This episode with my friend Amy Ortloff originally aired in August 2021 with the title Teaching People To Grieve With Me. As part of my effort to highlight the best of my past episodes, I wanted to replay this conversation, which is one of the most important I've ever shared.

Content warning: Child loss and suicide

In 2017, Amy Ortloff lost her middle child Ryan to suicide. Ryan was just 17 years old. Less than a week after his death, Amy took to her personal Facebook page and starting sharing every single day. She began by sharing stories about Ryan, family memories and examples of the kind of kid he was. She didn't want her child to be forgotten. 

As the weeks went by, deep in grief, Amy also started sharing her own experiences of this devastating time she was living through. She shared what she was learning in therapy, she set and shared her personal boundaries for interaction for those in her small town Oklahoma community. 

Amy's sharing was raw and vulnerable. It was heartbreaking and powerful. I made a point to read her posts every day that first year after Ryan. 

This episode is about the effects of that real-time sharing during the hardest time of her life, the positive and the negative. Amy was teaching us how to grieve with her, and it made an enormous impact on me long before I ever wrote a book about sharing stuff. 

If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or text TALK to 741741. 

Please share this episode with anyone who needs to hear it.

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My favorite topic, any time of year.

Join the SECRET STUFF BOOK CLUB where we're about to kick off the 5th annual STEPHEN KING SUMMER!

FULL SHOW NOTES HERE

Books I'm Looking Forward To Reading:

The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick

Playworld: A Novel by Adam Ross

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson

Three Biographies:

Sister Sinner by Claire Hoffman

Mark Twain by Ron Chernow

Manson by Jeff Guinn

Best Books Lately:

There’s Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib

Americanah by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

The Tell by Amy Griffin

Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

ALSO MENTIONED:

Ep. 258: Best Books Lately with Liz Hein

NYTimes 100 Best Books of the 21st Century

Ep. 98: How To Start a Book Club

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BUY THE BOOK: Share Your Stuff. I'll Go First. by Laura Tremaine

BUY THE BOOK: The Life Council: 10 Friends Every Woman Needs by Laura Tremaine

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This episode is the very core of what 10 Things To Tell You is about: reflection, growth, and great conversations.

And this conversation happens to be with one of my oldest friends and very favorite person to be on the microphone with: Meg Tietz. We're talking through the many ways we've changed in the last 10 years - since 2015 - in our home & family, career, and spiritually/emotionally. We have so much to say about our mid-30s, mid-2010s selves, and we're encouraging YOU to reflect on your own changes from the last decade.

Meg is a writer, speaker, voice over artist, and internet pioneer. I have been following in her footsteps since high school, and she is responsible for giving me my first shot at podcasting when she launched the Sorta Awesome show in 2015. Together we created and produced Smartest Person in the Room and now we're both creating regularly on Substack.

Read Meg's Substack Gemini Wrongs

Hire Meg for voice over work

FULL SHOW NOTES ARE HERE

MENTIONED in this episode:

Meg's Deconversion Series on Substack (Part 1) and Part 2 and Part 3

Secret Stuff by Laura Tremaine

Ep 235: 4 Lessons After Publishing 2 Books

Ep 34: The Robbery

Ep 194: On Endings and Intuition

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Have you ever felt underestimated? Of course you have. Maybe YOU'VE underestimated yourself (which can somehow feel worse).

My friend and fellow podcaster and author Mary Marantz joins me to talk about her new book Underestimated: The Surprisingly Simple Shift To Quit Playing Small, Name The Fear, and Move Forward Anyway. I just love Mary and love what she has to say about taking our future into our own hands.

Click HERE to get Mary's preorder bonuses

Learn more about Mary Marantz

Follow Mary Marantz on Instagram

Buy Underestimated

FULL SHOW NOTES HERE

ALSO MENTIONED in this episode:

Dirt by Mary Marantz

Slow Growth Equals Strong Roots

Take the Achiever Quiz

Ep 213: Anxiety Always Makes Sense with Dr. Becky Kennedy

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You'll love this conversation if you've ever wrestled with the fact that achieving your dreams can look and feel different than you expected.

Annie B Jones is most well known for owning The Bookshelf bookstore and for her book-focused podcast From the Front Porch, but now she's on the other side of publishing industry as she releases her debut book of essays Ordinary Time: Lessons Learned While Staying Put.

In this conversation, Annie and I talk about how dreams don't always look the way you planned, like living near your hometown, owning a bookstore, even (especially?) writing a book! Our lives look so different from one another, but we found so many parallels.

Follow Annie B Jones on Instagram

Buy Ordinary Time: Lessons Learned While Staying Put

FULL SHOW NOTES ARE HERE

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I have been waiting for the right moment to feature this conversation with interior designer Michelle Fahmy, founder of Haus of Meeshie, about bringing bold color and unique style to your home and life. For the past two years, Meeshie has helped bring fresh life to our family's home in Los Angeles, bringing a whole new vibe to our living spaces.

Since I've long preached the power of our spaces on this show, I knew Meeshie (with her very bold style) would be the perfect person to talk us through this topic. But this conversation ended up being about way more than just paint and wallpaper. Meeshie's own career trajectory and leaps of faith make this an inspiring message for how to create the colorful life you want.

Follow Haus of Meeshie on Instagram

Follow @laura.tremaine on IG for peeks of my personal home

Check out the EXTRA THINGS conversation with Meeshie on Laura Tremaine's Secret Stuff

Episodes that pair well with this one:

Ep 236: Discovering what was always there

BONUS: 5 Rules To Create A House You Love

FULL SHOW NOTES ARE HERE

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Over the last few years I’ve watched my friend, Jessica Turner, privately and publicly walk through her husband’s coming out and their subsequent divorce as well as her efforts to find her equilibrium in this new family dynamic. Jessica has done it all with grace and kindness and honesty, sharing her story with incredible strength and vulnerability. Her newest book, I Thought It Would Be Better Than This, chronicles this journey and the lessons she’s learned from it.

In this conversation, Jessica shares what it was like to navigate her own grief about the end of her marriage while also remaining a friend and ally to her ex-husband as he navigated coming out as gay. She shares how she was helped by journaling and therapy (two drums I will continue to bang all my days) and the rules she has for herself when it comes to sharing difficult and vulnerable things online. Jessica’s hard won wisdom is applicable to anyone dealing with disappointment. or who thought to themselves about their love life, career, parenting, or just adulthood...I thought it would be better than this.

Learn more about Jessica Turner

Follow Jessica Turner on IG

Buy her book (out now!) I Thought It Would Be Better Than This

Jessica's other books:

The Fringe Hours

Stretched Too Thin

Jessica's other appearance on 10 Things To Tell You:

Ep. 54: Best Books Lately with Jessica Turner

BONUS: How Influencers are making money off you. (a conversation with Jessica Turner)

JOIN LAURA TREMAINE'S SECRET STUFF

FULL SHOW NOTES ARE HERE

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BUY THE BOOK: Share Your Stuff. I'll Go First. by Laura Tremaine

BUY THE BOOK: The Life Council: 10 Friends Every Woman Needs by Laura Tremaine

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This episode is for anyone who has gone through a friendship breakup, or who desires finding a best friend as an adult. 

Every week on this show I encourage you to take the prompts and topics to a best friend in order to have a deeper conversation and better connection. But what if you don't have a best friend? What if you used to have a best friend but now you don't and that pain still lingers? What if you want a best friend, but have no idea how to find that person?

In honor of my book The Life Council: 10 Friends Every Woman Needs celebrating its book birthday this week, I wanted to rerun this episode from January 2021 with Heather Adams. Even though we recorded this years before The Life Council came out, you can see how I was already threading together the ideas that would eventually become the book.

Buy The Life Council: 10 Friends Every Woman Needs on amazon or on bookshop

Follow my guest Heather Adams, founder of Choice Media Communications

Read my free Secret Posts or become a SECRET STUFF member on Laura Tremaine's Secret Substack

FULL SHOW NOTES ARE HERE

SUBSCRIBE to 10 Things To Tell You so you never miss an episode!

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BUY THE BOOK: Share Your Stuff. I'll Go First. by Laura Tremaine

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I'm sharing my current favorite beauty products, apps, books, charities, and experiences of the last few months.

JOIN SECRET STUFF to hear me share a few extra goodies like the current podcasts I'm bingeing, as well as a few not Favorite Things.

What are YOUR favorite things in this season? Winter 2025 has been a doozy, so making a list of the things we love right now can give you such a boost of gratitude. I also really like how these lists mark a moment in time.

FULL SHOW NOTES ARE HERE

MENTIONED in this episode:

Opal phone blocking app

Money Hair Mask: Deep Hydrating and Strengthening Treatment

MdrnDock Travel Charger

Travel Hanging Organizer for Makeup & Skincare Products

Travel Organizer for Sunglasses & Jewelry

The Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer

Inner Excellence by Jim Murphy

Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation

Direct Relief

Altadena Girls

Grady Hendrix Author Event

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

Laura Tremaine's Secret Substack

Substack TUTORIAL

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BOOK: Share Your Stuff. I'll Go First. by Laura Tremaine

BOOK: The Life Council: 10 Friends Every Woman Needs by Laura Tremaine

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Professional photo organizer Casey von Stein (aka Miss Freddy) is BACK and this time she's helping us handle all those old, sentimental photos we all have stuffed in boxes in a closet somewhere.

Miss Freddy is answering my questions on how to make the physical photos into digital files and then how to organize and back them up online so we never have to worry they'll be lost or damaged in the future. She also says something to me about the 30,000 photos I have stored on my phone that might have just changed my life.

Follow Miss Freddy on IG

Learn more about Miss Freddy's BACKUP BOOTCAMP

Listen to past episodes with Miss Freddy:

Ep. 41: 10 Tips to Organize Your Photos with Miss Freddy

Ep. 82: Create a Family Yearbook (10 Tips from Miss Freddy)

MENTIONED in this episode:

Epson FastFoto Scanner

ScanSnap portable scanner

Aura digital photo frame

Miss Freddy’s blog post: How to Convert DVDs to Digital Files

FULL SHOW NOTES HERE

SUBSCRIBE to 10 Things To Tell You so you never miss an episode!

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.