Adoption is a loss that often lives in the shadows, both in the world and inside of adoptees. Losing everything you've ever known before there are even words to name it, when you are an absorbent, unformed human being can take a lifetime to understand. But it is only by recognizing the loss that adoptees can claim their birthright; a life of beauty and meaning. Michelle Madrid knows this territory from both directions. She is an adoptee and an adoptive mother. She dedicates herself to helping other adoptees claim all the parts of themselves, including the ones they were before they lost their first family. Join us as we talk about all sides of the an adoption and how we can all support adopted people to claim every part of themselves.

Meghan Riordan Jarvis was a therapist specializing in grief and trauma. So maybe she and her highly trained friends and colleagues recognized just a little sooner that she was in trouble. After the loss of her father then her mother, she developed severe PTSD that required in-patient care. How does a therapist navigate her own extreme trauma? What does the experience teach her about supporting other people in the same situation? And how does it change her life and perspective? Join us as explore the science and human experience of trauma- and the lessons we sometimes find at the end.

When dementia comes for someone we love, how do we maintain connection and relationship? For Suzanne Finnamore it takes accepting that her mother, in her final stage of dementia, lives in another country; Suzanne has needed to learn the customs and accept the differences. When she can accept, there is room for magic, including the magic of living as if there is no death; where everyone we ever loved is still alive. Suzanne is able to see the ways in which her mother is still herself and still vital. She is able to see the beauty of her mother's marriage and the life she built out of loss and challenge. They are able to love each other in the present moment whether all is remembered or nothing is.

Facing illness at a young age unravels every plan you had. When Jennifer Cramer-Miller was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease at 22, she had to rethink what life would look like. Through kidney transplants, dialysis and a never-ending need for medical care, Jennifer slowly learned to find the joy anyway. Refusing the be defined by illness, she nonetheless became an advocate for many other people facing what she had. Over time, she was able to claim the title to her book, Incurable Optimist and the subtitle too: Living With Illness and Chronic Hope!

Through her own losses and those of the patients she worked with as a palliative care doctor, Karen Wyatt learned the value of telling our stories. Writing became a meaningful and compelling practice for healing and now, she offers what she learned in her latest book, Stories From the Dark Night. she offers practical guidance to write about grief born of decades of experience with death, grief and transformation.

After the death of her husband left her a young widow, Elaine Roth had no idea how she would make a new life for herself and her children. What would their lives look like now? She struggled to take care of herself, which led to a career as a Pilates instructor. And she struggled to envision love in her life, which led her to write a novel, The Midnight Garden. Her heroine's name, Hope, embodied the quality Elaine herself wanted the most to feel. Imagining a way into the feelings she would have embarking on a search for love after her loss, writing gave her a picture. It didn't need to be exactly HER picture to reassure her that life is possible after loss.

How does an Arab-American girl, moving across the middle east as her father follows his career, find her identity? And how is that search impacted when personal tragedy rocks her family? Kathryn Abdul-Baki started her life in the United States but then lived in Iran, Jerusalem, Kuwait, aware that her mother was different from the Arab mothers and that she, too, was different. Her relationships with those outside of the expat community grew as she grew, and Kathryn struggled to see how she fit in. When a devastating early loss changed her world forever, she had to learn to embrace all of who she was, through music, dancing, and the love and devotion of family.

When Kevin Campbell's beloved diead after 22 years together, he couldn't bring himself to create music from the experience. It felt too painful to express his grief, even in his comfort zone; music. But over time he realized that in order to move forward he needed to express through his art the aspects of his feelings after the loss. Stages, his latest album, is the result. Capturing all the feelings that arose from his loss, he did find a way to move forward.

Kenya Aissa has had many careers that all have one thing in common; healing in the context of trauma. A thirty year career as a social worker in the child welfare system deepened her awareness of how responding to our traumas informs our lives going forward. She has since integrated her yoga and wellness practices into her healing work. Her book Sacred Girl: Spiritual Life Skills for Conscious Young Women, gives young women valuable skills to respond not only to their personal traumas but also to intergenerational and collective trauma, activism stress, and racial/cultural wounds. She has benefitted in her own life from a core built around healing, especially when she faced the loss of her dearest friend. How does Kenya integrate all her many skills into one beautiful way forward for herself and her clients? We'll be talking about all she does as part of her business, Ruby Envy Wellness.

The Last Love Note tells the fictional story of a young widow trying to find a way to move forward. Its heroine, Kate, has continued to parent, work, and keep her sense of humor but has had very little time to give her grief the space it needs. How many others in these modern times are in the same situation? The author, Emma Grey, knows first hand what happens when loss drops into your life and nothing else stops. Join us as we explore what led her to write the book and how the writing helped her with her own mourning.