometimes slowly and sometimes with great speed discovering how to go from heartbreak to healing. His book, Three Months: A Caretakers Journey From Heartbreak to Healing, ...

How can we practice mindfulness to mend our hearts? Can our own creativity and exploration of our internal landscape offer us solace in times of loss? As an artist, educator, and spiritual practitioner, Jan Phillips has worked with countless people who are facing major loss and transition, to help them find a way through their heartache by bringing grief outward, making room for comfort inward. Jan will share her story and her teachings with us, showing us how mindfulness has helped her and thos...

The Bradfords were an active and energetic family of 6 who traveled the world, living in numerous locations and happily adjusting to each new environment. Then, just as they were embarking on a move from France to Germany, something unimaginable happened. Their oldest son Parker, a fine young man just heading off to college, died. It was not at first comforting to know that he died trying to help someone else; that in his death he had shown his character. And their deep faith could not save them...

Sometimes the worst thing you can imagine leads you to your calling. For Nancee Sobonya, that was the death of her father at 17. How did that early loss lead to a lifetime of healing work as a grief counselor, filmmaker and workshop leader? How does the loss of her father continue to impact her beliefs about grief and about life? Join us as we explore how this experience continues to impact her and what unfolded from that early loss.

For sixty years, Rachel Naomi Remen has lived with a diagnosis, Crohn's disease, that was considered universally terminal when she was first diagnosed. How did that affect her life? She became a physician who worked with terminal illness, a New York Times bestselling author and a fierce advocate for compassionate medicine. She founded the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness (ISHI) at Commonweal and is also co-founder of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. She worked with thousands of p...

What does rock climbing have to do with helping underserved, traumatized kids find their motivation and healing? Dr. Clifton Hicks learned early, through his own experiences, that the physical challenges of the outdoors, especially rock climbing, offered opportunities to learn how to face other challenges and find your way up whatever adversity hill might befall you. He developed a therapeutic program based on rock climbing, taking therapy out of the office and into the environment. While doing ...

What helps us to find our way back to optimism and gratitude after a terrible experience? For Anne Kubitsky, it was inviting strangers to share what they were grateful for. First, she sent out some postcards addressed to herself with “What are you grateful for?” printed on the back. Evolving into a project which installs art projects encouraging gratitude, she’ll share with us what finding gratitude has created in her life.

If you were diagnosed with breast cancer, could you keep your sense of amusement? For Joules Evans, it was a must. As a writer and an acitvist, she couples a fierce fighting spirit with a wry sense of humor. Thinking globally and acting locally, Joules will inspire and amuse you as she talks about her own cancer experience and the writing and work it led to. As she puts it, “I’ve had a lot of opportunities to be an advocate for breast health awareness and for others fighting the bitch that is br...

When Kelly Carlisle left the military, life became more difficult. She was suddenly unsure where she belonged and what would give her new life meaning. She was not always appreciated for the service she had given. Starting out with a corporate job, she found herself drawn to grow food, delighted by the flourishing tomatos and a little lemon tree. How did this passion, which helped her connect with her new life and heal from what she’d been exposed to both in the military and after, turn into a n...

Join me as we talk about how the worst time in Amikaeyla’s life led to Music As Medicine, programming she developed which successfully helps people in the United States and around the world (including recently in Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Sierra Leone) unlock their deepest inner voice. What links her work on national and international t.v., on recordings with many award winning artists, singing for His Holiness the Dalai Lama in India and working with...

Recovering from a divorce and dealing with his father’s terminal diagnosis, Robert Pruitt faced the lowest point in his life. But hearing his father was ill, he knew he would regret missing any of it. In the next three months until his dad’s death, Robert wrote in his journal and embarked on a crash course in living and dying. How did these losses and the work he did to respond to them lead to a life of purpose and meaning, teaching others to share the gifts they are with the world? Robert will ...

When breast cancer interrupted her successful life, Terri Wingham found herself depressed and isolated, with no bridge back from illness to purpose. Taking a chance by going on a volunteer trip to Africa, she found a passion that she now shares with other survivors at volunteer locations across the globe. Listen in to find out how A Fresh Chapter, the non-profit she founded, facilitates trips around the world. Be moved by the stories of people who, by giving, have received a new outlook.

Lorrain Taylor's worst nightmare began on a typical February day in 2000. Her sons, twins, were murdered together in a parking lot while trying to start a car, victims of a random shooting. How did Lorrain heal and begin her work to support families after the loss of their children to violence? Lorrain's story of redemption and activism will break your heart and lift you up

How would it change you to lose most of your family in a few short years? Lily Myers Kaplan has written an intimate and compelling memoir, Two Rare Birds: A Legacy of Love about the painful, exhausting, challenging and ultimately transformative experiences Lily and her family had as they faced old age, two cancer diagnoses, and their family history. Her honesty will move and inspire you

As a child, Marianna Cacciatore lost her best friend, who was murdered on her way home. Isolated with her grief, Marianna learned young the value of developing skills to support ourselves through loss. Deeply believing in the important and value of grieving, a primary focus of her career has been working with grieving families and creating tools to promote resilience in grieving people. Her message of hope and resilience, as well as willingness to truly embrace her own grief, inspires and moves ...

Do you like to play cards? And sit around the kitchen table talking with family, with friends? But are there those conversations you find it hard to have? How do you want to die? For that matter, how do you want to live? The Action Mill, a graphic arts company that has worked with companies that are focused on addressing grief, has developed a card game, My Gift of Grace, to help all of us talk about dying and living. Jethro Heiko and Nick Jehlen, two of the founders and game developers, are mot...

What if you had changed your life to make it everything you dreamed of and then were diagnosed with breast cancer? And your usual way of coping was to apply a strong wit to every experience? And you’d done stand-up comedy, honing your comedic skills? And you hated pink ribbons and fundraisers? You might find yourself writing a book about finding a way to give as little to cancer as you could get away with. You might become even more determined to live your best life! Find out more about Dena Tay...

From 1985 to 1995, Benjamin Allen lost his wife Lydia and their two children to AIDS, contracted through a blood transfusion during childbirth. Grieving these unimaginable losses, Benjamin felt his way to a deeper life. He says, “My experience with grief has been that a part of me is forever gone and a part of the one I love and lost is forever with me.” His journey of reintegration led him to write a book, Out of the Ashes: Healing in the Afterloss, to share what he’s learned about navigating g...

How can music deepen our experience of life,especially when life is difficult? As a result of the challenges

How can we create an open conversation about the damages and continued disconnects which resultfrom racism?

Have you had a conversation with the closest people to you about how they want to die? The Conversation Project believes we all need to have those conversations and offers invaluable insights into how to bring them about. Join me with Harriet Warshaw, the Executive Director, as we talk about the Project’s principles and how she was moved to work with the organization after the death of her mother.

Aimee DuFresne lost her father and young husband within a year of each other. Devastated by the loss, she had to choose how to continue living her life. Ultimately, she found the courage not just to live but to create a life beyond what she had imagined. Her choice, to live life to the fullest, led to a career that has included a radio show, several books, and a coaching practice to help other women live their best life, encouraging her clients to live the healthy life she has found for herself....

How would you find your way through the pain and betrayal you would feel if you lost someone you loved to suicide? Robert Lesoine found his way through the agony of losing his closest friend; first by writing his pain into a journal and then, ultimately, by creating a book with Marilynne Chöphel, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who specializes in trauma. The result is Unfinished Conversation: Healing from Suicide and Loss - A Guided Journey, which weaves entries from Robert's journal wi...