Groove with Portia

Why do we expect someone to return to normal after three or five days of bereavement leave?

What happens to our minds, bodies, and identities when someone we love is no longer physically here?

In this episode of Groove with Portia, I'm joined by Denise Ackerman, author of Broken Hearts Keep Beating, for a heartfelt conversation about grief, losing a parent, the effects of grief on the brain and body, and learning to experience joy again after loss.

Denise shares the close relationship she had with her father, describing him as her rock and anchor. He was someone she could always turn to for encouragement, reassurance, and meaningful conversations. Even three years after his passing, she still finds herself wishing she could pick up the phone and hear his voice.

As someone who has experienced the loss of both parents, I connected with Denise's perspective on how grief changes us and why society often struggles to understand what grieving people need.
We discuss the limitations of traditional bereavement leave, the pressure employees face to remain productive after losing someone, and why grief doesn't follow a timeline.

Denise also opens up about experiencing brain fog, difficulty concentrating, and physical symptoms following her father's death. These experiences led her to explore how grief affects the brain and body, becoming part of the foundation for her book, Broken Hearts Keep Beating.

Our conversation also explores something many of us have experienced: people offering support by saying, "Let me know if you need anything."

But what happens when you're grieving so deeply that you don't even know what you need?
Denise shares how small acts of kindness, including a neighbor bringing a meal and a friend leaving her favorite sandwiches, made a meaningful difference during her grief journey.

We also discuss the memories that continue connecting us to our loved ones, including old voice messages, familiar conversations, and the moments when we instinctively reach for someone who is no longer physically here.

Throughout our conversation, Denise challenges the idea that healing means leaving grief behind. Instead, she shares what it means to carry her father's memory while rebuilding her life and finding happiness again.

Sometimes, finding your groove isn't about returning to who you were before loss. It's about learning to live as the person you've become.

Have you ever felt pressured to move forward before you were emotionally ready?

If this conversation resonates with you, please like, share, and subscribe to Groove with Portia for more meaningful conversations about grief, adversity, mental health, resilience, and finding your groove.

Connect with Denise: https://www.deniseackerman.ch/

Can you be grateful for the life you've created and still want something more? What happens when the career, marriage, family, or future you once dreamed about no longer feels like the life you're meant to live?

In this episode of Groove with Portia, I'm joined by Áine Rock, author of Blow Up Your Life: The Wild Art of Wanting More, for an honest conversation about identity, personal transformation, relationships, grief, and the courage it takes to acknowledge what we truly want.

This conversation is personal for me. Ten years ago, I walked away from what I thought was my dream television job. I didn't have another job lined up, and I experienced guilt and regret. Yet something within me knew there was more to my life and my love for storytelling than the position I held.

Áine shares how she found herself questioning a life she had worked hard to create. She had a marriage, children, friendships, and many of the things she once dreamed about, yet she was also experiencing an internal sense of loss.

We explore the complicated relationship between gratitude and desire, particularly for women who have spent years putting their families, careers, and other people's expectations ahead of their own needs.

Áine also discusses the fear of disappointing her children, the grief of leaving behind a familiar identity, and how therapy helped her examine the possibilities before making life-changing decisions.
Our conversation takes a deeper look at the expectations women inherit across generations, the importance of allowing ourselves to evolve, and why reclaiming our identity doesn't necessarily mean rejecting every version of ourselves that came before.

We also discuss how listening to our bodies, recognizing pleasure, and communicating what we want can help us make more intentional choices.

And when life becomes uncomfortable, do we always need to rush toward a solution? Or can we learn something by allowing ourselves to sit with uncertainty?

Through her book, Blow Up Your Life, Áine invites readers to reconsider what fulfillment means to them and whether the sacrifices they're making still align with the lives they want to experience.
Sometimes, the grief we carry isn't about losing someone. It's about recognizing that a version of ourselves, or the life we imagined, is changing.

Have you ever found yourself grateful for your life while quietly wondering if there was something more?

If this conversation resonates with you, please like, share, and subscribe to Groove with Portia for more meaningful conversations about adversity, grief, resilience, healing, and finding your groove.

Connect with Áine: https://ainerock.com/

What if hospice care isn't what you've always imagined?

What if the final months of someone's life could still include laughter, meaningful conversations, celebrations, and even a trip they've always dreamed of taking?

In this episode of Groove with Portia, I'm joined by Paula Wrenn and Jo Gustely, co-authors of Dying Well with Hospice: A Compassionate Guide to End-of-Life Care, for a conversation about hospice, caregiving, anticipatory grief, and the importance of honoring someone's wishes at the end of life.

This conversation is personal for me. Before my mother transitioned, she was hesitant about hospice care. Our family had arranged for hospice equipment to be brought into our home, but she ultimately decided against it. Looking back, I recognize how much fear of the unknown can influence the decisions families make during an already emotional time.

Paula shares how her understanding of hospice changed when her husband, Jim, became a patient. Although she had spent years writing about aging and caregiving, experiencing hospice as his wife gave her a different perspective on patient-centered care, independence, and what it means to honor someone's choices.

Jo, a hospice nurse, discusses the importance of understanding the services available to patients and families, including the support of nurses, social workers, chaplains, and other members of the hospice team. She also explains why some families wait until the final days of life to seek hospice support and what they may not realize about comfort and quality of life.

We also explore anticipatory grief, the emotional changes caregivers experience before losing someone, and the small moments that can become some of our most meaningful memories.

Paula shares how Jim celebrated with friends before his death and how hospice support helped make a special trip to Yellowstone possible. Her experience challenges the idea that hospice care is only about preparing for death.

Throughout our conversation, we reflect on the importance of listening to our loved ones, respecting their wishes, and recognizing that the end of life can still hold opportunities for connection, joy, and gratitude.

Paula and Jo also discuss their book, Dying Well with Hospice, and why sharing their experiences continues to give their work meaning.

Have you ever had a conversation with a loved one about what matters most to them at the end of life?

If this conversation resonates with you, please like, share, and subscribe to Groove with Portia for more thoughtful discussions about grief, caregiving, mental health, resilience, and finding your groove.

Connect with Paula and Jo: https://amansvitaepress.net/

Can you grieve a childhood you never had? What happens when you realize your parents were carrying pain they never learned how to heal?

In this episode of Groove with Portia, I sit down with Juliana Bermesch, author of Life with Less of Me, for an honest conversation about childhood trauma, complicated family relationships, generational patterns, and the many forms of grief we experience beyond death.

Juliana shares how growing up with anger and anxiety shaped her understanding of her parents, particularly her mother. It wasn't until she began writing her book that she fully recognized how her mother's own childhood experiences, depression, and abusive marriage affected her ability to parent.

We also explore the grief that comes with changes to our bodies and independence. Juliana opens up about surviving a severe infection that nearly cost her a leg, learning to walk again, experiencing breast cancer, and finding ways to reclaim activities and parts of her identity that once felt lost.

Our conversation also touches on the pressure to prove our worth through material possessions, the challenges of trusting our bodies after serious illness, and the importance of setting boundaries with people we love.

Through it all, Juliana shares why writing Life with Less of Me became an opportunity to reclaim her life's work and continue advocating for children.

This conversation is a reminder that grief isn't always about losing someone. Sometimes, we're grieving the childhood, health, relationships, or future we thought we'd have.

What experiences from your childhood have you found yourself understanding differently as an adult?
If this conversation resonates with you, please like, share, subscribe, and join us for more meaningful conversations about adversity, grief, resilience, and finding your groove.

Connect with Julianna: https://www.juliannaburmesch.com/

What if resilience isn't about staying strong, pushing through and pretending nothing hurts?

Kat Konkoli once believed resilience meant developing a tough exterior and refusing to let life's losses affect her. After losing her father as a child, her first love at 18 and, more recently, her mother, that definition of strength eventually stopped working.

In this episode of Groove with Portia, Kat and I have an honest conversation about grief, identity and what it really means to be resilient when life keeps changing.

Kat shares how years of powering through eventually led her to a point where she could no longer ignore what she was carrying. Her healing journey challenged her to redefine resilience as something much different: giving herself compassion, allowing herself to feel and recognizing that being human sometimes means not being okay.

We also explore the identity changes that can follow the death of someone we love. Who are we when part of our identity was connected to someone who is no longer physically here?

Our conversation also turns to another kind of hidden struggle: the student who appears successful on paper while quietly falling apart. Kat reflects on being a first-generation college student, working three jobs and navigating life without a roadmap while still showing up, smiling and achieving. Today, that experience informs her work through Rising Resilience Collective and her belief that schools need to pay attention to student wellbeing alongside academic performance.

We also discuss nervous system regulation, self-identity, the importance of expressing rather than repressing difficult emotions and why vulnerability can sometimes help create safer spaces for other people.

After everything she has experienced, Kat's definition of finding her groove has changed too. Following the death of her mother, she is thinking differently about how limited our time really is and what it means to reconnect with the person she was before limiting beliefs and society's expectations began shaping her.

This isn't a conversation about becoming tougher.

It's about discovering another way to be resilient.

Connect with Kat: https://www.katkonkoli.com/

What happens when the life you thought you were supposed to live no longer fits the person you're becoming?

Kirsten Rudberg earned her Master of Divinity believing she was following a calling. But her path didn't lead to a traditional pulpit. After graduating during the pandemic, facing uncertainty about what came next and reconnecting with a creative side she had pushed down for decades, Kirsten began discovering that ministry could take a very different form.

In this episode of Groove with Portia, Kirsten and I talk about identity, faith, creativity and the grief that can accompany changing direction in life. She shares why traditional ministry wasn't the right fit for her, how podcasting became a form of ministry and why listening to other people's transformative experiences through her podcast, Byte Sized Blessings, continues to shape the way she sees the world.

We also explore what loss can open within us, the connections people experience after someone they love dies and the vulnerability involved in trusting someone else with your story.

Near the end of our conversation, Kirsten shares another piece of her story: growing up as the oldest of three children in a challenging home and taking on responsibilities that left little room for childhood. Today, creativity, silliness and play have become part of how she is reclaiming something she didn't get to fully experience when she was young.

Sometimes finding your groove isn't about discovering an entirely new person. It may be about finally giving yourself permission to embrace the parts of you that have been waiting for room to exist.

Connect with Kirsten: https://bytesizedblessings.com/

What if the things we do with the best intentions at the end of someone's life aren't actually what they want?

Lisa Pahl has spent years working in hospice and helping families navigate death, dying and difficult end-of-life conversations. She is also the co-founder and current owner of The Death Deck, a tool designed to make conversations about mortality a little easier.

But professional experience didn't completely prepare Lisa for what happened when she became a caregiver herself.

On this episode of Groove with Portia, Lisa opens up about caring for her mother-in-law, Kay, after she was diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer in 2020.

Lisa entered the experience with years of hospice knowledge and plenty of ideas. She wanted to create legacy videos, document memories and use the resources she knew could someday help the family with their grief.

There was just one problem.

That wasn't necessarily what Kay wanted.

Lisa shares how that experience humbled her and forced her to confront an important truth about end-of-life care: even when our intentions are good, the dying person's final chapter belongs to them.
We talk about the pressure caregivers and end-of-life professionals can unintentionally place on people, why passion can sometimes blind us to what someone is actually communicating, and the importance of listening instead of assuming we know what a “good death” should look like.

Our conversation also takes an unexpected turn into Lisa's volunteer work supporting women through the Humane Prison Hospice Project.

Lisa shares what she has witnessed among incarcerated women confronting illness, grief and mortality, including women creating memorials, making flowers from tissue paper and documenting memories of people who have died behind prison walls.

That raises an even bigger question:

Who gets to have their life remembered as more than the worst thing they've ever done?
We also discuss why families often wait until someone is dying to ask important questions about their life, final wishes, estate, accounts and personal history.

Lisa challenges another common assumption along the way: people don't necessarily hate talking about death.

They may simply need a way into the conversation.

From bringing The Death Deck into breweries to watching strangers spend 15 minutes discussing questions about mortality, Lisa has seen what can happen when we make death conversations less intimidating and more human.

This episode is about death, but it's also about agency, dignity, caregiving, legacy, grief and the conversations that can make an incredibly difficult season a little less complicated for the people we love.

Because talking about death doesn't make it happen.

Sometimes it simply helps us prepare for life.

Connect with Lisa Pahl and learn more about The Death Deck: https://thedeathdeck.com/

What happens when grief doesn't give you enough time to grieve?

Kellye Thunder Davis spent decades teaching meditation, mindfulness and stress management. But after experiencing the deaths of four people close to her, including her mother and her sweetheart Chris, the teacher suddenly became the student.

On this episode of Groove with Portia, Kellye joins me to talk about the experiences behind her book, The Nature Codes: Healing Grief Through Nature's Energy & Reclaiming Joy, and what happened when the practices she had spent years teaching others met her own grief.

Kellye opens up about cumulative loss and the reality of continuing to function while emotionally overwhelmed. As one death followed another, she found herself putting grief aside because there was always something or someone else requiring her attention.

Her realization was simple but powerful: every person's passing requires a pause.
We talk about anticipatory grief, the losses we postpone processing, and why reclaiming joy doesn't mean forgetting the people we've lost.

Kellye also shares how meditation eventually led her to an unexpected message: “Go be in nature.”
That call took her deeper into nature, where silence became one of her teachers. We explore why nature doesn't operate according to the timelines humans try to place on grief and what might change if we treated grief as sacred time instead of something we're expected to quickly overcome.

Our conversation also challenges a larger contradiction: If we truly believe grief has no timeline, why do workplaces and institutions often give grieving people only a few days before expecting them to return to business as usual?

We also explore the meaning behind The Nature Codes, which Kellye describes as energy in nature reflected back to the grieving heart.

One of those encounters involved a mourning cloak butterfly Kellye initially believed was dead. Moments later, it flew into the air and landed on a plant above her. The experience made her think about her mother, transformation and an even bigger question: What really dies?

This conversation is about cumulative grief, nature, spirituality, transformation and learning to hold sadness and joy at the same time.

Because reclaiming joy doesn't mean the grief disappeared.

It means we're learning how to carry both.

Connect with Kellye Thunder Davis: https://kellyedavis.com/

What happens when everything you know professionally about grief suddenly becomes personal?

Dr. Patricia Timerman had worked in suicide prevention, intervention and postvention. She had studied suicide grief and facilitated groups for people who had lost someone to suicide.
Then her dear friend Scott died by suicide.

Suddenly, Patricia wasn’t simply the clinician facilitating the conversation. She was grieving too. Despite everything she knew professionally, she found herself minimizing her own loss because Scott wasn’t her spouse, child or parent. It was the members of her own grief group who reminded her that the relationship label didn’t determine whether her grief mattered.

On this episode of Groove with Portia, I sit down with Dr. Patricia Timerman, psychotherapist, author and founder of Advocate2Create, for an honest conversation about suicide loss, grief, guilt, identity and what happens when professional expertise meets lived experience.

We also explore something that doesn’t get talked about enough: What happens after the first year of grief?

Patricia shares how the first year after a loss can feel surreal, while the second year may bring the painful realization that you’re living in a reality you never chose. We also talk about the complicated experience of finding yourself laughing again while another part of you wonders how laughter is even possible.

Our conversation then turns to relationships.

Using her IAP model, Intention, Action and Perception, Patricia explains why two people can love and grieve the same person while experiencing one another completely differently. One person may believe they’re “holding it together” to protect someone they love, while the other person experiences that strength as emotional absence.

We also discuss the guilt and unanswered questions that can accompany suicide loss, why survivors may replay the days leading up to a death searching for answers, and how that search can sometimes turn into blame or self-blame.

Finally, I ask Patricia what finding her groove means after grief, immigration, losing her voice, professional reinvention and everything life has asked her to navigate.

This conversation is about more than surviving grief. It’s about learning how to communicate through it, making room for different expressions of loss, and allowing grief to become part of our story without allowing it to become the entirety of who we are.

Connect with Dr. Patricia Timerman: https://www.advocate2create.com/

What happens when you stop using drugs, but the pain that led you there is still waiting for you?

On this episode of Groove with Portia, I sit down with Nikki Mammano, author of Breaking Good: A Memoir, for an honest conversation about addiction, childhood trauma, homelessness, recovery, shame, identity and learning to love the person you used to be.

Nikki's life has included identities most people would never imagine existing within one story. She has experienced addiction, homelessness and incarceration, and today she is a mother, author, speaker and advocate.

But our conversation isn't simply about who Nikki used to be.

It's about what happens after survival.

Nikki describes addiction as rooted, in her experience, in trauma and disconnection. She explains that putting down the drugs didn't automatically mean putting down everything that had brought her to addiction in the first place. She still had to confront the pain, grief and experiences she had carried with her.

We also talk about something that can be difficult to reconcile in recovery: acknowledging that you were harmed while also accepting responsibility for harm you may have caused others. Nikki shares that learning to forgive and love herself despite choices she made during addiction has been one of the hardest parts of her journey.

Her memoir required another level of vulnerability.

Nikki spent years reconstructing her story, recording memories, speaking with people from her past and trying to tell what happened as honestly and fairly as she could. Writing the book was cathartic and painful—but she says realizing those words were actually going to be published was an entirely different battle.

And then I asked Nikki a question I hadn't heard anyone ask her:

Does she ever miss the woman she used to be?

Her answer surprised me.

Nikki doesn't miss those versions of herself. She's learned to love them. Instead of erasing the addict, the homeless woman or the woman who made painful choices, she's taken the best parts of those versions of herself forward as she's continued to grow.

Today, Nikki says finding her groove means finding love within herself, extending it to others and transforming the pain she's experienced into connection, service and giving back.

Connect with Nikki Mammano and learn more about Breaking Good: A Memoir:
https://www.nikkimammano.com/