The Mindfulness & Grief Podcast
Conversations About Grief, Mindfulness & Life After Loss
Hosted by grief author and mindfulness teacher Heather Stang with guest co-host Amanda Palermo, The Mindfulness & Grief Podcast brings you thoughtful conversations about death loss, non-death loss, self-compassion, meditation, and what it means to live with grief in real life.
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Grief changes us in ways we never choose, but it can also reveal strengths, values, and possibilities we never expected. In this episode, Heather Stang and Amanda Palermo explore Step 7 of the Mindfulness & Grief System, Allowing Transformation, and discuss how healing isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about gently discovering who you are now while continuing to carry the love of the person you’ve lost.
In this episode of the Mindfulness & Grief Podcast, Heather Stang and Amanda Palermo explore Step 6 of the Mindfulness & Grief System: Continuing Bonds. Together, they discuss how relationships continue after loss, why grief does not require letting go of love, and how meaningful connection can evolve over time. This conversation offers compassionate guidance for honoring the people we miss while continuing to live fully in the present.
Sometimes grief feels like it’s coming back all over again. In this episode, Heather Stang and Amanda Palermo explore why grief is not linear and what it really means to feel “stuck” after loss. Together, they discuss grief waves, emotional setbacks, self-compassion, and practical ways to create movement when grief feels heavy or unmoving.
Grief can bring guilt, regret, resentment, and self-criticism to the surface. In this episode, Heather Stang and Amanda Palermo explore Step 3 of the Mindfulness & Grief System: Compassion for All, with a special focus on self-compassion after loss. They discuss the difference between empathy and compassion, why grief can strain family relationships, how to create a self-compassion mantra, and why kindness toward yourself is not optional in grief, it is part of how you heal.
Grief can pull the mind into loops of memory, worry, regret, and fear. In this episode, Heather Stang and Amanda Palermo explore Step 2 of the Mindfulness & Grief System: Mindful Awareness, and how mindfulness can help you notice what is happening in the present moment without pretending you are okay. They discuss rumination, time traveling, pain versus suffering, body scans, mindful crying, and how awareness can help you respond to grief with more clarity and compassion.
Grief can overwhelm your body with brain fog, anxiety, insomnia, and exhaustion. In Step 1, Conscious Relaxation of the Mindfulness & Grief System, you learn how to calm your nervous system before trying to process the loss. This foundational practice helps you reduce suffering and create steadiness when grief feels chaotic.
Grief can feel overwhelming, confusing, and hard to navigate, especially when you do not know what to do next. In this episode, Heather Stang and Amanda Palermo introduce the Mindfulness & Grief System, a compassionate, step-by-step framework for coping with loss without forcing or fixing your grief. They explore why structure can help when grief feels chaotic, how mindfulness supports the body and mind, and why having tools can offer steadiness, choice, and a pathway forward.
Missing Your Loved One During the Holidays: A Meditation to Feel Close | Mindfulness & Grief Podcast
The holidays can make the absence of someone you love feel especially present. In this episode of the Mindfulness and Grief Podcast, Heather Stang explores why missing your person can feel more intense this time of year and how meditation can offer a quiet place of connection. Through the lens of continuing bonds and the Life Imprint practice, this episode invites you to honor love, including complicated relationships, without forcing cheer or closure. The meditation can also be used as a journaling reflection whenever the missing feels close.
Widows, widowers, and anyone who has lost a partner knows just how hard it is to cope with grief on Valentine’s Day. Claudia Coenen, widow and creative grief counselor, shares creative ways to cope with grief and heartache on Valentine’s Day, as well as activities and practices to honor and celebrate you love that undeniably very much present.
Until he met Patty Furino, bereaved father Dave Roberts didn’t believe that the signs he kept seeing were coming from his beloved daughter, Jeannine. But soon, everything changed. In this episode of the Mindfulness & Grief Podcast, Dave shares his journey of love and loss and how the signs from his daughter transformed from triggering waves of grief into joy, and how they remind Dave that Jeannine is still close.
In episode 50 of the Mindfulness & Grief Podcast, Reid Petersonshares his story of losing both father figures in his life and the grief that comes with living without those important people. Although he was not close to his biological father the way he hoped, Reid still grieves the relationship that he wished he had with him. After his loss, Reid found support through grief groups but wanted more consistent support. This led him to create a grief support app that offers daily audio messages for grief education.
In episode 49, bereaved father Eric Hodgdon explores how he leads a life of intention in the wake of incredible pain over the death of his daughter, Zoi, who died by suicide. He shares his fond memories of a loving and fun girl who was a sweet, supportive peer to those who knew her. Family, friends, and patients who traveled their mental health path alongside her all remember Zoi as a very special person.
Ronald Mathias talks to us about his field of medical illustration: the art of taking complex medical procedures, descriptions, or concepts and turning them into something visual for ease of understanding. He spends most of his time translating traumatic injuries and building empathy for the pain someone has suffered into a visual medium for litigation.
In episode 46, lifelong friends Shelley Buck and Kathy Curtis share their journey of childhood friendship, staying in touch through college, and the comfort that Kathy provided to Shelley following the devastating loss of her son, Ryder. Ryder was a talented musician and world traveler who continued to live his life to the fullest even after his Stage IV cancer diagnosis.
In episode 45, Angela Kennecke shares with us her story of losing her beautiful 21-year-old daughter, Emily, to overdose. Angela and her family were just a normal family. Emily was a gifted student and cheerleader. But Emily was struggling with one of the most common problems in America — addiction. Her sudden and unexpected death changed the lives of her family forever.
In episode 43, New York Times Bestselling author, Adam Mansbach, talks with us about his new memoir “I HAD A Brother Once” which details his grief of losing his brother by suicide a decade ago. As a writer, he struggled for nine years before he was finally able to write about his brother. Although he is known for his very successful novels, Adam’s new book is written poetry style with dramatic storytelling about his life. In it, he shares how his brother David felt he had to wear masks to hide his real self, and the importance of removing the masks of shame and guilt to save lives.
In Episode 42, Dr. Amy Novotny shares her emotional journey of living with a mother that was bipolar and suffered from borderline personality disorder, being tutored by her throughout higher education, and eventually losing her to cancer. The grief left Amy struggling with an unexplainable physical illness that she was eventually able to overcome, and now she teaches how to ease your physical pain when grief is stored in the body.
#41 Just A Boy Blaming Himself: Revisiting Childhood Loss Through A Grown Up’s Eyes with Daniel Hess
When two health scares hit Katherine May’s family, she was forced to slow down and learn a valuable lesson — staying busy doesn’t always mean you’re doing something productive with your time. The idea of wintering creates the opportunity to slow down the pace of life, observe as it transitions from one season to another, and find hope in the next phase of your life.
When two health scares hit Katherine May’s family, she was forced to slow down and learn a valuable lesson — staying busy doesn’t always mean you’re doing something productive with your time. The idea of wintering creates the opportunity to slow down the pace of life, observe as it transitions from one season to another, and find hope in the next phase of your life.
Neil Beresin never set out to become a chaplain. In fact, he worked in the nonprofit world for 20 years. But everything changed for him when both his parents became ill and passed away within 5 weeks of each other. This devastating loss changed the trajectory of his life. Neil is now a chaplain and grief counselor who specializes in healing through poetry.
Can you remember a time that you felt different when you were a child? Either through a learning disability or a loss of a family member or friend, we all have experienced times throughout our lives when we felt different. When you compound the feeling of being different with grief, the emotions can be overwhelming — especially for a child. Through her book, Jimmy, Toughest Dog Ever, author Sally Hill Mills takes us on a special journey through the eyes of Jimmy, who is experiencing both being different and experiencing loss.
It’s hard to feel like a superhero while amid tremendous grief. But through her work composing Superhero Grief: The Transformative Power of Loss, Dr. Jill Harrington shows us how we are more like superheroes than you might think. Each superhero that you can think of has experienced some level of trauma that they’ve had to overcome. While their superpower may seem more significant than yours, the motivation to stand up and put one foot in front of the other is the same, whether you can fly or not.
Sharon Prentice shines a light on where your loved one goes after they die – based on her own experience – in her book Becoming Starlight, Surviving Grief and Mending The Wounds of Loss. She has visited the other side – not through a near death experience – but a shared death experience. In this episode of the Mindfulness & Grief Podcast, Dr. Prentice reveals her “peek into foreverness” that occurred at the precise moment of her husband’s death. She describes how this experienced impacted her grief over time, and how it informs her work with people who are dying in her role as a psychotherapist and spiritual counselor.
Pets are not just animals that live in our house, they are our chosen family. When they die it is heartbreaking because we love them so much! The key to surviving the death of our beloved cats and dogs is to first acknowledge that it hurts, and acknowledge that our grief is real and understandable. As with the loss of anyone we love, it is helpful to find ways to honor their memory and the imprint they leave on our heart.
If you have been blaming yourself for the death of your loved one, or feeling guilty that you didn’t do something you “should” have done, you are not alone. Whether your special person died by suicide, an overdose, long-term illness or suddenly, self-blame often appears. Guilt and shame are heavy burdens to bear, and add more suffering on top of our broken heart. Learn how to manage these difficult emotions in episode 31.
In the 19th episode of the Mindfulness & Grief Podcast, R. Glenn Kelly (Ron) shares on the job self-care tips, as well insights into how business leaders and colleagues alike can cultivate a grief-literate work environment. A bereaved father and business leader, Ron is the author several books, including Grief in the Workplace and Sometimes I Cry In The Shower.
In the 19th episode of the Mindfulness & Grief Podcast, R. Glenn Kelly (Ron) shares on the job self-care tips, as well insights into how business leaders and colleagues alike can cultivate a grief-literate work environment. A bereaved father and business leader, Ron is the author several books, including Grief in the Workplace and Sometimes I Cry In The Shower.
Kim Colegrove is the founder of the PauseFirst Project, which offers Mindfulness for First Responders, and was founded in honor of her husband, Special Agent David M. Colegrove, who died by suicide in 2014. Kim learned the practice of transcendental meditation at the age of ten. After her husband’s death, Kim used her practice to cope with her own grief and loss. Now, with more than 40 years of practice under her belt, she is helping police, firefighters, EMS, paramedics, dispatchers, corrections officers, and other first responders cope with the daily stress and trauma of the job.
At the age of 38, Claire Hoffman became a widow when her husband experienced a drug overdose. A mother of one, Claire describes this event as having a butterfly effect over her entire world. In an effort to cope with the loss and gain wisdom and insight, Claire has gathered together grief experts from around the world for the Liberate Your Grief Spotcast, a 5 day event offering hope and healing to anyone who has experienced a major loss.
