Hope All The Way with Theo Boyd

A life can fall apart and still grow deeper roots. That’s the energy of our conversation with award-winning author and podcaster Theo Boyd, whose first memoir sparked national attention and whose next book, Hope All the Way, turns tender signs and hard data into a roadmap for living with loss. We begin with the question so many grievers whisper: am I doing this right? Theo shares how formal training validated what her heart already knew—there’s no single path, but there are better choices. Integrated grief becomes our north star: building a future that holds the past, telling stories that keep loved ones present, and creating rituals that transform memory into momentum.

We move from personal to cultural with Theo’s original national study, The Silent Weight of Grief in America. The findings are striking: most grieving Americans want more media that actually teaches coping, while many feel pressure to hide their sorrow, especially younger millennials. We talk about why people look to media for guidance, how that can help or hurt, and what needs to change across workplaces, schools, and social feeds to normalize grief literacy. Instead of vague platitudes, we offer concrete language and practices that lower the burden: permission to feel, community that listens, and habits that anchor the day.

Threaded through it all are the signs Theo trusts: a partner whose life echoes her parents, a song about dirt that sent her home, and a plan to build on the family farm with pieces of the old house woven into the new. Hope becomes tangible—recipes saved for the holidays, a notebook on the kitchen table, fences repaired, pastures prepared. It’s the opposite of moving on; it’s carrying forward with care. If you’ve struggled to reconcile love and loss, you’ll leave with language, perspective, and a few next steps that make the weight easier to bear.

If this conversation resonated, follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find tools and hope when they need it most.

To learn more about Theo, visit her website: https://thinktheo.com/

In this message, Michael shares what it meant to our team to hear about Fonda Miller's passing.