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This episode is different. Instead of sitting across from a guest, I am the one in the chair.

In this solo episode, I share my own personal timeline of grief, loss, and trauma — and trace how each experience shaped the ones that came after it. From what I learned about grief growing up, through infertility, miscarriage, the death of my daughter A’Mya three days after she was born, the suicide of my mother four and a half months later, a significant trauma in my adult life, separation, and single parenthood — this is the story behind the work.

My intention is not to centre myself. It is to model what I ask of every guest: that your personal story is not separate from how you grieve. It is the lens through which you grieve. Understanding that lens changes everything.

If you are carrying multiple losses, if your grief feels more complicated than you think it should, or if you support someone whose grief seems out of proportion to the immediate loss, this episode is for you.

Free resources mentioned in this episode are available at nathaliehimmelrich.com/free-resources-hub, including the Beginner’s Guide to Dealing with Grief and Trauma.

Rate this podcast five stars if it helps you feel less alone. It takes thirty seconds and helps more grieving and traumatised people find this show when they need it most.

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Nathalie and Amanda go beneath the speaker and the frameworks to the private, unscripted territory of grief.

In this episode, we cover

• What it costs to hold it together when falling apart isn't an option
• The parts of the story that resist being turned into a growth tool
• The difference between resilience as armour and resilience as a path back to yourself
• What genuine support actually looks like in the darkest hours
• Where grief still lives in the body today, and how to tend to it

About our guest

Amanda Anderson is a keynote speaker, trauma survivor, and mental health advocate with over 17 years of experience working in NLP, resilience, and real-world mental health. Her credentials are not academic — they are lived. Her brother was murdered. Her sister and father died of terminal illness. She survived a stroke, divorce, and sustained frontline trauma exposure. From that wreckage, she built a body of work that helps high-functioning, resilient people, the ones who have always been "the strong one", stop merely surviving and consciously rebuild something fierce and true.

Her work sits at the intersection of trauma, grief, and identity. Through keynotes and writing, she gives language to the experiences people have been carrying silently for years. She doesn't offer surface-level motivation. She offers permission to stop pretending you were never hurt, and to choose, deliberately, what you build next.

Resources mentioned

• www.amanda-anderson.com.au
• linkedin.com/in/amandakanderson

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💡 If today’s episode touched you, please share it with someone who might need it.

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• 💜 For Grievers – Resources
  https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/grief-trauma-support/
• 💜 For Supporters – Supporting someone https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/supporters-resources/
• 💜 Books – Explore books on grief and healing https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/books/
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  https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/free-resources-hub/

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When someone is visibly grieving, the people around them quickly conclude, usually without adequate evidence. She isn't crying, so she must be coping. He went back to work, so he must be over it. They seem angry, not sad — that can't be grief.

These are presumptions. In Part 3 of this three-part series, Nathalie examines how presumptions about grief operate in real time, in specific moments, and why they cause a different kind of harm from grief myths and preconceptions.

What's covered in this episode

• The precise definition of a presumption and how it differs from a myth (cultural) and a preconception (personal, pre-existing)
• Why presumptions feel like observations but function as judgements
• How presumptions cause harm, both to the person being presumed about, and to the person making them
• The most common grief presumptions, examined through: what is being assumed, where it comes from, how it lands, and what a more accurate response looks like
• What supporters can do differently and why the impulse to interpret is so strong

The core distinction across all three episodes

Myths, preconceptions, and presumptions are related, but they operate at different levels and in different moments.

Grief myths exist in the culture: in the language, the rituals, the policies, the media. They are transmitted without any single person deciding to transmit them. Myths are covered in Part 1.

Preconceptions are the individual's internalised version of those myths: what a person has absorbed over a lifetime, and carries into grief before it happens. They shape what someone expects from their own grief. Preconceptions are covered in Part 2.

Presumptions are what happen in a specific moment: a conclusion drawn about someone else's grief, or one's own, without adequate evidence. Unlike myths and preconceptions, presumptions are active and situational. They happen in the room, in the conversation, at the graveside. Presumptions are what this episode covers.

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• 💜 For Grievers – Resources
  https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/grief-trauma-support/
• 💜 For Supporters – Supporting someone https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/supporters-resources/
• 💜 Books – Explore books on grief and healing https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/books/
• 💜 Support – Offers - free and paid
  https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/free-resources-hub/

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What happens when an entire nation is traumatised? How does collective grief differ from personal loss, and what does healing actually look like at that scale?

In this episode, I speak with Dr Imke Hansen, trauma therapist, scholar of Eastern European History, and Deputy Director of the human rights organisation Libereco – Partnership for Human Rights. Nathalie and Imke first met in Zürich at a conference on collective grief and trauma with Dr Peter Levine and Thomas Hübl, and this conversation picks up where that encounter left off.

Imke has worked with survivors of war and persecution for over two decades. Since 2014, she has led Libereco's psychosocial support work in Ukraine, supporting people living through one of the most devastating conflicts of our time. She is also a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, a body-based approach to trauma healing developed by Dr Peter Levine.

In this episode, we cover

• What collective grief looks like on the ground in Ukraine — and what most people in the West don't see
• The difference between individual grief and collective trauma, and why that distinction matters for healing
• What "resilience" really means — and when the word gets in the way
• What it means to witness collective suffering in a way that helps rather than harms

About today's guest

Dr. Imke Hansen holds a doctorate in Eastern European History and is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner specialising in trauma-informed mental health and psychosocial support for civil society activists and survivors of captivity and torture. She serves as Deputy Director of Libereco – Partnership for Human Rights, an independent German-Swiss NGO working in Belarus and Ukraine since 2009. She is the author of the comic book I CAN, available in English, Ukrainian, and Russian.

Resources mentioned

• Libereco – Partnership for Human Rights: libereco.org
• Comic book I CAN by Dr Imke Hansen — free download in English, Ukrainian, and Russian via Libereco's website
• Somatic Experiencing International: somaticexperiencing.com

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💡 If today’s episode touched you, please share it with someone who might need it.

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• 💜 For Grievers – Resources
  https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/grief-trauma-support/
• 💜 For Supporters – Supporting someone https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/supporters-resources/
• 💜 Books – Explore books on grief and healing https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/books/
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Before a loss happens, most people already hold a set of beliefs about what grief will look like. These are not myths absorbed from the culture in general — they are something more personal: internalised convictions, absorbed through upbringing, family, religion, and lived experience, that then shape how a person enters and moves through grief.

These are preconceptions. In Part 2 of this three-part series, Nathalie examines the ten most common preconceptions about grief and makes a precise distinction between preconceptions, grief myths, and presumptions that is crucial for understanding why each causes harm differently.

What's covered in this episode

• The definition of a preconception and how it differs from a grief myth and a presumption
• Why preconceptions are harder to challenge than myths, because they feel personal, not cultural
• How preconceptions relate to grief myths: myths are the cultural source; preconceptions are the individual's internalised version
• The 10 most common preconceptions, each examined through: where it originates and what it aims to achieve, how it harms, a relatable example, and a reframe

The 10 preconceptions covered

1. Grief follows predictable stages
2. Grief has a timeline
3. Not crying means not grieving
4. You must achieve "closure"
5. Grief is only about death
6. Staying strong protects others
7. Time heals all wounds
8. Grief is a private matter
9. Returning to normal functioning means you are healed
10. Trauma and grief are separate experiences

The distinction explained in this episode

A grief myth is a culturally shared false belief, something the culture transmits without adequate evidence. A preconception is personal: it is the individual's internalised version of that myth, often absorbed before they have any direct experience of loss.

Myths can be corrected with information. Preconceptions require something more: recognising that the belief exists, tracing where it came from, and examining whether it still holds in the face of actual experience.

A presumption (covered in Part 3) is different again: it is a real-time assumption made about someone else's grief, in the moment. Preconceptions are formed before. Presum

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💡 If today’s episode touched you, please share it with someone who might need it.

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• 💜 For Grievers – Resources
  https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/grief-trauma-support/
• 💜 For Supporters – Supporting someone https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/supporters-resources/
• 💜 Books – Explore books on grief and healing https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/books/
• 💜 Support – Offers - free and paid
  https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/free-resources-hub/

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HOW TO DEAL WITH GRIEF AND TRAUMA is completely self-funded, produced, and edited by me, Nathalie Himmelrich.
Consider making a small donation to support the Podcast: bit.ly/SupportGTPodcast. Thank you!

For more information, please visit Nathalie’s website, join the podcast’s Instagram page, and subscribe to the newsletter to receive updates on future episodes here.

What does it look like to live well with grief, not despite it, but through it? Lizzie Pickering has spent over 25 years finding out.

Since the death of her eldest son, Harry, Lizzie has become one of the UK's most experienced and sought-after voices on grief in life and in the workplace. She draws on more than two decades of direct experience: as a carer to Harry, as a long-term team member at Helen & Douglas House (the Oxford children's hospice where Harry died), and through her sustained work with bereaved parents, siblings, and professionals navigating loss.

If you're like me, you will love listening to Lizzie's voice, giving us an insight into her journey over the past 25 years.

​​Lizzie is a Grief Educator, Author and Film Producer
She offers Grief Guidance to organisations and individuals, educating people about grief and helping them get back to life and work following major losses. Her clients are both UK-based and global. Since the death of her eldest son, Harry, 25 years ago, Lizzie has become passionate about changing the landscape for people who have to face life and work when they are living with grief. Her firm belief is that if grief is faced and worked through gradually, if people are well supported, there is a rich seam of energy to be found from not only surviving it but living well. Lizzie’s book, When Grief Equals Love, Long-term Perspectives on Living with Loss, was published in May 2023 and is available from bookshops, Amazon and Audible.

• lizziepickering.com
• www.instagram.com/lizzie.pickering/

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Grief myths are everywhere. They show up in condolence cards, in workplace bereavement policies, in the advice given by well-meaning friends and family and, often, inside the grieving person themselves. They feel like common sense. They are not.

In this episode, the first in a three-part series on the beliefs that distort the experience of grief, Nathalie unpacks eight of the most common grief myths: where they come from, why they persist, how they cause harm, and what a more accurate picture of grief actually looks like.

What's covered in this episode

• What a grief myth is and how it differs from a preconception (covered in Part 2) and a presumption (covered in Part 3)
• Why myths persist even when they cause harm, the cultural logic behind each one
• The 8 most common grief myths, each examined through the same structure: where it comes from, how it harms, a relatable example, and a reframe

The 8 Grief Myths

• Myth 1: Grief has five stages, and you need to go through all of them
• Myth 2: Grief is primarily an emotion; it is what you feel
• Myth 3: Grief gets steadily better over time; it is a linear recovery
• Myth 4: If you are not showing visible distress, you are coping well
• Myth 5: Children are resilient, they don't really grieve, or they get over it quickly
• Myth 6: Moving on means letting go of the person you lost
• Myth 7: Grief is something you get over
• Myth 8: Seeking help for grief is a sign that you cannot cope

Referenced in this episode

The myths examined in this episode are part of a broader pattern in which popular culture transmits beliefs about grief, often without anyone intending harm. Nathalie first traced this in her two-part article series using Downton Abbey as a lens for the messages TV and film consistently send about how grief should look:

Downton Abbey Grief Theory — Part 1

Downton Abbey Grief Theory — Part 2

(Note: both articles are hosted on grievingparents.net, Nathalie's Grieving Parents Support Network site.)

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• 💜 For Grievers – Resources
  https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/grief-trauma-support/
• 💜 For Supporters – Supporting someone https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/supporters-resources/
• 💜 Books – Explore books on grief and healing https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/books/
• 💜 Support – Offers - free and paid
  https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/free-resources-hub/

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HOW TO DEAL WITH GRIEF AND TRAUMA is completely self-funded, produced, and edited by me, Nathalie Himmelrich.
Consider making a small donation to support the Podcast: bit.ly/SupportGTPodcast. Thank you!

For more information, please visit Nathalie’s website, join the podcast’s Instagram page, and subscribe to the newsletter to receive updates on future episodes here.

Season 18 begins here.

Nathalie opens the new season by sharing a personal experience — a conversation with a medium that left her with unexpected clarity — and announces that the medium will join her for a recorded episode later this season.

This season brings a mix of solo and guest episodes exploring the preconceptions we carry into grief, the relationship between personal belief and how we process loss and trauma, and stories from guests across Australia, Europe, the UK, and the USA - people who have grieved, people who support others through it, and often both.

Leave a Review

If this podcast has supported you, a 5-star review takes less than a minute and helps others who are grieving find this community when they need it most.

Send Nathalie a message — tap the 'Send Us a Text' link at the top of the shownotes to share your feedback, your experience, or a question you'd like explored.

With that in mind, have a gentle day.

Let your nervous system guide you.

With Love, Nathalie

Support the show

💡 If today’s episode touched you, please share it with someone who might need it.

🤝 Become a supporter of the show! Starting at $3/month & leave a review.

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Find Support Resources

• 💜 For Grievers – Resources
  https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/grief-trauma-support/
• 💜 For Supporters – Supporting someone https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/supporters-resources/
• 💜 Books – Explore books on grief and healing https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/books/
• 💜 Support – Offers - free and paid
  https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/free-resources-hub/