Grieving Voices

Through the challenges and struggles of life, we often find our strength and learn what we're capable of as we search for meaning in our pain. This episode shares two stories of the tenacity it took to dig deep, while also acknowledging the need for help and support and seeking it for themselves.  Rachel battled with her husband for two years as he fought hard to beat his cancer, only to lose...

It was a great day; nothing seemed off with his daughter Zoi. They enjoyed a meal together; she headed to her room while he went downstairs to do some computer work. Sometime later, before heading to bed, he went to say goodnight to his beloved daughter, Zoi. The music she loved blaring from her stereo; he opened the door only to see an empty bed. What he discovered next changed his life forever -...

Eight years following the death of her husband from acute lymphoblastic leukemia, Rachel reminisces on the love she lost and also the pain and lessons that came from his death as well. Rachel found purpose through her pain in writing about her experience, which later became her book , and also through cancer advocacy. In this episode, she shares the story of her husband's diagnosis and death...

Grief can either suck the life right out of you or, it can build you into the most compassionate heart for others who will look to you to lean on for support in their grief. They say grief shared is grief diminished, but many people find sharing their grief difficult. Some turn to writing as a way to express and soothe the soul like I had and like my guest, Faith shared, in episode 59. Or, they tu...

On a day like many others, Faith had taken her daughter, Elizabeth, to a doctor’s appointment to investigate Elizabeth's knee pain. What was thought to be an innocent visit to the doctor, who suspected the issue was nothing serious, quickly turned the family’s life upside down. After an X-ray and further testing, they learned Elizabeth had Stage IV osteosarcoma, a rare bone cancer. They didn’...

As a former news anchor, Sherrie Dunlevy delivered bad news on a daily basis. However, it was the news of a personal matter that would shatter her heart. Sherrie knew she would be delivering her son who would be born with complications and quickly swept away for medical care immediately after being delivered via cesarian. She and her husband would then spend the next 29 days holding their son unti...

Does everything happen for a reason? How much of our lives is left to chance, and how much of it is a reflection of our choices? I explore these questions in this week's episode and more. Larry and Michelle shared their stories of love and loss and, although their stories of grief are vastly different, there are a few things incredibly similar in their stories: The willingness to love and be...

Michelle St Jane is no stranger to grief, like many guests who have shared their stories. The traumatic experience of finding her grandfather deceased when she was 15 and the subsequent "Don't talk, don't tell" approach to grief laid the foundation for her in how she addressed her grief. She would later better understand the impact that her family of origin had on her life. Mic...

Grief makes grievers feel like they don't have choices. And, it can also be difficult to bring yourself to take a chance on something or someone. In this episode, I explore choice and chance with Larry. Larry shares his stories of loss, focusing on a short-term love that touched his heart and life deeply, leaving a lasting impact. He shares the wisdom that came from that love experience with...

I share my favorite takeaways and reflections from Ep. 52 with Staci Bartley and Ep. 53 with Tina Ginn, exploring the importance of learning from the past and having the forethought for preparing for the future. Life is messy, and we can learn from our messes, and we can clean them up, too. If we could learn how to re-frame the challenges of our lives by asking ourselves better questions, I do bel...

Tina, like many grievers, has found her passion in her pain. What started out as a career as a financial advisor, where she was well-versed in risk management, morphed into helping others prepare for the worst in their lives. Having lived through a forest fire evacuation order, the quick decline of a dear friend's health and death due to cancer, a traumatic car accident which later led to los...

From the age of 16, Staci Bartley was in the Relationship School of Hard Knox. She found herself pregnant at the age of 16. And, to do the "responsible" thing, she and her then-boyfriend (21 at the time) decided they would get married. A year later, she would end up a divorced single mother. However, at 21, she would expect a second child with a new man in her life, and, together, they d...

We often find our purpose through our pain. Or are lead to our purpose through our pain. Either way, there's often a strong, deep desire to find meaning through the terrible life experiences we've gone through. I'm no exception to that, and many of my guests aren't either. Darren created AfterCloud, a "life-tech" app for capturing life's most precious moments and...

Arielle wasn't a newcomer to grief and loss by the time her husband decided to take his own life when she was only 29. She shares the highs, lows, and fears of navigating all of the unknowns and changes that came with losing her beloved, Rick. She wondered if she would ever love again, and because she and Rick couldn't have children together, she then had to face the possibility that she...

In this episode, Darren shares how loss (and his son) inspired him to create a way to capture life's most precious moments, support others through caregiving and loving gestures, and leave a legacy for future generations. After Cloud is, as Darren calls it, a life-tech app; for sharing what needs to be said, capturing what you never want to forget, and connecting with loved ones in a way that...

We come into this world knowing how to grieve. We naturally know how to express ourselves to get our needs met. Then life happens, along with generational teaching that creates the perfect storm for adult issues. So much of what is wrong in our lives, as adults, can be traced back to our childhoods. That goes for possible health concerns, as well as our mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Adu...

Crystal shares the impact of losing her sister by suicide and the process of working through the grief that led her to start not one but two businesses in honor of her sister. What you will learn, though, through Crystal's episode, is that the loss of her sister was not the first. It was actually one of three within a short period of time. And, if there's one thing that I've learned...

I get really fired up when a podcast guest shares their story of, essentially, their emotional pain being dismissed. Instead of their pain being addressed when seeking help, their symptoms are "addressed." If misguided white coats started to flip that around, and look at the bigger picture and set aside the big pharma kickbacks, and become patient-centered, we'd maybe be in a less d...

Jordan grew up knowing he was different. And, it was in that knowing where he could be himself with his loving, supportive father. However, in the outside world, he navigated the harsh reality of mean kids. Aside from his sexuality, growing up as a child of a deaf adult (CODA) also felt like a dirty little secret. What happened, as Jordan grew, is years of trying to deal with being put in a specia...

Actress, Podcaster, and Author, Brianne Davis shares, for the first time, about the loss of who she once was. Brianne has come to terms, with the help of therapy and the 12-step program for sex and love addiction, to understand the depths and impact of being sexually abused as a child. And, how that experience, along with early exposure to what she believed love was impacted her well into adulthoo...

Talking about end-of-life is never easy. And, receiving a terminal diagnosis (with a prognosis full of unknowns), is nowhere near easy either. I reflect on what my guests, Dr. Chris Kerr, author of "Death Is But a Dream," TEDx Speaker, and researcher of end-of-life experiences of terminal patients and 17-year metastatic breast cancer survivor, Anne Jacobs, shared with and taught me. I ha...

Anne is, what is called in the metastatic breast cancer world, an "outlier." She's lived with triple positive metastatic breast cancer for seventeen years.  And, for the past seventeen years, she's gone to sleep and woken up, not knowing when the other shoe will drop, and being out of treatment options.  What does this do to the psyche of the human mind? How does one even begin...

This episode is a must-listen for anyone who is facing terminal illness right now. Whether you are a caregiver or a patient, Dr. Chris Kerr's wisdom may help you feel empowered in how you address the end-of-life experience. Dr. Kerr's work has focused on affirming that end-of-life experiences are real and how the medicalization of the end-of-life process hinders one's ability to hav...

Generational learning and ancestral trauma run deep in families. It's not even something I gave much thought to before becoming an Advanced Certified Grief Recovery Specialist. In episode 37, Angela shared how the lessons her mom was taught were passed down generations, impacting her life ten-fold. It takes courage to break the cycle of generational learning because it takes action and deep,...

What would it be like to get into an accident and walk away not knowing who you are? Shandra shares her experience of what it is like to see her daughter and loved ones and not know them. She found herself living a "half-life" as she called it.  However, this accident and memory loss occurred following many other loss experiences. She shares that, while in high school, she found herself...