On navigating chronic illness with grace, the courage it takes to name what's invisible, and the quiet revolution of believing yourself.

• 0:00 - Introduction and Guest Introduction
• 2:40 - Chronic Resilience and Medical Trauma Brain (MTB)
• The Importance of Recovery and Processing
• 9:05 - Practical Tools for Nervous System Regulation
• 18:11 - The Role of Convalescence and Healing Space
• 26:34 - Final Thoughts and Encouragement

Amy Kurtz is a trailblazing author, certified health coach, patient advocate and speaker dedicated to empowering patients to reclaim agency over their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. A distinct voice in the health space, Amy's work has been heralded by Dr Mark Hyman, Kris Carr, and many more.

Lena Dunham named Kicking Sick one of her "Top 10 desert island books of all time" in New York Magazine. Amy has been featured on Oprah Daily, Good Morning America, The Boston Globe, NYMAG, Fox, and more. In her debut book, "Kicking Sick: Your GO-TO GUIDE for thriving with chronic health conditions," Amy shares her journey of living with chronic health conditions and provides a roadmap and actionable guidance to help readers manage debilitating conditions and live fully.

Amy's second book, But You Look Fine, Trapped in the Hell between Sick and Well and How to Break Free, breaks the silence about the crucial, painful, pervasive, and yet all too common phase of healing from chronic illness that has long gone overlooked… until now.

https://amykurtz.com/

On the nuances of grief and loss, personal rituals, and our willingness to be transformed.

• 0:00 — Introduction and Guest Introduction
• 3:04 — Marissa's Personal Story and Grief Journey
• 7:38 — Building a Grief Plan
• 13:24 — Understanding Trauma and Its Impact
• 17:27 — Boundaries and Self-Care
• 22:52 — The Role of Prayer and Rituals
• 28:22 — Memorializing Losses and Rituals
• 32:18 — Connecting with Nature and Finding Support
• 37:46 — Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Merissa Nathan Gerson is the author of Forget Prayers, Bring Cake: A Single Woman's Guide to Grieving, and her writing appears in Modern Love for the New York Times, The Atlantic, Playboy, Tablet, CNN.com and beyond. Merissa trained in Shambhala Shamatha meditation, graduated with an MFA in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University, is a certified Sivananda yoga teacher, and holds an MA in Jewish Studies with a focus on inherited trauma as well as sex and gender from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. She was the Inherited Trauma consultant to Amazon's Transparent and is the daughter and granddaughter of war refugees. She is currently training to be a rabbi. Forget Prayers, Bring Cake: A Single Woman's Guide to Grieving came out in 2021 from Mandala Press for Simon & Schuster. This book is a companion for these times. As McArthur Genius Kiese Laymon describes: "Merissa Gerson has created a neon treatise on the art and necessity of grieving."

On tending to our interdependence, living life fully, and dying with attention and equanimity.

• 0:00 — Introduction
• 1:34 — Overview of Ann's Book "Traveling in Bardo"
• 3:55 — Personal Reflections on Grandmother's Funeral
• 7:20 — The Role of Practice in Embracing Impermanence
• 16:15 — Living with Attention and Interdependence
• 34:57 — Authenticity and True Nature
• 42:09 — Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Ann Tashi Slater writes for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Paris Review, and Granta, among others, and is a contributing editor at Tricycle. She presents and teaches workshops at Princeton, Columbia, Oxford, Asia Society, and The American University of Paris, and was a regular speaker at NYC's Rubin Museum of Art during the museum's 20-year run. Ann's new book, Traveling in Bardo: The Art of Living in an Impermanent World was released by Balance/Hachette in September, 2025.

TRAVELING IN BARDO explores how we can find meaning and happiness in a world where change is the only certainty. Interweaving explorations of "bardo" between-states in relation to marriage and friendship, parents and children, and work and creativity with stories of her Tibetan ancestors and Buddhist teachings on the fleeting nature of existence, Slater illuminates what the teachings have to tell us in our contemporary lives. She relays vital wisdom from Tibetan culture, giving us a bold, new framework to navigate moments of change and live life fully. With a foreword by Dani Shapiro, the book has been praised by Elizabeth Gilbert, Melissa Febos, Sharon Salzberg, and Julia Alvarez, among others, and has been selected as a "Must-Read" by the Next Big Idea Club, co-curated by Malcolm Gladwell. In the midst of this shifting landscape, Slater invites us to embrace impermanence in a powerful way, rooted in ancient wisdom. During over forty years of writing and speaking about her Tibetan-American heritage and the relevance of Buddhism in Western society, Slater has come to see how Tibetan bardo views on impermanence can transform the way we live. A luminous guide to navigating transition and impermanence, it offers us the opportunity to find happiness in an impermanent world.