Grief & Happiness

I’m sure we have all had times when we don’t feel our best for one reason or another. When that happens, we have a choice. We can remain sad, or grumpy, or just feeling bad, or we can figure out how to do something about it.Let's Connect:You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking hereYou can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Guide by clicking here.You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here at Amazon:You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, by clicking hereRequest your Awaken Your Happiness Journaling Guide hereSee acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you've ever made a decision out of panic — about your health, your grief, or your life — episode 418 of Grief and Happiness is essential listening. Author and life coach Mia Godfrey shares how losing her father, her first husband, and her sister across three decades left her without the tools to cope — until a therapist handed her a journal and changed everything. From the realities of caregiving to a terrifying liver diagnosis she refused to rush, Mia's story is a masterclass in never letting fear make your decisions for you.In This Episode, You Will Learn:(00:55) Mia Godfrey: author, life coach, keynote speaker, youngest of ten from Romania(01:18) Three devastating losses across three decades — and no tools to grieve(05:35) Why she left Romania: addiction, shame, and a love story(07:46) Growing up under communism and her father's survival lessons on the Danube(10:50) Her sister: 13 months apart, inseparable — and why her loss broke everything(11:26) What 11 months of caregiving taught her about grace and self-neglect(14:43) Why honoring a loved one's treatment decisions matters — even when it's hard(17:23) The end-of-life conversations she refused to have — and what it cost her(19:30) How to navigate conflicting medical advice and advocate for yourself(22:41) A terrifying liver diagnosis and why she refused to let fear decide(33:58) On living guilt-free while grief and happiness coexistMia Godfrey is a certified life coach, Bible counselor, keynote speaker, and author originally from Romania, where she grew up the youngest of ten children under communist rule. She came to the United States in 2008 through marriage, and over the past two decades has built a career spanning leadership, talent acquisition, and her own coaching practice, Scribbled Pages International Life Coaching. Her debut memoir, Buried, Not Broken: A Memoir of Survival, Sisterhood, and Starting Over, is the through-line of this conversation — a raw, cross-cultural account of loss, caregiving, and the unexpected healing that came from putting her story on the page.In the episode, Mia traces a lifetime of grief she never had the tools to process: the death of her father at 18, the sudden loss of her first husband at 42 (whose end-of-life conversations she shut down, leaving her financially and emotionally unprepared), and the 11-month caregiving journey that ended with her sister's death from ovarian cancer in 2023 — the loss that finally broke her open. It was her therapist who suggested journaling, a practice Mia resisted before eventually turning those pages into her memoir. She speaks with hard-won clarity about what caregiving taught her: that self-neglect is not devotion (she compromised her own health so severely that she faced a frightening liver diagnosis shortly after returning home), that patients must be allowed to make their own treatment decisions, and that panic is the worst basis for any medical choice. Her own health scare — which resolved after months of conflicting diagnoses and a deliberate pause to research rather than react — anchors her central message: weigh all options, and never let fear make the decision for you.Connect with Mia Godfrey:WebsiteBook: Mia Godfrey  - Buried, Not BrokenLet's Connect: WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTwitterPinterestThe Grief and Happiness AllianceBook: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What are you spending time waiting for?Let's Connect:You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking hereYou can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Guide by clicking here.You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here at Amazon:You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, by clicking hereRequest your Awaken Your Happiness Journaling Guide hereSee acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you've ever felt drained by other people's negativity or wondered whether happiness is something you have to earn, episode 416 of Grief and Happiness is for you. Self-mastery coach Michele Phillips — known as "The Light Lady" — reveals why happiness comes before success, and shares simple tools to quiet your inner critic and reclaim your energy. From a smile that changed a stranger's life three years later to writing letters to your future self, this one is quietly transformative.In This Episode, You Will Learn:(00:55) Why happiness comes before success(02:26) The "pom poms" story: protecting your energy without dimming it(03:21) How to support others without absorbing their low energy(04:29) The smiling experiment that changed a stranger's life(08:58) Why micro-moments of connection matter more than we think(11:08) "Energizio": directing your energy toward what you actually want(14:03) Meet Wanda and Grace: naming your inner voices to take back control(17:02) Why journaling is Michele's most powerful tool(20:05) The case for putting down your phone and picking up a pen(21:39) Personal energy alignment: accessing your own flow state(22:41) How journaling helps you process grief and rediscover joy(26:09) The goddess gathering: writing a letter to your future selfMichele Phillips is a self-mastery coach, corporate trainer, and author known to her clients as "The Light Lady." As President of Key Performance — a New York State Certified Women-Owned Business she founded in 1998 — she has spent over two decades coaching leaders at Fortune 500 companies including Pfizer, Verizon, and The PGA. She holds a Master's in Organizational Development from Fordham University, a certification in Positive Psychology, and is the author of Happiness is a Habit and her latest, Energize Your Happiness: Tap into Your Personal Energy and Shape Your Destiny. Her core belief: happiness doesn't come after success. It comes before it.That conviction anchors everything Michele shared with Emily here. She introduced "energizio" — a word she coined for energy directed intentionally toward what you want rather than what you don't — and personified our inner voices as the critical "Wanda" and the wise "Grace," making the inner work both accessible and fun. The conversation wove in the power of micro-moments: a genuine smile, a kind gesture, the choice not to absorb someone else's low energy. And Michele closed with a passionate case for handwritten journaling as the gateway to personal energy alignment — a flow state she believes is available to all of us — including a moving exercise where participants write letters to the women they intend to become a year from now.Connect with Michele Phillips:WebsiteLinkedInFacebookYouTubeBooksPodcast: Write Your OutcomeLet's Connect: WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTwitterPinterestThe Grief and Happiness AllianceBook: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.