Grief 2 Growth

You’ve been there. Someone you care about has just lost a person they love, and you freeze. You want to say the right thing, so you say “I’m sorry for your loss,” or you say nothing at all.

In this episode, pediatric thanatologist Emilio Parga gives you something better. After 24 years of guiding children, teens, families, schools, workplaces, and athletic teams through loss, he shares simple, practical words you can use today. You’ll hear why talking about death is a skill you can learn, why a one-minute text can mean more than you think, and why you never have to be afraid of saying a person’s name.

We also talk about the children who are too often overlooked, the siblings Emilio calls “the forgotten mourners,” and what it really means to move forward with your grief instead of moving on from it.

About Emilio Parga

Emilio Parga is a pediatric thanatologist and the leader of The Solace Tree, a nonprofit that has supported children, teens, and adults from ages 3 to 93 for 24 years. A former teacher, special needs educator, adaptive PE teacher, coach, and school counselor, Emilio has made it his life’s work to teach the adults around grieving kids, including parents, teachers, coaches, and entire companies, how to stop going silent and start showing up. The Solace Tree offers weekly family support, a grief camp for kids at Lake Tahoe, and national Zoom groups, including groups focused on suicide loss and groups for men.

🔗 The Solace Tree: https://www.solacetree.org

In this episode, you’ll hear:

✨ What to say instead of “I’m sorry for your loss,” and why asking “What was their name?” opens the door
 ✨ Why siblings are the “forgotten mourners” and how to help them feel seen
 ✨ Why kids and teens often hide their grief, and why peer support matters
 ✨ How to keep showing up long after the first year, with a one-minute text or a reminder in your phone
 ✨ How seasons, anniversaries, and favorite times of year can bring grief rushing back
 ✨ How to offer specific help instead of “let me know if you need anything”
 ✨ Why Emilio and Brian prefer “moving forward” and “moving together” to “moving on”
 ✨ What the Girl Scouts taught Emilio about disenfranchised grief, from great-grandmothers to a beloved pet goat

Memorable moments

💬 “What’s mentionable is manageable,” the idea Emilio carries from Mr. Rogers into his work
 💬 Why most people light up when you ask about their loved one
 💬 The one question Emilio suggests when you get awkward: “What’s one funny thing about them?”

Now it’s your turn

💜 What resonated with you most in this conversation?
 💜 Who in your life could use a one-minute “I’ve been thinking about you” this week?
 💜 What is one thing you wish someone had said to you after your loss?

Share your thoughts in the comments on the companion article at grief2growth.substack.com. I read every one, and your story may be exactly what another listener needs to hear.

Connect with Brian

🔗 All my links: https://pages.grief2growth.com/profile
📰 Email list: https://pages.grief2growth.com/join-the-club
⏰ Free consult: https://grief2growth.as.me/30-minute-consult

You've been listening. You're doing the work. But there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place.

Maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back. 

I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you.

All of it, pay what you want. You decide what it's worth. Nobody gets turned away because of money.

https://grief2g

Want to go deeper? My Substack is where I share solo essays on grief, consciousness, and continuing bonds — thoughts that don't always make it into the podcast. It's also home to a community of listeners who get it, because they're living it too. Free to subscribe. Find it at substack.com/grief2growth.

I've been studying Near Death Experiences for many years now. I am 100% convinced they are real. In this short, free ebook, I not only explain why I believe NDEs are real, I share some of the universal secrets brought back by people who have had them.

https://www.grief2growth.com/ndelessons

Support the show

🧑🏿‍🤝‍🧑🏻 Join me on Substack- connect with others and me
👛 Subscribe to Grief 2 Growth Premium (bonus episodes)
📰 Get A Free Gift
📅 Book A Complimentary Discovery Call
📈 Leave A Review

Thanks so much for your support

What if nothing is wrong with you because your grief hasn't "resolved"? 🌱

Autism and grief is a conversation that rarely gets space, and in this episode Christopher Carazas gives it room. Chris was diagnosed as autistic in 2020, after he had already built the life he thought he was supposed to want. Soon after, he lost his marriage, his home, and his sense of who he was. Later, he lost Katie, the woman who helped him begin to heal.

Chris doesn't tie his story up with a bow, and neither do we. You'll hear what grief looks like when you process the world differently, why the "triumph over tragedy" story can leave you feeling like you're failing, and how to carry grief without pretending it will ever be neat.

If you've been told you should be further along by now, this conversation is for you. If you love someone who is neurodivergent and grieving, you'll leave knowing how to show up for them. 💛

In this episode, you'll hear:

✨ Why closure is a myth, and what grief looks like when it becomes part of you
 ✨ How autism and grief can collide, from rumination to struggling to cry
 ✨ Why Chris pushes back on the "survival as redemption arc" story
 ✨ How to grieve the future you imagined, and shift from "why me?" to "why for me?"
 ✨ The backpack of stones, and why the weight changes even when it never leaves
 ✨ Katie's hidden notes, and how Chris uses them when old voices get loud
 ✨ What Chris's lighthouse is, and how it guides his days
 ✨ Simple, powerful ways to support a neurodivergent friend or family member in grief

About Christopher Carazas

Christopher Carazas is a social impact strategist and the author of Now That I'm Still Here: A Memoir of Ruin and Resurrection. Through his Substack newsletter of the same name, he writes about survival, storytelling, mental health, humor, and hope after ruin. His work lives at the intersection of grief, neurodivergence, and the long, unglamorous aftermath of psychological trauma.

Connect with Chris

📚 Website and book: https://www.chriscarazas.com
 📰 Substack: https://ccarazas.substack.com
 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christopher.carazas.2025
 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christophercarazas

What resonated with you?

💭 Have you ever wondered why you weren't crying, and whether that meant you didn't love them enough?
 💭 What would it change if you stopped waiting for closure and started building a life around your grief?
 💭 What is your lighthouse right now?

Share your thoughts in the comments on the companion article and join the conversation with me and other listeners: https://grief2growth.substack.com

💜 If this episode touched you, share it with one person who needs to hear they're not behind.

🔔 Subscribe to Grief 2 Growth so you never miss an episode.

You've been listening. You're doing the work. But there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place.

Maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back. 

I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you.

All of it, pay what you want. You decide what it's worth. Nobody gets turned away because of money.

https://grief2g

Want to go deeper? My Substack is where I share solo essays on grief, consciousness, and continuing bonds — thoughts that don't always make it into the podcast. It's also home to a community of listeners who get it, because they're living it too. Free to subscribe. Find it at substack.com/grief2growth.

I've been studying Near Death Experiences for many years now. I am 100% convinced they are real. In this short, free ebook, I not only explain why I believe NDEs are real, I share some of the universal secrets brought back by people who have had them.

https://www.grief2growth.com/ndelessons

Support the show

🧑🏿‍🤝‍🧑🏻 Join me on Substack- connect with others and me
👛 Subscribe to Grief 2 Growth Premium (bonus episodes)
📰 Get A Free Gift
📅 Book A Complimentary Discovery Call
📈 Leave A Review

Thanks so much for your support

What if grief isn’t only something we survive—but something that reveals how deeply we’ve loved?

In this episode of Grief 2 Growth, I sit down with Carl Manlan, author of I Can Breathe, for a powerful conversation about grief, fatherhood, emotional healing, identity, and legacy.

Carl lost his father as a young man. Years later, becoming a father himself brought some of that grief back to the surface and raised a profound question: How do you become the father you want to be when you can no longer have those conversations with your own father?

We also explore something many men struggle to discuss: expressing emotions and asking for help. As two Black men raised in different parts of the world, Carl and I discovered surprising similarities in how we experienced love growing up—and how we're trying to do things differently with the next generation.

Carl also shares how unexpectedly losing his job became a turning point that helped him finish I Can Breathe.

One insight captures the heart of our conversation:

“You only experience grief because you loved.”

In this episode, we explore:

• Grieving a parent and carrying that relationship forward
• Men, vulnerability, counseling, and emotional health
• Separating your identity from your career
• Responding instead of reacting to life's challenges
• Raising emotionally aware children
• Turning loss into legacy
• The story behind Carl’s I Can Breathe

📖 Carl’s book: I Can Breathe — available on Amazon

🔗 Connect with Carl: LinkedIn and Instagram

💬 Continue the conversation:
https://grief2growth.substack.com

What part of Carl’s story resonated with you? Join us on Substack and share your experience with the Grief 2 Growth community.

You've been listening. You're doing the work. But there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place.

Maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back. 

I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you.

All of it, pay what you want. You decide what it's worth. Nobody gets turned away because of money.

https://grief2g

Want to go deeper? My Substack is where I share solo essays on grief, consciousness, and continuing bonds — thoughts that don't always make it into the podcast. It's also home to a community of listeners who get it, because they're living it too. Free to subscribe. Find it at substack.com/grief2growth.

I've been studying Near Death Experiences for many years now. I am 100% convinced they are real. In this short, free ebook, I not only explain why I believe NDEs are real, I share some of the universal secrets brought back by people who have had them.

https://www.grief2growth.com/ndelessons

Support the show

🧑🏿‍🤝‍🧑🏻 Join me on Substack- connect with others and me
👛 Subscribe to Grief 2 Growth Premium (bonus episodes)
📰 Get A Free Gift
📅 Book A Complimentary Discovery Call
📈 Leave A Review

Thanks so much for your support

What if the memories of someone you love had a real place to live, and you could walk through them whenever you needed to?

In this episode, I talk with architect Alexander Josephson about how to preserve memories of a loved one, and why grief may be something you move through rather than something you get over.

Alexander is the founder of Partisans, an award-winning design studio in Toronto. While sitting in a hospital room with his father, he listened to him dictate what he wanted on his tombstone, and realized a name and two dates were far too small for the story. That moment led him to build Cumulus, a living digital memorial you can add to, share with family, and return to for years.

I also talk about my daughter Shayna, who passed in 2015, and why I have never wanted her to be tied to one location. If you carry the fear that someone you love will be forgotten, or you have wondered where they are now, this conversation is for you.

In this episode, you'll discover:

✨ Why the "three deaths" idea makes community and storytelling so important
✨ How a $3 million tomb that was never built became a living, breathing memorial
✨ Why the body is temporary and the memories are what carry meaning
✨ How one family invited 90 people into a shared cloud, with pins from a golf course in Scotland to the middle of the Atlantic
✨ Why cemeteries can feel so disorienting, and where our loved ones are
✨ How a digital stone at a grave can bring their story to you with a tap of your phone

About Alexander Josephson:
Alexander Josephson is an architect and the founder of Partisans, an award-winning design studio in Toronto. He is also the founder of Cumulus, a digital memorial platform designed to hold the photos, stories, voices, and memories of the people we love. He is a new father to two daughters under two, and he is already making time capsules for them in his own Cumulus.

Links and resources:
Cumulus website: https://cumulus.world
Cumulus Companion app: search "Cumulus Companion" in the App Store or Google Play
Instagram: Cumulus World
Try Cumulus free on the app or the website.

Join the conversation:
Read the companion article and share your thoughts at https://grief2growth.substack.com

What resonated with you? Tell me in the comments:
💜 Who do you want to make sure is remembered, and what story would you want to keep?
💜 When you think of your loved one, where do you feel them?
💜 What is one memory you could add to a shared space today?

If this episode touched you, please share it with someone who is carrying a loss, and subscribe so you never miss a conversation.

– – – Let's Connect: – – –

🔗 All my links: https://pages.grief2growth.com/profile
🔗 Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/grief2growth
👛 Tip jar: https://www.grief2growth.com/tipjar
📰 Email list: https://pages.grief2growth.com/join-the-club
⏰ Free consult: https://grief2growth.as.me/30-minute-consult

You've been listening. You're doing the work. But there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place.

Maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back. 

I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you.

All of it, pay what you want. You decide what it's worth. Nobody gets turned away because of money.

https://grief2g

Want to go deeper? My Substack is where I share solo essays on grief, consciousness, and continuing bonds — thoughts that don't always make it into the podcast. It's also home to a community of listeners who get it, because they're living it too. Free to subscribe. Find it at substack.com/grief2growth.

I've been studying Near Death Experiences for many years now. I am 100% convinced they are real. In this short, free ebook, I not only explain why I believe NDEs are real, I share some of the universal secrets brought back by people who have had them.

https://www.grief2growth.com/ndelessons

Support the show

🧑🏿‍🤝‍🧑🏻 Join me on Substack- connect with others and me
👛 Subscribe to Grief 2 Growth Premium (bonus episodes)
📰 Get A Free Gift
📅 Book A Complimentary Discovery Call
📈 Leave A Review

Thanks so much for your support

What if your body isn't broken — it's trying to tell you something?

In this episode of Grief 2 Growth, Brian sits down with Dr. Karyn Shanks, a physician who spent over 40 years learning what medical school never taught her — including from her own chronic illness journey. Together, they explore why grief and trauma get physically stored in the body, why our medical system struggles to treat chronic illness, and why feeling truly seen may matter more to healing than any prescription.

About Dr. Karyn Shanks:
Karyn Shanks, MD is a physician-healer-teacher-writer based in Iowa City, board-certified in Internal Medicine and Functional Medicine. After her own decades-long journey through Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and Lyme encephalitis, she founded the Unbroken Academy and developed a framework built on epigenetics, neuroplasticity, systems-based functional medicine, and transformational psychology. She's trained in Dr. Gabor Maté's Compassionate Inquiry, and is the author of UnBroken: Reclaim Your Wholeness and HEAL: A Nine-Stage Roadmap to Recover Energy.

🔗 Website: karynshanksmd.com

Key topics covered:

• Why grief is a "huge part of the human experience" that shows up physically in the body
• Karyn's own health journey — from unexplained fatigue to an Ehlers-Danlos diagnosis to recovering from Lyme encephalitis
• Why Western medicine excels at acute, catastrophic care but struggles with chronic illness
• Epigenetics and neuroplasticity — why your biology isn't fixed
• The placebo effect as proof of the mind's power to heal the body
• What Compassionate Inquiry (Gabor Maté's framework) taught Karyn about trauma and self-compassion
• Why grief gets "stored in the body" and has to be worked through, not medicated away
• Why we're ashamed of grief, and how "get back to work" culture cuts healing short
• Reframing illness as wisdom and communication, not failure or fault

💬 What resonated with you? Head over to grief2growth.substack.com to share your thoughts and continue the conversation.

You've been listening. You're doing the work. But there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place.

Maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back. 

I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you.

All of it, pay what you want. You decide what it's worth. Nobody gets turned away because of money.

https://grief2g

Want to go deeper? My Substack is where I share solo essays on grief, consciousness, and continuing bonds — thoughts that don't always make it into the podcast. It's also home to a community of listeners who get it, because they're living it too. Free to subscribe. Find it at substack.com/grief2growth.

I've been studying Near Death Experiences for many years now. I am 100% convinced they are real. In this short, free ebook, I not only explain why I believe NDEs are real, I share some of the universal secrets brought back by people who have had them.

https://www.grief2growth.com/ndelessons

Support the show

🧑🏿‍🤝‍🧑🏻 Join me on Substack- connect with others and me
👛 Subscribe to Grief 2 Growth Premium (bonus episodes)
📰 Get A Free Gift
📅 Book A Complimentary Discovery Call
📈 Leave A Review

Thanks so much for your support

What happens when the person you used to be doesn't exist anymore — not because they died, but because a diagnosis, a surgery, or a health crisis rewrote who you are? In this episode, Loni Fagel joins me to talk about a grief almost nobody names: the grief of losing yourself while you're still here.

Loni knows this from both sides of the therapy room. A genetic cancer mutation, a mysterious chronic illness, and a health crisis that landed her at Mayo Clinic didn't just interrupt her graduate studies in psychology — they became the reason she does this work at all. We talk about her "D-Day" framework for naming the moment a diagnosis changes everything, why medical trauma is as much about what comes after the event as the event itself, and why people are so often invalidated by the very doctors meant to help them.

We also get into some of the tools Loni uses with clients: externalizing an illness by giving it its own name, expressive arts as a way to process what words can't touch, and why "post-traumatic growth" doesn't mean pretending the hard part didn't happen.

About Loni Fagel
Loni Fagel is a licensed professional clinical counselor, EMDRIA-approved consultant, expressive arts therapist, children's book author, and international speaker specializing in medical trauma, grief, and identity loss. Her work is shaped by her own experience with a genetic cancer mutation and a health crisis that upended her life and career.

• Website: lonifagel.com
• Instagram/social: @loni_fagel
• LinkedIn: search Loni Fagel

In this episode, we cover:

• Why illness and diagnosis create a real, nameable grief
• The "D-Day" framework for marking when everything changed
• Why medical trauma isn't about the event — it's about everything after
• Learning to advocate for yourself when doctors dismiss your symptoms
• Grieving a double mastectomy and genetic cancer risk
• Invisible illness and the cruelty of judging what you can't see
• Naming your illness to protect your identity ("is this you, or is this Patricia?")
• Making meaning without needing to believe "everything happens for a reason"
• Finding the glimmers of light in the middle of a health crisis

We want to hear from you: Have you ever grieved a version of yourself you didn't expect to lose? What resonated most with you in this conversation? Drop a comment — we read every one.

Continue the conversation at grief2growth.substack.com.

You've been listening. You're doing the work. But there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place.

Maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back. 

I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you.

All of it, pay what you want. You decide what it's worth. Nobody gets turned away because of money.

https://grief2g

Want to go deeper? My Substack is where I share solo essays on grief, consciousness, and continuing bonds — thoughts that don't always make it into the podcast. It's also home to a community of listeners who get it, because they're living it too. Free to subscribe. Find it at substack.com/grief2growth.

I've been studying Near Death Experiences for many years now. I am 100% convinced they are real. In this short, free ebook, I not only explain why I believe NDEs are real, I share some of the universal secrets brought back by people who have had them.

https://www.grief2growth.com/ndelessons

Support the show

🧑🏿‍🤝‍🧑🏻 Join me on Substack- connect with others and me
👛 Subscribe to Grief 2 Growth Premium (bonus episodes)
📰 Get A Free Gift
📅 Book A Complimentary Discovery Call
📈 Leave A Review

Thanks so much for your support

What if the "guardian angel" you've prayed to and the "spirit guide" you've been told to fear are the exact same presence, just described through a different lens?

In this episode, Brian sits down with Michael McAdams — a man raised in a family soaked in Pentecostal conviction who discovered he had the gift of psychometry, the ability to receive information simply by holding an object. Michael shares the story of his mother, Wilma Jean Jones, a devout Christian who sat down at her typewriter in 1977 and began receiving dictated messages from what she called "spirit teachers." Those sessions continued for 22 years and became the book An Angel Told Me So.

This conversation goes places you might not expect from two men raised in the church: the real story behind the money changers in the temple, why the Salem witch trials might have been genuine spiritual communication mistaken for evil, how the Urantia Book lines up with the Bible's account of Jesus, and why fear has been used for centuries to keep people from trusting their own spiritual experiences.

About Michael McAdams
Michael McAdams grew up in the Cincinnati area in a family steeped in Pentecostal faith — his uncle was a preacher who planted churches across three states, and his grandmother entered ministry convinced God spoke directly into her heart. Michael discovered his own gift of psychometry as a young man, and later helped his mother recognize and record the messages she was receiving from spirit teachers. He is the author of An Angel Told Me So and runs spiritspeaks.com, where he offers free preview messages from the upcoming second volume.

• 🌐 Website: spiritspeaks.com
• 📖 An Angel Told Me So (Volume One) — available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and through Ingram at independent bookstores

Key Topics Covered

• Growing up Pentecostal and the questions neither of them could shake
• What psychometry is and how Michael developed the ability
• How Wilma Jean began receiving channeled messages — and the confirmation message that convinced her to publish them
• The Urantia Book and its account of the life of Jesus
• Why the Bible's history and politics matter for understanding what it actually says
• Fear as a tool of control in organized religion
• How to protect your mind while opening it — establishing a spiritual "filter"
• Practical advice for recognizing your own spirit guidance
• Reincarnation, "graduation" instead of death, and what may come next

What resonated with you? Drop a comment below — we'd love to hear whether this reframes anything about your own faith journey, or if you've had experiences like Michael's you've never shared before.

You've been listening. You're doing the work. But there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place.

Maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back. 

I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you.

All of it, pay what you want. You decide what it's worth. Nobody gets turned away because of money.

https://grief2g

Want to go deeper? My Substack is where I share solo essays on grief, consciousness, and continuing bonds — thoughts that don't always make it into the podcast. It's also home to a community of listeners who get it, because they're living it too. Free to subscribe. Find it at substack.com/grief2growth.

I've been studying Near Death Experiences for many years now. I am 100% convinced they are real. In this short, free ebook, I not only explain why I believe NDEs are real, I share some of the universal secrets brought back by people who have had them.

https://www.grief2growth.com/ndelessons

Support the show

🧑🏿‍🤝‍🧑🏻 Join me on Substack- connect with others and me
👛 Subscribe to Grief 2 Growth Premium (bonus episodes)
📰 Get A Free Gift
📅 Book A Complimentary Discovery Call
📈 Leave A Review

Thanks so much for your support

What if the strangest moments at the end of life are actually the most meaningful?

In this episode, Alexandra Grabbe joins Brian to talk about the seven months she spent caring for her 96-year-old mother, Bea, at home — and the deathbed visions that changed how she understands what happens when we die. Alexandra shares the exhaustion, the tenderness, and the moments of unexpected grace that shaped her new memoir, Seeing Joy. If you've ever cared for a dying parent, sat with someone in their final days, or wondered what those "hallucinations" near the end of life really mean, this conversation will stay with you.

About Alexandra Grabbe

Alexandra Grabbe has lived many lives — talk show host in Paris, eco-friendly innkeeper on Cape Cod, and lifelong writer. After graduating from Vassar College, she raised three children in France, worked in journalism and broadcasting, and assisted literary figures Barbara Chase-Riboud and Marge Piercy. For two decades she ran a green bed-and-breakfast in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. When her mother's health declined, Alexandra became her full-time caregiver — an experience that became the caregiving blog "By B's Bedside" and, nearly two decades later, her home care memoir Seeing Joy: A Story of Life, Death, and What Comes Next (Koehler Books, March 2026).

🔗 Alexandra's website: https://alexandragrabbe.com
🔗 Seeing Joy at Koehler Books: https://www.koehlerbooks.com/book/seeing-joy/
📷 Instagram: @AlexandraGrabbeBooks

In This Episode:

• What it really means when a doctor calls something a "hallucination" and a hospice worker calls it a "visitation"
• The physical and emotional toll of caregiving — and the sleep deprivation Alexandra says was the hardest part
• Deathbed Visioning: the pattern hospice workers see again and again near the end of life
• Why Alexandra's mother's fear of dying gave way to tea parties with deceased visitors
• How the role reversal between parent and child reshaped their relationship
• The 19-year journey to publish a book publishers once said was "too afraid" to touch
• What her mother's final moments — and the arrival of Alexandra's father and grandmother — taught her about how we're not meant to be alone at the end

What resonated with you in this episode? Have you witnessed a loved one's deathbed visions, or cared for an aging parent at home? Share your story in the comments — Alexandra's experience may be more common than you think.

You've been listening. You're doing the work. But there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place.

Maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back. 

I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you.

All of it, pay what you want. You decide what it's worth. Nobody gets turned away because of money.

https://grief2g

Want to go deeper? My Substack is where I share solo essays on grief, consciousness, and continuing bonds — thoughts that don't always make it into the podcast. It's also home to a community of listeners who get it, because they're living it too. Free to subscribe. Find it at substack.com/grief2growth.

I've been studying Near Death Experiences for many years now. I am 100% convinced they are real. In this short, free ebook, I not only explain why I believe NDEs are real, I share some of the universal secrets brought back by people who have had them.

https://www.grief2growth.com/ndelessons

Support the show

🧑🏿‍🤝‍🧑🏻 Join me on Substack- connect with others and me
👛 Subscribe to Grief 2 Growth Premium (bonus episodes)
📰 Get A Free Gift
📅 Book A Complimentary Discovery Call
📈 Leave A Review

Thanks so much for your support

What does an ICU doctor see when he's present at the exact moment someone dies?

Dr. Adam Rizvi has spent his career in critical care medicine, standing at hundreds of bedsides during life's most sacred transitions. Trained as a physician but grounded early in comparative religion, Adam has watched patients return from clinical death with vivid experiences medicine can't explain, felt rooms fill with light, and even witnessed a whirlpool of light appear at the exact moment a patient passed away — something his nurse saw too.

In this conversation, we talk about what happens when a man of science makes peace with the sacred: the medical case for consciousness surviving the body, what dying patients have taught him about forgiveness, and a simple nightly practice that can change how you live starting tonight.

About Dr. Adam Rizvi

Dr. Adam Rizvi is a critical care physician and author of Love Does Not Know Death: Stories of Death, Dying, and the Miracles of True Forgiveness. He writes about the lessons he's learned at the bedside on his Substack, Adventures in Kindness.

• 📖 Book: Love Does Not Know Death
• ✍️ Substack: AdamRizvi.substack.com — Adventures in Kindness

In This Episode, We Cover:

• How a comparative religion major ended up in ICU medicine
• The cardiac arrest patient who returned with a story that shouldn't have been possible
• Why "brain as receiver" of consciousness makes more sense than "brain as generator"
• The moment two people in the same room witnessed the same unexplainable light
• Ancient wisdom on death — from the Tibetan Book of the Dead to the story of Nachiketas
• Why forgiveness is something you do for yourself, not the person who hurt you
• A nightly deathbed meditation practice you can start using tonight

What Resonated With You?

Did Adam's story about the whirlpool of light stay with you? Have you had an experience with a loved one that science couldn't explain? Share your thoughts in the comments — I read every one.

If this episode moved you, head over to grief2growth.substack.com for more reflection and to connect with other listeners walking this same path.

You've been listening. You're doing the work. But there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place.

Maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back. 

I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you.

All of it, pay what you want. You decide what it's worth. Nobody gets turned away because of money.

https://grief2g

Want to go deeper? My Substack is where I share solo essays on grief, consciousness, and continuing bonds — thoughts that don't always make it into the podcast. It's also home to a community of listeners who get it, because they're living it too. Free to subscribe. Find it at substack.com/grief2growth.

I've been studying Near Death Experiences for many years now. I am 100% convinced they are real. In this short, free ebook, I not only explain why I believe NDEs are real, I share some of the universal secrets brought back by people who have had them.

https://www.grief2growth.com/ndelessons

Support the show

🧑🏿‍🤝‍🧑🏻 Join me on Substack- connect with others and me
👛 Subscribe to Grief 2 Growth Premium (bonus episodes)
📰 Get A Free Gift
📅 Book A Complimentary Discovery Call
📈 Leave A Review

Thanks so much for your support

Miist was five years old when her parents removed themselves from her life. Not through death — through choice. As she tells me in this episode, that distinction made the wound deeper, not shallower. She knew they could come back. They simply didn't.

By 28, she had a terminal cancer diagnosis and doctors telling her she had a month, maybe three. And here's the part that stopped me: she still doesn't hold any bad feeling toward that diagnosis. It's the thing that finally brought her family back into the room with her.

She picked up a ukulele during treatment. She didn't write her first song until she was 34. Today her music has charted on Billboard, she's the first native Chinese artist to reach the Pop AC chart, and she hosts a top-ranked mental health podcast.

This conversation goes somewhere I didn't expect. We talk about loneliness after loss — the grief that arrives with no funeral, no casserole, no one checking in — and what it actually takes to come back from it.

Miist wrote a song for a young man who passed alone in his apartment in Japan. He had food. He had shelter. He had nobody. She kept thinking about all the strangers he must have walked past on any given day, and how one moment of real eye contact might have been enough to hold him a little longer. That song, "Could You Lend Me a Smile," now exists in 16 languages.

Out of it came the idea we spend much of this episode on: the 15-second action. Small enough that nobody can claim they don't have time. Smile at someone. Be silly. Be grateful. Say a kind word. Remind someone that you love them.

We recorded this on my 65th birthday, which made one part land hard for me. Miist asked when the last time was that someone called you for no reason at all, just to say they love you. I told her about the most viral Substack post I've ever written — it was about calling my father on an ordinary day, for no occasion. It went everywhere because almost nobody does it.

WHAT WE COVER

• Why abandonment can cut deeper than death, and how the earliest wound becomes the root of everything built on top of it
• How Miist pushed away her closest childhood friends, and the apology she eventually wrote as a song
• Choosing, in advance, to sit inside the grief of losing her dog rather than reaching for anything that would make it stop
• The three days she asked her vet for, and what her whole family learned from them
• Reconnecting with and forgiving the father she hadn't seen in over 20 years
• Being discovered by producer Narada Michael Walden — and being asked to sing at the piano where Aretha Franklin recorded "Respect"
• The Kindness Kube and the five actions on it
• Using music intentionally to move through anger, sadness, and back toward joy
• Why losing an old habit that no longer serves you can feel like its own kind of loss
• Why both of us say plainly: we are still healing

ABOUT MIIST

Miist is a multilingual recording artist, songwriter, and podcast host who began her professional music career at 34 after being discovered by acclaimed producer Narada Michael Walden. She's a Teen Cancer America Ambassador and the founder of the World Smile Initiative, a nonprofit built around bringing moments of relief and light to people who are struggling. Her podcast, Make Me Smile with Miist, blends original music, personal storytelling, and research, and each episode closes with a 15-second action listeners can take that day. The book of the same name is now available.

🎵 Website: https://www.miistthesinger.com

🎙️ Podcast: Make Me Smile with Miist — available wherever you listen

📖 Book: Make Me Smile with Miist

🧊 The Kindness Kube: available on her website

A FEW THINGS TO SIT WITH

Which of the five actions would be hardest for you right now — and what does that tell you?

Is there someone you've been meaning to call for no reason at all?

Is there a loss in your life you've been outrunning rather than sitting with?

JOIN THE CONVERSATION

I'd love to hear what landed for you in this one. Head to https://grief2growth.substack.com to read the companion article, leave a comment, and connect with me and with other listeners walking a similar road.

If this episode helped, share it with someone who's feeling disconnected right now. That's a 15-second action of your own. 💜

CONNECT WITH BRIAN

🔗 All my links: https://pages.grief2growth.com/profile

🔗 Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/grief2growth

📰 Email list: https://pages.grief2growth.com/join-the-club

⏰ Free consult: https://grief2growth.as.me/30-minute-consult

👛 Tip jar: https://www.grief2growth.com/tipjar

Approve and I'll move to Step 5: the blog article outline.

You've been listening. You're doing the work. But there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place.

Maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back. 

I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you.

All of it, pay what you want. You decide what it's worth. Nobody gets turned away because of money.

https://grief2g

Want to go deeper? My Substack is where I share solo essays on grief, consciousness, and continuing bonds — thoughts that don't always make it into the podcast. It's also home to a community of listeners who get it, because they're living it too. Free to subscribe. Find it at substack.com/grief2growth.

I've been studying Near Death Experiences for many years now. I am 100% convinced they are real. In this short, free ebook, I not only explain why I believe NDEs are real, I share some of the universal secrets brought back by people who have had them.

https://www.grief2growth.com/ndelessons

Support the show

🧑🏿‍🤝‍🧑🏻 Join me on Substack- connect with others and me
👛 Subscribe to Grief 2 Growth Premium (bonus episodes)
📰 Get A Free Gift
📅 Book A Complimentary Discovery Call
📈 Leave A Review

Thanks so much for your support