I used to carry my grief around like it was a secret. Then storytelling became a conduit for me to live a more open baggage lifestyle, which lifted a thousand pound weight from my shoulders. If you want to tell your story -- reach out to me! I will listen. 

Additional resources:

To learn more about Green Shirt studio in Chicago (where I took the storytelling classes), go here: https://www.greenshirtstudio.com/

Get in touch:

Thank you for listening to Friends Missing Friends. If you enjoyed it, please follow/subscribe, leave stars and a review – it’s so appreciated!

You can send in your questions to [email protected], send a voice clip to our google voice number 312-291-1781, and follow us on IG @friendsmissingfriends. For more information, you can visit our website: friendsmissingfriends.com.

Enjoy this bonus episode of cut material -- or "deleted scenes" as I like to call them -- from today’s interview!

In this episode, Alex and I discuss:

· How our life grows around our grief, instead of grief getting smaller

· Signs from loved one who have passed

Additional resources:

To learn more about the book “Signs” by Laura Lynne Jackson, go here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42583943-signs

Get in touch:

Thank you for listening to Friends Missing Friends. If you enjoyed it, please follow/subscribe, leave stars and a review – it’s so appreciated!

You can send in your questions to [email protected], send a voice clip to our google voice number 312-291-1781, and follow us on IG @friendsmissingfriends. For more information, you can visit our website: friendsmissingfriends.com.

About today’s guest, Alex Kuisis: Alex Kuisis is a best-selling, award-winning author, a professional organizer, and a life coach who thrives at the intersection of truth and kindness. Her coaching practice, Soul Fitness Coaching, joyfully empowers human beings around the world to design lives they love, one habit at a time. Visit her website here: www.goaskalex.org

On today’s episode, Alex and I discuss:

· 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

Get in touch:

Thank you for listening to Friends Missing Friends. If you enjoyed it, please follow/subscribe, leave stars and a review – it’s so appreciated!

You can send in your questions to [email protected], send a voice clip to our google voice number 312-291-1781, and follow us on IG @friendsmissingfriends. For more information, you can visit our website: friendsmissingfriends.com.

I LOVE Christie Tate’s new memoir, “B.F.F.”, which is all about the power of female friendships, and the grief after the death of a friend.

Additional resources:

To learn more about the author Christie Tate and buy her memoirs “Group” and “B.F.F”, go here: https://christietate.com/

Get in touch:

Thank you for listening to Friends Missing Friends. If you enjoyed it, please follow/subscribe, leave stars and a review – it’s so appreciated!

You can send in your questions to [email protected], send a voice clip to our google voice number 312-291-1781, and follow us on IG @friendsmissingfriends. For more information, you can visit our website: friendsmissingfriends.com.

In Western society, there are very few public grief and mourning channels for those who are grieving friends. 

I talk about that and more, including: 

Get in touch:

Thank you for listening to Friends Missing Friends. If you enjoyed it, please follow/subscribe, leave stars and a review – it’s so appreciated!

You can send in your questions to [email protected], send a voice clip to our google voice number 312-291-1781, and follow us on IG @friendsmissingfriends. For more information, you can visit our website: friendsmissingfriends.com.

In this episode I discuss my thoughts and feelings about the interview with Anna, including:

· How much I’ve changed since the interview, which was recorded in Aug 2021

· How I hope I’ll continue to grow

· The Death Doula Collective and Death Café in Chicago

Additional resources:

To learn more about the Death Doula Collective in Chicago, go here: https://www.chicagodeathdoulacollective.com/

To find a local Death Café (a safe space where people eat, drink, and discuss the concept of death and grieving), go here: https://deathcafe.com/

Get in touch:

Thank you for listening to Friends Missing Friends. If you enjoyed it, please follow/subscribe, leave stars and a review – it’s so appreciated!

You can send in your questions to [email protected], send a voice clip to our google voice number 312-291-1781, and follow us on IG @friendsmissingfriends. For more information, you can visit our website: friendsmissingfriends.com.

About today’s guest, Anna Zeisel: Anna is a local INELDA trained Death Doula and Yoga Instructor working towards her Mdiv to become an interfaith chaplain.

How do you navigate grieving the death of a friend without stepping on anyone’s toes? That’s what Anna and I discuss in this very first episode of Friends Missing Friends, including:

· 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

· How our grief seeped into our dreams

· How hard it is to avoid the urge to fix people’s grief

· Death Doula work

Additional resources:

We mention Megan Devine and her grief community, Refuge in Grief. Visit her website here: https://refugeingrief.com/

Learn more about Megan Devine's book IT’S OK THAT YOU’RE NOT OK, here: https://refugeingrief.com/book/

Learn more about Death Doulas and find one in your area through INELDA’s website here: https://inelda.org/find-a-doula/

Get in touch:

Thank you for listening to the very first episode of Friends Missing Friends. If you enjoyed it, please follow/subscribe, leave stars and a review – it’s so appreciated!

You can send in your questions to [email protected], send a voice clip to our google voice number 312-291-1781, and follow us on IG @friendsmissingfriends. For more information, you can visit our website: friendsmissingfriends.com.

Introducing Friends Missing Friends, hosted by Hannah Rumsey! A bit about me: I’m a 30-year old highly-sensitive empath who has been deeply grieving the death of a beloved friend for nearly eight years. And now, I want to talk about it. Grief, friendships, friend-grief, all of it. How freaking hard it is. How unbelievably lonely it is. How difficult it is to find a grief group for those grieving friends (if anyone out there has found one, please let me know. I haven’t found one yet).

While I can’t fix how much grief sucks, I can do something about the loneliness. I want this podcast to be a community for those missing and grieving friends. We need each other. Seriously. We shouldn’t have to do this totally alone.

Every other week I’ll interview a guest, and on alternate weeks it’ll just be me and my thoughts, talking directly to you. 

Meet me here, every week, on Friends Missing Friends. Let’s build a community together!

The first episode will drop on Tuesday, March 7th. Don’t forget to follow the show so you get notified when each episode drops, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audacity, or wherever you get your podcasts. Together we can remember and cherish the friends we miss. 

To learn more about the podcast, visit friendsmissingfriends.com, or follow on IG @friendsmissingfriends.