Grief Heals

In this episode, Lisa explores the concept that "grief is love" and how reframing our relationship with discomfort can lead to deeper resilience and joy. She discusses how societal conditioning often leads us to reject "bad" feelings, ultimately limiting our capacity for true connection and peace. Key topics include: Reframing Grief : Understanding grief as a "great disrup...

What does it mean to be made whole? Made whole not by acquiring something missing, but by returning to what's already here? In this episode, Lisa explores the surprising connections between grief, sacred breath, and unity, drawing on Neil Douglas Klotz's Aramaic rendering of the Beatitudes in his book The Hidden Gospel . When Klotz translates "blessed are those who mourn" as &quo...

In this episode Lisa reflects on loss that isn't death, the disappointments, broken promises, and unmet needs that shape us long before we have language for them. Drawing on a story from her coach Billy Soule about imagining his mother's childhood losses, she revisits her own experience at a Hoffman Institute retreat years ago, where she was asked to imagine her way into the early lives of...

Lisa returns to the question she's been turning over for a few episodes now — the relationship between healing, wholeness, and being human — and finds her way into it through her own preparation for her oldest son's wedding. What surfaces is an identity she'd been quietly carrying since her divorce: that she'd forfeited the right to claim "mom." Working the thought throug...

In this episode, Lisa reflects on the surprising parallels between gardening and grieving and what her first sprouting bell pepper seeds taught her about wholeness. Drawing on the wisdom of "lazy gardener" Ann (a Tennessee gardener Lisa has been learning from), she explores how plants grow more robust root systems when they're stripped back, not in spite of the loss but because of it...

Lisa reflects on a question that's been sitting with her: What if we renamed this podcast? From Grief Heals to Grief Humanizes because maybe that's the truer thing grief does. She traces the thread from her peepaw's death by suicide when she was 13 (and how quickly life moved on around her, and within her) through her divorce after 23 years of marriage — the moment she first became &qu...

Grief gives gifts. If that’s true, it opens up a conversation that asks what are the gifts that grief has given me.  The first gift that comes to mind is that my life is more than this body. Before Chip died, I’d lost several loved ones including my grandparents and sister.  It was different with Chip because I stayed in conversation with him.  I wrote to him at the end of each work day and after...

Last time I sought to answer the question, “How did I get here? What happened to (for) me?” to  become a woman that my Bible college, homeschooling, good christian, pastor’s wife selves, would not recognize.  What came out was surprisingly emotional. At points it was hard to get my words out through the tears.  Then I was asked to do part 2 and share how those experiences brought me to where I am...

I asked myself, “How did I get here? What happened to (for) me?” and this is what came out.  There are lots of tears as I trace my journey and think about how I became a woman that my Bible college, homeschooling, mom, christian, pastor’s wife selves, would not recognize.  I wonder what parts of your story will awaken as you hear mine.  Xoxo Billy from episode: https://www.julylifecoach.com/about...

For nearly six months my girlfriend was pushing down the thought that she can’t stand her hubs – especially because he was sick. What kind of woman is contemplating divorce after her husband is diagnosed with a chronic condition. She couldn’t let herself think like that! Or could she? She decided to experiment. What might it be like to notice the thoughts floating in the river of her mind without...

Stop. Will you pause for a breath? When I pause and notice, it reminds me that I am alive and I am being lived. What do you notice? This week’s Grief Heals episode is an offering, not a lesson. A slow, 25-minute walk with breath, grief, body, voice, and the quiet ways emotions try to set us free. I don’t know what you’re holding these days. If you’re like me, it's more than you can even see. ...

Before I recorded this, I listened to, Salt, then Sour, then Sweet, which plays at the end of Come See Me in the Good Light.  It surprised me when I slid down the wall, feeling the weight of my body too heavy to stand upright. Squatted down, my hand over my heart, I could feel the ache, the beauty, the memory, the love… all of it living in me at once.  Like life, this episode isn’t linear. It weav...

Wherever you are, however you are, please know that all of it is welcome here. I just watched The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper and whoa. So timely because it put faces and history to my longing for communal grieving for our collective losses. I wept, laughed, cried, and its lessons are continuing to grow in me. Please watch it –  season 3, the episode on the Simril(l) family, one branch spelle...

Hi love, The day I recorded this, I got yanked off my feet when Bella ran after another dog. The retractable leash extended, I flew in the air and landed flat in the street with knees, palms, elbows bleeding.  I’d just loaded Garth Brooks' “The Dance”, so while I’m sobbing, this song played in the background. Fitting, since this day would’ve been my wedding anniversary. Chip died five months b...

I hit record not knowing what I’d say, just knowing that I felt tender and full and needed to say something, anything, about how grief has been moving in me… What came out was a web of stories threaded by longing, scripture, comfort, hunger, shame, healing, and breath. There’s the line: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” And how Neil Douglas-Klotz says that in Aramaic, “bl...

In this very special episode of Grief Heals, host Lisa Michelle Zega is thrilled to welcome the podcast's very first guest, Denise Clanin. Denise is a former accountant turned stay-at-home mom and debut novelist living in North Idaho. What began as a simple college writing assignment over a decade ago has blossomed into Denise's novel Among the Stars - but the story behind the story is wha...

Of course you’ve  judged yourself for how you feel… cried at work and then felt ashamed… pushed something down in the name of being strong or good or grateful… So – this wildly unpolished episode is for you. Here’s a glorious unraveling and remembering of what I mean when I say grief heals . It isn’t about being fixed. It’s about being fully human or Experiencing our humanity with awareness and me...

I’ve been practicing what it is to truly welcome what is – how it is.  I’m talking about welcoming what’s outside the shiny and preferred Like the Ache. envy. not-enoughness.  Bugs on the skin. Memories that still sting. Joy that expands vision. I’m exploring grief as living .  Yes. Grief as response to death… And As a presence that awakens LIFE. I’ve been starting my morning, lying on the earth,...

Lately, I’ve been feeling lost. When Chelle asked me what I meant, I described what it would be like to watch me - check my phone over and over, scroll mindlessly, walk to the fridge - open and close it a few times, go for a walk, take a nap… Rinse and repeat. It’s been like playing pin the tail on the donkey - being blindfolded, spun around, but without a donkey for the tail.  Today, I experience...

I just recorded an episode that is maybe the most personal, most collective one yet. You know by now—Grief Heals isn’t just a title. It’s a way of life. A lens. A returning. And this week, I explored how grief heals our justice work, our relationships, and the roles we all play—often unknowingly—in systems that divide and dominate. I pulled from a familiar model: the Drama Triangle. Victim. Persec...

I recorded this episode inspired by an experience I had with the red ants in my yard. You heard that right. For the whole story, listen to this week’s recording. In short, I got impatient, disrupted an ant hill, got stung, and ended up contemplating – Does God Grieve? I’m not a theologian, philosopher, or anything else that might hint toward expert. And, I’m in awe how grief continues to teach me....

I recorded this podcast specifically for someone experiencing the fresh loss of a loved one. If that’s you, welcome.  I’m gonna keep this brief - and the podcast if brief too.  First. There is nothing wrong with you. You can not get this wrong.  Your body is responding to a profound disruption to your sense of normal and your entire anatomy is impacted. Two. It’s common to feel guilty to simply li...

I recorded this podcast specifically for someone experiencing the fresh loss of a loved one. If that’s you, welcome.  I’m gonna keep this brief - and the podcast if brief too.  First. There is nothing wrong with you. You can not get this wrong.  Your body is responding to a profound disruption to your sense of normal and your entire anatomy is impacted. Two. It’s common to feel guilty to simply li...

I don’t see grief as something to get over. I see it as something that carries us back to what matters. This week on the podcast, I’m sharing the heart of how I understand grief—not just as a response to loss, but as love in motion. Grief is not the wound. It’s the hand that tends the wound. It’s the love that moves toward what hurts… what was taken… what never arrived… and still matters. In this...

Whether you’re in the thick of change, quietly cocooning, or simply not in a space to listen right now—I honor you.  Grief Heals is a family, and families know how to feed one another in many ways. So here are a few invitations, tools, and practices for you to carry into your own day: Nourishment for the In-Between Practice the pause. Take one breath. Let yourself feel exactly how you feel. No fix...