The Adapted Life, Finding Next
I’m Julie Hasselberger. For 26 years, I was the full-time caregiver for my beloved son Daniel, whose life was marked by profound disability and extraordinary beauty. This podcast began as a way to support other parents navigating the complex, often isolating world of special needs caregiving. But life changed — heartbreakingly and irrevocably — when my son passed away.
Now, The Adapted Life, Finding Next is a space for truth-telling, tenderness, and transformation. It’s about what comes after the role that once defined you is gone. It’s about grief, relational trauma, resilience, and the raw, ongoing search for next — for purpose, healing, and connection.
If you’re facing a season of reckoning, rebuilding, or rediscovery, I invite you to walk with me. You are not alone. This is the adapted life… and together, we’ll find what comes next.
The Adapted Life, Finding Next
Grieving caregiver, I lost my Mom but have to keep going.
episode 10.
The Adapted Life Podcast
Life in my shoes. Recovering from grief. Why my podcast matters.
My world was crushed on January 23, 2022 when my mother passed away suddenly. It has taken me a month, but I am finally able to talk about it. I share with listeners why creating and building this podcast is so important.
Being a caregiver is hard. But it is also full of wonderful blessings and joy. I am here to help and encourage others.
I want to express to anyone who is listening, that in this creation of Julie the caregiver, I have learned so many things about myself. I heard a quote today that said, “it is truly in helping others that we discover who we really are as people” .
That is the essence of why I am podcasting. I am truly still discovering all of the ways that this will bloom. As I open up my heart to abundance and receiving, things are just flowing to me. When I get side tracked, as I have since something tragic happened in January, its as if a force inside my heart pulls me back here to this space where the ideas begin to flow again.
The adapted life is a place of growth. A place for kindness. A place for comfort. A place to feel supported. A shoulder to cry on. An encouragement during a rotten time. A place to help eachother. A place to grow. A place to create. A place for anyone who wants to understand the REAL meaning of “caregiver”. The adapted life podcast, is, in itself, a caregiver. This is why I am here. As I continue to manage the complex life of my medically fragile son, I am deepening my soul and finding new things about myself every day. Like how to come back from being so profoundly sad, and find purpose in that sadness.
HERE IS THE LINK FOR DANIEL'S SPECIAL ART SHOP ON ETSY...
https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanielsSpecialArt/edit?ref=seller-platform-mcnav
https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanielsSpecialArt?ref=seller-platform-mcnav
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg
