Dr. Gloria and Dr. Heidi Horsley

Dr. Gloria Horsley and Dr. Heidi Horsley are a mother/daughter team and internationally recognized grief experts. They are the founders of The Open to Hope Foundation and the hosts of The Open to Hope Show. In addition, Dr. Gloria is a board member for The Compassionate Friends and Dr. Heidi is an adjunct professor at Columbia University and has a private practice in manhattan. Their message is that others have made it through the grief journey and so can you, if you do not yet have hope lean on theirs.

Articles:

Grief Relief Television: Healthy Eating Through Stressful Times

Taking care of your body during stressful periods is important. Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley welcome Katie Morford to the Open to Hope show, who’s a dietician and author of Mom’s Kitchen Handbook. Her latest book is Best Lunch Box Ever, and Morford notes that it’s critical for caregivers to take care of themselves, too. She shares three simple and wholesome recipes with the hosts, starting with her curried quinoa salad. Very nourishing and high in protein, Morford says you can sub in any grain you’d like. Open a tangerine, piece it apart, and add to the grains. “This is […]

Erika Barber: Navigating Life Stages Post Sibling Death

Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley talk with Erika Barber about her experience with losing a sibling. Barber enjoyed life with her sister for 15 years, but after her sister committed suicide, Barber found herself lost. It’s been a lifelong exploration to define who she is without her sister’s physical presence. She wrote Letters from a Friend: A Sibling’s Guide for Coping and Grief to help others in similar situations, but also to help herself work through the unique challenges of suddenly being without a sibling. Barber’s sister was five years older than her and served in the role of “big […]

AmyJo Mattheis: Loss of Identity

Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley talked with AmyJo Mattheis about losing your identity in grief. When Mattheis’ father died, she kept getting the feeling that “he’ll come back.” A former pastor and teacher at Pacific University in California, Mattheis blends her theological background with her professorship. She’s the author of Religion Made Me Fat, and is also a life coach. She walked down grief paths with numerous people as a pastor, but when it became her turn, it seemed like everything was new. “It was all my own,” she recalls, and had no map to get through it. She was […]

Vanessa McGannon: Drugs, Alcohol and Suicide

Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley welcome Vanessa McGann to the Open to Hope show. McGann works with the American Association of Suicidology, and is an expert on deaths related to drug and alcohol use. Suicide is a behavior, not a disease, which is a fact that many people struggle to face. This episode features clips of numerous people talking about loved ones they’ve lost to suicide. Thomas Joiner says, “With suicide, you can’t physically attack it,” like you can with other types of threats. Suicide can be prevented, particularly when it involves drug and alcohol use. Plus, loved ones who […]

Sue Gammill: Family and Staff Support in Critical Care

“I have always believed that how we handle death in healthcare is important to the survivors,” says Sue Gammill. She serves as a liaison between patients and medical staff, acting as a buffer and “translator.” Gammill works in the pediatric intensive care unit of a hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. This type of environment, especially working with children in potentially life-threatening situations, is rife with misunderstandings, anger and frustration at times. She drafted a proposal, “My Dream Job,” and remembers that everyone thought it was crazy at the time. Four years after her proposal, her department had to work with organ […]

Nina Impala: Grief, Loss of Our Parents

As a spiritual grief counselor, Nina Impala depends on her personal experience with grief to help others through their own journey. She uses HeartSight in her therapy sessions. She’s also the author of Dearly Departed: What I Learned About Living from the Dying, and spends some time discussing her work with Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley. Located north of San Diego, Impala uses her own stories about handling hospice care and the dying process in her guidance. Impala lost her parents and says “I had no idea the impact a parent death can have on a (adult) child,” and that’s […]

Susan Anderson: Recovery from the Ultimate Abandonment

Susan Anderson is interviewed by Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley for The Open to Hope foundation radio show. Anderson has extensive personal experience with loss and works as a psychotherapist helping others address their own grief hurdles. She’s also a speaker and author, as well as the founder of the Abandonment Recovery Movement. “Abandonment issues are primal feelings of loss from childhood,” Anderson explains. It’s that same feeling of “mommy’s not coming back to the crib” that people never really outgrow. Losing a loved one can definitely feel like abandonment at the primal level. When Anderson was married for 18 […]

Don Lipstein: Losing a Soldier Son to Suicide

In this episode of The Open to Hope Radio show, Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley interview Don Lipstein, who is a Peer Mentor Support and Training Coordinator for the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors of Military Loss (TAPS). Lipstein began working with TAPS in the summer of 2012, shortly after the suicide death of his son, Joshua. Today, he’s key in providing support and hope for other military family members who are in the early stages of their grief. Lipstein says TAPS aided him in pinpointing hope during the darkest of days. Lipstein notes that Joshua served two terms in […]

Gail Rubin: Death Cafe

Gail Rubin is the owner of Death Cafe and author of the book A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die. “My motto is, ‘talking about sex won’t make you pregnant and talking about funerals won’t make you dead’,” she says, which is why she specializes on using a light touch and tone even on serious subjects. She loves using humor, because laughing causes the body to release endorphins, which helps us relax. That’s exactly the state a person should be in when making such serious decisions like funeral and death planning. She recently spoke with […]

The Compassionate Friends; People Helping People through Bereavement

Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley interviewed married couple Michele Muro and Babe-Anthony Muro on The Open to Hope Foundation show, in collaboration with The Compassionate Friends. The Muros lost daughter/stepdaughter Lori in an automobile collision while she was serving in the military. Gloria and Heidi also interview Arnie and Varda Wendorf, who also lost their daughter Lauren in a car accident. Following the loss of Lauren, the Wendorfs teamed up with The Compassionate Friends to become co-leaders for the Staten Island New York chapter. Michele says her daughter was just 24 when she died, and the family “was at a […]

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