In this episode, I sit down with Dina Bell-Laroche — Certified Thanatologist, grief doula, keynote speaker, and author of Grief Unleashed: Moving from the Hole in Our Hearts to Whole-Hearted. Dina's own journey began in 2001 when her younger sister Tracy passed away from a rare cancer at just 29 years old, pregnant with her first child. That loss reshaped everything, and it eventually led Dina to become one of the clearest voices working today in grief and loss literacy.

We talk about what it actually means to become a grief doula rather than a grief coach, why our culture is so afraid of death, and how Dina helped bring Ottawa's first Wind Phone into the world — a disconnected phone booth where the bereaved can go to talk to the people they've lost.

✨ Why Dina moved from "grief coach" to "grief doula" — and what the shift really means
✨ The difference between chronos time and kairos time, and what STUGS (sudden temporary upsurges in grief) really are
✨ Why our culture ranks losses against each other, and why that hierarchy needs to go
✨ The story behind the Wind Phone, and Dina's new Wind Phone project at a hospice in Ottawa
✨ What it looks like to bring grief literacy into elite sport, executive coaching, and corporate culture

If you've ever asked yourself why you can't just "get over" a loss from decades ago, this episode is for you.

If you've ever wondered what a grief doula actually does, or how it's different from a grief coach, this episode is for you.

If you've ever felt like your grief didn't rank as "bad enough" to talk about, this episode is for you.

This episode was made for you. 💜

And if you'd like to continue this conversation, head over to grief2growth.substack.com — you'll find an article there where you can comment and connect with me and other listeners.

00:00 🌱 Opening: Planted, Not Buried

02:47 💛 Welcoming Dina & Remembering Tracy

06:04 ⏳ Chronos Time vs. Kairos Time (What STUGS Really Are)

13:10 🎓 Becoming a Certified Thanatologist

15:02 ✊ Disenfranchised Grief & Sibling Loss

18:21 🏅 Coaching Executives, Olympians & Elite Athletes Through Grief

19:31 ⚰️ Why Our Culture Is Afraid of Death

23:13 👶 Talking to Children About Death

28:18 📊 The Grief Hierarchy — Ranking Our Losses

35:00 🚪 Closing a Chapter with Intention

36:27 🤱 From "Grief Coach" to "Grief Doula"

41:48 🌊 The Well of Grief — Presence Over Fixing

45:12 📓 Writing Grief Unleashed

47:51 ☎️ The Story Behind the Wind Phone

49:39 🕊️ A New Wind Phone at the Hospice

50:43 🌱 Inside the Grief Companion Program

52:25 🔗 Where to Find Dina

– – – Let's Connect: – – –

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Let me know if this works, and I'll move on to Step 3: YouTube Tags.