Dying Out Loud Podcast

Kristopher Saim
  • 5.0 (7)
  • Mental Health
  • Updated Weekly

Dying Out Loud is a platform hosting vital conversations about living authentically and confronting the realities of mortality. We feature guests sharing personal stories, insights, and experiences regarding death, dying, and the impact of terminal illness. By engaging in candid discussions, we aim to demystify the topic of death, encouraging listeners to embrace life more fully while inspiring meaningful dialogue about end-of-life issues. Our website serves as your hub for accessing episodes, guest details, and finding additional resources related to these explored themes. 

  1. To My Gs: The Healing Power of Showing Up

    Apr 15

    To My Gs: The Healing Power of Showing Up

    Kris Saim shares a letter he originally planned to hold onto until he entered hospice care. It is a letter of boundless gratitude written to his "Gs,” his community of nearly 800 colleagues at Gale. Instead of saving his final words for the end, Kris is choosing to speak them out loud today, while the people who earned them can actually hear them.   Kris opens up about the first six months following his stage four cancer diagnosis, a period of profound darkness and depression where he wasn't sure he could go on. He shares the unexpected lifeline that pulled him back: returning to work.   In this episode, Kris explores: The Medicine of Meaning: Why work wasn't a distraction, but a human-centered reason to keep showing up and contributing. The Power of Presence: How the Gale community created psychological safety by treating him as a full human being, holding space for him on his hardest days. The Illusion of "Later": Why we need to stop saving our deepest gratitude for goodbyes and start saying the true thing today. The Unsent Letter: Kris reads his heartfelt tribute to the colleagues who gave him the best, most meaningful years of his professional life. This episode is a testament to what happens when a workplace becomes a true community. It leaves us with one simple, life-changing ask: think of someone who might be carrying something heavy, reach out, and tell them you see them.

    40 min
  2. Breaking the Silence: Survival, Shame, and the Courage to Tell the Truth

    Apr 7

    Breaking the Silence: Survival, Shame, and the Courage to Tell the Truth

    Welcome to Dying Out Loud. Today’s episode is unlike any we have ever recorded. There is no guest, no interview, and no holding back. Today, host Kris Saim reads a letter to his younger self—the boy who carried a secret so heavy he felt like the world had agreed to look away. For the first time in a public space, Kris is telling the whole truth about who he is and where he came from. In this profoundly vulnerable episode, Kris breaks a silence he has kept for nearly his entire life. He shares his story of surviving childhood sexual abuse from the age of four, the terror of growing up in a church that told him his identity was a sin, and the exhausting performance of living an unauthentic life until he finally came out at 31 years old. This episode explores: The Weight of Silence: How the secrets we keep to survive eventually become the walls that isolate us. Reframing Resilience: Why resilience isn't the absence of damage, but the stubborn decision to keep going anyway. The Danger of "Moving On": Why forward motion without acknowledgement is just running—and why your younger self deserves to be seen. The Unsent Letter: Kris shares his raw, heartbreaking, and ultimately empowering letter to the boy who bent, but did not break. This episode is for anyone who has ever felt like the truest version of themselves had to stay hidden. You are not broken. You are not damned. And you are not alone. (Please Note: This episode contains frank discussions of childhood sexual abuse, religious trauma, and body dysmorphia. Please prioritize your well-being and listen with care.)

    53 min
  3. To The Friend Who Left: The Letter I Never Sent

    Apr 1

    To The Friend Who Left: The Letter I Never Sent

    In this profound solo episode, Kris Saim reads a letter to someone who was once his closest friend. She was there for the best chapters of his life—from meeting at a swim-up bar in Cancun to wandering the streets of Paris and Amsterdam—but was absent when he received his terminal cancer diagnosis. For years, Kris held onto the pain of that quiet drift. It wasn't until he learned she had lost her father to the exact same disease shortly after they stopped speaking that the silence finally made a heartbreaking kind of sense. Sitting in a hospital infusion chair with nowhere to hide, Kris finally asked himself the only question that matters: What is holding onto this costing me?.

    42 min
  4. The 10 Questions You're Afraid to Ask Me

    Mar 10

    The 10 Questions You're Afraid to Ask Me

    Today’s episode is a little different. There is no guest and no co-host—just Kris and a microphone, pulling back the curtain on what it really looks like to live and eventually die with stage four colon cancer. We are trained our whole lives to avoid talking about death, treating it like a taboo subject. We talk about the weather, we talk about test results, but we rarely touch on the real fears sitting in the silence between us. In this episode, Kris takes 10 of the most common "forbidden" questions people want to ask someone who is dying, but don't.

    26 min

  5. Mar 3

    The Sanctuary of the Stage: Reconnecting with Mrs. McCormally

    Every once in a lifetime, if you are lucky, you encounter a teacher who doesn't just teach a subject—they teach you who you are. For Kris, that teacher was Kathie McCormally. Entering a tight-knit rural high school as a freshman trying to figure himself out, Kris found a safe haven in Mrs. McCormally's drama class. In this profoundly moving episode, Kris sits down with his favorite teacher to say the "thank you" he has held onto for over three decades. In this episode, Kris and Kathie explore: The Sanctuary of the Stage: How the drama classroom became a safe space for an outsider to find his voice, build confidence, and learn to exist authentically. Seeing the Unseen: How a great teacher can spot your potential and your true self long before you have the language to understand it yourself. A Legacy of Empathy: Kris shares how the lessons learned in Mrs. McCormally's class directly influenced his career, his parenting, and his recent company-wide recognition for how he shows up for others. The Letter: Grab a tissue as Kris reads a beautifully raw letter to Mrs. McCormally, thanking her for planting the seeds of authenticity that would bloom decades later. If there is a teacher who changed the trajectory of your life, let this episode be the catalyst that encourages you to reach out and tell them.

    29 min
  6. Born Out of Survival: A 30-Year Friendship with Jenne Schwinn

    Feb 24

    Born Out of Survival: A 30-Year Friendship with Jenne Schwinn

    Welcome back to Dying Out Loud Podcast. This week’s episode takes us on a journey back to the beginning of a 30-year friendship. Kris is joined by Jenne Schwinn to discuss the messy, traumatic, and ultimately beautiful reality of growing up together. Entering a small-town high school where all 34 other students had known each other since kindergarten, Kris and Jenne found themselves as the two ultimate outsiders. What started as a trauma bond to survive the daily drama of high school cliques quickly evolved into a zero-friction, lifelong connection. In this episode, Kris and Jenne explore: The Reality of Rural High Schools: Navigating the bullying and isolation of stepping into a school where everyone’s friend groups are already set in stone. Finding Safe Havens: From the sanctuary of drama class with Mrs. McCormick and Mrs. Thomas to memorable KU basketball games hunting down Scooter Berry's autograph. Healing Old Wounds: Jenne shares an incredible, serendipitous story about receiving an unexpected apology from her childhood bully years later. The Letters: Kris reads an emotional letter thanking Jenne for loving every version of him, and Jenne fights through tears to share her own profound gratitude for Kris’s strength, his battle with cancer, and his beautiful marriage to Anthony. This episode is a reminder that the greatest gift in life isn't the quantity of people you know, but the ones who met you when you were brand new and never stopped choosing you.

    37 min

  7. Feb 17

    The Creative Cocoon: Transforming Grief Through Art, Community, and Compassion with Jen Ripa

    In this tender and powerful episode of Dying Out Loud, host Kristopher Saim welcomes back his dear friend and grief coach, Jen Ripa, creator of Thrivologie and the "Creative Cocoon." Jen shares her profound personal journey of loss—first the death of her 16-year-old son, Oliver, to cancer, followed four years later by the passing of her husband of 25 years. Together, Kris and Jen explore how to move through the darkness of grief not by "fixing" it, but by holding it with compassion and using expressive arts to process what words often cannot.   Kris opens up about his own battle with Stage 4 cancer, sharing a raw realization about grieving the loss of his own future and the relationship he wishes he had more time to nurture. Together, they dismantle "grief hierarchies" and discuss how community and creativity can help us carry the weight of loss without being crushed by it.   In this episode, we discuss: The Origin of the Creative Cocoon: How Jen turned her personal survival tools—yoga, meditation, and art—into a safe harbor for others navigating loss. The 3 Signs of Healing: Jen breaks down the benchmarks of healing, including the moment you realize grief no longer "owns" you and the ability to remember your person with more love than pain. Breaking the Isolation: Why grief heals better in community and the danger of wearing the "I’m fine" mask. Art for Non-Artists: Why you don’t need to be a skilled painter or writer to use creativity as a tool for emotional release. Anticipatory Grief: Kris shares his vulnerable experience of grieving his own life and the "loss of a future" while still being present today. Quote of the Week: "We know our grief is healing when it no longer owns us... It’s not that the grief gets smaller, it’s that we build this big life around it." — Jen Ripa   Resources Mentioned: Guest Website: Thrivologie.com

    49 min

  8. Feb 10

    Loved Enough for a Lifetime: We Will Be Okay! (with Anthony Saim)

    In the Season 2 premiere, Kris shared a love letter to the man who saved him. In this deeply personal, unscripted follow-up, Anthony writes back. Caught completely by surprise, Kris listens as Anthony reads a letter that pieces his own heart back together. He reflects on the "gray" world he lived in before they met, isolated, depressed, and directionless during the height of the pandemic, and how Kris became a sudden "burst of color" that woke him up. But this episode is more than just a look back at their love story; it is a courageous look at the uncertain road ahead. Anthony directly addresses Kris’s deepest fear, leaving him and the children behind. With vulnerable honesty, he offers the ultimate reassurance: that he, Zoey, and Bailey will survive, not because the loss won't be hard, but because Kris has "loved us enough for a lifetime". Join us for a raw, tender moment of "Dying Out Loud," where we are reminded that home isn't a place, but a person. Let this episode be your sign to say the words you need to say today, so you never have to wonder if your loved ones know how deeply they are held.

    16 min
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5
out of 5
7 Ratings

About

Dying Out Loud is a platform hosting vital conversations about living authentically and confronting the realities of mortality. We feature guests sharing personal stories, insights, and experiences regarding death, dying, and the impact of terminal illness. By engaging in candid discussions, we aim to demystify the topic of death, encouraging listeners to embrace life more fully while inspiring meaningful dialogue about end-of-life issues. Our website serves as your hub for accessing episodes, guest details, and finding additional resources related to these explored themes. 

Information

  • Creator
    Kristopher Saim
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    33
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Dying Out Loud Podcast

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