P.S. We Expire with Morgan Motsinger

Morgan Motsinger
  • 5.0 (24)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Weekly

The title says it all: we expire. And yet most of us live like we have infinite time to become who we want to be, to have the conversations that matter, to stop shrinking ourselves. I'm Morgan. I'm a mother, entrepreneur, and someone who is doing the messy work of rebuilding after loss. On this podcast, I talk with people about the things we usually avoid: death, grief, caregiving, self-trust, and the courage it takes to live deliberately instead of on autopilot. These aren't conversations about becoming perfect. They're about becoming real.

  1. 2d ago

    Ep102: What does it mean to be human in the age of AI with Niki Weiss, Digital Thanatologist

    This month, someone who helped build AI said out loud what a lot of people had been quietly afraid of: this could be lights out for humanity. When I sat down with Niki Weiss, a digital thanatologist, I asked her to take me down the rabbit hole. Niki calls AI a tsunami, not a tool. She sees it as infrastructure, as world-altering as electricity, except electricity can't train itself, make purchases, or decide where the power goes. So we kept coming back to one question: if a machine can imitate our language, preserve our stories, and even keep a digital version of us running after we die, what's left that's ours? Her answer is the one I keep circling too: mortality. Dying may be the most human thing we'll ever do. For a machine, death means being shut down. For us, it's the edge that gives everything meaning. We talk about: *Why Niki thinks the question isn't whether AI becomes more human, but whether we become less human by handing over our judgment, intimacy, agency, and responsibility *Grief bots and digital twins, and how I would feel about having one of Anni *What I actually believe happens after we die *Anni's radical presence, and why I think presence might be the closest thing we have to an antidote for the fear of death *What we cling to as proof that we're still here *AI moving into healthcare decisions, and what happens when the data it's fed is shaped by cost and profit *If gene-editing tech like CRISPR could have changed my daughter's life, would I have used it? And why no technology can make us immune to suffering *The practical side: we're the first generation to die with more digital assets than physical ones. Do you know where your passwords are? Is your ex still the beneficiary on your life insurance? This conversation holds a lot of possibility and a lot of fear, and I don't think we have to resolve either one. Some of this is out of our control. But how we love, what we leave behind, and how ready we are to be present for the people we'll someday leave are still ours to choose. If you're a head-in-the-sand person right now, that's okay. Just come up for air every once in a while, look around, and then go put your hands in the literal sand with someone you love. About Niki Niki Weiss has a background that spans healthcare, enterprise technology, project management, data governance, and risk. She built a category-defining practice at the intersection of life planning, AI, and human dignity. She treats end-of-life readiness the way she'd treat any critical project: broken into clear, actionable steps rather than left as a taboo. That thinking became ENDevo and My Final Playbook. It's a legacy-readiness platform organized around the four domains people must plan for: legal, financial, physical, and digital. It pairs AI-powered tools with compassionate human guidance. Their motto is Live fully, die ready. I went through the platform myself. It surfaced questions I'd never thought to ask, and it pushed my husband and me to start work on updating our estate planning. Connect with Niki Website: nikiweiss.com Email: niki@finalplaybook.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nikiweiss Instagram: @endevo_digitallegacy Mentioned in this episode *The Hidden Spring by Mark Solms *Geoffrey Hinton on AI risk *Medical Aid in Dying (legal in Oregon) *Legacy Contacts (iPhone) and Inactive Account Manager (Google) Listen to more at morganmotsinger.com/podcast Find me on Instagram @morgan_motsinger and at substack.com/@morganmotsinger

  2. Sep 25

    Ep101: Medical Trauma, Reactive Attachment, and the Thrive Framework with Hilary "HARTT" Thompson

    In this episode, I sit down with Hilary "HARTT" Thompson, CTSS — mom to a pediatric heart transplant recipient, founder of a support community of nearly 3,000 heart transplant families, and creator of the Thrive Framework — for a conversation that gutted me open in the best way. Hilary's daughter Shiloh has survived four open-heart surgeries, a transplant at age two, seven bouts of necrotizing enterocolitis, and years of procedures that — however necessary — left a mark no discharge paperwork warned her about: reactive attachment disorder. We talk about what happens when a baby's earliest experience of "being cared for" is also pain, and what it took, over more than a decade, to rebuild trust between a mother and a daughter neither of them chose to almost lose. We move through the neuroscience of trauma and the amygdala's "worst-case-scenario Bob," the Work of Byron Katie and the four questions that let you interrogate a painful thought instead of just believing it, why the opposite of resentment isn't forgiveness but compassion, and how Hilary built the Thrive Framework — Triage, Humanize, Restore, Include, Visualize, Evaluate — to give physicians and caregivers a shared language for treating the whole child, not just the diagnosis. We also talk honestly about the particular kind of guilt that shows up when you learn, years later, that something you did to save your child's life also hurt them; about the myth that kids are simply "resilient"; and about the small, sacred moments — the swing set, the trust rebuilt one blood draw at a time — that make up what Hilary calls a "sweet season." If you're parenting a medically complex child, have sat in a hospital room making decisions with incomplete information, or have ever felt like you don't have a choice in how brutal your life feels — this one is for you. Topics we cover: Perspective as a practiced skill, not a fixed traitNeuroplasticity and re-training the brain after decades of traumaThe Work of Byron Katie — four questions to question a painful thoughtWhy compassion, not forgiveness, is the real end point of resentmentMedical trauma as an unrecognized adverse childhood experienceReactive attachment disorder in medically complex kids — how common it actually is, and why it's almost never diagnosedThe Thrive Framework: Triage, Humanize, Restore, Include, Visualize, EvaluateGiving kids agency during painful proceduresSelf-care as "taking care of the pilot," not an indulgenceHilary's book, Dear Mama in the Darkness Resources mentioned: The Work of Byron KatieListen by Patti WipflerDear Mama in the Darkness by Hilary "HARTT" Thompson Find Hilary: Instagram: @hartt.2.hartt Facebook: /hilarywithhartt LinkedIn: /hilarywithhartt http://theharttcollaborative.com Find Morgan: https://www.instagram.com/morgan_motsinger/ https://www.morganmotsinger.com/ https://www.morganmotsinger.com/speaking

  3. Sep 18

    Ep100: Celebrating 100 with a personal episode and Q&A

    I hit 100 episodes (even though it took longer than I expected!). I started this podcast with the goal of making it to seven, then fifty, so I'm calling it a win. This one's just me, catching you up on what's taken place since episode one in January of 2023, plus a handful of questions from a Q&A I ran on social media. What's changed: I finished my BS in Psychology with a minor in Neuroscience from Portland State, graduating summa cum laude — and got to give the commencement speech, which centered on why person-to-person connection matters more, not less, in the age of AI. My senior thesis became a novel survey of 58 respondents on the mental health gaps facing parents of medically complex or terminally ill kids — work that grew directly out of my own experience with Annie's diagnosis. I'm still at OHSU, working alongside the psychologist who mentored me through that thesis, and we're pursuing publication in a peer-reviewed journal. I'm also about to start as a research assistant in a lab studying psychedelics for veterans — treatment-resistant depression, methamphetamine use disorder, and PTSD. I've become a blogger in residence for Courageous Parents Network, publishing monthly on my experience parenting a child with a rare disease. And I co-led a grief retreat in California with my friend Stefanie — not just grief from death, but the grief of life not turning out the way you thought it would. The big one: Nembry. I started a company. Nembry has two arms — a for-profit side building training and curriculum for clinicians who want to actually understand what it's like to parent a medically complex or terminally ill child, and a nonprofit side that will hire therapists trained through that curriculum to provide free mental health care to those families. It's the most aligned I've ever felt with something I've built, and it feels like a direct continuation of Annie's life and my life as her mom. What's next for the podcast: no fixed schedule, same format — I like the flexibility too much to niche down, even knowing that's not great marketing advice. Q&A: What are you reading? Mind Fixers by Anne HarringtonThe Wrong Order of Things by Michelle HillsEight Million Ways to Happy by Hiroko YodaWriting Down the Bones by Natalie GoldbergThe Grieving Body by Dr. Mary-Frances O'Connor What do you really love to do? Napping in sunlight. Riding my motorcycle on slow back roads, fully geared up, only when it's not raining. How have your priorities shifted in the last 5–10 years? Prioritizing relationships, my own mental health, and self-exploration — including leaving organized religion, which changed less about who I am than it changed how the people close to me relate to that. Where does your confidence come from? Honestly — I think it's more stubbornness than confidence. A lot of it was forged by parenting Annie in public, learning I could tolerate the discomfort of things going sideways. And the belief that embarrassment is considerably less expensive than regret. You can find me in all the usual places: https://www.morganmotsinger.com/ https://substack.com/@morganmotsinger https://www.instagram.com/morgan_motsinger/ hello@morganmotsinger.com

  4. Sep 11

    Ep99: The Questions Kids Actually Ask About Dying with Dr. Korie Leigh

    Elisabeth Kübler-Ross never wanted us to call them stages of grief, but the five stages got loose in the world anyway, and fifty years later we're still measuring our grief against a model that was never meant to be linear — and was not even built from data about grief. This week I'm talking with Dr. Korie Leigh — thanatologist, clinician, author, and director of one of only two graduate programs in thanatology in the country — about what the actual research says grief is: not a checklist, not a destination, but a bio-psycho-social-relational-spiritual process we learn to live inside of, forever. About Dr. Korie LeighDr. Korie Leigh is an internationally recognized thanatologist, certified child life specialist, grief counselor, author, educator, and speaker who helps children, families, professionals, and communities navigate grief, loss, and life's hardest changes. With more than 20 years of experience working with children and families, Dr. Leigh is known for making difficult conversations about grief approachable, practical, and deeply human. She is the author of three books with Free Spirit Publishing: What Does Grief Feel Like?, It Won't Ever Be the Same: A Teen's Guide to Grief and Grieving, and When Everything Changes: Parenting Through Loss and Grief. Her work has received a New Mexico Book Award and has been recognized by national media and recommended reading lists. Dr. Leigh is an Associate Professor and Program Director of the M.S. in Thanatology at Marian University and Director of Psychosocial Services for Hero's Path Palliative Care. She has also served as an advisor to Sesame Workshop and presents nationally and internationally on childhood bereavement, pediatric palliative care, grief literacy, expressive arts, and building grief-informed communities. Through her books, speaking, training, consultation, and clinical work, Dr. Leigh offers creative and meaningful ways to live alongside loss, support one another through difficult experiences, and build organizations and communities where grief has a place to belong. Her books: What Does Grief Feel Like? — for children under 8It Won't Ever Be the Same: A Teen's Guide to Grief and GrievingWhen Everything Changes: Parenting Through Loss and GriefWhy Are the Numbers All Jumbled? — coming soon!Books & Research MentionedThe Grieving Brain and The Grieving Body — Mary-Frances O'ConnorThe Private Lives of Dying Children — Myra Bluebond-LangerInstrumental and Intuitive grief theory — Kenneth Doka and Terry MartinLinksDr. Korie Leigh's website: https://www.korieleighphd.com/Follow Dr. Korie Leigh on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drkorieleigh/ Follow Morgan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/morgan_motsingerRead more from Morgan on her blog: https://www.morganmotsinger.com/blog

  5. May 1

    Ep98: Stop calling it nagging (and what to call it instead) with Laura Danger

    If you've ever been called a nag — or swallowed what you really needed because you were afraid of being called one — this episode is for you. Laura Danger is the educator and domestic equity expert behind @thatdarnchat, the account that brought terms like "weaponized incompetence" and "the nag paradox" into everyday conversation. She's also the author of No More Mediocre and co-host of the Time to Lean podcast. And she is exactly as warm, sharp, and no-nonsense as you'd hope. We started where a lot of us are right now: in the thick of May-sember — that chaos spiral of spring schedules, summer childcare math, Spirit Week emails on Sunday night, and the dawning realization that someone has to figure all of this out. (Spoiler: you know who.) From there, we got into it: Weaponized incompetence — what it actually is. It's not just "men doing a bad job." It's a pattern. And the defining factor isn't the quality of the work — it's the accountability (or lack thereof) that follows. Laura breaks down what separates weaponized incompetence from plain old incompetence, ADHD, or just different standards. The nag paradox. One person manages everything. The other takes direction. And somehow, the person managing everything ends up as the villain of the story. Laura explains how this dynamic starts, why it snowballs, and why "just make me a list" is not the solution you think it is. Domestic equity vs. equality. 50/50 is a setup to fail. What actually works is negotiation, flexibility, and both people being invested in the collective — not scorekeeping. Why we don't say what we really need. And what happens when we finally do. Laura shares the internal shift that changed everything in her own relationship — and it's not what you'd expect. The Gottman Four Horsemen. Criticism, defensiveness, contempt, stonewalling. How they show up in the mental load dynamic and what to do when you're already in it. What "emotional labor" actually means. Hint: it's not the same as the mental load. Laura points us to Rose Hackman's book Emotional Labor for the clearest definition she's found — and it's going to reframe some things for you. What makes her hopeful. Even in the sh*tstorm of 2026. (Her answer involves a neighborhood gardening club. I'm not kidding. It's perfect.) Books mentioned: No More Mediocre by Laura Danger Fair Play by Eve Rodsky Emotional Labor by Rose Hackman Drained by Leah Rubiner Honest Motherhood by Libby Ward Me, Myself, And Us by Brain Little Find Laura: Instagram: @thatdarnchat No More Mediocre — available wherever books are sold Time to Lean podcast

  6. Apr 25

    Ep97: You're not failing, you're unsupported with Madeline Cheney (The Rare Life)

    There's a difference between a hard life and an unsupported one. This episode is about that difference. Madeline Cheney is the founder of The Rare Life — a nonprofit podcast and online community for parents of medically complex kids — and she is exactly the kind of person you want in your corner when the weight of it all starts to feel like a personal failing. Spoiler: it's not. It's a systems problem. And she's got receipts. We started, somehow, with yard work. And weeds. And the sneaky way that the things we keep avoiding cost us way more energy than actually doing them — a truth that hits different when you're a parent whose to-do list includes therapy schedules, IEP meetings, feeding protocols, and approximately ten thousand things the professionals think you should be doing right now. From there we got into the real stuff: The mental load that never clocks out. Even when you're sleeping. Even when you're at work. Even when someone else is technically watching your child. The hypervigilance is always running in the background — and it takes a toll on your body in ways that science is only beginning to catch up to. Grief that doesn't look like grief. It's universal among parents in this community, and it doesn't mean you love your child any less. In fact, it usually means the opposite. Madeline talks about why naming it — without the shame — is the fastest path through it. Why partners process so differently. And why the parent doing the daily caregiving almost always gets to acceptance first. (Hint: you can't ignore reality when it's in your face every single day.) The foster care system plot twist. Madeline is in the middle of becoming a licensed foster family, and what she discovered about the support infrastructure built into that system — the mentor families, the care teams, the respite care, the training — will make you simultaneously inspired and furious on behalf of every disability parent who never got any of that. Acceptance isn't what you think it is. It's not peace. It's not "I wouldn't change a thing." It's just — this is my life, and I'm not fighting that anymore. That's it. That's enough. And we talked about meaning-making. Not the toxic positivity version where everything happens for a reason. The real version, where you go through something hard and you become someone different on the other side — and that matters, even if nobody ever sees it. Madeline is the founder of The Rare Life, a nonprofit online community and podcast for parents of medically complex individuals. She started The Rare Life in 2020 when her medically complex son Kimball was 2, inspired by the isolation she had experienced to that point. Madeline lives in SLC with her husband Juston, 10 year old daughter Wendy and now 7 year old son Kimball. She enjoys vegging out to old murder mystery tv shows, her current favorite being Murder She Wrote, and connecting with loved ones outside. Find Madeline online: https://therarelife.org/ https://www.instagram.com/the_rare_life

  7. Mar 28

    Ep96: Religion is not a dirty word with Liz Bucar

    I've been thinking a lot about religion lately — not in the way I was taught to as a kid, where there was one truth and you either had it or you didn't. More like... what if religion is actually one of the most human things we do? What if it's been a resource hiding in plain sight, and we've been too burned, too skeptical, or too cool to look at it clearly? That's exactly what I got to dig into with my guest, Liz Bucar — professor, prize-winning author, and one of the most genuinely interesting people I've talked to about this stuff. Liz has spent her career studying how religion actually works in real human lives, and she does it without the dogma or the defensiveness. She's not trying to convert you. She's trying to help you see clearly. We covered a lot of ground. We talked about what religion even is — and why that question is harder (and more interesting) than it sounds. We talked about religious literacy, and why not understanding the traditions around us leaves us less equipped to navigate the world. We talked about storytelling as one of the most powerful tools religion has ever had, and how the best stories are the ones that hold complexity without collapsing it into a tidy moral. And then we zoomed out. We talked about what's happening right now — this urgent, liminal, kind of terrifying moment in society — and why religion, for all its baggage, might actually be one of our best tools for collective change. Not because it has all the answers, but because it's been practicing community, ritual, and meaning-making longer than any other institution we have. Here's what I keep coming back to: individualism is exhausting. The antidote — the actual, research-backed, spiritually-ancient antidote — is community. Belonging to something bigger than yourself. Religion, whatever form that takes for you, has always known that. This one is worth a slow listen. Where you can find Liz: https://www.lizbucar.com/ Preorder Liz's new book Beyond Wellness: https://www.lizbucar.com/books Follow Liz on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lizbucar Liz's substack: https://lizbucar.substack.com/ Where you can find Morgan: https://www.morganmotsinger.com/ Follow Morgan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/morgan_motsinger/ Morgan's substack: https://morganmotsinger.substack.com/ LIZ BUCAR is a religious ethicist and professor of religion at Northeastern University, as well as a certified intenSati and Kripalu yoga instructor. Her popular writing has appeared in The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, Teen Vogue, and The Wall Street Journal, and she is the author of four books, including the award-winning Stealing My Religion and Pious Fashion. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

  8. Mar 17

    Ep95: Keeping our kids from swallowing the Red Pill with Dr. Brendan K. Hartman

    In this episode, Morgan converses with Dr. Brendan K. Hartman about the complex layers of masculinity, emotional regulation, and the societal messages shaping boys and men today. This discussion offers practical insights into emotional awareness, gender norms, and community involvement to foster healthier identities and relationships. Key Topics: The importance of talking openly with children about online risks and emotional challenges.The intersection of masculinity, femininity, biology, and social construction.The influence of media, ideology (red pill, black pill), and external narratives on boys' perceptions of themselves.Strategies for creating safe spaces for boys to express vulnerability and curiosity.The influence of community, family, and mentorship in shaping healthy masculinity.The significance of the window of tolerance, co-regulation, and emotional self-awareness.Reframing masculinity beyond dominance and control—toward connection and aliveness.Practical approaches for parents, educators, and mentors to support emotional resilience and authentic identity.engagement Bio: Dr. Brendan K. Hartman is a sociologist and consultant specializing in the social-emotional development and wellbeing of boys and men—and how this connects to the wellbeing of all genders. He works with schools, organizations, and families across North America, equipping educators, parents, and leaders to more effectively support boys and young men and navigate gender-related challenges with confidence and care. Brendan holds a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Edinburgh and is a visiting scholar at the University of the Fraser Valley. Resources & Links: Morgan's Resource VaultDr. Brendan Hartman's work – connecting gender, wellness, and community Connect with Dr. Brendan Hartman: InstagramTikTokLinkedIn

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About

The title says it all: we expire. And yet most of us live like we have infinite time to become who we want to be, to have the conversations that matter, to stop shrinking ourselves. I'm Morgan. I'm a mother, entrepreneur, and someone who is doing the messy work of rebuilding after loss. On this podcast, I talk with people about the things we usually avoid: death, grief, caregiving, self-trust, and the courage it takes to live deliberately instead of on autopilot. These aren't conversations about becoming perfect. They're about becoming real.

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