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.

During the COVID pandemic Becky Wilkes moved her parents in with her rather than tolerate being unable to see them. In the final stages of their life together, she had the opportunity to witness first hand the love that had sustained them and how it showed itself until death, and after. Her photographic essay captured in poignant detail their physical decline and their love. It opened a door to the heart of love; walking each other home. What was it like to come so close to her parents' fragility, to care for their aging physical bodies and to record it all with her camera? Join us as we explore her experience during and after this momentous time.

What holds us back? How do past unresolved traumas, small and large, continue to control our lives and responses? Melanie Smith set out to discover for herself what was holding HER back. In the process, she learned invaluable lessons about how to loosen the hold her past had on her. Freeing herself from a life that didn't fit her, she found a joy beyond her imagining. And now, she uses teh principles she learned to walk with others to their destiny and best life.

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.

Finding herself still restless after the death of her husband, Judy Reeves sold everything and set out on a one year voyage around the world. Only a few of her destinations were planned and most of them could be cancelled at a moment's notice. Thus unfolded an experience of discovery; who was she now, a single woman, a widow? What would the next phase of her life look like? In the solitude of her travel, writing and walking her way through the year, she discovered herself in a fresh new form. She truly travelled beyond loss and loneliness!

What is it that helps us discover ourselves? It is often the challenges, the losses and deep pains, that over time lead us to claim our own natures. For Roberta Kuriloff, a crushing breakup led her to do what she had wanted for a long time; build her own home and live in the Maine woods. Along the way, she explored the turning points of her life, including the death of her mother when she was six and her years living in an orphanage. How had these experiences formed her, and who was she underneath? Join us as we talk about her process of discovery and where it led her.

A diagnosis of MS affects more than just the person now struggling with life, unable to continuing living as they did. When Suzanne Marriott's husband was diagnosed, they faced a re-ordering of everything in their life together. Unable to work, walk well or count on his emotional stability, Suzanne found herself managing more and more of the business of their life together. Through, psychological insights and spiritual inquiry she became the kind of caregiver she most wanted to be. And as they grew in their response to the challenge, their ability to love well also grew. Facing her own health crisis, Suzanne could see just how much she had changed!

Susan Hayden experienced three sudden losses that shaped her life; her childhood best friend, her father and her husband. How did she shape these losses into the creative voice she crafted over a lifetime? How did they change her? Going forward from loss, what do we take with us and what do we leave behind? Her first published memoir, Now You Are a Missing Person, makes poetry of loss, showing us how to integrate our love into a new creation.