Lisa is a podcast host and author of Grief is a Sneaky Bitch. Visit www.lisakeefauver.com to learn more.
She is a social worker, widow, and grief activist on a mission to chamge the narratives of grief one conversation at a time.
03/13/2026
Go off! It’s good for you.
My judicious use of cussing is validated by data!
Did you know swearing can have health benefits from increasing pain tolerance to providing emotional release from the stress of grief?
So grievers, this is your invitation to scream: this is fu***ng bu****it and it sucks so much!
🤬 COMMENT below your favorite cuss-filled phrases that helps you express the intense emotions of your grief.
📈Research by Richard Stephens, PhD, of Keele University in the U.K. Perhaps he would say, “Bullocks”
03/13/2026
Unpopular Opinion About Feeling Down
💩🥂Where are you on the continuum between absolute s**t and absolute bliss today? If absolute s**t is a 1 and absolute bliss is a 7, what’s your number in this moment? Share below.
Our culture has tried to convince us that death, getting sick, being in pain, and even feeling down is somehow a failure on our part—sometimes even a moral failure.
We’ve been told the same lies when we’re feeling down, low, or just not in a state of bliss 24/7. Here’s the thing: no feeling is final, and emotions are information. Not facts, but they can point us to things we need to learn if we’re willing to pay attention.
I’ve been noticing a theme among my individual grief support clients lately. They’re feeling down and classifying that as going “backwards.” They want to get to the bottom of it—as if they did something wrong that needs fixing.
1️⃣ First I invited them to consider the possibility that feeling down seems like a very appropriate response to these times.
2️⃣ Secondly, I asked them to tell me more about what “down” felt like. How is that showing up in their day? Is it interfering with basic tasks and care? And of course I check in where appropriate on their safety.
If the answer to the above are no, I suggested something that might feel radical to some:
❓What if feeling down, or at least not on top, is okay?
❓What if that is what we need in this moment?
❓What if there is information waiting for us in that state of being?
❓What if tending to the slowness and stillness those states offer can help us connect more deeply with what we value? What we’re missing? What we want more of?
👇🏼Does this resonate? What have you learned or are you learning when the slowness and stillness of feeling down comes for a visit. Share in the comments.
📸 Quote from my book, Grief is a Sneaky Bitch: An Uncensored Guide to Navigating Loss.
03/10/2026
🔥Hot Mic🔥
Just me and my new haircut having a good time….staying busy producing some of the amazing conversations I’ve recorded recently for my podcast,
Tomorrow I’m bringing you a brand new episode with grief educator, author, and bereaved mum, .pickering , where we explore how continuing bonds remind us that we can cultivate a relationship with our loved ones long after they’re gone.
❓Have you been listening this season? I’d love to hear what you’ve loved or learned so far!
👇🏼Please share in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.
03/09/2026
😃7 years into it and I’m still giddy😃
I just had to share that as I’m preparing to record another episode of season seven of podcast, I’m marveling at the fact that I am as just as excited today as I was the first time I sat down to record with a guest back in 2019.
Of course today is particularly meaningful as I get to record with my dear friend to explore her extraordinary forthcoming book, Waiting for Dawn: Living with Uncertainty, which feels like the book every single one of us needs in these times.
This episode and her book will be out in April but I have plenty of other exciting conversations coming your way in the meantime with guests like .pickering and many more.
🌟If you’re not already subscribed to the podcast, what are you waiting for? Head over to your favorite platform, find the show, hit subscribe so you’ll be notified when the next episode drops.
03/07/2026
My response to chaos? Postcard-Sized beauty.
I’m having so much fun teaching myself how to paint watercolors and I’ve been mostly doing it on postcards and then sending them to random subscribers of my newsletter, AFGO with Lisa Keefauver. Spreading a little beauty in the world while learning something new feels like a small victory in these times.
Want a chance to get a little beauty in your mailbox? Comment FLOWERS and I’ll send you my newsletter sign up.
📸 These two recent bouquets are going in the mail today to Liz in Idaho and Amy in Wisconsin.
03/06/2026
🎂Birthday texts when they’re gone🎂
Today is Eric’s birthday.
He would have turned 59.
He only got to celebrate 44 years here.
Today I decided to text him (to my own number)
With these messages and photos telling him how much I loved doing life with him. I spoke them out loud too. I know he heard me and felt me and I felt his presence too.
Please join me in wishing Eric a happy 59th birthday. May our collective love and celebration reach his spirit.
💖 With love. Eric’s wife, Lisa.
03/05/2026
✂️CHOPPED✂️
Did it!
Chopped all the last of my hair that was growing back in as I navigated Breast Cancer Treatment. It’s been a wild ride from long blonde hair to shaved bald head to sores covering my entire scalp to wild gorgeous chemo curls to fallen straight damaged hair to this pixie cut. No color for me. Letting the hard earned grays shine through. I didn’t expect to be so emotional seeing heaps of my hair on the floor. I shed as many tears as hair yesterday. More to come about this in a newsletter coming soon.
Thanks to for the gorgeous cut and more importantly for being a safe place to move through another part of this cancer journey.
03/03/2026
🌟He’s Back! New Episode🌟
He’s back! Yes my friend .darnell joined me again for another incredible conversation on podcast.
In case you don’t know him, Darnell is a death doula, Emmy-nominated writer, and cultural anthropologist whose work lives at the intersection of grief, culture, and storytelling.
Across the world, from Johannesburg and Saigon to London, Amsterdam, Ghana, and beyond, Darnell has helped individuals and communities find spaces where their stories could be shared safely and held with care. In his legacy work with dying clients, this often looks like preserving favorite recipes, ensuring that long after someone is gone, families can still gather, cook, eat, and remember the love that once lived at the table.
His new book, Never Can Say Goodbye - which I had the honor of being an early reader for - reflects on his journey as a death doula and the lessons learned from walking alongside the dying. At the heart of all his work, and as we explore in today’s conversation, Darnell helps people tell the truth of their lives, tend to one another through transition, and leave behind something nourishing, whether that’s a story, a ritual, or a meal that keeps them close.
🎙️Check out our conversation wherever you listen to your favorite shows. If you’d like to watch, you can find it at lisakeefauvermsw on the Tube of You.
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Are you wondering why I am so passionate about talking about grief, loss, and illness? Yeah, you’re not alone. I’ll admit, it makes a lot of people uncomfortable and many don’t stick around to chat….oh wait, you’re still here?
Ok, well since you’re curious, I could tell you it is because early in my life I experienced some pretty awful traumatic painful events, full of violence and grief and loss, and that would be true. I can also explain how that led me to become a clinical social worker and narrative therapist where I had the privilege to bear witness to others’ experiences of pain, chronic and terminal illness, trauma, and grief - and that would be accurate too. I can, and I will, share how excruciating it was to have my husband die in my arms, leaving me a widow at age 40 and a single parent to our 7-year-old child. You might also want to know that a few years after that, I held my friends’ hand while he passed away from a long-endured terminal illness. Perhaps the fact that I co-founded a nonprofit program to support cancer patients and their families is relevant, or that I have countless family and friends who have or are currently enduring loss, chronic and terminal illnesses too.
But that doesn’t explain WHY I’m here talking about the very things most people run away from. I’m here because everyone I know and everyone you know has a 100% chance of experiencing these things. I’m here because I believe that language and vulnerable conversations with one another is what allows us to make meaning of our life experiences and grow from them. I’m here because I’m tired of living in a world where we are completely illiterate when it comes to the topics of grief, loss, and illness. I’m here because our inability to do so keeps us isolated, disconnected, and robbed from the experience of true belonging.
So, let’s get curious, vulnerable, tearful, angry, and joyful with one another. Let’s talk freely (and use a lot of swear words) with one another. Let’s fumble our way through. Hold some vulnerable, authentic, sometimes awkward as hell conversations. Let’s make up some new words or redefine some old ones. Let’s reauthor our stories of grief, loss, and illness. Let’s question the systems that keep us focused on cure versus caring for our well-being, or from taking all the time we need to process our grief (aka the rest of our lives). Let’s not wait until we have the right words, or know what to say, or worry that we will say the wrong thing. Chances are we will, but we’re never going to learn by staying silent. So, let’s show up. Let’s bear witness. Let’s listen. Let’s reimagine grief - together!
