Episode 243: Merissa Nathan Gerson

On the nuances of grief and loss, personal rituals, and our willingness to be transformed.

• 0:00 — Introduction and Guest Introduction
• 3:04 — Marissa's Personal Story and Grief Journey
• 7:38 — Building a Grief Plan
• 13:24 — Understanding Trauma and Its Impact
• 17:27 — Boundaries and Self-Care
• 22:52 — The Role of Prayer and Rituals
• 28:22 — Memorializing Losses and Rituals
• 32:18 — Connecting with Nature and Finding Support
• 37:46 — Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Merissa Nathan Gerson is the author of Forget Prayers, Bring Cake: A Single Woman's Guide to Grieving, and her writing appears in Modern Love for the New York Times, The Atlantic, Playboy, Tablet, CNN.com and beyond. Merissa trained in Shambhala Shamatha meditation, graduated with an MFA in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University, is a certified Sivananda yoga teacher, and holds an MA in Jewish Studies with a focus on inherited trauma as well as sex and gender from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. She was the Inherited Trauma consultant to Amazon's Transparent and is the daughter and granddaughter of war refugees. She is currently training to be a rabbi. Forget Prayers, Bring Cake: A Single Woman's Guide to Grieving came out in 2021 from Mandala Press for Simon & Schuster. This book is a companion for these times. As McArthur Genius Kiese Laymon describes: "Merissa Gerson has created a neon treatise on the art and necessity of grieving."