Grief as a muscle with Leigh Hopkins

On this episode of Grief and Gratitude we're delighted to be in conversation with Leigh Hopkins who describes grief as a muscle. She says she's a pro at grief not because she wanted to be, but because of the stacking of losses. Leigh shares—through a written piece and then our conversation—about the death of her brother by suicide. Then her wife died of cancer. Two years ago her neighbor died, followed by the death of her mom. Leigh says, "Grief has allowed me to be unafraid to ask questions, unafraid to sit with someone who's grieving." You can find her Heart Mapping workshop and more at Viva Institute.  Leigh Hopkins is the Editor and Curator of Khôra, a dynamic online arts space conceived and produced in collaboration with author Lidia Yuknavitch and Corporeal Writing. Leigh is a columnist at The Rumpus, and her work has appeared in BOMB Magazine, Longreads, McSweeney’s, Entropy, and The Philadelphia Inquirer, among other publications. She is a writing workshop leader at Corporeal Writing and the Director of Viva Institute. After the publication of Leigh’s essay The Brazilian Healer and the Patron Saint of Impossible Causes (Longreads), she was featured in a Brazilian documentary by the film crew who first exposed the crimes of John of God, the world’s most famous “spiritual surgeon.” In 2010, Leigh left a career in social policy to move to Brazil, where she founded an online institute by rigging a satellite dish to a boulder in a banana field. Before moving to Brazil, Leigh was a leader in the design, development, and implementation of the after school literacy program model Youth Education for Tomorrow (YET), which was referenced by President Obama in the New York Times as an example of what’s possible in community-based institutions. As the Vice President for Education of a leading social policy think tank, Leigh provided support to 500 literacy programs in historically underserved communities throughout the United States. Today, Leigh lives in Philadelphia with her wife and Portuguese-speaking Jack Russell Terrier.