Grief Is the New Normal: Making Space for the Conversations We Were Never Taught to Have
- Nov 18, 2025
- 3 min read
By Dr. Heather Taylor, PsyD
When I started Grief Is the New Normal, I wanted to create the kind of space I wish had existed when I was grieving, one that didn’t rush the process, sanitize the language, or ask people to “move on.” As a psychologist who has spent over a decade specializing in grief and loss, and as someone who has lived through deep personal grief, I know how isolating it can feel when the world keeps spinning while you’re standing still.
The podcast was born out of that need, to make grief feel less taboo and more like a shared human experience. Too often, we treat grief as a temporary state rather than a lifelong companion. Grief Is the New Normal challenges that narrative, inviting honest, compassionate conversations about what it means to live with loss rather than try to get over it.
Even the name itself, Grief Is the New Normal, sparks strong reactions. Some people push back, saying they don’t want grief to be “normal.” But that resistance says a lot about the stigma and lack of grief literacy we face as a culture. Grief isn’t something we choose or something we can avoid. It is a universal part of the human experience, a reflection of our capacity to love and lose. When we call grief “normal,” we are naming it for what it is, a complex, ongoing emotional experience that deserves understanding, not shame. My goal has always been to help people integrate grief into their daily lives and rituals, to see it not as a sign of weakness, but as one of the many ways we experience our own humanity.
Each episode explores how grief intersects with every part of our lives including identity, relationships, work, spirituality, and even joy. We talk about what it means to carry grief, not just survive it. Now in its third season with more than eighty episodes, Grief Is the New Normal releases new conversations twice a week and is available on all major podcast platforms, with video versions streaming on YouTube for those who prefer a more personal connection. The show offers a mix of solo deep dives and meaningful interviews that explore the full spectrum of grief in all its intersectionality. In solo episodes, I unpack the nuance of both death and non-death losses, from anticipatory and disenfranchised grief to the identity shifts that accompany divorce, chronic illness, and career change.
In interview episodes, I sit down with fellow therapists, grief coaches, and healers who are transforming their own experiences and professional insights into community care and advocacy. Occasionally, I bring in authors and educators whose words, research, and creative work help us see grief through new cultural and psychological lenses.
Through these conversations, we explore the many intersectionalities of grief and how it shows up across culture, gender, family systems, spirituality, and justice. Grief Is the New Normal invites clinicians, helpers, and grievers alike to sit in the gray areas of loss with honesty and compassion. Using current research, trauma-informed insight, and a healthy dose of real talk, each episode reminds us that there is no “right” way to grieve.
In the past year, the podcast has grown into a vibrant community that reaches listeners around the world. Listeners share that they feel seen for the first time, that hearing someone name the complexity of grief helps them exhale. Clinicians use the episodes in supervision or as starting points for client discussions. That is exactly the impact I hoped for, bridging the grief gap between what we feel and what we are allowed to say out loud.
My vision for Grief Is the New Normal has always been bigger than a podcast. It is part of a larger movement, one that normalizes grief as an ongoing part of the human experience.
It sits alongside my work with the Professional Grief Collective and my educational resources designed to help clinicians bring grief-informed care to their clients.
If you are craving a space that honors the messy, tender, and transformative sides of loss, Grief Is the New Normal is for you. Listen in, share with a friend who is grieving, or apply to be a guest if you have a story or expertise that can help us keep redefining what it means to live with loss.
Because grief is not something to fix. It is something we learn to live with, together.
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