Voices from Around the World
Welcome to Voices from Around the World — a soulful space where stories breathe, borders blur, and humanity speaks.
This isn’t just a podcast. It’s a gathering.
A circle of voices—intimate, courageous, and deeply personal—echoing from every corner of the globe.
Through heartfelt interviews and reflective solo episodes, we explore the lived experiences that shape our shared world:
The struggles that stretch us.
The triumphs that lift us.
The quiet moments that remind us we belong.
Each episode invites you into conversation with artists, healers, activists, educators, and everyday visionaries—people whose perspectives are rooted in culture, resilience, and truth.
And sometimes, your host steps into the silence alone, offering gentle reflections on global issues through the lens of compassion, curiosity, and care.
This is a space for listening deeply.
For honoring difference.
For finding connection in complexity.
Because in a world that often divides, Voices from Around the World dares to weave us together—one story at a time.
Voices from Around the World
Grief speaks in many tongues, and we're still learning to listen
“Grief speaks every language—but not always in words.
In this episode of Voices Around the World, we travel across continents to explore how cultures mourn, remember, and carry loss. From whispered prayers in ancestral homes to vibrant festivals honoring the departed, we’ll hear how grief is shaped by ritual, by silence, and by the stories we dare to tell.
What happens when sorrow crosses borders? When language fails, and memory becomes our only map?
Join us as we listen cross-cultural ways that reveal the poetry of mourning, the resilience of remembrance, and the quiet ways we hold on—across time, across cultures, and across generations.”
Welcome to Voices Around the World, a podcast that brings together diverse voices and perspectives from different corners of the globe. Each episode features interviews with individuals from cultures, backgrounds and professions, allowing listeners to gain insights into different worldviews, experiences and ideas, from personal stories to discussions on global issues, this podcast aims to foster understanding, empathy and connection among people from all walks of life. Join us as we explore the rich tapestry of human voices and celebrate the diversity that makes our world so vibrant. I'm your host, obadiah, and today I want to speak to something that lives quietly in many of us, something we often carry in silence or tuck behind our routines, our smiles, our strength Grief. Not just the grief of death, though that too, but the grief of change, of rupture, of losing something we thought would last, of becoming someone we didn't expect to be. Grief is a language we're still learning. Grief is a language we're still learning, and today we're going to sit with it, not to fix it, not to rush it, but to listen. Grief doesn't always wear black. Sometimes it shows up in the form of exhaustion or irritability, or forgetting what day it is. Sometimes it looks like squirreling endlessly, or cleaning or not cleaning at all. Grief is not linear, it's not polite, it doesn't wait for the right time, it arrives when it wants, stays as long as it needs and leaves behind a different version of ourselves and leaves behind a different version of ourselves, and yet we rarely talk about it, especially the grief that doesn't come with a funeral, the grief of losing a friendship or leaving a job that once felt like a purpose, or realizing someone we loved couldn't love us back in a way that we needed. These are losses too, and they deserve space.
Speaker 1:I now want to invite you to think about a grief you haven't named. Maybe it's recent, maybe it's decades old, maybe it's something you thought you were over. What would it mean to name it? Not to reopen the wound, but to honor the scar. Grief, when named, doesn't grow louder, it grows clearer. It becomes something we can walk with rather than run from, and in naming it we reclaim a part of ourselves, the part that loved, the part that hoped and the part that tried.
Speaker 1:Let's pause together. If you're somewhere, quiet, place a hand over your heart. If you're in motion, just breathe with intention. Ask yourself gently what have I lost that still lives in me? What part of me is still grieving, even if the world has moved on. What does my grief need? Not from others, but from me. You don't need answers, just space, just breathe, just presence.
Speaker 1:Grief teaches us about love, about impermanence, about boundaries. It teaches us how to sit with discomfort, how to honor what was without clinging to it, how to move forward without erasing the past. And sometimes grief teaches us how to speak, how to say I miss you or I'm still healing, or that mattered. Grief is not weakness. It's evidence of complexity, of connection, of connection of humanity. Now let's gently explore how grief is experienced across different cultures and communities.
Speaker 1:In Ghana, funerals are often vibrant, shared events, celebrations of life that can last for days. Families wear symbolic colors red and black for deep mourning, white for elders whose lives were long and full. Music, dance and storytelling become part of the farewell. In Japan, grief is quiet, reverent. Grief is quiet, reverent. The Buddhist tradition of Otsuya, a wake held the night before the funeral, invites loved ones to gather light, incense and reflect. Ancestors are honored through altars in a home where offerings are made long after death. In Mexico, dia de los Muertos, the Day of Dead, is a joyful remembrance. Families build altars with photos, candles and favorite foods of the departed. It's a time to laugh, to cry, to remember, to say you are still part of us. Rituals gives grief a container. It says this matters, you matter, your loss is not invisible.
Speaker 1:In Western context, grief is often medicalized, seen as something to treat, to move through quickly. But in many cultures grief is shared. It's not just about the individual, it's about the village, the lineage and the legacy. About the village, the lineage and the legacy. In Mara culture of New Zealand, tagihanga is a multi-day mourning process held on Mara tribal meeting ground. It's deeply spiritual and allows space for emotional release, storytelling and collective healing. In South Asian communities, grief may be expressed through Shraddha rituals that honor ancestors and ensure their peaceful transition and ensure their peaceful transition. And in indigenous communities across America, grief is often held through ceremony, song and connection to the land. Healing is not lineared, it's recurrent, relational, sacred. These traditions remind us grief is not weakness, it's wisdom, it's love that has nowhere to go.
Speaker 1:I've been grieving too and I've learned that grief doesn't just ask us to feel, it asks us to remember, To honor, to slow down. Now I would like to take a pause and share with you my own personal experience with grief. It's tender. It's one I've carried in my heart for months, unsure when or how to speak it aloud. Earlier this year, I lost my brother, and eight months later I lost my niece. Two people who shaped my world, two losses that reshaped it. Grief has been my companion ever since, not in a poetic way, but in a real, raw, sometimes unbearable way, and today I want to talk about it. Not just the pain, but the mental health toll, the silence, the unexpected lessons and the ways I'm learning to breathe again.
Speaker 1:Losing my brother felt like losing a part of my foundation. He was more than family. He was a presence, a protector, a rhythm in my life. When he passed, everything slowed. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't focus, I couldn't explain the ache that lived in my chest. People asked how I was doing and I said I'm okay. But I wasn't. I was slowly unraveling, quietly. Grief doesn't just hurt, it disorients. It makes you question your memory, your identity and your capacity to keep going.
Speaker 1:Eight months later, I lost my niece. She was young, bright and full of possibilities, so full of life, so early in her journey. Her absence came like a second wave Quiet, but overwhelming Against a heart still learning to heal. I remember thinking how do I grieve again when I haven't stopped grieving. There is no manual for compounded loss, no guidebook for mourning.
Speaker 1:While still mourning, I often found myself emotionally exhausted, spiritually numb and mentally fragile. Grief and mental health are deeply intertwined. After both losses, I experienced anxiety that came in waves, depression that felt like fog, isolation even when surrounded by people, guilt for laughing, for forgetting, for surviving. I sought therapy, I journaled, I ventured out into nature. I found myself crying in places. I didn't expect to cry, and I learned that grief doesn't just live in the heart. It lives in the body, the, the mind and the nervous system.
Speaker 1:Mental health support isn't optional in grief, it's essential. I'm learning that healing isn't linear, that some days I feel strong and other days I feel like I'm starting over. I'm learning to honor my grief without letting it define me, to speak my loved one's names without fear, to let joy coexist with sorrow. I'm learning that grief is a love that has nowhere to go and that, by sharing it, I give it a place to rest it. I give it a place to rest.
Speaker 1:So now I invite you to reflect what rituals, formal or personal, have helped you grieve. What did your culture teach you about mourning? What did it not teach you. And if you felt alone in your grief, I want you to know there are cultures that will hold you, that will sit beside you, that will say you do not have to carry this alone. Grief can isolate us, but it can also connect us. When we share our stories of loss, we build bridges. When we honor our ancestors, we root ourselves. When we allow grief to be seen, we allow the healing to begin Across cultures. Grief is not just an end. It's a continuation, a way to keep love alive, a way to remember who we are and who we come from.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining me today in this special episode. If you're grieving or remembering or simply holding space for someone who is, I honor you. You're not alone. Your pain is valid. Your healing matters. Grief is not a problem to solve. It's a truth to carry, and across the world we carry it in song, in silence and in ceremony. This is Voices Around the World, and today we make space for grief in all forms. Thank you once again for listening. Thank you for holding space with me, a space for truth, for healing, for reclamation. Don't forget to subscribe, wherever you get your podcast. We'll be back next week with another voice another story from another part of our shared world. Until next time, I'm your host, obadiah, and this is Voices Around the World. May you walk slowly, breathe deeply and bloom gently. Until next time.