Lisa reflects on a question that's been sitting with her: What if we renamed this podcast? From Grief Heals to Grief Humanizes because maybe that's the truer thing grief does.

She traces the thread from her peepaw's death by suicide when she was 13 (and how quickly life moved on around her, and within her) through her divorce after 23 years of marriage — the moment she first became "ripe," as she puts it, to actually enter grief. What the divorce took wasn't just a relationship; it was a whole stack of identity cards she'd been carrying: wife, mother, life coach, Christian, pastor. Stripped of all of them, she found herself face to face with something she'd long questioned about herself: whether she actually knew how to love, whether she was even real.

She also shares what spurred her to record this particular morning: waking up covered in hives after breaking weeks of clean eating, looking at herself in the mirror, and, instead of panic, feeling something close to joy. Her body said no. And she laughed. Because that's a relationship.

Along the way, Lisa touches on:

• Growing up in a colonized, industrialized world that treats people as commodities and how that gets internalized
• Why grief is such a powerful disruptor of the numbing strategies that "work, until they don't"
• The obsession with being "one of the good ones" and how that very obsession keeps harmful structures in place
• What it means to contribute to our collective humanity, not just personal healing
• A closing reference to Pádraig Ó Tuama's poem The Facts of Life: that the structures that constrict us may not be permanently constraining

Currently reading: The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee

Grief gives gifts. If that’s true, it opens up a conversation that asks what are the gifts that grief has given me.

The first gift that comes to mind is that my life is more than this body. Before Chip died, I’d lost several loved ones including my grandparents and sister.

It was different with Chip because I stayed in conversation with him.

I wrote to him at the end of each work day and after a while it was like he was writing back. I could sense his presence.

Two weeks after he passed a friend insisted I go to the doctor because she was afraid of the toll his absence was taking on my health. As I waited in the exam room, one of our songs came on and I felt his arms holding me while I rocked and cried in his embrace.

Sometimes while helping others through their grief journey, I sense the presence of their loved ones joining us and I’ve even encountered their person(s) when I’m alone.

These experiences soften my attachment to life in this body while expanding my connection to all living things. Past. Present. Future. As if the skin separating me from another dissolves.

I’m more curious. More open. More grateful.

The less attached I am to my body, the more brave I am and bravery feels important to me now.

Click here for a more intimate listen to the gifts I have received through grieving.

Last time I sought to answer the question, “How did I get here? What happened to (for) me?” to become a woman that my Bible college, homeschooling, good christian, pastor’s wife selves, would not recognize.

What came out was surprisingly emotional. At points it was hard to get my words out through the tears.

Then I was asked to do part 2 and share how those experiences brought me to where I am now and how I feel about this version of myself.

This episode is a totally different vibe – goofy, fun, and hopefully answers those questions.

Xoxo