Stop. Will you pause for a breath?

When I pause and notice, it reminds me that I am alive and I am being lived. What do you notice?

This week’s Grief Heals episode is an offering, not a lesson. A slow, 25-minute walk with breath, grief, body, voice, and the quiet ways emotions try to set us free.

I don’t know what you’re holding these days. If you’re like me, it's more than you can even see.

So, this is for us because it’s about:

• The link between suppressed emotion and chronic illness
  

• The difference between anger and violence, and why I now believe anger is one of the many voices of love
  

• The ache of emotional poverty and the path to becoming resourced
  

• Why we’ve confused numbness with being nice
  

• The generational cost of withholding truth
  

• What happens when we finally scream aloud, witnessed and unedited
  

• And how love might move through us, as us, if we let it
  

This is for anyone who’s ever felt shame for feeling too much, or for not feeling at all.It’s for those of us who want to do better by our neighbors, but have been taught to ignore our own pain.It’s for those who long to breathe fully and live fully especially when it hurts.

After you listen, I invite you to ask yourself:

What part of me has been waiting to be heard?

Let that question breathe with you awhile because what speaks may surprise you.

P.S. Here are the people and practices referenced: Rachel Sachs and her Mind Your Body work (I’m on Day 137 of journal speak!)Francis Weller’s In the Absence of the OrdinaryGabor Maté’s When the Body Says NoHaka, a powerful reminder that emotion belongs in the body, voice, and community.

Let’s keep learning how to feel all the way through, so that we come home to ourselves and one another.

Release Jan 5, 2026

Subject: Salt, then sour, then sweet… and a sky wide enough for all of it

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/yh2OfgeebmYqBgABc7e27er79a9zPg3yQMXH2XMJc59SnpGjNSUNJPQpHNH4vE0g.n0fvOWXE_jnEz3RF?startTime=1764002383000

Passcode: 91&M!QN5

Before I recorded this, I listened to Salt, then Sour, then Sweet, which plays at the end of Come See Me in the Good Light.

It surprised me when I slid down the wall, feeling the weight of my body too heavy to stand upright. Squatted down, my hand over my heart, I could feel the ache, the beauty, the memory, the love… all of it living in me at once.

Like life, this episode isn’t linear. It weaves and connects through pain, shame, old church doctrines and new kinds of dignity.

I used to despise my weakness, especially the parts of me that didn’t feel smart enough, composed enough, good enough. Becoming a ‘christian’ helped me cover grief with Scripture and performance, to wrap pain in Bible verses and shoulds.

Now, I believe that what love does is notice.

Maybe grief is LOVE, noticing.

Today, I share old stories in new ways – The divorce that felt like failure. My naked body in the mirror, never again to be touched by a lover. Shame when I accidentally posted something too vulnerable and felt stupid and exposed.

How I softened to the despised and rejected in me.

In a world that prizes the hero, the strong, the conqueror, it is so good to feel grief that holds, instead of hides.

Healing is not born on the battlefield, but in the mirror, the backyard, the breath, the body that won’t be ignored anymore.

So, if you feel like you’re too much, or not enough… if you’re tired of trying to outgrow your wounds… if something in you is slowly being smoothed like river stone by years of holding and noticing and being held…

Come listen.

P.S. A few things that held me as I recorded this:

Salt, Then Sour, Then Sweet ~ song.

Come See Me in the Good Light ~ the new doc on Andrea & Megan’s love story.

The Beast in Me on Netflix ~ a living example of that Gospel of Thomas line: “If you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you.”

Before I recorded this, I listened to, Salt, then Sour, then Sweet, which plays at the end of Come See Me in the Good Light.

It surprised me when I slid down the wall, feeling the weight of my body too heavy to stand upright. Squatted down, my hand over my heart, I could feel the ache, the beauty, the memory, the love… all of it living in me at once.

Like life, this episode isn’t linear. It weaves and connects through pain, shame, old church doctrines and new kinds of dignity.

I used to despise my weakness, especially the parts of me that didn’t feel smart enough, composed enough, good enough. Becoming a ‘christian’ helped me cover grief with Scripture and performance, to wrap pain in Bible verses and shoulds.

Now, I believe that what love does is notice.

Maybe grief is LOVE, noticing.

Today, I share old stories in new ways – The divorce that felt like failure. My naked body in the mirror, never again to be touched by a lover. Shame when I accidentally posted something too vulnerable and felt stupid and exposed.

How I softened to the despised and rejected in me.

In a world that prizes the hero, the strong, the conqueror, it is so good to feel grief that holds, instead of hides.

Healing is not born on the battlefield, but in the mirror, the backyard, the breath, the body that won’t be ignored anymore.

So, if you feel like you’re too much, or not enough… if you’re tired of trying to outgrow your wounds… if something in you is slowly being smoothed like river stone by years of holding and noticing and being held…

Come listen.

P.S. A few things that held me as I recorded this:

Salt, Then Sour, Then Sweet ~ song.

Come See Me in the Good Light ~ the new doc on Andrea & Megan’s love story.

The Beast in Me on Netflix ~ a living example of that Gospel of Thomas line: “If you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you.”

Wherever you are, however you are, please know that all of it is welcome here.

I just watched The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper and whoa. So timely because it put faces and history to my longing for communal grieving for our collective losses.

I wept, laughed, cried, and its lessons are continuing to grow in me. Please watch it – season 3, the episode on the Simril(l) family, one branch spelled with a single L, the other with two. One side of the family Black, one white.

It started with a man tracing his family roots and discovering that his ancestors enslaved people who share his last name. What unfolds is the story of two families, bound by blood and history, who choose to face the truth together. My heart is contracting like it’s ready to give birth as I remember.

They meet across the lines of race, pain, and time. They gathered side by side in the same church their ancestors once shared – then separated with blacks in the balcony, and slave owners below. Now integrated as family.

They walk through cemeteries, naming what was hidden. Instead of sugarcoating, they name the pain, the privilege, and feel the loss. And ten years in they keep showing up.

This is a picture of communal grief. Losses met with courage and love, transform us. Naming what has been silenced doesn’t divide us. Instead, it roots us deeper in truth, in belonging, in love big enough to hold it all.

I wonder, how many of us are living with inherited silence? Stories of harm, separation, survival. And what happens the moment we tell the truth?

Since I believe we are one, I’m also reflecting on:

What stories in our family lineage are ready to be named?

Where has silence kept us separated from ourselves, others, our communities, our world?

What would it mean to approach our history with love instead of shame?

If you can, watch the Whole Story episode on the Simril(l) family and listen to this week’s Grief Heals conversation. We belong to one another, and the truth, even when it hurts. What now constricts us may not permanently constrain us. What if it has the power to set us free?

Hi love,

The day I recorded this, I got yanked off my feet when Bella ran after another dog. The retractable leash extended, I flew in the air and landed flat in the street with knees, palms, elbows bleeding.

I’d just loaded Garth Brooks' “The Dance”, so while I’m sobbing, this song played in the background. Fitting, since this day would’ve been my wedding anniversary. Chip died five months before we were set to be married.

But that’s not the whole story.

The fall came while I was out looking for Red, a red husky puppy who wandered into our lives with sores on his body and heartworms in his blood,

who chose us, brought comfort, gentleness, and the ache of impermanence. I’d told him just the day before, “Please don’t leave me.” And when he looked up at me I heard, “I’ll always be with you.” And I cried.

This episode of Grief Heals isn't one thing. It’s a spiral. A dog. A song. A fall. A memory. A graduation inside a prison where a man met his baby girl for the first time. And somehow all of it

Grief, love, surrender, uncertainty, presence

Come together.

I didn’t feel Chip when I visited the cemetery. I felt him more inside the prison when a man reached out to tell me about the loss of his wife. We held hands. We cried. And grief moved through us like a friend who doesn’t ask for answers.

I talk about journaling, about dialoguing with grief, about the kind of forgiveness and love that happens after death, and even the complexity of things we find out too late. The things that never got said, but can get said now. Conversations we didn’t have with them, but still get to complete.

If you’re someone who’s navigating love in all its layers, judged yourself for feeling something, or not feeling something, apologized for your tears…

May this episode feel like sitting together for a while with no pressure to be anything other than what you are today.

Please reply with any memories, questions, or tenderness that opens for you because we belong to each other.

P.S. Red came back. He was out wandering free, but he chose to come home.

xoxo

I hit record not knowing what I’d say, just knowing that I felt tender and full and needed to say something, anything, about how grief has been moving in me…

What came out was a web of stories threaded by longing, scripture, comfort, hunger, shame, healing, and breath.

There’s the line: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” And how Neil Douglas-Klotz says that in Aramaic, “blessed” can mean “ripe.” Ripe are those who mourn. That cracked something open in me because I didn’t mourn when I was young. I didn’t learn anything about mourning…

I learned to stuff, deny, ignore. I learned what our culture models.

And I was unripe.

I read a story of a little boy who was hungry, ashamed that he didn’t have food. One day a girl quietly gave him half her sandwich, and continued to do so each day, until she didn’t come back to school.

Years later, his daughter asks him to pack two sandwiches because there’s a boy at school who doesn’t have lunch.

I am learning to give half a sandwich to younger parts of myself. The ones I silenced with food, or busyness, or shame. The parts hungry for love, comfort, safety

The parts that thought those things made her bad.

This episode isn’t polished. I wander, I spiral, I tear up, I confess.

I share about masturbation at six years old, stuffing myself with food well into adulthood, soft belly breathing and how grief can stop us, soften us, witness us.

Grief says

“I see you. You matter. You make sense.”

Healing is not a straight line. There are no straight lines in nature.

Maybe this isn’t a “message” as much as it’s an invitation—to be exactly where you are. To feel what’s ripening in you. And to soften the belly. Just a little.

I’m with you in it, Lisa Michelle

P.S. A few gifts that accompanied this episode:

• The Hidden Gospel by Neil Douglas-Klotz — the idea of “ripeness” instead of “righteousness” has been changing everything for me.

• Mind Your Body by Rachel Sachs — her work deeply supports this practice of befriending our hunger, our pain, and our shame.

• Hi Ren by Ren — a musical prayer about mental health, rigidity, healing, and softness. Trust me. https://youtu.be/s_nc1IVoMxc?si=eznS0taktBrzQ1K3

• I’m also captivated by Elizabeth Zharoff’s show because she is so vibrant!!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGKgklIV7Ko
  

I’d love to hear what ripens in you. Just reply.

In this very special episode of Grief Heals, host Lisa Michelle Zega is thrilled to welcome the podcast's very first guest, Denise Clanin.

Denise is a former accountant turned stay-at-home mom and debut novelist living in North Idaho.

What began as a simple college writing assignment over a decade ago has blossomed into Denise's novel Among the Stars - but the story behind the story is what makes this conversation truly compelling.

After losing her brother six years ago, Denise found herself returning to that forgotten manuscript during her toddler's nap times, discovering that writing became an unexpected pathway through grief.

Her novel explores themes that mirror her own journey - loss, healing, community, and the messy, complicated nature of grief itself.

In this heartfelt conversation, Lisa and Denise dive deep into how creativity can become a companion in healing, the way our loved ones continue to inspire us beyond their physical presence, and why no one is ever truly a lost cause.

Whether you're navigating your own grief journey, curious about the intersection of writing and healing, or simply love hearing authentic stories of human resilience, this episode offers profound insights wrapped in genuine warmth.

Plus, you'll discover how Denise's entire family moved together from California to Idaho after her brother's passing, the unique ways her brother's fearless spirit continues to influence her approach to building community, and how writing fiction helped her learn to be patient with herself in the grieving process.

To purchase Among the Stars by Denise Clanin, you can find it here

You can also follow Denise on Facebook and Instagram.

Of course you’ve

judged yourself for how you feel…

cried at work and then felt ashamed…

pushed something down in the name of being strong or good or grateful…

So – this wildly unpolished episode is for you.

Here’s a glorious unraveling and remembering of what I mean when I say grief heals. It isn’t about being fixed. It’s about being fully human or

Experiencing our humanity with awareness and mercy.

I think that’s what healing – experiencing wholeness – actually looks like.

So perhaps

It’s not bad to cry at work.

Perhaps, our big emotions aren’t problems to fix but parts of us seeking to belong.

Just maybe that long list of things we judge ourselves for – you know

Avoiding people, mindless eating, binging tv, sleeping all day, endless learning without doing…

Reveal how we survived.

Survived so we can be here now. ALIVE.

Sigh. – Don’t know about you, but I feel like saying thank you. Thank you to everything I’ve ever done so that I get to be here with you now.

I feel Grief as Love. Grief as witness. Grief as medicine.

Because Grief is big enough for all of it.

So that parts of me once judged get welcomed to the kindergarten carpet – There’s room for all of it

“Hey, rage – you can sit beside me on the pink square.”

Yep. Inspired by Rachel Sachs’ Mind Your Body, I imagine all of us—our whole selves—gathered on one of those big, multicolored kindergarten carpets. No part left out. Not even the ones we try to hide.

Because if love heals, then grief does too.

Come listen. Let’s remember together.

I’ve been practicing what it is to truly welcome what is – how it is.

I’m talking about welcoming what’s outside the shiny and preferred

Like the

Ache. envy. not-enoughness.

Bugs on the skin. Memories that still sting. Joy that expands vision.

I’m exploring grief as living.

Yes. Grief as response to death…

And

As a presence that awakens LIFE.

I’ve been starting my morning, lying on the earth, breathing with my tree (yes, I know how that sounds),

reading two beautiful books—Cured by Jeffrey Rediger and The Hidden Gospel by Neil Douglas-Klotz. And in that stillness, I’ve been meeting parts of myself I usually try to push away. Envy. Rage. Doubt. Dissatisfaction.

Those parts that have been

Hidden. Banished. Disappeared.

Wondering –

What if grief is how we welcome all of it? Not to fix or force change, but to become more whole.

This episode is raw. It’s unfinished. It's real. I talk about mosquitoes, spontaneous remission, ancient language, sibling rage, sacred anger, and the strange beauty of becoming a part of something bigger than myself—bigger than any one of us.

Sensing grief as a bridge

to love, to belonging, to collective healing.

When you listen, you’ll also hear how for me, grief invites the paradox of belly laughter and holy weeping, of sacred rage and deep peace.

And if you’ve read The Guest House by Rumi, you’ll know what I mean when I say this episode is one long welcome to whoever shows up at the door.

May we welcome the grief.May we welcome the life.