Heart Healing Conversations

Addiction affects more than the person struggling with substance use.

It can shape an entire family, leaving loved ones carrying shame, guilt, fear, and grief that often go unspoken.

In this episode of Heart Healing Conversations, Dawn welcomes Krista Zaft, life coach, speaker, and host of Becoming Sound, for an honest conversation about growing up with addiction, recognizing family patterns, and navigating the pain of having a loved one struggle with substance use.

Krista shares how growing up with an alcoholic father influenced her own coping patterns and relationships, and how her son’s struggles with addiction brought new challenges and opportunities for healing.

This conversation gives voice to the grief experienced by parents, partners, and other family members who love someone struggling with addiction.

Healing begins when we no longer have to carry these experiences alone.

If addiction has touched your family, or you’ve spent years keeping difficult experiences to yourself, this episode offers compassionate reminders that you are not alone and that honest conversations can open a path toward healing.

In this episode, we explore:

* Growing up in a home affected by alcohol addiction

* How childhood experiences shape adult coping patterns and relationships

* The shame, guilt, and silence surrounding family addiction

* Loving someone with addiction without trying to control their choices

* The grief and emotional toll experienced by family members

* Finding support, practicing self-care, and breaking generational patterns

Subscribe to Heart Healing Conversations and join us for honest conversations about grief, healing, and finding joy again after heartbreak and loss. ❤️‍🩹

About Your Host/Guest:

Learn more about Dawn

Dawn Michele Jackson, RN, is an Advanced Grief Recovery Method® Specialist, author, and advocate for emotional healing. After more than 30 years in nursing, Dawn helps individuals release unresolved grief and emotional pain so they can reconnect with themselves, their relationships, and what matters most.

Learn more about Krista

Krista Zaft is a life coach, speaker, Co-host of Unfiltered AF, a monthly speaking event, and host of Becoming Sound, a podcast that explores healing, resilience, and navigating the complexities of growing up in addiction and dysfunctional environments. She is passionate about giving voice to topics shrouded in secrecy, shame, and guilt.

In her coaching practice, she helps clients move from burnout to breakthrough and supports individuals in healing from generational patterns, reclaiming their confidence, and creating lives rooted in self-love, clarity, and purpose.

Follow Krista: Instagram, Apple Podcasts, Spotify

You never have to navigate your healing journey alone. 💕

If you’re looking for support, please schedule a call with me!

I’m always here to offer heart-to-heart human support for life’s most difficult moments.

In this deeply personal episode of Heart Healing Conversations, Dawn sits down with her husband, Ed Owens, Vice President of the Grief Recovery Institute, following the school shooting at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon.

With heavy hearts, Dawn and Ed share their reflections on the grief and emotional impact that can ripple through an entire community after a tragedy. They talk about the fear, sadness, and uncertainty that so many people experience, even when they didn’t personally know those directly affected.

Grief doesn’t only touch the people closest to a loss. It can affect parents, children, teachers, first responders, neighbors, and entire communities.

Together, Dawn and Ed explore how we can care for ourselves and one another during painful times. They discuss the importance of being emotionally honest, helping children feel safe enough to express their feelings, and resisting the urge to fix or minimize someone else’s pain.

Sometimes, we don’t need the right words or the answers. We need someone willing to listen, sit beside us, offer a hug, and remind us that we aren’t alone.

In this episode, we discuss:

* Why a community tragedy can affect us deeply, even when we didn’t personally know those involved

* How grief can show up as emotional exhaustion, distraction, fear, and difficulty concentrating

* Why it’s okay not to be okay

* The importance of being honest about our emotions with children and adults

* How to listen and offer support without trying to fix someone’s feelings

* Ways to practice kindness and compassion toward ourselves and others

* How shared humanity can help us feel connected during painful times

A gentle reminder: You don’t have to carry everything alone. Give yourself permission to feel what you’re feeling, reach out when you need support, and offer kindness to those around you.

Our hearts are with the students, families, staff, first responders, and everyone affected by the Silver Rail Elementary tragedy. 💕

Subscribe to Heart Healing Conversations and join us for honest conversations about grief, healing, and finding joy again after heartbreak and loss. ❤️‍🩹

About Your Host/Guest:

Learn more about Dawn

Dawn Michele Jackson, RN, is an Advanced Grief Recovery Method® Specialist, author, and advocate for emotional healing. After more than 30 years in nursing, Dawn helps individuals release unresolved grief and emotional pain so they can reconnect with themselves, their relationships, and what matters most.

Schedule a Call with Dawn

Ed Owens served in the U.S. Air Force, retiring as a First Sergeant in 2009, while also working in law enforcement for many years. Following the devastating loss of his three-year-old son in 2010, Ed discovered the Grief Recovery Institute and found a path toward healing. Today, he serves as a trainer and Vice President of the organization, helping others navigate their own journeys through grief and emotional loss.

Schedule a Call with Ed

You never have to navigate your healing journey alone. 💕

If you’re looking for support, please schedule a call with me!

I’m always here to offer heart-to-heart human support for life’s most difficult moments.

What happens when we try to replace what we’ve lost instead of taking time to heal?

In this episode of Heart Healing Conversations, Dawn and fellow Grief Recovery Method® Specialist Janna Wellemeyer explore the myth that something new can fill the space left by a loss.

They talk honestly about divorce, breakups, self-worth, loneliness, and the temptation to rush into a new relationship before we’ve had a chance to process what happened. Dawn and Janna share personal stories about carrying unresolved pain into new relationships and the patterns that can continue when we don’t give ourselves space to heal.

They also explore what can happen when we stop looking outside ourselves for validation and begin rediscovering who we are beneath the roles we’ve carried.

If you’ve experienced a breakup, divorce, or significant life transition, this conversation offers a gentle reminder: you don’t have to rush into what’s next. Healing, self-discovery, and even joy can come from learning to feel comfortable with yourself again.

Subscribe to Heart Healing Conversations and join us for honest conversations about grief, healing, and finding joy again after heartbreak and loss. ❤️‍🩹

About Your Host/Guest:

Learn more about Dawn

Dawn Michele Jackson, RN, is an Advanced Grief Recovery Method® Specialist, author, and advocate for emotional healing. After more than 30 years in nursing, Dawn helps individuals release unresolved grief and emotional pain so they can reconnect with themselves, their relationships, and what matters most.

Learn more about Janna

Janna Wellemeyer is an Advanced Grief Recovery Method® Specialist who brings compassion and understanding from her own healing journey.

You never have to navigate your healing journey alone. 💕

If you’re looking for support, please schedule a call with me!

I’m always here to offer heart-to-heart human support for life’s most difficult moments.

What do we really lose when a marriage ends?

Divorce is often talked about as the loss of a relationship, but the grief can run much deeper, including loss of a home, friendships, family traditions, financial security, a sense of identity, or the future you thought you were building.

In this episode of Heart Healing Conversations, Dawn welcomes her husband, Ed Owens, Vice President of the Grief Recovery Institute, for an honest and personal conversation about the hidden grief of divorce and the losses no one talks about.

Having both experienced divorce in the past, they share openly about what they carried from those relationships, what they learned, and how healing changed the way they viewed their past and their future.

Together, they explore:

* The many losses that can accompany divorce beyond the loss of a partner

* Why divorce can leave us feeling like a failure or carrying shame

* How anger and blame can keep us connected to the pain

* The importance of looking honestly at our own part in a relationship

* Why unresolved grief can follow us into future relationships

* How divorce and ongoing conflict can affect children

* What forgiveness really means, and what it doesn’t mean

* Why forgiveness isn’t forgetting or condoning what happened

* The importance of being gentle with yourself during heartbreak

* Asking yourself, “How is this working for me?”

* Recognizing the choices you have about how you respond and move forward

* Opening your heart again after it has been hurt

* Remembering that you are worthy of love after heartbreak

Dawn and Ed also talk about something that can be hard to see in the middle of heartbreak: the pain of how a relationship ended can sometimes overshadow everything that came before it.

If you’re navigating divorce or still carrying pain from a past relationship, this conversation will be one you don’t want to miss.

You can’t change the past. But you can choose what you carry into what comes next.

For more support, check out these resources:

✍️ Article - Beyond the Heartbreak of Divorce

❤️‍🩹 Heart Healing Companion - Navigating Divorce

🎧 Listen to Heart Healing Conversations on

Substack, Spotify, Apple, or YouTube

Subscribe to Heart Healing Conversations and join us for honest conversations about grief, healing, and finding joy again after heartbreak and loss. ❤️‍🩹

About Your Host/Guest:

Learn more about Dawn

Dawn Michele Jackson, RN, is an Advanced Grief Recovery Method® Specialist, author, and advocate for emotional healing. After more than 30 years in nursing, Dawn helps individuals release unresolved grief and emotional pain so they can reconnect with themselves, their relationships, and what matters most.

Ed Owens served in the U.S. Air Force, retiring as a First Sergeant in 2009, while also working in law enforcement for many years. Following the devastating loss of his three-year-old son in 2010, Ed discovered the Grief Recovery Institute and found a path toward healing. Today, he serves as a trainer and Vice President of the organization, helping others navigate their own journeys through grief and emotional loss.

Follow Ed: LinkedIn

You never have to navigate your healing journey alone. 💕

If you’re looking for support, please schedule a call with me!

I’m always here to offer heart-to-heart human support for life’s most difficult moments.

What do you do when life seems to bring one thing after another?

In this heartfelt conversation, Dawn talks with productivity coach and mother of three young adults, Mia Moran, about a year when life kept throwing her curveballs.

Mia experienced significant health challenges of her own, health concerns involving family members, her son graduating and leaving home, and the emotional shifts that came with entering a new season of life. Through it all, she found herself facing something many of us experience but don’t always know how to talk about: the emotions we carry when life changes in ways we didn’t expect.

Dawn and Mia explore:

* What it feels like when difficult things keep happening, one after another

* The emotional impact of health challenges affecting ourselves and the people we love

* Grief that comes with children growing up and leaving home

* Why grief and gratitude can exist at the same time

* Why slowing down can sometimes be more productive than pushing forward

* How to make emotional processing part of the plan rather than something we squeeze in later

* Creating space to celebrate, feel, rest, and acknowledge what each season of life is asking of us

Mia also shares a powerful perspective on productivity: emotional work deserves space on the calendar, too.

This conversation reminds us that we don’t have to pretend we’re okay when we’re carrying more than anyone realizes. We can make room for the hard emotions, acknowledge what we’ve lost or what has changed, and still experience gratitude, love, and joy along the way.

Subscribe to Heart Healing Conversations and join us for honest conversations about grief, healing, and finding joy again after heartbreak and loss. ❤️‍🩹

About Your Hosts:

Learn more about Dawn

Dawn Michele Jackson, RN, is an Advanced Grief Recovery Method® Specialist, author, and advocate for emotional healing. After more than 30 years in nursing, Dawn helps individuals release unresolved grief and emotional pain so they can reconnect with themselves, their relationships, and what matters most.

Learn more about Mia

Mia Moran is a productivity coach and mom of three young adults who has struck her perfect balance. She supports high-achieving female entrepreneurs overwhelmed by work, life, and wellness, and helps them find their version of balance while making an impact. She hosts the PlanSimple podcast, is a bestselling author, founded Pause Magazine, and created the FLOW Planning Method, the FLOW Planner, and FLOW365.

Follow Mia: Instagram, Substack, Podcast, LinkedIn

You never have to navigate your healing journey alone. 💕

If you’re looking for support, please schedule a call with me!

I’m always here to offer heart-to-heart human support for life’s most difficult moments.

In this heartfelt episode of Heart Healing Conversations, Dawn talks with author Cheri Warcholak Lohrey about living with multiple sclerosis and the grief that can accompany a chronic health diagnosis.

Cheri was living a full, busy life as an educator, wife, mother, fitness enthusiast, and someone who loved a packed calendar and taking care of things on her own. Her MS diagnosis changed the path she had imagined for herself.

But the diagnosis brought more than physical challenges. Cheri describes grieving the loss of her career, independence, familiar routines, and the identity she had built over the years.

For nearly a decade, she kept much of her experience to herself, often responding to questions with, “I’m fine,” while carrying much more beneath the surface. Eventually, she had to confront what was happening and learn to navigate life differently.

In this conversation, Cheri and Dawn explore:

* The grief that can accompany a chronic illness diagnosis

* Losing a career and a sense of identity

* What it means to look fine on the outside while struggling internally

* Learning to slow down and make space for self-care

* The difficulty of asking for help when you’ve always been independent

* Why community and support matter during difficult transitions

* How writing became part of Cheri’s healing journey

* Finding creativity and unexpected joy after a major life change

* Reframing difficult experiences and looking for what they can teach us

Cheri’s message throughout the episode is simple and powerful:

Pause. Breathe. Pivot.

Sometimes life doesn’t follow the plan we created. That doesn’t mean there can’t be meaning, connection, creativity, and joy in the next chapter.

If you’re navigating chronic illness, grief, or a life that looks very different than you expected, this conversation is for you.

Follow Cheri on Social Media:

Instagram- PoweredbythePivot

Facebook- Cheri Warcholak Lohrey

LinkedIn - Cheri Warcholak Lohrey

Subscribe to Heart Healing Conversations and join us for honest conversations about grief, healing, and finding joy again after heartbreak and loss. ❤️‍🩹

About Your Host/Guest:

Learn more about Dawn

Dawn Michele Jackson, RN, is an Advanced Grief Recovery Method® Specialist, author, and advocate for emotional healing. After more than 30 years in nursing, Dawn helps individuals release unresolved grief and emotional pain so they can reconnect with themselves, their relationships, and what matters most.

Learn more about Cheri

Cheri Warcholak Lohrey, a type A planner, a fitness enthusiast, and a career woman, a suburban wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend, was living her life to the fullest when suddenly everything changed. Receiving a tumultuous diagnosis, her life plan was upended. With over 25 years of service as an educator, Cheri’s determination to “Never Give Up” perseveres as she navigates the unexpected challenges of multiple sclerosis progression, illuminating the power of resilience.

Cheri is the international bestselling author of Powered by the Pivot; Secrets Revealed in my journey Manifesting Peace, Love & Gratitude; and the 2026 International Impact Award-winning author of Cleo the Caterpillar CAN Pivot: A Story of Decision-making and “I AM Cleo: A Story of Courage.”

Her picture books are rhythmically told, inspiring growth in the young and the old. Her mission, both in life and through her writing, is raw, real, and relatable, featuring her personal strategy to Pause, Breathe, and Pivot.

Invited on her journey, readers will be inspired to embrace change, feel supported through real-life moments of decision-making, and ease the heaviness of illness. Her messages will strengthen self-confidence, reveal secrets that are often unseen, and empower readers to reframe challenges and consider a perspective shift.

Additionally, I AM Cleo debuts Cheri’s illustrations, depicting an intimate look at her personal and symbolic journey through life’s pivots.

You never have to navigate your healing journey alone. 💕

If you’re looking for support, please schedule a call with me!

I’m always here to offer heart-to-heart human support for life’s most difficult moments.

What would it take to keep moving forward when loss seems to come faster than you can process it?

In this deeply personal episode of Heart Healing Conversations, Dawn sits down with Boise Thomas, an actor, artist, author, yogi, world traveler, and Grief Recovery Method® Specialist.

Boise opens up about an extraordinary season of loss in which he lost 13 people, including his mother, in just eight months, as well as his home, community, security, and beloved cat. Rather than simply moving on, Boise began exploring what it meant to actually heal the grief he was carrying.

He shares how asking for help changed the direction of his life, how the Grief Recovery Method® helped him heal his emotional heart, and how walking the Camino de Santiago became an unexpected part of his healing journey.

In this episode:

• Why asking for help can be an important part of healing

• Boise’s experience with the Grief Recovery Method®

• Powerful miracles while walking the Camino de Santiago

• Staying connected to loved ones after death

• Finding hope after profound loss

• Creating new chapters after painful experiences

• Continually becoming and reinventing yourself

If you’re carrying grief or navigating a difficult transition, we hope this conversation reminds you that healing is possible and that meaningful chapters still lie ahead.

Subscribe to Heart Healing Conversations and join us for honest conversations about grief, healing, and finding joy again after heartbreak and loss. ❤️‍🩹

About Your Host/Guest:

Learn more about Dawn

Dawn Michele Jackson, RN, is an Advanced Grief Recovery Method® Specialist, author, and advocate for emotional healing. After more than 30 years in nursing, Dawn helps individuals release unresolved grief and emotional pain so they can reconnect with themselves, their relationships, and what matters most.

Learn more about Boise

Boise Thomas is an Actor, Artist, Minister, 2x Author, and Grief Recovery Specialist.

After 30 years of seeing all his dreams come true on stages and screens in Hollywood, a death wave (13 losses in 8 months) followed by the January 2025 fires forced him to leave California.

His new beginning and reset now find him traveling around the world while getting his master’s & doctorate in Metaphysics, publishing a second book, and working online with grievers.

You never have to navigate your healing journey alone. 💕

If you’re looking for support, please schedule a call with me!

I’m always here to offer heart-to-heart human support for life’s most difficult moments.

What does the passing of Dolly Parton have in common with transitioning to an empty nest?

At first, they may seem like two completely unrelated experiences. But both can bring up powerful emotions and unexpected feelings of loss.

In this episode of Heart Healing Conversations, Dawn and Janna explore the many things we can grieve throughout our lives, including losses we may not expect to affect us so deeply.

The conversation begins with the recent loss of Dolly Parton and why so many people can feel genuine sadness when a beloved celebrity dies, even when they never knew that person personally.

Dawn and Janna then turn to another significant transition: children growing up and leaving home. Even when we’re proud of our children and excited for their next chapter, their departure can bring sadness, a loss of purpose, and a very different kind of emptiness.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

* Why we can feel genuine loss when a beloved celebrity dies

* How the people who touch our hearts become part of our lives

* Why one loss can bring other memories and unresolved emotions to the surface

* The complicated emotions that come with children leaving home

* Why empty nest grief can include both sadness and excitement

* The importance of giving ourselves space to process emotions

Subscribe to Heart Healing Conversations and join us for honest conversations about grief, healing, and finding joy again after heartbreak and loss. ❤️‍🩹

About Your Hosts:

Learn more about Dawn

Dawn Michele Jackson, RN, is an Advanced Grief Recovery Method® Specialist, author, and advocate for emotional healing. After more than 30 years in nursing, Dawn helps individuals release unresolved grief and emotional pain so they can reconnect with themselves, their relationships, and what matters most.

Learn more about Janna

Janna Wellemeyer is an Advanced Grief Recovery Method® Specialist who brings compassion and understanding from her own healing journey.

You never have to navigate your healing journey alone. 💕

If you’re looking for support, please schedule a call with me!

I’m always here to offer heart-to-heart human support for life’s most difficult moments.

Why do we reach for food when we’re stressed, overwhelmed, grieving, or emotionally uncomfortable?

In this episode of Heart Healing Conversations, Dawn talks with Kate Johnston, a former physician assistant and eating habits and weight loss coach, as they explore how emotions, grief, and stress can influence our eating habits.

Together, they explore why healthcare professionals and other people in demanding careers often learn to suppress or compartmentalize difficult emotions.

You’ll hear about:

* Why we often use food to comfort ourselves when we’re uncomfortable

* The connection between grief, stress, and emotional eating

* How suppressing emotions can affect our lives in ways we don’t expect

* Why awareness is an important first step in changing eating habits

* How our thoughts can intensify the emotions we’re experiencing

* Learning to sit with uncomfortable emotions instead of immediately trying to escape them

* Why feeling difficult emotions can actually help us experience joy more fully

* The importance of compassion instead of shame when changing our relationship with food

* Why you really can learn to handle hard emotions, even if no one taught you how

This is a conversation about something many of us experience but rarely talk about: what happens when we don’t know what to do with our emotions.

If you’ve ever eaten for comfort, pushed your feelings aside, or wondered why you keep turning to food when you’re not physically hungry, this conversation may give you a new way to understand what’s really happening beneath the surface.

Subscribe to Heart Healing Conversations and join us for honest conversations about grief, healing, and finding joy again after heartbreak and loss. ❤️‍🩹

About Your Host/Guest:

Dawn Michele Jackson, RN, is an Advanced Grief Recovery Method® Specialist, author, and advocate for emotional healing. After more than 30 years in nursing, Dawn helps individuals release unresolved grief and emotional pain so they can reconnect with themselves, their relationships, and what matters most.

Learn more about Dawn

Kate Johnston helps women in demanding careers break free from unhealthy eating habits and build habits that support the life and body they love, through her private coaching program, Lighter, her group coaching program, Lighter Together, and her podcast, Eating Habits for Life.

As a former Physician Assistant-turned-Eating Habits and Weight Loss Coach who used to emotionally eat, she understands how a demanding career, thoughts, and emotions affect why, what, and how much you eat.

Learn more about Kate

Eating Habits for Life podcast

Kate’s LinkedIn

Kate’s Instagram

You never have to navigate your healing journey alone. 💕

If you’re looking for support, please schedule a call with me!

I’m always here to offer heart-to-heart human support for life’s most difficult moments.