Stephanie Sarazin returns to the show for a conversation with host Lisa Keefauver about Steph's gorgeous new book,The Little Book of Loss Rituals (75 practices for grieving, mourning and healing). After her 20-year marriage ended, Steph held a "faux uneral" (a funeral for her marriage) by a lake. Two friends attended as witnesses and what she experienced was transformational. Ritual meets all four needs of the griever, Steph shares in this episode: to remember, release, reconnect and be recognized. As a writer and researcher, Stephanie offers us insights on how ritual predates organized religion. It’s an intentional act, often symbolic, that turns an ordinary moment into a meaningful one. It can be a single act. It doesn't need religion, rules, repetition or an audience. Lisa and Stephanie share stories of how rituals have helped them navigated seasons of uncertainty, profound loss, and more. Beyond death loss, the conversation covers divorce, illness, job loss and identity shifts. Stephanie explains how ritual can ease grief symptoms, restore a sense of agency, support belonging and calm stress. Rituals can also evolve as grief changes. Steph asks us to consider, "What if we documented our endings the way we do our beginnings?"
Stephanie Sarazin is a writer, researcher, and grief educator, specializing in non-death loss and ritual. Her work began with her own experience of mid-life trauma, which sparked an ambitious journey-spiritually and around the world-to understand, name, and heal the grief she found within her. Her efforts revealed a first-of-its-kind definition for "ambiguous grief," whereby grief is onset by a nonphysical death and wherein hope presents alongside grief. Without societal norms to engage, Steph created the "faux-uneral" and today teaches others to leverage the power of ritual for healing.
Lisa Keefauver is an author, keynote speaker, narrative therapy trained social worker, widow, and cancer survivor turned grief activist on a mission to help us center aliveness in a world full of loss by reimagining the narratives of grief, one conversation at a time.