Happy 1st Birthday "Growth From Grief" Podcast

In this special episode, Susan Andersen celebrates the one-year anniversary of her podcast, reflecting on the journey of creating 50 episodes. She shares insights on the challenges and successes of podcasting, highlights memorable episodes that resonated with listeners, and discusses her goals for the upcoming year, including a focus on more interviews and valuable content for her audience.

Thank you for listening! Visit www.sueandersenyoga.com for Yoga for Grief classes and additional resources.

Transcript

Hi, this is Sue Andersen and this is a special episode. Happy birthday to my podcast, it's one year old. And I've managed 50 episodes in this first year. A little bit longer than a year, but 50 episodes. And I'm quite proud of that because I just learned today that...less than 10%, something like 9.5 % of podcasts get to 50 episodes in a year. So, so I'm patting myself on the back for that one. I'm very happy that I was able to, you know, to do that because it does take a lot, surprisingly.

But uh welcome to this episode and I want to just take you back to the beginning.

Susan Andersen (1:10.222)
I was thinking about doing a podcast and had it going back and forth in my head, am I gonna do a podcast? Am I going to write a book or do more blogging? And I decided, you know, podcasts, I feel much more comfortable talking and sharing information with other people through this medium, the podcast medium. 

And so I decided, okay, I'm to go for it. So I got a lot of really good feedback from my email subscribers, which was very encouraging. I signed up for a training to help me understand how to do podcasting. And I worked with my coach, Amanda McKinney, shout out to Amanda, who uh kind of was there pushing me along, right? In a nice way, like, let's set the goals. When are you gonna record, set that date, uh practice, all that sort of thing. So.

My first episode was on June 9. So I'm, like I said, recording on the 16th. So a little bit more than than one year, but still. So thinking back on the past year, episodes that I think were helpful to people based on the number of people that downloaded the episode. These were stories. These were discussions mostly, you know, so it me interviewing somebody. The first one was Adrienne Terrell, and she talked about journaling. She's also a yoga teacher. And she lost her son to suicide.

Susan Andersen (3:16.438)
So we talked about the power of journaling. And it was a really, really good episode. People seem to enjoy that. Another discussion that I had, which actually ended up being two episodes was with Jeanne Hewell Chambers. And it was called Stitching Stories. So this was fiber arts and how fiber arts helps with grief.
Following that, I spoke with book author Jessica Fine about the struggles that she went through in her life and then her story about the last few years of her daughter's life.

Susan Andersen (4:12.130)
I had a really great conversation with Ronnie Walker, who's the executive director of the Alliance of Hope about suicide loss survival and her mission to create the Alliance of Hope.  One of the episodes that was popular, number 33, that was a solo episode that I did was called Marking Milestones. So grieving through birthdays and anniversaries and those sorts of things. 

So, you know, a favorite one of mine because I had never heard of it before was number 35. And this was with Heathcliff St. James DeVille. And it was about a bereavement tea ceremony. So that's something to listen to. He's from Australia. We had a great conversation. And I had never heard of this bereavement tea ceremony. So I was really intrigued by the whole thing. It sounds just absolutely beautiful.  And he got a lot out of it. And when you listen to the episode you would hear that. 

I also did a series of episodes on different healing modalities that I've been trying. So there was one on astrology. There was one on breath work with Claire O'Brien. And that was very powerful. Elemental breathwork technique and class that I did with Claire and just Claire's explanation about how breathwork can help us. She's a mental health professional and uses these tools in her practice. So that was also a really very powerful episode to listen to.

Susan Andersen (6:18.988)
So a little bit about this coming year, or year two. My goal is to have more interviews and find these different healing modalities or different stories that I think will be helpful to you, dear listener, on your path through grief, right? 
What other people have found helpful because remember that grief is individual
and grief does not follow any kind of linear path. It's up and down. It's back and forth. Some things work for some people. Some things work for you early stages. And some things work for you 12 years down the road like me. Right? 

So I would never have thought about doing some of the things that I'm doing today 12 years ago. And that's okay. It's actually really good because I found some new ways to process grief. So that's one of my goals is to create more podcasts with a guest. The other thing that you'll notice is that I'm not necessarily
creating a podcast every week because I do not want to be providing content that is not helpful to you. I want to provide content that is valuable. And so if I feel stuck, if I'm not happy with what I've recorded, I'm not going to publish it. I want to make sure that I'm in the right frame of mind, that my energy is there and therefore infuse that energy in you through my message, through my voice. And that's very important to me. 

Susan Andersen (8:19.502)
So I might skip a week here and there, which I did this year as well, but you will find that. You will find that I have skipped some weeks and that's okay. Like I said, I wanna make the content valuable to you and I will make sure that I have the right energy and I'm in the right frame of mind for passing along this information. 

The other thing that I would really like to do is hear from you. So if there is a topic that you are interested in, if there's a guest you want me to interview that you think would make an interesting story or conversation, I'd love to hear that.

And I really love to know how this is helping you. So one way to do that is, of course, to leave a review on Apple or Spotify, not just a star, but, you know, actually writing something so other people can see that this might be helpful to them, too. I think that's the important thing here is for people to be able to find this resource. And and get some benefit from it.

The other thing you can do is go to my website and contact me through www.sueandersenyoga.com or send me an email sue@sueandersenyoga.com so either way you can get to me directly to leave me some information, share with me what you might like to hear, because I would really like to hear that. 

Also, good books that you have read. I will be doing an episode about books that I have found helpful over these last 12, 13 years. And I want to share that with you as another resource.

Susan Andersen (10:41.034)
So if you are interested in learning more about my offers, you can connect with me from my website, www.sueandersenyoga.com. I have a grief guide there that you can download, gets you on my email list, or you can just subscribe to my email list as well.

So I thank you for your support over this past year and for celebrating with me on this one year anniversary, 50 episodes. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time.