When Loss Becomes Initiation: Somatic Grief, Ancestral Practices, and Sacred Healing with Sundari Malcolm
About this episode
What if grief wasn't something to survive, but something to move through with presence, ritual, and the full weight of your body?
In this episode, Nina Rodriguez sits down with Sundari Malcolm, a birth, grief, and death doula, yoga and breathwork teacher, author of Grief Gems, and founder of A Healing Doula Academy. Raised by Yogi parents, Sundari brings a deeply embodied and ancestrally grounded lens to loss.
After seven years caregiving for her mother before losing her to breast cancer at 27, and later losing her father to brain cancer, Sundari wasn't just grief-stricken. She was initiated. This conversation explores what that initiation looks like, and how honoring grief as a sacred passage can transform your relationship with loss, your body, and your lineage.
In this episode:
- Caregiving, anticipatory grief, and identity shifts in young adulthood
- Grief as an initiatory and spiritual awakening process
- The somatic side of loss and how the body holds grief
- Reclaiming ancestral rituals, altars, and indigenous death practices
- What a grief or death doula actually does
- Breathwork, candle meditation, and practical tools for tending grief
- Navigating collective grief without losing yourself
- Challenging Western death narratives and systemic barriers
Connect with Sundari Malcolm:
- Website: ahealingdoula.com
- Book: Grief Gems
- Instagram: @sundaribliss
- Academy: A Healing Doula Academy
Grief and Light is an award-winning, independent podcast exploring the honest, messy, and deeply human experience of loss. We're on a mission to foster a more grief-informed, hopeful world, one conversation at a time.
🏆 Ear Worthy Best Life Lessons 2026 · TalkDeath Readers' Choice Best Podcast 2025 · Women Who Podcast Awards 2025 Winner · Podground Editor's Pick
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