If you've ever felt divorce only leaves one way to fight, episode 452 of Grief and Happiness is for you. Divorce coach Karen McNenny reframes divorce as its own kind of grief, sharing tools for splitting with dignity, from a "divorce announcement" to protecting kids caught in the middle.

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

(01:04) Karen McNenny's divorce story and founding the Good Divorce Academy

(03:23) Emily on staying in an unhappy marriage because she felt she "had to"

(04:17) Why society permits changing everything except marital status

(07:52) The "elegant exit" and Karen's mayonnaise-jar metaphor for knowing it's over

(10:45) The shame and judgment divorcing families face, and how to support them

(13:23) The "divorce announcement" tool for controlling the narrative

(17:30) Why kids should never be the mediator or messenger between parents

(20:54) Comparing the grief of divorce versus losing a spouse to death

(31:10) Karen's wound-to-scar metaphor for how divorce grief heals

Karen McNenny is a mediator, certified divorce coach, and co-parenting specialist, and the founder of The Good Divorce Academy. A Montana native with a BFA from Montana State University and graduate studies in London as a Rotary International Scholar, she spent 25 years as a business consultant before shifting her focus to divorce work during the pandemic. She is the author of The Good Divorce: How to End Your Marriage Without Ending Your Family and hosts The Good Divorce Show, now in its fourth season, featuring couples and individuals who've navigated separation well. 

In this episode, Karen reframes divorce as a form of grief that's too often overlooked and under-supported, drawing on her own divorce 15 years ago to argue that couples default to adversarial, court-driven splits when society offers no "elegant exit." She shares practical tools from her coaching practice — like writing a joint "divorce announcement" to head off gossip and isolation — and stresses that children should never be used as messengers or mediators between parents. She also unpacks divorce's layered losses (identity, routine, social circle), offering her signature image of grief as a wound that scars but never fully vanishes, and connects her story to Emily's in exploring where divorce grief and death grief overlap and diverge.

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Podcast: Good Divorce Show

Book: Karen McNenny - The Good Divorce

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The Grief and Happiness Alliance

Book: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

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When you live mindfully, you can savor those moments you’ve expanded

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• You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking here
• You can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Guide by clicking here.
• You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here at Amazon:
• You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, by clicking here
• Request your Awaken Your Happiness Journaling Guide here

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Episode 450 of Grief and Happiness features author Annisha Page, who lost her mother suddenly at 17 and turned her grief into Grieving Her, a memoir with blank pages for readers to process their own loss. She shares how music, journaling, and counseling helped her reach acceptance, and why she now urges listeners to stop taking loved ones for granted.

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

(00:51) Annisha's decision to write a memoir after losing her mother suddenly at 17

(02:19) Why so many people bottle up their grief instead of learning how to process it

(03:46) The purpose behind the reflection pages built into each chapter of her book

(05:42) Why her own writing journey didn't begin until years after her loss

(06:50) The music that carried her through grief, from gospel to Tupac

(11:59) Reaching acceptance and finding a better place than she was at seventeen

(12:52) The sudden loss of her mother and the lesson to never take loved ones for granted

(16:37) Grieving Her: where to find the book and her online grief support community

Annisha Page is the author of Grieving Her: A Journey Through the Loss of My Mother, a memoir chronicling the sudden loss of her mother when Page was just 17 years old. Written years later as she moved through her own grieving process, the book weaves personal reflection with interactive journaling prompts, inviting readers to pause after each chapter and process their own emotions. Page also runs an online grief support community, where she offers a judgment-free space for others navigating loss to share their feelings and connect with people who understand what they're going through.

In this episode, Annisha shares the story of her mother's sudden death in a car accident and the disorienting experience of trying to function as a normal teenager while carrying that loss. She talks candidly about how her grieving process unfolded over time, from leaning on music in her younger years to eventually turning to writing in her twenties as a way to process her feelings. Page also opens up about identifying her mother's body and the lasting impact of that moment, as well as the counseling that has helped her along the way. She closes with heartfelt advice for listeners: never take loved ones for granted, resolve conflicts quickly, and tell the people you love how you feel while you still have the chance.

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Book: Annisha Page - Grieving Her: A Journey Through the Loss of My Mother

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Book: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

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Who would you like to have as your guide or mentor as you deal with grief?

Let's Connect:

• You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking here
• You can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Guide by clicking here.
• You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here at Amazon:
• You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, by clicking here
• Request your Awaken Your Happiness Journaling Guide here

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If you've ever wondered whether it's okay to feel relief alongside grief, episode 448 of Grief and Happiness is for you. Debut novelist Anna Nordberg shares how losing her mother as a teenager inspired her novel When She Was Ours. Drawing on twenty years as a journalist, she opens up about becoming a mother herself, rediscovering her own mother as a person, and why Americans still lack the language to talk about loss.

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

(00:55) Anna Nordberg's shift from journalism to her debut novel, When She Was Ours

(02:35) Why grief is now a universal theme in books, film, and TV

(03:49) Losing her mother at 17, and learning to hold relief and guilt

(06:37) Creating a believably human mother inspired by her own mom

(09:49) Setting the scene: a wedding, a diagnosis, a family under pressure

(13:24) Why siblings are fiction's most underexplored bond

(18:17) Researching medical detail firsthand, bringing journalistic rigor to fiction

(24:13) A fictional scene that shifted her bond with her mother's memory

(27:24) The "Bay's daughter" moment, carrying her mother through her son's medical scare

(32:44) Why writing is a healing, cathartic act, private or shared

Anna Nordberg is a journalist and culture writer whose essays have appeared in Slate, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She grew up in New York City and now lives in San Francisco with her husband and two children. After two decades in journalism, she pivoted to fiction in her forties, drawing on her mother's death as a teenager to write her debut novel, When She Was Ours, out August 1 and available for pre-order now.

On the episode, Anna spoke candidly about how losing her mother to illness at 17 left her without language for contradictory feelings — sadness alongside relief, love alongside loneliness — that no one had told her were normal. She described how becoming a mother gave her new insight into her own mother as a person, and how writing the novel became a way of reconnecting with that memory. She also discussed her fascination with sibling relationships and happy families under pressure as underexplored fiction territory, citing Little Women as an inspiration, and credited journalism with helping her write authentic scenes beyond her own experience. She closed by calling writing a healing, cathartic act, echoing the episode's themes of grief and growth.

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Book: Anna Nordberg - When She Was Ours

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The Grief and Happiness Alliance

Book: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

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What do you want? Listen to this to see how to get that!

Let's Connect:

• You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking here
• You can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Guide by clicking here.
• You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here at Amazon:
• You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, by clicking here
• Request your Awaken Your Happiness Journaling Guide here

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Episode 446 of Grief and Happiness is for anyone who's wished a moment of grief or gratitude could last. Author Erica Gerard Di Bona shares how a typewriter and a thousand letters a year have helped her comfort grieving friends and reconnect with a stranger whose life her note changed. Her candid advice on condolences shows why a letter really is better.

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

(00:57) Erica's mission to bring back civility, one letter at a time

(02:36) How grief after losing her husband led Emily to a year of weekly letters

(09:44) Why a letter can reach people carrying hidden grief

(10:49) Erica's advice to stop dancing around the word "death"

(18:02) Small ways to stay connected — jokes, clippings, and horoscopes

(21:02) The letter that resurfaced nine months later and changed a stranger's life

(27:23) Erica's "secret weapon" for meetings: typed letters as a UC Santa Cruz "friend raiser"

(29:23) What to say — and never say — in a condolence letter

(34:14) The century-old letters that revealed hidden family history

(39:46) How one letter can turn someone into a lifelong letter writer

Erica Gerard Di Bona is a lifelong letter writer and author of A Letter Is Better! The Art of Thank You, which makes the case for handwritten notes as tools for connection and healing. A former producer in network news, kids' game shows, and documentaries, she now works as a fundraising consultant for UC Santa Cruz. She types roughly 1,000 letters a year on one of her seven typewriters, connecting her with correspondents like Henry Winkler. Erica lives in Los Angeles with her husband, producer Vin Di Bona, and their daughter.

Erica joins Emily to explore letter writing as an antidote to grief and isolation. She shares how her practice has helped her comfort grieving friends, thank strangers for small kindnesses, and stay close to loved ones far away — including a tattoo artist who called nine months after receiving her note to say it pulled him back from despair. She and Emily also swap stories about century-old letters that revealed hidden family history, showing how a letter can outlast the moment it was written. Erica offers guidance on condolence notes, encouraging people to name death plainly and skip empty platitudes in favor of personal memories — framing letter writing as a small act of kindness that can ease someone's grief.

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Book: Erica Gerard Di Bona - A Letter Is Better!: The Art of Thank You

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The Grief and Happiness Alliance

Book: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

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The self-care of paying attention to keeping your emotions positive allows you to experience more positivity which in turn lightens your grief.

Let's Connect:

• You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking here
• You can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Guide by clicking here.
• You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here at Amazon:
• You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, by clicking here
• Request your Awaken Your Happiness Journaling Guide here

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If you've ever believed grief and joy can't coexist, episode 444 of Grief and Happiness will change your mind. Cancer survivor Harriet Cabelly shares the mindset that carried her through diagnosis: it's not what happens to you, but what you do with it. Sitting with pain, not rushing past it, is the real path to a life worth living.

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

(00:03) Introducing Harriet Cabelly and her work in grief, loss, and positive psychology

(02:34) Viktor Frankl, logotherapy, and the life-changing lessons of Man's Search for Meaning

(04:27) Harriet's cancer diagnosis and choosing not to live as a victim of circumstance

(10:58) Post-traumatic growth: how difficulty can become the seed of real change

(11:55) "Leaving an imprint in the sand" — redefining legacy and paying it forward

(12:44) Building community through small, unplanned acts of connection

(18:08) Turning to creativity — handwritten cards and nature photography — as an outlet for grief

(24:33) Why Harriet chose a creative arts therapist over a traditional support group

(26:40) Confronting society's discomfort with grief and its obsession with quick fixes

Harriet Cabelly is a licensed clinical social worker in New York focused on grief, loss, and life transitions. A cancer survivor, she blends positive psychology with Viktor Frankl's logotherapy, studied through his Vienna institute, and founded Rebuild Life Now. She has authored several books, including Light Through Darkness and Your To Die For Life, and works as a speaker and facilitator helping clients hold grief and joy together.

In this episode, Harriet reframed grief around one idea: it's not what happens to us, but what we do with it, that shapes our lives. Rather than adopting a victim mentality after her diagnosis, she used it to fuel a mission of paying forward the gift of her life. She and Emily discussed how creative outlets like handwritten cards and nature photography can substitute for talk therapy, and why growth only emerges once pain is fully felt. Harriet also challenged society's discomfort with grief, noting people reach for quick fixes instead of sitting with pain. The conversation closed on her image of "leaving an imprint in the sand," capturing that healing happens through small acts of care.

Connect with Harriet Cabelly:

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The Grief and Happiness Alliance

Book: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

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What can you do today to make someone else’s day? What can you do to make your day?

Let's Connect:

• You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking here
• You can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Guide by clicking here.
• You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here at Amazon:
• You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, by clicking here
• Request your Awaken Your Happiness Journaling Guide here

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.