Processing

On this week's show, we get to sit down with one of our favorite people in the whole wide world, Mary O’Malley. Mary is a wildly accomplished ceramicist and teacher, and also luckily for Zahra, a true blue best friend. Mary joins us to talk about the realities of grandparent grief. After losing both of her beloved grandparents within a few months of each other in 2018, Mary has experienced deep gr...

Hello friends. This week we are joined by the wonderful and wise Lauren Golfer. Lauren is a Nurse Practitioner specializing in Gynecology here in New York City. She talks with us about her experiences in the Health Care field during Covid, as well as two deeply significant losses she has endured in her life. Lauren first lost her father at age 24 to cancer, and a decade later, her best friend Mitc...

On today’s show, we are joined by author and survivor, Nelson Simon. Nelson joins us to discuss his new book, “ Soul of the Hurricane: The Perfect Storm and an Accidental Sailor” . In 1991, Nelson and the rest of the crew of the Anna Kristina were caught in what became famously known as “The Perfect Storm”. Nelson recalls for us the trauma of this near-death experience, as well as his path to reca...

On this week's show, we talk with our sweet friend, Lavanya Nambiar. Lavanya is originally from New Delhi, India, and talks with us about the struggles associated with moving so far away from her home and family,  the passing of two of her beloved aunts, and how the space between complicated the grief. What a beautiful conversation with a beautiful and brilliant person, and we hope you take away a...

On this week's show, we are joined by the lovely and amazing Anthony Johnston. Anthony is a creator and TV Writer, and he graciously joins us to discuss the sudden loss of his older sister Tanya in 2010. He talks to us about the irreplaceable bond of siblinghood, and how he processed his grief through his work as a writer and actor. This was such a beautiful talk with such a beautiful person, and...

On this week's show, we have the honor of talking with our dear friend Erin Brady. Erin joins us to talk about her and her husband’s journey with infertility, and how it has impacted her health, relationship, and sense of homeostasis. This is such an important topic that so many folks deal with, yet do not talk about nearly enough. We are so grateful to Erin for opening up to us about how this exp...

On this week’s show, we discuss the 20 year anniversary of 9/11. A top the North Tower of the World Trade Center was Windows on The World, a New York City landmark restaurant with a beautiful and diverse staff. We wanted to pay homage to the employees who lost their lives there on 9/11, and also talk about some of the incredible things that surviving employees created after losing their coworkers...

On this week's show, we welcome the lovely Sheila Dee. In 2017 Sheila lost her sister Stephanie suddenly, and she joins us today to unpack her complicated grief surrounding this tragic loss. Sheila talks so candidly and honestly about her grieving process, and also about the beautiful and rich memories that she has surrounding cooking and eating with her sister. Thank you so much, Sheila, and we w...

Today is a special day, folks, as we welcome our sweet friend Tovah Shanok . Tovah joins us from her home in Germany to talk about the many different grief experiences she had endured over the past decade-plus. Tovah is a remarkable and very accomplished chef, and it was incredible to hear her talk about trying to grapple with loss while also working in kitchens. Her experiences at the intersectio...

This week we talk about taking a break. We recently had the opportunity to travel together, and we thought it could be an interesting topic to explore. How/when/if you take a break or vacation during these very trying and scary times. How can we take time for ourselves when it feels impossible? We attempt to unpack these questions and more with our first episode back from break. We missed you, and...

We are so honored to welcome back our dear friend, Kathie Bodily, for this week's show. Since we last spoke with Kathie she has been boldly fighting pancreatic and lung cancer, and she joins us to talk about the nuances in the battle she’s been in for the past year and nine months. Kathie is our patron saint, and the most beautiful, intuitive, brave, and wise human that we know, and we can’t thank...

This week we welcome the talented and charming Edy Massiah, chef and owner of Edy’s Grocer in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Edy talks with us about his early life as a boy in Lebanon, and his love for Lebanese cuisine which he pays beautiful homage to at the grocer. We talk about the loss of identity, loss of family members, and so much more. This was such a wonderful interview, and we hope to see you all...

On this week's show we welcome Reid Peterson. Reid has a Master's Degree in Transpersonal Psychology, and was trained by Dr. Alan Wolfelt from the Center for Loss & Life Transition. Reid works as a Grief companion, and has also launched the Grief Refuge App and podcast . After the passing of his stepfather in 2016, Reid spent time in local support groups. This influenced him to create a means...

On this week's show, we welcome Aimee Lee Ball. Aimee is a Journalist, co-author of four books, and co-founder of Eat, Darling, Eat , a beautiful blog about the relationships between mothers and daughters and how they intersect with food. We had such a rich conversation with Aimee, and as a mother and daughter team, we found it particaularly interesting to speak with someone who has dedicated so m...

On this week's episode we welcome the wonderful Africa Yoon.  Africa is known for her monumental running feats from New York to Chicago and Milan to Cannes.  She is also a writer, and her new book the “The Korean: Single and Obese: Then Kimchi Changed Everything!”, details how she lost 110lbs eating Korean and vegan food in one year. Africa so alive and engaged, and it was an incredible gift to ge...

Today we welcome back our friend, writer and film critic Susannah Gruder. We absolutely loved our last chat with Susannah, and couldn’t wait to have her back. Sue has selected two wonderful and complex films that both came out in 2020, “Nomadland”, a film based on the 2017 non-fiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder. The film is written, produced, di...

On today’s very special episode we have the pleasure of welcoming the lovely and talented Gina Hamadey. Gina is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, Food & Wine, Rachael Ray Every Day, Women's Health, and other publications, and has just released her new book, “I Want to Thank You: How a Year of Gratitude Can Bring Joy and Meaning in a Disconnected World”. The...

This week we have the pleasure of sitting down for a deep and tender talk with Noah and Ari Meyerowitz. You may remember our episode titled “Sproutman” featuring the incredible Beth Robbins, and Noah and Ari are her amazing sons. They talk to us about their dad Steve- his imprint on their lives, both individually and collectively as a family, picking up the family business , and the intricacies of...

Hello friends. This week we welcome our dear friend, Mary Beth White. Mary Beth is  a women's health care nurse practitioner, advanced practice holistic nurse, transpersonal nurse coach and former hospice nurse whose interest in non-traditional funerals and green burials was inspired by caring for her mom and family at the end of her mom's life.  Mary Beth started her nursing career working in a f...

On this week’s show we discuss Joan Didion’s 2005 book, “The Year of Magical Thinking”. This is a brutally honest self observation of her life after the sudden loss of her husband, author John Gregory Dunne, and simultaneous hospitalization of her daughter Quintana Roo. This is a very meaningful book to many folks in the grief community and beyond, and it was a joy to have the opportunity to discu...

This is a Mother’s Day episode. It’s a complicated and painful day for many of us, and we address that complexity, as a mother and daughter on this week’s episode. We know that this day can be extremely triggering and difficult, and also celebratory and joyous, and in some cases, it is all of that at once, and we aim to unpack this juxtaposition today on a very special episode of Processing. Herit...

On this week’s show we welcome Dr Suzanne Phillips. Suzanne is a licensed Psychologist, Psychoanalyst, Diplomate in Group Psychology,Certified Group Therapist, Fellowand Co-chair of Community Outreach for the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA). She has been a Psychologist for over 35 years and after 28 years, she is a newly retired Adjunct Full Professor of Clinical Psychology at LIU...

On today’s show we are joined by the bold, brilliant, and incredibly warm, Beth Robbins .  On September 9th 2015, Beth lost her husband of 30 years, Steve Meyerowitz, in a car accident.  Steve had been known as “The Sproutman” for decades, having dedicated his life's work to the growing and eating of all kinds of sprouts. When Steve died suddenly, Beth was tasked with not only caring for her famil...

On this week's show we welcome our lovely friend, Paul Manza. Paul joins us to discuss the death of his mother, who passed away shortly after a diagnosis with pancreatic cancer a decade ago.  We talk a lot about parenting in this episode, and how it relates to death, dying, grief and mortality, and it was incredibly special and unique.  Paul is earnest, warm and open, and we were blown away by the...

This week we have the absolute pleasure of welcoming Holistic Healer and Spiritual Psychologist Danielle Joffe to the show. Danielle joins us to discuss her relationship with her late mother, Harriet, who was amongst many other things, an incredible painter and cook. Danielle explains to us the complex dynamics of caring for a loved one with a terminal illness, and reads for us an essay she wrote...