LISTEN to the podcast
LISTEN to the podcast
Our society doesn’t value platonic love as much as romantic or familial love. And because of that, it also doesn’t value the grief. That’s why on Friends Missing Friends, I want to talk about it.I chat with those who have experienced the death of friends, grief experts, and more, to normalize the complex grief of losing a friend in a world that often doesn’t understand. And you know what I’ve found? So many of use are experiencing the same fears, doubts, and pain points. I’ve lost track of the number of times a guest said something and I said, “no way, really?! I’ve felt that too!!”Through my personal reflections and interviews, my aim is to shed a light on a side of grief that is not talked about enough. What I truly want is for anyone out there who is grieving a friend to listen and feel “my grief is valid” and “I am not alone.” Have a question or interested in being interviewed? Send me an email, or submit a voice clip by leaving a voice-message at 312-291-1781.
Interested in sponsoring or doing a crossover episode? Reach out to me! I promise I don’t bite :)
Podcast Trailer
"Every relationship is completely and totally unique...and that’s one thing that’s been really hard for me is that I know that no one who’s alive today understands the relationship I had with my friend."
"When she left the physical world, not only was it a crushing realization that she was gone, but I also felt the very acute loss of all those shared memories. She was like the only other person who held the other side."
“I think [society] thinks of friends as like, you have your family and romantic human. And then tier two is how much you're supposed to feel about your friends."
"I feel much more comfortable talking about grieving my dad because I don't feel like I'm stepping on anyone's toes. It feels like something that I own. But I don't necessarily feel that way about my friend."
“When you choose people to be in your life and you actively build a friendship – and for that to die, for them to die – is catastrophic. Our friends are the foundations in our lives.”
Navigate Episodes by Category
Learn Something about Grief…
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Listen to this episode to learn:
the role of Ahimsa (non-harm, one of the 5 Yamas) in self-compassion during grief
surrendering to emotions with Ishvaraparidhana (divine surrender, one of the 5 Niyamas)
Supporting somatic healing and nervous system regulation with Asana (the movements and poses)
Cultural differences in grieving
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Listen to this episode to learn:
The difference between empathy and compassion
How crucial it is to ACKNOWLEDGE someone’s grief
How grief can manifest in any or all of the 5planes: emotional, physical, cognitive, behavioral, and spiritual
Grief and attachment
How to respond with compassion to someone who is grieving
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Listen to this episode to learn:
Her book Grief Ally and how to support the bereaved
How to use love languages in your support
Supporting the bereaved WILL involve making mistakes and that’s okay!
Secondary losses
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Listen to this episode to learn:
how our attachment style affects our grief
how regularly thinking about death and mortality can increase happiness
living in the present moment
End of Life plans
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Listen to this episode to learn more about
Dreams we’ve had about dead loved ones
Connecting with our dead loved ones
How dreams help us to process emotions
Lucid dreaming
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Listen to this episode to learn:
What it means to soften grief and let it move through the body
How to use breath work and tapping to soften the grief
The importance of feeling our big emotions (“what comes out of the body will never make you sick”)
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Listen to this episode to learn about:
What forgiveness is
How to reach forgiveness
How forgiveness relates to grief
How it can free you from judgment, anger, and pain
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Listen to this episode to learn about:
social taboos around death, dying, and grief
the science of bereavement
how the funeral industry has shaped our society’s norms around death & dying
Listen to someone’s grief story…
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about:
Brendan processing his feelings and thoughts through social media, and how his videos have resonated with millions of strangers around the world
Exploring healing through small shifts: even 1% at a time
Finding purpose in life again after a traumatic loss
Dealing with the broken legal system
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about the deep, loving friendship and creative partnership between Amber Jeffrey from The Grief Gang, and Poppy Chancellor from The GriefCase.
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about
How we all express and experience grief differently
Using writing as a tool for processing grief
Signs from our loved ones
Honoring our loved ones’ legacies
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about:
How friend-loss is a disenfranchised grief, and how that affects our grieving process
Rebecca’s dear friend Courtney, who died 3 weeks before recording this episode – the complexity of the grief, Courtney’s celebration of life, and more
The state of bereavement leave in workplaces (spoiler alert: it’s not great), and how it could be better
Grief is not logical
The limit to grief (and love) do not exist!
How grief can coexist with joy
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Listen to this episode to hear a listener’s voice message about the complex and difficult grief of grieving the death of a distanced/disconnected friend.
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about the complicated and messy grief that can come after an ex-friend’s death.
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Listen to this episode, Part 1 and Part 2, to hear a conversation about:
The question “Did I do enough?” after a friend passes away
How important it is to celebrate friendship and keep your heart open after loss
The holographic heart (our heart-mind), and how we can love multiple people with our whole heart.
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about:
how Jessica grieved after the death of a friend and struggled to openly share her emotions
telling people how you want to nurtured and supported (rather than assuming they’ll know!)
Expectations and boundary setting with grief
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about:
the grief Amy has experienced throughout her life
the loss of dear friends
grief massage
healing rituals and traditions to remember her friends
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about:
The shocking death of Audrey’s friend in college, after just cracking open the glorious beginning of their friendship
How hard it is to not have anyone to grieve the loss with
The fear of complicating the family members’ grief
How our society doesn't value friendships as much as romantic relationships
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about:
Karen’s story of the multiple friends she’s lost over the years, and how she’s grieved
how no one teaches you how to grieve – and we don’t get nearly enough time off work to grieve!
Forgiving yourself
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about:
Toby Dorr’s friend Lisa, who was executed by lethal injection in 2021
How prison strips you bare to who you really are
Toby’s memoir LIVING WITH CONVICTION, which is all about the unexpected sisterhood she discovered while in prison
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about:
Losing an entire friend-group after the death of a friend
How our identities can be enmeshed with our friend-groups
Keeping our memories alive
The expansiveness of love
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about:
How Alex met her best friend Katie, and the grief after her passing
Learning to balance the anger of grief
Reactions versus chosen responses
How society pressures us to act “fine” as quickly as possible after the death of a loved one
The complexity of not crossing boundaries with our deceased friend’s family
The idea of our friend living on in us
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about:
The experience of losing a friend while in college
How to integrate the death of a friend into the story of our life
How we have the desire to know what we meant to the friend who passed, in order for us to know how to grieve
Death Doula work
Episodes about friendship…
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about the unexpected power of sisterhood and friendship during Toby Dorr’s time in prison.
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Listen to this episode to hear my overview of the book “Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship” By by Kayleen Schaefer
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about:
defining friendships in a way that works for you
the idea of friends being equally as important as romantic partners, rather than a hierarchy
life transitions (and walking towards something rather than running away)
living a life outside of society’s expectations of marriage and nuclear families
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Listen to this episode to learn more about the book Platonic by Dr. Marisa G. Franco.
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about:
Her friendships growing up as a Third Culture Kid
How hard it is to make friends as an adult
How friendships are portrayed in the media
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about:
the book Big Friendship
what friendship means to us
loneliness and creating our own community
what we want from our life moving forward
(And lots of laughter and silliness!).
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about:
How grief isn’t just mourning the past, but the future too
The importance of friendships
The long-term effects of losing your best friend at such an impressionable age
How to set healthy boundaries
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about adult friendships, and redesigning a life after loss.
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Listen to this episode to hear a conversation about:
What the term “best friend” means to us
The idea of friendships being a tapestry throughout our life
Grieving the ends of friendships and the seasons of life
How the world often tells us our love and our emotions is “too” much
How to support your friends when they go through dark times
Our happiest memories with our friends
Hannah’s personal thoughts on grief…
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Listen to this episode to hear me think out loud about feeling stuck in a liminal space (aka feeling “lost” in the midst of a life transition, such as grief!).
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Listen to this episode to hear me think out loud about creative blocks I’m having around writing my grief story, and the idea of continuing my friendship with Lauren.
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Listen to this episode to hear me talk more about my grief story — a real-time update right after hearing some very important news about the man responsible for my friend Lauren’s death.
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Listen to this episode to hear me talk about my personal grief story, and what I’ve learned from Lilly Dancyger's essay collection "First Love" on how to engage in conscientious (rather than gratuitous) True-Crime.
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Listen to this episode to hear me talk about empathy and how it relates to grief.
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Listen to this episode to hear me talk about memories and grief. After my friend died, I slowly started to lose faith in my memories of her -- she was no longer around to bounce memories back and forth with. So how did I know they were still accurate? Were they shifting over time? And if they are shifting, then does that mean she is slipping away from me?
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Listen to this episode to hear me talk about how I choose to believe that signs are real, because it comforts me, and makes me feel connected to people I love who have passed.
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Listen to this episode to hear me talk about the memoir I've been working on, and the intense web of thorns that is grief and memories. I ask the really hard questions: by writing about her, am I honoring her? As the memories I write about change and morph over time, am I creating a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory? Am I, in short, erasing her?
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Listen to this episode to hear me talk about how grief can completely and suddenly rearrange your priorities.
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Listen to this episode to hear me read an excerpt I wrote about the dark and tumultuous moments, hours, and days after I found out my friend had passed away.
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Listen to this episode to hear me talk about how, no matter what the world may say, you are NOT overreacting to your loss.
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Listen to this episode to hear me talk about feeling jealousy during grief. Is it normal to feel jealous? Yes!
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Listen to this episode to hear me talk about how storytelling became a conduit for me to live a more open baggage lifestyle, which lifted a thousand pound weight from my shoulders.
Using art to process grief…
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Listen to this episode to learn how photography could help you be present in the moment, and revisit the intense feelings later.
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Listen to this episode, Part 1 and Part 2, to hear a conversation about:
The difference between writing about a family member’s death versus a friend’s
How to be considerate but ALSO understand how we are not responsible for everyone’s feelings!
Considering people’s privacy and feelings when writing about our grief
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Listen to this episode, Part 1 and Part 2, to hear a conversation about:
Jack’s play “I’m Falling In Love All The Time” and how it helped him process his grief after his brother’s death
How storytelling helps us to see how our life (and grief) has changed over time
The need for connection and community after loss (and how storytelling has helped us find that!)
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