We’re on break, creating all new episodes for season 3. In the meantime, here’s one of our favorite episodes from the past year. See you soon.

In this final episode of season two, we answer the central question from episode one: is there any hope? Okay, well we don’t answer it. But we do review what we’ve learned. Turns out, everyone has an opinion about hope - from the creative to the bleak to the functional. Maybe one of these versions speaks to you.  

Click here for the episode webpage.

Want to talk with Megan directly? Join our patreon community for live monthly Q&A sessions. All the info at this link. 

About our guest:

Megan Devine is a best-selling author, psychotherapist, grief advocate and podcast host. Her book It’s OK that You’re Not OK is the go-to resource for over half a million people. Her animated short, “How to Help a Grieving Friend,” is used in training programs around the world. She’s been published in GQ, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and has served as a grief expert for major media outlets including NPR, iHeartRadio, and the PBS documentary, Speaking Grief.

For the full episode from each of the guests you heard from in the show: 

Nelba Márquez-Greene 

Rebecca Woolf 

Dr. Rana Awdish 

Emily X.R. Pan 

Emi Nietfeld 

Aubrey Hirsch 

Koshin Paley Ellison 

Leanne Pedante 

Alex Elle 

Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s OK That You’re Not OK and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed.

Get in touch:

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Here After with Megan Devine. Tune in, subscribe, leave a review, send in your questions, and share the show with everyone you know. Together, we can make things better, even when they can’t be made right.

Have a question, comment, or a topic you’d like us to cover? Visit megandevine.co to get in touch.

For more information, including clinical training and consulting, visit us at www.megandevine.co

For grief support & education, follow us at @refugeingrief on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok

Want to talk with Megan directly? Join our patreon community for live monthly Q&A sessions. All the info at this link. 

Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s OK That You’re Not OK and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re on break, creating all new episodes for season 3. In the meantime, here’s one of our favorite episodes from the past year. See you soon.

Nobody likes to talk about pet loss… but everybody wants to talk about pet loss. What a difficult scenario that is! Veterinary oncologist Dr. Renee Alsarraf joins us to talk about grief, professionalism, and the importance of being human - on the job and off. 

In this episode we cover: 

• The whole truth about loving - and losing - your pets
• The terrible advice Dr. Renee Alsarraf’s grad school teacher gave her (and why she refused to listen) 
• Why veterinarians and other professionals should really NOT check their human emotions at the door
• When it’s time to welcome a new love into your life (human or otherwise)
• How Dr. Alsarraf’s experience with veterinary oncology did (and didn’t) prepare her for her own cancer diagnosis

Click here for the episode webpage.

Notable quotes: 

“I think we tend to see our pets - especially when they're ailing - more like our little babies, and so we want to protect them. That's our innate role. And yet we can't protect them from the inevitable. That's really hard.” - Dr. Renee Alsarraf

“You can't push emotions down and expect them to not pop back up in other places.” - Megan Devine

About our guest: 

Dr. Renee Alsarraf is a veterinary oncologist, lecturer, and philanthropist. Her new book Sit Stay Heal is a moving and uplifting memoir of an esteemed veterinary oncologist fighting to save her four-legged patients while making sense of her own unexpected cancer diagnosis.

Find Dr. Alsarraf on IG @reneealsarraf  and read more about her book at sitstayhealbook.com

Get in touch:

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Here After with Megan Devine. Tune in, subscribe, leave a review, send in your questions, and share the show with everyone you know. Together, we can make things better, even when they can’t be made right. 

Have a question, comment, or a topic you’d like us to cover? Visit megandevine.co

For more information, including clinical training and consulting, visit us at www.megandevine.co

For grief support & education, follow us at @refugeingrief on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok

Want to talk with Megan directly? Join our patreon community for live monthly Q&A sessions. All the info at this link. 

Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s OK That You’re Not OK and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re on break, creating all new episodes for season 3. In the meantime, here’s one of our favorite episodes from the past year. See you soon.

“Getting people to feel angry with me makes me feel less alone, less helpless. (It) makes me feel like, okay, there’s a whole team of us. We're all gonna do it.” - Writer and illustrator, Aubrey Hirsch 

The world is such a hot mess: every day a new disaster, a new human rights catastrophe. It can just feel… endless. Illustrator Aubrey Hirsch joins us to talk about outrage and trauma and community building - it’s like the greatest hits of modern culture. But mostly, she joins us to talk about art - specifically, the ways that storytelling helps us band together and work towards the world we all want. 

PS: Listen all the way through so you don’t miss Aubrey’s slightly sinister but ultimately functional ideas on hope. 

In this episode we cover: 

• The relationship between rage and creation: when there’s so much wrong with the world all you can do is scream
• Why taking action to change things matters - even if your actions won’t save everyone
• Women and anger: hoo boy, it’s a whole thing. 
• Why healing inside trauma is actually kind of… boring. 
• Connecting through the power of storytelling

Click here for the episode webpage.

Notable quotes: 

“I feel very helpless and I don't wanna feel like that because I know that to be f*cked is a spectrum and we can be more f*cked than we are now or less f*cked. It's not a binary. I want us to move in the right direction (less f*cked),  and I want to be a part of that movement - even if my action comes too late for some.” - Aubrey Hirsch

About our guest:

Aubrey Hirsch is the author of Why We Never Talk About Sugar, a collection of short stories, and This Will Be His Legacy, a flash fiction chapbook. Her stories, essays and comics have appeared widely in print and online in places like American Short Fiction, Vox, TIME, The New York Times, The Rumpus, The Toast, and in the New York Times bestselling anthology, Not That Bad. Her essay on trauma and surviving gun violence is a must read. Find it here. 

Additional resources

Aubrey occasionally teaches comics for “non-artists.” Check her TW @aubreyhirsch for announcements. She publishes new comics and essays on Roxane Gay’s substack, The Audacity. 

Aubrey’s written on so many topics relevant to human life. Find a long list of awesome essays on her website, https://aubreyhirsch.com

Get in touch:

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Here After with Megan Devine. Tune in, subscribe, leave a review, send in your questions, and share the show with everyone you know. Together, we can make things better, even when they can’t be made right. 

Have a question, comment, or a topic you’d like us to cover? Visit megandevine.co to get in touch.

For more information, including clinical training and consulting, visit us at megandevine.co

For grief support & education, follow us at @refugeingrief on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok

Want to talk with Megan directly? Join our patreon community for live monthly Q&A sessions. All the info at this link. 

Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s OK That You’re Not OK and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re on break, creating all new episodes for season 3. In the meantime, here’s one of our favorite episodes from the past year. See you soon.

If you’ve lived through horrific trauma or abuse, is it really fair of us to say that the ways you’ve learned to cope are “bad,” or to use clinical speak, “maladaptive”? This week on Here After, Stephanie Foo, author of What My Bones Know, joins me to talk about complex PTSD and the ways we pathologize human responses to trauma. You’ll also hear how claiming your own messy, complex coping mechanisms can help you build a community that sees you and loves you. 

If you’re haunted by any type of trauma, or know someone who is, this conversation is a great introduction to complex PTSD, and the work of survivorship. 

In this episode we cover: 

• Why pretending to be a high-performing badass is maybe not in your best interest
• How storytelling can make you feel less freakish and alone
• The real problem with most books on trauma and C-PTSD

Click here for the episode webpage.

Notable quotes: 

“People are like, oh, you're so brave to have shared your story. And I was like, I burned down my whole life. There was nothing to lose anymore, so there was nothing to be brave about.” - Stephanie Foo

About our guest: 

Stephanie Foo is a C-PTSD survivor, writer, and radio producer, most recently for This American Life. Her work has aired on Snap Judgment, Reply All, 99% Invisible, and Radiolab. A noted speaker and instructor, she has taught at Columbia University and has spoken at venues from Sundance Film Festival to the Missouri Department of Mental Health. She lives in New York City with her husband.

Read Stephanie’s book, What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

Find her at stephaniefoo.me and follow her on Instagram @foofoofoo and Twitter @imontheradio 

Find a great conversation about What My Bones Know on Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper at this link 

Additional resources

It’s OK That You’re Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn’t Understand is a book for grieving people, those who love them, and all those seeking to love themselves—and each other—better. (available in paperback, e-book, & audiobook)

For a collection of tools and coping skills related to grief and trauma, check out my illustrated guided journal, How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed. (available in paperback and for Kindle)

Get in touch:

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Here After with Megan Devine. Tune in, subscribe, leave a review, send in your questions, and share the show with everyone you know. Together, we can make things better, even when they can’t be made right. 

Share the show on your social networks! Use #HereAfterPod so we can find you.

Have a question, comment, or a topic you’d like us to cover? Visit megandevine.co to get in touch.

For more information, including clinical training and resources, visit us at www.megandevine.co

For grief support & education, follow us at @refugeingrief on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok

Want to talk with Megan directly? Join our patreon community for live monthly Q&A sessions. All the info at this link. 

Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s OK That You’re Not OK and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re on break, creating all new episodes for season 3. In the meantime, here’s one of our favorite episodes from the past year. See you soon.

What if you were just about to get divorced, but your partner gets sick? Like really sick? Rebecca Woolf was just about to leave an unhappy marriage when her husband got sick and died. What followed was a crash course in performative grief, and the dismantling of one life in order to build the next. In this episode, we cover love, sex, marriage, divorce, grief, shame, assumptions (both internal and external), and personal agency - it’s QUITE the conversation. Sensitivity note: this episode contains the F word, and references sex. 

In this episode we cover: 

• The conventions of marriage and grief that trap people in inauthentic versions of themselves
• How you can love someone AND be relieved they’re dead
• Why everyone has an opinion about how soon is too soon to date, have sex, or otherwise live your life after someone dies
• Grieving the time you lost living someone else’s life
• Building your own “house of hope,” according to your own desires

About our guest:

Rebecca Woolf has worked as a writer since her teens - it’s the way she understands both herself and the world. Her essays have appeared on Refinery29, HuffPost, Parenting, and more. She currently authors the bi-weekly column Sex & the Single Mom on romper.com. Her latest book, All of This: a Memoir of Death and Desire, hits the shelves last month. 

Find her on IG @rebeccawooolf (with three o’s) and at rebeccawoolf.com

Additional resources

It can be hard to find information about grieving the loss of a complicated relationship (an abusive parent, or an estranged partner, for example). Check out this post on grieving people you didn’t always like. 

Get in touch:

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Here After with Megan Devine. Tune in, subscribe, leave a review, and share the show with everyone you know. Talking about difficult things gets easier with practice, and that’s why we’re here. Together, we can make things better, even when they can’t be made right. 

Have a question, comment, or a topic you’d like us to cover? Visit megandevine.co to get in touch.

For more information, including clinical training and consulting, visit us at www.megandevine.co

For grief support & education, follow us at @refugeingrief on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok

Want to talk with Megan directly? Join our patreon community for live monthly Q&A sessions. All the info at this link. 

Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s OK That You’re Not OK and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re on break, creating all new episodes for season 3. In the meantime, here’s one of our favorite episodes from the past year. See you soon.

PROLONGED GRIEF DISORDER! It’s everywhere - social media, The New York Times, The Washington Post… it’s the hot new medical condition everyone’s talking about. But why is everyone so mad about it? 

This week on the show, an overview of this hotly contested “new” human disorder, and what it means for the average person, for healthcare providers, and honestly - for the whole world. This is one medical diagnosis that affects everyone. 

Want your questions answered on the show? Submit your questions at megandevine.co

In this episode we cover: 

• Why anyone should care what the APA thinks about grief
• The actual diagnostic criteria for prolonged grief disorder (translated from psych-jargon into the way real people speak)
• Access to care + funding for research: two of the main reasons people think this diagnosis could be helpful (and why it isn’t) 
• The real world impact of the DSM: doubling down on shame and misunderstanding
• Why launching new rules about how long it’s ok to grieve is more than a bit problematic while we’re still in the middle of a mass death and mass disabling event (aka the pandemic)
• One surprise reason this diagnosis *could* be seen as a good thing

Click here for the episode webpage

Notable quotes: 

“Grief makes you less productive, and what we value above all else is productivity.” - Megan Devine

Questions to Carry with you: 

Read up on the unfolding public conversation about prolonged grief disorder - how do *you* feel about it? Let us know! Visit megandevine.co

Additional resources

For an interview with both Megan and the author of the NYT article, Ellen Barry, on WGBH TV Boston, click here. 

To read Megan’s more detailed response to the NYT article, including tweet-by-tweet takedowns of most of the major “pro disorder” points, check out the original Twitter thread, and the extended thread. Versions of these threads are also on the blog. 

Want to read even more about our culture’s deep avoidance of human emotion, and all the ways that messes with day to day life? Maybe more important, want to know what’s actually normal inside grief? Check out Megan’s best-selling book, It’s OK that You’re Not OK, and follow @refugeingrief on IG/FB/TW 

We recommend you check out the Perfectly Normal campaign, serving up just the validation you need when you’re feeling like the only person in the world doing that “weird” thing you do. 

Therapist, clinician, or other healthcare provider? Be sure to check out upcoming trainings that address PGD and re-humanizing grief. Follow Megan Devine on LinkedIn, too. 

Other articles on prolonged grief disorder include Medicalizing Grief May Threaten Our Ability to Mourn

Get in touch:

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Here After with Megan Devine. Tune in, subscribe, leave a review, send in your questions, and share the show with everyone you know. Together, we can make things better, even when they can’t be made right. 

To submit your questions visit megandevine.co

For more information, including clinical training and consulting, visit us at www.Megandevine.co

For grief support & education, follow us at @refugeingrief on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok

Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s OK That You’re Not OK and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed.

Want to talk with Megan directly? Join our patreon community for live monthly Q&A sessions. All the info at this link.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re on break, creating all new episodes for season 3. In the meantime, here’s one of our favorite episodes from the past year. See you soon.

Our early childhood experiences of grief - and how our family systems dealt with loss - have a huge impact on our adult behaviors and relationships. This week, author Allyson Dinneen (Notes from Your Therapist) joins me as we discuss generational grief stories. We also have the first of many conversations addressing your number one most asked question: how does a grieving therapist (or another healthcare provider) go back to work? 

About this week’s guest: 

Allyson Dinneen is a marriage and family therapist, author, and the creator of the immensely popular Instagram account, Notes from Your Therapist - which is also the name of her recent book. Allyson’s work has been featured in Forbes, The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, and more. Find her on IG @notesfromyourtherapist

Questions to Carry with you:

Exploring the risks and rewards of telling the truth 

Notable quotes:

 “I plan to keep my conversation going with grief my whole life.” - psychotherapist Allyson Dinneen

References:

Megan and Allyson discuss a question from a previous episode that aired on January 3rd. That episode is linked HERE.

Find all this, plus instructions for how to submit YOUR questions to be answered on a future show in this episode of Here After with Megan Devine. Tune in, subscribe, leave a review, and share the show with everyone you know. Together, we can make things better, even when they can’t be made right. 

To submit your questions visit megandevine.co

For more information, including clinical training and consulting, visit us at www.Megandevine.co

For grief support & education, follow us at @refugeingrief on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok

Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s OK That You’re Not OK and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed.

Want to talk with Megan directly? Join our patreon community for live monthly Q&A sessions. All the info at this link.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re on break, creating all new episodes for season 3. In the meantime, here’s one of our favorite episodes from the past year. See you soon.

Everybody knows the stages of grief. Even if you didn’t go to grad school, I bet you can rattle them off. Thing is - those stages don’t help anyone: not the pros trying to support patients or clients, not the person trying to survive an impossible situation. Tune in for the inside scoop on the stages of grief and what we should be doing instead, with a special shout-out to the tv shows getting grief right.  

In this episode we cover:

• where the stages of grief came from, and why their creator was Less Than Pleased with what happened next
• whether an “innocent” mention of the stages of grief really matters in a movie or tv show (shout out to netflix: HMU!) 
• what to do if your boss asks you to support your co-workers through a death in the company
• and much more, because I have a lot to say on these stages, apparently. 

Questions to Carry with you:

• rooting out the ways the stages of grief live in your head (it’s not as uncomfortable as it sounds!) 

Extra resources: I’ve written a lot about the stages of grief. Check out this article, this instagram post, and for more of my feelings about The Starling, click here. Be sure to pick up It’s OK that You’re Not OK wherever you get your books, too - there’s a lot about the stages in there (including the reasons why graduate programs still teach this outdated model). 

For more help navigating grief in the workplace, check out Alica Forneret, Lantern, and Grief Coach. I provide corporate consulting on grief related comms, too. Get in touch via megandevine.co  Disclosure: these aren’t paid placements - I’ve worked with all these folks and I super dig them. Go check them (and me!) out. 

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Here After with Megan Devine. Tune in, subscribe, leave a review, send in your questions, and share the show with everyone you know. Together, we can make things better, even when they can’t be made right. 

To submit your questions visit megandevine.co

For more information, including clinical training and consulting, visit us at www.megandevine.co

For grief support & education, follow us at @refugeingrief on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok

Want to talk with Megan directly? Join our patreon community for live monthly Q&A sessions. All the info at this link. 

Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s OK That You’re Not OK and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this final episode of season two, we answer the central question from episode one: is there any hope? Okay, well we don’t answer it. But we do review what we’ve learned. Turns out, everyone has an opinion about hope - from the creative to the bleak to the functional. Maybe one of these versions speaks to you.

Want to talk with Megan directly? Join our patreon community for live monthly Q&A sessions. All the info at this link. 

About our guest:

Megan Devine is a best-selling author, psychotherapist, grief advocate and podcast host. Her book It’s OK that You’re Not OK is the go-to resource for over half a million people. Her animated short, “How to Help a Grieving Friend,” is used in training programs around the world. She’s been published in GQ, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and has served as a grief expert for major media outlets including NPR, iHeartRadio, and the PBS documentary, Speaking Grief.

For the full episode from each of the guests you heard from in the show: 

Nelba Márquez-Greene 

Rebecca Woolf 

Dr. Rana Awdish 

Emily X.R. Pan 

Emi Nietfeld 

Aubrey Hirsch 

Koshin Paley Ellison 

Leanne Pedante 

Alex Elle 

Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s OK That You’re Not OK and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed.

Get in touch:

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Here After with Megan Devine. Tune in, subscribe, leave a review, send in your questions, and share the show with everyone you know. Together, we can make things better, even when they can’t be made right. 

Have a question, comment, or a topic you’d like us to cover? Visit megandevine.co to get in touch.

For more information, including clinical training and consulting, visit us at megandevine.co

For grief support & education, follow us at @refugeingrief on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can you make space for the whole truth in your life? The whole truth *of* your life? This week, best-selling author Alex Elle talks about the post-partum period after the launch of her newest book, and how her healing is intertwined with hearing the truth - the whole truth - about her own life. 

In this episode we cover: 

• Why one of Alex’s friends told her she stop hoarding her stories
• How owning your own story - and your own healing - impacts everyone around you
• The intersections of writing, healing, and grief
• How to give yourself permission to heal from the same thing more than once
• Why learning to slow down is the key to self-healing 

Notable quote: 

“No one taught me how to be a mother. No one taught me how to be warm and nurturing.

I had to figure that out on my own. No one taught me how to hold space and not try to fix someone's tears. I had to figure it out on my own. I think part of my healing and my grief work is (exploring): ‘What did I need that I didn't get?’” - Alex Elle

About our guest:

Alexandra Elle is a New York Times Bestselling author, wellness educator, and certified Breathwork coach. Her work has been featured by a wide range of media outlets, including The New York Times, NPR, Good Morning America, Essence, MindBodyGreen, Forbes, and many others. She teaches workshops and leads retreats centered around writing-to-heal and self-care. Find her on social media @alex_elle, and at alexelle.com

Additional resources

Every month I host a live video Q&A session. If you’ve ever wished you could talk to me directly, this is by far the easiest way to do it. All the information is at my patreon page, right here.  Hope to see you there each month. 

Get in touch:

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Here After with Megan Devine. Tune in, subscribe, leave a review, and share the show with everyone you know. Together, we can make things better, even when they can’t be made right. 

Have a question, comment, or a topic you’d like us to cover? Message us at megandevine.co

For more information, including clinical training and consulting, visit us at www.megandevine.co

For grief support & education, follow us at @refugeingrief on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok

Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s OK That You’re Not OK and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.