Grief, Gratitude & The Gray in Between

Hoangmai (Mai) Pham is a Vietnamese American refugee, physician, artist, mother, and debut memoirist. Bridge from Saigon, her first memoir, was shortlisted for Black Spring Press’ International Beverly Prize for Literature.

At six, Mai fled with her family from Saigon on a cargo plane at the end of the war to the United States, and went on to earn degrees from Harvard and Hopkins, and other markers of a model minority. She has pursued answers to mysteries about her family and her own psychological journey with interviews, voyages back to Vietnam, and a scientific healer’s eye on her traumas.

Mai was the first Chief Innovation Officer for Medicare and Medicaid. When not making change in American healthcare, she hosts a baking club and relishes in her “Zoomagogue” Jewish community.

Learn more about Mai: hoangmaipham.me.

Contact Kendra Rinaldi for more information about her services https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com/

Show Highlights:

Introducing Dr. Hoangmai Pham: Meeting the physician, health policy leader, and author of Bridge from Saigon.

• The Child’s Experience of Displacement: Fleeing Saigon overnight at age six and learning to let go prematurely.
• The Silent Losses of Migration: Arriving in Philadelphia with only six family members and no anchors.
• Crafting an Identity from Scratch: Navigating the unspoken pressures of immigrant expectations and entering medicine.
• When Success Triggers Breakdown: Experiencing sudden panic attacks in middle age that unlocked buried childhood memories.
• Meeting "Michael" and "Eight": Discovering dissociative childhood parts in therapy and facing early trauma.
• "I Am the Bridge": Breaking the family silence on war trauma and feeling the duty to heal ancestral grief.
• Returning to the Homeland: Reclaiming Vietnamese roots and realizing a distinct American identity.
• A Blended Life: Embracing Judaism, raising multicultural children, and breaking generational patterns.
• Bridging Healthcare & Disability: Founding the Institute for Exceptional Care to advocate for neurodiverse families.
• Grief and Gratitude as Two Halves: Extending empathy to today's refugee children facing the long tail of displacement.

Raymond Lavine is an extended care benefits advisor. He advises and designs long-term care benefits for families and LTC benefits for companies.

Contact Ramond Lavine https://raymondlavineofficial.com  www.lavineltcins.com

Show Highlights & Key Takeaways

• Raymond's Background & Expertise: As an extended care benefit advisor, co-author of Empathy and Understanding in Business, and host of Planning with Purpose: The Caregiver’s Blueprint, Raymond blends financial precision with deep empathy.
• The 18-Year Caregiving Outlier: Raymond shares the story of his mother, Ruth (an estate planning attorney), who bought a long-term care policy in the 1990s and required care for 18 years before passing away at age 103.
• The Emotional & Financial Toll on Families: After witnessing his wife’s parents navigate severe cancer and cognitive decline without a care plan, Raymond and his wife recognized the urgent need to secure their own extended care strategy.
• "Nobody Has That Much Money": Highlighting his mother's advice that regardless of wealth, relying solely on out-of-pocket funds for long-term care drains retirement assets and disrupts personal lifestyle.
• Admitting You’re Not "Caregiver Material": Why it’s healthy to admit what tasks you are—and aren't—suited for, and how to delegate functional caregiving duties to professionals while serving as a supportive family member or medical advocate .
• The Auto & Homeowners Insurance Analogy: Reframing long-term care planning not as a "wasted expense" if unused, but as essential liquidity and protection against life's unexpected crises].
• Parenting in Reverse: Comparing caregiving for older adults to raising children—managing the same daily living activities (bathing, dressing, scheduling, meals), but with older adults who have established independence and verbal authority].
• The Hidden Details of Caretaking: Discussing how caregiving extends beyond medical needs to include home maintenance (HVAC, plumbing, roofing) and simple safety tasks like checking for expired food.
• Breaking Through Estate Planning Roadblocks: Raymond candidly shares his recent personal breakthrough in estate planning by opting for natural organic reduction (human composting) for his final resting arrangements].

Shabnam Mogharabi is an entertainment executive, producer, and New York Times bestselling author with 20 years of experience in mission-driven media. Today, she is founder of The Joy Brigade, a boutique storytelling studio. Prior to that, Shabnam co-founded the uplifting production company SoulPancake with actor Rainn Wilson, amassing 1B+ video views, producing dozens of TV series and specials, and winning many Emmy and Webby Awards, before a successful exit to Participant Media. She and Rainn still work together - she is Executive Director of the new company Soul Boom, based on Rainn's bestselling book of the same name, which creates playful, practical media to harness ancient spiritual wisdom for modern living.

Shabnam is also the New York Times bestselling co-author of Soul Boom: Spiritual Tools for Modern Living and SoulPancake: Chew on Life's Big Questions. She sits on the advisory boards of startups Seed & Spark and DEIA and on the board of directors of the nonprofits The Wayfarer Foundation and Tahirih Justice Center. She is a Henry Crown Fellow and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. She also has a certification in positive psychology and is a highly sought-after keynote speaker on the subjects of joy, purpose, and storytelling.

Shabnam's Websites:: www.shabnamspeaks.com IG: @shabnamm LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shabnammogharabi/

Contact Kendra Rinaldi

Key Topics & Highlights:

SoulPancake & Soul Boom:   Shabnam shares her journey from traditional journalism to co‑founding SoulPancake, creating uplifting viral content with over 1 billion views, and her current work at Soul Boom, which applies ancient wisdom to modern life.

Women Can Have It All — In Seasons:   A candid look at redefining work‑life balance, shifting from 70‑hour workweeks in her 20s/30s to prioritizing family and presence in her 40s.

Infertility, IVF & Later Motherhood:   Her path through egg freezing, IUIs, IVF, miscarriages, and becoming a mother at 39. She speaks openly about holding gratitude for her two children while grieving the larger family she once imagined.

Emotional Duality (“The And”):   How therapy helped her embrace conflicting emotions—joy in motherhood alongside grief, or relief and sorrow after ending an unhealthy relationship.

Joy vs Happiness:   Happiness as fleeting and external; joy as a deeper state that integrates sadness, grief, and life’s challenges.

Positive Psychology:   How practices like gratitude, growth mindset, and purpose can reshape neural pathways and shift brain chemistry.

Unlearning Victimhood & Scarcity:   Growing up as a child of refugees, releasing the “power” of anger, and choosing vulnerability and connection instead.

Rejection as Protection:   How losing six major executive roles after a sabbatical revealed that the universe was preserving her time with her young children.

Ethical Integrity in Media:   Standing firm in her values by refusing to exploit grieving mothers for press attention—even after winning a major journalism award.

Teaching Virtues Over Checklists:   Why children need curiosity, empathy, and patience more than rigid academic benchmarks.

Feelings Are Not Identity:   A reminder that emotions like anger or sadness are temporary experiences—not who you are.

It was never in Sarah Vosburgh’s plan to be an author or to write a memoir. As a busy mom, wife, and psychologist, she always saw her life as full (sometimes overfull). But in the dark of night, memories knocked on her brain, compelling her to commit them first to paper, then to bits and bytes. Sarah is a member of the International Memoir Writers Association and San Diego Writers, Ink. Her work has been published in A Year in Ink and numerous volumes of Shaking the Tree: brazen. short. memoir. A native New Englander, she now lives in San Diego with her husband, her daughter, her granddog, and a most extraordinary feline.

Website: www.SarahVosburgh.com

Reach Kendra Rinaldi on her website for questions about being a guest https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com/

Episode Highlights:

• Growing Up as an Only Child: Sarah reflects on her New England upbringing and her complex relationship with her mother—a brilliant, intellectually attentive, yet physically distant and anxious woman whose anxiety was largely managed by Sarah's father until his passing.
• Late-Twenties Loss & Red Flags: Losing her father in her late 20s, followed by her mother's quick remarriage two years later to a partner where subtle signs of neglect and unexplained physical injuries began surfacing alongside early cognitive decline.
• Systemic Roadblocks: The immense isolation of trying to intervene when her mother was driving dangerously on the left side of the road, only to encounter dismissive responses from physicians, the DMV, and local social workers.
• The Car Key Breakthrough: A brilliant compromise suggested by Sarah's husband: disconnecting the car battery and placing a note inside the compartment for mechanics, while allowing her mother to keep her keys in her nightstand drawer so she retained her feeling of autonomy .
• The Glass Nightstand "Hack": How Sarah's husband helped her process nocturnal grief ruminations by placing a custom glass top on her nightstand with a Sharpie so she could write down late-night memories without turning on the lights.
• A Family Audiobook Collaboration: Crafting her memoir through San Diego Writers Inc. and recording the audiobook alongside her daughters—with her older daughter reading the "younger Sarah" passages, her younger daughter reading the poetry, and Sarah reading the present-day caregiving chapters.
• The Snow Incident & Memory Care: The heartbreaking turning point when her mother wandered out into the memory care gardens in her pajamas and bare feet on a December morning to watch the snow fall, leading to an abrupt transfer to a locked psych unit.
• "Who Will Name the Bees?": The origin of the book's title from their final Mother's Day visit, where her mother remembered Sarah's plans to start beekeeping with 40,000–50,000 bees and innocently asked in childlike wonder, "How will you find names for them all?" .
• A Message of Solidarity: Sarah's core encouragement to anyone caretaking a parent with dementia: "You are not alone" in navigating this amateur, isolating business

Kate Saint Clair is a Human Intuition Expert, Psychic Medium, and Intuitive Advocate who has been teaching intuition as a practical, embodied skill since 2007. Born highly intuitive, Kate found strength through her challenging childhood with her connection to the spiritual world.

Kate devotes her work to normalizing intuition and helping people trust their inner guidance with clarity and confidence. Through her books, live programs, and communities, Kate supports individuals in understanding how intuition communicates.

Known for her grounded, validating approach and direct insight, Kate empowers people to move from self-doubt to self-trust and live guided from the inside out.

Contact Kate: https://www.katesaintclair.com/

Contact Kendra Rinaldi: https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com/

Episode Highlights: 

• Survival Intuition in Montana: Growing up in the open landscape of Great Falls, Montana, naturally developed her baseline survival intuition to read people and energy for safety.
• The Four Main "Clairs": Breaking down the mechanics of intuition—clairvoyance (clear seeing), clairsentience (clear feeling), clairaudience (clear hearing), and claircognizance (clear knowing).
• Spirit Guides & Childhood Experiences: Seeing spirits as a young child and coming to realize her childhood sightings of "black cougars" were spirit guides preparing her for independence.
• The Colorado Park Turning Point: Hearing clear inner guidance to pick up her two-year-old daughter when followed by a stranger, prompting her to seek formal intuitive mentorship.
• Generational Intuition & Lineage: "Coming out of the closet" to her father about her work as a medium, only to discover he had experienced intuitive guidance his whole life—proving we all come from intuitive lineages.
• Active Dialogue with Guidance: Learning to train your intuition to hold an active, conscious dialogue with your birth guide rather than reacting passively or out of fear.
• Energetic Protection in Grief: Understanding that deep grief shrinks the aura, making energetic hygiene, firm boundaries, and asking angels or God for protection vital self-care tools.
• End-of-Life Family Harmony: How each family member brought a unique, embodied role during her grandmother's 5-day end-of-life transition.
• Normalizing Intuition for Children: Validating children's night terrors or spiritual sightings with curious, calm questions and establishing clear energetic boundaries in the home

Joanne Redding grew up in Brooklyn and eventually made her way to Manhattan, then the suburbs of Westchester County, and finally Greenwich, CT. She holds a bachelor’s degree in French and a master’s in finance from New York University and is a certified Master Gardener with a degree in landscape design. Over her career, she has worked at an airport and an engineering firm, spent over fifteen years on Wall Street, and run her own landscape design business. The proud mom of two amazing young adults, Joanne shares her home in the New York City area with her two elderly but endlessly loved dogs. For more information, visit https://joannereddingauthor.com/

Checkout https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com/ for more  information on coaching with Kendra Rinaldi or being a guest on the show.

Show Highlights & Themes:

• Childhood Loss & Hidden Truths: Joanne shares the sudden death of her father when she was six years old, and how the full truth surrounding his passing was kept hidden from her until she reached college. That's when she found out her dad had died by suicide.
• Growing Up in a "House of Pretend": Navigating an environment surrounded by generational family secrets, where grief was buried and unexpressed among family members.
• Intuitive Coping & Wall Street: How books, reading, and later entering the male-dominated world of Wall Street in the 80s and 90s served as intuitive ways to process her loss and seek connection.
• From Wall Street to Landscape Design to Author: Joanne’s multi-faceted journey of lifelong learning—from financial markets to landscape architecture, language study, and ultimately publishing her memoir.
• The Vulnerability of Writing a Memoir: Overcoming the feeling of "walking naked in Times Square" by sharing raw personal memories, letting go of expectations, and managing feedback.
• Parenting & Breaking Generational Cycles: Reflecting on how childhood trauma influenced her approach to motherhood, navigating overcompensation, and later caretaking for her mother.
• Honoring Children in Their Grief: Joanne’s crucial advice for adults to see and acknowledge grieving children, emphasizing that kids experience loss deeply even when they don't express it like adults

Gyani Richards is a grief counselor and uses mindfulness, somatic inquiry, and explorative dialogue to help clients navigate the land of loss. His personal experience into this field began quite early when his father died when he was 13. Shortly thereafter, he began exploring meditation and the great wisdom traditions of the world, practices which have defined the last 40 years of his life. His work is based on the observation that grief is not a problem to be solved, but a life-changing opportunity to be discovered. He has an MA in Counseling Psychology and is a Certified Grief Educator. www.ourgriefpath.com

Episode Highlights:

• Early Loss at 13: Losing his father to cancer at a young age without formal counseling, experiencing a sudden "grief bomb" that left his family unmoored.
• Seeking the "Deathless": Turning to yoga, meditation, and world wisdom traditions at 17 to find spiritual grounding and something that death could not take away.
• The Nuance of Sibling Loss: Facing the "out-of-order loss" of his younger brother Pete 40 years later, using decades of mindfulness to hold a larger container for his grief.
• Aikido & "Relaxing Under Pressure": Applying 20+ years of Japanese martial arts to learn how to turn toward incoming pressure rather than defaulting to fight, flee, or freeze.
• Somatic Inquiry ("Issues in the Tissues"): Working with grief as a visceral, head-to-toe somatic experience held deep within physical tissues and the breath.
• The "Grief Garden": Viewing grief as seeds in a human garden, helping clients clear out old belief "weeds" and tend to what wants to grow.
• Friendly Curiosity: Approaching painful emotions with spacious, kind attention so frozen grief can naturally thaw and transform.
• A Sacred Opportunity: Reclaiming the perspective that grief is not a problem to be solved, but a sacred opportunity to be embraced

En este episodio tu  anfitriona, Kendra Rinaldi, comparte una guía práctica y compasiva sobre cómo navegar el trauma y el duelo colectivo tras el terremoto en Colombia, ofreciendo herramientas de autorregulación del sistema nervioso y validación emocional.

En este episodio aprenderás sobre:

• La ciencia de la meditación y la presencia: Kendra comparte su experiencia tras meditar 61 días continuos y asistir al taller sobre la ciencia de la meditación ipor la especialista Natalia Varela con los sistemas de Neurochange solution de Dr. Joe Dispenza
• Un momento de presencia guiado: Una práctica inicial centrada en escuchar, sentir el suelo y colocar la mano izquierda sobre el corazón para conectar con la respiración.
• Procesar el dolor y trauma a la distancia: Kendra reflexiona sobre el terremoto del 10 de agosto en Colombia y el impacto emocional de presenciar la tragedia de su país natal desde el exterior.
• Diferencia entre duelo y trauma: Cómo distinguir la pérdida de la cotidianidad, de la tranquilidad y de las vidas humanas (duelo) frente a la hipervigilancia, el insomnio y las memorias intrusivas (trauma).
• Validación sin límites de tiempo: La importancia de recordar que no existe una "forma correcta" o un tiempo límite para procesar el duelo.
• Herramientas prácticas de presencia y autorregulación:Respiración consciente: La herramienta más rápida y efectiva para retornar al presente.
  Grounding (Conexión a tierra): Hacer contacto físico con el suelo, pasto o cemento para nivelar el sistema nervioso y recordar que la tierra nos sostiene.
  Movimiento corporal: Caminar, estirarse o bailar para liberar las emociones y el trauma que quedan atrapados en el cuerpo.
  Meditación y silencio consciente: Prácticas para calmar el estado de alerta constante.
  Nombrar las emociones: Escribir o decir en voz alta lo que sientes (miedo, tristeza, alivio) sin juzgarlo, para quitarle el control sobre ti.
• Acompañamiento profesional: Cuándo y por qué es fundamental acudir a terapia, tanatólogos o acompañantes de duelo cuando el trauma interfiere con la vida cotidiana.
• La dualidad de las emociones: La capacidad de sostener dos emociones opuestas a la vez (como gratitud y duelo, o alegría y tristeza) sin sentir culpa.

Glenn Sturm is a 17-year survivor, a 4-time bestselling author with 30+ years military service. He is a law graduate from University of Florida (honors) (Order of the Coif) and a compelling storyteller who connects with audiences in crisis. Glenn was diagnosed with Advanced T-Cell Lymphoma on January 21, 2009. He has been on continuous oral and IV chemotherapy since then, and his treatment has spanned more than 6,000 days. He has assembled his own Integrated Cancer Team.

He is a best-selling author of Cancer Set Me Free, and a photographer. His first novel, The Green Murphy Succession, is scheduled for release in April. It is a multigenerational, multifamily historical fiction series of six books. He is also an umbraphile, chasing and photographing eclipses worldwide. He has published two eclipse photography books, Syzygies and The Great American Eclipse (2017), both part of the Syzygies series. His next eclipse photography book is scheduled to release in February in both English and Spanish.

Visit him online at www.glennsturm.com

Contact Kendra Rinaldi for coaching information or to be a guest on the podcast.

https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com/

Episode Highlights and Themes:

• A Terminal Diagnosis Turned Life Sentence to Live: In 2009, high-powered corporate attorney and military veteran Glenn Sturm received an advanced T-cell lymphoma diagnosis and was given just two to three years to live. Seventeen years and over 6,000 days of continuous chemotherapy later, he shares how facing mortality transformed his relationship with time and ambition.
• The Turning Point — Stepping Away from the Grind: How stepping off the corporate treadmill and surviving an early post-diagnosis fall forced Glenn to realize that while we cannot change yesterday, we have complete agency over how we meet today.
• Why He Refuses to "Bring Cancer Home": Glenn discusses the intentional boundary he established between his medical treatments and his personal life. While the hospital and oncology clinic are for fighting the disease, his home remains a sanctuary for love, family, dinner conversations, and genuine presence—not an extension of the clinic.
• Building an Integrated Care Team: Glenn’s advice for patients and caregivers on approaching healthcare as proactive collaborators, assembling multidisciplinary support, and maintaining mental and emotional ownership of the healing process.
• Finding Wonder in the Dark: How turning to creative passions—authoring four bestselling books and traveling the globe as an astrophotographer chasing solar eclipses—helped him reconnect with the vastness of life and put suffering into perspective.
• Holding Both Fear and Gratitude: How living in the shadow of chronic illness doesn't mean life pauses; instead, it invites us to live honestly in "the gray in between," cherishing small, everyday moments.

MIHAELA (MIA) GODFREY is a certified life coach, Bible counselor, EME (Emotions,Mind and Energy) practitioner,public speaker, and author of Buried, Not Broken: A Memoir of Survival, Sisterhood, and Starting Over. With more than 17 years of leadership experience at Cellular Sales, where she serves as talent acquisition operations manager, Mia brings authenticity and compassion to every area of her work.

Her professional success is matched by her lifelong devotion to helping others find healing, strength, and renewed purpose. Mia has built a career on showing empathy, upholding integrity, and helping others rise to their potential. Beyond the boardroom, she is a guiding voice for women navigating grief, trauma, and life transitions, offering practical tools for rebuilding confidence and rediscovering purpose through faith.

Born in Romania as the youngest of 10 children, Mia learned resilience and faith early. After earning her bachelor of science in education, she immigrated to the United States at 27, carrying with her an unwavering belief that every challenge holds the seed of growth. She has since earned multiple leadership and public speaking awards through Toastmasters International and is an active member of the AACC World Counselors.

Now based in Knoxville, Tennessee, Mia is a proud wife and mother to two grown children, Alli and Isaac. Outside her professional life, she finds joy in mentoring others, connecting through faith, and helping people see hope where they once saw only hardship.

Her life’s purpose is to remind others that healing is possible, growth is continuous, and purpose is always within reach.

Learn more or connect with Mia at www.miagodfrey.com.

Contact Kendra Rinaldi https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com/

Epis:ode Highlights:

• Survival Under Communism: Growing up as the youngest of 10 in survival-mode poverty in Romania, and how writing her memoir finally freed her family from decades of shared fear .
• Escaping Addiction at 18: Running 300 miles from home after her father’s sudden death to escape a path of addiction and protect her family from shame.
• The 800-Letter Love Story: Writing hundreds of letters using a physical paper dictionary to communicate with her late husband, Robert, before she even knew English .
• Coping Through Exhaustion: Surviving the sudden loss of Robert by working three intense jobs just to keep herself too exhausted to face the grief .
• Losing Her "Lifeline": Serving as the primary caregiver for her beloved sister Mona during her 11-month battle with ovarian cancer.
• Fulfilling a Deathbed Promise: Breaking childhood vows of secrecy by starting a journal that fulfilled Mona's final, healing wish to tell their stories .
• The "Silent Napkin Friend": Why the best support in grief isn’t unsolicited advice or preachiness, but simply holding a quiet, loving presence.
• Buried, Not Broken: Shifting our perspective from feeling broken by trauma to realizing we are whole and simply growing strong roots under the soil.