Our Favorite Grief Podcasts

Alison’s favorites

Podcasts: I’ll listen to them every once in a while, but the odds of finding one that makes me want to binge-listen are slim. That is, until grief showed up. I’d heard, listened to, and loved Anderson Cooper’s All There Is in early grief after losing James, because I always trust his judgement and wise journalistic thinking. (Also – thanks to being a lifelong Howard Stern fan – I’m conditioned to love any show with a guest-based interview format.)

I can’t remember where I’d heard of Good Mourning, but making time to listen to it was like a breath of fresh air. The hosts, two lovely Aussie ladies with comforting accents, started it after losing their moms as young millennials after trying many methods to make sense of the emotions they were experiencing. Google, The Five Stages of Grief and support groups are not always helpful. Going down a rabbit hole of information and not finding what you’re looking for can be frustrating, and anyone in grief knows that the five stages mentioned in the well-known book – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance – often don’t follow a sequence and don’t cover all the things grief can uncover. For instance, widow’s fire. Or the sudden urge to cut off your hair and dye it pink, like I did. 

The great news is that Good Mourning tackles anything and everything you were probably thinking or wanted to know, with humor and levity. I’ll stop gushing and link to Sally & Imogen’s Spotify page, although you can also get it on Apple and watch it on YouTube. 

Vanessa’s Favorites

Living in California, I do a lot of driving by default, so podcasts have long been one of my go-to ways to pass the time. When Simon was sick, and especially after he passed, I had very little tolerance for anything that didn’t feel nurturing. Most things didn’t. I’d put on my usual news and current-events podcasts and quickly switch them off. My interest in the world’s problems was zero.

There were only a few podcasts that made me feel good, and I listened to them almost exclusively for about a year. While they weren’t grief-focused, they were comforting in different ways.

The first was We Can Do Hard Things, hosted by writer and self-help influencer Glennon Doyle, along with her sister Amanda Doyle and her wife, soccer star Abby Wambach. The podcast covers addiction, feminism, mental health, and parenting in a way that feels deeply human. They speak openly about their own struggles and therapy journeys, and they aren’t afraid to cry-laugh at how hard it is to be human. Listening felt like sitting on a couch with incredibly smart, self-aware, funny girlfriends. Each time, I felt a little less alone in my bubble of grief.

Another podcast I devoured was The Telepathy Tapes, hosted by Kai Dickson. It’s a documentary-style series that explores claims that some autistic non-speakers are able to communicate telepathically. The stories gave me serious goosebumps. It’s hard to listen without feeling part of your brain crack open to bigger possibilities.

Yes, I’m aware the claims remain unproven. I still found it incredibly compelling. I think it resonated during my grief because it hinted at truths beyond what we can sense. If telepathy is real, what else might be? Could things like life after death also be possible? (Season two actually explores this more directly.)