This week on Two Mothers, One Ashé, Dionne and Yvette sit with Shamayim “Mama Shu” Harris, founder of Avalon Village, for a conversation that moves far beyond titles and accolades.

After grounding together in breath, Mama Shu opens up about the losses that reshaped her life—her mother, Christine, and her sons, Jakobi Ra and Chinyelu. She shares what it meant to survive the kind of grief that feels unsurvivable… and the moment she realized she was still here.

Together, they explore ancestors, purpose, community, and the radical idea that joy is not a betrayal of the ones we’ve lost. This episode is about finding meaning, building containers for love, and allowing grief to transform—not define—you.

We close, as always, with a moment of Ashé, speaking names aloud and breathing life into memory.

Two Mothers, One Aché: A Grief Dialogue is produced and distributed by ⁠Merrick Studios⁠ and hosted by ⁠Yvette Dávila⁠ and ⁠Dionne C. Monsanto⁠. Each episode offers a brave and intimate space where grief is spoken aloud, healing is shared, and love refuses to fade—listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever your journey takes you.

Join the conversation on Instagram ⁠@2mothers1achepod⁠ and learn more at ⁠wearemerrickstudios.com/two-mothers-one-ache-pod.⁠

Original music by Dasan T. Broadnax, known artistically as O.D. Mongrel. Discover more of his work on all streaming platforms.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this listener-led episode of Two Mothers, One Aché, Dionne C. Monsanto and Yvette Davila open with a grounding practice—the humming bee breath (Brahmari)—to calm the busy mind and bring the body back online. From there, they answer real questions from the community with care, privacy, and safe messaging: How do I ask for support without feeling needy? Is it normal to feel guilty for living after someone dies? How do I forgive myself for what I didn’t do? Along the way, they share practical tools like “cancel, cancel” to interrupt spiraling self-blame, reminders about boundaries, and the truth that progress isn’t perfection. They close with comfort songs and an Aché moment to honor loved ones—yours included.

Two Mothers, One Aché: A Grief Dialogue is produced and distributed by ⁠Merrick Studios⁠ and hosted by ⁠Yvette Dávila⁠ and ⁠Dionne C. Monsanto⁠. Each episode offers a brave and intimate space where grief is spoken aloud, healing is shared, and love refuses to fade—listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever your journey takes you.

Join the conversation on Instagram ⁠@2mothers1achepod⁠ and learn more at ⁠wearemerrickstudios.com/two-mothers-one-ache-pod.⁠

Original music by Dasan T. Broadnax, known artistically as O.D. Mongrel. Discover more of his work on all streaming platforms.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of Two Mothers, One Aché, Dionne and Yvette explore grief, the afterlife, and the signs our loved ones leave behind.

They reflect on dreams, symbols, intuition, and spiritual experiences that often follow loss—and why so many of us question or silence them. Through personal stories and ancestral wisdom, they discuss how grief can expand our awareness, how to stay grounded while honoring the unseen, and why trusting yourself is part of healing.

This conversation is an invitation to release shame, embrace curiosity, and remember that love doesn’t end—it transforms.

Luz y progreso. Aché.

Two Mothers, One Aché: A Grief Dialogue is produced and distributed by Merrick Studios and hosted by Yvette Dávila and Dionne C. Monsanto. Each episode offers a brave and intimate space where grief is spoken aloud, healing is shared, and love refuses to fade—listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever your journey takes you.

Join the conversation on Instagram @2mothers1achepod and learn more at wearemerrickstudios.com/two-mothers-one-ache-pod.

Original music by Dasan T. Broadnax, known artistically as O.D. Mongrel. Discover more of his work on all streaming platforms.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week on Two Mothers, One Aché: A Grielf Dialogue, we hold space for what’s hardest to say. Dionne C. Monsanto and Yvette Love Dávila are joined by Dr. Denisse Centeno-Lamas, whose work in suicide prevention is rooted in culture, faith, and lived experience.

This episode moves beyond facts into the body of grief itself—migration, loneliness, burnout, depression, and the silence that keeps people from asking for help. Dr. Denisse shares how loss, community trauma, and her own mental health journey shaped her calling, while the hosts name the harm of stigma in faith spaces and the myth that prayer alone can heal everything.

Together, they remind us: mental health is health. Language matters. Culture matters. And talking—honestly, compassionately—can save lives.

The conversation closes with a Moment of Ashé, speaking names, honoring ancestors and loved ones, and offering grief the dignity of being seen.

Come breathe with us. Come name it. Come heal it.

Send us a text

Two Mothers, One Aché: A Grief Dialogue is produced and distributed by Merrick Studios and hosted by Yvette Dávila and Dionne C. Monsanto. Each episode offers a brave and intimate space where grief is spoken aloud, healing is shared, and love refuses to fade—listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever your journey takes you.

Join the conversation on Instagram @2mothers1achepod and learn more at wearemerrickstudios.com/two-mothers-one-ache-pod.

Original music by Dasan T. Broadnax, known artistically as O.D. Mongrel. Discover more of his work on all streaming platforms.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

No funeral. No ritual. No “closure.” Just a relationship that ends while everybody’s still alive and a grief we’re rarely taught to name.

In this episode of Two Mothers, One Aché, Dionne and Yvette ground the space and dive into ambiguous loss: friendships that fade, people who ghost, and relationships that rupture without an ending. The kind of grief that lingers because there’s no ritual, no permission, and no clear goodbye.

Dionne reflects on a bracelet she still wears, a living reminder of a friend who disappeared, and how relational loss can shake identity, safety, and belonging. Yvette names what’s happening beneath the surface: when there’s no closure, the body and spirit stay tethered.

Together, they unpack guilt, boundaries, and the myth of “forgive and forget,” exploring how grief and relief can exist at the same time, especially when a loss is protective. They also offer practical tools, journaling, mirror work, and simple release rituals, to help give form to grief that’s been sitting in the shadows.

Because grief doesn’t need to be fixed. It needs to be witnessed. Come breathe with us. Come name it. Come heal it.

Aché.

Send us a text

Two Mothers, One Aché: A Grief Dialogue is produced and distributed by Merrick Studios and hosted by Yvette Dávila and Dionne C. Monsanto. Each episode offers a brave and intimate space where grief is spoken aloud, healing is shared, and love refuses to fade—listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever your journey takes you.

Join the conversation on Instagram @2mothers1achepod and learn more at wearemerrickstudios.com/two-mothers-one-ache-pod.

Original music by Dasan T. Broadnax, known artistically as O.D. Mongrel. Discover more of his work on all streaming platforms.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Grief doesn’t come with a script… but somehow everybody shows up holding one.

Dionne C. Monsanto and Yvette Love Dávila get real about the phrases people say when they mean well but cause real harm—“At least you have other children,” “God has a plan,” “Time heals all wounds,” and even “How are you?” They break down why these lines minimize pain, rush healing, and miss the moment entirely—and what empathy actually sounds like instead.

This conversation also gives practical ways to show up: presence over platitudes, specifics over big questions, and love that looks like action (food, help, “I’m here—no response needed”). The episode closes with an Ashé moment, breathing life into the names of loved ones: Joseph Guadalupe, Nan Kalaliku Tayahimba, Justin Ross, Tina Allen, Aunt Cynthia Wallace, and Ramona Anderson.

Aché.

Send us a text

Two Mothers, One Aché: A Grief Dialogue is produced and distributed by Merrick Studios and hosted by Yvette Dávila and Dionne C. Monsanto. Each episode offers a brave and intimate space where grief is spoken aloud, healing is shared, and love refuses to fade—listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever your journey takes you.

Join the conversation on Instagram @2mothers1achepod and learn more at wearemerrickstudios.com/two-mothers-one-ache-pod.

Original music by Dasan T. Broadnax, known artistically as O.D. Mongrel. Discover more of his work on all streaming platforms.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Grief doesn’t just break your heart—it can rewire your theology, your body, and your whole relationship with God.

In “Grief and Religion,” Dionne C. Monsanto and Yvette Love Dávila are joined by Rev. Dr. Elizabeth “Liz” Rios—Afro-Boricua pastor, scholar, justice leader, and founder of Passion2Plant—for a candid conversation about what faith looks like when the miracle you prayed for doesn’t come. Because Dr. Rios has also lost a child, the table expands into Three Mothers, One Aché—three women speaking from lived experience, not performance.

Together, they explore the silence that follows loss, the pressure to perform “faithful” grief, and the ways inherited theology can fail us when it’s built to explain pain instead of accompany it. Dr. Rios offers permission—clear and uncompromising—to grieve honestly, question openly, and trust that faith can hold lament, anger, rest, and becoming.

This episode also honors the practical, embodied ways love shows up, and the spiritual practices that sustain us inside and outside the church—without rushing healing or demanding closure.

Aché.

Send us a text

Two Mothers, One Aché: A Grief Dialogue is produced and distributed by Merrick Studios and hosted by Yvette Dávila and Dionne C. Monsanto. Each episode offers a brave and intimate space where grief is spoken aloud, healing is shared, and love refuses to fade—listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever your journey takes you.

Join the conversation on Instagram @2mothers1achepod and learn more at wearemerrickstudios.com/two-mothers-one-ache-pod.

Original music by Dasan T. Broadnax, known artistically as O.D. Mongrel. Discover more of his work on all streaming platforms.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is an invitation back to the kitchen table, where grief and love tell the truth together.

Yvette and Dionne explore how community can feel like refuge and overwhelm at the same time, how grief can make you crave connection while needing to disappear, and how protection can look like sunglasses, silence, or staying upstairs. We talk about who shows up when everything falls apart, who surprises you, and who pulls away—not always out of harm, but out of fear, confusion, or their own unprocessed grief.

Together, we reflect on transactional relationships, chosen family, and the quiet wisdom of practical care: bringing food without asking, getting bodies moving, making decisions for someone whose heart is already carrying too much. We also offer a forward-looking practice—creating a small circle of trusted people who know your signs, hear the unspoken, and have permission to step in when words fail.

And we close honoring beloved names Sophia Annalise and Princess Grace – breathing life into memory, love, and community that endures beyond isolation.

Aché.

Send us a text

Two Mothers, One Aché: A Grief Dialogue is produced and distributed by Merrick Studios and hosted by Yvette Dávila and Dionne C. Monsanto. Each episode offers a brave and intimate space where grief is spoken aloud, healing is shared, and love refuses to fade—listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever your journey takes you.

Join the conversation on Instagram @2mothers1achepod and learn more at wearemerrickstudios.com/two-mothers-one-ache-pod.

Original music by Dasan T. Broadnax, known artistically as O.D. Mongrel. Discover more of his work on all streaming platforms.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In Part 2 of Grief and Addiction, the conversation deepens—and so does the truth.

Yvette shares the moment her grief was fundamentally reshaped: learning that addiction played a direct role in her son Dasan’s death. With compassion and courage, she reflects on the question that changed everything—What would life have looked like if addiction had continued?—and how that reckoning opened a path toward forgiveness, faith, and self-compassion.

Joined again by licensed professional counselor and addiction specialist Jill Mackey, Dionne and Yvette explore the emotional complexity of addiction-related loss: guilt and relief existing side by side, survivor’s guilt, generational trauma, and the quiet exhaustion of waiting for “that call.” They unpack why grief can increase vulnerability to addiction, how numbing behaviors show up in everyday life, and what it means to truly let go of the “why.”

This episode is about learning to hold love and loss in the same body.
About releasing blame without erasing truth.
About forgiving yourself so you don’t lose what you still have to what you’ve already lost.

As always, this is a space for honesty, breath, and remembrance. Take your time with this one. You may want to listen more than once.

Aché.

Send us a text

Two Mothers, One Aché: A Grief Dialogue is produced and distributed by Merrick Studios and hosted by Yvette Dávila and Dionne C. Monsanto. Each episode offers a brave and intimate space where grief is spoken aloud, healing is shared, and love refuses to fade—listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever your journey takes you.

Join the conversation on Instagram @2mothers1achepod and learn more at wearemerrickstudios.com/two-mothers-one-ache-pod.

Original music by Dasan T. Broadnax, known artistically as O.D. Mongrel. Discover more of his work on all streaming platforms.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In Part 1 of 2 about Grief and Addiction, we open a tender, necessary conversation about the kind of grief that begins long before a goodbye.

Dionne and Yvette name the quiet losses that live inside addiction—the loss of safety, trust, time, potential, and the versions of people we hoped might still emerge. Joined by licensed professional counselor and addiction specialist Jill Mackey, the three explore how grief and addiction are deeply intertwined, not just for the person using substances, but for the families who love them.

This episode holds space for anticipatory grief, disenfranchised grief, codependency, shame, and the emotional toll of “mourning the living.” Together, they slow the pace, breathe on purpose, and invite compassion into a conversation often shaped by silence and stigma.

Part 1 is about naming what hurts—honestly, gently, and without judgment—so that healing has somewhere to land. Part 2 will drop on Thursday, December 18th.

As always, take what you need. Pause if you need to. Breathe with us.

Aché.

Send us a text

Two Mothers, One Aché: A Grief Dialogue is produced and distributed by Merrick Studios and hosted by Yvette Dávila and Dionne C. Monsanto. Each episode offers a brave and intimate space where grief is spoken aloud, healing is shared, and love refuses to fade—listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever your journey takes you.

Join the conversation on Instagram @2mothers1achepod and learn more at wearemerrickstudios.com/two-mothers-one-ache-pod.

Original music by Dasan T. Broadnax, known artistically as O.D. Mongrel. Discover more of his work on all streaming platforms.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices