The Adapted Life, Finding Next

Julie Hasselberger
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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. NOV 10

    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

  2. OCT 5

    Love in transition, healing from brokenness

    Send me a Text Message The Adapted Life Podcast, by Julie Hasselberger Season 4 Episode 35 "Love in transition."  Adapting in our brokenness.   Love is not static, it bends, breaks and mends across time.  The loss of child shatters a family, but love finds ways to carry them forward.  Growth in empathy, and emotional intelligence can reconnect partners even decades later.  Love is like "Kintsugi" The Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, the cracks remain, but they shine. Thought provoking questions are shared regarding our experience with adversity, loss, trauma, grief and how love in so many of our relationships is sometimes damaged and rebuilt. We lost our beloved Daniel on January 12, 2024.  Stay with me as I work through grief and finding purpose.  It is early days.  And very hard.  Music licensed by Epidemic sound and Premium Beat Support the show https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanielsSpecialArt?ref=seller-platform-mcnav https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg

    19 min

  3. OCT 2

    The Double Loss

    Send me a Text Message In this episode I want to take a gentle walk through discussing what happens when your caregiving world ends.   I offer a moment of calm meditation, as well as a journal prompt to think on at the end.  which is, " What truths have you faced when your role as a caregiver for your loved ended?"   The double loss refers to the loss of a loved one, coupled with the loss of dedicating your life to creating the world of caregiving.  Everything you had been doing ends.  It is a very confusing time, and it has left me completely lost and not sure of who I am now.  Support the show https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanielsSpecialArt?ref=seller-platform-mcnav https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg

    28 min

  4. JUL 30

    Reflecting on "going inward" in healing trauma

    Send me a Text Message Hi. My name is Julie Hasselberger.  I am going through some incredible grief and trauma healing.  My son passed away at 26 years old, and losing him left a hole in my heart.  Shortly after that, I experience some terrible relational trauma and felt myself in a spiral.   As I continue to seek what comes next for me at 59 years old, having everything change, I want to share the light and hope that is guiding me.  It is my goal to be of service in some way to others.  That being said, I hope you will listen to my stories and thoughts.  We are all on some level of self actualization, I think.   This is done, this podcast, out of my love for my son, for others, and for myself. This episode will cover why being able to stay in the present moment is helpful to our connection and healing.  I'll share some tools that I am using, to manage stress, adhd, cPtsd, complicated grief, dissociation and depression.  Yes, I have all of those.   What is our real "authentic" self.  How do we figure that out?  What is the benefit to our lives, from practicing mindfulness and being still? We hear alot about "be in the present moment" but what exactly does that mean? In all healing modalities that I have found myself in, there is an element of finding peace and growth, in the present moment.  Meditation has literally transformed my ability to know who I am on the inside. What are a few tools that can help dysregulation, and other trauma related symptoms?  I share a few of mine... Meditation . Gratitude work. Journaling.  Exercise.  Yoga.  Prayer. Being in nature.  Art work.  Music.  Caring for plants.  Being with animals.  Setting intentions.  Affirmations.  Vision boards  Goal Setting  Manifestation practices: abundance, financial wealth, health, family goals  I am a student of manifestation, and believe in it so strongly.  I wrap up the discussion of healing, with a chat about energy.  During my entire life I have always felt a deep desire to care and help other people.  I also seem to be able to sense and feel and see energy.  I have recently affirmed that I am an empath, and none of this really surprises me.  I have just been entangled with being a special needs caregiver for my son, 24/7 for 26 years.  Now that he has passed away, I am left just witnessing what has been around me this entire time.  Some of it, really not so great.  Some of it, maybe, lying dormant in a sense.  But understanding energy is new to me, and it is helping me heal myself.  Stress, fight or flight, ages us and makes us sick.  So why not, I say, try living a life from the heart space.  Affirm what you believe you are worth, and do not settle for the breadcrumbs.   I am definitely in the middle of personal crisis myself right now, and spend time lost in the pain.  Which I am learning is also perfectly ok.   It is perfectly ok to feel and be whatever and who ever you are.   When I do re emerge from periods of low times, I am right back into the practices of spirituality, stillness, creativity, focus, love, gratitude, developing healthy boundaries, and accepting what my intuition is guiding me towards.  This is what being human is.  Learning and being curious and accepting.  I am trying.   I am determined to lean into intuition and let it guide me, from the space of the very moment I am in. Also,  I feel my son’s Support the show https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanielsSpecialArt?ref=seller-platform-mcnav https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg

    39 min
  5. Finding Next

    JUN 7

    Finding Next

    Send me a Text Message The Adapted Life, Finding Next  Podcast  Season 4 Episode 32 I have been wandering around in a place called grief and trauma.  As I write this, I can share that I most definitely am not the same person I was before my son passed away on January 12, 2024.   For 26 years I loved and sacrificed for my son.  But there is so much more to my story that was going on at the same time.  Trauma, dissociation, depression, betrayal, confusion, and fear.    What do I do now?  Which way do I go?  Certainly not to my early career dreams, because that is not my timeline anymore.    Come along while I explore and learn how to take brave steps into the new version of me.  What do we do next, after loss, after the remaking has happened.  When Daniel passed away, I sat with my reality at age 58, that I had no idea who I was.  Or what to do next.     This episode is my evidence that I have a lot of purpose still to discover.  And that I am a woman independent of my story, but also empowered by my story.   For the time being I will call my podcast, The Adapted Life, Finding Next.  It will forever be a place of love and compassion for my Daniel.  For what he taught me about life.  And for other women who may just possibly be like I was.  Surviving and caring for someone else, shrinking themselves because who has time, swallowing trauma and living on bread crumbs, metaphorically.    I am so grateful, and inspired.  I am still hurt and grieving.  Could it be, that by dealing with some trauma, some other energy is now leaking out.   I just feel so many things, for myself, for others, and I love that my weird ness is not something to calm down, or quiet down, or shhh….   It is simply me.    So, I’m adapting and learning.  Seeking and still also hurting and full of pain.  But the direction has changed.  I took back my power by affirming that, no, that thing was not ok.   I am proud that I was a Mom and caregiver.  I am also seeking avenues for healing with my other children for what it has cost them.    Thank you for taking the time to listen and connect.   Keep working on getting closer to your inner light.  Support the show https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanielsSpecialArt?ref=seller-platform-mcnav https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg

    28 min

  6. 10/07/2024

    Grief leaves me strange and stuck. Grief is not linear either.

    Send me a Text Message 254 days ago, from the day I recorded this talk, my beautiful son Daniel passed away at the age of 26.   The journey I am on now, is really bizarre.  There is no linear progression as far as I am concerned.  Having been my son's full time care giver for his entire 26 years of life, made an indelible mark on my soul.  In the loss of my boy, and the beautiful life we had caring for him, I am mostly alone and sad.  Talk about your loss of purpose.  The struggle is real.     Sometimes I have hit days where I experience what I named "the stuck".  Where I completely lose all focus and nothing I try to do feels possible.  Like a numb dissociation.  So strange to be "just me" and not "me and Daniel".    The adapted life, is still the adapted life.  Adapting to loss of the son who fostered the reengineering of our entire life style and value system because he needed care 24/7.  And then, blip...  I stand in my home, listening to the sounds of the house.  So quiet.   Stuck in the unknowing.  Walk with me as I work through these days of grief.  I have found such comfort in connecting to people who also know the pain of tragic loss.  It remakes us into a new person.  A stranger when we look in a mirror.   That is very strange.   And the pain doesn't end.  You grieve your person, and you also grieve the loss of yourself.  That is where I am now.  Intuitively trying to navigate through a strange reality where I barely know myself now.  Please visit my art shop on ETSY.com called "Daniel's Special Art".  It is the shop we created with our collaborative art pieces.  And also is going to showcase the watercolors and other pieces that have been my way to channel my pain.  A story. A journey.  A life well lived.  A life lost.   The work of getting unstuck.  All of my heart to you,  Julie Hasselberger  Support the show https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanielsSpecialArt?ref=seller-platform-mcnav https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg

    37 min

  7. 08/27/2024

    Even Though I Grieve ...

    Send me a Text Message Even though I Grieve  Even though I grieve I can smile at your photo Even though I cry  I can feel grateful  Even though I am broken I can limp along today Even though I miss you I can create new memories now Even though you were always here I know that you are gone Even though my house is quiet I can still feel, and hear you Even though I grieve you son My love spans all time and space. I will always be your Mom.  You will always be my Daniel.  Even though I grieve and hurt  I am healed by memories of you.  Dear listeners and friends,   This is the idea behind this episode .... I AM 213 DAYS INTO THIS GRIEF....   So, I say to myself, each day.  “Wake up.  Breathe. Be grateful. Check in with yourself. What should I do next?”   Here I am.  Back in the comfort of my own words and hoping that somehow, I can find others who are learning to live with loss, and grief.    Are you there?   How can I help?  How can we help each other?   And I stop, make myself a coffee from my Nespresso machine, take the dog out, and hug my husband.   Then I wonder if I am having attention deficit because I forgot what I originally intended to do before I started making my coffee.    Ever have that happen to you?  OK.  Keep going Julie.  BREATHE!!  Grief is like a getting a new skin.  A transformation into a new human being whose heart has been broken beyond repair.  The pain just becomes part of everything.  By osmosis grief enters every cell of your physical human existence and forms a new person.    It is this new you, that supports how you cope.  It is the new way you interpret the world.  It is you transformed in how you exist in relationships.  As I have taken minute by minute, stepping along with this new " me " in my life after Daniel, figuring out what to do now has been really hard.  I feel like a tree with no trunk and just a lot of branches floating in the wind.  Nothing is grounded.  Nothing is landing.   But here I am, and this is now episode 30 of a podcast project that I had hoped would help people who are caregivers, that has turned into "People who are caregivers whose person died".    Please let me know if there is anything I say that connects with you, or make suggestions to help me.   I am so grateful to be here now.  And I hope you are too!!!   Much Love,  Julie A. Hasselberger  Support the show https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanielsSpecialArt?ref=seller-platform-mcnav https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg

    26 min

  8. 06/11/2024

    Looking for the light

    Send me a Text Message The Adapted Life Podcast  Season 3  Episode 29  4 months of grieving.  This is a checking in, of sorts.  Before I begin, I would like to reach out and let you know that if you are also grieving, and that this resonates with you, please let me know.   Especially if you once had an overly full life of caregiving for someone who is now gone and you feel lost.   Or just that you feel lost.   On the other side, having lost my son and experiencing this thing called grief, I’ve found myself in a crazy storm of adapting.  Of surviving.  Of figuring out just what the heck to do.  I am surrounded by blessings, but also by endless triggers that remind me of what life was like caring for Daniel.  Most days I truly feel like I am losing touch with sanity.  I still dissociate often.  And this is where I am going through the motions, but do not feel like I am actually in my body, more like I am floating outside of it not connected to anything.  I share a list of some of the things I've been doing. I GOT THE NUMBERS WRONG IN THE RECORDING.  PLEASE FORGIVE ME, FOCUS DOES NOT COME EASY THESE DAYS! Trying.  Trying to find light when it feels so dark.   I talk often around here, about a vision that I had of Daniel…. In my vision, or dream, not sure, I saw his face and he was asking me if I could feel the light.  “Can you feel the light Mom?”  It was so real …. I woke up startled.  So I focus on light.  Light in the day. Light in the dark.  Light.   Here is a poem I wrote about light.  The kind of light I imagine that shines from Heaven. Light The simple act of visualizing Brought me to a brighter light Glimmering. Radiant, white almost Streaking in from the Spring morning When I woke I knew the sun was out Walking the dogs I was warm Yet after my space of meditation During which my pain released its tears My eyes opened to a different light So shiny and strong it was so That I took a picture of the window  Through which is was coming The morning was no different  Than other mornings I saw How could it be so much brighter now Pulsating and casting white radiance Then a message came to my tired heart And I lay my hands on its beating The light was not from the outside  It was coming straight from me.  May 7, 2024 Missing my Daniel every second. My YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg Facebook https://www.facebook.com/juliehasselbergeryoutube/ opportunities please email :  juliehasselberger@gmail.com Support the show https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanielsSpecialArt?ref=seller-platform-mcnav https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg

    28 min
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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 - 2025
  • Episodes
    37
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 The Adapted Life, Finding Next
  • Show Website
    The Adapted Life, Finding Next