This week, we talk with Marisa Renee Lee, a former official in the Obama White House and a regular contributor to Glamour, Vogue and The Atlantic. She discusses at length the struggles she endured after her mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, then battled and succumbed to breast cancer when Marisa was just 25 years old. She set that emotional journey between the covers of her book, GRIEF IS LOVE: LIVING WITH LOSS.
Rabbi Steve Leder has officiated more than 1,000 funeral services, but the realization that he would die himself didn’t truly hit him until his dad passed away. That revelation has led him to find the beauty in what remains — to live his life with nobler, more intentional purpose.
We are in the middle of a special summer podcast series at BEYOND THE CRUCIBLE we’re calling Lights, Cameras, Crucibles: What Our Favorite Movie Heroes Can Teach Us About Overcoming Setbacks and Failure. But as an article a few years ago in Psychology Today pointed out, there are surprising ways fictional heroes improve our lives. And in addition to unpacking the lessons these characters can teach us about moving beyond setbacks and failures, we also wanted to offer the truths discussed in that article.
It is fair to ask what gain Kayla Stoecklein experienced from the loss of her husband, Andrew, to suicide in 2018. What good could possibly come from where she found herself after such a devastating tragedy? What beauty could be birthed from those terrible ashes? In our conversation with Kayla this week, she answers all those questions in ways that will inspire you as much as they surprise you.
In this second episode of our special fall series GAINING FROM LOSS, Schechterle takes us on the journey of how he received the emotional and physical scars he still carries – but also how he found hope and healing that underscores a critical truth: the power of the human spirit can never be underestimated or extinguished.
We kick off our fall series GAINING FROM LOSS with Shelley Klingerman’s story of grit in the face of grief after her brother, Greg, a 30-year veteran law enforcement officer, was shot to death in an ambush while leaving a government building – a senseless and evil act.
