Hi everyone and welcome to Untethered: Healing the pain from a sudden death. I am Dr. Jennifer Levin, and I specialize in traumatic death and helping individuals through the struggles, pain, trauma, and chaos of an unexpected death.
today I’m joined by Jana DeCristofaro, Advocacy and Education Manager at Dougy Center, the National Grief Center for Children and Families. For more than two decades, Jana has facilitated peer grief support groups, developed resources and trainings, and hosted the widely recognized grief podcast, Grief Out Loud.
In our conversation, Jana shares how she first found her way into grief work through the Dougy Center’s unique peer support model, and how that approach continues to shape the way she holds space for grieving children, teens, and adults. We also talk about her experience creating and hosting Grief Out Loud, what she’s learned from over 300 interviews, and the themes that surface again and again in the stories of grief she helps tell.
Jana also reflects on the personal side of this work: what it’s like to carry the stories of so many grieving individuals, how her own losses especially the death of her dog has reshaped the way she relates to her guests, and why she believes in offering “permission slips” rather than advice to those living with grief.
Jennifer Levin
Hi, Jana, thank you so much for joining us today. And why don't you start us off and tell us a little bit about your about yourself.
Jana DeCristofaro
Thanks for inviting me on, Jennifer. This might be the hardest question of the whole interview, right? Like, tell us a little bit about yourself. Like, what am I today? Who am I today? Let's see, personally, I live in Portland, Oregon. I am originally an east coaster, so with me comes some sarcasm that sometimes doesn't always land well on the West Coast, and I'm an only child. And what else about me? I love to ride my bike everywhere as much as I can.
Jennifer Levin
Is it an E bike?
Jana DeCristofaro
Well, for years I rode an analog bike. I bike commuted with an analog bike for about 25 years, and then I sold out and got an electric bike. And thought, Why have I been suffering for all of these years? Hills no matter, no longer matter. Headwinds no longer matter. So I go back and forth still between the analog and the electric bike, and I am the advocacy and education manager at Dougy Center, National Grief Center for Children and Families, and I've been in that organization. I've been with the organization for 23 years in various roles.
Jennifer Levin
Okay, what first inspired you to get into this field of grief and loss, and how did you actually wind up or land at the Dougy center?
Jana DeCristofaro
I apologize to anyone who has heard me tell the story many times over. I'll try to keep it short this time, it was very much accidental. I went to graduate school, Master’s of Social Work, with this idea that I was going to do therapy, even though I didn't know what that meant. Like outpatient therapy is what I was going to do. And then I had two very challenging practicum placements for myself, one working in a day treatment facility for adolescents, and another one doing outpatient mental health treatment therapy with college students. And I don't know how I got through graduate school, it was like one sustained panic attack for two years, and I graduated, and I thought, I don't want to work with people. I'm terrible at this. This is way too much pressure. So I started doing research. And that was fine. It was just me and the computer doing a lot of report writing. And after a while, I thought, well, you know what? I might be bad at it, but I do actually like working with humans, people, and a friend of mine at the time, as I was, you know, ruminating about what I was going to do with my life now that I had this graduate degree that I wasn't using, and she said, you know, you should go check out this place. They came and did a presentation when I was at my practicum, and I just feel like you're gonna, you'd like it there, there's kids. I don't know why she said that. I don't necessarily, I'm not a kid person, but she's like, there's kids and they cry, and there's stuffed animals, and I don't it's called, like, the Dewey center, the doughy center, I don't know, look it up, so I said, Okay, so I looked it up, and I called them, and they happened to be having a volunteer training that weekend. I must have called midweek. And usually there's no openings for volunteer trainings for like, six to eight months, and they just happened to have an opening. Someone had canceled that had canceled that day, so I signed up, and I went to this training not knowing anything about Dougy Center at all, and in the first few moments of the training, when they were just introducing kind of Dougy Center's perspective and approach to working with people, and was outlining what is peer support versus therapy or counseling, I had such a moment of like, the deepest exhale I had taken since I started graduate school. I was like, oh, there's actually a way of working with people that isn't about intervening or fixing or changing or preventing. It's about creating space and community and connection for people to unravel or unfold or discover what they need to discover, and I don't need to have any answers. I was like, whoa, okay. I think I found a place where the process of how they work with people matches my nervous system, basically, and my values. And so the content ending up being grief and loss was very accidental. It was more about being drawn to a place that had an approach that worked for me, and the grief part just was there, but once I got into the work and looked at my family line and recognized what a role grief and loss had played throughout the generations of my family that kind of landed with me, even though I may have not been directly impacted by a lot of those deaths. So I kind of like backed my way into the grief and loss part, but it was truly the connection with the process and the approach that peer support way of being there for people in their grief.
Jennifer Levin
Great for those listeners who aren't familiar with the Dougy Center. Can you just share a little bit about the Dougy Center, and then tell us about your role at the Dougy Center and what you do?
Speaker 1
Yeah. So Dougy Center has been around since 1982 we are, as far as we know, the first peer Grief Support program for children and teens in at least in North America. There may be other programs that we aren't aware of, but our founder, Bev Chapel, she originally connected with a boy named Dough Turno, who had an inoperable brain tumor, and she got connected to Dougy through Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, who was kind of a well-known researcher in the death and dying field. So Bev and Dougy connected when he came to Portland, Oregon for some experimental treatment. She spent some time with him and his family up at the hospital, and what she started to see and hear, and witness was the way Dougy was reaching out to the other kids who were also receiving treatment and talking to them about what they were going through in a way that the adults in their lives weren't. He was asking kids on the on the floor with him, Are you dying? Because I think I'm dying, but I don't know if the adults know that, because no one's talking to me about that. Do you think you're going to live long enough to go to your prom? What's something you really want to do before you die? And she watched how these kids could create support and connection for one another in a way that they weren't able to with the adults. And that sort of inspired Bev to think, you know, we got to get kids who are going through grief and loss together with one another, so that they can have that understanding and that connection. So that was kind of inspiration for Dougy Center. So since 1982 we now provide I'm really bad with the numbers, but like many, many, many, many peer group support groups for kids and teens and young adults and their family members now, before and after a death. So we work with kids anywhere between the ages of three and 18, young adults 18 to 40, and for those kids and teens, their adult family members. Most of our groups are for families when someone has died, so it'd be a child or a teen who's had a parent, a caregiver, or a sibling, or perhaps a close friend, in the case of a teen, has died in their life, so they come to these peer group support groups, and then we also have one program for families who are facing advanced serious illness before someone dies. And the whole premise is for kids to be with other kids who get it. So yeah, they get to be in a peer group support group together. They can share about their experience with their words, or they can share about their experience with their art, or with their movement or with their play. We have a variety of different expression areas available for the kids of the teens, because not everyone's jam is to talk about loss and grief. Yeah, so that's the gist of the program. We also do a lot of training around the world. We do a lot of publications. We do a lot of work on just helping people understand that grief is a natural, normal, healthy response to a loss in our life, and that isolation is such a common experience in grief, and one of the main purposes of Dougy Center is to decrease that isolation and increase that social support that so many kids and teens have a hard time finding in their peer group, because they may be the first person in their class or in their friend group who's had someone in their life die,
Jennifer Levin
yeah, yeah. And your specific role?
Jana DeCristofaro
My specific role, my current title is advocacy and education manager. I have been various things throughout the years. The gist of my job is to run these peer, I facilitate peer grief support groups for kids, teens and young adults. Another element of my role is I collaborate with coworkers to create a lot of our resources, our tip sheets, our workbooks, and then our podcast Grief Out Loud is what I do. So I'm the producer and the host of our podcast, Grief Out Loud. I also do trainings, community responses. It's a nonprofit, so we all do a lot of things.
Jennifer Levin
well, I really wanted to focus on your podcast today, because it's one of the most well-known podcasts, grief podcasts, in the world, nationally and internationally. When you prepare for your interviews, because, obviously, I do a podcast, which is where we are, but I've never had an opportunity to interview another podcaster, and especially someone who does grief podcasts, because it's, you know, I know when I prepare to talk to somebody who's going to share their loved one with me, it's a, I take that role really seriously. So when you prepare for your interviews, what approaches or practices help you create a meaningful conversation? Conversation. Yeah, talk about what that's like for you.
Jana DeCristofaro
It really depends on who the guest is. A lot of guests will come to the show because they've written a book, or they have a new project that they're launching. So with that, they have a pretty public persona that I can investigate. So I read a lot of books, and I do a lot of research on the internet. I try to find other podcast episodes or interviews that they've done so I can listen to those to get a sense of what kinds of questions have they already been asked? If it's somebody who's coming to me, maybe through my connection at Dougy Center, it would. It might be doing a little 15-minute conversation in advance of the interview, because for some folks, it's their first time, and you may have this experience too, it's their first time telling their story of their person or of their loss in a public forum. And it can be hard to try to distill down the entirety of a lifetime you've spent with someone into a 45-minute interview. So it can be helpful to do a pre conversation where people can tell more of the story so that the second time it's a little easier to condense it and not feel like, Oh, I forgot this and this and this and this, so that that can be a part of it. Some of the people I interview are very used to being interviewed, very polished at it, so they don't need that type of pre conversation. But yeah, it's a lot of me like washing dishes and listening to a podcast episode that this person did on somebody else's show, or listening to an audio book, or trying to finish a book in the 10 minutes before I fall asleep at night, and then I just sort of sit with, you know, everything that I've been able to gather. And then I try to just think of questions that go a little below the surface of maybe what more of a like a journalist question might be. And no one's ever asked me this question. Jennifer, I'm sort of making it up as I go right now, but I think a piece of it is sometimes a journalist or news interview is trying to get to a point, trying to get to an outcome. And my I don't have that with these interviews. I'm just opening up a space for someone to tell me about what they want me and others to know about their grief, or what part of their grief is coming through in the moment. Because grief moment, because grief changes, you know, moment to moment. And so I certainly can't, I don't expect, and don't want someone to come with a nice, tidy, wrapped up grief story. It's like what needs to come through today in this experience. So I would say the questions are more open, ended, a little more meandering than a linear type of interview in that way,
Jennifer Levin
What aspects of this process impact you most, personally and or professionally?
Jana DeCristofaro
You know, it really depends on the interview. It depends on the preparation that I've read a lot of memoirs in this role, and all of the stories come with me now, like I can't not hear that person's name or think of that interview without having their entire memoir, kind of like come back to the surface for me. So I feel like I have a lot of long term relationships in my mind, with these guests, yes, and on the show. So that's a big part of it. But you know, everyone who comes on the show, they trust me with their people, with their pets. And so then their people and their pets become part of my community, in a sense. So I bring them with me everywhere I go, and then everyone comes with their own unique perspective on what grief has been like for them, what grief has meant to them, how grief has changed them. So as I go back into my peer grief support groups that I'm facilitating, I have maybe different perspectives or different ideas or different understandings or different aspects to then perhaps ask a question to the group from something that I learned from somebody in an interview, and the podcast has really enabled me to talk with people that I might not usually have opportunities to talk to in my little community of Portland, you know, because it's a podcast and it's virtual, I can talk with people around the country and around the world. And so, I get to hear from folks who are experiencing different levels of perhaps marginalization or oppression, both in their identities and in their grief experience. And that radically changes my perspective too. So yeah, there's lots of ways that it becomes part of me.
Jennifer Levin
Sometimes I feel like I'm in the middle of 50 books at the same time I'm reading or carrying the stories of all of the people I've interviewed, or I'm working with and holding them all. Because there's stories that don't end. You know, the loved one's story may have, you know, their time on Earth may have physically ended, but the person that I'm working with, or I've interviewed that's still so alive, and I'm all holding that at the same time, yeah?
Jana DeCristofaro
So we almost become librarians of lost volumes,
Jennifer Levin
Yes, yes. Which brings me to the next point of, how do you set those healthy boundaries in your, no one else can see that there's this huge smile of laugh as I'm asking this question of, how do you set those healthy boundaries between your personal life and this deeply emotional work that you do?
Jana DeCristofaro
I feel like I'm going to give a really bad answer
Jennifer Levin
There are no bad answers.
Jana DeCristofaro
And I say that because I think when it comes to grief, it is really hard to set clear concrete boundaries, because grief is a part of every one of our individual day to day experiences. You know, whether it's just a loss of a friend moving away or being out in your if you have a yard, as the seasons change, right? There's loss. Every day, something is leaving or changing or transforming. So it's impossible for me to be like, oh, I'm I'm setting this boundary with the sensation of loss and grief, because that's for my work. And I'm like, then I wouldn't be a human in my own personal life, there's no way for me to have such a hard, concrete boundary with that in a more like logistical way, I sometimes have to set limits on myself of like, you're actually not at work right now, maybe we aren't listening to an audio book about this person's grief memoir while you're camping, because you know, you've got an interview coming up next week, so I've had to be a little bit better about that and actually make some space in my work day to do the research for the interviews. So often I would just do that after work was over. So then I was almost 24/7 engaging in grief writing. And I mean, granted, any book I listen to is going to have a theme of loss. I'm reading a novel right now, and I was like, oh, it's not for work. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is all about grief. The entire novel is because that's just the way that is. But at least I'm not having to listen to it from like, oh, what question am I gonna ask about this part of the chapter? So I think some of those pieces, but like, you know, like we said, we carry all of these people's stories with us all the time. They're just in there. So I don't, I don't think about having a boundary of trying to, like, lock them out. It's more about, like, what do I need to do to attend to myself? So I have more grounding and more capacity for all those stories to still be a part of my mindscape.
Jennifer Levin
Yeah. And as we know that one you know, whenever there's a loss, it re triggers or brings up memories of previous losses, whether in our case, ours, personally or other people's. And so whether it's during work time or non-work time, I just find that one thing will trigger another and another, and so sometimes it's, it's hard to block that out. It just happens. Whenever it happens.
Jana DeCristofaro
Yeah, absolutely. I will also say that for me, because I do all my own editing and producing, like I do every aspect of the show by myself. There's some element of the endless monotony of editing that helps with some of the emotional reactivity, because I listen to the story over and over and over and over again, like down to the little inhale and the um and the mouth click that I need to edit out. So there's a way in which, like getting so pixelated into the story helps to lessen some of the emotional intensity. So for me, there's a benefit in what is also sometimes the hardest part of producing the podcast, which is the editing and that element, and then it'll be funny, like, I'll, I'll publish it, and I don't even know what the conversation is about anymore, like, I've just been too in, I don't even know what it said. And then a day or two will go by, and I'll listen to it through, you know, through Spotify, or through Apple podcasts, not I have no more ability to fix anything. I can only listen to the conversation and the content. I'm like, oh, that's what we were talking about. That's a pretty good conversation, because in the editing, I'm like, Oh, this is the worst I, you know, I can't hear anything anymore. So that's, it's not really a boundary, but it's a, it's a way of coping that I think is really helpful, like a practice that really helps me.
Jennifer Levin
Yeah. So you kind of are in it, in the moment when you're doing the interview, when you've got a different process, when you're preparing, when you're editing, and then getting to savor in a way at the very end, yeah. During our pre interview conversation. You know, I always meet with people like you said in the beginning, sometimes you have a 15 minute. This was not to help you prepare, but it was for us to get to know each other a little bit better. I asked you kind of about the cumulative effect of all of the interviews, and it was interesting. You mentioned, you know, during like, the first decade, you didn't really have a cumulative effect of all of the interviews, but it was sad. You said that you experienced the death of your dog last December, and that you really did notice a shift after that. Do you want to say a little bit more about that.
Jana DeCristofaro
Yeah, so, you know, I think prior to Captain, that's my dog who died on December 8 of 2024, prior to Captain dying, I would be present in interviews or in groups and listen to folks story and connect with them on a certain level. And it was always from a place of like awe and honor and privilege to just have these conversations with people that they trust me, to share about their grief and to share about their people, their pets, with me. And then, after Captain died, at least for a couple of months in the winter, I had a few interviews with folks, particularly folks who had had children die, and a couple interviews with folks whose children were young. And then this one interview that I mentioned often with Myra Sack, who wrote Fifty-Seven Fridays about her daughter, Havi, who had Tay-Sachs, and Havi died, when she was very young. And Havi experienced, because of the Tay-Sachs disease, like a loss of functioning slowly over time, this degenerative condition and Havi never acquired the ability to communicate with words, even though she communicated in so many different ways. And there was something particularly I mean, Myra is an amazing writer, and she wrote that memoir from the I like to call it the middle place of grief, not from many years out, retrospectively. So you're just in it. And it was, there were so many parallels to the end of Captain's life as he was losing, functioning over time, and he wasn't able to communicate with words, so we had to just intimately stare at him a lot and just be used to the rhythms of what was happening for him, so we could tell what was going on. So the convergence of Myra's story and what I experienced, even though I'm very cautious, I never want to make an equivalency between the death of a human child and the death of a pet, I would never I feel really conscious, self-conscious about that, but just this idea of caring for a being as they're losing a little bit of their function more and more every day, it was just so close and connected that for the first time ever, I was like a welling up of emotion in the interview. I was having a really hard time staying just in my interview role. And, you know, I think because of our training, maybe as mental health professionals, we can be so quick to just like, shove that down, padlock it, put it behind the door, deal with it later. But I just couldn't in the moment. And I didn't like, start crying or anything during the interview, but my heart was so much more open to Myra and to the conversation. And I was like, You know what? This is just making for a more profound moment right now, and I'm just gonna go with that, but there were so many internalized messages I had to overcome around like, what does it mean to be a professional and not have any feelings on the inside? But there wasn't any way to do that in the moment, and I just recognized it just took a little bit more out of me, because it's an internal process to be like, Whoa, hello emotion, and you're going to be here, and we will come back to you later. But it's just yeah, it just takes more effort to do that.
Jennifer Levin
That sounds like a really difficult moment, and Captain obviously had a huge impact on on you, and that grief is so painful, and I definitely hear that you're not making a comparison, but also want to validate how many times people have reached out with the pain after losing an animal and feeling like they don't have a place to go because a fur baby is a child to them,
Jana DeCristofaro
Yeah, and it's. You know, coming into I mean, Captain was declining for a long time, so it wasn't a sudden, unexpected death at all. And like, leading up to it, I kept thinking, like, I don't know how to I don't know how to do this. Like, I don't know how I'm going to do this. And I thought, gosh, that's exactly what everybody that I've supported for the last 23 years feels like, and they have figured it out. So I know I was like, I don't know how I'm going to do this, but I know I'm going to figure it out. And there was a way in which my work really helped ground me coming into that experience. And I knew a few things. I knew I was going to hopefully, hopefully feel fully entitled The way grief was coming for me, however it showed up. And I thought, I won't be surprised by anything that happens. However, I continue to be caught off guard, which I thought was really interesting. So nothing that's happened in my grief has been like, Oh, why am I feeling that way? But I was like, Oh, of course, I'm feeling that way, and I'm still a little caught off guard that I'm feeling that way, or I'm doing this thing, or I'm reacting this way. So you know, working in the brief and grief death dying field, doesn't at all make us immune to having our own grief, but I do feel very grateful that it has helped me feel fully entitled to my grief and to hopefully extend that to other people, especially other folks who have had a pet or companion animal, or for a baby, whatever term people use die in their life, in a way that some friends and I actually got together and did a little DIY sad pet parent support group for ourselves a couple weeks ago, because I thought I know how to do this, so I think we can do this. And it was really meaningful to come together with other pet parents who maybe experience a degree of isolation in their grief, or internal dismissing of their grief, or minimizing of their grief, or feeling like there's no space for them to share about that grief.
Jennifer Levin
I do appreciate you talking about that. Those who know me know that I have Winnie, my almost 12-year-old therapy dog, King Charles Cavalier, and I'm in a anticipatory grieving process because she's going downhill, and this grief therapist doesn't think she's gonna be okay, so you may be one of my first calls.
Jana DeCristofaro
I'll be there come to our sad pet parent group. Okay, too, because yeah, the the anticipation piece of it, of like, how, how, yeah, how do I do how do I do this first morning? How do I do this first night? And then the first morning happens, and the first night happens and you do it, but the not being able to see how you're going to do it is really hard.
Jennifer Levin
Yeah, so, so let me ask you, and I did say I took some precautionary measures and got Triscuit. So, so, yes, we did some planning. So over the years, are there any themes or insights that have emerged consistently across the stories that you have, that you've heard? What have you what has that taught you about how people navigate the grief experience.
Jana DeCristofaro
Well, I think we just landed on the second hardest question of the interview. Jennifer, like 327 episodes, what are my themes that have come through and it's hard for me to distinguish sometimes, like, what do I know to be true about grief because of what I've learned in the interviews. And what do I know to be true about grief because of being with kids and teens and young adults for the last 22 years.
Jennifer Levin
I just want to say 327 that's so amazing. And out of how long has that taken?
Jana DeCristofaro
we've been around we started Grief Out Loud in 2015, and it's 2025, so a little over 10 years.
Jennifer Levin
Wow. Yeah, that's just such an accomplishment.
Jana DeCristofaro
It's a lot of amazing conversations and a lot of editing. You know, themes, I think
Jennifer Levin
What, what sticks with you?
Jana DeCristofaro
I mean, I always go back to the fact that people almost consistently second guess and question their own grief. Why do I feel this way? Why am I feeling this way for this long? Why am I not feeling this way? How much longer am I going to feel this way? That's a that's a constant, I would say over and over again
Jennifer Levin
And that just brings almost tears to my eyes and chills to hear, because I don't know what your thoughts are on that, but that's to me, because they're not getting the validation they need.
Jana DeCristofaro
They're not getting the validation they need, and also it hurts. Yeah, so why do I feel this way? Because it's really painful, and I would like to stop feeling this pain. If I can figure out why I feel this pain, then maybe I could fix it, stop paying, stop feeling it. That's one. The other theme that I think comes through for a lot of folks is, oh, I didn't grieve well enough early enough, so that's why I'm still grieving now, from that place of like, If only I had just felt all my feelings in the first three weeks, then somehow, I wouldn't have it now. And I think that is again, speaks to that longing to stop feeling the grief. Another theme, I think that comes through is the things that other people say and do that don't land well, yeah, even when they're well intentioned, and the things that people say and do that are just downright harmful and hurtful, and hopefully are well intentioned, but maybe they're not always well intentioned, so I think that contributes to that lack of validation and that lack of community and that sense of isolation. So those are pretty big themes. The other one that really started to come through in the interviews was how many people have conflicted, ambivalent, harmful, hurtful relationships with the person who died and how that impacts their grief. And that is something that, you know, we don't have a lot of great, helpful grief narratives in the world, but that is one that really doesn't get much exposure at all. And so I've been really committed to in the show, having more people on to talk about that - in a way, I was relieved when my person died, because I no longer have to navigate, yeah, the emotional landscape of our relationship, and yet I'm deeply impacted by their death, and that makes no sense to me.
Jennifer Levin
Good for you, because I come across that as well. I had one client say, and I loved it, and she she loved her husband, very, very much. But, you know, I work in the sudden and unexpected loss arena, and there were things that just didn't get fixed. And so she said, I guess I have to go back to marital therapy with my dead husband. And I just love that. So she went back and saw their marriage therapist just to to figure some things out. And it wasn't that it they had a conflicted marriage, it was just that there were things that didn't get resolved.
Jana DeCristofaro
Yeah, yeah. I really appreciate that opportunity to be able to do that. And it brings up another theme I think that comes through is people talking about their ongoing relationships with the person or the pet who has died, and that oftentimes, for folks, that's quite surprising,
Jennifer Levin
The continued bonds.
Jana DeCristofaro
The continued bonds, the way the relationship continues to change over time. So that, I think, is another theme that comes through is that people feeling like, Oh, I get to still have a relationship with this person. And for many folks who had a conflicted relationship, there's an opportunity to continue to work on that piece for them and find some healing for what they went through, and get validation for the reality that you can both grieve for someone who has died and also recognize the ways that maybe your life is easier or more in alignment with how you want to live your life without their fiscal form.
Jennifer Levin
Now these themes are these mainly from younger people or when, no, because, I mean, I know that Dougy Center primarily is with younger so.
Jana DeCristofaro
Yeah, you know, with the, I would say in the kids in the teens group talk about, you know, things people have said and done that don't feel that helpful or great, yeah, ways that maybe they feel isolated or different since their person died.
Jennifer Levin
And that is such a difficult thing for young people to feel different. So that's a huge thing, absolutely.
Jana DeCristofaro
And also, the idea that as they change and grow older, what they miss changes about their person, but the themes around but, you know, in the teen groups, a lot to talk about those complicated relationships too, and even in the kid groups too. You know, to say I love my mom, but she yelled at me a lot, or, I loved my dad, but when he was around, things were really noisy. So I Yeah. I think those themes come through for all ages. The podcast just tends to be young adults and older adults. I have had a couple of teens be on the show, but I haven't done like a full-length interview with an eight year old, I think that would be a challenge.
Jennifer Levin
Yeah. What are some of the moments or interviews that have stayed with you long after they've been over, and what made them so impactful?
Jana DeCristofaro
Every single one of them?
Jennifer Levin
Yeah, you know, after I asked that question. I'm like, Yeah, you're right. You're right. I mean, I mean, obviously the one that paralleled Captain, but you're right,
Jana DeCristofaro
Yeah, they, they all stand out in a different way. Some of them stand out because there were, like, significant technical, technological challenges. And I'm like, Oh yeah, I remember, that was the interview where that person just like, went off the screen eight times because zoom crashed, or whatever it was. But I can, if I sit with it, I can recall every single interview, like where I was in space and time in life, and a little bit of the felt experience of having that conversation, because I almost feel like I go somewhere with a guest, like we go to a place together, and that place always exists, and I can go back there. But if someone off the top of their heads, like, Hey, do you have an interview about this type of grief and loss? I'm like, Oh, I gotta go look at the list. Like I can't always call those back up to mind, but if I, if I close my eyes and take a breath, I can get transported back to the place that I went in every single interview.
Jennifer Levin
Yeah, they're all so unique. So before I ask my final question, is there anything else that you want to share or that I haven't I mean, I could talk to you for hours, because it's just nice to talk to somebody who we have overlapping interests. But is there anything you'd like to share?
Jana DeCristofaro
I'm trying to think if there's anything I want to share related specifically to the podcast,
Jennifer Levin
Or not related?
Jana DeCristofaro
Yeah. Um, I sit with the fact that when we started Grief Out Loud in 2015, I think there were maybe like two or three other podcasts out there that were talking about grief. There was Terrible. Thanks for Asking by Nora McInerny, which was like kind of the first, I feel like the first grief podcast that really went, like, national in a way, and ours, and a few others that were out there, and now there's so many conversations, because everybody's got a podcast. And I don't know, I kind of, you know, some people are like, Oh, do you feel a competition, but like, I kind of love it, you know, because everyone's got their own style of how they do interviews. Everyone has a different focus. People who come to Grief Out Loud are coming for a particular experience that they know they're going to have when they listen to an episode. So I'm grateful that there's so many more conversations happening about grief. Yeah. So I think that's what I would share.
Jennifer Levin
Okay, and I know in my last question, I know you talk with just a range of people about a range of topics, but some of them are sudden and unexpected. So thinking about individuals that you've talked with who've had a sudden or unexpected loss, what advice would you give from all of the work and experience that you've had? What did you - I always ask, this is my final question to everybody, but what advice would you give to somebody who's just experienced this type of loss as they're kind of getting going on their road?
Jana DeCristofaro
Well, I laughed a little when you sent me that question, Jennifer, because at Dougy Center, we have such a strong no advice-giving rule that it's been like 23 years of never, okay, so they see what's to do.
Jennifer Levin
So what words of comfort? Let's do a reframe. I'm good at reframes the CBT reframe skill here. So take out advice.
Jana DeCristofaro
It's just a little funny thing, I was like, Oh no
Jennifer Levin
Words of comfort.
Jana DeCristofaro
Words of comfort. Or just, I would say, permission slips. That's really what I go to, over and over again with grief, is people end up being so bowled over by what grief entails for them, whether it's feeling really big feelings or not feeling like you can feel feelings or having a really big physical reaction or no physical reaction, we have these expectations about what grief is going to look and feel like for us, and oftentimes how our grief actually shows up and behaves is in direct opposition to what we were thinking it was going to be, or what we hope it will be, or what we need it to be. And so when I think about the sudden, unexpected death, it's like you have lost your person out of nowhere, or pet or job, or, you know, something that comes with no warning, and that changes your entire grounding. Like it's not just the person or the pet or the thing that is gone, but your entire perception of your life and your world has been altered. And that is a huge learning curve. And so when people are like, my brain isn't working. My body is not working. I'm not functioning. It makes sense to me. There has been an earthquake, and you are trying to hold up the house on a foundation that has radically, radically shifted. And so sometimes there's just this element of we need to attend to the different parts of the foundation and the house that have been impacted. So whether that's seeking out body centered work in therapy to try to help like what has literally happened to your body from this shock, ways to attend to your heart, ways to attend to your mind, giving yourself a lot of space and permission to be in that place of shock and thinking, forecasting ahead of oftentimes people think if I just get through the first if I could just get through the first birthday, the first anniversary, the first whatever it is, I feel like I did it. I got through the first and then they're like, Okay, grief completion certificate. I did all the first and then the seconds come and people say, what? How did the second end up feeling harder than the first? And I never want you know, say that to somebody right in the beginning moments of grief. They're like, great it's just gonna get worse. But it's like, you're just gonna be more conscious of it that first year, all that shock and all that recalibrating, you're just getting through it. And then the second one is when it maybe starts to sink in a little bit more. But then I often try to offer the analogy, the image of a circular staircase, where people feel like, Oh, I'm just right back where I was at the beginning. I'm right back where I was at the beginning. I'm like, Yes, but if you think a circular staircase, you are going up, but you're facing the same direction again and again. So this the perspective, you know, the what you're looking at might look like the same tree, but you're a little bit higher up than you were the last time that you came around that tree. Yeah, not to try to fix it for anybody in that way. But in some ways, I always, I always wanted to tell people if I was going to give advice, like, but I'm not. But like, video yourself in those first couple days and weeks, or journal in those first days and weeks. So when you come back to that place of, like, nothing's changed, I'm right back where I started. And you'd be like, Oh, I couldn't even get out of bed. I couldn't find clothes to wear. I couldn't feed myself in those first couple of days and weeks. And look, it's a year later, I'm doing laundry, I'm feeding myself. It feels terrible like the grief is crushing. However, look at the ways I'm functioning. Just to Yeah, just to give yourself a little break with that.
Jennifer Levin
Those are beautiful words of comfort so Jana, thank you so much for your time today. It was just such a pleasure to be able to have a conversation with you and to explore these topics and hear everything that you had to share with us.
Jana DeCristofaro
Well, thank you, Jennifer for inviting me on, for your thoughtful questions for all the work that you're doing to support your clients and your community and your listeners too, is really an honor to be here with you.
Jennifer Levin
Oh, great. So thanks again, and bye for now.
Jana DeCristofaro
Okay, bye.
Thank you so much to my guest, Jana DeCristofaro, for sharing her time, wisdom, and insights with us today. As someone who also conducts grief interviews, it was truly special to have a conversation with a colleague who understands the unique honor and responsibility of being entrusted with another person’s story of their deceased loved one. I’m deeply grateful for Jana’s openness and the thoughtful way she approaches her work.
If you’d like additional support on your own grief journey, I invite you to explore my new book, The Traumatic Loss Workbook: Powerful Skills for Navigating Grief Caused by Sudden or Unexpected Death, along with the Traumatic Loss Online Companion Course. Together, they provide practical tools, guided practices, and compassionate guidance you can use at your own pace or alongside therapy. You can learn more at www.therapyheals.com/course.
Be sure to subscribe to Untethered so you don’t miss future episodes, and if you found today’s conversation meaningful, please share it with someone who might also benefit.
Bye for now.
