Grief & Happiness

If you've ever been told to "move on" from grief, Episode 436 of the Grief and Happiness podcast will change how you think about healing forever. Michael Reed, who lost his wife and both daughters in the Gatlinburg wildfire, reveals why the five stages of grief are a myth and shares the moment he finally smiled at a memory before the tears came.In This Episode, You Will Learn:(00:04) Introduction to Michael Reed and his story of loss (01:26) Losing his wife and daughters in the 2016 Gatlinburg wildfire (04:01) Why the five stages of grief are a myth (06:11) The taboo around men expressing grief and the power of vulnerability (07:30) How a late-night Facebook post launched his writing career (08:45) Why all grief — from divorce to empty nesting — is fundamentally the same (10:26) The difference between moving on and moving forward (13:48) The moment he smiled at a memory before the tears came (16:06) What makes Michael a natural writer and the courage it takes to be vulnerable (19:18) How dreams and signs from loved ones keep connection alive (24:30) Healing in your grief — not from it (25:54) Where to find Michael's books and free grief resourcesMichael Reed is an author, speaker, and certified grief coach whose work focuses on grief, psychological adaptation, and long-term healing following traumatic loss. On November 28, 2016, he lost his wife Constance and both daughters, Chloe and Lily, in the wildfire that devastated Gatlinburg, Tennessee — a tragedy that became the catalyst for his life's mission. That journey produced his bestselling book The Million Stages of Grief, which challenges the oversimplified five-stage model and honors the deeply individual nature of loss, followed by The Million Stages of Healing and a children's book, The Owl and the Ladybug. Michael is also a certified grief coach pursuing a degree in Behavioral Science, and serves as president of Emily's Grief and Happiness Alliance nonprofit.In this episode, Michael shares the raw philosophy behind his writing — that grief isn't limited to death, but encompasses any significant loss, and that its universality is precisely what connects us. He recounts how a middle-of-the-night journal entry posted on Facebook sparked his entire authorship career, and introduces his newest book, The Million Stages of Healing, built around the distinction between moving on and moving forward — carrying love for those we've lost into each new day. A turning point he describes is smiling at a photo of his daughter Lily and realizing he had taken his first step toward healing. He speaks openly about vulnerability, signs from loved ones, and the particular stigma men face around expressing grief.Connect with Michael Reed:WebsiteInstagramTikTokBook: Michael Reed - The Million Stages of GriefLet's Connect: WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTwitterPinterestThe Grief and Happiness AllianceBook: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

Think about the friends you have in each of these categories and their impacts on your life. Think about renewing some friendships.Let's Connect:You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking hereYou can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Guide by clicking here.You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here at Amazon:You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, by clicking hereRequest your Awaken Your Happiness Journaling Guide hereSee acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

If you've ever felt overwhelmed by grief and wondered how to move through it, Episode 434 of the Grief and Happiness podcast offers something tangible. Day Schildkret shares how the Morning Altars practice emerged from his own devastating loss and has since transformed how thousands of people around the world work with grief, celebration, and change. Through simple acts of gathering natural materials and creating meaningful offerings, Day shows us that beauty and healing don't have to wait until we're ready.In This Episode, You Will Learn:(01:21) What it means to tend to a community and the relationships within it(02:13) How Morning Altars work and the three core tenets of the practice(03:50) How the practice began with Day's father's death and absolute devastation(06:21) The power of nature connection and play from childhood into adulthood(07:27) Why wonder and impermanence matter when you're working through grief(09:14) How creating with your hands becomes a meditation and a way to slow down(10:06) Being fully present with what you're making as a rare gift in today's world(14:46) The seven-step practice: gathering, creating, offering, and letting go(16:15) How Morning Altars work across prisons, schools, memory care, and moreDay Schildkret is an artist, author, and teacher behind the internationally recognized Morning Altars movement, which inspires people to make their lives more beautiful and meaningful through nature, creativity, and ritual. With nearly 100,000 followers on social media and sold-out trainings worldwide, Day has taught workshops and created installations at sites including Google, The 9/11 Memorial Plaza, The Andy Warhol Foundation, Esalen, and the California Academy of Sciences. He is the author of Morning Altars: A 7-Step Practice to Nourish Your Spirit through Nature, Art and Ritual and the upcoming Hello, Goodbye: 75 Rituals for Times of Loss, Celebration and Change. His work has been featured on NBC, CBS, BuzzFeed, and Vice.In this episode, Day Schildkret shares how the Morning Altars practice began after his father's death. Seven months of overwhelming grief led him to gather natural materials and create something that shifted something inside. He challenged himself to make an altar daily for 30 days, and what started as making something pretty became deeply meaningful, each altar telling the story of his loss. Since then, he has trained over 600 practitioners working in 13 countries. Throughout the conversation, Day emphasizes that this work is about reclaiming wonder and understanding impermanence as freedom, not loss. In a world that teaches us to grasp and accomplish, the Morning Altars practice teaches us to gather, create, wonder, and let go.Connect with Day Schildkret: Website Instagram Explore Day’s free 7 Days of Wonder course  Get Day’s books!Let's Connect: Website LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter Pinterest The Grief and Happiness Alliance Book: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

How do you define “Compassion”?Link to Compassion: Davis, CALet's Connect:You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking hereYou can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Guide by clicking here.You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here at Amazon:You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, by clicking hereRequest your Awaken Your Happiness Journaling Guide hereSee acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

If you've ever wondered how grief can become a gateway to self-discovery, Episode 432 of the Grief and Happiness podcast is for you. Author Lori Carlson-Hijuelos shares the story behind A Writing Marriage — a memoir woven together with the final unfinished manuscript of her late husband, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Oscar Hijuelos. Through writing inside a cathedral, Lori finds not happiness in her grief, but something quieter and more powerful: awareness, meaning, and peace.In This Episode, You Will Learn:(01:21) Lori's early love of Spanish and her sense of divine calling(03:55) How a spontaneous walk into a building launched her entire career(05:50) Why imagination matters more than knowledge — and what's lost without it(07:38) A Writing Marriage: the memoir no editor had ever seen before(09:30) Writing inside a cathedral and the spiritual thread through her grief(11:39) Why she wrote a book meant to be a lifelong companion, not a one-time read(21:02) What STEM students can't do — and why literature is the unexpected fix(29:36) Two husbands, a move to Maui, and how the Grief and Happiness podcast was born(33:14) Why Lori doesn't chase happiness in grief — and what she reaches for insteadLori Carlson-Hijuelos is an acclaimed author, editor, translator, and educator devoted to amplifying Ibero-Latin American and Latino voices in the United States. She built her career at the Americas Society in New York City, collaborating with celebrated Latin American writers and diplomats, and went on to publish more than 16 books — including her landmark bilingual anthology Cool Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Growing Up Latino in the U.S. A longtime educator at Duke University, she designs courses that help students discover how literature fosters compassion and human connection. Her latest book, A Writing Marriage, is a genre-defying memoir intertwined with the final unfinished manuscript of her late husband, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Oscar Hijuelos.In this episode, Lori Carlson-Hijuelos shares the story behind A Writing Marriage — a one-of-a-kind book that weaves her own recollections of her marriage to Oscar Hijuelos with his unfinished final manuscript, Blue Antiquity. She reflects on how her path unfolded almost exactly as she had envisioned it at age 13, and speaks to the role of imagination in shaping a meaningful life — a value she has long passed on to her students. On the topic of grief, Lori offers a quietly powerful perspective: that her experience of loss has not been one of happiness exactly, but of profound awareness and hard-won understanding — a peace she continues to seek through writing and through the light she actively reaches for amid the darkness.Connect with Lori Carlson-Hijuelos:WebsiteGet Lori’s books!Let's Connect: WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTwitterPinterestThe Grief and Happiness AllianceBook: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

Focus on what serves you, what heals you, and your balance will return.Let's Connect:You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking hereYou can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Guide by clicking here.You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here at Amazon:You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, by clicking hereRequest your Awaken Your Happiness Journaling Guide hereSee acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

If you've ever felt pressure to hold it together after loss, Episode 430 of the Grief and Happiness podcast is for you. Widow, author, and mentor Lisa Woolery shares the unfiltered reality of grief — from bank meltdowns to ill-fated dating attempts — and makes a compelling case for why laughter is one of the most powerful healing tools available. Giving yourself permission to be a hot mess, she says, is the first step toward your comeback.In This Episode, You Will Learn:(00:52) From Southern California to Kansas City: the sudden loss that changed everything(03:42) Why most grief books fall short and what Lisa did differently(05:11) Writing funny chapters about grief's most painful moments(07:46) Why laughing without guilt is a powerful grief recovery tool(10:12) Dating as a widow: sharing her lowest moments so others feel less alone(13:22) Emily's story: finding love again after swearing she never would(14:01) The dream that gave Lisa permission to move forward(16:55) Why widows must stop judging each other's grief journeys(18:35) What not to say to a widow — and what actually helps(19:55) You can handle anything, but you don't have to do it all(22:50) Why Lisa keeps saying yes to new adventuresLisa Woolery is a widow, author, and widow mentor based in Kansas City, Missouri, raising two teenagers and three dogs after losing her husband Eric suddenly — just eight months after their family relocated from Southern California. A former Vice President of Public Relations at Wells Fargo, Lisa channeled her grief into The Widow's Comeback, an International Impact Award-winning memoir about her first two years of widowhood, alongside a grief calendar workbook, guided journal, and an active Facebook community for widows.In this episode, Lisa shares why she wrote her memoir with raw honesty and deliberate humor — a direct response to the sugar-coated grief narratives she encountered after Eric's death. From laugh-out-loud chapters about bank meltdowns to candid reflections on the guilt-laden process of dating again, she shows how comedy and self-permission became essential tools in her healing. The conversation closes on Lisa's most powerful takeaway: that she can handle anything, but doesn't have to do everything alone — and that while the "hot mess" phase is real, it doesn't last forever.Connect with Lisa Woolery:WebsiteFacebookInstagramBooks: Lisa Woolery - The Widow’s Comeback Series Let's Connect: WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTwitterPinterestThe Grief and Happiness AllianceBook: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

Do you get in your own way?Let's Connect:You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking hereYou can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Guide by clicking here.You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here at Amazon:You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, by clicking hereRequest your Awaken Your Happiness Journaling Guide hereSee acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

If you've ever questioned whether beauty can come from the worst moments of your life, Episode 428 of the Grief and Happiness podcast is for you. Widower and author Danny Lesslie shares how losing his wife Raffaella to Stage 4 cancer led him to write their co-authored memoir Thank You, Cancer — and what he discovered in her unedited journals after she was gone. He also opens up about the miraculous "Jesus moments" that carried his family through the unimaginable, and what moving forward — not moving on — can actually look like.In This Episode, You Will Learn:(00:53) Danny's story — Raffaella's five-year cancer battle and their choice to share it(03:21) How writing transforms grief from a "nebulous storm" into clarity(04:49) The two-voice structure of Thank You, Cancer and what Danny found in her journals(08:25) Why Raffaella's voice continues to reach strangers after her death(12:12) Writing as a companion in loneliness — and the grief of finishing the book(13:09) Losing someone "over and over again" — and how those moments shift toward gratitude(17:39) Moving forward vs. moving on — and the shift that signals it's time(24:51) Why building your emotional home in another person leaves you lost after loss(26:13) The "Jesus moments" that carried Danny's family through the unimaginable(29:32) How total loss of control became an unexpected giftDanny Lesslie is an author, speaker, and significance coach whose life was transformed by his wife Raffaella's five-year battle with Stage 4 vulvar cancer. Committed to bringing light from the darkness, they shared their journey publicly — a mission Danny continues today. After losing Raffaella at the end of 2024, he completed the book they always dreamed of writing together: Thank You, Cancer, a two-voice memoir weaving Raffaella's raw, unedited journals alongside his own reflections. Now a widowed father of two young daughters, Danny speaks and coaches on grief and resilience at dannylesslie.co.In this episode, Danny shares how writing became an unexpected bridge — for his own healing and for discovering his wife more deeply through her unedited words after her death. He reflects on losing someone "over and over again" as grief resurfaces through everyday objects and memories, and how those moments have slowly shifted toward gratitude. He also speaks candidly about the "Jesus moments" that sustained his family through financial and medical impossibilities, and how total loss of control became a gift that redirected him toward trusting God's provision. Throughout, Danny offers a compassionate take on the difference between moving on and moving forward — and the quiet internal shift that signals it's time.Connect with Danny Lesslie:WebsiteLinkedInInstagramBook: Danny Lesslie - Thank You, CancerGet your personalized copy here! Let's Connect: WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTwitterPinterestThe Grief and Happiness AllianceBook: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief