What this episode is about
Whether Mother's Day brings up something heavy for you this year or you are simply learning to live alongside a loss that has no clear shape, this episode gives you permission to feel all of it.
Key takeaways
- Gabriella says you don't need perfect words for a friend who's hurting on Mother's Day. A short text saying you're thinking of them can mean more than you realize.
- Rebecca Soffer's advice for a heavy Mother's Day: let the day be the day. Make a plan that feels good, and drop it if you don't feel like it.
- Rebecca says when you can't find the right words for someone grieving, try: I wish I knew the perfect thing to say. I care about you.
Moments from this episode
Word for word from the recording. Tap a time to hear it.
Sit in the muck with them
“People just need to know that someone's willing to sit in the muck with them and not be scared off. And that means everything. They will never ever forget that you did that for them.”
Loss is a living thing
“Loss is a forever thing and it's a living thing. It is something that is living because we are alive. And as long as we are alive, then our relationship with our losses will never stop shifting and ebbing and flowing.”
Grief makes us want to feel alive
“We hover so close to loss all the time. Life is a series of losses, but especially as it relates to death and imminent death and decline, what more would make us feel alive than intimacy, right?”
You can feel pleasure and grief together
“You don't have to move through this day perfectly. You don't have to perform happiness. You don't even have to explain your feelings to anyone. You're allowed to rest, to laugh, to cry, to feel pleasure and grief all at the very same time.”
“Grief and pleasure aren't opposites. Returning to pleasure after loss isn't a betrayal. It's the body's way of remembering we're still alive.”
Gabriella Espinosaat 3:42
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Show notes
There is a version of Mother's Day we all know. The brunches, the bouquets, the Hallmark cards. And then there is the version so many women carry quietly underneath , the grief of a mother who is gone, of never becoming one, of a child lost, of the mother we needed and never had, and the grief of a mother who is still here but already somehow leaving.
This episode of Pleasure in the Pause makes space for that fuller truth. Host Gabriella Espinosa sits down with Rebecca Soffer, co-founder of Modern Loss and bestselling author of the Modern Loss Handbook, for one of the most tender and honest conversations this show has ever had. Whether Mother's Day brings up something heavy for you this year or you are simply learning to live alongside a loss that has no clear shape, this episode gives you permission to feel all of it.
Read the full show notesShow less
Rebecca Soffer is cofounder of Modern Loss, a media platform and global movement offering creative, meaningful and resonant content and connection addressing the long arc of grief. She is also the author of the bestselling The Modern Loss Handbook: An Interactive Guide to Moving Through Grief and Building Your Resilience and of Modern Loss: Candid Conversation About Grief. Beginners Welcome, and writes the Modern Loss Substack, one of the platform's top Health and Wellness publications. Rebecca is an internationally-renowned speaker on the themes of loss, resilience, empathy and community building, known for drawing people into an uncomfortable topic with her warm and engaging style. Her writing has appeared throughout media, including in The New York Times, TIME, Glamour and NBC Think. Rebecca is a Peabody Award-winning former producer for The Colbert Report and an alumna of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Together, we talk about:
✨ The many forms of Mother’s Day grief that often go unseen
✨ Grieving a mother who is still alive but changing through dementia or illness ✨ How to support someone who may be hurting this Mother’s Day ✨ Finding connection, community, and meaning after loss ✨ Why grief and pleasure can coexist
Grief does not move in a straight line. It lives in us, shifts with us, and shows up in the most unexpected moments years after we thought we had made peace with it. What changes is not that it goes away. What changes is that we get better at knowing what we need when it arrives.
If this episode resonated, subscribe to Pleasure in the Pause and share it with a woman in your life who is carrying something heavy this season. And if Mother's Day is hard for you this year for any reason at all, you are not alone in that.
CONNECT WITH REBECCA SOFFER and Modern Loss:
Modern Loss Handbook | Book
RESOURCES:
Ep 101: Dr Bralove
Article by Colin Campbell
CONNECT WITH GABRIELLA ESPINOSA:
The information shared on Pleasure in the Pause is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Always consult your healthcare provider before making any decisions about your health or treatment. The views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the host or Pleasure in the Pause.
About the guest
Rebecca SofferCo-founder of Modern Loss and bestselling author of the Modern Loss HandbookGuest on this episode of Pleasure in the Pause.More about them
