Grief and Light™

Great news! Grief and Light™ is a finalist for the Signal Awards’ Listener’s Choice Award. And I’m in the running for Top Host to lead my own podcast produced by iHeartRadio, take home $25K, and be a guest on an episode of onairwithryan.iheart with Ryan Seacrest, BUT I need your support to get there: 

PLEASE VOTE HERE: griefandlight.com/vote

Why does this matter?

We’re taught how t...

How can hope and heartbreak can coexist? And what does that look like when navigating stage 4 breast cancer?

Nina Rodriguez talks with Lindsy Matthews, a coach, mother, and public speaking instructor at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. 

After a stage 2 breast cancer diagnosis in 2018, Lindsy was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer in 2022. Now living with what is currently an incurable illness and an unce...

"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 a...

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 ...

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 unf...

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-par...

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-blam...

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...

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...

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 Li...

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...

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 sh...

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-contin...

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 illnes...

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 p...

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. ...

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 meaningf...

Sylvia Wolfer has lived through a lifetime of loss. Her father died suddenly when she was seven. Her younger brother, Johan, at sixteen. Her older brother, Stefan, in 2019. Her mother in 2023. 

She has navigated decades of layered grief. Through neuroscience, mindfulness, and work in the body, she has come to understand that grief can be in your life without running your life. In fact, you get to be "the boss."

In this conversat...

Paula went into "the void," and returned with a question that changed her life: What if grief is actually the highest form of intelligence?

In this episode of Grief and Light, I sit down with trauma and grief therapist and artist, Paula Gasparini-Santos, to explore a different way of understanding grief, one where loss becomes a portal, and "the void" transforms us.

Paula's work sits at the intersection of trauma therapy and grief, a...