What if your fear of death isn't something to hide or manage, but something pointing you toward a bigger truth? 🌱

After the loss of her sister-in-law Michelle, followed by a wave of heartbreak that kept arriving, Kara Goodwin turned to meditation just to get through each day. What she found changed how she sees life, death, and the light within her.

In this conversation, Kara shares how grief cracked her open, how a lifelong fear of death became the hidden engine behind her spiritual curiosity, and the experiences that sound remarkably like near-death experiences, even though she never left her body behind. If you've ever had a moment of light or knowing that didn't fit in the "inbox," you'll feel right at home.

In this episode, you'll hear:

✨ How a season of loss led Kara to meditation, and how meditation led her back to God
✨ Why a healer in Assisi told her she wasn't praying, and what changed after that
✨ What Kara experienced in the hypnagogic state, the space between awake and asleep
✨ How a planet-sized sphere of light and a tiny pinpoint of light showed her how we create our reality
✨ Why sharing sacred, unexplainable experiences gives other people permission to share theirs

About Kara Goodwin

Kara Goodwin is the host of the Soul Elevation Podcast, a certified meditation teacher, a Reiki master, and the author of Your Authentic Awakening: A Guide to Everyday Spiritual Living. She has spent years learning to sit with fear instead of running from it, and she writes and speaks about the everyday practice of spiritual living.

Connect with Kara

🌐 Website: https://www.karagoodwin.com/
▶️ Soul Elevation Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soulelevationpodcast

Join the conversation

What resonated with you in Kara's story? Have you had an experience of light or knowing that you couldn't quite explain? Has your own fear of death ever turned out to be a doorway?

Read the companion article and share your thoughts with me and other listeners at grief2growth.substack.com

If this episode touched you, please share it with someone who might need to hear it today. 💜

If you are struggling after a loss, you don't have to carry it alone. In the U.S., you can call or text 988 at any time.

You've been listening. You're doing the work. But there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place.

Maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back.

I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you.

All of it, pay what you want. You decide what it's worth. Nobody gets turned away because of money.

https://grief2g

Want to go deeper? My Substack is where I share solo essays on grief, consciousness, and continuing bonds — thoughts that don't always make it into the podcast. It's also home to a community of listeners who get it, because they're living it too. Free to subscribe. Find it at substack.com/grief2growth.

I've been studying Near Death Experiences for many years now. I am 100% convinced they are real. In this short, free ebook, I not only explain why I believe NDEs are real, I share some of the universal secrets brought back by people who have had them.

https://www.grief2growth.com/ndelessons

Support the show

🧑🏿‍🤝‍🧑🏻 Join me on Substack- connect with others and me
👛 Subscribe to Grief 2 Growth Premium (bonus episodes)
📰 Get A Free Gift
📅 Book A Complimentary Discovery Call
📈 Leave A Review

Thanks so much for your support

What if nothing is wrong with you because your grief hasn't "resolved"? 🌱

Autism and grief is a conversation that rarely gets space, and in this episode Christopher Carazas gives it room. Chris was diagnosed as autistic in 2020, after he had already built the life he thought he was supposed to want. Soon after, he lost his marriage, his home, and his sense of who he was. Later, he lost Katie, the woman who helped him begin to heal.

Chris doesn't tie his story up with a bow, and neither do we. You'll hear what grief looks like when you process the world differently, why the "triumph over tragedy" story can leave you feeling like you're failing, and how to carry grief without pretending it will ever be neat.

If you've been told you should be further along by now, this conversation is for you. If you love someone who is neurodivergent and grieving, you'll leave knowing how to show up for them. 💛

In this episode, you'll hear:

✨ Why closure is a myth, and what grief looks like when it becomes part of you
✨ How autism and grief can collide, from rumination to struggling to cry
✨ Why Chris pushes back on the "survival as redemption arc" story
✨ How to grieve the future you imagined, and shift from "why me?" to "why for me?"
✨ The backpack of stones, and why the weight changes even when it never leaves
✨ Katie's hidden notes, and how Chris uses them when old voices get loud
✨ What Chris's lighthouse is, and how it guides his days
✨ Simple, powerful ways to support a neurodivergent friend or family member in grief

About Christopher Carazas

Christopher Carazas is a social impact strategist and the author of Now That I'm Still Here: A Memoir of Ruin and Resurrection. Through his Substack newsletter of the same name, he writes about survival, storytelling, mental health, humor, and hope after ruin. His work lives at the intersection of grief, neurodivergence, and the long, unglamorous aftermath of psychological trauma.

Connect with Chris

📚 Website and book: https://www.chriscarazas.com
📰 Substack: https://ccarazas.substack.com
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christopher.carazas.2025
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christophercarazas

What resonated with you?

💭 Have you ever wondered why you weren't crying, and whether that meant you didn't love them enough?
💭 What would it change if you stopped waiting for closure and started building a life around your grief?
💭 What is your lighthouse right now?

Share your thoughts in the comments on the companion article and join the conversation with me and other listeners: https://grief2growth.substack.com

💜 If this episode touched you, share it with one person who needs to hear they're not behind.

🔔 Subscribe to Grief 2 Growth so you never miss an episode.

You've been listening. You're doing the work. But there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place.

Maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back.

I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you.

All of it, pay what you want. You decide what it's worth. Nobody gets turned away because of money.

https://grief2g

Want to go deeper? My Substack is where I share solo essays on grief, consciousness, and continuing bonds — thoughts that don't always make it into the podcast. It's also home to a community of listeners who get it, because they're living it too. Free to subscribe. Find it at substack.com/grief2growth.

I've been studying Near Death Experiences for many years now. I am 100% convinced they are real. In this short, free ebook, I not only explain why I believe NDEs are real, I share some of the universal secrets brought back by people who have had them.

https://www.grief2growth.com/ndelessons

Support the show

🧑🏿‍🤝‍🧑🏻 Join me on Substack- connect with others and me
👛 Subscribe to Grief 2 Growth Premium (bonus episodes)
📰 Get A Free Gift
📅 Book A Complimentary Discovery Call
📈 Leave A Review

Thanks so much for your support

What if grief isn’t only something we survive—but something that reveals how deeply we’ve loved?

In this episode of Grief 2 Growth, I sit down with Carl Manlan, author of I Can Breathe, for a powerful conversation about grief, fatherhood, emotional healing, identity, and legacy.

Carl lost his father as a young man. Years later, becoming a father himself brought some of that grief back to the surface and raised a profound question: How do you become the father you want to be when you can no longer have those conversations with your own father?

We also explore something many men struggle to discuss: expressing emotions and asking for help. As two Black men raised in different parts of the world, Carl and I discovered surprising similarities in how we experienced love growing up—and how we're trying to do things differently with the next generation.

Carl also shares how unexpectedly losing his job became a turning point that helped him finish I Can Breathe.

One insight captures the heart of our conversation:

“You only experience grief because you loved.”

In this episode, we explore:

• Grieving a parent and carrying that relationship forward
• Men, vulnerability, counseling, and emotional health
• Separating your identity from your career
• Responding instead of reacting to life's challenges
• Raising emotionally aware children
• Turning loss into legacy
• The story behind Carl’s I Can Breathe

📖 Carl’s book: I Can Breathe — available on Amazon

🔗 Connect with Carl: LinkedIn and Instagram

💬 Continue the conversation:
https://grief2growth.substack.com

What part of Carl’s story resonated with you? Join us on Substack and share your experience with the Grief 2 Growth community.

You've been listening. You're doing the work. But there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place.

Maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back.

I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you.

All of it, pay what you want. You decide what it's worth. Nobody gets turned away because of money.

https://grief2g

Want to go deeper? My Substack is where I share solo essays on grief, consciousness, and continuing bonds — thoughts that don't always make it into the podcast. It's also home to a community of listeners who get it, because they're living it too. Free to subscribe. Find it at substack.com/grief2growth.

I've been studying Near Death Experiences for many years now. I am 100% convinced they are real. In this short, free ebook, I not only explain why I believe NDEs are real, I share some of the universal secrets brought back by people who have had them.

https://www.grief2growth.com/ndelessons

Support the show

🧑🏿‍🤝‍🧑🏻 Join me on Substack- connect with others and me
👛 Subscribe to Grief 2 Growth Premium (bonus episodes)
📰 Get A Free Gift
📅 Book A Complimentary Discovery Call
📈 Leave A Review

Thanks so much for your support

What if your body isn't broken — it's trying to tell you something?

In this episode of Grief 2 Growth, Brian sits down with Dr. Karyn Shanks, a physician who spent over 40 years learning what medical school never taught her — including from her own chronic illness journey. Together, they explore why grief and trauma get physically stored in the body, why our medical system struggles to treat chronic illness, and why feeling truly seen may matter more to healing than any prescription.

About Dr. Karyn Shanks:
Karyn Shanks, MD is a physician-healer-teacher-writer based in Iowa City, board-certified in Internal Medicine and Functional Medicine. After her own decades-long journey through Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and Lyme encephalitis, she founded the Unbroken Academy and developed a framework built on epigenetics, neuroplasticity, systems-based functional medicine, and transformational psychology. She's trained in Dr. Gabor Maté's Compassionate Inquiry, and is the author of UnBroken: Reclaim Your Wholeness and HEAL: A Nine-Stage Roadmap to Recover Energy.

🔗 Website: karynshanksmd.com

Key topics covered:

• Why grief is a "huge part of the human experience" that shows up physically in the body
• Karyn's own health journey — from unexplained fatigue to an Ehlers-Danlos diagnosis to recovering from Lyme encephalitis
• Why Western medicine excels at acute, catastrophic care but struggles with chronic illness
• Epigenetics and neuroplasticity — why your biology isn't fixed
• The placebo effect as proof of the mind's power to heal the body
• What Compassionate Inquiry (Gabor Maté's framework) taught Karyn about trauma and self-compassion
• Why grief gets "stored in the body" and has to be worked through, not medicated away
• Why we're ashamed of grief, and how "get back to work" culture cuts healing short
• Reframing illness as wisdom and communication, not failure or fault

💬 What resonated with you? Head over to grief2growth.substack.com to share your thoughts and continue the conversation.

You've been listening. You're doing the work. But there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place.

Maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back.

I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you.

All of it, pay what you want. You decide what it's worth. Nobody gets turned away because of money.

https://grief2g

Want to go deeper? My Substack is where I share solo essays on grief, consciousness, and continuing bonds — thoughts that don't always make it into the podcast. It's also home to a community of listeners who get it, because they're living it too. Free to subscribe. Find it at substack.com/grief2growth.

I've been studying Near Death Experiences for many years now. I am 100% convinced they are real. In this short, free ebook, I not only explain why I believe NDEs are real, I share some of the universal secrets brought back by people who have had them.

https://www.grief2growth.com/ndelessons

Support the show

🧑🏿‍🤝‍🧑🏻 Join me on Substack- connect with others and me
👛 Subscribe to Grief 2 Growth Premium (bonus episodes)
📰 Get A Free Gift
📅 Book A Complimentary Discovery Call
📈 Leave A Review

Thanks so much for your support

What happens when the person you used to be doesn't exist anymore — not because they died, but because a diagnosis, a surgery, or a health crisis rewrote who you are? In this episode, Loni Fagel joins me to talk about a grief almost nobody names: the grief of losing yourself while you're still here.

Loni knows this from both sides of the therapy room. A genetic cancer mutation, a mysterious chronic illness, and a health crisis that landed her at Mayo Clinic didn't just interrupt her graduate studies in psychology — they became the reason she does this work at all. We talk about her "D-Day" framework for naming the moment a diagnosis changes everything, why medical trauma is as much about what comes after the event as the event itself, and why people are so often invalidated by the very doctors meant to help them.

We also get into some of the tools Loni uses with clients: externalizing an illness by giving it its own name, expressive arts as a way to process what words can't touch, and why "post-traumatic growth" doesn't mean pretending the hard part didn't happen.

About Loni Fagel
Loni Fagel is a licensed professional clinical counselor, EMDRIA-approved consultant, expressive arts therapist, children's book author, and international speaker specializing in medical trauma, grief, and identity loss. Her work is shaped by her own experience with a genetic cancer mutation and a health crisis that upended her life and career.

• Website: lonifagel.com
• Instagram/social: @loni_fagel
• LinkedIn: search Loni Fagel

In this episode, we cover:

• Why illness and diagnosis create a real, nameable grief
• The "D-Day" framework for marking when everything changed
• Why medical trauma isn't about the event — it's about everything after
• Learning to advocate for yourself when doctors dismiss your symptoms
• Grieving a double mastectomy and genetic cancer risk
• Invisible illness and the cruelty of judging what you can't see
• Naming your illness to protect your identity ("is this you, or is this Patricia?")
• Making meaning without needing to believe "everything happens for a reason"
• Finding the glimmers of light in the middle of a health crisis

We want to hear from you: Have you ever grieved a version of yourself you didn't expect to lose? What resonated most with you in this conversation? Drop a comment — we read every one.

Continue the conversation at grief2growth.substack.com.

You've been listening. You're doing the work. But there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place.

Maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back.

I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you.

All of it, pay what you want. You decide what it's worth. Nobody gets turned away because of money.

https://grief2g

Want to go deeper? My Substack is where I share solo essays on grief, consciousness, and continuing bonds — thoughts that don't always make it into the podcast. It's also home to a community of listeners who get it, because they're living it too. Free to subscribe. Find it at substack.com/grief2growth.

I've been studying Near Death Experiences for many years now. I am 100% convinced they are real. In this short, free ebook, I not only explain why I believe NDEs are real, I share some of the universal secrets brought back by people who have had them.

https://www.grief2growth.com/ndelessons

Support the show

🧑🏿‍🤝‍🧑🏻 Join me on Substack- connect with others and me
👛 Subscribe to Grief 2 Growth Premium (bonus episodes)
📰 Get A Free Gift
📅 Book A Complimentary Discovery Call
📈 Leave A Review

Thanks so much for your support

What if the "guardian angel" you've prayed to and the "spirit guide" you've been told to fear are the exact same presence, just described through a different lens?

In this episode, Brian sits down with Michael McAdams — a man raised in a family soaked in Pentecostal conviction who discovered he had the gift of psychometry, the ability to receive information simply by holding an object. Michael shares the story of his mother, Wilma Jean Jones, a devout Christian who sat down at her typewriter in 1977 and began receiving dictated messages from what she called "spirit teachers." Those sessions continued for 22 years and became the book An Angel Told Me So.

This conversation goes places you might not expect from two men raised in the church: the real story behind the money changers in the temple, why the Salem witch trials might have been genuine spiritual communication mistaken for evil, how the Urantia Book lines up with the Bible's account of Jesus, and why fear has been used for centuries to keep people from trusting their own spiritual experiences.

About Michael McAdams
Michael McAdams grew up in the Cincinnati area in a family steeped in Pentecostal faith — his uncle was a preacher who planted churches across three states, and his grandmother entered ministry convinced God spoke directly into her heart. Michael discovered his own gift of psychometry as a young man, and later helped his mother recognize and record the messages she was receiving from spirit teachers. He is the author of An Angel Told Me So and runs spiritspeaks.com, where he offers free preview messages from the upcoming second volume.

• 🌐 Website: spiritspeaks.com
• 📖 An Angel Told Me So (Volume One) — available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and through Ingram at independent bookstores

Key Topics Covered

• Growing up Pentecostal and the questions neither of them could shake
• What psychometry is and how Michael developed the ability
• How Wilma Jean began receiving channeled messages — and the confirmation message that convinced her to publish them
• The Urantia Book and its account of the life of Jesus
• Why the Bible's history and politics matter for understanding what it actually says
• Fear as a tool of control in organized religion
• How to protect your mind while opening it — establishing a spiritual "filter"
• Practical advice for recognizing your own spirit guidance
• Reincarnation, "graduation" instead of death, and what may come next

What resonated with you? Drop a comment below — we'd love to hear whether this reframes anything about your own faith journey, or if you've had experiences like Michael's you've never shared before.

You've been listening. You're doing the work. But there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place.

Maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back.

I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you.

All of it, pay what you want. You decide what it's worth. Nobody gets turned away because of money.

https://grief2g

Want to go deeper? My Substack is where I share solo essays on grief, consciousness, and continuing bonds — thoughts that don't always make it into the podcast. It's also home to a community of listeners who get it, because they're living it too. Free to subscribe. Find it at substack.com/grief2growth.

I've been studying Near Death Experiences for many years now. I am 100% convinced they are real. In this short, free ebook, I not only explain why I believe NDEs are real, I share some of the universal secrets brought back by people who have had them.

https://www.grief2growth.com/ndelessons

Support the show

🧑🏿‍🤝‍🧑🏻 Join me on Substack- connect with others and me
👛 Subscribe to Grief 2 Growth Premium (bonus episodes)
📰 Get A Free Gift
📅 Book A Complimentary Discovery Call
📈 Leave A Review

Thanks so much for your support