Ep 12: How to Start a Grief Circle (Even If You’ve Never Done This Before)
What I Let Die Podcast
You don’t need credentials to hold space for grief. You just need care. A space. And the courage to stay. In this final episode of Season One, we walk through the how-to of starting your own grief circle—from the kitchen table to the community center to a Zoom call. Whether you’ve never hosted a space like this before, or you’re ready to return to one with more intention, this episode offers a warm, practical guide to making room for what hurts and what still matters. We explore the rituals that help us listen to grief—like composting, funerals, eulogies, and emotional...
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Ep 11: Daily Grieftending: Small Rituals That Change Everything
What I Let Die Podcast
This grieftending episode is full of rituals that meet you where you actually are. In it, I offer you small grief practices for real life. Not just retreats. Not just deep dives, but daily, doable rituals. We named grief myths and we honored non-body deaths (Kananápo). We asked: What do you want to stop carrying, and start composting? We explore: Micro-Funerals (for endings and expired expectations) The Audio Mirror (unfiltered voice journaling) Composting Grief (turning loss into future nourishment) Episode 12 will close the season. It’s a how-to for grief circles. A...
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EP 10. Parenting While Grieving, Grieving While Parenting
What I Let Die Podcast
Final episode in the Grief in Community arc of What I Let Die What happens when you’re grieving and trying to show up for your kids at the same time? What happens when you’re the one responsible for someone else’s emotional safety, while still unraveling inside your own pain? This episode is about that. It’s about the parents, caregivers, aunties, mentors, and chosen family members trying to hold it down for the young ones—while carrying grief that isn’t always named, understood, or supported. In this final episode of our Grief in Community arc, I’m speaking directly to the...
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Ep. 9: How Body Death Teaches Us To Hold Kananápo
What I Let Die Podcast
In this episode, Akilah S. Richards reflects on the journey so far inside What I Let Die, pausing to honor how physical death has shaped her relationship with non-physical losses. She weaves in the concept of Kananápo—the grief that comes from endings that don’t involve a body—and explores how tending to body death can grow our capacity to hold what we can’t see but deeply feel. Grief and joy show up together here, as they often do. With metaphors rooted in permaculture and practices from the ILID course, Akilah reminds us that our grief-tending skills are also joy-growing...
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Ep. 8: Grieving Together: Why Our Communities Need More Grief Literacy
What I Let Die Podcast
Episode 8: Grieving Together: Why Our Communities Need More Grief Literacy What does it take to hold space for someone else's grief without making it about us? And what if we stopped waiting for the "right" words and just started witnessing each other better? In this episode, I’m reflecting on what I’ve learned about grieving in community—from grief at work to grief in friendships to the subtle, daily losses we rarely name out loud. I’m also sharing a personal story that changed the way I show up when people around me are hurting. “When we are allowed to grieve out loud, without...
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Ep. 7: Friend-ings (When Friendships End)
What I Let Die Podcast
Friendships can be life affirming rescue work, and they can also feel like the death of us. Whether we're talking about longtime friendships new ones that felt so aligned and perfect for a short time, or once formed within our family circle (because a sister or cousin can also be a friend), friendships shape us. Like us, friendships are born they grow the change, the age, and sometimes they die. Let's talk about how loss and change and friendship impacts our choices, our willingness, or lack thereof, and so many other aspects of the human experience. And let's not forget about our...
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Ep. 6: The Parent You Thought You'd Be
What I Let Die Podcast
In Episode 6, we cracked open the quiet griefs of parenting. The grief of aging and shifting roles. The grief of children growing into their own sovereignty. The grief of estrangement—sometimes chosen, sometimes forced. The grief of letting go of the version of yourself that thought you’d always know how to do this. Akilah covers the topics of: Letting go of old parental ideals and identities Estrangement and emotional distance Grieving loss of control and certainty Joy and terror in witnessing a child’s sovereignty Challenging the dominant narratives of parenting as ownership Learn...
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Ep. 5: Working Through Grief, Grieving Through Work
What I Let Die Podcast
Grief doesn’t wait for a pink slip. In this episode, we explore the layered grief of working under capitalism—when the job keeps going, but parts of you have already ended. Akilah unpacks the grief of staying employable at the expense of your well-being, the ache of entrepreneurship, and what it means to leave a job you once loved. We ask: What did I lose just to keep getting paid? What version of me is still performing out of fear? What would I need to stop pretending this doesn’t hurt? This isn’t just about employment—it’s about worth, identity, and what we’ve had to bury to...
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Ep. 4: Seeing Yourself and Being Seen (Identity Deaths Overview)
What I Let Die Podcast
Episode 4 is an invitation into the layered world of identity death: the parts of us we’ve shed, outgrown, or been forced to release— and the ache that follows, both ours and other people’s. Core Themes: Identity Death: chosen, forced, or slowly revealed The grief of being unseen or held to outdated versions of self What it stirs when others change, or don’t How perimenopause, aging, career shifts, body changes, and belief unravelings reshape us The difference between knowing who you were and being seen as who you are now Core Questions: What parts of yourself have you outgrown,...
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Ep. 3: Sorting Through Grief, Trauma, and Depression
What I Let Die Podcast
In Episode 3, we feel into the reality that grief can show up in ways we don’t always recognize. In this episode, I explore the blurry lines between grief, trauma, and depression — how they overlap, how they differ, and why it matters that we don’t lump them all into the same category. I’m not speaking as a clinician, but as someone who’s lived and studied grief, and who’s made space for others to do the same. Together, we’ll look at what happens when grief goes untended, and how that can impact our mental and emotional wellbeing. This one is about language, discernment, and the...
info_outlineLet's talk about what we were never taught about grief, because let's be real, most of us grew up with this b.s. idea about what grief is, how it works, and who deserves to feel it, and when we deserve to feel it. So let's unlearn some of that together.
Some things need to die. Period. Not to complete a cycle, not to fit into our tidy narratives—just because they are done, and dragging them forward only feeds the rot, the stench, the futile energy.
That’s What I Let Die—a podcast series from Raising Free People Network about endings, grief, and what we make possible when we stop trying to tuck our losses away and start holding loss with skill and care.
Join me, Akilah S. Richards, Grief and Loss Educator and longtime podcaster, to feel through grief and relief for the many deaths within our lives.
Episodes publish every Sunday, starting March 23rd. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere pods are casted.