Carried Forward

“Many grieving people genuinely think they are losing themselves, when in reality their brain and body are adapting to profound change.” In this episode, I sit down with Sylvia Wolfer for a conversation about what grief does beneath the surface. Sylvia is a grief coach and educator whose work lives at the intersection of grief, neuroscience, mindfulness, and movement. We talk about grief as more t...

"I'm just carrying it. I don't know where forward is anymore." That's what Katie said when I asked her what carrying grief forward meant to her. And I think it might be the most honest thing anyone has said on this show. In this solo episode, I do something I've never done on The Carried Forward Podcast before: I explain the framework that runs underneath every conversation. The Carried Forward Fr...

“I’m just carrying it. I don’t know where forward is anymore.” In this episode, I sit down with author, poet, and grieving mother Katie Rizzo for one of the most honest conversations I’ve had about addiction, shame, identity, and what it means to survive the loss of a child. Katie’s son Nicholas died in September 2024 after struggling with opioid addiction. But this conversation is not just about...

“Everyone asks how the parents are doing. Nobody asks how the siblings are doing.” In this episode, I sit down with author, speaker, counselor, and sibling grief advocate Zander Sprague for a deeply honest conversation about sibling loss, overlooked grief, and what it means to carry someone forward after tragedy. Zander’s older sister Lucy was murdered in 1996. Nearly thirty years later, he’s help...

“Grief is love that has nowhere to go.” In this episode, I sit down with therapist and grief counselor Zulma Williams for an honest conversation about grief, trauma, healing, and the emotional unpredictability of loss. We talk about why grief has no timeline, how loss reshapes identity, what grief ambushes actually feel like, and the difference between carrying grief and being consumed by it. Zulm...

What's the grief milestone nobody prepares you for? Not the funeral. Not the first year. The weird specific one nobody talks about. I asked that question recently and over nine hundred people answered. Their responses told me everything I needed to know about why this show exists. In this first episode I'm introducing The Carried Forward Podcast — what it is, who it's for, and why I built it. I'm...