Épisodes

  • The Multifaceted Nature of Grief

    The Multifaceted Nature of Grief
    Feb 19 2025

    This podcast episode of Kitchen Chats explores the multifaceted nature of grief, emphasizing that it's not solely tied to death but arises from various life transitions like divorce, empty nesting, or even positive changes. Host Aimee Kandrac and guest, Ashley Parsons, discuss how the commonly referenced "five stages of grief" are often misapplied and can make people feel like they're grieving incorrectly. They highlight that grief and joy can coexist, and asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness. The conversation offers practical advice for supporting someone grieving, stressing the importance of empathy, active listening, and respecting individual grieving processes. They suggest offering concrete help, like cooking or running errands, and acknowledge the vulnerability involved in both needing and offering support. Ultimately, the podcast encourages listeners to expand their understanding of grief, embrace its complexities, and prioritize self-care while navigating life's inevitable changes.
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    42 min
  • The Emotional Toll of Moving

    The Emotional Toll of Moving
    Feb 11 2025

    This conversation between two friends, Aimee and Kristi, delves into the emotional and practical aspects of moving. This conversation provides a comprehensive overview of the many facets of moving and offers practical advice for both those who are moving and those who want to support them.

    • Emotional Attachment to Homes: They emphasize the strong emotional connections people have with their homes, filled with memories and personal significance. This makes moving a complex process, even when it's desired.
    • The Difficulty of Purging: Letting go of possessions, especially when tied to loved ones who have passed, is emotionally taxing. Christy shares her experience with her grandmother's belongings and the challenge of deciding what to keep and what to discard.
    • The Importance of Empathy and Patience: They stress the need for empathy and patience when supporting someone who is moving. Recognizing that everyone processes change differently and at their own pace is crucial.
    • Practical Ways to Help: They brainstorm specific ways to assist someone moving, including:
      • Physical Help: Packing, cleaning, decluttering, moving plants, staging the home for sale.
      • Emotional Support: Listening to stories, offering encouragement, providing a sounding board for frustrations.
      • Practical Support: Providing gift cards for meals, setting up utilities in the new home, cleaning the refrigerator in the new home and stocking it with essentials, providing a "first night" kit with basic supplies.
      • Financial Support: Offering advice on financial decisions related to the move.
    • Understanding Different Types of Movers: They discuss the various emotional states of people moving. Some are excited, some are reluctant, and others are grieving the loss of a loved one. Tailoring support to the individual's needs is key.
    • The Importance of Asking Specific Questions: Instead of a general "Let me know if I can do anything," they recommend offering concrete suggestions for help. This makes it easier for the person moving to accept assistance.
    • Offering Help Multiple Times: Recognizing that needs change throughout the moving process, they suggest checking in with the person multiple times, even if they initially decline help.
    • Avoiding Unhelpful Actions: They caution against bringing more physical items to someone who is already in the process of decluttering.
    • The Value of Shared Experiences: Sharing personal anecdotes of moving can help the person feel less alone and provide practical tips.
    • Seeking Advice from Others: They suggest consulting with people who have experience with moving or similar life transitions for guidance on how to best support the person.
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    52 min
  • The complexities of divorce

    The complexities of divorce
    Feb 3 2025

    This is a powerful conversation about the complexities of divorce and the importance of support systems. Here are some key takeaways:

    • The Emotional Toll: Divorce is a deeply emotional experience, often involving grief, sadness, anger, and feelings of rejection.
    • The Impact on Social Life: Navigating social interactions after separation can be challenging. People often feel the pressure to explain their situation while simultaneously wanting to protect their privacy.
    • The Importance of Support: Friends and family play a crucial role in providing emotional support. Checking in regularly, offering practical assistance, and creating safe spaces for emotional expression are invaluable.
    • Supporting Children: Children are significantly impacted by divorce. Parents need to be mindful of their children's feelings and provide them with emotional support and stability.
    • Communication and Boundaries: Open and honest communication with friends and family is essential. Setting boundaries and communicating your needs regarding information sharing is crucial.

    This conversation highlights the importance of empathy, understanding, and compassion when supporting someone going through a divorce. It emphasizes the need to be mindful of the emotional impact on both the individual and their children.
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    47 min
  • The First Person I Called

    The First Person I Called
    Jan 27 2025

    This is a fascinating conversation between two sisters! Here's a summary of their discussion:

    • The Impact of Major Life Events: They delve into the emotional and practical challenges of navigating significant life transitions, such as a cancer diagnosis, divorce, and the subsequent emotional and social isolation.
    • The Role of Support Systems: Stephanie emphasizes the importance of trusted confidantes and the delicate balance of offering support while respecting boundaries. They discuss the concept of "kitchen counter" vs. "sidewalk" relationships, highlighting the varying levels of intimacy and information sharing.
    • Communication Strategies: They explore communication strategies, such as "invisible ink" messages and prepared responses to unexpected questions, to navigate social interactions during difficult times.
    • Supporting Children: They discuss the importance of providing emotional support to children during parental separation and encouraging them to build their own support networks.
    • Self-Care: The sisters emphasize the importance of self-care and prioritizing one's own well-being, drawing parallels to the airplane safety instructions of putting on your own oxygen mask first.

    This conversation offers valuable insights into the complexities of navigating major life transitions, the importance of strong support systems, and the power of open and honest communication.
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    47 min
  • Major Life Transitions

    Major Life Transitions
    Jan 22 2025

    Kitchen Chats is a podcast where friends come together to support each other through major life transitions. This season, host Aimee Kandrac shares her own experiences with personal challenges, including:

    • Empty nesting: Dealing with the emotional impact of her youngest child leaving for college.
    • Health concerns: Discovering a potential tumor and undergoing surgery.
    • Divorce: Unexpectedly separating from her husband.
    • Moving: Selling her family home after the separation.

    Aimee emphasizes that while these events were incredibly difficult, she ultimately found healing and happiness with the support of her friends. She describes the metaphor of a broken bowl being mended with gold, symbolizing how her friends helped her rebuild her life.

    The podcast aims to provide listeners with insights into navigating challenging life transitions and encourages them to support their own friends during difficult times.

    Key takeaways:

    • Friendship is crucial: The importance of supportive friends during life's challenges.
    • Healing takes time: Acknowledging that recovery from significant life events is a process.
    • Hope for the future: Even after difficult experiences, it's possible to find happiness and rebuild.
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    6 min
  • Kitchen Chats with Aimee Kandrac Episode 25: Live from the Maven Space with Rachel Macy Stafford

    Kitchen Chats with Aimee Kandrac Episode 25: Live from the Maven Space with Rachel Macy Stafford
    Apr 20 2023
    Live from the Maven Space in downtown Indianapolis, Aimee Kandrac reunites with Rachel Macy Stafford, best-selling author of Hands Free Mama, Only Love Today, Soul Shift, and more. Aimee and Rachel discuss the challenge of letting go of routine, especially during times of crisis. They also share touching words of encouragement from friends and neighbors, emphasize the importance of looking after yourself, and destigmatize asking for help. Episode Abridged Transcript Aimee: Welcome to Kitchen Chats. Today we are coming to you live from Maven Space in downtown Indianapolis. I am so honored to have my new friend and guest, Rachel Macy Stafford, here with me today.   Rachel: Thank you. So glad to be here.   Aimee: I love to start my Kitchen Chat conversation with the same question. Do you have a moment in your life when you found yourself in the kitchen with someone where there's this major life event, and it's time to talk to a friend about what's going on?   Rachel: I definitely do. After my father-in-law died in 2017, I was just on the tail end of launching my third book Only Love Today. I was coming back from a trip to Canada and grieving, and I just had a really, really dark night where I didn't know if I wanted to stay. I wrote about it because that's the best therapy for me, and I also want people to know that you might see me having this life that seems put together but that I struggle, too. So I put it out there and got a knock on the door within 15 minutes. I do not answer my door, but they were really persistent. And it was my next door neighbor. We're not super close, but apparently she reads everything that I post because she came right over. She is the kind of person that will go there with you. She said, ‘Rachel, I just read your post about your dark night and about the questions that you were having. I want you to know that you don't have to be strong with me. I know you're strong for a lot of people. You can cry with me and tell me how it is.’ I carry that with me. ‘You don't have to be strong with me.’ I use that with people. Because how often are we told that we don't have to be strong, especially as women who are holding up so much for our families?   Aimee: Thanks for sharing that with all of us. That's not something that many of us are able to admit often. And that is pretty relevant to your book and why you wrote it. It's all about: How are we showing up for our families? How are we showing up for ourselves? You wrote this book during lockdown and COVID. So how was writing this book that is so emotionally touching while you're caring a lot for your family in the world that had to be isolated?   Rachel: I definitely had a different approach to Soul Shift than I did to all my other books. In my house, the pandemic deeply affected my youngest daughter. It was one of those things where when you wake up in the morning and you're not really sure what's going to come at you because things are so unstable. I had to decide I'm not going to have a writing schedule. There was no nice, neat little calendar with chapter one this week. I could not plan a thing. And I know a lot of people during the pandemic, they couldn't plan anything.   Aimee: Even after the pandemic, as we're moving into ‘normal,’ when you've got a kiddo who's going through something, you can't keep that schedule. Releasing the requirement on ourselves to have a schedule is not something that I can do very well. But when you're going through a crisis, you just can't have that the same way.   Rachel: One of the things that helped me the most when I was writing a book was self compassion. I talked to myself like I would talk to a friend who was trying to do something really hard at a really hard time. There would be mornings when I would know I'm supposed to be working on this part of the book, and I just couldn't do it. So I would find myself saying, ‘Wait a minute. What can I do today?’ I took over the ping pong table in our basement with construction paper, Sharpies, sticky notes. Even though I couldn't put sentences together, I had ideas and had things I wanted people to feel when they went through the book. So I laid out this kind of map on the ping pong table. What transpired is a book that has all this space in it. It has places to doodle, draw, and journal. It just feels like a place you can breathe because that is how I created it.    Aimee: We talked on our last podcast about other ways that we can take care of ourselves, and you love to swing. What are some of your other self care tips?   Rachel: I don't like to use the term self care because it's really been commercialized, and we tend to think of things to pamper ourselves. But realistically, we don't want to put off our self care for once every six months, right? In the book, I called it the practice of looking after yourself. Because we know how to look after other people. We're really good at it. We’re not so good at looking after ...
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    40 min
  • Kitchen Chats with Aimee Kandrac Episode 24: Navigating Grief with Hope and Purpose

    Kitchen Chats with Aimee Kandrac Episode 24: Navigating Grief with Hope and Purpose
    Apr 13 2023
    In this poignant and heartfelt podcast episode, Aimee chats with Colin Campbell, author of Finding the Words: Working Through Profound Loss with Hope and Purpose. Colin, who experienced the tragic death of his two children, shares his personal journey. He also offers profound insights on navigating grief after profound loss and finding solace in community and traditions. Episode Highlights Share a heartfelt message. After the tragic death of his two children, Colin had many messages pouring into his inbox. One of the most memorable and heartwarming came from his son’s friend, who wrote how much his son meant to him and some of his favorite memories. “This kid knows what to do,” Colin said. “Just say how much you’re in pain over the loss, and then share a story.” Don’t wait to reach out. If the situation were reversed and a friend had lost their children in a car crash, Colin doesn’t think he would have reached out because of fear. Instead of leaving someone alone in their suffering, he recommends taking the braver approach letting your friend or family member know how you feel. “When we lose someone who’s dear to us and we have an earlier profound loss, we feel lonely,” Colin said. “The idea of having a community that’s there for us is going to be helpful in those moments.” Lean into traditions. Colin’s wife is Jewish, and they raised their children in the Jewish tradition. Even though Colin is an atheist, he found comfort and meaning in the Jewish burial traditions. For instance, the Mourner’s Kaddish, which is a prayer said every day for the first year after the death of a loved one, helped Colin keep re-engaging with his grief rather than compartmentalize it. “We leaned heavily on the Jewish traditions, and it really helped,” he said. “It was so helpful to share these feelings with people and have them just be validated, heard, witnessed, and then processed.” Keep reaching out. In the early days of grief, someone may not be feeling well enough to get out of bed or interact with people. Colin recommends reaching back out a few weeks later to see if that person is ready to talk or get together. He’s yet to hear somebody in one of his grief groups complain that they’ve gotten too much attention or love from a community. “If you’re going to support someone in grief, it’s so important to keep reaching out,” he said. “That’s a beautiful way to support somebody because they will absolutely, at a certain point, say yes.” Grief comes in waves. When Colin first lost his children, he would weep, and he noticed people had a fear that he or they would cry if they talked about his kids. Although Colin still cries some days, he recognizes that crying isn’t something to be fearful of but rather a natural part of the grieving process. “There’s that fear that if I really let myself feel these feelings, they’ll never stop, and I’ll be overwhelmed,” he said. “And that’s not how it works. Grief comes in waves. You let it take you and trust that it’s going to bring you back.” Resources + Links Colin Campbell: Website, Instagram, Facebook Finding the Words: Working Through Profound Loss with Hope and Purpose Aimee Kandrac: Website, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn WhatFriendsDo: Website, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn About Aimee and WhatFriendsDo Aimee Kandrac is a speaker, consultant, and the co-founder and CEO of WhatFriendsDo. Her work is instrumental for organizing support during life-changing events, and she speaks to organizations about creative ways to help friends and family during times of crisis. Aimee has been recognized as a Top 50 Mompreneur by Babble.com and is the first female CEO in the state of Indiana to close a $500,000 funding round. She has been featured in Forbes, Time, the LA Times, Oprah.com, the Indianapolis Star, and more. WhatFriendsDo is a simpler way to create organized and actionable support during a time of crisis. The free, online platform empowers healthcare facilities, HR departments, families, and friends to easily coordinate meals, errands, transportation, childcare, communication, and more for those in the midst of a life-changing event. The women-founded and women-led company started as a solution for a friend with terminal cancer. WhatFriendsDo is based out of Indianapolis.
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    44 min
  • Kitchen Chats with Aimee Kandrac Episode 23: From Group Texts To Motion Sensors -- Leveraging Technology For Better Care

    Kitchen Chats with Aimee Kandrac Episode 23: From Group Texts To Motion Sensors -- Leveraging Technology For Better Care
    Apr 6 2023
    Technology has become an essential part of our lives, so it’s no surprise that it can be incredibly helpful during major life events. In this episode, Aimee sits down with Candice Smith, founder and CEO of Caregiven, to discuss practical ways to use technology during a life-changing event. They also chat about technology’s limits and when a new app or tool may not be the right answer. Episode Highlights Set up a group text. One easy way to incorporate technology during a major event is to create a group text thread to keep multiple people informed of updates at once. When creating the group, ask the people on the thread to introduce themselves, so everyone can see who they are and not just a string of numbers. “I hate being on text threads, and there’s just a phone number,” Candice said. Create an online calendar. After creating a group text, you will likely start to get an idea of how people might want to help and when they’re free. However, this information can quickly get overwhelming with your other day-to-day responsibilities. Consider setting up a separate online calendar to organize appointments and information related to the major life event. By creating a distinct calendar that integrates with your personal and work calendars, you can easily access important information but still temporarily hide information that can be emotionally draining when you don’t need it. “Sometimes these events are draining emotionally and you don’t want to be reminded while you’re at work,” Candice said. “Let’s say that today is the day that hospice is coming in. I don’t necessarily want to see that during the day.” Turn on alarms and reminders. When Candice’s Dad was dying from cancer, she turned on audible alarms on his iPad to remind him to drink water. Her Dad would get so annoyed with the noise that he got up to turn off the alarm, but because he was already up, he ended up drinking the water he needed. “Reminders are a great thing to physically stop somebody from their day-to-day, even if it’s just to turn it off,” Candice said.  There’s an app for that. Whether you’re going through a pregnancy, breakup, or life-threatening illness, there’s likely an app or technology that can help you navigate that life experience. Types of technologies that might help include: Baby monitors to hear noise in another room (even if you don’t have an infant) Light fixtures for non-intrusive motion sensing Apple Watch or alert button to detect falls Keep in mind that when it comes to apps and technology, one size doesn’t fit all and what works for you might not work for others. Also, you don’t have to stick with the first app or service you try. “Nobody’s out there Googling caregiving apps or mental health apps unless there’s a reason -- and it’s usually a dramatic or traumatic reason,” Candice said. “Figure out what you like and what you don’t like. If it continues to work, that’s great, but you don’t have to stick with it and you don’t have to feel guilty breaking up with the tech either.” Technology is not always the answer. Technology can be a great tool when it works -- but a nightmare when it doesn’t. Further, new technologies often come with a learning curve, and the peak of a life-changing crisis may not be the best time to experiment with new tools or apps. If you’re in the middle of a crisis, consider waiting to try new technology until you’ve had some time to settle and identify problems that technology may be able to simplify or solve. Also, Candice reminded listeners that technology doesn’t replace the need for actually caring. “These instances are often the worst experience to date that somebody’s lived through,” Candice said. “No matter how much easier we make it by using technology … it doesn't take away the fact it’s still the worst experience they’ve gone through to date.” Resources + Links Candice Smith: Website, LinkedIn Caregiven: Website, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn Kitchen Chats on YouTube Aimee Kandrac: Website, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn WhatFriendsDo: Website, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn About Aimee and WhatFriendsDo Aimee Kandrac is a speaker, consultant, and the co-founder and CEO of WhatFriendsDo. Her work is instrumental for organizing support during life-changing events, and she speaks to organizations about creative ways to help friends and family during times of crisis. Aimee has been recognized as a Top 50 Mompreneur by Babble.com and is the first female CEO in the state of Indiana to close a $500,000 funding round. She has been featured in Forbes, Time, the LA Times, Oprah.com, the Indianapolis Star, and more. WhatFriendsDo is a simpler way to create organized and actionable support during a time of crisis. The free, online platform empowers healthcare facilities, HR departments, families, and friends to easily coordinate meals, errands, transportation, childcare, ...
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    50 min