The Grieving Project is a powerful and inventive spoken word audiobook that sets the stages of grief to music to help us move from surviving to thriving… the entire audiobook-all 22 tracks-is spoken over original musical compositions.

Four different young adults. Four different chronic illness experiences. Plunging through 14 stages of grieving and thriving, through a melding of words and an emotional orchestra. Taking us on a moving journey from surviving… to thriving.

What can you do when you struggle with an illness or disability that doesn’t go away? You can deny it. You can suffer from and live in fear of it. You can scream at it and demand to know why it’s there. You can come to terms with it. You can feel sorry for yourself. You can make friends with it. You can learn to live your life with it. You can grieve. And perhaps if you grieve, you can awaken, express, rejuvenate, activate, connect, shine and thrive, not only despite, but because of it.

During the 14 years I’ve lived with my rare progressive muscle weakness disease, dermatomyositis, I was so busy creating that I forgot to grieve. Or perhaps, like many of you, I didn’t ever realize I needed to grieve an illness… In The Grieving Project, I’ve invited myself to grieve and thrive; to express and feel in all the ways I’ve intentionally avoided, and from my own experiences, created seven new stages of thriving that pick up after grieving.