Good Grief with Cheryl Jones

On a family adventure while white water rafting, Irene O'Garden had to depend on her siblings to navigate the river. For her, the trip connected to a life long effort to heal and to come to terms with her childhood. And although she was focused purely on survival during the trip, she found that afterwards, something had changed for her. She had added a new chapter to her lifelong journey. From the clearing of old hurts and loss...

In the seventy years Tim Seelig has lived, half was spent as a religious music conductor from a famous Christian family. But when Tim came out at 35, that life was over. He was unceremoniously ousted from everything and everyone he knew. His highly respected career was also over. And his second life began, as a conductor of LGBTQ choruses. This new life culminated in Tim becoming the director of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chor...

Why would anyone offer to listen, free of charge, to strangers as they share their deepest experiences? When Helena Dea Bala found herself confronting a profound lack of meaning in her life, she had a surprising and unexpected conversation with a homeless man she met outside the building where she worked. The depth of their sharing was so alive she wanted more. Eventually she would leave the career she had built as an attorney to ...

Needing a job to make ends meet, Gregor Collins stumbled into one of the most meaningful three years of his life. With absolutely no experience as a personal caregiver, his friend begged him to work for Maria Altmann, the inspiration for the film Woman in Gold. Having survived the holocaust she went on to live a life filled with meaning and depth, and also great love. She then pursued what many thought would be a hopeless lawsuit, ...

Dena Taylor's honest and excellent book, I Don't Wanna Be Pink, was a manuscript when she joined us on Good Grief in it's first year, 2014. Fast forward to 2020 and it is out in the world, still moving and hilarious. How has Dena's experience facing a breast cancer diagnosis, treatment and all the fears that come along with that impacted her since? And does she still hate all the pink ribbons and rah rah cheerleadin...

Many people believe that grief can be completed and that when it is, we will have closure. We will no longer need to remember and think about the person we've lost. But more and more, we are recognizing that remembering our person and sharing our grief is a healthy way forward. As a response to her own loss, Fran Solomon founded Heal Grief, establishing on line program designed to connect grievers at every stage of life. Seeing...

In a world where we need more civility, substance and compassion, Rabbi Daniel Cohen set out to try to define what it means to live a purposeful life. How do we define what really matters so that our lives match our deep beliefs and inspirations? Hi book, What Will They Say About Me when I'm Gone?, explores the questions of meaning through guided questioning and meaningful stories about people who have lived lives of purpose, l...

When Janna Lopez hit 50, her world seemed to fall apart. In what she later describes as a Dark Flight of the Self, she seemed unrecognizable to herself which propelled her into a deep grief for who she had been. Unlike depression she had navigated in the past, insight was elusive and unattainable. Instead, she felt as if she was crawling along, unsure what was right ahead of her. Small things, photographing a hummingbird, slowing d...

Miriam Feldman and her husband Craig were successful artists raising four children in Los Angeles. They were a happy family, with a great confidence in all their children succeeding in whatever they chose. Their son Nick, in particular, was a gifted artist himself, and they looked forward to watching him blossom and grow. But as he reached early adulthood, disturbing symptoms forced them to reckon with the fact that Nick was strugg...

When your child is a journalist working in dangerous locations around the world, worry goes with the territory. But the alert goes down when she is near home. Yett that is when Ingrid Wall's daughter lost her life covering a seemingly benign story. Along with the tremendous grief of facing her death came the horror of how she died and the fact that she became such a big news story herself. How did her parents survive those terr...

Ken Ross grew up immersed in the work of his mother, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Unlike most people in the West, he was immersed in a world where death, dying and grief wer openly talked about and explored. How did he come to view his unique experience with the pioneering author of On Death and Dying? We will talk about his mother's work, his childhood and how he carries her work forward, honoring the legacy she left. We'll also...

Losing a sibling at any age has a deep impact on how we see ourselves in the world. Aside from parents, siblings carry more of our history than nearly anyone else. So what happens when your sister is diagnosed with a disabling and lethal cancer? When Lila Glasoe Franceses sister Carolyn was diagnosed with Glioblastoma she had no idea what lay ahead of them. All she knew was that she was going to do everything she could be there for...

What does it take to prepare ourselves to do the work of anti-racism? At this time when there is an outcry against racism and oppression, many white Americans are confronting the hard truth that we benefit from the system that oppresses others. How do we face that truth, which involves a loss of who we thought we were, and find unique actions we can sustain to bring about change? Kate Schatz has been searching for answers to these ...

In times when the inequities and oppressions of the world are obvious to all whose eyes are open, how do we keep hope alive, not only for ourselves but for our children? Sean Perry dedicates his life to the mental health needs of kids and has plenty to say about what helps all of us find our way in the midst of challenges. Join us for a conversation about what each of us can contribute to a better world; for ourselves and for the g...

Alia Volz' mother sold marijuana baked goods in a time when that was illegal. At first, it was a rebellious way to make a living. But then the AIDS epidemic made it so much more; a struggle for the right of patients to use every tool available to feel better. Growing up in the midst of the political battle over marijuana, Alia also learned the history of why it was illegal when alcohol was not, a history of racism and criminali...

Suzanne Falter's life came to a halt when her 22 year old daughter died. She was no longer able to overwork, give more than she had, and keep up with the constant demands to achieve. Brought to her knees, she discovered that if she listened to what she really needed, even in those most terrible days, she could find her way to a greater sense of peace. Over time the discovery of self care in her life led to a brand new career en...

There is solace in speaking our grief and yet many of us are unprepared for true listening. How can we honor the voices of grief, the true feelings that come along with the death of someone we love? In Lindsey Whissel Fenton's film Speaking Grief she shares the voices of people living with loss and suggests ways we can become better at supporting and honoring those voices. In the process, we are able to make space for our own ...

Novelists are often asked whether the book comes from their own experiences. The answer can be complex. For even when the story is not autobiographical, there is a thread of who we are and what we've experienced running underneath. After writing Godshot, Chelsea Bieker realized that her separation from her mother when she was a child, and the course of their severed relationship, led her to explore the themes of separation thro...

Bernie Siegel MD, NY Times bestselling author of Love, Medicine and Miracles continues his profound contribution of wisdom and insights to our world with his new book When You Realize How Perfect Everything Is co-authored with his grandson Charlie Siegel. Based on the anonymous quote 'When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.' Bernie and Charlie Siegel share through the...