Grief and Light™

Sibling loss is the loss of a lifetime. But why are grieving siblings still the forgotten mourners?

November is Worldwide Bereaved Siblings Month. In this episode of Grief and Light™, host Nina Rodriguez sits down with Lynn Shattuck and Alyson Shelton, co-editors of The Loss of a Lifetime: Grieving Siblings Share Stories of Love, Loss, and Hope, for an honest conversation about sibling grief, the complexities of losing a brother or sister, and why this profound loss so often goes unseen.

Lynn is a writer and former Elephant Journal co...

Grief doesn’t always look like sadness. Sometimes, it looks like anxiety, panic, or a world that no longer feels safe.

In this episode of Grief and Light™, host Nina Rodriguez talks with Phil Lane, MSW,  LCSW, a psychotherapist, anxiety and panic survivor, and author of three books on anxiety, panic, self-esteem, and mental health. Phil is also a son, a brother, and a caregiver who has experienced the loss of his mother and his twin brothers, Joseph and Matthew. Nina brings her own experience of sibling loss to the conversation.

Together, they explo...

Filmmaker, author, and speaker Denise Soler Cox joins Nina Rodriguez, host of Grief and Light™, to explore Latina identity, inherited cultural taboos, sibling grief, self-erasure, and what it takes to reclaim your voice. Drawing on her book, What Will They Say? A Liberating Guide for Latinas, Denise shares how the rules we inherit about family, belonging, and worthiness can shape the way we live, work, grieve, and show up for ourselves.

After her documentary Being Eñye gained attention, Denise spent more than a decade spe...

Great news! Grief and Light™ is a finalist for the Signal Awards’ Listener’s Choice Award. And I’m in the running for Top Host to lead my own podcast produced by iHeartRadio, take home $25K, and be a guest on an episode of onairwithryan.iheart with Ryan Seacrest, BUT I need your support to get there: 

PLEASE VOTE HERE: griefandlight.com/vote

Why does this matter?

We’re taught how to prepare for so many things in life, but not how to navigate arguably the most human exper...

How can hope and heartbreak can coexist? And what does that look like when navigating stage 4 breast cancer?

Nina Rodriguez talks with Lindsy Matthews, a coach, mother, and public speaking instructor at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. 

After a stage 2 breast cancer diagnosis in 2018, Lindsy was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer in 2022. Now living with what is currently an incurable illness and an uncertain future, she describes her life as really good, even when it feels really hard. Lindsy calls this "the split screen life," where h...

"Let's talk about death, because life is urgent." -- Alex Aldarondo

What if facing death honestly is how we learn to live more fully?

In this episode of Grief and Light™, Nina Rodriguez sits down with Alexander Aldarondo Jiménez, an end-of-life doula, educator, and founder of AMORir, Puerto Rico's first end-of-life doula collective. Joining from Puerto Rico, Alex explains what a death doula does, why dying has become so medicalized and transactional, and how communities can reclaim it as something we hold together.

Nina brings her own lens. She...

What happens when grief meets music, community, and the question of what we might do with the pain we carry?

Nina sits down with singer-songwriter, community activist, and Reimagine co-founder Brad Wolfe for a conversation about loss, meaning-making, mortality, and what can become possible when we stop trying to turn away from what hurts.

Twenty years ago, Brad was playing music at the bedside of his friend Sarah, who was dying from a rare pediatric bone cancer. What began as an intimate act of care became something much larger, eventually inspiring...

Life as you know it can change in an instant, leaving us with more questions than answers.

Welcome to Season 5 of Grief and Light™, a two-time award-winning podcast where grief is met with curiosity instead of clichés, and hope is offered without bypassing pain.

We’re continuing to make room for honest, grief-informed conversations and to challenge the cultural narratives that tell us how grief is supposed to look, feel, or unfold. We’ll explore grief, loss, resilience, post-traumatic growth, identity shifts, and meaning-making while also asking what it mean...

What happens when life has already surprised you in the worst possible way?

After loss, staying open to possibility can feel complicated. When you’ve experienced something you never imagined could happen, the instinct to control what comes next can become a form of protection. But what if possibility doesn’t require optimism, certainty, or believing that everything will work out?

In the final conversation of our three-part Summer Shifts Series, Lisa Keefauver and Nina Rodriguez explore what it means to meet life differently after loss.

To...

Grief has a way of convincing us that loss must mean we did something wrong.

That if we had prayed harder, loved better, been more vigilant, or been more faithful, our person would still be here.

One of the most common questions I hear from grieving people is some version of:

“We didn’t do anything to deserve this. Why did this happen to us?”

Behind that question is often something heavier than grief: guilt, self-blame, and the belief that we should have been able to prevent the loss.

But gr...

What stories are you still carrying, and what might you write instead?

In Part 2 of the Summer Shifts Series, grief educator and Grief and Light™ founder and host Nina Rodriguez joins author, grief educator, and Grief Is a Sneaky Bitch host Lisa Keefauver, MSW to explore how creativity can help us notice and shift the stories that keep us stuck after loss, grief, and major life change.

Building on Part 1's invitation to live into the questions, Nina and Lisa turn toward creativity. Not creativity as productivity or...

What if you didn't need answers to move forward?

What if the questions themselves are where life begins to open again?

In the first conversation of the Summer Shifts Series, grief educator and Grief and Light™ founder and host Nina Rodriguez joins author, grief educator, author, and Grief Is a Sneaky Bitch host Lisa Keefauver to explore what it means to live with the questions grief leaves behind rather than rushing toward resolution.

After loss, we’re often told to find closure, make meaning, move forward, or figu...

Why can grief feel unexpectedly heavy during the summer?

While the holidays are often recognized as difficult for grieving people, the quieter shifts of summer can bring their own wave of longing, nostalgia, and remembrance. Longer days, changing routines, family traditions, vacations, and returning to familiar places can amplify the absence of someone we love or remind us of the life we once had.

In this solo episode of Grief and Light™, host Nina Rodriguez reflects on returning to her childhood home in Puerto Rico nearly seven years after the death of...

What happens when grief isn’t as heavy as it once was? 

This candid, multi-voice conversation explores what it means to live fully after loss.

While much of the grief space centers on surviving, this roundtable makes space for what comes after the initial sorrow that follows loss and life-altering change, when life begins to expand again, often in unexpected ways. 

Together, grief and resilience leaders, podcasters, and grief-informed creators explore meaning-making, post-traumatic growth, and the nuanced reality of carrying grief while also reclaiming joy, purpose, and possibility.

This is the conv...

In a world where grief is often tied to family ties and romantic relationships, the loss of a friend can feel isolating and unrecognized.

Hannah Rumsey is a writer, certified Grief Educator, and the founder of Friends Missing Friends. After losing her best friend Lauren in 2015, Hannah went searching for support and found almost nothing. No grief groups. Not even a Google search result that addressed her experience directly. What she found instead was disenfranchised grief, a term that changed everything.

In this episode, Hannah and Nina explore why friend-loss is...

What does it mean to stay human in a world increasingly run by AI? 

In this episode, Nina sits down with Patrice Poltzer — Gracie Award–winning former TODAY Show producer and co-founder of My Story Pro — about the everyday griefs and shifts of our era: the loss of certainty, the erosion of critical thinking, and the disappearing line between who we are and the tools we rely on.

Patrice shares how a cross-continental move from New York to Lisbon, a vanished family income, and a launch that flopped led her to "acciden...

What does it mean to advocate for yourself as a female patient, especially in healthcare systems that often overlook women’s pain, symptoms, and lived experiences?

In this episode we welcome Spencer Moore, founder and host of The Hairy Chin, certified women’s health coach, certified breast health educator, and certified breathwork specialist, for a powerful conversation about women’s health advocacy, chronic illness, breast cancer, medical dismissal, and learning how to navigate healthcare systems with confidence and clarity.

After years of chronic health struggles and being passed from doctor to doctor...

How do you navigate life after multiple losses and still make space for joy, purpose, love, and hope?

In this deeply honest conversation, grief and soul purpose coach Tara Accardo joins Nina Rodriguez to explore what it means to live through layered grief, traumatic loss, and major life transitions while rebuilding your sense of self.

After losing both of her parents to cancer within six months, navigating the isolation of the 2020 pandemic, experiencing heartbreak, grieving the loss of her beloved 19-year-old dog, and enduring a traumatic birth and NICU stay with her daughter...

What does grief look like when it lives inside a body that can't always feel safe? Dr. Amanda Whitehouse joins Nina to explore food allergy anxiety, trauma, and the layered losses that chronic illness brings.

Summary:

Grief doesn't only come from death. Sometimes it comes from a diagnosis. From the life you imagined slipping away, from food becoming a source of fear, from watching your child struggle to breathe and feeling helpless. That is grief, too.

In this episode, Nina Rodriguez welcomes Dr. Amanda Whitehouse, a licensed psychologist who...

What happens when grief doesn’t just take your person, but reshapes your identity, your faith, your career, and your sense of what’s possible?

In this episode of Grief and Light, Nina Rodriguez sits down with Destiny Rael, a trauma-informed life and grief coach, group facilitator, and sibling loss survivor, for a deeply personal and expansive conversation about what it means to live with grief and still create a meaningful life.

Destiny lost her brother Joseph who she describes as her best friend, creative partner, and fellow musician, two days after his 34th b...

Sylvia Wolfer has lived through a lifetime of loss. Her father died suddenly when she was seven. Her younger brother, Johan, at sixteen. Her older brother, Stefan, in 2019. Her mother in 2023. 

She has navigated decades of layered grief. Through neuroscience, mindfulness, and work in the body, she has come to understand that grief can be in your life without running your life. In fact, you get to be "the boss."

In this conversation, we explore what it means to live alongside loss without being consumed by it. We talk about the weight of s...

Paula went into "the void," and returned with a question that changed her life: What if grief is actually the highest form of intelligence?

In this episode of Grief and Light, I sit down with trauma and grief therapist and artist, Paula Gasparini-Santos, to explore a different way of understanding grief, one where loss becomes a portal, and "the void" transforms us.

Paula's work sits at the intersection of trauma therapy and grief, and she brings a framework that honors how intelligent grief actually is. She shares how grief operates as a form...

What if grief wasn't something to survive, but something to move through with presence, ritual, and the full weight of your body?

In this episode, Nina Rodriguez sits down with Sundari Malcolm, a birth, grief, and death doula, yoga and breathwork teacher, author of Grief Gems, and founder of A Healing Doula Academy. Raised by Yogi parents, Sundari brings a deeply embodied and ancestrally grounded lens to loss.

After seven years caregiving for her mother before losing her to breast cancer at 27, and later losing her father to brain cancer, Sundari wasn't just...

Before he passed, Estrella's father left her a message worth more than billions:

✨ "I hope a million angels look after you." ✨

Those seven words changed everything.

They carried her through grief. They inspired her to travel to over 50 countries. And they ultimately led her to co-found Last Farewells — a platform helping people leave their own meaningful messages for the ones they love, even after they're gone.

In this inspiring episode, Estrella Quiroz, self-proclaimed "life enthusiast" and death tech entrepreneur, opens up about the moment her father's passin...

In this deeply personal reflection, Nina Rodriguez shares her experience with the profound grief and loss of her only sibling, and the realization that the family tree may end with her.

This emotional healing journey is further explored through her contributions to Get Griefy Magazine, offering a space for shared understanding.

Nina Rodriguez shares a powerful reflection on redefining legacy beyond lineage, revealing how our influence, choices, and relationships create a ripple effect that endures long after we're gone.

She dives into the societal stories that tie worth to...

Grief and Light is proud to participate in Podcasthon 2026, the world's largest podcast charity initiative, joining podcasters across the globe to amplify the organizations doing work that the world needs to hear about. Learn more: podcasthon.org

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What happens when men are never given permission to grieve?

In this episode, we hear from Daniel Ratchford, founder and president of Broreavement, and Quaheem Brooks, two men who are building something life-affirming: a brotherhood for men and boys of color navigating the turbulent, o...

PODCASTHON SPECIAL EPISODE Part of the world's largest charity podcast event — raising awareness for causes that matter

What does harm reduction actually look like, and how is it saving lives right now?

In this impactful episode, we explore the realities of addiction, harm reduction, and the ongoing fight to save lives. Thomas Guerra of F-Fent.org shares personal insights, dispels common myths, and highlights the vital work being done in communities everywhere, from music festivals to college campuses and beyond.

This conversation explores:

In this heartfelt episode, Nina Rodriguez interviews Amanda Nicol, a museum-quality jewelry designer and survivor of intimate partner violence (IPV), about transforming trauma into empowerment through her one-of-a-kind jewelry. Amanda shares her journey of resilience, community support, and the importance of storytelling and purpose in her work.

Jewelry One of a KIND is a Miami-based jewelry house creating one-of-a-kind pieces designed to be collected. Small batch. Handcrafted. Built to last.

Amanda’s jewelry and story highlight how art, purpose, and community can foster healing and resilience after trauma. Explore he...

What does it mean to carry a mother’s love forward after she’s gone? How do you parent a child with life-threatening food allergies?

In this heartfelt conversation, Nina Rodriguez sits down with Chelsea Ohlemiller, author of Now That She’s Gone: A Daughter’s Reflections on Loss, Love & a Mother’s Legacy, to explore the enduring impact of mother loss.

Chelsea shares how the sudden death of her mother in 2017 reshaped her identity, her marriage, and her parenting, and how writing became both a lifeline and a way to honor her mom’s enco...

What if the mess you've been avoiding is actually the doorway?

In this episode, host Nina Rodriguez sits down with transformational creativity and grief coach Susie Stonefield to explore the powerful connection between grief and creative expression. 

Susie believes creativity isn't a luxury or a talent reserved for the few. It's a birthright. And in times of loss and healing, it can become one of our most powerful companions.

Together, they explore how art-making without rules, outcomes, or expectations creates space for emotional healing and truth to surface. They m...

February 17, 2026 marks a rare cosmic convergence that happens once every 60 years.  

In this solo episode, we explore the intersection of grief and the Year of the Fire Horse, a powerful metaphor for riding the uncontrollable momentum of loss while finding your center in the chaos.

We're standing at the threshold of three major energetic events: the Chinese Lunar New Year (Year of the Fire Horse), an Aquarius Solar Eclipse, and a rare planetary alignment that amplifies our ability to speak the truths of grief.

Whether you believe in astrology or n...