Episodes

As a practicing medium who believed in heaven, Shauna Domalain could never have predicted how hard grief would hit after her son Jack's death. Years of pain followed and she was unable to use the tools that had served her so ...

How can a mother and daughter reconcile when they cannot agree on the most basic of truths? As the author of Courage to Heal, Laura Davis became an advocate for women (and some men) who had experienced incest. But her mother ...

Diana Kupershmit had the plans for her life clearly mapped out; finish college, graduate school, marry your high school sweetheart, start a family. She was not prepared for the jolt of the unexpected that arrived with the bir...

Trauma in our early lives, or even later into adulthood, rewires us to such a degree that life can become deeply frightening. Finding a way to foster healing involves listening to ourselves, looking for support and healing mo...

Doctors have more experience than most with navigating the end of life. Yet when illness and death come close to home, their well crafted distance and objectivity no longer covers all the bases. As Martha Calihan faced the en...

Abbe Greenberg and Maggie Sarachek have literally written the book on supporting yourself through anxiety and panic attacks. And of course, they tried it ALL to deal with their own anxiety, because experience is the best teac...

When Vaneetha Rendell Risner found a deeper faith coming to terms with her childhood disabling polio, she thought that was the end of her challenges. Now, since she was walking with her hand in her God's, life would go well. ...

The worst things in Mary Potter Kenyon's life led her inexorably back to her first love; writing. Her first book dealt with her husband's cancer diagnosis and the next two with her grief after the deaths of her mother, husban...

Alone in a brand new city, Merissa Nathan Gerson set out to connect with her community. Her father shepherded the process, traveling with her to help her choose a house and set herself up for this new life. But very shortly a...

When a child is unwanted, abused and neglected it is no surprise they struggle in adulthood. It took Sabine Gedeon a long time to realize that she was replaying her early life in choosing poor relationships, overtaxing hersel...

What helps us as we face a lifetime of challenges? Boo Paterson tried it all and found that many things helped her when times were hard. But what helped the most was creative expression. She set out to find ways that people w...

Cheryl Krauter and her husband, John, assumed she would die first. After all, she had lived through an aggressive breast cancer diagnosis that challenged her resilience and health. But then it was him, suddenly, with no warni...

When Emily Threatt's first husband died, she didn't anticipate ever marrying again. But then, as sometimes happens with life's twists and turns, she fell in love. Her experience when her second husband died was different from...

It was a day in the life of a talented entrepreneur and her family. The kids were headed off to games and an audition, set to showcase their talents. The adults were their chauffeurs and cheerleaders. And then, into this beau...

Our picture of widowhood conjures a grey haired woman, maybe a grandmother, mourning the loss of a life long love. But that picture does not always fit the facts. Melissa Gould was young, still raising a child, when her husba...

What does it mean to us when we dream about a person in our life who has died? Sometimes we are working to understand the loss or move forward from it. Sometimes we are plagued by the need to know that they are ok. Sometimes ...

Just getting a call that someone you love has died brings grief and profound impact. But what if the second call is from a police officer theorizing that your uncle, your mother's brother, has killed her? This stark and terri...

What we create as a result of learning to navigate our grief is unique; a creative expression of our deepest lives. For Reid Peterson, creating the Grief Refuge app reflected his deep desire to offer a daily companion to peop...

Nothing prepares us for the three words you have cancer. How do people facing this frightening diagnosis navigate the emotional fallout which, for most, will be a significant aspect of their cancer experience? When Cynthia Ha...

Faith Wilcox faced the unimaginable. Her healthy, accomplished and intelligent 13 year old was diagnosed with a lethal form of cancer and, despite the best efforts of her health care team, she died in less than a year. In the...

When Lily Dulan gave birth to her baby girl, it seemed like the culmination to years of work to create the life she'd envisioned. Despite complications at the start, her child was given a clean bill of health and she and her ...

Arriving for a weekend trip, Lisa Goich was unprepared to hear that her beloved mother had just 2 weeks to live. Suspending her everyday life, Lisa devoted herself to her mother's care, fulfilling a deep commitment to honor t...

There is a comfort in growing up in a cult; believing absolutely in whatever we are taught, giving members a framework for all the difficulties in life. But for many, there is a terrible price to pay; suspending our own capac...

When the unimaginable happens, each of us enters our own grief language, unique to our deepest selves. When Mike Bernhardt's wife died in 1991, poetry (both writing and reading it) connected him to his own pain and, over time...