Human School Meghan Riordan Jarvis: Falling Apart as a Grief Expert & Creating What Grief Was Missing
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Have you ever been hit by grief so hard that it knocked you off every foundation you thought you had?
What if grief isn't a problem to be solved, but an energy inside your body that's asking to be tended? And no one ever taught you how.
Meghan Riordan Jarvis is a trauma therapist, bestselling author of the memoir End of the Hour, and the host of Grief is My Side Hustle, a podcast that has helped thousands of people feel less alone in their loss. But what makes Meghan extraordinary isn't just her clinical expertise in trauma-informed care, EMDR, and body-centered healing; it's the fact that she fell completely apart after her mother died, and had the courage to seek help as a patient in the very world she had spent her career serving.
In this conversation, Meghan opens up about losing her mother six years ago and what it felt like to arrive at a treatment program as a clinician who "knew everything." She reveals the early childhood loss that shaped her, the fury that drove her to build something new, and how a morning walk with her Episcopal priest friend changed the way she practices daily. Watch in real time as Meghan does what she does best: shows up with compassion first, no fixes required.
Miles and Meghan also pull back the curtain on the Grief M.E.N.T.O.R. Method: Meghan's six-component framework that is rewriting how clinicians, companies, and everyday people understand and support loss. From the neuroscience of why your brain codes grief like a trauma folder, to why the five stages of grief were never meant for you, to why your body literally cannot trust itself to heal if you never go to the bathroom during the workday, this conversation is the grief education none of us ever got.
In this conversation, you'll learn:
- How to Understand What Grief Actually Is
- How to Recognize When Your Body Is Carrying Grief Before Your Mind Does
- How to Stop White-Knuckling Through Hard Seasons Alone
- How to Apply the Grief M.E.N.T.O.R. Method as a Daily Practice
- How to Support a Grieving Person Without Saying the Wrong Thing
- How to Tell the Difference Between Grief and Clinical Depression and Why It Matters
- How to Reframe the Story You're Telling About Your Loss
- How to Move Anger and Energy Through Your Body Instead of Staying Stuck in It
- How to Stop Looking Outside Yourself for the Answers
Welcome to Human School, where we learn what matters most - Miles Adcox
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What We Discuss:
00:00 Introduction
00:01:17 Meet Meghan Riordan Jarvis
00:02:35 It's Always About the Story: The Red Tabaco Barn
00:13:15 Grief Redefined
00:20:48 The Labyrinth at Onsite
00:27:10 Sacred Instincts and Knowing What You Need
00:29:09 How Miles and Meghan Met
00:34:23 Meghan's Grief Origin Story & What Launched Her into This Career
00:43:26 Grief vs. Depression: Why Treating Them The Same Way is a Critical Mistake
00:45:44 A New Season of Grief - Life After Losing Her Mom
00:57:21 How Fury Became Rocket Fuel for the Grief M.E.N.T.O.R. Method
01:02:10 Why Even the Experts Aren't Protected
01:07:04 What to Say to a Griever: Practical, Human Guidance
01:12:02 The Neuroscience That Explains Everything
01:16:41 Empathy vs. Compassion: Why the Distinction Matters and How It Changes Who You Become
01:23:44 Meghan's Three-Step Framework
01:25:03 The Triangle of Trust
01:29:17 Mangled Spirituality, Morning Walks with a Priest, and Phone Alarms
01:36:21 What Happens When You Don't Address Grief
01:39:54 The Grief M.E.N.T.O.R. Method Explained
01:54:09 Why Miles Changed What Onsite Calls Its Clinicians
01:57:20 The Closing Message Neither of Them Planned