Tara Shuman had the kind of life you could wish for; rewarding work, a husband and two little kids. She had started a few books, a children's book, a novel, but hadn't ever finished. The cancer came, unwelcome of course, into...
How do we move through multiple losses in a short period of time? What helps along the way? When Deborah Allen lost 5 of the most significant people in her life in just a few years, her considerable resiliency was put to the ...
Stephanie Johnson was always a part of theater- behind the scenes. She was comfortable supporting other people's production with her talents as a lighting director. But the arrival of cancer on the stage of her life moved her...
Being an advocate for a loved one at the end of their lives is so much more than reading their advance directive documents. The decisions are complex, nuanced and unpredictable. There is no way to predict what will be asked o...
It is only experience that seems to teach us how to heal from heartbreak. Caron Post and Deborah Pardes' experiences led to their deep commitment to help others through their heartbreaks. It also led to the creation of their ...
Our life losses can seem overwhelming when it appears the rest of the world is celebrating. But in fact, we are in good company! Holidays are natural times to remember people we've lost and to honor them. But how do we step b...
Planning for the end of life is something most of us delay and resist. But when we put a plan in order, it is empowering, allowing us to feel a measure of control over this most mysterious time in our lives. But how can we le...
How does the spouse of a woman with breast cancer cope? Can he find the support he needs and forget about toughing it out? Will people realize that he has also lost his security, his foundation and the person who helps him? W...
What does a poet do when she suffers the loss of her father? She writes. Exploring the depths of her relationship with her dad, Naomi Shihab Nye writes with the beauty of love, loss and continuing relationship. Her father wan...
Karen Wyatt worked with hospice patients. In the end, they taught her the lessons of dying, but also the lessons of living. Applying those lessons to her own life, she became a fierce advocate for the spiritual importance of ...
In today's world, what have we lost of myth and meaning? Maya and Barry Spector dedicate themselves to exploring the mythic and indigenous practices that once supported us as human being in a community of support and caring. ...
Grief touches us at the outer reaches of our experience, challenging us to respond to new and unfamiliar terrain in our own souls. Finding rituals and pathways to carry us through the mysterious territory of loss encourages n...
Throughout the world, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex people continue to experience oppression, including physical attack, psychological torture and rejection by family, friends and communities. In his travel...
The musical group Mirabai Ceiba formed after its two members met and fell in love. Their music blends many traditions and sacred songs into a meditative and beautiful form of meditative and inspiring music. Then, when loss ca...
Lynda Fell's life was full and happy, with family at the center of it all. Then she got the call no one can imagine getting, your daughter has been in an accident. On the way, she was not expecting what she found when she got...
Rudi and Julie fell in love across a great divide. Rudi was born and raised in Germany right after World War II, his father having been a high-ranking Nazi. Julie was a Jew from the Bronx whose father had helped in Germany af...
Join me as we talk about how the worst time in Amikaeyla’s life led to Music As Medicine, programming she developed which successfully helps people in the United States and around the world (including recently in Israel, Jord...
The loss of a child is beyond our comprehension and throws parents into an eddy, swirling around trying to find a way to shore. But when 18 month old Sophie died, there was the added pain of traumatic loss. Sophie was killed ...
When you lose a child, what makes the difference between collapse and reintegration into your life? Often it is a loving person who has been there and supports the process of recovery while recognizing the feelings of loss. W...
As human beings, we wonder what awaits us after this life is over. When death has come to those near us, the question often becomes compelling! In her quest to understand the many ways people think about what comes next, Clai...
How do we continue to weave the stories of the people we love into our lives after they die. What threads keep us connected to them, as they continue to impact our lives and inform our hearts? Lorraine Hedtke teaches people h...
Nicki Durlester's family faced staggering losses as a result of the BRCAII gene, which made its members vulnerable to diagnoses of breast and ovarian cancer. Then Nicki herself was diagnosed and treated for breast cancer. Her...
Because grief cannot be predicted, it calls on us to ad lib, to feel our ways through an unfamiliar landscape and to find ways to express our experience that nourish and support us. By its nature creative, grief also opens up...
How much time have we each spent trying to fix our lives, and ourselves? Having been taught that unpleasant emotion in the enemy, we are ill prepared to gently guide ourselves through troubled times. But what if we learned si...