But what happens when psilocybin opens a door you didn’t even know was there?

My guest, Heather A. Lee, is one of the first certified and licensed psychedelic-assisted psychotherapists in the U.S. Before moving into psychedelic medicine, she spent years as a hospice social worker, sitting with people at the end of life. She later trained with researchers at Johns Hopkins, NYU and Imperial College London, and she’s the author of The Psilocybin Sessions.

I’ve been curious about Heather’s work for a long time, especially after having my own profound psilocybin experience. So I wanted to understand what is actually happening during these journeys. What does psilocybin do to the brain? Why can it sometimes reach grief, trauma and old wounds that years of talk therapy haven’t touched? And what do we make of the people who say they encountered someone they love who has died?

Heather explains how psilocybin quiets some of the brain systems involved in fear and our fixed sense of self, creating a window where old patterns can loosen and something new can emerge. We talk about why preparation and integration matter, why she believes these experiences should be facilitated by someone properly trained, and who should stay away from psychedelics altogether.

Then we get into the part of this conversation I was especially interested in: grief.

Heather shares stories of people who encountered loved ones who had died during their journeys, including a mother whose 18-year-old son died from fentanyl poisoning and who felt she spent hours communicating with him. We talk about whether these experiences are happening entirely inside the brain, whether they might give us access to something beyond our ordinary awareness, and whether we even need to know for certain in order for the experience to be healing.

I also share something I haven’t talked about publicly before: my own psilocybin journey. While my best friend was having a beautiful experience with angels, guides and flowers, I spent hours feeling as though I was physically giving birth to grief. My body moved in waves and convulsions as I saw women surrounding me like midwives and felt grief moving through me for Sammy, for my childhood, for mothers and women I had never met. It was one of the strangest and most powerful experiences of my life.

We also talk about microdosing, anxiety and OCD, antidepressants, neuroplasticity, and what Heather has learned from decades of working around death and dying about consciousness and what might happen after we die.

In this episode, we talk about:

• What psilocybin actually does in the brain

• Why grief and trauma can surface in ways we don’t expect

• The difference between taking mushrooms recreationally and doing a facilitated therapeutic journey

• Why preparation and integration are such an important part of the process

• What it can feel like to encounter someone you love who has died

• My own experience of physically “birthing” grief during a psilocybin journey

• Whether psychedelic experiences are happening in the brain, beyond it, or possibly both

• Psilocybin for anxiety and OCD

• Antidepressants and other considerations before a psychedelic journey

• Microdosing versus a full-dose journey

• Who should not use psilocybin

• How grief can open us to questions about consciousness, connection and what happens after death

If you’ve ever wondered whether psychedelics can help us access parts of grief that we can’t seem to reach any other way, or whether the people we love might still be available to us in ways we don’t fully understand, I think you’ll find this conversation fascinating.

This isn't about convincing you of anything. It's about staying curious about what connection can look like after loss, and what our minds and hearts might be capable of as we heal.

Don't forget to follow Heather A. Lee and check out her book, The Psilocybin Sessions. You can find more of her work on her website or by following her on Instagram. She's also opening a grief-specific psilocybin retreat in Colorado this January, details to come on her socials.

And if you want to explore more of how our brains, bodies, histories and emotional patterns shape the way we love and connect, come find me on my other podcast, The Language of Love. Every week, I talk with leading experts and share what I've learned in more than 30 years as a therapist about relationships, intimacy and healing. You can find The Language of Love wherever you're listening to Crying Out Loud.

This episode is also brought to you in part by Channeling Grief, a Substack by Elizabeth Kopple. After her 18-year-old son, Henry, died on his first day of college, Elizabeth turned to writing to explore grief and how we find connection, meaning, and a way forward after profound loss. Now a certified grief educator, she shares essays, interviews, and resources to help you feel seen and less alone. Subscribe for free at channelinggrief.substack.com. We're so grateful to Elizabeth for supporting Crying Out Loud and our grieving community.

And if you're looking for support, connection, or a place to feel less alone, my book, Crying Out Loud: A Path Through Grief Into a Life Reimagined, and The Grief Healing Collective are here for you. If something in this episode spoke to your heart, share your story or send your questions to cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com.

A song at exactly the right moment. A dream that feels different from an ordinary dream. A coincidence that feels almost impossible to explain. For a moment, you feel them. And then your rational brain kicks in.

Am I imagining this? Am I seeing what I want to see? Was that really them?

I know this dance between connection and doubt very well. After Sammy died, finding ways to stay connected to him became an important part of my grief and ultimately changed what I believe about death. But I also know how vulnerable these experiences can feel, especially when someone you love doesn’t believe what you believe.

My guest Rachel Stewart understands this deeply. Her 10-year-old daughter, Kenadie, died from cancer, and at the time, Rachel and her husband, Shane, had no real spiritual or religious framework for understanding where she had gone. Rachel desperately wanted to know Kenadie was still somewhere and that their relationship hadn’t simply ended.

But wanting to believe something and actually believing it are two very different things.

Rachel tells me about a medium reading that left her with questions until Shane casually revealed one detail that changed everything. We talk about the experiences that began challenging their skepticism, why Rachel kept asking Kenadie for more proof, and what happened when her very skeptical husband finally agreed to try energy healing himself.

We also get into something that doesn’t get talked about enough: what happens when you and the person you’re grieving with believe very different things? My husband and I don’t always interpret my experiences with Sammy the same way either. Rachel and I talk about how lonely that can feel and why you don’t need to convince anyone else in order to honor an experience that brings you comfort or connection.

In this episode, we talk about:

• The signs that began changing what Rachel believed about death

• A medium reading that took on an entirely different meaning after one unexpected detail
• Why powerful experiences don’t necessarily make skepticism disappear
• What happened when Shane agreed to try energy healing
• Meditation, grief and learning to quiet the noise enough to listen
• Whether seeking connection with someone who died can ever become a way of avoiding grief

• Grieving alongside a partner who doesn’t share your beliefs

How Rachel’s search for Kenadie eventually became For 11, the grief community she and Shane wished they’d had

If you’ve ever received what felt like a sign and then immediately talked yourself out of it, or if part of you desperately wants to believe your person is still with you while another part thinks, Come on, this can’t be real, I think you’ll find a lot in this conversation.

You don’t have to decide what you believe before you listen. There’s room for skepticism, curiosity and the possibility that love and relationship may continue in ways we don’t completely understand

Thank you again for the opportunity to be a guest on your podcast. I have put together a private, small invite only retreat for your listeners. Do you know when our episode will air. 
https://heatheralee.com/where-grief-finds-its-place-to-land

You can connect with Rachel through her website, For 11 Together, and follow her on Instagram and TikTok at @for11_together. Explore her Better Together resources and the For 11 community to learn more about the practices and experiences we discuss.

And if you want to explore more of how our brains, bodies, histories and emotional patterns shape the way we love and connect, find me on my other podcast, The Language of Love. Every week, I talk with leading experts and share what I’ve learned in more than 30 years as a therapist about relationships, intimacy and healing. You can find The Language of Love wherever you’re listening to Crying Out Loud.

This episode is also brought to you in part by Channeling Grief, a Substack by Elizabeth Kopple. After her 18-year-old son, Henry, died on his first day of college, Elizabeth turned to writing to explore grief and how we find connection, meaning, and a way forward after profound loss. Now a certified grief educator, she shares essays, interviews, and resources to help you feel seen and less alone. Subscribe for free at channelinggrief.substack.com. We're so grateful to Elizabeth for supporting Crying Out Loud and our grieving community.

And if you're looking for support, connection, or a place to feel less alone, Laura's book, Crying Out Loud: A Path Through Grief Into a Life Reimagined, and The Grief Healing Collective are here for you. If something in this episode spoke to your heart, share your story or send your questions to cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com.

None of us are meant to carry this alone.

I couldn’t remember things. I couldn’t concentrate. Words disappeared in the middle of sentences. I would walk into a room and have no idea why I was there. At times, I genuinely wondered what was happening to me.

If you’ve experienced grief brain, you know how frightening it can be. And there are real reasons for it.

Dr. Daniel Amen is a psychiatrist and brain health expert who has spent decades studying the brain. He’s the founder of Amen Clinics and the author of numerous New York Times bestsellers, including Change Your Brain, Change Your Lifeand his newest book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Pain.

I’ve known Daniel for more than twenty years, long before I knew grief from the inside. So I wanted to sit down with him and ask the questions I wish I’d had answers to after Sammy died: What is actually happening inside our brains when we’re grieving? Why can we suddenly feel cognitively impaired? And can a brain changed by profound loss heal?

We get into the science of grief brain, but this conversation goes much further. Daniel explains why grief can affect your memory, energy, sleep, gut and physical health, and why two people can experience the same kind of loss very differently.

We also talk about guilt and the loops our brains can get trapped in after trauma, the relationship between anger and forgiveness, and what happens in the brain when we meditate, pray or experience hope.

And we talk about something I care deeply about: what helps the brain begin to heal while we are still carrying the loss.

In this episode, we talk about:

• What “grief brain” actually is and why loss can affect memory, concentration and executive function

• Why grief can show up throughout the body, including in your gut

• Daniel’s concept of “brain reserve” and why people respond so differently to trauma and loss

• What happens in the brain when we experience hope

• Why guilt can become so persistent after someone dies and how to interrupt it

• The “doom loop” and “healing loop,” and the habits that reinforce each one

• The connection between unresolved anger, forgiveness and emotional pain

• What prayer, meditation and faith may do in the brain

• Why menopause can compound some of the cognitive changes women experience during grief

• What Daniel has learned about resilience after decades of studying the brain

If grief has ever made you wonder, “Am I losing my mind?” I really want you to hear this conversation.

There is a reason your brain doesn’t feel like the brain you had before your loss. Understanding what is happening can make it a little less frightening and, more importantly, help us understand what our brains need from us as we heal.

Don't forget to follow Dr. Daniel Amen and check out his newest book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Pain: Breaking the Doom Loop to Heal Chronic Physical and Emotional Pain. You can find more of his work on his website or by following him on Instagram and TikTok.

And if you want to explore more of how our brains, bodies, histories and emotional patterns shape the way we love and connect, come find me on my other podcast, The Language of Love.. Every week, I talk with leading experts and share what I’ve learned in more than 30 years as a therapist about relationships, intimacy and healing. You can find The The Language of Love wherever you’re listening to Crying Out Loud.

This episode is also brought to you in part by Channeling Grief, a Substack by Elizabeth Kopple. After her 18-year-old son, Henry, died on his first day of college, Elizabeth turned to writing to explore grief and how we find connection, meaning, and a way forward after profound loss. Now a certified grief educator, she shares essays, interviews, and resources to help you feel seen and less alone. Subscribe for free at channelinggrief.substack.com. We're so grateful to Elizabeth for supporting Crying Out Loud and our grieving community.

And if you're looking for support, connection, or a place to feel less alone, Laura's book, Crying Out Loud: A Path Through Grief Into a Life Reimagined, and The Grief Healing Collective are here for you. If something in this episode spoke to your heart, share your story or send your questions to cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com.

None of us are meant to carry this alone.

In 2018, Colin Campbell and his wife Gail were driving home from a family trip to Joshua Tree when a drunk driver slammed into their car at 90 miles an hour. Colin and Gail were knocked unconscious. When Colin opened his eyes, their two teenage children, Ruby and Hart, were already gone in the back seat.

There was no time to prepare. No ambulance ride spent hoping. No chance to say one more thing.

In the years since, Colin has become one of the most powerful and refreshingly honest voices in grief. He is the author of Finding the Words: Working Through Profound Loss with Hope and Purpose and the writer and performer behind the acclaimed solo show Grief: A One Man ShitShow. What I love about Colin's work is that he doesn't stay in the abstract. He talks about what it actually means to live with grief.

And that is where our conversation goes.

We talk about what happens when you stop trying to protect yourself from the pain. What grief can do to your marriage, your friendships, your identity, and even your sex life. Why guilt can become so tangled up with love. And how you begin allowing yourself to experience joy again without feeling as though you're betraying the people you lost.

This is a conversation about the parts of grief we don't always know how to talk about, and what it really takes to build a life that can hold devastating loss alongside love, connection, purpose, pleasure, and even joy.

If you've ever wondered how you're supposed to keep living when someone you love is no longer physically here, I think you'll find something in Colin's words that stays with you.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why feeling your grief may be very different from being consumed by it

• Colin's surprising "say yes" approach to life after loss

• The connection between our capacity for pain and our capacity for joy

• The "grief spiel" and the surprising way it can change your relationships

• Who you become when loss changes your sense of identity

• How a marriage survives when two people grieve the same loss differently

• Sex and intimacy after devastating loss, and why we need to talk about it

• The complicated relationship between guilt and love

• How rituals can help us carry what cannot be fixed

• The decision Ruby made before the crash that would take on extraordinary meaning years later

• What it means to become a parent again after losing your children

Don't forget to follow Colin Campbell and check out his book, Finding the Words: Working Through Profound Loss with Hope and Purpose. You can find more of his work, including his acclaimed solo show Grief: A One Man ShitShow, on his website or by following him on Instagram.

And if you're looking for support, connection, or a place to feel less alone, Laura's book, Crying Out Loud: A Path Through Grief Into a Life Reimagined, and The Grief Healing Collective are here for you. If something in this episode spoke to your heart, share your story or send your questions to cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com.

None of us are meant to carry this alone.

We can choose to show up for the grief instead of running from it, ask for support instead of carrying it alone, and slowly find our footing again. And sometimes, that small sense of agency can change the way we live with the loss.

Claire Bidwell Smith has spent her career teaching other people exactly how to do that. As a licensed therapist, a hospice clinician, and the author of five books, including Conscious Grieving and Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief, she has sat across from thousands of grievers and helped them make sense of the chaos loss leaves behind. 

In this episode of Crying Out Loud, Claire and I talk about what she calls conscious grieving: choosing to lean into loss with awareness instead of pushing it down or performing "fine" for everyone watching. We talk about why the body holds onto grief long after the mind tries to move on, why anxiety after loss is so often grief that never found anywhere else to go, and why guilt so often shows up dressed as love.

We also talk about the things people don't say out loud. The room you can't walk into. The phone you can't bring yourself to open. The way grief doesn't get smaller with time so much as it gets folded into who you become.

There's a moment in this conversation where Claire and I realize we've both made the same choice, refusing to open the phone that belonged to the person we lost. Neither of us could fully explain it in the moment. We didn't need to. Some things grievers just understand about each other.

If you have ever felt like grief turned you into a stranger in your own body, if you've carried guilt you couldn't quite explain, or if there's a room in your life you still can't bring yourself to enter, this conversation will meet you exactly where you are. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• What conscious grieving actually means, and how it differs from the grief we're taught to hide

• Why anxiety, panic, and physical symptoms are so often grief in disguise

• The neuroscience of "grief brain" and why your memory, sleep, and focus all take a hit

• The hidden intersection between grief and hormonal shifts like perimenopause

• Why guilt can become a way of staying close to the person you lost

• The difference between honoring someone and punishing yourself in their name

• Why some rooms, some drawers, some phones take years to face, and why that's not wrong

• Simple tools for calming an anxious body in the middle of a spiral, including breathwork and grief writing

• Claire's own path from skepticism to a continued, evolving relationship with her mother

• What it means to keep talking to someone after they're gone, and why so many grievers already do

• Why healing was never about leaving anyone behind

Don't forget to follow Claire Bidwell Smith and check out her books, including Conscious Grieving and Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief. You can find more of her work on her website.

And if you're looking for support, connection, or a place to feel less alone, my book, Crying Out Loud: A Path Through Grief Into a Life Reimagined, and The Grief Healing Collective are here for you. If something in this episode spoke to your heart, share your story or send your questions to cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com.

None of us are meant to carry this alone.

Meghan Riordan Jarvis knows that firsthand. She is a trauma therapist with more than 20 years of experience and the author of Can Anyone Tell Me? A book born from the questions grieving people ask every day but rarely receive honest answers to. Instead of treating grief as something to fix or get over, Meghan explores what it actually does to our bodies, our minds, and our relationships, offering the kind of validation so many people never receive. Her understanding of grief changed through two very different losses.

In 2017, Meghan's father died after a year-long illness. She describes those final months as watching him grow smaller, weekend after weekend, until he was gone. It was heartbreaking, but it felt like the kind of grief she had spent her career helping others navigate.

Two years later, everything changed. While they were on vacation together, Megan's mother died suddenly. The loss shattered every assumption she had about grief, including her own. A relentless voice began telling her it was her fault. What started as an intrusive thought became constant rumination, repeating so often that she recognized she was no longer coping. Eventually, she checked herself into the same inpatient treatment program where she had once referred her hardest clients, those whose grief and trauma required more intensive treatment. 

In this episode of Crying Out Loud, Meghan and I talk about what happened when her professional knowledge could no longer protect her, and what she learned after experiencing grief from the inside instead of the therapist's chair.

We explore why grief can disrupt memory, sleep, concentration, and appetite for much longer than most people expect, and why those reactions are part of how the brain responds to profound loss.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What grief does to the brain and why memory, sleep, and concentration are often affected

• Why brain fog is a normal response to loss, not a sign that you're falling apart

• The role anger plays in protecting us from overwhelming sadness

• Simple practices that help calm a nervous system under stress

• The thoughts so many grieving people experience but are afraid to say out loud

• What Meghan discovered at the deepest point of her grief, and how it reshaped the way she lives and helps others

If this conversation resonates with you, pick up a copy of Meghan's Can Anyone Tell Me? and visit her website or connect with her on Instagram for classes, guidance, and other grief resources.

And if you're looking for more support, you'll find it in my book, Crying Out Loud: A Path Through Grief Into a Life Reimagined, and inside The Grief Healing Collective. I'd also love to hear your thoughts on this episode. You can reach me anytime at cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com.

Carla Fernandez has spent years challenging that way of thinking. She is the author of Renegade Grief and co-founder of The Dinner Party, a community that has supported more than 20,000 young adults after the death of someone they love. Her work has helped reshape how a generation thinks about loss, replacing isolation with connection and making grief something people can share instead of hide.

In this episode of Crying Out Loud, I sit down with Carla to talk about what she calls renegade grief: choosing to grieve honestly in a culture that would rather you keep your pain quiet.

Together, we explore what happens when we stop trying to "move on" and start making room for grief instead. We talk about creating new rituals, building altars, taking grief pilgrimages, holding onto continuing bonds with the people we've lost, and why healing doesn't mean leaving someone behind.

This conversation isn't about fixing grief or making it disappear. It's about permitting yourself to grieve in a way that feels true to you and remembering that you never have to carry it alone.

• How Western culture became wired to avoid grief, and why the myth of “closure” is so damaging

• The truth about Freud’s theories on grief, and how even he changed his mind after his own loss

• Why connection with other grievers can be the most powerful catalyst for healing.

• How rituals and creativity emerge naturally from our longing to honor and remember

• Simple, deeply personal ways to keep bonds alive: altars, “grief quests,” and everyday practices that create meaning

• The immense value of finding (or becoming) a “grief ally,” and why your support may change another’s entire experience

• The misunderstood line between helping others and bypassing your own pain, and how to find a healthy balance

• How metaphysical beliefs, neuroscience, and cultural rituals intersect in the ongoing relationship we have with those we grieve

This one isn't about getting past your grief. It's about what happens the moment you stop trying to.

Find Carla's book, Renegade Grief (recently out in paperback) 

You don't have to carry this alone. My book, Crying Out Loud: A Path Through Grief Into a Life Reimagined, and The Grief Healing Collective are both here if you need them. And if something in this episode moved you, tell me at  cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com.

Press play. You'll never set the table the same way again.

But some losses don't look like loss at all.

They're the kind that keep you awake at night, staring at your phone, wondering if it will ring. They're the kind where your child is still alive, but addiction has taken so much of who they used to be. Or where your husband or wife still sits across from you at the dinner table, but Alzheimer's has slowly stolen the person you spent your life building memories with.

You find yourself missing someone who is still here.

You keep hoping that tomorrow will be different. That they'll come back to you. That you'll hear their laugh again, see that familiar spark in their eyes, have one more conversation that feels like the old days.

And because they're still alive, people don't always see your grief.

There's no funeral. No obituary. No clear moment when everyone agrees your life has changed forever. You're left carrying heartbreak that has no ceremony, no roadmap, and often, no words.

You're grieving someone who hasn't died, and at the same time, you're holding onto hope that maybe you haven't lost them completely.

For more than fifty years, my guest in this episode has been giving that experience a name.

Dr. Pauline Boss is a family therapist, researcher, and professor emerita at the University of Minnesota. She coined the term ambiguous loss, a concept that changed how we understand grief without an ending. It began with her research on the wives of soldiers missing in Vietnam, and it has since become the framework millions turn to for the losses that don't come with a clear before and after: a parent lost to dementia, a child in the grip of addiction, a family torn apart by estrangement, a loved one who simply goes missing. She's the author of several landmark books, including Ambiguous Loss, Loving Someone Who Has Dementia, and her most recent, The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change.

Her most radical idea may be her simplest: closure is a myth. And chasing it may be keeping you from actually healing.

In this Language of Love Conversation, I sit down with Dr. Boss to talk about what it means to grieve someone who is still, in some sense, unaccounted for. She walks me through the six pillars she's identified for building a life inside that uncertainty, why "both/and" thinking may be the most freeing shift a grieving person can make, and why the families who cope best are often the ones who stop trying to solve what cannot be solved. I also open up about the night my own son Sammy died, and the lesson my younger son taught me about what it really means to let your children see you grieve.

This episode is for anyone carrying a loss the world doesn't have a category for, and anyone ready to stop waiting for an ending that isn't coming so they can start living again.

• What ambiguous loss is, and why it can be even harder to carry than a loss with clear finality

• Why “closure” is a myth, and how to let go of the pressure to find it.

• How rituals, continuing bonds, and community can transform the lonely experience of ambiguous loss.

• Why watching someone you love struggle with addiction is its own form of ambiguous loss, and why that recognition can bring real relief

• Why "both/and" thinking, holding two opposing truths at once, may be the most honest form of coping

• The six guideposts Dr. Boss has identified for building resilience without closure

• Why grief and depression are not the same thing, and why that distinction matters

• How to memorialize someone when there's no grave, no headstone, and no clear ending

• How to support children through ambiguous loss

• What decades of working with the most unimaginable losses have taught Dr. Boss about the human spirit

To learn more about Dr. Pauline Boss and her work, visit her website, where you'll find her books, including The Myth of Closure and Ambiguous Loss, along with resources for families and professionals navigating loss without resolution.

If you are moving through grief, heartbreak, or a season of profound change, you do not have to carry it alone. Make sure to read my book, Crying Out Loud: A Path Through Grief Into a Life Reimagined. Also, The Grief Healing Collective offers support, connection, and a community that understands what it means to rebuild a life after loss.

If something in this conversation moved you, reach out at cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com. Healing does not happen in isolation. It happens in moments like this one.

It isn't only the moment she dies that hurts. It's all the moments that follow. The day you instinctively reach for your phone to call her. The holiday when her chair sits empty. The milestone you wish she could have witnessed. The ordinary Tuesday when you realize no one else remembers your childhood quite the way she did.

For many people, the grief doesn't disappear. It evolves. It resurfaces at unexpected moments, asking us to grow into it again and again.

For more than thirty years, Hope Edelman has helped millions of women understand that experience. After losing her own mother to breast cancer at seventeen, she searched for a roadmap that didn't exist. So she created one. Her groundbreaking book Motherless Daughters gave language to a grief that countless women had been carrying alone, becoming a New York Times bestseller and one of the most influential books ever written about the loss of a mother.

But after decades of listening to thousands of grieving daughters, Hope's understanding of grief has changed.

She no longer believes healing means moving on.

Instead, she believes our relationships with the people we love continue long after they're gone, and that learning how to carry them with us may be one of the most important parts of healing.

In this deeply moving conversation, Hope shares why the age you were when your mother died continues to shape your life, why siblings can experience the same loss in completely different ways, and why some part of us can remain the age we were when the person we loved died. She also shares the extraordinary story of a desperate moment on a New York City fire escape, when she reached out to her mother years after her death and received an answer she never expected.

Whether you've lost your mother, another parent, or anyone whose love helped shape who you are, this conversation offers both validation and hope. It reminds us that grief isn't something we finish. It's a relationship we learn to live alongside. And sometimes, the people we love continue to guide us in ways we never imagined.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why grief doesn't follow a timeline and can resurface decades after a loss.

• How your age at the time someone died may still influence your life today.

• Why siblings often experience the same loss in profoundly different ways.

• The surprising reason part of us can remain emotionally connected to the age we were when our loved one died.

• Why healing doesn't require letting go of the person you love.

• The signs, synchronicities, and continuing bonds many grieving people experience after loss.

• How healing is possible even when the relationship with your mother was complicated, distant, or painful.

To learn more about Hope Edelman, visit her website. On the homepage, you will find a free self-guided journal and video to support your grief journey. She also offers weekly support group calls, four-day retreats, and individual coaching.

If you are moving through grief, heartbreak, or a season of profound change, you do not have to carry it alone.  Make sure to read Dr Berman’s book, Crying Out Loud: A Path Through Grief Into a Life Reimagined. Also, The Grief Healing Collective offers support, connection, and a community that understands what it means to rebuild a life after loss.

If something in this conversation moved you, reach out at cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com. Healing does not happen in isolation. It happens in moments like this one.

My guest on this episode of Crying Out Loud is Rabbi Steve Leder, one of America's most respected rabbis and the bestselling author of The Beauty of What Remains. For decades, he has walked alongside thousands of individuals and families through death, illness, heartbreak, and unimaginable loss. Yet some of his deepest insights about grief didn't come from his years in the rabbinate. They came after the death of his own father, when he discovered that some of what he had believed and even taught about grief no longer felt true.

In this deeply moving conversation, Rabbi Leder shares what his own loss taught him about love, faith, regret, anger, forgiveness, and the ways grief continues to reshape us long after everyone else believes we should have moved on. We talk about why healing isn't measured by how much less something hurts, why grief arrives in waves we cannot control, and why learning to float may be one of the most important lessons any of us will ever learn.

What stayed with me most was Rabbi Leder's willingness to revisit beliefs he had held for years and admit where experience transformed his understanding. One small change in the way he now speaks to grieving families carries enormous wisdom, and I have thought about it ever since we recorded this conversation.

If you've ever wondered whether life can hold both heartbreak and hope, or how love continues after loss changes form, I think this episode will stay with you long after it ends.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Why Rabbi Steve Leder says he misunderstood grief until his own father died.

• The surprising reason healing isn't about hurting less.

• What grief and ocean waves have in common, and how learning to float can change everything.

• Why is anger after loss often protecting a deeper emotion.

• The regrets people carry at the end of life, and what they can teach us now.

• How faith changes when tragedy shatters what you thought you believed.

• The one-sentence Rabbi Leder no longer says to grieving families, and what he says instead.

• Why accepting help can be one of the hardest parts of grief.

• What forgiveness really asks of us after profound loss.

• The hidden meaning behind "the valley of the shadow of death."

• How heartbreak can deepen our capacity for connection, compassion, and joy.

To learn more about Rabbi Steve Leder, follow him on Instagram where he shares a weekly sixty-second reflection, and explore his book, The Beauty of What Remains.

And if you're moving through grief, heartbreak, or a season of profound change, you don't have to carry it alone. The Grief Healing Collective offers support, connection, and a community that understands what it means to rebuild a life after loss.

If this conversation moved you, reach out at cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com. Because healing doesn't happen in isolation, it happens in moments like this one.

Who are you then, and what do you do with questions you never needed before? Where is God in this? Is there meaning in suffering? Will you ever feel whole again?

For more than four decades, Marianne Williamson has sat with people in that exact space, helping them navigate what those questions awaken.

Marianne Williamson needs no introduction. But I'm going to give her one anyway, because she deserves it.

She's a spiritual teacher, a political force, and the author of seventeen books, including four number-one New York Times bestsellers. Her book A Return to Love has been a lifeline for millions, including me. I read it when I was searching for something I couldn't name, and it cracked me open in all the right ways.

So when I sat down with her for this episode, I knew we were going to go deep. What I didn't know was how deeply she would meet me and all of you right where we are.

This conversation is about grief, faith, and the delicate, impossible, sacred work of transforming pain into purpose. Marianne shares her own nights, the mystical experiences that reshaped her relationship with God, and why she believes suffering gives us "X-ray vision" into the suffering of others.

We talk about why we're so quick to bypass our pain, how men and women grieve differently, and what forgiveness really means when forgiveness feels like the last thing we want to offer.

And then, at the end, she leads us in a guided meditation so beautiful and so tender that I'm still feeling it as I write this. If you've ever wondered how to feel your loved ones on the other side, or if you've ever doubted they're still with you, this is for you.

This episode isn't about getting over grief. It's about letting grief transform us. It's about learning to hold devastation and grace in the same hand. And it's about discovering that even in our most shattered moments, we are never truly alone.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• Why grief isn't something to "get over" and how trying to rush it may be keeping you stuck.

• The distinction Marianne makes between tragedy and deep sadness

• The unexpected gift hidden inside suffering, and why Marianne believes pain gives us "x-ray vision" into the hearts of others.

• What faith really looks like in the middle of heartbreak, when nothing makes sense and hope feels out of reach.

• The surprising ways grief affects your mind, body, and spirit, including what Marianne calls the "full tilt catastrophe" of the dark night of the soul.

• The unexpected truth most don’t know about forgiveness.

• How to carry unbearable grief and profound joy at the same time, without betraying either one.

• A guided meditation that may forever change the way you experience the presence of loved ones who have passed.

To learn more about Marianne Williamson and her upcoming offerings, visit her website. You can also explore her book Tears to Triumph. 

And if you're moving through grief, heartbreak, or a season of profound change, you don't have to carry it alone. The Grief Healing Collective offers support, connection, and a community that understands what it means to rebuild a life after loss.

If this conversation moved you, reach out at cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com. Because healing doesn't happen in isolation,  it happens in moments like this one.

It was a breathtaking love letter, a farewell, and an extraordinary act of generosity. Written from hospice just days before her death, Amy introduced the world to the man she loved and gave him something few people ever receive: permission to love again someday.

The essay touched millions. Then Amy died.

And Jason was left to figure out how to build a life he never imagined.

In this deeply moving conversation, Jason shares the part of the story the world never got to see. He mistook the panic attacks for a heart attack. The doctor's forms ask for an emergency contact. The checkboxes that ask whether you're married or single but have no place for "widower." The quiet, disorienting work of rebuilding a life after losing the person who knew you best.

He also introduces us to the Amy behind the essay: endlessly creative, deeply joyful, and someone who found wonder in ordinary days. Jason reflects on watching her write that now-famous piece from across the room in hospice, never realizing he was witnessing the final gift she would leave him.

This conversation is about far more than grief. It's about identity, resilience, and what happens when love continues after loss. Jason speaks candidly about dating again, introducing a new partner to his children, navigating the guilt and hope that can coexist after profound loss, and discovering that moving forward doesn't require leaving the person you love behind.

Whether you're grieving a spouse, a child, a parent, a friend, or the future you thought you would have, this episode is a reminder that love doesn't end when someone dies. It changes form. And sometimes, if we're willing to let it, it becomes the very thing that helps us begin again.

In this episode, we explore:

• The story behind Amy Krouse Rosenthal's unforgettable Modern Love essay and what happened after the world stopped watching.

• The physical toll of grief, including panic attacks, exhaustion, and the ways loss lives in the body.

• Why ordinary moments, paperwork, and everyday questions can become some of grief's deepest triggers.

• How new losses awaken old grief and why healing is anything but linear.

• Dating and falling in love after losing the love of your life, including the guilt, grace, and hope that come with opening your heart again.

• The difference between creating a life after loss and learning to live a meaningful life with loss.

To learn more about Jason Rosenthal, visit his website or explore the Barr Harris Children and Family Grief and Loss Center and  memoir, My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me

And if you're moving through grief, heartbreak, or a season of profound change, you don't have to carry it alone. The Grief Healing Collective offers support, connection, and a community that understands what it means to rebuild a life after loss.

If this conversation moved you, reach out at cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com. Because healing doesn't happen in isolation,  it happens in moments like this one.

You lose someone you love. Your body begins changing in ways you don't fully understand. Your emotions feel bigger, your energy disappears, your patience thins, and the strategies that used to carry you through life suddenly stop working.

Many women blame themselves.

They wonder why they can't keep up. Why they feel anxious, overwhelmed, forgetful, exhausted, or unlike themselves. What they often don't realize is that they may be navigating two profound transitions simultaneously: grief and menopause.

In this episode of Crying Out Loud, I sit down with Zanne Hollingshead, trauma-informed wellbeing advocate, certified life coach, and founder of Midlife Magic, for a conversation about an intersection that affects countless women yet is rarely discussed.

For Zanne, this topic is deeply personal. After losing her mother at age ten and later losing her sister, who had become a second mother to her, she found herself searching for answers about grief, hormones, and the profound ways both shape our emotional and physical well-being. What began as a personal journey became a mission to help other women understand what is happening in their minds, bodies, and hearts during midlife.

Together, we explore what happens when grief and hormonal change arrive at the same time. We talk about the sudden waves of rage, the exhaustion that rest doesn't seem to touch, the brain fog, anxiety, overwhelm, and the feeling that you've somehow lost access to the person you used to be.

We also discuss why so many women have been left uninformed about perimenopause, how outdated medical messaging has contributed to unnecessary suffering, and what women can do to advocate for themselves and get the support they deserve.

Most importantly, this conversation offers a different way of understanding what you're experiencing. Rather than viewing these symptoms as evidence that something is wrong with you, what if they are signals that your body is asking for care, attention, and a new way of living?

This is a conversation about loss, hormones, identity, resilience, and self-compassion. It is a reminder that you are not failing. You may simply be carrying more than anyone can see.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• Why grief and menopause can intensify one another in surprising ways

• The symptoms of perimenopause many women overlook or dismiss

• How hormonal changes can affect mood, memory, sleep, and emotional regulation

• The hidden burden of being "the strong one"

• How grief impacts the nervous system and why that matters in midlife

• Why so many women feel like they've lost themselves during this season of life

• What women need to know about hormone therapy and other forms of support

• How to stop fighting your body and start listening to what it may be trying to tell you

To learn more about Zanne Hollingshead and her work, visit her website and/or her menopause community, Midlife Magic, where she offers education, resources, and community to women navigating midlife. 

And if you're moving through grief, heartbreak, or a season of profound change, know that you don't have to do it alone. The Grief Healing Collective offers support, connection, and a community that understands the unique challenges of rebuilding life after loss.

If this conversation resonated with you, we'd love to hear from you. Share your thoughts, questions, or story at cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com.

Because healing happens in connection. And no one should have to carry life's hardest seasons alone.

Some of us become caretakers. Some become achievers. Some become peacemakers. We learn how to earn love, avoid conflict, meet expectations, and survive the environments that shaped us. Over time, those adaptations can become so familiar that we mistake them for our personalities.

But what happens when the cost of staying disconnected from ourselves becomes too high to ignore?

In this episode of Crying Out Loud, I sit down with renowned physician, bestselling author, and trauma expert Dr. Gabor Maté for a powerful conversation about trauma, grief, illness, addiction, and the lifelong journey back to ourselves.

For more than five decades, Dr. Mate has explored the ways our emotional lives shape our physical health. Through his work in family medicine, palliative care, and addiction treatment, he has witnessed a truth that challenges much of what our culture believes about suffering: many of the struggles we experience as adults are not signs that something is wrong with us. They are adaptations to experiences that once helped us survive.

Together, we explore the hidden costs of self-abandonment and the ways unresolved trauma can quietly shape our relationships, our health, our parenting, and our sense of identity. We discuss why so many people carry guilt that does not belong to them, why sensitive children are often misunderstood, and how the pressure to be strong, agreeable, or selfless can disconnect us from our own needs.

This conversation also became unexpectedly personal.

Just over a year after the death of my son Sammy, I found myself sharing parts of my own story with Gabor. We talked about grief, parenting, guilt, and the questions that haunt so many bereaved parents. What emerged was not a conversation about blame. It was a conversation about understanding. About seeing ourselves through a lens of compassion rather than judgment.

What I appreciate most about Gabor's work is that he never asks us to fix ourselves. Instead, he invites us to become curious about the stories we've been living, the wounds we've been carrying, and the parts of ourselves we've learned to leave behind.

This episode is an invitation to do exactly that.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• How childhood adaptations become adult patterns

• Why self-abandonment is often mistaken for being "good"

• The connection between trauma, stress, and physical illness

• Why women disproportionately carry emotional burdens in their bodies

• A new way of understanding addiction that moves beyond blame and willpower

• The hidden roots of guilt and shame

• What highly sensitive children actually need from the adults who love them

• How grief can reactivate old wounds and unresolved pain

• The difference between healing and simply coping

• What it means to reconnect with your authentic self

To learn more about Dr. Gabor Maté and his work, visit his website and explore his books, including The Myth of Normal, When the Body Says No, and In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. His groundbreaking work has helped millions better understand the connections between trauma, health, relationships, and healing. 

And if you're navigating grief, loss, or a season of profound change, know that you don't have to do it alone. The Grief Healing Collective offers support, connection, and a community that understands the challenges of rebuilding life after loss.

If this conversation resonated with you, we'd love to hear from you. Share your thoughts, questions, or story at cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com.

Because healing begins when we stop running from our pain and start listening to what it has been trying to tell us all along.

What if the bond continues, even after death?

And what if some of the people who have shaped our lives most deeply, including our children, were connected to us long before this lifetime began?

In this episode of Crying Out Loud, I sit down with psychic, spiritual teacher, and bestselling author Ainslie MacLeod for a conversation that challenged the way I think about grief, loss, and the soul's journey.

For more than 25 years, Ainslie has helped people understand the deeper purpose behind their struggles, relationships, fears, and life experiences through the lens of past lives and soul evolution. But this conversation is not just theoretical.

Two years ago, Ainslie and his wife Christine experienced every parent's worst nightmare when their daughter India died by suicide.

Together, we talk about what helped them survive the unimaginable, why grief affects each of us so differently, and what Ainslie's work has taught him about what happens after we die.

We explore the possibility that our souls travel together across lifetimes, that our deepest fears may have roots beyond this life, and that the people we miss most may still be far closer than we realize.

Ainslie also shares why he believes the universe holds no judgment for those who die by suicide, how he and Christine stayed connected through their grief, and what he has learned from thousands of readings about the enduring nature of love.

Along the way, I share a story about Sammy that still takes my breath away and reminds me why I believe our loved ones continue to find ways to reach us.

Whether you are curious about past lives or simply longing for reassurance that your connection to your loved one has not ended, this conversation offers hope, perspective, and a different way of understanding loss.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why two people can experience the same loss and grieve in completely different ways

• What Ainslie believes happens to us after death

• Why the universe holds no judgment for those who die by suicide

• How he and his wife survived the loss of their daughter without losing each other

• The surprising stories children sometimes tell about choosing their parents before birth

• How soul agreements may shape our closest relationships

• Why certain fears, phobias, and emotional wounds may not begin in this lifetime

• What karma really is and why it has nothing to do with punishment

• Why talking to your loved one after they die may be more healing than you realize

• What thousands of readings have taught Ainslie about the connection between souls

• How meaning can emerge from devastating loss without minimizing the pain

• Why love may be the one thing death cannot touch

If you've ever found yourself wondering where your loved one is, whether they can still hear you, or whether you'll see them again, this episode is for you.

But when her father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Kris found herself facing something entirely different: the long, slow heartbreak of anticipatory grief.

In this deeply honest episode of Crying Out Loud, Kris opens up about the years between diagnosis and goodbye, the emotional exhaustion of loving someone while knowing you are losing them, and the conversations so many families are terrified to have until it’s too late.

Together, we talk about what happens when grief begins long before death, why caregiving can stir up old wounds and unexpected rage, and how loss changes not only your heart, but your body, memory, identity, and nervous system too.

Kris shares the moment she realized that real love sometimes means being willing to sit beside someone and talk openly about dying. We also explore the loneliness many dying people quietly carry, even when surrounded by people who love them deeply.

I also share my own experience after losing Sammy, including the moment on the beach that shifted how I understood presence, grief, and continued connection forever.

This conversation is ultimately about what it means to truly show up for the people we love, how grief reshapes us long before and long after death, and why love does not disappear when someone leaves this physical world.

In this episode, we explore:• What anticipatory grief really feels like when you are living beside illness every day• Why caregiving and grief can awaken old trauma, rage, and emotional exhaustion• The conversations about death most families avoid and why they matter so much• How grief impacts the nervous system, memory, body, and sense of identity• What it means to continue a relationship with someone after they die• Why grief changes form over time, but love never truly leaves

If this episode moves you, check out Kris's book I'm Not a Mourning Person. You can find her on Instagram and listen to her speaking online.

As always, I'd love to hear from you. Share your story or send your questions to cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com. And if you're looking for a place to connect with people who truly understand, the Grief Healing Collective is there for you.

None of us were meant to carry this alone. Let's cry out loud together.

You've done the therapy. You've meditated. You've read the books. You've "done the work." And then life hits you with a pandemic, a friend's suicide, a divorce, and a toddler, all in the same week.

So now what?

In this episode of Crying Out Loud, I sit down with Devi Brown, a meditation teacher, podcaster, author of Living in Wisdom, and a self described wounded healer. Devi has spent over a decade studying healing traditions from around the world, but nothing could fully prepare her for the cascade of loss she experienced during the pandemic. What she discovered, in her own words, is that when you stop trying to tape the pieces back together and instead let yourself shatter completely, something miraculous happens: you meet God in the rubble.

Devi is warm, radically honest, and refreshingly un precious about pain. She doesn't promise that meditation will make it all go away. Instead, she offers a guide for staying present, feeling the feelings society tells you to hide, and finding tiny, daily moments of joy even when your heart is at the bottom of the ocean.

In this episode, I also share my own journey of losing my son Sammy and then navigating my eldest child's suicidal crisis, and how that "assignment" forced me to finally build a relationship with God. Devi and I explore why the original wound is always the root, why awareness is only the first step, and how mudras  can unlock energetic channels you didn't even know were closed.

In this episode, we explore:

• What it's like to lose a friend to suicide and a marriage in the same week while parenting a toddler during a pandemic

• Why the more healing work you do, the harder life sometimes seems to hit back

• The difference between self esteem and self worth, and why worth cannot be earned

• How to outsource your emotional safety from people to God even if you weren't raised with faith

• The tiny joys practice and how a leaf, a copper dish, and sunlight through smoke can save your life

• Why your original wound is the queen bee and how healing it dissolves everything else

• The trap of intellectualizing your feelings instead of actually feeling them in your body

• What mudras are and how simple hand positions open energetic channels you didn't know were closed

• Why meditation often makes you angry or restless at first and why that's actually a good sign

• The difference between chasing happiness and recognizing enoughness

• How bearing witness to deep sorrow creates more capacity for real joy

• What it means to be a wounded healer and why God sometimes commands you to be on your knees

• The guilt and surrender of watching a child struggle with suicidal thoughts after already losing another child

• Why you don't need to know what God looks like to start a real relationship with the divine

• What it feels like when advanced meditation becomes deeply pleasurable and even euphoric

Devi Brown is someone who has done the work  not the performative kind, but the real, on-your-knees, let-it-all-shatter kind. You can find Devi Brown on Instagram, tune into her Deeply Well Podcast, or join the Presence app for her daily meditations. Her new book, Living in Wisdom, is available on Amazon.

If you are seeking community, don’t forget the Grief Healing Collective is there for support, connection, and hope.

If this episode moves you, share your story or send your questions to cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com. None of us are meant to walk these roads alone—let’s feel, heal, and awaken together.

In this episode of Crying Out Loud, I sit down with Kelly Rizzo, food and travel creator, host of the podcast Comfort Food, and the woman who loved Bob Saget. She is warm, self-aware, and honest about the strange terrain of sudden loss, unexpected joy, and the guilt that seems to follow both.

Kelly met Bob the old-fashioned way; he slid into her DMs and fell for him slowly, then all at once. Their marriage was only three years old when he died suddenly in January 2022, after what she describes as the best show of his life. What followed was a grief that was both deeply private and relentlessly public, played out on morning shows with swollen eyes and in quiet moments alone in a kitchen that would never feel the same.

In this conversation, Kelly shares what it was like to navigate loss at a level of visibility most of us can't imagine, how she learned everything she knows about grief from Bob himself, and why, four years later, she's finally in therapy and newly, beautifully in love.

We also go deep together. I share my own experience of navigating a suicidal child after losing Sammy, and what it taught me about releasing control and trusting my own resilience. And together we talk about what grief does to the people around us, the surprising anchors and the unexpected boats, and why sometimes a hand emoji from John Mayer says everything.

In this episode, we explore:

• What it’s like to grieve a partner in the public eye while the whole world is watching

• The private love story behind Bob Saget and the man most people never saw

• Why grief reshapes every relationship and who actually shows up when it matters

• The guilt of feeling joy again and how to let yourself love without betrayal

• What it really takes to release control after devastating loss

• The small moments of connection that can carry you through the darkest time

• How to navigate letting go of a shared life while still honoring it

• The difference between holding on and staying connected

• What it looks like to open your heart again after you thought you never could

• How grief, when you move through it, can become a portal into resilience, love, and a more honest life

Kelly Rizzo is a force, not because she has it all figured out, but because she shows up honestly for herself and for others, even when it's hard. You can find her on Instagram, and tune into her podcast Comfort Food wherever you listen. To join her warm and intimate community, check out Comfort Club.

As always, I'd love to hear from you. Share your story or send your questions to cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com. And make sure to pre-order my new book, Crying Out Loud, to be supported through loss and learn how to use your pain as a portal of transformation. Also, if you're looking for a place to connect with people who truly understand, the Grief Healing Collective is there for you. None of us were meant to carry this alone. Let's cry out loud together.

We plan weddings. We plan careers. We plan retirement.But when it comes to the end of our lives, most of us are completely unprepared… emotionally, practically, and spiritually.

And what if that avoidance is actually costing us something much bigger than we realize?

In this episode of Crying Out Loud, I sit down with Alua Arthur, death doula, attorney turned activist, and New York Times bestselling author of Briefly Perfectly Human. Her life’s work is built on a powerful truth: when we are willing to look directly at death, everything about how we live begins to shift.

Alua didn’t arrive here in a straight line. After building a life that looked right on paper but felt misaligned inside, she found herself in a deep depression that forced her to stop. During that time, she took a trip to Cuba where a chance conversation on a bus with a woman facing terminal cancer changed everything. Talking about that woman’s death brought her back to her own life.

Today, as a death doula, Alua provides non-medical, deeply human support to people at the end of their lives and to those who love them. She helps people face their fears, make meaning, and create a more conscious, intentional relationship with dying.

But this conversation is not just about death. It’s about how grief itself is a kind of death.How loss reshapes us. And how, when we stop resisting what ends, we can begin to live more honestly, more fully, and more aligned with what actually matters.

We talk about what it means to accompany someone to the edge, and what that process asks of us as the ones still here.

This is one of those conversations that stays with you.

In this episode, we explore:

• What a death doula actually does and why this work matters
• The moment on a bus in Cuba that changed the trajectory of Alua’s life
• How facing death can bring clarity, meaning, and even freedom
• Why grief is its own kind of death and how it can transform you
• The difference between dying happening to you and dying as a conscious process
• What it really means to have a “good death”
• Why witnessing death can be both devastating and deeply clarifying
• How to support someone who is in the dying process
• Why so many people seem to die when loved ones step out of the room
• The emotional and spiritual impact of what is left unsaid
• What end-of-life planning actually includes (and why it matters now, not later)
• How thinking about death can radically change how you live

If this conversation moved you, pick up Alua’s book Briefly Perfectly Human, it’s part memoir, part manifesto, and a powerful reflection on what it means to be alive. You can find her death meditation series, Grace in Dying  at her website, Going with Grace, where you’ll also discover information on death doula trainings, retreats, and ways to engage more deeply with your own mortality. Connect with her on Instagram and LinkedIn, and explore her offerings there. 

As always, I'd love to hear from you. Share your story or send your questions to cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com. And if you're looking for a place to connect with people who truly understand, the Grief Healing Collective is there for you. None of us were meant to carry this alone. Let's cry out loud together.

Most of us think grief is something we move through, step by step, until we’re “on the other side.”

But what if that’s not true?

In this deeply moving episode of Crying Out Loud, I sit down with pastor, storyteller, and grief advocate John Onwuchekwa to explore a different truth. One that might completely reframe the way you understand loss.

Because according to John, tragedy doesn’t ruin us.

Hopelessness does.

On April 14, 2015, John’s life split into a before and after when his younger brother Sam died suddenly. What followed wasn’t a neat “healing journey.” It was the unraveling of everything he thought he knew about faith, control, and what it means to survive loss.

And then, two years later, on that exact same date… something unexpected happened.

A moment John calls a “small wink.”

A moment that didn’t erase his grief, but changed the way he carried it.

This conversation is about what it really looks like to live with grief, not past it.

It’s about questioning the stories we’ve been told, finding language for the unspeakable, and discovering how hope can exist without forcing meaning too soon.

If you’ve ever wondered:Am I grieving the “right” way?Why does this still hurt so much?Will I ever feel like myself again?

This episode will meet you exactly where you are.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why the idea of “grief as a journey” can quietly harm more than it helps
• The subtle ways we’ve been taught to perform our grief
• How storytelling becomes a lifeline in the aftermath of loss
• What it means to live “another life” after everything changes
• Why grief doesn’t expire… and what that actually means
• The difference between numbness that protects and numbness that traps
• How loss can dismantle faith and rebuild it into something more honest
• Why doubt might be the very thing that deepens your connection to the divine
• What it means to speak grief fluently, with just a hint of hope
• Why patience is the most underrated (and essential) grief practice
• How to truly show up for someone at rock bottom

If this conversation resonates with you, check out John’s book We Go On for more insights. You can also explore more of his work at johno.co and connect with him on LinkedIn. His nonprofit, We Go On Studio, hosts gatherings in cities around the world for people learning how to live with both grief and hope.

As always, I’d love to hear from you. Share your story or send your questions to cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com. And if you’re looking for a place to connect with people who truly understand, the Grief Healing Collective is there for you.

None of us were meant to carry this alone. Let’s cry out loud together.

That quiet voice that says you should be further along… that you should be handling it better… that somehow, if you had done one thing differently, they might still be here…

I hear that voice every single day in my work. And I’ve felt it in my own grief too.

But here’s the truth: you’re not doing grief wrong. We’ve just been taught to understand it wrong.

In this episode, I’m joined by David Kessler, one of the world’s leading grief experts, known for his work on the five stages of grief alongside Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, and the author of Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief.

But to me, David isn’t just an expert.

He’s a friend. And he’s the man who stood in my backyard less than a week after my son Sammy died… who sat with my husband and my youngest son, holding our fear and our shame without trying to fix it.

When I felt called to go deep into the redwoods to face my own darkness, David was the one who said, “I’ve got them.”

He supported my family then, and he remains a steady presence in our lives today.

David Kessler isn’t just a grief authority. He’s someone I deeply trust.

In this conversation, we pull back the curtain on what healing actually looks like beyond the myths and the stages we’ve been sold. We explore why grief is never linear, why acceptance isn’t a finish line, and why meaning doesn’t come from the death itself, but from the life you live afterward.

We explore: 

• Why the pressure to “move on” actually keeps people stuck in grief

• What the sixth stage of grief really looks like beyond the theory

• The subtle mistake people make when trying to “find meaning” too soon

• Why grief has no timeline, and what to trust instead

• A powerful reframe for guilt that can instantly soften self-blame

• What we misunderstand about “prolonged grief” and why it matters

• Why old wounds resurface during loss and how to work with them

• The difference between surviving your grief and being transformed by it

• One belief about healing that quietly holds so many people back

• How even the most traumatic loss can eventually become something sacred

Don’t forget to check out David’s work at grief.com. His new workbook, Finding Meaning, is available at griefbook.com and comes with a free three-part class to help walk you through it. 

As always, I want to hear from you. Share your story or send questions to cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com. And if you need a place to connect with people who truly get it, visit the Grief Healing Collective. None of us were meant to do this alone. Let’s cry out loud together.

As two mothers who have both experienced the devastating loss of a child, we speak honestly about what grief teaches us. Iyanla shares about losing two daughters, Jamia and Nisa, and how those experiences were profoundly different. When Jamia crossed over, grief taught her the difference between grief and mourning. By the time Nisa transitioned, she had already spent decades doing the deep inner work of spiritual hygiene. Because of that, she was able to meet the second loss from a very different spiritual place, still grieving but grounded in what she had learned.

Iyanla  reminds us that it’s from our most broken states that we can begin to reconfigure our body, mind, and soul in new ways.  

We explore:

• The idea of spiritual hygiene and why healing begins with returning to wholeness

• Why the loss of love pulls us into grief quickly and deeply

• Grief as a powerful teacher and  initiator in a grief-illiterate society

• The key difference between grief and mourning

• The moment Iyanla  realized she had to let her daughter go nine months before she passed

• How to stop the  “should have, could have, would have” guilt loops in which  so many grievers stay stuck. 

• How to release negative thoughts that feel sticky. 

• The spiritual moments that shaped Iyanla’s path, including a mysterious encounter during postpartum depression and the message she received after her second loss

Remember to check out Iyanla’s book Spiritual Hygiene and her new show The Inside Fix. You can also connect with Iyanla through her website and on Instagram.

If you’d like to share your story or ask a question, email cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com.

And if you want to get healing support and connect with others on the same path, visit the Grief Healing Collective.

None of us were meant to grieve alone.

Let’s cry out loud together.

As I share throughout this podcast, on February 7, 2021, my 16-year-old son Sammy was sent a drug dealer by Snapchat who sold him counterfeit drugs laced with  fentanyl. Like many parents, I believed my child was safe at home. We had talked about social media safety. I worried about online predators, explicit photos, and the risks teenagers face online. But it never occurred to me that drugs could be ordered through social media and delivered to our home as easily as ordering takeout.

What happened shattered my heart and my understanding of what “safe at home” really meant.

In the days, months, and years after losing Sammy, I began recording reflections simply to process what I was living through. I wasn’t thinking about creating a podcast. I was simply trying to survive the unimaginable. Those recordings eventually became what I now call The Losing Sammy Diaries.

This episode brings together four chapters from The Losing Sammy Diaries, recorded across the weeks, months, and years after Sammy’s death. Each chapter offers a snapshot along my trajectory through grief, showing how pain, understanding, and healing gradually evolve over time.

Chapter One: Ground Zero

One Week After Losing Sammy

• What the earliest days of grief actually feel like

• The story of what happened to Sammy and the growing fentanyl crisis

• The dangers of social media platforms that many families like mine were blind to

• The powerful and surprising response I got  from families across the country 

• The role of surrender and softening in the midst of devastating loss

• Why being present with pain and releasing it from the body can be an important part of grief healing

• Why I made the difficult decision to leave my home and family for a bit just a few weeks after Sammy’s death 

Chapter Two: The Redwood Odyssey

Three Months After Losing Sammy

• My profound personal odyssey experienced in the Redwoods of California

• How somatic experiencing opened a new doorway for processing grief

• The emotional releases that can happen when grief moves through the body

• The healing power of nature, long walks through the forest, and hugging trees

• My unforgettable “glittering forest” experience in the redwoods

• The seeds of something new that were beginning to form

Chapter Three: Two Funerals and a Birthday Party

Six Months After Losing Sammy

• What my mother’s death taught me about moving with loss

• The difference between spiritual connection and spiritually bypassing pain

• The unexpected role my dog played in my healing

• The fifteen-minute grounding practice that can help you move grief through the body

• Why allowing ourselves to receive love from others can be part of healing

• The beautiful release ceremonies and the two funerals we had honoring Sammy’s life

• Why there is no right or wrong way for partners to grieve in a marriage

• The deeper questions grief raises about what remains after death

Chapter Four: The Metamorphosis

Three Years After Losing Sammy

• The origin of the Crying Out Loud 

• The moment I realized grief had fundamentally changed who I am

• What happened on our first ever grieving mama retreat

• The insights I’ve gained around healing after years of navigating loss

• The practices that helped me begin rebuilding life

• The Six Pillars of Healing that grew out of this journey

• How grief can become a portal for transformation

This episode is about living our truth, feeling our feelings, and allowing love to continue even after loss.

We want to hear from you!. If you’d like to share your story or have a question or topic you’d like covered, reach out at cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com.

If you’re looking for live healing resources and connection with others walking a similar path, check the Grief Healing Collective, a supportive community where people navigating loss come together to share experiences, learn tools for healing, experience live healing sessions and support groups.

None of us were meant to grieve alone. Let’s cry out loud together.

Five years ago, I never imagined I would be here. I was a well-known and busy  love and relationship expert. But on February 7, 2021, my 16-year-old son Sammy was sent a drug dealer by Snapchat who sold him counterfeit drugs laced with  fentanyl. I had experienced painful loss before,both my parents, my grandmothers and others close to me. But suffice it to say,  Sammy’s death showed me how much the heart can hold.

Grief can transform you. Not because it gets smaller, but because we grow bigger around it. In this episode, I share some of my grief journey and what I’ve learned is possible in healing. 

We explore: 

• The story of Sammy’s passing

• Why grief is not something to fix or finish

• The Six Pillars of Healing that changed my life and can change yours

• How to surf the waves of grief instead of drowning in them

• How grief can become a portal of transformation

• The concept of “getting bigger” around your grief

• Why it’s important to never  apologize for crying

• How loss reshapes friendships and relationships

• What it means to continue loving someone beyond form

This episode is about living your truth, feeling your feelings, and letting love continue beyond form. 

If you want to share your story or have questions, email me at cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com. Check out The Losing Sammy Diaries at your leisure to get a sense of how grief evolves over time, and if you want to get healing support and connect with others on the same path, visit the Grief Healing Collective. None of us were meant to grieve alone. Let’s cry out loud together.