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"Let's talk about death, because life is urgent." -- Alex Aldarondo What if facing death honestly is how we learn to live more fully? In this episode of Grief and Light™, Nina Rodriguez sits down with Alexander Aldarondo Jiménez, an end-of-life doula, educator, and founder of AMORir, Puerto Rico's first end-of-life doula collective. Joining from Puerto Rico, Alex explains what a death doula does, why dying has become so medicalized and transactional, and how communities can reclaim it as something we hold together. Nina brings her own lens. She recently lost her grandfather in Puerto Rico after he spent time in hospice, and she lost her 32-year-old brother suddenly. Together, they explore what grief-literate, death-literate care could look like. You will learn: What an end-of-life doula (death doula) is and how the role differs from hospice and palliative careWhy the body knows how to die, and how families can support the processAlex's four pillars of death education: social, cultural, legal, and mentalWhy advance directives matter and what happens without oneHow Amorir is redesigning the symbols, language, and rituals of death in Puerto RicoHow to talk about suicide, awareness, and prevention with nuanceWhy "amar y morir" (to love and to die) can coexistAlex's question for you:  Does your family know what you would want at the end of life? About the Guest Alexander Aldarondo Jimenez is an end-of-life doula, educator, and founder of Amorir, Puerto Rico's first end-of-life doula collective. His work includes community workshops, end-of-life doula trainings, and a cultural redesign initiative that brings artists and creatives together to reimagine death in Puerto Rico. Key Takeaways An end-of-life doula provides non-medical support: planning, education, emotional presence, and community care circles.Most people seek help too late. Planning early, even in healthy years, protects both the dying person and the family.Few people know the legal side of death: advance directives, body disposition, death certificates, and inheritance.Over-medicalized death is tied to a wider loss of trust in our own inner wisdom.Talking about death can feel liberating, even joyful.Connect with Alexander Aldarondo and Amorir Website: amorir.orgInstagram: @amorirprFacebook: Amorir PRVirtual sessions via Zoom are available for people in the diaspora and the U.S. Alex is open to interviews and collaborations.A Note on Care: This episode includes a conversation about suicide. It is educational, not medical or mental health advice. Please honor your capacity to engage with this content.  If you are in the U.S. and need support, call or text 988.  Outside of the U.S., please call your nearest hospital for local resources. You may also visit findahelpline.com for additional assistance. Subscribe and Share Follow Grief and Light™ wherever you listen. A rating or review helps more people find these conversations.Know someone who is caring for a dying loved one or wants to plan ahead? Send them this episode.Learn more at griefandlight.comSend us Fan Mail Support the show Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.  🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick New episodes wherever you watch or listen. Connect with Nina Rodriguez: griefandlight.com@griefandlightResting Grief Face on SubstackThank you for listening!  If this conversation resonated with you: ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

What happens when grief meets music, community, and the question of what we might do with the pain we carry? Nina sits down with singer-songwriter, community activist, and Reimagine co-founder Brad Wolfe for a conversation about loss, meaning-making, mortality, and what can become possible when we stop trying to turn away from what hurts. Twenty years ago, Brad was playing music at the bedside of his friend Sarah, who was dying from a rare pediatric bone cancer. What began as an intimate act of care became something much larger, eventually inspiring the Sunbeam Foundation and shaping the work Brad would go on to do with Reimagine, a platform and national movement helping people turn toward loss in community and channel that experience into meaningful action. But Sarah's story is only one thread of this conversation. Brad and Nina talk about the ways grief can be inherited through family stories, including Brad's experience growing up with grandparents who survived Auschwitz and the lasting impact of his grandmother's testimony. They explore our fear of death and hospitals, the role of music at the bedside, and why expressing pain in the presence of others can create room for connection rather than keeping us stuck. Brad also shares several of the frameworks that have emerged from his work, including Tap Into Your Purpose, which looks at the intersection of talent, anger, and passion, and the idea of "right-sizing the dream" when life changes what is possible. Brad shares the stories behind songs including Sarah's Got a Sunbeam, Why Wait, and Cover You in Flowers, along with his Lost Life and Love Mixtapes project. This conversation isn't about finding a silver lining in loss. It's about asking a different question: What might become possible when we turn toward pain together? Because sometimes grief and meaning aren't either/or. They can both be true. In this episode How playing music at Sarah's bedside changed Brad's relationship with griefThe connection between music, physical comfort, and emotional processingHow Sarah's death eventually led to the Sunbeam FoundationGrowing up with the stories and legacy of Holocaust-survivor grandparentsWhat inherited grief can look likeWhy turning toward pain can be different from getting stuck in itThe role of community in grief and meaning-makingBrad's Tap Into Your Purpose exercise: Talent + Anger + Passion = PurposeWhy anger can be information about what matters to usWhat it means to right-size the dream after loss or major life changeMusic, mortality, legacy, and the Lost Life and Love MixtapesFinding ways to channel grief into action without feeling pressured to "do something" with your painMeet Brad Wolfe: Brad Wolfe is a singer-songwriter, community activist, and co-founder of Reimagine, a platform and national movement that helps people turn toward loss in community and transform experiences of grief into meaningful action. He is also a musician with Brad Wolf and the Moon, and his music explores themes of loss, love, mortality, and meaning. bradwolfe.comIG: @bradwolfemoonWhat is Reimagine? Reimagine is a platform and movement centered on turning toward loss together and creating meaningful action from difficult experiences. Through free events and a digital platform, Reimagine brings people together around grief, mortality, caregiving, serious illness, death, and other forms of loss. The goal isn't to "fix" grief, but to create opportunities for connection, expression, creativity, and meaning-making. Nina has been involved with Reimagine as a facilitator for more than three years, making this conversation with Brad an especially meaningful one. letsreimagine.orgIG: @letsreimagineRight-Sizing the Dream: One of the ideas Brad shares is "right-sizing the dream." After a major loss or life-changing diagnosis, the dream we once had may no longer fit the life we're living. Right-sizing doesn't mean abandoning what matters to us. It means asking what is possible now, given our energy, circumstances, capacity, and reality. Brad shares the example of a woman living with stage-four cancer who wanted to write a book. When that no longer felt realistic, she created bookmarks that expressed what she was feeling instead. Those small creations became invitations for conversation with other patients. Sometimes the meaningful thing isn't the biggest thing. Sometimes it's the thing we can actually make today. Tap Into Your Purpose: Brad's Tap Into Your Purpose exercise invites us to consider three things: Talent + Anger + Passion = Purpose What are you good at?What makes you angry or unsettles you?What are you deeply passionate about?Rather than treating anger as something to suppress or get rid of, the exercise asks us to consider what our anger might be telling us about what matters to us. Where those three things intersect can offer clues about where we might want to direct our energy. There is no requirement to turn your grief into a project or your pain into a purpose. But if you feel called to do something with that energy, this can be one place to begin. A note for listeners: This episode includes conversations about childhood cancer, death, the Holocaust, mortality, and grief. Please take care of yourself while listening and pause or step away if needed. Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: PK2NITARJOCDALYF Send us Fan Mail Support the show Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.  🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick New episodes wherever you watch or listen. Connect with Nina Rodriguez: griefandlight.com@griefandlightResting Grief Face on SubstackThank you for listening!  If this conversation resonated with you: ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

Life as you know it can change in an instant, leaving us with more questions than answers. Welcome to Season 5 of Grief and Light™, a two-time award-winning podcast where grief is met with curiosity instead of clichés, and hope is offered without bypassing pain. We’re continuing to make room for honest, grief-informed conversations and to challenge the cultural narratives that tell us how grief is supposed to look, feel, or unfold. We’ll explore grief, loss, resilience, post-traumatic growth, identity shifts, and meaning-making while also asking what it means to meet a moment of collective uncertainty and change. This season, we’re also widening the lens. Who is asking the questions we need to be asking? Who is imagining and building the spaces, relationships, and communities that might support us through the shifts ahead? And what are we creating now that could help us navigate what we don’t yet know? Because grief isn’t only about what we lose. It can change how we see, what we value, what we create, and what becomes possible. Whether you’re grieving a person or beloved pet, a relationship, a dream, an identity, a version of your life, or simply trying to make sense of the world as it is, you’re in the right place. For grief and joy. Love and loss. Heartache and hope. Uncertainty and possibility. Season 5 of Grief and Light premieres September 29, 2026. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and join me for the conversations ahead. Send us Fan Mail Support the show Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.  🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick New episodes wherever you watch or listen. Connect with Nina Rodriguez: griefandlight.com@griefandlightResting Grief Face on SubstackThank you for listening!  If this conversation resonated with you: ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

What happens when life has already surprised you in the worst possible way? After loss, staying open to possibility can feel complicated. When you’ve experienced something you never imagined could happen, the instinct to control what comes next can become a form of protection. But what if possibility doesn’t require optimism, certainty, or believing that everything will work out? In the final conversation of our three-part Summer Shifts Series, Lisa Keefauver and Nina Rodriguez explore what it means to meet life differently after loss. Together, we look at the space between what happened and what comes next, and consider whether getting unstuck is less about figuring out the future and more about becoming available to what life might still hold. This conversation explores: Why control can become a grief responseThe difference between being surprised by life and being open to surpriseHow loss can change our relationship with uncertaintyLisa’s daily practice of wonder through breast cancer, widowhood, and multiple lossesNina’s reflections on losing her grandfather after experiencing the sudden death of her brotherWhy possibility is not the same thing as toxic positivityWhat happens when we shift from “I have to” to “I get to”Small practices that can help us notice beauty, wonder, and aliveness againThe role of creativity, curiosity, and agency in life after lossHow we can make room for joy without asking grief to leaveThe story of Dr. Tasha Faruqui and her family's "suck the joy out of life" motto (Watch their episode here)Mary Oliver’s invitation to pay attention, be astonished, and tell about itRosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem “Because Today Vulnerable Feels Alive”About The Summer Shifts Series: This episode is the final installment of our three-part Summer Shifts Series, exploring what can happen when we approach life after loss through curiosity, creativity, and possibility. Part 1: Living Into the Questions (replay) What if you didn’t need answers to move forward? Part 2: Shifting Our Stories (replay) What story are you still carrying, and what might you write instead? Part 3: Meeting Life Differently How are you letting life surprise you? Together, these conversations explore a different way of thinking about getting unstuck: LOSS → IDENTITY DISRUPTION → STUCK STORY → CURIOSITY → CREATIVITY → POSSIBILITY A note from Nina: After loss, we can spend so much energy trying to figure out how to move forward that we forget something important. We don't have to know what comes next in order to begin meeting life differently. Possibility isn't a promise that something good will happen, but a willingness to notice, wonder, try something without knowing where it leads, and letting life surprise you. And sometimes, that is enough for today. What might become possible if you stopped asking yourself what comes next and started asking what is here now? Send us Fan Mail Support the show Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.  🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick New episodes wherever you watch or listen. Connect with Nina Rodriguez: griefandlight.com@griefandlightResting Grief Face on SubstackThank you for listening!  If this conversation resonated with you: ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

Grief has a way of convincing us that loss must mean we did something wrong. That if we had prayed harder, loved better, been more vigilant, or been more faithful, our person would still be here. One of the most common questions I hear from grieving people is some version of: “We didn’t do anything to deserve this. Why did this happen to us?” Behind that question is often something heavier than grief: guilt, self-blame, and the belief that we should have been able to prevent the loss. But grief is not karma. Loss is not punishment. Tragedy is not a moral verdict. And your loss does not mean you did something to deserve it. In this solo episode of Grief and Light™, we explore the complicated relationship between grief, guilt, responsibility, and control. We look at why our brains search for something we could have done differently after a death, and what happens when we confuse personal power with the fantasy that we can control everything. Grief asks us to live inside a paradox: ✨ We are powerful beings, AND we do not have power over everything. ✨ If you have found yourself stuck in the “if only,” “what if,” or “I should have” loops after a loss, this episode is for you. Whether your loss happened recently or years ago, you are not required to punish yourself in order to prove how much you loved someone. In this episode, we explore: Why the brain defaults to “What did I do to deserve this?” after lossThe connection between grief, guilt, self-blame, and the need for controlThe difference between sovereignty and the fantasy of total controlWhy tragedy is not a referendum on your goodnessHow the “if only” and “what if” loops can keep us stuck in griefDr. Tasha Faruqi, physician and author of Keep Your Head Up: A Mother’s Story of Chasing Joy in the Face of GriefThe Serenity Prayer as a framework for living with what we can and cannot changeHo'oponopono and the complicated role of forgiveness in griefHow to begin releasing self-punishment without minimizing your lossMentioned in this episode: Grief Is Not Karma from Resting Grief FaceKeep Your Head Up: A Mother’s Story of Chasing Joy in the Face of Grief by Dr. Tasha FaruqiThe Serenity PrayerHo'oponoponoIf you are grieving a death, navigating bereavement, or struggling with guilt after loss, consider this your reminder: nothing is wrong with you for thinking these thoughts, AND you do not have to keep punishing yourself to honor your love. Find more grief support, resources, and episodes at griefandlight.com. To grieve fully is to live fully. Send us Fan Mail Support the show Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.  🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick New episodes wherever you watch or listen. Connect with Nina Rodriguez: griefandlight.com@griefandlightResting Grief Face on SubstackThank you for listening!  If this conversation resonated with you: ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

What stories are you still carrying, and what might you write instead? In Part 2 of the Summer Shifts Series, grief educator and Grief and Light™ founder and host Nina Rodriguez joins author, grief educator, and Grief Is a Sneaky Bitch host Lisa Keefauver, MSW to explore how creativity can help us notice and shift the stories that keep us stuck after loss, grief, and major life change. Building on Part 1's invitation to live into the questions, Nina and Lisa turn toward creativity. Not creativity as productivity or performance. Creativity as discovery. They explore what happens when we loosen the pressure to be "good" at something and instead get curious about what might emerge. They talk about the difference between saying "I'm bad at this" and "I don't have a lot of practice at this," why our "I am" statements are worth questioning, and how creating a little distance from a difficult emotion can change our relationship to it. Lisa also shares a poem she wrote during her cancer treatment, "What Cancer Couldn't Kill," and explains how writing about a difficult experience in the third person became a creative practice in self-compassion. Throughout the conversation, Nina and Lisa offer low-stakes creative practices for shifting a story that no longer fits, including timed writing, third-person writing, reframing "I am" statements, noticing sticky words, and collecting evidence of small changes. If you're navigating grief, a career pivot, an identity shift, or a season when the old story about who you are no longer quite fits, this episode offers playful, practical ways to get curious about what else might be true. What you'll learn: What "sticky stories" are, where they come from, and why they can become limitingHow to think about creativity as discovery rather than productionWhy "I don't have a lot of practice" can be a more useful story than "I'm bad at it"How reframing "I am" statements can create space around difficult emotionsTwo timed writing prompts you can try, including "If only..." and the apology you never gotHow writing about a difficult experience in the third person can create distance and invite self-compassionThe "sticky word jar" and how it can help you notice limiting languageHow to use the freeze-reframe practice when something feels stuckWhy collecting small evidence of change can shift the story we tell about ourselvesWhat it means to witness someone's story without immediately offering advice or feedbackSome questions explored in this episode: What is a sticky story?How can creativity help with grief or a stuck season of life?How can I reframe an "I am" statement?What is the sticky word jar?Why write about a difficult experience in the third person?About the Summer Shifts Series: A three-part live conversation series exploring what becomes possible when we embrace curiosity, creativity, and the unexpected after loss and life's unexpected pivots. ✨ Part 1 | Living Into the Questions Theme — Curiosity | Watch Here ✨ Part 2 | Shifting Our Stories Theme — Creativity | Watch Here ✨ Part 3 | Meeting Life Differently Theme — Possibility | Join Live Send us Fan Mail Support the show Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.  🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick New episodes wherever you watch or listen. Connect with Nina Rodriguez: griefandlight.com@griefandlightResting Grief Face on SubstackThank you for listening!  If this conversation resonated with you: ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

What if you didn't need answers to move forward? What if the questions themselves are where life begins to open again? In the first conversation of the Summer Shifts Series, grief educator and Grief and Light™ founder and host Nina Rodriguez joins author, grief educator, author, and Grief Is a Sneaky Bitch host Lisa Keefauver to explore what it means to live with the questions grief leaves behind rather than rushing toward resolution. After loss, we’re often told to find closure, make meaning, move forward, or figure out what comes next. But grief rarely follows a neat narrative. Sometimes the more honest practice is learning to stay curious about what we don't yet know. Together, Nina and Lisa explore living into the questions as a practice for navigating grief, life transitions, and uncertainty. They talk about the stories we inherit and internalize, the language that can quietly keep us stuck, and how curiosity can create room for wonder and possibility again. They explore the five small but powerful words that can signal we're getting caught in a story — should, always, never, but, and shouldn't — and discuss how narrative therapy can help us notice the stories we're telling without assuming those stories are the whole truth. They also introduce the constellation metaphor, imagining the stories we tell about ourselves as constellations in the night sky, and how zooming out can help us notice evidence, experiences, and possibilities that an old story left out. Along the way, Nina and Lisa share poetry from Gregory Orr, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jack Gilbert, and Mary Oliver, and reflect on the questions that have helped them continue building lives after profound loss, including sudden sibling loss and widowhood. If you're navigating grief, a major life transition, or a season of uncertainty, this conversation offers language and perspectives for staying with the questions rather than forcing yourself to find an answer. In this episode, you'll explore What it means to live into the questions after lossWhy grief doesn't always need resolution or a tidy answerThe "sticky stories" that can keep us feeling stuck in griefFive words that can signal you're caught inside a limiting storyHow narrative therapy can shift the way we understand our experiencesThe constellation metaphor and how changing our perspective can reveal overlooked evidenceWhy poetry can sometimes hold what ordinary language cannotHow curiosity can coexist with grief and uncertaintyWhat it means to stay connected to aliveness after lossTwo questions to carry with you this week: What stories am I holding onto? and What do I already know?Some questions explored in this episode What does "living into the questions" mean in grief? What are "sticky stories"? What is the constellation metaphor? How can poetry help us live with difficult questions? About the Summer Shifts Series: A three-part live conversation series co-hosted by Nina Rodriguez and Lisa Keefauver exploring what becomes possible when we embrace curiosity, creativity, and the unexpected. ✨ Part 1 | Living Into the Questions Theme — Curiosity ✨ Part 2 | Shifting Our Stories Theme — Creativity ✨ Part 3 | Meeting Life Differently Theme — Possibility Replays of the Summer Shifts conversations are available on the Grief and Light podcast. A question to carry with you: What question are you willing to live into instead of trying to answer? Send us Fan Mail Support the show Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.  🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick New episodes wherever you watch or listen. Connect with Nina Rodriguez: griefandlight.com@griefandlightResting Grief Face on SubstackThank you for listening!  If this conversation resonated with you: ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

Why can grief feel unexpectedly heavy during the summer? While the holidays are often recognized as difficult for grieving people, the quieter shifts of summer can bring their own wave of longing, nostalgia, and remembrance. Longer days, changing routines, family traditions, vacations, and returning to familiar places can amplify the absence of someone we love or remind us of the life we once had. In this solo episode of Grief and Light™, host Nina Rodriguez reflects on returning to her childhood home in Puerto Rico nearly seven years after the death of her brother, Yosef. Through personal storytelling, she explores her mother's beautiful phrase, "collapsing timelines," the experience of feeling the past and present at the same time, and why grief isn't only about the people we've lost. Sometimes we grieve entire seasons of life, former identities, places that shaped us, and versions of ourselves we thought would always remain. Drawing on her own lived experience, grief-informed work, and the wisdom of poet Rainer Maria Rilke, Nina shares why healing is often less about finding answers and more about learning to live the questions. This conversation offers compassionate support for anyone navigating bereavement, sibling loss, life transitions, nostalgia, or the ongoing process of rebuilding life after profound loss. In this episode, you'll learn: • Why grief can feel different during the summer months • How returning home can awaken memory, nostalgia, and unexpected emotions • What "collapsing timelines" means and why familiar places can feel emotionally complex after loss • Why we often grieve more than the people we've lost, including former identities, relationships, and seasons of life • How living the questions can foster resilience, self-compassion, and post-traumatic growth If this conversation resonates with you, you're warmly invited to join Nina Rodriguez and grief educator, author, and speaker Lisa Keefauver for a live three-part Substack "Summer Shifts Series" exploring curiosity, creativity, and possibility after grief and life's unexpected pivots. Read the full essay and access the live series information here. Send us Fan Mail Support the show Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.  🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick New episodes wherever you watch or listen. Connect with Nina Rodriguez: griefandlight.com@griefandlightResting Grief Face on SubstackThank you for listening!  If this conversation resonated with you: ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

What happens when grief isn’t as heavy as it once was?  This candid, multi-voice conversation explores what it means to live fully after loss. While much of the grief space centers on surviving, this roundtable makes space for what comes after the initial sorrow that follows loss and life-altering change, when life begins to expand again, often in unexpected ways.  Together, grief and resilience leaders, podcasters, and grief-informed creators explore meaning-making, post-traumatic growth, and the nuanced reality of carrying grief while also reclaiming joy, purpose, and possibility. This is the conversation for everyone who needed to know grief shifts, that joy and aliveness are possible, and for everyone who's arrived at lighter and isn't sure what to do with that. Rather than framing this as “moving on,” the conversation centers the complexity of living in the both/and, where grief remains, but no longer defines every moment.  Speakers will share personal and professional insights on post-traumatic growth, identity reconstruction, and the ways life can expand after loss without abandoning love for who or what was lost. The discussion challenges the idea that grief must remain all-consuming to be valid, while offering language, permission, and perspective for those who are beginning to feel moments of lightness again, or long to believe that’s possible. (Video is an event replay.) SPEAKERS: NINA RODRIGUEZ | Founder, Host, Grief-informed guide | GRIEF AND LIGHT @itsnrodriguez KERA SANCHEZ | Editor-in-Chief, Get Griefy Magazine @getgriefymagazine BLAIR KAPLAN VENABLES | Grief + Resilience Expert, Speaker & Author | The Global Resilience Project  @blairfromblairland TARA ACCARDO | Grief and Soul Purpose Coach and host of the ‪@lifewithgriefpodcast‬ x @lossesbecomegains IMOGEN CARN | author, speaker, breathwork facilitator and co-founder of ‪@goodmourningpodcast‬ x @healwithim A video version is available on Y0uTvbe. ;) Send us Fan Mail Support the show Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.  🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick New episodes wherever you watch or listen. Connect with Nina Rodriguez: griefandlight.com@griefandlightResting Grief Face on SubstackThank you for listening!  If this conversation resonated with you: ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

In a world where grief is often tied to family ties and romantic relationships, the loss of a friend can feel isolating and unrecognized. Hannah Rumsey is a writer, certified Grief Educator, and the founder of Friends Missing Friends. After losing her best friend Lauren in 2015, Hannah went searching for support and found almost nothing. No grief groups. Not even a Google search result that addressed her experience directly. What she found instead was disenfranchised grief, a term that changed everything. In this episode, Hannah and Nina explore why friend-loss is one of the most overlooked and invalidated forms of grief, and what it costs us when we leave it out of the conversation. Hannah shares the story of how she found out about Lauren's death (through a birthday post on Facebook), what it took to sit five feet away from the man responsible for her friend's death during his trial in Spain, the stunning sign she received from Lauren through her phone, and why she believes Lauren has been pulling strings from the other side ever since. They also talk about the false hierarchy of grief, what it means to question whether your own loss "counts," and why being around people who simply believe you — without explanation or qualification — can be one of the most healing experiences a friend-loss griever can have. In this episode: What disenfranchised grief is and why friend-loss fits squarely inside itThe false hierarchy of love (and grief) our society has builtWhy finding out about a friend's death through social media is more common than we thinkThe Netflix documentary The Predator of Seville and Lauren's storyHow Hannah sat in the courtroom five feet from the man who killed her friendThe moment Lauren's photo appeared on Hannah's phone, updated by LaurenWhy friend-loss grievers feel pressure to qualify and explain their own lossHow grief rituals can be personal, messy, and entirely your ownThe Friends Missing Friends Collective, an online community for friend-loss grieversWhat Hannah would say (and not say) to herself on the day she lost LaurenConnect with Hannah Rumsey: Friends Missing Friends (website, online membership, and podcast): friendsmissingfriends.comIG @friendsmissingfriendsNetflix documentary: The Predator of SevilleIf you've ever lost a friend and felt like you had to explain why it mattered, this episode is for you. Send us Fan Mail Support the show Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.  🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick New episodes wherever you watch or listen. Connect with Nina Rodriguez: griefandlight.com@griefandlightResting Grief Face on SubstackThank you for listening!  If this conversation resonated with you: ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

What does it mean to stay human in a world increasingly run by AI?  In this episode, Nina sits down with Patrice Poltzer — Gracie Award–winning former TODAY Show producer and co-founder of My Story Pro — about the everyday griefs and shifts of our era: the loss of certainty, the erosion of critical thinking, and the disappearing line between who we are and the tools we rely on. Patrice shares how a cross-continental move from New York to Lisbon, a vanished family income, and a launch that flopped led her to "accidentally" build an AI storytelling company. But this isn't just a hustle story. It's a conversation about agency. Why our active participation in building the future is required, especially for women and people from historically excluded communities. In this episode, we explore: How loss and uncertainty can become the ground for reinventionWhy "being more human" is the most valuable skill in the AI eraThe trust crisis, and why storytelling is the only marketing that neurologically changes a stranger's mindWhether outsourcing our thinking to AI is dulling the very traits that make us humanHow grievers, living in liminality, can use their lived experience to define what's nextPractical, low-fear entry points for women curious about AIConnect with Patrice Poltzer: Instagram: @PatricePoltzerLinkedInMy Story Pro (free trial, workshops & community)This is a both/and conversation; the and of fear and agency, grief and possibility, technology and humanity. Send us Fan Mail Support the show Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.  🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick New episodes wherever you watch or listen. Connect with Nina Rodriguez: griefandlight.com@griefandlightResting Grief Face on SubstackThank you for listening!  If this conversation resonated with you: ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

What does it mean to advocate for yourself as a female patient, especially in healthcare systems that often overlook women’s pain, symptoms, and lived experiences? In this episode we welcome Spencer Moore, founder and host of The Hairy Chin, certified women’s health coach, certified breast health educator, and certified breathwork specialist, for a powerful conversation about women’s health advocacy, chronic illness, breast cancer, medical dismissal, and learning how to navigate healthcare systems with confidence and clarity. After years of chronic health struggles and being passed from doctor to doctor as what Spencer calls a “hot potato patient,” she was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer at 40. Her experience transformed the way she approached healthcare, communication, and self-advocacy, and led her to help other women develop the tools to better advocate for themselves in medical settings. Together, Nina and Spencer explore the grief that can live inside illness, chronic symptoms, medical dismissal, and not being believed. They also discuss practical strategies for navigating doctor appointments, communicating symptoms effectively, recognizing misinformation online, and building trust with your own body. This episode is especially meaningful for women navigating chronic illness, breast cancer, autoimmune conditions, invisible illness, medical trauma, grief, burnout, or healthcare advocacy. Key Takeaways  Self-advocacy is a skill set that can be learned  Preparation can change the outcome of medical appointments  The language women use in healthcare settings matters  Chronic illness grief deserves recognition and support  There is no single “quick fix” for complex health issues  Trustworthy health advocates acknowledge nuance and uncertainty  AI tools can support research but cannot replace medical careIf you’ve ever felt dismissed, unseen, or overwhelmed inside the healthcare system, this conversation is for you. *** Advocacy Tools by The Hairy Chin One-page Health Summary *** Connect with Spencer Moore: Instagram: @the.hairy.chin YouTube: @thehairychin Website: thehairychin.com This episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider regarding your health concerns. Send us Fan Mail Support the show Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.  🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick New episodes wherever you watch or listen. Connect with Nina Rodriguez: griefandlight.com@griefandlightResting Grief Face on SubstackThank you for listening!  If this conversation resonated with you: ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

How do you navigate life after multiple losses and still make space for joy, purpose, love, and hope? In this deeply honest conversation, grief and soul purpose coach Tara Accardo joins Nina Rodriguez to explore what it means to live through layered grief, traumatic loss, and major life transitions while rebuilding your sense of self. After losing both of her parents to cancer within six months, navigating the isolation of the 2020 pandemic, experiencing heartbreak, grieving the loss of her beloved 19-year-old dog, and enduring a traumatic birth and NICU stay with her daughter, Tara found herself asking the same questions so many grieving people ask: Who am I now?  How do I move forward after loss?  And what does it mean to create a meaningful life after grief? Together, Tara and Nina discuss anticipatory grief, cancer caregiving, pet loss grief, parenting after parental loss, continuing bonds, spirituality after loss, soul purpose, grief coaching, and learning to trust your intuition through grief and trauma. This episode is for anyone grieving the death of a parent, navigating compounded grief, adjusting to life after loss, or searching for hope and healing after heartbreak, trauma, or major life change. Whether you're grieving a mother or father, coping with grief during motherhood, healing after traumatic birth, or trying to rediscover yourself after loss, this conversation offers compassionate insight, validation, and reminders that grief and joy can coexist. Connect with Tara Accardo: Website: lossesbecomegains.comLife With Grief podcastInstagram: @lossesbecomegainsSend us Fan Mail Support the show Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.  🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick New episodes wherever you watch or listen. Connect with Nina Rodriguez: griefandlight.com@griefandlightResting Grief Face on SubstackThank you for listening!  If this conversation resonated with you: ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

What does grief look like when it lives inside a body that can't always feel safe? Dr. Amanda Whitehouse joins Nina to explore food allergy anxiety, trauma, and the layered losses that chronic illness brings. Summary: Grief doesn't only come from death. Sometimes it comes from a diagnosis. From the life you imagined slipping away, from food becoming a source of fear, from watching your child struggle to breathe and feeling helpless. That is grief, too. In this episode, Nina Rodriguez welcomes Dr. Amanda Whitehouse, a licensed psychologist who specializes in food allergy anxiety, trauma, and chronic illness. Dr. Whitehouse is also a mother navigating food allergies firsthand and the host of the Don't Feed the Fear podcast.  Together, they unpack the layered emotional experience of living with food allergies (anaphylaxis), including the grief, the trauma, and the profound work of returning to safety in your own body. They also go deeper. Dr. Whitehouse shares the story of her brother Adam, who died from cancer in 2020, and what his death taught her about closure, connection, and continuing bonds with loved ones beyond physical presence. In this conversation: Why grief in chronic illness is real, and why it often goes unnamedThe critical difference between trauma, anxiety, and fear in the context of food allergies, and why language mattersWhat trauma-informed care looks like for food allergy patients and familiesCommon myths about food allergies debunked (including "avoidance is enough" and "epinephrine is the last resort")How to return agency to yourself and set boundaries with loved ones who don't fully understandThe physical toll of grief on the body, and why that connection mattersDr. Whitehouse's personal grief: losing her brother Adam, the gift of time, and continued bonds in dreamsGratitude as awareness, not positivity, making space for "this AND that"Connect with Dr. Amanda Whitehouse: Website: thefoodallergypsychologist.comInstagram: @thefoodallergypsychologistPodcast: Don't Feed the FearWhether you're living with a food allergy, loving someone who is, or simply navigating a body and a life that grief has changed, this conversation is for you. Send us Fan Mail Support the show Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.  🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick New episodes wherever you watch or listen. Connect with Nina Rodriguez: griefandlight.com@griefandlightResting Grief Face on SubstackThank you for listening!  If this conversation resonated with you: ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

What happens when grief doesn’t just take your person, but reshapes your identity, your faith, your career, and your sense of what’s possible? In this episode of Grief and Light, Nina Rodriguez sits down with Destiny Rael, a trauma-informed life and grief coach, group facilitator, and sibling loss survivor, for a deeply personal and expansive conversation about what it means to live with grief and still create a meaningful life. Destiny lost her brother Joseph who she describes as her best friend, creative partner, and fellow musician, two days after his 34th birthday in January 2011 to a sudden aortic dissection. She has spent the years since learning how to carry that loss forward without leaving him behind. Together, they explore the duality of grief and joy, the evolution of identity after loss, and how purpose can emerge in the aftermath of devastation. We explore:  Sibling loss and identity: why this type of grief is often overlooked  The coexistence of grief and joy in a purposeful life  Destiny’s story of losing her brother Joseph, and their deep sibling bond The significance of sibling bonds, shared music, and inside jokes  How grief reshapes identity, especially for creatives and performers  Navigating faith, spirituality, and questioning God after loss  The connection between childhood trauma, abuse, and grief  The shift from music career to trauma-informed grief coaching  Supporting the mind, body, and spirit through grief recovery  The role of grief in life transitions, relationships, and personal growth  Tools for support: grief groups, coaching, and creative expressionConnect with Destiny Rael: Website: destinyrael.comIG: @destinyrael"Joseph's Destiny" & MusicYouTube ChannelIf you're navigating grief, sibling loss, or a life that no longer looks like the one you planned, you are not alone. Send us Fan Mail Support the show Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.  🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick New episodes wherever you watch or listen. Connect with Nina Rodriguez: griefandlight.com@griefandlightResting Grief Face on SubstackThank you for listening!  If this conversation resonated with you: ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers