The Adapted Life, Finding Next

Julie Hasselberger
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Relationships
  • Updated Semiweekly

I’m Julie Hasselberger. For 26 years, I was the full-time caregiver for my beloved son Daniel, whose life was marked by profound disability and extraordinary beauty. This podcast began as a way to support other parents navigating the complex, often isolating world of special needs caregiving. But life changed — heartbreakingly and irrevocably — when my son passed away. Now, The Adapted Life, Finding Next  is a space for truth-telling, tenderness, and transformation. It’s about what comes after the role that once defined you is gone. It’s about grief, relational trauma, resilience, and the raw, ongoing search for next — for purpose, healing, and connection. If you’re facing a season of reckoning, rebuilding, or rediscovery, I invite you to walk with me. You are not alone. This is the adapted life… and together, we’ll find what comes next.

  1. 2d ago

    Protect your energy, boundaries and self-love

    Send me a Text Message Season 5 • Episode 43 Protecting Your Energy The Adapted Life: Finding Next In this episode of The Adapted Life: Finding Next, Julie explores the quiet but necessary practice of protecting your energy — especially after loss, caregiving, burnout, betrayal, trauma, or seasons of deep emotional exhaustion. As part of the Season 5 theme, Tending to the Energy, this conversation reflects on what happens when we become more aware of where our energy is going… and realize that not everything deserves full access to us. Julie shares gentle reflections about emotional labor, boundaries, overstimulation, compassion fatigue, and the pressure many sensitive people feel to constantly give, explain, fix, or carry. This episode offers permission to step back without guilt, to honor your nervous system, and to recognize that boundaries are not punishment — they are stewardship. Through calming encouragement and thoughtful insight, listeners are invited to consider: • What restores versus drains them • The hidden cost of constant giving • Why protecting your peace is an act of healing • How grief and trauma can change our capacity• The importance of creating space for recovery, creativity, and presence This episode is a reminder that protecting your energy is not selfish — it is part of tending the light within you. You, are not the weather, you dear friends, are the lighthouse.  Take a breath, settle in, and join Julie for a gentle conversation about honoring your limits, reclaiming your peace, and learning that you are allowed to protect what is sacred in you. Music by Epidemic Sound written, recorded, and created by Julie Hasselberger Support the show https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanielsSpecialArt?ref=seller-platform-mcnav https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg

    39 min

  2. May 11

    You Were Trying to Love, guided meditation

    Send me a Text Message This is a guided meditation for anyone who is going through betrayal trauma or deep grief.  Or both.  You are not the storm.  You are the lighthouse my friends.  This is a healing meditation, and a poem of encouragement.  I Love you.  Please let me know if you like this meditation Support the show https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanielsSpecialArt?ref=seller-platform-mcnav https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg

    12 min

  3. May 11

    Tending to your energy

    Send me a Text Message In this episode, we talk about what we do once we are experiencing awareness of our energy.  Not fixing it, but just being aware of gentle ways to tend to that energy.  WHAT TENDING IS Tending to your energy is not about fixing yourself. It’s not about getting it right. It’s about noticing… and responding… with care. Moment by moment.   Gentle self care, can sometimes lessen the impact that your energy may have on you.   Join me as I continue to follow the intuitive path through deep and tragic grief towards where life is pulling me next.  And maybe you can resonate with this journey.   I am so grateful that you are here.  Support the show https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanielsSpecialArt?ref=seller-platform-mcnav https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg

    22 min

  4. Apr 13

    Calling your energy back, a guided meditation

    Send me a Text Message In this guided meditation, we just take a few minutes to focus on where our energy has been sent today, and peacefully call some it back to us.  Thank you for listening!  Support the show https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanielsSpecialArt?ref=seller-platform-mcnav https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg

    8 min

  5. Apr 13

    Where does your energy go?

    Send me a Text Message EPISODE DESCRIPTION Have you ever reached the end of the day and wondered why you feel so exhausted… even when you didn’t “do” that much? In this episode, we explore a deeper understanding of energy—not just physical, but emotional, mental, and relational. Because often, it’s not about how much you’re doing… it’s aboutwhat you’re carrying. We gently look at the invisible ways your energy gets pulled—and begin to shift toward awareness. This is not about fixing everything. It’s about noticing. And from that place, beginning to understand what truly drains you… and what restores you. In upcoming episodes we will work on not only awareness of your energy, but how to tend to it.  Support the show https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanielsSpecialArt?ref=seller-platform-mcnav https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg

    13 min

  6. Mar 20

    The Power of a Spark

    Send me a Text Message Episode Description In this opening episode of the new season of The Adapted Life: Finding Next, I reflect on the quiet but powerful ways that connection can begin to illuminate even the darkest seasons of life. Through personal storytelling, gentle reflection, I explore the idea that even the smallest spark — a moment of understanding, a shared story, or a simple human connection— can begin to move us toward healing. This season focuses on tending to the energy of our lives: noticing what restores us, what drains us, and how turning inward can help guide us toward what comes next.Keywords • grief healing • trauma recovery • mindfulness and meditation • life transitions • emotional healing • healing through storytelling • finding purpose after loss Support the show https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanielsSpecialArt?ref=seller-platform-mcnav https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg

    24 min

  7. Season 5, Episode 37 Trailer

    New Season Introduction

    Send me a Text Message This is Julie Hasselberger.  Introducing Season 5 (not 60 of my podcast  The adapted life, Finding Next  This season, is about tending to the energy of being somewhere in the middle of healing from devastating loss and trauma, and the place of finding what comes next.  A gentle stepping forward into coming home to your true self, and managing the chaos of a reality that no longer applies.  Support the show https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanielsSpecialArt?ref=seller-platform-mcnav https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg

    4 min

  8. 11/10/2025

    Coming Home to Present, as a tool

    Send me a Text Message Hello,  In this episode I speak tenderly about how meditation has transformed my journey with grief and pain.  This is my first ever guided meditation, so I am sure it won't be perfect.   I have layered grief, and deep trauma.  It has significantly caused me so much difficulty in finding my way again.  This is why I added on "finding next", because this journey is just that, a journey.  I hope this meditation brings you some calm.  I love visualizing the forest full of giant pines that we saw in the San Jacinto mountains in California where my daughter recently got married. I'm trying to live each day, with the goal of existing and creating from my heart.  It is about all my broken heart can spare.  But I am here, dear ones.   I am here because I know I am not alone in my pain.   Maybe we can step side by side and heal trauma together.  Maybe even one little moment is enough.   Please feel free to leave me some feedback, you can find me also on you tube, instagram, Facebook, and here.   I have been hoping to learn how to be a meditation guide, which is what I am working on now.  I thought...  why not just try.  All my love,  Julie  Support the show https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanielsSpecialArt?ref=seller-platform-mcnav https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg

    13 min
See All (44)

Trailer

About

I’m Julie Hasselberger. For 26 years, I was the full-time caregiver for my beloved son Daniel, whose life was marked by profound disability and extraordinary beauty. This podcast began as a way to support other parents navigating the complex, often isolating world of special needs caregiving. But life changed — heartbreakingly and irrevocably — when my son passed away. Now, The Adapted Life, Finding Next  is a space for truth-telling, tenderness, and transformation. It’s about what comes after the role that once defined you is gone. It’s about grief, relational trauma, resilience, and the raw, ongoing search for next — for purpose, healing, and connection. If you’re facing a season of reckoning, rebuilding, or rediscovery, I invite you to walk with me. You are not alone. This is the adapted life… and together, we’ll find what comes next.

Information

  • Creator
    Julie Hasselberger
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    44
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Adapted Life, Finding Next
  • Show Website
    The Adapted Life, Finding Next