Podcast
Grief'd Up
Hosted by Rebecca Feinglos · EN
Welcome to Grief’d Up, the podcast where we discuss intricate and tough conversations around all aspects of grief and loss. Join us each week as your host, Rebecca Feinglos, shares powerful stories, engages with experts, and challenges the misconceptions about loss that keep us silent. You don’t have to grieve alone; it’s time to get real about grief.
11episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
What Sports Halftime Stories Get Wrong About Loss
Feb 2600:12:56Tap to summarize"Grief isn't a game. There are no winners, just people trying to survive."In this solo deep-dive episode of Grief'd Up, host Rebecca Feinglos steps back from the personal interview format and does something she's been wanting to do for a while: pull apart a story about grief that's being told out in the world. Rebecca has spent years watching the sports world handle grief in a very specific way. The halftime human interest segment. The music goes quiet, the lighting dims, a black-and-white photo fades in, and a player's loss becomes the emotional centerpiece of the broadcast. The narrative is always the same: tragedy strikes, the team rallies, the player perseveres, and by the time the game cuts back in for the second half, we're in tears. Rebecca calls this grief porn, the polished, emotionally manipulative version of loss that tells us if we channel our sadness into something productive, we can outrun the pain altogether. To examine it, she turns to a real story, one that belongs to her friend of over 20 years, Evan Fjeld. In 2010, Evan was playing basketball at the University of Vermont when his mother, Susan, died of cancer just days before the America East Championship game. Vermont won, punching their ticket to the NCAA tournament, and suddenly Evan's story was everywhere. Articles, interviews, and emotional close-ups of his father in the stands. What the cameras didn't capture was what Evan actually felt. Fifteen years later, he told Rebecca the truth: he wasn't playing for his mom, and he wasn't channeling his grief into triumph. Rebecca also speaks with Dr. Natasha Trujillo, a counseling and sports psychologist in Denver who works with grieving athletes, about the very real fallout of these narratives, including the impossible pressure placed Join Rebecca for this honest, unscripted look at the grief stories we tell, the myths they reinforce, and what it looks like when someone tells the truth about loss because, as she reminds us, grief doesn't end when the buzzer sounds. _____________________________________ Grieve Leave Links: Website: GrieveLeave.com Instagram: @GrieveLeave Facebook: Grieve Leave Email: hello@grieveleave.com Newsletter: Sign up at GrieveLeave.com for grief support resource
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Rage, Gentleness, and the Space Between: Collective Grief with Rabbi Hannah Bender
Feb 1900:46:07Tap to summarize"It is not upon you to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it." In this episode of Grief'd Up, host Rebecca Feinglos welcomes Rabbi Hannah Bender, assistant rabbi at Judea Reform Congregation in Durham, NC, queer non-binary rabbi, and someone Rebecca describes as one of the wisest people in her life. What starts as a conversation about Jewish mourning traditions quickly becomes something much bigger: a raw, searching dialogue about how to hold collective grief in a moment that feels, as Rebecca puts it, completely out of control. Rabbi Bender was ordained in 2024 through Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. A self-described Midwesterner-at-heart, they've lived in Jerusalem, facilitated spaces for trans and non-binary Jewish youth, and have made Durham their home, where they've become a beloved presence both in the congregation and in Rebecca's life. Together, Rebecca and Rabbi Bender dig into the ways Judaism has always been built around grief, like the seven days of Shiva, the 30 days of Shloshim, and the tradition that the first meal after a burial must be brought by your community, not prepared by you. But the conversation doesn't stay in ritual. It gets personal. Rebecca opens up about the rage she's been carrying, grief over what's happening politically at home, grief over the conflict in Israel and Gaza, grief over what feels like the slow unraveling of truths she used to count on. And she asks, honestly: Is there room for rage inside of gentleness? Rabbi Bender's answer is one you'll want to sit with. They distinguish between being nice and being kind and make a case that kindness can live inside our anger, inside a protest, inside the discomfort of staying in community even when it's hard. This one is for everyone who is grieving something bigger than themselves right now and doesn't know where to put it. _____________________________________ Grieve Leave Links: Website: GrieveLeave.com Instagram: @GrieveLeave Facebook: Grieve Leave Email: hello@grieveleave.com Newsletter: Sign up at GrieveLeave.com for grief support resource
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No One Brings a Lasagna When a Marriage Dies: Divorce Grief with Oona Metz
Feb 500:55:03Tap to summarize"No one brings a lasagna when a marriage dies."In this episode of Grief'd Up, host Rebecca Feinglos welcomes Oona Metz, a therapist with over 30 years of experience who specializes in divorce support and runs weekly divorce support groups for women in the greater Boston area. Oona grew up as the "unpaid therapist" in her own family, shaped in part by her parents' divorce when she was six. But nothing prepared her for navigating the intersection of divorce grief and death grief simultaneously. She opens up about how yoga became an unexpected lifeline, revealing her strength when she thought her emotional brokenness meant her body would be broken too. And Oona shares her personal journey through divorce at 41, losing her best friend Judith to breast cancer just three weeks later, all while raising a two-year-old. Rebecca and Oona explore the "hidden losses" of divorce that go unrecognized, like time with your kids, in-laws who became family, friendships that evaporate, and identity as a married person. They discuss why divorce carries more stigma than death (it's somehow "your fault"), why nonprofits serving divorced women can't get grants unless they add widows to their mission, and the painful reality that society has no rituals for supporting people through divorce. As the author of Unhitched: The Essential Divorce Guide for Women, Oona breaks down her five phases of divorce grief: Heartbreak, Roller Coaster, Mending, Letting Go, and Moving On, emphasizing these aren't linear stages but a framework offering hope that the pain does shift. Join Rebecca and Oona as they make the case for treating divorce more like death when it comes to grief support because both involve loss, transition, identity shifts, and joining a club you never wanted to join, but that has the most incredible members. PLUS: Join Oona and Rebecca IRL at our Anti-Valentine's Day Sad Hour! Roses are Red, We're Feeling Blue: An Anti-Valentine's Day Sad Hour Friday, February 13 | 5-7 pm EST | Nanas Rockwood Private Dining Room, Durham, NC Valentine's Day season can be…a lot. If you're freshly heartbroken, newly divorced, stuck in a waiting period, long-since divorced, "fine" but not really, or just tired of pretending this doesn't count as grief, this one's for you. Your $35 ticket includes one drink ticket and hors d'oeuvres by renowned Durham Chef Matt Kelly. Get tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/roses-are-red-were-feeling-blue-an-anti-valentines-day-sad-hour-tickets-1981441077602?aff=oddtdtcreatorQuestions? hello@grieveleave.com _____________________________________ Grieve Leave Links: Website: GrieveLeave.com Instagram: @GrieveLeave Facebook: Grieve Leave Email: hello@grieveleave.com Newsletter: Sign up at GrieveLeave.com for grief support resource
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Perfectionism, Shame, and Sudden Loss: A Therapist's Grief Journey with Megan Bruneau
Jan 2900:58:49Tap to summarize"I think 10-year-old Megan had trouble really believing in herself... I didn't feel really hopeful or optimistic about adulthood, honestly." In this episode of Grief'd Up, host Rebecca Feinglos welcomes Megan Bruneau, therapist, executive coach, Forbes contributor, and host of The Failure Factor podcast. Megan opens up about losing her mother, Barb, suddenly in April 2024, just three months before her wedding, while simultaneously navigating a cross-country move to Nashville and beginning IVF treatments. What makes this conversation particularly powerful is hearing from someone who has spent nearly two decades helping others navigate pain, now facing her own acute grief. Megan shares how the protective emotions she carried while her mother was alive, like resentment and anxiety stemming from Barb's struggles with mental health and substance use, suddenly dissolved after her death, leaving only overwhelming love and guilt. She describes the last moments with her mother, feeding her before a seizure, and the five days in the hospital that followed. Rebecca and Megan explore the concept of "intentional avoidance" in grief, challenging the therapeutic pressure to "feel everything all the time." Megan reveals how wedding planning became a necessary distraction, allowing her to put grief "on ice" until she was ready to face it. They discuss perfectionism as emotional avoidance, chronic shame versus acute shame, and why Megan believes therapy isn't always the first intervention for grief. The conversation touches on complicated parent relationships, the process of integrating a loved one's wounded and healthy parts, and how both Rebecca and Megan share the unique Canadian-American dual citizenship perspective. Megan offers hard-won wisdom about trusting your body to only give you as much pain as you can handle, and finding community in unexpected places. Join Rebecca and Megan for this conversation about navigating inevitable pain without creating unnecessary suffering. _____________________________________ Grieve Leave Links: Website: GrieveLeave.com Instagram: @GrieveLeave Facebook: Grieve Leave Email: hello@grieveleave.com Newsletter: Sign up at GrieveLeave.com for grief support resource
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The Hidden Grief Costs of Immigration Policy with Dr. Kristina Fullerton Rico
Jan 2200:52:30Tap to summarize"COVID forced the rest of the world to experience what immigrants had already been living." In this episode of Grief'd Up, host Rebecca Feinglos welcomes Dr. Kristina Fullerton Rico, a sociologist whose research reveals the grief penalties built into U.S. policy. Through years of bi-national fieldwork, Kristina exposes how immigration policies force millions of people to choose between earning money to support their families and being physically present when those families need them most. Kristina created the Golden Cage Framework to explain this impossible bind. While undocumented immigrants can work hard in the U.S., policies trap them here, unable to return home without risking everything. Most people don't realize that half of the undocumented population has been in the U.S. for 20 years or more. These are established community members, our neighbors, many of whom are watching their parents age from thousands of miles away. Rebecca and Kristina dig into what makes this grief different from other kinds of loss. It's anticipatory grief that lasts for years. Immigrants can see their loved ones aging, but have no way to address it. It's mourning without closure, because without the ability to see a body, attend a funeral, or gather with community, grief becomes what one participant called "a chapter with no ending." Kristina shares how people develop creative strategies: working 75-hour weeks to send money for medical care and funerals, sending their U.S.-born children to funerals as proxies, holding phones up at gravesides so parents can participate virtually. But these can never replace the ability to hold someone's hand, to hear stories about the person you've lost, to be physically present when it matters most. This episode also examines what happens as undocumented immigrants age out of the workforce. After decades of paying taxes and working in the U.S., they discover they have zero access to social security, Medicare, or housing assistance. The choice becomes impossible: stay without support, or return home and say goodbye to your family. Kristina challenges us to question why we live in an era of unprecedented global mobility for some, while others face lifetime separation from dying parents, and whether birthplace should determine someone's destiny. Rebecca and Kristina’s conversation is timely, and eye-opening. Connect with Kristina Fullerton Rico: Website: https://fullertonrico.github.io/ Bluesky: @fullertonrico _____________________________________ Grieve Leave Links: Website: GrieveLeave.com Instagram: @GrieveLeave Facebook: Grieve Leave Email: hello@grieveleave.com Newsletter: Sign up at GrieveLeave.com for grief support resource
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Immigration and Grief: How Cultural Identity Shapes Loss with Ana Marcela Rodríguez
Dec 1100:52:06Tap to summarize“We are all worthy of grieving, we are all deserving of grieving, that grieving is part of life and that it is okay to grieve."In this episode of Grief'd Up, host Rebecca Feinglos welcomes Ana Marcela Rodríguez, a licensed marriage and family therapist who's transforming mental health care for the Hispanic community in North Texas. Ana Marcela shares how early losses shaped her calling to therapy and why culturally competent care matters when we're at our most vulnerable. Ana Marcela's grief journey began at 11 when her grandmother Ana Maria, died unexpectedly in a car accident. Just two years later, her parents' divorce brought another wave of loss, but it also led her father to do something revolutionary for their culture and time: he took her to therapy. That experience changed everything, sparking Ana Marcela's passion for psychology and setting her on a path to become the therapist she once needed. When Ana Marcela moved to the U.S. and sought therapy herself, she couldn't find a provider who truly understood her Mexican culture. That gap inspired her to build Therapy Works Counseling. Rebecca and Ana Marcela dive deep into the layered grief of immigration, like losing not just your country, but your food, language, routines, and sometimes decades without seeing family. Ana Marcela powerfully reminds us that grief shows up in every unmet expectation, every transition, every moment we disappoint others to stay true to ourselves. She shares her own journey balancing Mexican family expectations with being a working mother and business owner, choosing authenticity over approval. This conversation explores how grief follows immigrants across borders and through generations, why seeking community defeats the isolation that grief creates, and how choosing yourself, even when you fail, leads to your most authentic life. Connect with Ana Marcela: Therapy Works Counseling: https://therapyworkscounseling.com Instagram: @therapyworksana _____________________________________ Grieve Leave Links: Website: GrieveLeave.com Instagram: @GrieveLeave Facebook: Grieve Leave Email: hello@grieveleave.com Newsletter: Sign up at GrieveLeave.com for grief support resource
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Grief, Player Care, and the Hidden Costs of Elite Sports with Hugo Scheckter
Dec 400:55:00Tap to summarize "My first thought was, this is really bad timing because we had a difficult away game." In this episode of Grief'd Up, host Rebecca Feinglos welcomes Hugo Scheckter, founder of the Player Care Group, for a conversation that moves between professional football clubs and deeply personal loss. Hugo shares his journey from coaching to pioneering player welfare in Premier League soccer, and how losing his sister Ila in 2019 changed his relationship with work, grief, and what truly matters. Hugo opens up about that first devastating phone call and his unexpected reaction: worrying about inconveniencing his employer. This moment sparked a reckoning about the all-consuming nature of elite sports and led him to eventually leave his role at West Ham to start his own company. Five years later, he's still grappling with that initial response, even as he's built a career helping organizations better support their athletes during life's hardest moments. Rebecca and Hugo dive into the uncomfortable phenomenon that Hugo calls "grief farming" in sports media: the exploitation of athletes' personal tragedies for clicks and engagement. From coaches being asked about dead children after championship wins, to fans wearing deceased family members' names on jerseys, they explore where the line falls between genuine support and performative sadness. Hugo argues that grief belongs to the griever, and media coverage should follow their lead rather than chase viral moments. The conversation also reveals the hidden pressures facing professional athletes: players who skip their children's births to avoid losing their starting position, goalkeepers whose time off for bereavement depends on the quality of their replacement, and the constant fear that being "out" means being forgotten. Hugo explains how elite sports create a reality where normal grief processes become nearly impossible, with consequences that may surface only years later when careers end and priorities shift. Join Rebecca and Hugo as they challenge assumptions about grief in the public eye, examine what athletes sacrifice beyond their physical health, and consider how we can all show up better for people navigating loss, whether they're millionaires or not. Link to Shane Battier episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/griefd-up/id1759459228?i=1000672497190 _____________________________________ Grieve Leave Links: Website: GrieveLeave.com Instagram: @GrieveLeave Facebook: Grieve Leave Email: hello@grieveleave.com Newsletter: Sign up at GrieveLeave.com for grief support resource
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How Families Are Spoken To After a Death Can Shape Their Grief Forever – with Julia Samuel
Nov 2600:48:28Tap to summarize"When somebody dies, the single thing that enables us to survive is the love and support of others." In this episode of Grief'd Up, host Rebecca Feinglos welcomes Julia Samuel, one of the world's most influential voices in grief support. Julia is a psychotherapist with over 30 years of experience, founder patron of Child Bereavement UK, and author of Grief Works, This Too Shall Pass, and Every Family Has a Story. She's also created the Grief Works app and co-hosts the Therapy Works podcast with her daughters. Julia opens up about growing up in a family where loss was everywhere but never discussed. Her mother Pauline lost her brother in World War II, her sister, and her father by age 25, yet none of this was ever talked about. When Pauline finally spoke about her brother's death 40 years later, it was as if it had happened yesterday—completely unprocessed trauma. At 29, Julia walked into her first bereavement support visit and knew she'd found her calling. She went on to spend 25 years at St. Mary's Hospital supporting families when babies and children die, becoming the first person to hold that role. Rebecca and Julia explore how healthcare systems often fail grieving families. Julia shares what compassionate death support should look like: healthcare practitioners should know the person's name, read their notes, listen first, and remember that families will replay your words for the rest of their lives. The window between diagnosis and death is tiny; healthcare providers must create space for acts of love and help families avoid regrets. The conversation turns to COVID-era losses and the devastating impact of not being able to properly mourn. Join Rebecca and Julia as they challenge how we talk about death in families and healthcare systems, offer hope to those who missed traditional mourning during COVID, explore the art of listening, the most essential tool in supporting the grieving, and hear Rebecca’s special story about Princess Diana and her mother.We're honored to offer Grief'd Up listeners an exclusive 10% discount on the Grief Works app. Download it today and use our special promo code GWGL10. Resources mentioned in this episode: Julia's talk on Eros and Thanatos with Esther Perel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=g4LrfXqC_zc _____________________________________ Grieve Leave Links: Website: GrieveLeave.com Instagram: @GrieveLeave Facebook: Grieve Leave Email: hello@grieveleave.com Newsletter: Sign up at GrieveLeave.com for grief support resource
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Processing Grief Through Art: Chanelle Jefferson on The Grief Project
Nov 2000:58:23Tap to summarize "I think all of our healing starts in learning to find spaces that we can safely speak about our stories." In this episode of Grief'd Up, host Rebecca Feinglos welcomes Chanelle Jefferson, a contemporary artist, who's revolutionizing how we process grief through her stunning visual art. Chanelle shares her journey from childhood trauma to creating The Grief Project: an initiative that channels people's grief stories into beautiful paintings using blind contour methods and chalk on canvas. Growing up in rural Nova Scotia, witnessing domestic abuse, Chanelle didn't recognize her own grief until later, when she arrived at university in Montreal at age 20. The Grief Project began organically when she painted in a friend's garden after that friend's sister died. The sister had lovingly tended that land, and Chanelle felt compelled to capture it on canvas. Chanelle decided to do more with this idea last year, and decided to invite people to share grief stories with her so she could paint them. When she opened submissions expecting just a few stories, 150 people responded— all seeking a new way to honor their grief. Throughout the conversation, Chanelle emphasizes that all forms of grief deserve space. She shares how people often apologize for their stories, feeling they're "not important enough" compared to others who've experienced death. The episode includes a beautiful moment where Rebecca and Chanelle practice blind contour drawing together, the meditation technique Chanelle uses for all her paintings, where you draw without looking at the paper as a way to truly see someone. Join Rebecca and Chanelle as they discuss building intuition, the power of being seen and heard in grief, and how vulnerability itself can be transformative. Plus, hear about Maggie, the dog Chanelle found on Kijiji, who saved her life by getting her outside and teaching her to rest. Special Opportunity for the Grief'd Up Community: Chanelle is partnering with Grief'd Up to bring The Grief Project directly to our community. If you'd like to submit your grief story for consideration, visit the submission form linked below. Chanelle and Rebecca will read every single story! Learn more about The Grief Project collaboration: https://www.chanellejefferson.com/thegriefproject-grieveleave Submit your grief story: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScifYM6llrRgXUozLQZ7lAnXuytOl1xY3JLEBSL2tXWOWZuuw/viewform?usp=header Links & Resources: Follow Chanelle on Instagram: @chanellejefferson_ Follow Grieve Leave on Instagram: @grieveleave Find Grief'd Up on TikTok and Facebook _____________________________________ Grieve Leave Links: Website: GrieveLeave.com Instagram: @GrieveLeave Facebook: Grieve Leave Email: hello@grieveleave.com Newsletter: Sign up at GrieveLeave.com for grief support resource
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Navigating Grief During the Holidays - What Are You Trying to Prove?
Nov 1300:28:32Tap to summarize"What would it look like if this year we were all just a little more open and honest about our grief over the holidays? And what if we stopped trying to prove how great things are or how perfect our holiday season looks and let our guards down a little bit?"In this solo episode of Grief'd Up, host Rebecca Feinglos explores the pressure to perform perfection during the holidays when you're grieving. She shares the story of opening her mailbox to find something odd: a holiday card she sent four years ago, returned to sender. The card shows Rebecca and her dogs in matching Hanukkah pajamas, and on the back, she wrote the truth about her year: leaving a destructive relationship, starting Grieve Leave, cherishing time with her Nana before she died. It was the first time Rebecca stopped using the holidays to prove everything was fine. Before that 2021 card, Rebecca spent years crying before holiday photo shoots with her ex-husband, whispering unkind words to each other while the camera clicked, then celebrating how great the pictures turned out. She used holiday cards and social media posts as proof points that her marriage was working when it absolutely wasn't. Proving she was okay mattered more than actually feeling okay. Rebecca explores what can happen when we choose to stop performing during the holidays. She talks about holding joy and grief at the same time, choosing who gets the real answer when they ask how you're doing, and dealing with the 1 AM social media spiral when everyone else's holidays look perfect. Join Rebecca as she challenges the idea that we need to hide our grief during the holidays and offers permission to show up authentically. _____________________________________ Grieve Leave Links: Website: GrieveLeave.com Instagram: @GrieveLeave Facebook: Grieve Leave Email: hello@grieveleave.com Newsletter: Sign up at GrieveLeave.com for grief support resource
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