💡 ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Caroline Degnan is a licensed professional counselor in the Pittsburgh area who specializes in grief and bereavement, and she lost her own father at eighteen, the same age I lost my dad. In this episode of Motivation N'at, we reflect on what it means to lose a parent that young, why grief after losing a parent rarely follows the timeline anyone expects, and how Caroline turned her own loss into the career and calling she has today.
The conversation moves through intentional grief, the grief camps Caroline works with for kids who've lost a parent or sibling, and the ways people stay connected to someone after death long after the funeral ends. It's a reminder that grief doesn't ask permission and doesn't follow a manual, but it can still become something you build a life around.
📖 Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe by Laura Lynn Jackson
📖 The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
📩 Connect with Caroline: caroline.iamasiam@gmail.com
🌐 I Am As I Am Counseling: https://www.iamasiamcounseling.com/counselors
🌐 Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us
🌐 Experience Camps: https://experiencecamps.org
🌐 Hospice Nurse Julie: https://www.hospicenursejulie.com
🎯 KEY TAKEAWAYS
🔹 Losing a parent at eighteen rewires everything Caroline and I both lost their dads the same year we turned eighteen, and neither of use had language for it at the time.
🔹 The five stages of grief were never about grieving What's taught as the stages of grief actually describes the dying process, not what happens to the people left behind.
🔹 Intentional grief means choosing when to feel it Caroline built a practice of setting aside deliberate time to grieve so it doesn't ambush her in the middle of everything else.
🔹 Grief camps give kids a place where no one has to explain Experience Camps brings together kids ages nine to eighteen who've lost a parent or sibling for a week where grief is just part of the room.
🔹 Signs and symbols become a private language with the person you lost Blackbirds, smoke detectors, a certain song, whatever it is becomes a choice to stay connected on your own terms.
🔹 Anger at the person you lost doesn't cancel out the love Feeling frustrated or even resentful toward someone who died doesn't take away from how much they mattered.
🔹 Grief doesn't need to produce something beautiful to be worth it Caroline built a career out of her loss, but she's clear that meaning isn't the goal, and some loss is just loss.
TOPICS
HEALING & SELF-TRUST
LIFE TRANSITIONS
MENTAL HEALTH
