Grief Is My Side Hustle

Jennifer Blackburn: Fitness trainer, family impacted by gun violence

*Trigger Warning* This episode contains reference to death by gun violence and suicide

 

Jennifer Blackburn is a dynamic group fitness instructor, cycling coach and personal trainer. She holds multiple certifications and her classes are customized using the latest conditioning technologies which are the backbone of her results driven programs. She is an ambassador for Lululemon and has appeared in NBC4, Discovery Health and written articles for Business Insider, Washington Post, Self.  Jennifer was named on of Dc's top trainers by Washingtonian Magazine.  She resides in Maryland with her husband and 5 children.

Rabbi Steve Leder: Author of For You When I am Gone

In this episode I talk with the incomparable Rabbi Steve Leder about his new book "For You When I Am Gone" and the emotional legacy we leave our loved ones.  I was so touched by his warmth intelligence and spirit of hope.

 

 

http://steveleder.com

Hope Edelman: Motherless Daughters

Hope Edelman has been writing, speaking, and leading workshops and retreats in the bereavement field for more than 25 years. She was 17 when she lost her mother to breast cancer and 40 when her father died, events that inspired her to offer grief education and support to those who cannot otherwise receive it

Hope’s first book, Motherless Daughters, was a #1 New York Times bestseller and appeared on multiple bestseller lists worldwide. Hope’s most recent book, The AfterGrief, offers an innovative new language for discussing the long arc of loss. She has published six additional books, including Motherless Mothers and the memoir, The Possibility of Everything. Her work has been translated into 14 languages and published in 11 countries.

Hope has also published articles and essays in numerous publications and anthologies, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Real Simple, Parade, and CNN.com. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a master’s degree in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa.  She is a certified Martha Beck Life Coach and has also done certificate training in narrative therapy

Justin Yopp: Founder of Widowed Parents Program

Today we talk to Dr. Justin Yopp about the widowed parent program he and a colleague began after noting a lack of group support particularly for young father's recently bereaved. 

https://widowedparent.org

Dr. Yopp is a clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UNC. He is a member of the UNC Comprehensive Cancer Support Program at the North Carolina Cancer Hospital where he provides inpatient as well as outpatient assessment and therapeutic services for children and adolescents with cancer. He also works with children whose parents have serious medical illnesses such as cancer. His research is in the area of children’s adaptation to cancer. Dr. Yopp came to UNC from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN, where he served as a clinical psychologist and coordinator of the inpatient consultation-liaison service. Prior to working at St. Jude, Dr. Yopp completed his internship and postdoctoral fellowship at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. He earned his doctoral degree in clinical psychology from Central Michigan University and completed a pediatric psychology externship at Children’s Hospital of Michigan. He is a native of Raleigh.

 

 

Ep. 53. Reid Peterson: Grief Refuge

Reid Peterson

FOUNDER/CREATOR

Grief Refuge content is created by Reid Peterson, MA. Reid achieved a Masters Degree in Transpersonal Psychology (Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, 2007) and is certified in Death & Grief Studies by the Center for Loss & Life Transition. After losing his biological father to suicide in 2006 and his stepfather to cancer in 2016, Reid felt a calling to help the grieving find peace and purpose after loss.

 

https://www.griefrefuge.com

Ep. 52. Marisa Renee Lee: Author Grief is Love

Marisa Renee Lee is the CEO of Beacon Advisors, co-founder of Supportal, and founder of The Pink Agenda.

Supportal is a platform that makes it easy for people to respond when someone they care about is faced with a life-changing challenge. With a focus on experiences that are difficult to deal with and difficult to respond to, Supportal features first-hand accounts of people who have experienced life-changing challenges. They detail the best and most thoughtful ways people in their lives responded and Supportal provides recommendations that will make it easy for others to do the same.

In addition to her work on Supportal, Marisa runs Beacon Advisors, a mission driven consulting firm that allows her to support a variety of institutions on organizational development, executive coaching and donor advising. Until 2017 Marisa served as the Managing Director of the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance (MBK Alliance), a nonprofit born out of President Obama's call to action to address the barriers to success that boys and young men of color disproportionately face along the life path. Through her work with MBK Alliance, Marisa led a collaborative, cross-sectoral movement that united business, philanthropy, nonprofit, and community leaders, to increase pathways of opportunity for young men of color.

 

https://www.marisareneelee.com/about

 

https://www.instagram.com/marisareneelee/

 

Ep. 51. Kim Murray: Widow 411

Kim Murray shares her story of her young husband, Mark's death from a brain tumor when she was just 44 and her kids were 8 and 10. Kim talks about the early days, how friends and spirituality helped, and the secondary hardships of loss.

 

Kim created widow 411 to provide support to others experiencing loss.

https://widow411.com/start-here/

Ep. 50. The Grieving Brain: Mary-Frances O’Connor PhD

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, where she directs the Grief, Loss and Social Stress (GLASS) Lab, which investigates the effects of grief on the brain and the body. O’Connor earned a doctorate from the University of Arizona in 2004 and completed a fellowship at UCLA. Following a faculty appointment at UCLA Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, she returned to the University of Arizona in 2012. Her work has been published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, Biological Psychiatry, and Psychological Science, and featured in Newsweek, the New York Times, and The Washington Post. Having grown up in Montana, she now lives in Tucson, Arizona. For more information go to https://www.maryfrancesoconnor.com/

 

 

Loss of a loved one is something everyone experiences, and for as long as humans have existed, we have struggled when a loved one dies. Poets and playwrights have written about the dark cloak of grief, the deep yearning, and devastating heartache of loss. But until now, we have had little scientific perspective on this universal experience.  In THE GRIEVING BRAIN: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss (HarperOne; February 1, 2022; Hardcover) renowned grief expert, neuroscientist, and psychologist Mary-Frances O’Connor, Ph.D., shares groundbreaking discoveries about what happens in our brain when we grieve, providing a new paradigm for understanding love, loss, and learning.

 

In The Grieving Brain, O’Connor, who has devoted decades to researching the effects of grief on the brain, reveals a fascinating new window into one of the hallmark experiences of being human. She makes cutting-edge neuroscience accessible and guides us through how we encode love and grief. With love, our neurons help us form attachments to others; but, with loss, our brain must come to terms with where our loved ones went, and how to imagine a future that encompasses their absence. Significantly, O’Connor debunks Kubler-Ross’ enduring idea of the “Five Stages of Grief” and sets a new paradigm for understanding grief on a neurological level.  

Ep. 49. Grieving Mother: Megan Hillukka

Grief and Loss supporter and content creator Megan Hillukka's beautiful baby, Aria, died in her sleep 2.5 years ago.  She wasn't sick she just never woke up.  Since that impossible day, Megan spends every day grieving and living, using the tools she learned and now teaches to others.

Join us for this moving conversation on how to move forward carrying grief.

https://www.meganhillukka.com

Ep. 48. Creator of Grief and Grits: Randi Pearlman Wolfson

Join Meghan for this discussion with Grief and Grits creator, Rani Pearlman Wolfson. Randi talks about her experience as a lifelong griever, and the legacy of hope she has created in with her children's book and her educational platform

 

https://www.griefandgrits.com