Episodes

Kenya Aissa has had many careers that all have one thing in common; healing in the context of trauma. A thirty year career as a social worker in the child welfare system deepened her awareness of how responding to our traumas informs our lives going forward. She has since integrated her yoga and wellness practices into her healing work. Her book Sacred Girl: Spiritual Life Skills for Conscious Young Women, gives young women valuable skills to respond not only to their personal traumas but also t...

The Last Love Note tells the fictional story of a young widow trying to find a way to move forward. Its heroine, Kate, has continued to parent, work, and keep her sense of humor but has had very little time to give her grief the space it needs. How many others in these modern times are in the same situation? The author, Emma Grey, knows first hand what happens when loss drops into your life and nothing else stops. Join us as we explore what led her to write the book and how the writing helped he...

During the COVID pandemic Becky Wilkes moved her parents in with her rather than tolerate being unable to see them. In the final stages of their life together, she had the opportunity to witness first hand the love that had sustained them and how it showed itself until death, and after. Her photographic essay captured in poignant detail their physical decline and their love. It opened a door to the heart of love; walking each other home. What was it like to come so close to her parents' fragilit...

What holds us back? How do past unresolved traumas, small and large, continue to control our lives and responses? Melanie Smith set out to discover for herself what was holding HER back. In the process, she learned invaluable lessons about how to loosen the hold her past had on her. Freeing herself from a life that didn't fit her, she found a joy beyond her imagining. And now, she uses teh principles she learned to walk with others to their destiny and best life.

When dementia comes for someone we love, how do we maintain connection and relationship? For Suzanne Finnamore it takes accepting that her mother, in her final stage of dementia, lives in another country; Suzanne has needed to learn the customs and accept the differences. When she can accept, there is room for magic, including the magic of living as if there is no death; where everyone we ever loved is still alive. Suzanne is able to see the ways in which her mother is still herself and still vi...

Finding herself still restless after the death of her husband, Judy Reeves sold everything and set out on a one year voyage around the world. Only a few of her destinations were planned and most of them could be cancelled at a moment's notice. Thus unfolded an experience of discovery; who was she now, a single woman, a widow? What would the next phase of her life look like? In the solitude of her travel, writing and walking her way through the year, she discovered herself in a fresh new form. Sh...

What is it that helps us discover ourselves? It is often the challenges, the losses and deep pains, that over time lead us to claim our own natures. For Roberta Kuriloff, a crushing breakup led her to do what she had wanted for a long time; build her own home and live in the Maine woods. Along the way, she explored the turning points of her life, including the death of her mother when she was six and her years living in an orphanage. How had these experiences formed her, and who was she undernea...

A diagnosis of MS affects more than just the person now struggling with life, unable to continuing living as they did. When Suzanne Marriott's husband was diagnosed, they faced a re-ordering of everything in their life together. Unable to work, walk well or count on his emotional stability, Suzanne found herself managing more and more of the business of their life together. Through, psychological insights and spiritual inquiry she became the kind of caregiver she most wanted to be. And as they g...

Susan Hayden experienced three sudden losses that shaped her life; her childhood best friend, her father and her husband. How did she shape these losses into the creative voice she crafted over a lifetime? How did they change her? Going forward from loss, what do we take with us and what do we leave behind? Her first published memoir, Now You Are a Missing Person, makes poetry of loss, showing us how to integrate our love into a new creation.

Theo Boyd's idyllic farm upbringing led to a life she thought was perfect until a terrible accident killed her mother. In the space of a few years, her father also died traumatically and her marriage ended. What helped her to navigate these unexpected and crushing losses? Where did she end up after it all? And what kinds of advice does she have for others facing the worst sorts of losses?

The novelist Lynn Hightower approached her grief in a familiar way- through story. Her heroine has lost everything. And that is what makes her dangerous! Heroine Junie Lagarde's husband has died in a tragic plane wreck and her dog is missing. Wrapped in mystery, she will stop at nothing to know what happened and to do all she can to find her beloved dog. Those of us who have grieved deeply will resonate with the risks she is willing to take and her clear sense of direction. But how does Lynn kno...

After a lifetime of disapproval from her mother, especially for her lifestyle, Donna Stoneham finally had the accepting and loving connection she had always longed for. But when her mother died, the relationship they had finally formed didn't seem to have lasted nearly long enough. How would her mother help her recover from the greatest loss of her life? And why did they finally find peace only to lose it?

Meghan Riordan Jarvis was a therapist specializing in grief and trauma. So maybe she and her highly trained friends and colleagues recognized just a little sooner that she was in trouble. After the loss of her father then her mother, she developed severe PTSD that required in-patient care. How does a therapist navigate her own extreme trauma? What does the experience teach her about supporting other people in the same situation? And how does it change her life and perspective? Join us as explore...

In grief, creative expression can speak to our heartache and capture the ways we cope with heartbreak. Kara Bowman writes poetry to describe the grief she witnesses in her work and what she feels when loss touches her life. How was she drawn to poetry and how has it helped her? We'll talk about the language of grief and the comfort in seeing your experience captured in words.

Although Donna Kendrick had planned for the future of her family, she was completely unprepared for her new role as sole planner when her husband suddenly took his own life. Wading through the decisions she needed to make right away and the ones that took years to navigate, she realized that for widows and widowers who had no experience, the task might be insurmountable! Over time, as her own process of re building was more complete, she realized she could become a valuable resource for others i...

Margo Fowkes' son lived with cancer for almost a decade before he finally died. In her grief, she noticed that work places were not equipped to support or even acknowledge the griever. Inspired by her son's power to live his life fully even under the threat of his death, she set out to bring change to the businesses and organizations she worked with when it came to how they handled grief. In the process she developed a supportive network of business people committed to improving business practic...

Helping children to grieve in a culture that is uncomfortable with loss can be a difficult task. That's why it's so important that parents and the other important people in children's lives have resources to help. Still Mine faces loss directly while encouraging young children to keep those they've lost alive by remembering what they used to do together and honoring their love. What brings an author to write about grief in a picture book? What can we share about helping young children understand...

When Suzanne Falter's daughter died unexpectedly, she could no longer maintain the pace or frenzy that had dominated her life. She was thrust into a world of spiritual quest, looking to her continued experience of her daughter's energy to show her the way. In the process she would have to learn to surrender to life instead of willing it to go her way. As she found her own center and her own deeper wisdom, she found a joy she had never known. Her daughter had, miraculously, become her teacher and...

After the loss of her husband to a rare cancer, Kristin Meekhof searched for the book that would tell her, step by step, the answer to the question what do I do now?! She never found it, despite finding many other books of comfort. And so, after her own grief had found its place in her new life, she decided to write the book she had wanted. Enlisting the help of a former colleague and friend (and also a therapist) they wrote the book, clearly spelling out what needs attention in the days, weeks,...

Those of us who work in the healthcare world experience personal losses like all other humans. Sometimes our losses lead to our career choices and sometimes we are integrating losses into already established careers. How do we combine personal loss into our roles? And what happens when a loss of health and capacity lead to the need to step away form work we have been deeply committed to? As we talk about a recent book release of stories from health care professionals, we deepen our understanding...

Losing a dream can have a profound impact- a grief of another kind. Roselee Blooston always knew she wanted a career in the theater and believed with all her heart she would make it as an actress. Accepting that she needed to redefine what success might look like and letting the dream die into new goals took her many years and much turmoil. Along the way, she realized that other dreams just as satisfying and longer lasting could take the place of her childhood passions.

Building the skills that support us in grief, that grow our resilience, is a lifelong pursuit. Marv Weidner and his wife built these skills in nineteen years of loving and growing together before she received a dire cancer diagnosis and, nine months later, died. Now Marv would have to take the lessons further; into his own grief and the resilience he would need to create a full life without her. In his own descriptions of that path and in suggestions after each chapter from the grief counselor w...

With gun violence at epidemic rates, often directed at vulnerable communities, family face a grief which is hard to address. In particular, the threat of shootings in schools leaves both parents and children afraid of something they have no power to avoid. Michael Govier's book and film, If Anything Happens I Love you, faces those fears head on as it beautifully captures the experience of a family whose child has died in a school shooting. In realistic pictures capturing the actuality of grief, ...

Michael Wohl's father was a hippie determined to live life as he saw fit, regardless of the consequences. Childhood was fraught with uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous lapses in parental judgement. As a result Michael and his father Herschel had a somewhat distant connection and rarely saw each other. When his father died, Michael and his siblings (one of whom he hardly knew) set out to lay him to rest on a far-away island where his dad had died, escaping all his mistakes. What did he learn a...