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  • Shifting Our Stories: What Stories Are Keeping You Stuck? | A Summer Shifts Series (Part 2)

    Shifting Our Stories: What Stories Are Keeping You Stuck? | A Summer Shifts Series (Part 2)
    2026/08/25
    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 questions, Nina and Lisa turn toward creativity. Not creativity as productivity or performance. Creativity as discovery.They explore what happens when we loosen the pressure to be "good" at something and instead get curious about what might emerge. They talk about the difference between saying "I'm bad at this" and "I don't have a lot of practice at this," why our "I am" statements are worth questioning, and how creating a little distance from a difficult emotion can change our relationship to it.Lisa also shares a poem she wrote during her cancer treatment, "What Cancer Couldn't Kill," and explains how writing about a difficult experience in the third person became a creative practice in self-compassion.Throughout the conversation, Nina and Lisa offer low-stakes creative practices for shifting a story that no longer fits, including timed writing, third-person writing, reframing "I am" statements, noticing sticky words, and collecting evidence of small changes.If you're navigating grief, a career pivot, an identity shift, or a season when the old story about who you are no longer quite fits, this episode offers playful, practical ways to get curious about what else might be true.What you'll learn:What "sticky stories" are, where they come from, and why they can become limitingHow to think about creativity as discovery rather than productionWhy "I don't have a lot of practice" can be a more useful story than "I'm bad at it"How reframing "I am" statements can create space around difficult emotionsTwo timed writing prompts you can try, including "If only..." and the apology you never gotHow writing about a difficult experience in the third person can create distance and invite self-compassionThe "sticky word jar" and how it can help you notice limiting languageHow to use the freeze-reframe practice when something feels stuckWhy collecting small evidence of change can shift the story we tell about ourselvesWhat it means to witness someone's story without immediately offering advice or feedbackSome questions explored in this episode:What is a sticky story?How can creativity help with grief or a stuck season of life?How can I reframe an "I am" statement?What is the sticky word jar?Why write about a difficult experience in the third person?About the Summer Shifts Series:A three-part live conversation series exploring what becomes possible when we embrace curiosity, creativity, and the unexpected after loss and life's unexpected pivots.✨ Part 1 | Living Into the QuestionsTheme — Curiosity | Watch Here✨ Part 2 | Shifting Our StoriesTheme — Creativity | Watch Here✨ Part 3 | Meeting Life DifferentlyTheme — Possibility | Join LiveSend us Fan MailSupport the showGrief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time. 🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's PickNew episodes wherever you watch or listen.Connect with Nina Rodriguez:griefandlight.com@griefandlightResting Grief Face on SubstackThank you for listening! If this conversation resonated with you:✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more heartsDisclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers
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    1 時間
  • Living Into the Questions: What If You Didn’t Need Answers to Move Forward? | A Summer Shifts Series (Part 1)

    Living Into the Questions: What If You Didn’t Need Answers to Move Forward? | A Summer Shifts Series (Part 1)
    2026/08/18
    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.After loss, we’re often told to find closure, make meaning, move forward, or figure out what comes next. But grief rarely follows a neat narrative. Sometimes the more honest practice is learning to stay curious about what we don't yet know.Together, Nina and Lisa explore living into the questions as a practice for navigating grief, life transitions, and uncertainty. They talk about the stories we inherit and internalize, the language that can quietly keep us stuck, and how curiosity can create room for wonder and possibility again.They explore the five small but powerful words that can signal we're getting caught in a story — should, always, never, but, and shouldn't — and discuss how narrative therapy can help us notice the stories we're telling without assuming those stories are the whole truth.They also introduce the constellation metaphor, imagining the stories we tell about ourselves as constellations in the night sky, and how zooming out can help us notice evidence, experiences, and possibilities that an old story left out.Along the way, Nina and Lisa share poetry from Gregory Orr, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jack Gilbert, and Mary Oliver, and reflect on the questions that have helped them continue building lives after profound loss, including sudden sibling loss and widowhood.If you're navigating grief, a major life transition, or a season of uncertainty, this conversation offers language and perspectives for staying with the questions rather than forcing yourself to find an answer.In this episode, you'll exploreWhat it means to live into the questions after lossWhy grief doesn't always need resolution or a tidy answerThe "sticky stories" that can keep us feeling stuck in griefFive words that can signal you're caught inside a limiting storyHow narrative therapy can shift the way we understand our experiencesThe constellation metaphor and how changing our perspective can reveal overlooked evidenceWhy poetry can sometimes hold what ordinary language cannotHow curiosity can coexist with grief and uncertaintyWhat it means to stay connected to aliveness after lossTwo questions to carry with you this week: What stories am I holding onto? and What do I already know?Some questions explored in this episodeWhat does "living into the questions" mean in grief?What are "sticky stories"?What is the constellation metaphor?How can poetry help us live with difficult questions?About the Summer Shifts Series:A three-part live conversation series co-hosted by Nina Rodriguez and Lisa Keefauver exploring what becomes possible when we embrace curiosity, creativity, and the unexpected.✨ Part 1 | Living Into the QuestionsTheme — Curiosity✨ Part 2 | Shifting Our StoriesTheme — Creativity✨ Part 3 | Meeting Life DifferentlyTheme — PossibilityReplays of the Summer Shifts conversations are available on the Grief and Light podcast.A question to carry with you:What question are you willing to live into instead of trying to answer?Send us Fan MailSupport the showGrief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time. 🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's PickNew episodes wherever you watch or listen.Connect with Nina Rodriguez:griefandlight.com@griefandlightResting Grief Face on SubstackThank you for listening! If this conversation resonated with you:✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more heartsDisclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers
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    59 分
  • Summertime Grief and Shifts

    Summertime Grief and Shifts
    2026/07/29

    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 Light™, host Nina Rodriguez reflects on returning to her childhood home in Puerto Rico nearly seven years after the death of her brother, Yosef. Through personal storytelling, she explores her mother's beautiful phrase, "collapsing timelines," the experience of feeling the past and present at the same time, and why grief isn't only about the people we've lost. Sometimes we grieve entire seasons of life, former identities, places that shaped us, and versions of ourselves we thought would always remain.

    Drawing on her own lived experience, grief-informed work, and the wisdom of poet Rainer Maria Rilke, Nina shares why healing is often less about finding answers and more about learning to live the questions. This conversation offers compassionate support for anyone navigating bereavement, sibling loss, life transitions, nostalgia, or the ongoing process of rebuilding life after profound loss.

    In this episode, you'll learn:

    • Why grief can feel different during the summer months

    • How returning home can awaken memory, nostalgia, and unexpected emotions

    • What "collapsing timelines" means and why familiar places can feel emotionally complex after loss

    • Why we often grieve more than the people we've lost, including former identities, relationships, and seasons of life

    • How living the questions can foster resilience, self-compassion, and post-traumatic growth

    If this conversation resonates with you, you're warmly invited to join Nina Rodriguez and grief educator, author, and speaker Lisa Keefauver for a live three-part Substack "Summer Shifts Series" exploring curiosity, creativity, and possibility after grief and life's unexpected pivots.

    Read the full essay and access the live series information here.

    Send us Fan Mail

    Support the show

    Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.

    🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick

    New episodes wherever you watch or listen.

    Connect with Nina Rodriguez:

    • griefandlight.com
    • @griefandlight
    • Resting Grief Face on Substack

    Thank you for listening!

    If this conversation resonated with you:

    ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it
    ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation
    ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts

    Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers
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    11 分
  • Life Beyond Deep Grief: A roundtable on living fully after loss

    Life Beyond Deep Grief: A roundtable on living fully after loss
    2026/06/26

    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 leaders, podcasters, and grief-informed creators explore meaning-making, post-traumatic growth, and the nuanced reality of carrying grief while also reclaiming joy, purpose, and possibility.

    This is the conversation for everyone who needed to know grief shifts, that joy and aliveness are possible, and for everyone who's arrived at lighter and isn't sure what to do with that.

    Rather than framing this as “moving on,” the conversation centers the complexity of living in the both/and, where grief remains, but no longer defines every moment.

    Speakers will share personal and professional insights on post-traumatic growth, identity reconstruction, and the ways life can expand after loss without abandoning love for who or what was lost.

    The discussion challenges the idea that grief must remain all-consuming to be valid, while offering language, permission, and perspective for those who are beginning to feel moments of lightness again, or long to believe that’s possible.

    (Video is an event replay.)

    SPEAKERS:

    NINA RODRIGUEZ | Founder, Host, Grief-informed guide | GRIEF AND LIGHT

    @itsnrodriguez

    KERA SANCHEZ | Editor-in-Chief, Get Griefy Magazine @getgriefymagazine

    BLAIR KAPLAN VENABLES | Grief + Resilience Expert, Speaker & Author | The Global Resilience Project

    @blairfromblairland

    TARA ACCARDO | Grief and Soul Purpose Coach and host of the ‪@lifewithgriefpodcast‬ x @lossesbecomegains

    IMOGEN CARN | author, speaker, breathwork facilitator and co-founder of ‪@goodmourningpodcast‬ x @healwithim

    A video version is available on Y0uTvbe. ;)

    Send us Fan Mail

    Support the show

    Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.

    🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick

    New episodes wherever you watch or listen.

    Connect with Nina Rodriguez:

    • griefandlight.com
    • @griefandlight
    • Resting Grief Face on Substack

    Thank you for listening!

    If this conversation resonated with you:

    ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it
    ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation
    ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts

    Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers
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    1 時間 15 分
  • Friend-Loss Grief Is Real: Disenfranchised grief with Hannah Rumsey of Friends Missing Friends

    Friend-Loss Grief Is Real: Disenfranchised grief with Hannah Rumsey of Friends Missing Friends
    2026/06/17

    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 she found instead was disenfranchised grief, a term that changed everything.

    In this episode, Hannah and Nina explore why friend-loss is one of the most overlooked and invalidated forms of grief, and what it costs us when we leave it out of the conversation. Hannah shares the story of how she found out about Lauren's death (through a birthday post on Facebook), what it took to sit five feet away from the man responsible for her friend's death during his trial in Spain, the stunning sign she received from Lauren through her phone, and why she believes Lauren has been pulling strings from the other side ever since.

    They also talk about the false hierarchy of grief, what it means to question whether your own loss "counts," and why being around people who simply believe you — without explanation or qualification — can be one of the most healing experiences a friend-loss griever can have.

    In this episode:

    • What disenfranchised grief is and why friend-loss fits squarely inside it
    • The false hierarchy of love (and grief) our society has built
    • Why finding out about a friend's death through social media is more common than we think
    • The Netflix documentary The Predator of Seville and Lauren's story
    • How Hannah sat in the courtroom five feet from the man who killed her friend
    • The moment Lauren's photo appeared on Hannah's phone, updated by Lauren
    • Why friend-loss grievers feel pressure to qualify and explain their own loss
    • How grief rituals can be personal, messy, and entirely your own
    • The Friends Missing Friends Collective, an online community for friend-loss grievers
    • What Hannah would say (and not say) to herself on the day she lost Lauren

    Connect with Hannah Rumsey:

    • Friends Missing Friends (website, online membership, and podcast): friendsmissingfriends.com
    • IG @friendsmissingfriends
    • Netflix documentary: The Predator of Seville

    If you've ever lost a friend and felt like you had to explain why it mattered, this episode is for you.

    Send us Fan Mail

    Support the show

    Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.

    🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick

    New episodes wherever you watch or listen.

    Connect with Nina Rodriguez:

    • griefandlight.com
    • @griefandlight
    • Resting Grief Face on Substack

    Thank you for listening!

    If this conversation resonated with you:

    ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it
    ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation
    ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts

    Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers
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    52 分
  • Staying Human in the Era of AI: Storytelling, Grief & Change with Patrice Poltzer

    Staying Human in the Era of AI: Storytelling, Grief & Change with Patrice Poltzer
    2026/06/02

    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-continental move from New York to Lisbon, a vanished family income, and a launch that flopped led her to "accidentally" build an AI storytelling company. But this isn't just a hustle story. It's a conversation about agency. Why our active participation in building the future is required, especially for women and people from historically excluded communities.

    In this episode, we explore:

    • How loss and uncertainty can become the ground for reinvention
    • Why "being more human" is the most valuable skill in the AI era
    • The trust crisis, and why storytelling is the only marketing that neurologically changes a stranger's mind
    • Whether outsourcing our thinking to AI is dulling the very traits that make us human
    • How grievers, living in liminality, can use their lived experience to define what's next
    • Practical, low-fear entry points for women curious about AI

    Connect with Patrice Poltzer:

    • Instagram: @PatricePoltzer
    • LinkedIn
    • My Story Pro (free trial, workshops & community)

    This is a both/and conversation; the and of fear and agency, grief and possibility, technology and humanity.

    Send us Fan Mail

    Support the show

    Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.

    🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick

    New episodes wherever you watch or listen.

    Connect with Nina Rodriguez:

    • griefandlight.com
    • @griefandlight
    • Resting Grief Face on Substack

    Thank you for listening!

    If this conversation resonated with you:

    ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it
    ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation
    ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts

    Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers
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    51 分
  • Women’s Health & Self-Advocacy: How to Be Heard in Healthcare | Spencer Moore

    Women’s Health & Self-Advocacy: How to Be Heard in Healthcare | Spencer Moore
    2026/05/19

    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 illness, breast cancer, medical dismissal, and learning how to navigate healthcare systems with confidence and clarity.

    After years of chronic health struggles and being passed from doctor to doctor as what Spencer calls a “hot potato patient,” she was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer at 40. Her experience transformed the way she approached healthcare, communication, and self-advocacy, and led her to help other women develop the tools to better advocate for themselves in medical settings.

    Together, Nina and Spencer explore the grief that can live inside illness, chronic symptoms, medical dismissal, and not being believed. They also discuss practical strategies for navigating doctor appointments, communicating symptoms effectively, recognizing misinformation online, and building trust with your own body.

    This episode is especially meaningful for women navigating chronic illness, breast cancer, autoimmune conditions, invisible illness, medical trauma, grief, burnout, or healthcare advocacy.

    Key Takeaways

    • Self-advocacy is a skill set that can be learned
    • Preparation can change the outcome of medical appointments
    • The language women use in healthcare settings matters
    • Chronic illness grief deserves recognition and support
    • There is no single “quick fix” for complex health issues
    • Trustworthy health advocates acknowledge nuance and uncertainty
    • AI tools can support research but cannot replace medical care

    If you’ve ever felt dismissed, unseen, or overwhelmed inside the healthcare system, this conversation is for you.

    ***

    Advocacy Tools by The Hairy Chin

    One-page Health Summary

    ***

    Connect with Spencer Moore:

    Instagram: @the.hairy.chin
    YouTube: @thehairychin
    Website: thehairychin.com

    This episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider regarding your health concerns.

    Send us Fan Mail

    Support the show

    Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.

    🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick

    New episodes wherever you watch or listen.

    Connect with Nina Rodriguez:

    • griefandlight.com
    • @griefandlight
    • Resting Grief Face on Substack

    Thank you for listening!

    If this conversation resonated with you:

    ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it
    ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation
    ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts

    Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers
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    56 分
  • Losing Both Parents Changed Everything | Tara Accardo on Navigating Life With Grief

    Losing Both Parents Changed Everything | Tara Accardo on Navigating Life With Grief
    2026/05/13

    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 pandemic, experiencing heartbreak, grieving the loss of her beloved 19-year-old dog, and enduring a traumatic birth and NICU stay with her daughter, Tara found herself asking the same questions so many grieving people ask:

    Who am I now?
    How do I move forward after loss?
    And what does it mean to create a meaningful life after grief?

    Together, Tara and Nina discuss anticipatory grief, cancer caregiving, pet loss grief, parenting after parental loss, continuing bonds, spirituality after loss, soul purpose, grief coaching, and learning to trust your intuition through grief and trauma.

    This episode is for anyone grieving the death of a parent, navigating compounded grief, adjusting to life after loss, or searching for hope and healing after heartbreak, trauma, or major life change.

    Whether you're grieving a mother or father, coping with grief during motherhood, healing after traumatic birth, or trying to rediscover yourself after loss, this conversation offers compassionate insight, validation, and reminders that grief and joy can coexist.

    Connect with Tara Accardo:

    • Website: lossesbecomegains.com
    • Life With Grief podcast
    • Instagram: @lossesbecomegains

    Send us Fan Mail

    Support the show

    Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.

    🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick

    New episodes wherever you watch or listen.

    Connect with Nina Rodriguez:

    • griefandlight.com
    • @griefandlight
    • Resting Grief Face on Substack

    Thank you for listening!

    If this conversation resonated with you:

    ✅ Share this episode with someone who needs it
    ✅ Follow Grief and Light so you never miss a conversation
    ✅ Leave a review! It helps this podcast reach more hearts

    Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers
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    1 時間 22 分