Surviving the Unthinkable: A Journey Through Darkness to Light

Update: 2025-06-03

Description

🎙️ Grief, Survival, and Liberation: A Conversation with Edy Nathan

What if grief wasn’t something to “get over,” but a cave you learn to live inside—until you come out changed?

In this raw and riveting episode, host Elaine Lindsay sits down with Edy Nathan, therapist, storyteller, and author of It’s Grief: The Dance of Self-Discovery through Trauma and Loss. Together, they rip the cover off sanitized ideas of mourning and explore how grief—whether from death, trauma, or sexual violation—can both dismantle and remake us.

Edy shares her own story of loss, the death that shifted her entire axis, and the deeper personal reckonings that came in its wake. She introduces the powerful metaphor of the cave of grief, challenges the myth of closure, and discusses why grief isn’t a timeline—it’s a transformation. The conversation moves into uncharted territory as Edy unpacks the concept of sexual grief, and how even unspoken trauma reshapes our sense of self.

If you’ve ever felt stuck in your sorrow, unseen in your healing, or like no one gets the weight of what you carry—this one’s for you.

💥 What We Talk About:

The cave of grief: why you can’t shortcut transformation

Edy’s personal story of losing the love of her life at 27

Why grief is like a dance—and the tempo is never steady

The misunderstood grief of sexual trauma

Why “moving on” is the wrong framework

The Liberation Protocol and embodied curiosity

🔗 Connect with Edy Nathan:

EdyNathan.com

RAINN – Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network

📞 If You’re in Crisis:

If you're in North America, text 988 for free, 24/7 support.

Elsewhere? Please reach out to your local suicide prevention or mental health hotline. #YouMatter

💬 Subscribe, rate, and share if this episode moved you. It could be the lifeline someone else didn’t know they needed.

Bio

“In her book, Edy Nathan embraces grief in all its forms with clarity, insight and grace. She teaches readers to understand how grief is a tool for personal evolution and integration—and something everyone can master.” – Deepak Chopra

“I appreciate books that are like companions. You want them nearby and available. They have warmth and usefulness but are not shallow. They are friends rather than lifeless objects or heady abstractions. This book can be a companion like that during inevitable moments of grief.” —Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul and Ageless Soul

In a culture that does its best to run away from grief whenever possible— even though grief is an inevitable part of life and loss—Edy Nathan provides a practical, sensitive guide to surmounting the pain and regaining your soul.

An experienced psychotherapist and grief expert, Nathan is author of the newly published It’s Grief: The Dance of Self-Discovery Through Trauma and Loss (As I Am Press, July 2018). The book unravels the complex world of grief and helps to transform the dark mystery into one of life’s most important teachers.

While other therapists emphasize universal quick fixes to “get over it,” Nathan says it doesn’t work that way. Like a fingerprint, everyone’s experience of trauma, abuse, or the loss of a loved one is unique, and in truth, you never really get over the resulting grief but learn to integrate it into your life.

To that end, Nathan offers a comprehensive toolbox to aid the process—and you can take what you need. She speaks candidly from her own personal experiences as one who has danced with grief in many forms from a young age. Her ideas are not theoretical!

Grief, trauma and loss can strike in a moment, today, or from a long past memory retrieved—and disrupt the norms in every part of your life. Edy Nathan’s practical insights can help you get your life back—even though the world you live in has forever changed.