Permission To Breathe

In this episode, Dr. Tammy Isaac reflects on the emotional weight that can come when a woman senses she has something meaningful to offer but encounters resistance from institutions, workplaces, faith communities, or other leadership spaces. This conversation invites listeners to recognize the grief that can arise from being overlooked, from having to constantly prove one's capability, and fro...

Leadership is often celebrated for its influence and impact, but the emotional weight behind it is rarely discussed. In this episode, Dr. Tammy Isaac explores the grief many women carry in leadership spaces. From invisibility and dismissal to isolation, overextension, and self-doubt, women have often led while navigating pressures that question their authority and contributions. This conversation...

This episode examines how grief shows up in the lives of women and why healing can be understood as historical work. When a woman begins to acknowledge her grief and care for her emotional life, she may also be interrupting patterns that have moved quietly through families and communities for generations. Healing does not erase grief, but it changes how grief is carried and expressed. Through hone...

This Women’s History Month episode explores the hidden cost of survival carried in women’s bodies across generations. While history highlights milestones and achievements, it rarely acknowledges the physiological and emotional toll of exclusion, invisibility, labor without recognition, politicized bodies, and normalized grief. In this episode, Dr. Tammy Isaac examines how chronic stress, silencing...

Black excellence is celebrated. Strength is admired. Success is applauded. But what happens when being exceptional becomes exhausting? In this episode, we explore the emotional cost of always being strong as Black people. We name the grief beneath high performance, the pressure to represent, and the quiet depletion that can hide behind achievement. Success can change your circumstances, but it doe...

Black History Month celebrates brilliance, culture, leadership, and legacy. But what about the grief that never made the headlines? In this episode, Dr. Tammy Isaac explores the inherited weight carried by Black people across generations. From survival patterns shaped by history to the emotional labor embedded in daily life, this conversation names what often goes unspoken. Together we examine how...

Loving again after loss can feel confusing. You may want connection while also feeling hesitant. You may miss closeness and still feel afraid of what it could cost you. For many people, love after grief does not arrive with confidence. It arrives with questions, caution, and a guarded heart. In this episode of Permission to Breathe , we explore what it means to consider loving again while still ca...

February is both Heart Awareness Month and Black History Month. In this episode of Permission to Breathe , Dr. Tammy Isaac explores the connection between grief, history, and heart health in African American women. Grief is often understood only as loss through death, yet for many Black women it has been ongoing, layered, and deeply tied to caregiving, chronic stress, silence, and survival. This e...

Grief does not only come from the loss itself. It often brings unexpected changes to friendships and community. In this episode, Dr. Tammy Isaac explores how grief reshapes relationships, why some friendships fade after loss, and how to grieve those secondary losses without turning the pain inward. This conversation offers clarity, validation, and language for experiences many people feel but rare...

Grief does not only bring sadness. It can also bring anger, disappointment, and disillusionment toward God, faith communities, and the institutions we trusted to care. In this episode, we make space for anger without guilt or spiritual shortcuts. This conversation names what many people feel but struggle to say out loud and offers permission to be honest without rushing toward answers.

Some people experience grief through overwhelming emotion. Others experience it through silence. Emotional numbness is a common and often misunderstood grief response, leaving many people questioning themselves when they do not feel what they expect to feel. In this episode, we explore emotional numbness as a natural response to loss. We talk about why numbness happens, how the body uses it as pro...

In this opening episode of Season Four, Dr. Tammy Isaac explores how grief shows up at the edges of time. She reflects on grief as a keeper of time, the permission to acknowledge what the year required of us, and the importance of setting expectations that honor both loss and humanity. This episode also reframes hope, not as pressure or forced optimism, but as something steady that can exist along...

When loss collides with trauma, grief doesn’t just break the heart, it shakes the body, mind, and spirit. In this episode, Dr. Tammy Isaac unpacks what traumatic grief is, how it differs from other forms of grief, and why it can sometimes lead to complicated grief. She explores the signs and struggles many experience, the hope found in traumatic grief therapy, and gentle pathways toward healing fo...

Grief isn’t one-size-fits-all. It comes in layers, colors, and textures that shift from moment to moment. From the anger and guilt that often surprise us, to the way grief shows up in the body and spirit, this conversation honors the full terrain of loss. Whether you are grieving a loved one, a dream, your health, or a season of life that has passed, you’ll find space here to name your grief, hono...

This week on the Permission to Breathe Podcast we turn our attention to a group of people who give so much of themselves, yet often carry their grief in silence: our first responders. Dr. Isaac explores the unique types of grief they carry, the heavy cost of unprocessed trauma, and the pathways toward healing and hope. This conversation will noy only raises awareness but also invites compassion fo...

This week, I’m re-sharing one of the most deeply resonant episodes of the Permission to Breathe Podcast as I prepare to present on this very topic at the Clusterbusters Conference. Chronic pain doesn’t just affect the body. It reshapes your identity, your relationships, your faith, and your sense of self. And when healing doesn’t come, grief sets in not once, but repeatedly. In this episode, we ex...

September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, a time to break the silence, remove the shame, and hold sacred space for the pain too many carry alone. In today’s episode, we open our hearts to the complex grief that surrounds suicide. Whether you’re someone who has lost a loved one to suicide or someone who has struggled with dark thoughts during your own grief journey, this conversatio...

In this episode, “Carrying Love, Carrying Loss: Understanding Perinatal Bereavement,” Dr. Tammy Isaac gently explores the sacred grief of losing a baby through miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death. With compassion and clarity, she unpacks the unique emotional, spiritual, and cultural layers of this loss, the role of family, faith communities, and clinical staff in support, and the ways paren...

What if the hardest part of birth comes after the baby arrives? In this heartfelt episode of Permission to Breathe , Dr. Tammy Isaac holds sacred space for the grief that often lingers quietly in the postpartum season. This is the grief no one warns you about the kind that comes with lost identity, unmet expectations, and the emotional weight of becoming a mother. We explore the difference between...

Caregiving is one of the deepest acts of love and one of the heaviest burdens to carry. In this episode of Permission to Breathe , Dr. Tammy Isaac opens a tender and honest conversation about the grief that lives within caregiving. From the compassion and drive that lead us to care whether by calling or by circumstance , to the physical, emotional, and spiritual toll it takes, we explore the risks...

In this powerful episode, Dr. Tammy Isaac pulls back the curtain on the hidden grief nurses carry, grief that goes far beyond patient loss. From the emotional toll of repeated trauma to the personal heartbreak nurses often carry in silence, this conversation explores the cost of caregiving in a profession that rarely pauses to process pain. Dr. Isaac shares the emotional, physical, and spiritual w...

Grief isn’t reserved for cemeteries. It shows up in courthouse corridors, unread text threads, ghosted group chats, and phone calls that never come. In this episode of Permission to Breathe , Dr. Tammy Isaac names the hidden heartbreak of relationship grief; the ache that follows divorce, infidelity, friendship break-ups, sibling estrangement, and the painful distance between parents and adult chi...

There’s a kind of grief that doesn’t follow a funeral. It shows up in headlines, policies, and silence. It lives in your body. It weighs on your spirit. It’s political grief and it’s real. In this episode, we name the grief that comes from systemic betrayal and collective sorrow. Dr. Isaac explores protest as mourning, rest as resistance, and the sacred power of community. If you’ve ever felt hear...

This week’s episode, “Grief, Glory, and the Cost of Freedom,” holds space for the complexity of Juneteenth, BIPOC Mental Health Awareness, and the Fourth of July all through the lens of intergenerational grief, truth-telling, and sacred resistance. We’re talking about the weight of inherited sorrow, the beauty of dancing through pain, and the kind of rest that becomes revolution.

In this heartfelt episode, Dr. Tammy Isaac welcomes guest LaShanna More, who shares her deeply personal story of losing her mother as an adult. With honesty and grace, LaShanna reflects on how her mother’s passing left a profound void in her life, even as a fully grown woman. Together, we explore the emotional weight of adult grief, the way roles shift when daughters become caretakers, and the ach...