She received her doctorate in History and Anthropology of Science from MIT and is the director of Writing and Storytelling at the Stanford School of Medicine’s Medical Humanities and the Arts Program. Laurel is also the founder of Writing Medicine, the global community of writing healthcare professionals. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, Wired, California Sunday, National Geographic, Radiolab, National Public Radio and many other places. She splits her time between rural Alaska and her family’s ranch in Southern California.

In addition to Writing Medicine, she leads a variety of public writing workshops. To learn more and sign up, visit  www.laurelbraitman.com 

IG: @laurel_braitman

Substack: https://laurelbraitman.substack.com/

Julianne Manske Rollefson is a therapist, grief educator, and host of the new podcast, The Art of Losing. 

After the deaths of her parents, she left her career in corporate coaching and leadership development to pursue a master’s degree in Counseling Psychology, with the goal of becoming a therapist specializing in grief and loss. She quickly realized that counseling graduate programs don't include grief-specific training and set out to learn as much as she could on her own, which is how she discovered my work and the Grief is My Side Hustle podcast.

For the past year and a half, Julianne and I have partnered to form MRJ Consulting, designed to help individuals, companies, and mental health professionals establish a grief-informed approach to addressing all manner of loss.

She provides individual and group therapy virtually and in-person in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. To work with Julianne or learn more about her services, please visit www.juliannemanskerollefson.com

IG: @juliannerollefson

In 2018, along with his friend Jack, Ben founded The New Normal Charity, after the death of their dads. A simple, free to access, group space where adults could speak openly about their grief, and about the people they’d lost. 

Having spent over two decades working in the hair industry, Ben finds connection where he is most comfortable, and as TNN developed, so has their work. Ben is spending more and more time focused on creating community through empathetic understanding, working with some of the hardest to reach communities in London, coproducing spaces for their community. 

Since launching in 2018, TNN has gone on to host over 1000 meetings to attendees from around the world, including in person and virtual meetings across Europe, Hong Kong and North America. 

To join The New Normal Charity peer support meetings, head to our website www.thenewnormalcharity.com and register to any meeting that is relevant to you. The meetings are free to access and available to anyone who needs space to speak. 

Instagram - 

@tnncharity 

@tnnamericas 

@tnn_ben 

LinkedIn - 

TNN - https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-new-normal-charity/

Ben - https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-may-578381131?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app

Rightsizing expert Jeannine Bryant is the owner and CEO of Changing Spaces SRS, a senior move management company in Lincoln, NE.  She has helped provide rightsizing and relocation services to seniors since 2010.  During that time, she has been actively involved in the downsizing and moving processes of thousands of older adults.  Learn more about their services (and shop their online auctions!) at www.ChangingSpacesSRS.com.  

In 2019, Jeannine created a sister brand to Changing Spaces SRS called Easy Rightsizing.  This platform allows Jeannine to educate anyone and everyone about the rightsizing process, no matter their location.  At her website www.EasyRightsizing.comshe provides blog articles, video tutorials, links to podcasts she has been featured on, downloadable resources, and links to purchase the books she has written on the downsizing process. 

Ready to Rightsize? A step-by-step guide to your rightsizing journey:  For older adults and their loved ones was Jeannine’s first book, published in 2019.  It is the essential guidebook to anyone undergoing a transition and moving to a smaller space.  Jeannine prides herself on offering the kinds of practical tips and inspiration to get people motivated to start sorting through their belongings and undergoing their own rightsizing journey. 

In 2021, she published her second took titled Keep the Memories, Not the Stuff to serve as a helpful guide for anyone who has trouble letting go of keepsakes (that’s most of us!).  This practical how-to book will help readers gain a new perspective on life, love, memories, and our stuff.  The book offers thoughtful insights into the grieving process, as well as practical tips and hands-on advice for letting go without the guilt. 

In 2022, Jeannine released her first online downsizing course, which people can take on-demand from the comfort of their own home.  The course features a downloadable workbook and over three hours of video content featuring Jeannine as she coaches participants through the process of downsizing and moving. 

In 2023, Jeannine published A Year of Letting Go, a rightsizing planner to help readers declutter throughout 2024. 

Learn more about these books and her online course at www.EasyRightsizing.com

Pamela D. Blair, Ph.D., (pamblairbooks.com) was a psychotherapist for thirty years. She is the co-author of I Wasn’t Ready to Say Goodbye now considered a classic in bereavement literature. She is also the author of The Next Fifty Years: A Guide for Women at Midlife and Beyond and Getting Older, Better. She has appeared on national television, been a guest on dozens of radio shows, and has spoken at the Virginia Festival of the Book, the Vermont Women’s Expo, Women’s Images Conferences, and was filmed for a television special entitled “Widowsville." She lives in Shelburne, Vermont with her husband and two mischievous cats.

Bradie McCabe Hansen, M.A. is a clinical psychologist-master in private practice who has been working in the field for over twenty years. Bradie is also a fiber artist and crafter and teaches children and adults about the wonderful world of handcrafting, both for its creative and healing possibilities. Fiber art has become an integral way that she works with people who are interested in visually expressing their lived experience. She lives in Shelburne, Vermont with her husband, two children, one dog and two cats.

ABOUT THE BOOK

An essential grief guide and recovery workbook for those who have said, “I thought I’d feel better by now.”

Grief does not follow a timeline or a set path. It is nonlinear and messy, doubling back on itself just when you thought you were out of the woods. Those who have experienced the loss of a loved one know this unequivocally, but Western society still seems to think that grief should only last six months to a year—tops—when in fact, grief can last throughout a person’s entire life and manifest as serious mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, anger, and despair.

The Long Grief Journey, co-written by a psychotherapist and a clinical psychologist who have both worked with grieving individuals for decades, is for the people who are past the acute pain and effects of a sudden loss and are now learning to live beyond that. It is for those who by all appearances seem to have “moved on.” They’re working, carrying out their responsibilities, showing up for important life events, yet they quietly bear the weight of their sadness and longing for their loved one. There’s a name for this type of long-term, unresolved grief. In fact, there are several: complicated grief, traumatic grief, complex bereavement, prolonged grief, extended grief, abnormal grief, exaggerated grief, and pervasive grief disorder. If you feel "stuck" after experiencing the death of a loved one, even if much time has passed, this book is for you.

With exercises, journal prompts, and rituals that will further help readers along their grief path, The Long Grief Journey, co-written by one of the authors of the classic grief book, I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye, is designed to educate, support, and coach you to rekindle a desire to live life fully, all while still cherishing and embracing the memories of your loved one.

Kelly Cervantes is an award-winning writer, speaker, and advocate best known for her blog Inchstones, where she shared the stress, love, and joy that came with parenting her medically complex daughter, Adelaide. Since Adelaide’s passing, Kelly has continued to write candidly about her arduous and, at times, contradictory grief journey.

She has been published in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Cosmopolitan, as well as quoted in the New York Times, CNN, and People. She is the current board chair for the nonprofit CURE Epilepsy and also hosts their biweekly podcast, Seizing Life, where she interviews scientists, doctors, and individuals affected by epilepsy. Kelly currently resides in Maplewood, NJ, with her husband, four children (two physically, two spiritually), and their two dogs, Tabasco and Sriracha.

Alexandra Wyman is an advocate and public speaker for resources in the aftermath of suicide. After she lost her husband to suicide in August of 2020, Alexandra found a need to change the language around suicide, and decided to write about it. Her memoir, The Suicide Club: What To Do When Someone You Love Chooses Death is an Amazon best seller. She has spoken at a variety of conferences including Bridging the Divide Suicide Prevention and Awareness Summit 2022, 2023 Northwest Conference on Childhood Grief, and has been accepted to present at the 2023 Military Social Work & Behavioral Health Conference and the International Association of Suicide Prevention Conference 2023 in Piran, Slovenia. Alexandra has also been a guest on a variety of podcasts including The Unlock Moment, Author Hour, Resilience Unravelled, She Persisted, and My Wake Up Call with Dr. Mark Goulston. Alexandra has her own podcast called The Widow’s Club, as well. She practices pediatric occupational therapy and lives in Colorado with her son.

To learn more about Alexandra and her work, visit her website at www.forwardtojoy.com.