Grief & Happiness

Emily Thiroux Threatt

Aloha! Welcome to the Grief and Happiness podcast.  My name is Emily Thiroux Threatt, and I am your host. I am the author of Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief, The Grief and Happiness Handbook, and creator of Grief and Happiness Cards: Gentle Support for Dealing with Grief and Finding Happiness  My purpose with the Grief and Happiness Podcast is to demonstrate to people who are dealing with grief and loss that they can grieve and be happy at the same time. The wide variety of guests address the myriad of issues that arise with loss and the spectrum of how grief and happiness relate. After a loved one dies, often people say they will never be happy again. By covering thought-provoking topics like creativity, compassion, community, purpose, inner peace, strength, coping, surrendering, and resilience with authors, speakers, coaches, and friends, listeners find inspiration and confidence guiding them on their grief journey. Each week the podcast showcases an interview with an inspiring guest and an additional brief podcast with a message of support and comfort. Anyone dealing with grief or loss can come to the Grief and Happiness podcast to find comfort, support, love, and happiness. You are welcome here to learn ways to live your best life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 4d ago

    The Grief You Never Talk About May Already Be Shaping Your Children

    If you've wondered how unspoken grief shapes those you love, episode 464 of Grief and Happiness is for you. Author Audrey Hyams Romoff, daughter of a child Auschwitz survivor, shares how her family's silence reached her daughter. A joint trip to Auschwitz broke it, showing how honesty and kindness can keep trauma from the next generation. In This Episode, You Will Learn: (00:53) Audrey's background and her memoir on four generations of women (01:21) Her mother's childhood in Auschwitz and the silence passed down to her daughter (09:22) How a trip to Auschwitz with her daughter changed their relationship (11:56) Why the crowds at Auschwitz gave mother and daughter opposite reactions (15:25) Writing a grief memoir without tying it up in a pretty bow (17:23) Why the circumstances of a death shape how grief lingers (19:44) How her mother and grandmother carried the same trauma so differently (32:30) Why "survivor" marks the start of a new battle, not the end (34:07) Small kindnesses and her Aunt Sheila's motto: just show up Audrey Hyams Romoff was born in Montreal to a mother who was one of the youngest children to survive Auschwitz, and grew up in a home that looked polished while that history played out within. In Toronto, she founded OverCat, a communications and influencer agency, consulting for brands such as Victoria's Secret and Estée Lauder and stars like Jennifer Lawrence. Cosmetics Magazine named her a top public relations executive, and she chaired communications for the Fashion Cares AIDS fundraiser. Her memoir, The Undertow of Grief: Navigating Intergenerational Trauma, follows the Holocaust's impact across four generations of women. In this episode, Audrey shows how unspoken trauma is passed down. She describes her mother's refusal to face her past and the loss of both parents in 2008, when her mother ended her life and her father died alongside her. After learning her daughter, Lindsay, had hidden her own grief to protect her, Audrey traveled with her to Auschwitz for PBS NewsHour on the 80th anniversary of its liberation. She explains why her mother rejected the word "survivor," why Audrey sees survival as the start of a new battle, and why her book offers no tidy ending. Grief and joy coexist, she says, but grief never leaves, and she closes with a case for small kindnesses and her Aunt Sheila's motto: just show up. Connect with Audrey Hyams Romoff: Website Instagram TikTok Facebook LinkedIn YouTube Book: Audrey Hyams Romoff - The Undertow of Grief: Navigating Intergenerational Trauma Let's Connect: Website LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter Pinterest The Grief and Happiness Alliance Book: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  2. Sep 22

    He Turns Every Tiara Sold Into a Princess Moment for a Child Battling Illness

    If you've ever wondered how one small idea could turn grief into a mission that helps hundreds of children, episode 462 of Grief and Happiness is for you. Guest Stephen Greengo turns a hospital memory of daughter Harper into Tiara4Harper.com, sending a tiara to a child at Children's Mercy Hospital for every one sold. Funded through his own concert security shifts, Stephen shows how one act of gratitude becomes a lasting legacy of joy. In This Episode, You Will Learn: (00:56) Stephen's background and gratitude behind the tiara business (02:21) Harper's hospital memory and the vibrating chair that shaped it all (04:55) Ten years after Harper's passing while still believing she's watching (06:08) The discovery behind it — 60,000 women search for tiaras monthly (07:32) How a tiara lets women feel like a princess, guilt-free (08:32) Growing the mission from 50 to 127 tiaras donated (10:43) Turning everyday encounters, like security shifts, into marketing (14:29) How listeners can get involved with Tiara4Harper Stephen Greengo is a Navy veteran and Kansas City dad whose daughter Harper was born on January 10, 2014, and passed away from Sandhoff disease, a rare genetic disorder, just eight days shy of her second birthday. Rather than let grief take over, Stephen turned that loss into a vow to keep Harper's light alive, and that vow became Tiara4Harper.com, a mission-driven tiara business built entirely around her memory. In this episode, Stephen focuses on the business itself: how a hospital memory of Harper finding joy in a simple vibrating chair, paired with his observation of how often women buy tiaras for everyday occasions, became the blueprint for a company where every tiara sold sends a matching one to a little girl at Children's Mercy Hospital. He speaks candidly about running the operation on his own, funding it through security shifts at concerts, partnering with union halls for bulk donations, and reaching 127 tiaras donated to date, all while working toward donating as many as possible by November 18, National Princess Day. Guided by his philosophy, "Lift Where You Stand," Stephen frames the business as both a way of honoring Harper and a model for turning grief into consistent, small acts of service. Connect with Stephen Greengo: Website Instagram TikTok Facebook Let's Connect:  Website LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter Pinterest The Grief and Happiness Alliance Book: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  3. Sep 15

    Why Your Loved Ones Aren't Sending You Dreams — A Medium Explains the Real Reason

    If you've ever wondered what tarot and ancient mourning rituals can teach us about grief, episode 460 of Grief and Happiness is for you. Psychic medium Jenna Matlin discusses her book, The Tarot Book of the Dead, born from helping clients hold unresolved loss—including the taboo "widow's fire" that can follow a partner's death. She compares global grieving traditions to the West's approach, showing how ritual can make grief sacred. In This Episode, You Will Learn: (01:06) Jenna Matlin's introduction — tarot reading, mediumship, and doula training (01:55) How tarot and mediumship help clients process unresolved grief (06:15) What Western culture gets wrong about holding space for someone else's pain (08:26) Emily's story of losing her husband Jacques — and the friends who stayed (14:00) Why some people receive spirit visits in dreams and others don't (18:04) The "At the Waterline" tarot spread for grief and mediumship readings (23:06) "Widow's fire": the instinctual desire for aliveness after loss (27:06) How death became the unexpected inspiration behind The Tarot Book of the Dead Jenna Matlin is a professional tarot reader and psychic medium based in Durham, North Carolina, with a practice serving clients worldwide since 2012 and a tarot career dating to 1990. She is the author of multiple books, most recently The Tarot Book of the Dead, published by Weiser Books, drawing on her anthropology background and cross-cultural research into death and mourning. Her honors include a COVR Silver Award and Best Spiritual Guru distinction from Philadelphia Magazine, and she teaches at Omega Institute while mentoring aspiring readers. In this episode, Jenna brings that lens to grief, exploring it through tarot, mediumship, and ritual. Drawing on her anthropology background, she contrasts the West's administrative approach to death with the communal, presence-based mourning of indigenous cultures, arguing Western culture rarely teaches people to sit with pain without trying to fix it. She describes tools she uses with grieving clients, including a tarot spread called "At the Waterline," and speaks to disenfranchised grief among those excluded from funerals. She also introduces "widow's fire," the surge of desire that can follow a partner's death, framing it as sacred rather than shameful, and closes by weaving in myth to argue grief deserves more ritual and community. Connect with Jenna Matlin: Website Instagram TikTok YouTube Get Jenna’s books! Let's Connect:  Website LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter Pinterest The Grief and Happiness Alliance Book: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  4. Sep 8

    Lost, Breathless, in Despair: How Grace Trail Founder Turned One Word Into a Five-Question Lifeline

    If you've ever wondered how one word, scrawled on a beach stone, could turn into a national movement, episode 456 of Grief and Happiness is for you. Grace Trail founder Anne Barry Jolles shares how five simple questions pulled her out of grief and later helped her cope while her son served in combat overseas. She shows how the right questions, asked at the right moment, can turn despair into a path forward. In This Episode, You Will Learn: (00:49) Anne introduces Grace Trail and its five-question framework (01:51) The kitchen floor breakdown that gave birth to the five questions (04:30) Walking the questions with her husband turned grief into connection (07:00) Her son's deployment to Afghanistan and the birth of the first physical trail (13:03) From beach stones to boulders: what a Grace Trail looks like, and its growth into schools, hospitals, and workplaces (19:43) Grace Trail's international reach and the search for a partner to help it scale (22:08) Trail kits, meaningful gifts, and the power of writing your answers down (25:13) Letting nature guide the process — and Anne's closing thoughts Anne Barry Jolles is an occupational therapist and certified professional coach who founded Grace Trail®, a national resilience movement built around five guiding questions: gratitude, release, accept, challenge, and embrace. She created the process in 2000 while grieving the loss of both her parents, and has since coached more than 2,000 clients and delivered the TEDx talk "Cracking the Grace Code." Her work has earned her ICF New England's Life Coach of the Year award and international recognition, including a feature in Marie Claire Hungary. In this episode, Anne shares the origin story behind Grace Trail, tracing how the five questions emerged intuitively from the word "grace" during that period of grief, and how the practice deepened after her son returned from combat in Afghanistan in 2012. She describes Grace Trail's growth from hand-lettered stones on a Massachusetts trail to more than a dozen licensed installations nationwide, spanning universities, hospitals, schools, and a farm in Texas, with an upcoming VA site honoring her son's service. She also discusses the trail kits she designed for those without trail access, the simple rules that keep it safe — privacy, confidentiality, judgment-free listening — and her hope to expand Grace Trail nationwide and eventually worldwide. Connect with Anne Barry Jolles: Website Facebook LinkedIn Instagram X YouTube Get Anne’s books! Let's Connect:  Website LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter Pinterest The Grief and Happiness Alliance Book: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

4.9
out of 5
25 Ratings

About

Aloha! Welcome to the Grief and Happiness podcast.  My name is Emily Thiroux Threatt, and I am your host. I am the author of Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief, The Grief and Happiness Handbook, and creator of Grief and Happiness Cards: Gentle Support for Dealing with Grief and Finding Happiness  My purpose with the Grief and Happiness Podcast is to demonstrate to people who are dealing with grief and loss that they can grieve and be happy at the same time. The wide variety of guests address the myriad of issues that arise with loss and the spectrum of how grief and happiness relate. After a loved one dies, often people say they will never be happy again. By covering thought-provoking topics like creativity, compassion, community, purpose, inner peace, strength, coping, surrendering, and resilience with authors, speakers, coaches, and friends, listeners find inspiration and confidence guiding them on their grief journey. Each week the podcast showcases an interview with an inspiring guest and an additional brief podcast with a message of support and comfort. Anyone dealing with grief or loss can come to the Grief and Happiness podcast to find comfort, support, love, and happiness. You are welcome here to learn ways to live your best life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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