Grief: A Love Story - the podcast

I have a love/hate relationship with this podcast when it comes to pulling together the executive functioning to Make It Happen. I just can't get interested.  But here I am. I can't stay away.  The book on which this was originally based has changed.  I have changed.  I am more, now.  Here I am, riffing about--you guessed it--grief. Because I can't help myself.  Listening to and reading the work o...

It was my honour to interview Alison Tedford and to be sharing that episode with you. Alison is an Indigenous business consultant and author from Abbotsford, BC. She is an expert in diversity and inclusion communications, a single mom and a woman living with a disability. She regularly writes for large publications and has worked on Indigenous issues for the majority of her career as a former publ...

In this solo episode, Tara Caffelle shares grief that has engulfed the city she lives in after the bodies of 215 children were confirmed to be buried on the grounds of Kamloops' former Indian Residential School.  In future episodes, we will seek to amplify marginalized voices, so that we may hear the stories and take action to support all that needs to be done.  Here are some resources to support...

Welcome to Part II of my conversation with Tina Overbury to talk about her one-woman show debuting later this month. The show is O My God and it will be available for all to screen on May 28th.  We talk about so many things in this episode: the grief entwined in the show, the journey of living in this time and this space, and of soul-deep reconciliation. Not something to miss, I tell ya.  Links to...

It was a JOY (it often is) to sit with Tina Overbury to talk about her one-women show debuting later this month. The show is O My God and it will be available for all to screen on May 28th. This is the first episode after a substantial break, and I start with a brief explanation of that, before leading us into this brilliant conversation.  We talk about so many things in this episode: the grief en...

This show is a lovely meander through grief with Shelby Forsythia, founder of The Grief Grower's Garden and the author of Permission to Grieve . After losing her Mom at the age of 21, Shelby sought to heal and make sense of her loss, and along the way, she found the aching beauty of grief in all the corners of our lives. She supports those lost in the everyday moments of grief in their lives. Our...

It was such a pleasure to connect with Dr. Martha Jo Atkins, who has build an entire career from "moving and out of the spaces" of grief. Our conversation meanders to some beautiful places, and there is no shortage of great resources, insights and information. By way of Official Biography, Martha Jo helps individuals and families create space for meaningful experiences at end of life. Dr. Atkins i...

"Planning for death is a life-affirming act." My guest for this episode is DeAnne Joy, a fellow soldier in grief and death, and like so many of these conversations, I felt we could have gone on for days together. We covered all manner of topics, from advance directives, to mortality, to self-care, to women in crisis to the straight-up vulnerability of releasing a Book Baby to the world. This inter...

"There's a constant stream of grief in parenting." Some conversations are just always delicious  and I have never not enjoyed speaking with Gillian Rowinski in the years that I have known her and we have stolen some time to connect. In this conversation, we take a quick-but-deep dive into some of the grief that comes with parenthood (spoiler alert: it's a lot) and, I know I say this a lot, but it'...

"We are here to fill the shoes of the dead." Erin Zimmerman is one of those humans who just creates...space. She bounds with joy, she laughs easily, and she seems to make setbacks into stepping stones as she evolves. We crossed paths a little more than a year ago, at a kick-in-the-butt, meet-lots-of-people event in Texas. It was at that event that this podcast was born, actually. I love that she i...

"Grief is what we are left with." I consider it one of the greatest blessings of my work and my life to have conversations like this one. To have in front of me inspiration, and strength and a poetic, magical way of communicating, is an endless gift. In this conversation with Jana Buhlmann, we explore her sweet grief, Medically Assistance in Dying (MAID), and the gifts that lie in the question of...

It feels weird to let this baby out into the world. You can download a hold-in-your-hot-little-hands copy here , but I wanted to give it a voice, too. And as I mention at the end of the episode, this chapter and the book are a team effort, and I wish to thank my writing coach, Nicole Baute for her gentle and effective championing of my words, Karla Johnson for her brilliant sound engineering, part...

"We're all each other's teachers." Sometimes (well, a lot of times) I get connected with people who are My People. You know what I mean? People who get me, people who I get. Soul-like connections. Andria Racich (pronounced "rasich") is one of those people and I am so grateful for this conversation with Andria from The Innerview.  Andria has been interested in hearing people's stories all her life....

Ep 7 One Death, Many Experiences, Many Lessons It's a chapter in the book, and it's just true: a thousand people (and more) will have an experience of each death, and we are all capable (and have permission) to learn and take from each loss whatever is meaningful for us. In this solo episode, Tara talks about the moment this realization came, and what she knows because of it. Download Episode

"Get comfortable with being uncomfortable." Cassie Barrett has been a death worker since 2010 and is the Director of Operations at Carolina Memorial Sanctuary , a conservation and green cemetery located in Western North Carolina. Since she was a kid, Cassie has felt a natural connection to death and a deep desire to serve others. Cassie considers her work a form of death activism, working to help...

"We were a mighty tribe, but we were rudderless. It forced me to grow up very quickly." Ellen Ercolini is a business strategist and gifted coach, and while that may be what you learn about her first, there is so much more to her: she is a veteran of loss and the fortune finder of the gifts her grief has brought her. In this episode, we talk about the waves of impact in a family, growing up too soo...

"The reason we meditate is to learn how to die." In this conversation with Soul Interpreter, Chris Dierkes, we explore learning to live by being with the dead, the place of "sweet sorrow" in grief, and death as our last great teacher. Chris Dierkes is a Soul Interpreter. A former monk and priest, Chris works to assist individuals in connecting to their soul, aka their deepest unique personal essen...

"It was honouring. Like going to war. I had to send it up to be healed." Today, we dive deep into the relationship "half-pipe" between Joy and Grief with Coach, Mother, Speaker, and Empathic Leader, Keri-Anne Livingstone. When Keri-Anne suddenly lost her father in March of 2016, the resulting journey proved invaluable. She credits being "willing to ride the waves" of grief, and "revealing it to he...

Grief is a call to consciousness Lisa Hartley is a Celebrant based in Vancouver, BC. In this conversation, we talk about the call to grief as a gift, Lisa's own journey of loss, and (of course) her work as she assists families to craft and design meaningful ceremony for all stages of life. She approaches her work with a simple question: "How do we do this beautifully?" Download Episode

The true thing is: we will all experience loss. And the choice we have is whether or not we truly feel our grief and ask what it has for us. In 2015, I lost four men in my life and the waves of grief that followed have taught me more than I could have ever imagined. Download Episode