Crying Out Loud with Dr. Laura Berman

What do you do when the grief advice you've been given is actually making things worse? Dr. Lucy Hone knows that territory intimately. A leading researcher and educator on resilience, grief, and human flourishing, Lucy was finishing her PhD on psychological flourishing when her twelve-year-old daughter Abby was killed in a car accident, along with Abby's best friend Ella and Ella's mother Sally, one of Lucy's closest friends. In that single unsuspecting Saturday morning, everything Lucy had spent years studying became painfully, urgently personal. She joins me on Crying Out Loud to share what she's learned in the twelve years since, as a researcher, as a mother, and as someone who has lived every theory she teaches. In this conversation, Lucy and I talk about what happens when the predictions you've been given don't match your reality. How do you hold onto hope when everyone around you doubts it? What does healthy grieving actually look like when someone can be in enormous pain and still be psychologically healthy? And who are you when the loss doesn't shrink, but your life grows around it? And perhaps most importantly, we talk about the rituals that keep our people close. Rainbows. Tattoos. A sip of salt water for a beloved brother. The thousand small ways love continues. We explore: Why the grief advice she received after Abby died was not only unhelpful but destructive Why resilience rests on three foundations (self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-compassion), and why self-compassion matters most Living losses: what they are, why they need a name, and the top ten questions people ask during ambiguous loss What Lucy would tell her younger self, twelve years ago, about the life ahead of her Don't forget to follow Lucy and check out her books, Resilient Grieving and How Will I Ever Get Through This?. You can find her on her website  and as Dr. Lucy Hone on Instagram and Facebook, where she shares daily wisdom on resilience, grief, and how to get better days ahead. And if you're looking for support, connection, or a place to feel less alone, my book, Crying Out Loud: A Path Through Grief Into a Life Reimagined, and The Grief Healing Collective are here for you. If something in this episode spoke to your heart, share your story or send your questions to [email protected]. None of us are meant to carry this alone. And if you want to explore more of how our brains, bodies, histories and emotional patterns shape the way we love and connect, come find me on my other podcast, The Language of Love. Every week, I talk with leading experts and share what I've learned in more than 30 years as a therapist about relationships, intimacy and healing. You can find The Language of Love wherever you're listening to Crying Out Loud.

What if healing from grief isn't about thinking your way through the pain, but learning how to feel your way through it? Grief doesn't just affect our minds. It lives in our bodies, shapes our relationships, challenges our beliefs, and sometimes changes everything we thought we knew about love and life. In this episode of Crying Out Loud, I sit down with Amar Atma Singh Khalsa, grief specialist, educator, board-certified chaplain, and founder of the Institute for Compassionate Grieving. His new book, The Tender Art of Grieving: Embodied Practices for Letting Go and Finding Peace, brings together neuroscience, somatic practices, traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, spirituality, and years of experience supporting people through profound loss. Amar's own relationship with grief began in childhood. Growing up in a South Asian Indian family where emotional struggles and conversations about death were often taboo, he spent years carrying unprocessed grief without having the language to understand it. The death of his grandfather, who had been his greatest source of safety and connection, brought those feelings to the surface. It would take him nearly 20 years to fully recognize what he had been carrying. His journey eventually led him through traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, spiritual studies, and nearly a decade of hospital chaplaincy, where he worked alongside families navigating trauma, critical illness, palliative care, and the end of life. In our conversation, we explore why grief is something we experience throughout the body, not simply an emotion we process in our minds. Amar explains how our physical sensations often recognize grief before we consciously understand what's happening, and why trying to suppress those feelings can make the experience even harder. We also get into the energetics of grief through traditional Chinese medicine, including how grief can affect the lungs, our breathing, and our sense of inspiration. Amar even guides us through a simple breathing and chest-massage exercise that can help create more space when grief feels overwhelming. One of the things I found especially fascinating was his distinction between different emotional experiences within grief. Anger, fear, anxiety, shame, and sadness aren't interchangeable. Each carries something different, and understanding those differences can help us respond to ourselves with greater compassion. We also explore the complicated relationship between grief and spirituality. How does profound loss challenge our faith? Can grief become a catalyst for spiritual awakening? And what happens when we begin to understand that our relationship with someone we love doesn't necessarily end when their physical life does? I share some of my own experiences after losing my son, Sammy, including the continuing bond I feel with him and the ways I've learned to remain connected. We talk about the mystery of consciousness, the possibility of an afterlife, and how grief can sometimes open doors to experiences and understandings we never expected. Another powerful part of our conversation is Amar's perspective on crying. He explains why tears can be a form of physiological release, what happens when we continually suppress them, and how breathing through an intense emotional experience can help us feel without becoming overwhelmed. And finally, we explore what Amar calls a personal apocalypse. Drawing from the original Greek meaning of the word, revelation, he shares what sitting beside people at the end of their lives has taught him about regret, love, and the things that truly matter. His biggest lesson? We spend so much time focusing on purpose that we sometimes forget the importance of presence. In this episode, we explore: Why grief can remain unrecognized for years, especially when our families or cultures don't give us permission to talk about loss How childhood experiences, cultural expectations, and intergenerational grief can shape the way we experience loss as adults Why we can't simply think our way through grief and why the body plays such an important role in emotional healing The connection between traditional Chinese medicine, the flow of qi, and the energetics of grief How grief can affect the lungs, breathing, and our ability to feel inspired and connected to life A simple breathing and chest-massage practice to help release tension and create space for difficult emotions Why anger, fear, anxiety, and sadness each have different expressions and deserve different kinds of attention How profound loss can challenge our relationship with faith, spirituality, and a higher power Why grief can become a catalyst for spiritual awakening and a deeper understanding of continuing bonds with loved ones The physiology of crying, why suppressing tears can affect our nervous system, and how to move through an overwhelming emotional experience What Amar means by a personal apocalypse and how facing death can reveal what truly matters in life The lessons people at the end of life have taught him about regret, loving more deeply, and living with intention Why love is about more than purpose and how presence and attention can become some of the greatest gifts we offer one another If you've ever felt disconnected from your body, your faith, or even yourself after losing someone you love, I think you'll find a lot to relate to in this conversation. Amar offers such a beautiful perspective on how we can move through grief, reconnect with ourselves, and find ways to keep loving and living while carrying the people we've lost with us. Don't forget to check out Amar's book, The Tender Art of Grieving: Embodied Practices for Letting Go and Finding Peace. You can also connect with him on social media at Amarma Coaching and learn more about his grief retreats, community conversations, and work with the Institute for Compassionate Grieving. And if you're looking for support, connection, or a place to feel less alone, my book, Crying Out Loud: A Path Through Grief Into a Life Reimagined, and The Grief Healing Collective are here for you. If something in this episode spoke to your heart, share your story or send your questions to [email protected]. None of us are meant to carry this alone. And if you want to explore more of how our brains, bodies, histories and emotional patterns shape the way we love and connect, come find me on my other podcast, The Language of Love. Every week, I talk with leading experts and share what I've learned in more than 30 years as a therapist about relationships, intimacy and healing. You can find The Language of Love wherever you're listening to Crying Out Loud.

I've spent more than 30 years as a therapist helping people navigate grief, trauma, and some of the hardest experiences of their lives. But when my 16-year-old son Sammy died, I found myself in a place that all my professional training could never have prepared me for. Almost six years later, I've written the book I desperately needed back then, Crying Out Loud: A Path Through Grief Into a Life Reimagined. And in this special episode, I want to share some of what I've learned, both from my own grief and from the thousands of people I've had the privilege of working with. What does it actually mean to cry out loud? It means allowing ourselves to experience grief in all its messy, complicated, sometimes frightening forms. The anger, guilt, jealousy, despair, and even the moments of joy that can make us feel like we're betraying the person we've lost. I talk about why we can't simply think our way through grief, how our bodies hold what our minds can't process, and why learning to care for our nervous systems is so important. I share the practices that helped me when I could barely function, how my relationships changed, and how I've learned to keep my connection with Sammy alive in ways I never could have imagined. And I talk about something I believe deeply: grief changes us. I've said before that I didn't survive Sammy's death. The woman I was before he died is gone. I've had to discover who I am now, how to live with this enormous loss, and how to let joy back in without feeling guilty about it. I believe healing is possible, even when the loss itself can never be undone. And I believe we can build meaningful, even beautiful lives while still wishing with every fiber of our being that none of this had happened. In this episode, I explore: What it really means to cry out loud and why we need to stop apologizing for our grief How to work with anger, guilt, and the emotions we're often afraid to express Why grief lives in the body and the somatic practices that can help us move through it How grief changes friendships, relationships, and our sense of who we are Choosing life again, even when that choice starts with simply getting out of bed Letting joy return without feeling like we're leaving our loved ones behind Continuing bonds and the ways our relationships with those we've lost can evolve How grief can transform us and what it means to create a life reimagined My new book, Crying Out Loud, brings together what I've learned as a therapist, a grieving daughter, and a grieving mother, along with research, spiritual wisdom, and nearly 100 practical tools to help you find your own way through grief. I wrote it because I know how desperately we need something to reach for when our world falls apart. And because I want you to know that whatever you're feeling, wherever you are in your grief, there are ways to begin finding your footing again. Crying Out Loud: A Path Through Grief Into a Life Reimagined, is available now, wherever books are sold and The Grief Healing Collective is here for more live support.  If something in this episode spoke to your heart, share your story or send your questions to ⁠[email protected]⁠. None of us are meant to carry this alone. And if you want to explore more of how our brains, bodies, histories and emotional patterns shape the way we love and connect, come find me on my other podcast, The Language of Love. Every week, I talk with leading experts and share what I've learned in more than 30 years as a therapist about relationships, intimacy and healing. You can find The Language of Love wherever you're listening to Crying Out Loud.

Did you know that your risk of having a heart attack can be dramatically higher in the first 24 hours after someone you love dies? We know grief is emotionally devastating. But what we don't always understand is just how much it affects us physically. The exhaustion that sleep doesn't seem to fix. The brain fog. The headaches, digestive problems, tightness in your chest, and the feeling that your nervous system is constantly on high alert. Sometimes you barely recognize your own body. I experienced so much of this after my son died. And even with more than 30 years of experience as a therapist, I was surprised by how profoundly grief affected me physically. That's why I was so interested in having Dr. Mary-Frances O'Connor back to talk about her latest book, The Grieving Body. Mary-Frances is a neuroscientist and psychologist at the University of Arizona and the author of The Grieving Brain, which helped explain one of the strangest experiences of grief: how we can know intellectually that someone has died while our brains continue expecting them to come home. Her new book takes that science further, exploring what happens throughout our bodies when we lose someone we love, and what we can actually do to support our physical health while grieving. Mary-Frances also brings a deeply personal perspective to her research. She was just thirteen when her mother was diagnosed with cancer, and watching her mother face the possibility of dying shaped her understanding of loss long before she became a scientist. In this conversation, we get into some fascinating research, including why bereavement can increase our risk of serious health problems, what crying actually does for us, and how our attachment to someone becomes so deeply wired into our brains and bodies. We also explore why grief can hit us physically before we're even consciously aware of what's triggering it. Why do we sometimes start feeling anxious, exhausted, or unsettled as an anniversary approaches, only to realize later what our bodies seemed to know all along? I share some of my own experiences with the physical toll of grief, including how movement and somatic practices helped me when talking about my feelings simply wasn't enough. And we talk about something I think is especially important for grievers: the complicated relationship between taking care of ourselves and staying connected to the person we've lost. Sometimes, even feeling better can bring up guilt. But caring for your body, allowing yourself to rest, and finding moments of pleasure again don't diminish your love or your grief. In this episode, we explore: Why grief affects everything from your immune system and cardiovascular health to your sleep, digestion, and ability to think clearly The startling research on heart attack risk immediately following the death of a loved one Why our brains keep searching for someone even when we know they're gone, and the "gone but also everlasting" paradox The science of crying, why tears are connected to attachment, and what happens when we feel safe enough to let them come Why anniversaries, birthdays, and other significant dates can trigger physical grief responses before we consciously recognize what's happening Why two people grieving the same person can have completely different physical and emotional experiences How prolonged or particularly intense grief can affect our health What Mary-Frances means by the difference between time healing and action healing How movement, rest, and small acts of physical care can help support a grieving body A powerful story about a young widow that has stayed with Mary-Frances throughout her career One of the things I've learned, both professionally and through my own grief, is that we have to pay attention to what our bodies are telling us. We can't always think or talk our way through grief. Sometimes we need to move, cry, sleep, breathe, or simply give ourselves permission to stop pushing so hard. I hope this conversation helps you understand some of what may be happening in your own body and gives you a few practical ways to care for yourself through it. You can love and miss someone with every fiber of your being and still deserve to feel well in your own body. Don't forget to check out Mary-Frances's books, The Grieving Brain and The Grieving Body. You can learn more about her work on her website and follow her on Instagram. And if you're looking for support, connection, or a place to feel less alone, my book, Crying Out Loud: A Path Through Grief Into a Life Reimagined, and The Grief Healing Collective are here for you. If something in this episode spoke to your heart, share your story or send your questions to [email protected]. None of us are meant to carry this alone. And if you want to explore more of how our brains, bodies, histories, and emotional patterns shape the way we love and connect, come find me on my other podcast, The Language of Love. Every week, I talk with leading experts and share what I've learned in more than 30 years as a therapist about relationships, intimacy, and healing. You can find The Language of Love wherever you're listening to Crying Out Loud.

When we lose someone we love, we often lose so much more than that person. We lose the future we imagined, our sense of safety, sometimes our relationships, and often parts of ourselves we barely realize are missing until we look around and wonder, Who am I now?And some of our deepest losses aren't necessarily connected to a death at all. They can come from the dreams that never happened, the relationships that changed us, the versions of ourselves we had to leave behind, or the experiences we've never really allowed ourselves to grieve.My guest on Crying Out Loud is Christina Rasmussen, grief educator, founder of the Life Reentry® process, and author of Second Firsts, Where Did You Go?, and Invisible Loss. Christina spent years studying grief and working with bereaved families before losing her own husband, the father of her two young daughters, when she was just 35.She thought she understood grief. Then she found herself living it, and so much of what she'd learned no longer seemed to apply. For months, she couldn't even cry. She felt frozen, disconnected from herself and unsure how to find her way back to living.That experience eventually led her to explore something she calls the "waiting room," a place many of us recognize, where we're going through the motions of life but don't quite feel like we're living it. And while there's a reason we end up there, we can sometimes stay much longer than we realize.Christina and I talk about the different parts of ourselves that emerge after loss, including the survivor self that gets us through the worst of it, but can also make it difficult to move forward. We explore what happens to our identity when grief changes us, why our minds can sometimes work against our healing, and how we begin reconnecting with the parts of ourselves that still want to experience life.I also share a very personal experience I had after my son died, when a voice asked me a question about whether I wanted to live. That moment changed something profound in me, and Christina and I explore what it means to make that choice when you're in the depths of grief.And because grief inevitably raises some of life's biggest questions, we also venture into what happens after we die. Christina has studied thousands of near-death experiences, and we talk about what she's learned, what she believes about consciousness and the continued existence of our loved ones, and how we might experience that connection ourselves. She even guides us through a practice for connecting with someone on the other side.This is a conversation about the losses we see and the ones we don't, the ways we can disappear inside our own grief, and the possibility of discovering who we are now, even when the life we knew is gone.In this episode, we explore: Why some of our most significant losses are invisible, and how they continue to shape our lives Christina's experience losing her husband and why her professional training didn't prepare her for her own grief The "waiting room" and how to recognize when we've become stuck in survival mode The survivor, watcher, and thriver selves, and how each influences our healing Why overthinking and intellectualizing grief can sometimes keep us from moving forward The difference between waiting for time to heal us and actively finding our way back into life How shame, rejection, lost dreams, and other unacknowledged grief can affect our sense of identity My own experience of being asked whether I wanted to live after losing my son What Christina's research into near-death experiences has taught her about consciousness and life after death A guided practice for connecting with a loved one who has died If you've ever felt like you've lost touch with yourself, whether through the death of someone you love or another experience that changed your life, I think you'll find a lot to relate to in this conversation. And hopefully, some new ways to begin finding your way back.Don’t forget to check out Christina’s books, Second Firsts, Where Did You Go?, and Invisible Loss. She recommends the physical copies, since they’re meant to be written in and returned to. You can find her at website. And if you're looking for support, connection, or a place to feel less alone, my book, Crying Out Loud: A Path Through Grief Into a Life Reimagined, and The Grief Healing Collective are here for you. If something in this episode spoke to your heart, share your story or send your questions to [email protected] of us are meant to carry this alone.And if you want to explore more of how our brains, bodies, histories and emotional patterns shape the way we love and connect, come find me on my other podcast, The Language of Love. Every week, I talk with leading experts and share what I've learned in more than 30 years as a therapist about relationships, intimacy and healing. You can find The Language of Love wherever you're listening to Crying Out Loud