The Empowered Grief Journey

In this powerful episode of The Empowered Grief Journey Podcast, host Chris Mamone sits down with author, speaker, and grief facilitator Megan Malick to explore what it truly means to make space for grief — both personally and professionally.

Megan, founder of A New Path and creator of a practical grief workbook and planner for the first year after loss, shares compassionate insights on navigating life after major change, loss, and transition. Together, Chris and Megan discuss how grief extends beyond death, touching career shifts, identity changes, relationships, and every major life transition we experience.

This conversation dives into:

How change and loss are deeply connected

Navigating the first year of grief with clarity and compassion

Practical tools for organizing life after loss

The role of reflective writing and grief-informed practices

How approaches like Brainspotting support emotional healing

Creating space for grief in workplaces and everyday life

If you’re coping with loss, supporting someone grieving, or seeking grounded guidance on healing and rebuilding after life changes, this episode offers both validation and practical direction.

Grief is not the end of your story — it’s the beginning of a new path forward.

🎧 Listen now and take your next step from survival toward empowered healing.

Leaving a narcissistic relationship was only the beginning of Gail Showalter’s story.

In this episode, Gail shares her journey of surviving emotional abuse, raising three children, and rebuilding her life from the ground up. But she didn’t stop at survival.

She went back to school.

We talk about:

• The subtle patterns of narcissistic control and gaslighting

This conversation is about resilience — but more than that, it’s about rebuilding with intention.

Gail’s story is proof that grief can be a catalyst for purpose.

If you’re navigating emotional abuse, identity loss, or starting over later in life, this episode will remind you that it’s never too late to rewrite your story.

Why do certain memories still trigger anxiety, fear, or emotional reactions—even years later?

In this episode, I sit down with Cedric Bertelli, founder of the Emotional Health Institute, to explore the science behind emotional memory and how our brains encode fear.

Cedric explains why many emotional triggers aren’t just “mindset issues,” but deeply learned responses stored in emotional memory. We discuss how phobias, trauma responses, and anxiety are formed—and how they can be unlearned through emotional retraining.

In this conversation, we explore:

• How emotional memories are created in the brain

If you’ve ever wondered why you logically “know you’re safe” but still feel triggered, this episode will give you a powerful new perspective on healing.

Because transformation doesn’t just happen in thought—it happens in emotional memory.

What do you say to someone who’s grieving—when you’re afraid of saying the wrong thing?

In this episode, I’m joined by Heidi Dunstan, a certified grief educator, to talk about the real-life impact of sudden loss, what widows and grievers actually need, and why so many people disappear when grief enters the room.

Heidi shares her personal story of losing her husband suddenly just two days after Christmas and the day before her 40th birthday—and how that experience revealed how unprepared most people are to support someone in grief.

We talk about:

Why people avoid grievers (and how to have the courage to show up anyway)

What to say when you don’t have the words

What NOT to say (and why common platitudes can cause real harm)

How to offer support in practical, specific ways (not “call me if you need anything”)

How judgment shows up in grief—and what true compassion looks like

If you’re grieving, supporting someone who is, or you’ve ever frozen up unsure of what to do—this conversation will help you show up with more confidence, care, and humanity. Because grief doesn’t need fixing. It needs presence.

Grief isn’t always one defining moment. Sometimes, it’s woven quietly into the fabric of our lives.

In this episode, I sit down with Simona Costantini, founder of Volt Productions and host of Happiness Happens, to explore the many forms grief can take beyond death and traditional loss.

We talk about grieving the life you thought you wanted, career paths that no longer fit, expectations placed on you, and versions of yourself you’ve outgrown.

Simona shares her journey from corporate marketing into entrepreneurship and how conscious choice, visibility, and amplifying your voice often require letting go of who you used to be.

One of the most powerful moments in our conversation:

This episode is for anyone navigating identity shifts, career transitions, reinvention after loss, or the quiet grief of becoming someone new.

Because grief doesn’t just close chapters — it opens new ones.

In this powerful episode, therapist and author Erica Bonham opens her heart and shares a lifelong grief journey shaped by adoption, early loss, identity struggles, and the complex dynamics of loving—and losing—two mothers.

If you’ve ever struggled with belonging, boundaries, identity, grief, or the weight of childhood wounds, this episode will offer clarity, validation, and hope. Come listen to a conversation that invites compassion, curiosity, and connection at the deepest level.

In this deeply moving episode, Dr. Bob Cutillo—a physician, caregiver, and author of Holding On in the Storm—shares the intimate journey of walking beside his wife Heather through terminal cancer and learning to navigate grief through faith, vulnerability, and emotional honesty.

In this powerful episode, Harvard-educated author Bracha Goetz shares her lifelong search for purpose—from early grief and food addiction to the spiritual awakening that transformed her life. Together, Chris and Bracha explore how unhealed grief creates inner emptiness, why addictions form, and how gratitude becomes a path back to joy, fulfillment, and connection. If you're navigating grief, seeking meaning, or struggling with emotional cravings, this conversation offers wisdom, hope, and practical tools to nourish your soul.

In this powerful episode, Chris Mamone sits down with grief advocate, author, and founder of Journey Thru Grief, Tracy Oeser, who lost her daughter Chelsie to suicide in 2006. Tracy shares the raw truth of what suicide loss actually looks like—far beyond the stigmas, silence, and misconceptions that surround it.

Together, Chris and Tracy explore:

If you’ve experienced suicide loss, support someone who has, or want to better understand this complex form of grief, this episode offers compassion, clarity, and a path toward meaningful healing and post-traumatic growth.

In this deeply moving episode, Chris sits down with grief educator and bereaved mother Carrie Brody, who lost her vibrant 9-year-old son, Seth, to Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood (SUDC)—a tragedy few parents even know exists until it happens to them.

Carrie shares the shock of losing a healthy child without warning, the painful search for answers that never came, and the trauma that reshaped her family and marriage. She also opens up about her powerful spiritual connection with Seth, the signs and messages she continues to receive, and how he guided her to write her book Do You Know the Way?

Together, Chris and Carrie explore the realities of child loss, how partners grieve differently, why guilt haunts bereaved parents, and how love continues beyond death. If you're navigating grief, searching for meaning, or longing for connection with a child who has passed, this episode will meet you tenderly where you are.