Good Grief

When a lifelong practitioner of Buddhism, philosophy and healing loses her husband, how does she grieve? Elaine Mansfield observed her own experience, capturing her grief in a beautiful book and ultimately answering the call to support others through their losses as her life's calling. Unafraid to explore each aspect of her experience, the things she noticed about her grief became a book, Leaning...

Rabbi Melvin Glazer dedicates his life to helping people face loss because he has faced loss. Drawn to a life of service, he became a rabbi and then an expert in death and bereavement. What does he have to share about weaving Biblical stories into our dealings with death? Can he help us to see how to bring some faith into our grief? Whether we are Jewish, of some other faith, or of no faith at all...

Betsy Rose has long used her music to express her deepest experiences, and has sung for others in order to open their hearts. So it was only natural that the loss of her father inspired her to create and compile songs she wrote for comfort in her own losses. A prolific recording artist and performer, her latest recording, Long for This World soothes and comforts in hard times of loss. Betsy now ad...

The world of elder care and assisted living can be exhausting and demoralizing. How does a daughter insure that the needs of her declining parents are met? How does she accept the deficits in a system of health care that sometimes does not care? Marcy Baskin learned first hand how ill prepared we are to advocate for our elders, especially when they are suffering from Alzheimers. She set out to lea...

What inspires a person to offer song to people at the end of their lives? Kate Munger, as a lover of choral music, felt a profound calling to offer people who were dying, incarcerated, newborn or in comas to receive the precious gift of music. She formed groups to offer song free to those who could benefit from it. What does she have to share having been with so many people at the threshold betwee...

Caught off guard by the depth of his grief after the loss of his mother, Tom Sweetman searched for words of hope and encouragement, finding along with those two things encouragement to become his best self. Realizing he wanted others to have access to the people who encouraged him, part of his calling now includes getting the word out that grief can lead to beauty. Hear what inspired him and becam...

For Mary Potter Kenyon, her husband's cancer treatment resulted in some very positive changes in her marriage. She and her husband loved better, deeper and with a greater appreciation for each other after going through that most terrible of times. Then, five and a half years later, he died suddenly, of a heart attack, and Mary began a brand new journey of discovery, but without the person who had...

Edie Hartshorne was a therapist, meditation practitioner and musician, comfortable with facilitating change and working for peace. But nothing could have prepared her for the loss of her 20 year old son and the possibility that he had killed himself. In Light in Blue Shadows, a deeply felt memoir, Edie takes us into her grief and plumbs the depths of her pain and non-acceptance through to making p...

When a couple gets pregnant or a baby is born, family and friends gather around the them, joyfully supporting the news. But what happens when something goes wrong, when they experience miscarriage or stillbirth? The surrounding community often ignores the loss, or minimizes it. So healing professionals like Dr. Ivy Margulies make a critical difference, supporting grieving parents through the exper...

Although losses can't be compared, the loss of a baby is something most of us find hard to imagine. Sean and Kiley Hanish lost their son when he was still born at full term. Ultimately, their experience Impelled them to create Return to Zero, a film about a couple experiencing what they did. Hear what helped them to walk towards their experience of loss, head on, to create a true reflection of the...

How does a lifelong spiritual seeker face a serious cancer diagnosis? She commits to learning all she can from the experience. She gathers a team together of medical professionals, friends, healers and supporters who form a solid ground beneath her. She shares her experience for the benefit of others. She deepens her commitment to living in the moment and living life fully. She eliminates everythi...

Has the medical world forgotten how to help people die? New technologies have made it possible to prolong life, even at the cost of that life being one the patient wants to live. As Jessica Nutik Zitter began her medical career, she noticed that she had no preparation for the important decisions patients needed help making at the end of life. As a result, she became deeply interested in what has c...

Claire Bidwell Smith found out at 14 that both her parents had cancer. She spent the next ten years interweaving a halting journey to maturity with their declines and deaths (her mother when she was 14 and her father when she was 24). The many aspects of her grief led to a memoir, The Rules of Inheritance, which will soon be made into a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence. She is also a grief counsel...

How did Laura Mayer's find her way to a blissful life? It all began when she was diagnosed with an illness, at age 14, that was considered terminal. This led to many painful years, trying to heal. Believing that a healing in her spirit would support a healing in her body, she embarked on a journey of the soul. Hear how her 40 year exploration of her inner landscape, leading to a profound healing p...

After a cancer diagnosis when she was a teenager, Britta Aragon knew intimately what can happen to a person's body when they are undergoing cancer treatment. Perhaps without her even knowing it, this led to a career in skin care. Then when her father was diagnosed and she wanted to help him in every way she could, she began to research the impact of the products we use on our health. Finding only...

Have you ever lost a loved one and then imagined what they would say if they could communicate with you? Chelsea Hanson turned her grief into beautiful poems based on just such a thought. From there, she formed a business, producing poetry books to be used for comfort and support at times of loss. Having lost her own parents and feeling a deep grief, she brings a very personal perspective to the m...

When a life has been filled with abuse, loss and disappointment, it's often hard to come through it with hope and optimism! Lina Jones found her way by exploring the depth of her own spiritual connection and, over time, gaining to wisdom to help others and to write a book about her healing. When Lina left France to come to the United States, it was just one more step in her quest for a fulfilling...

Grief is a fully human experience, involving the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of us. Every aspect of our being can either flow through the complexity of grief or get blocked. As a medical intuitive, Lyn Waldrop has developed techniques to open these blocks. These methods have brought her through her own losses as well as helping those she works with. Join us as Lyn shares her...

One week before her due date, in 1985, Deb Rich gave birth to her daughter Shoshana, who was stillborn. How did she heal from this crushing loss and commit to a life helping others to cope with the grief of losing a child? What has she learned about living with the loss of a child. What can her story tell us about moving forward after losses which seem unrecoverable? We'll talk about her experienc...

What would happen if a community began to work towards taking back the responsibility for burying its members? In an industrial town in Australia, residents are working towards just that! They want the chance to honor their grief and their love by owning the process of burial from start to finish by creating a non-profit to deliver funeral services to the community. Lynette Wallworth has created a...

Millions of children in this world grow up neglected, cast aside and abused. How does someone turn such a childhood into a life of meaning, value and mission? Cynthia Luce experienced such a childhood and now advocates for children who don't get what they need from those around them; parents, the foster care system and all of us. Be inspired by her story and by what she does now; working to make u...

Life-changing events happen to us unpredictably, at all moments of our lives. David Tucarro, a Mikisew Cree First Nation from Ft. McMurray, Canada, was struggling to find his identity and feeling hopeless, even before leukemia knocked on his door. How did his diagnosis actually contribute to David finding his best life, a life driven by purpose and meaning? In facing his illness, life became more...

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 moth...

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 f...

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. Ja...