Discussions and Events
Check the schedule for upcoming online discussions and in-person events.
Can’t make it to the live session? Once registered, you’ll receive a link to the recording.
All events are listed in PST
Online webinar discussions are free and open to anyone who wants to join.
Click on any of the scheduled conversations and events below to find out more and RSVP.
Really Living with Dementia: Real Time Learnings from the Journey
Living into an Alzheimer’s diagnosis is often disorienting, scary and shadowed by loss. What else is also possible? Join us for an honest and heartfelt conversation with "The Alzheimer's Couple," Greg and Shasta Nelson, as they navigate the terrain of his diagnosis.
Dive In and Digest: Living with Dementia
Want more? Join us on Monday at 11 am PST to dive more into the topic shared the previous Friday. This time together will allow those who want more time to digest and explore together. We will gather in an open zoom room for more ease in connecting and sharing.
Guilt and the Caregiver Experience
We will be welcoming Jeanette Yates to the Mettle Health microphone to share about her four decades as a caregiver to her mother, culminating in her book "From Guilt to Good Enough". Jeanette will provide caregivers an invitation to recognize guilt, curiously engage with it, and consider how it is driving decisions within the role of caregiving. We will also explore how one can define their own role as a caregiver versus what feels prescribed, expected, or necessary, largely as a means to avoid criticism. In the words of Jeanette, "I thought people were going to judge me about my caregiving".
Dive In and Digest: Guilt and the Caregiver Experience
Want more? Join us on Monday at 11 am PST to dive more into the topic shared the previous Friday. This time together will allow those who want more time to digest and explore together. We will gather in an open zoom room for more ease in connecting and sharing.
The Dementia Deck
Dementia often arrives carrying uncertainty, loss, and unanswered questions, but it can also open the door to deeper reflection about what matters most. In this intimate, conversation-centered webinar, we invite you to slow down and sit with the questions we don’t often give ourselves time to ask. Using The Dementia Deck as a gentle guide, we will explore themes of identity, dignity, comfort, and care, both for those living with dementia and for those who care about them. This is not a space for fixing or finding the “right” words. It is a space for listening, noticing, and honoring what feels true. together, we’ll reflect on how we want to be cared for, how decisions might be made on our behalf, and how to remain connected to the person beyond the diagnosis. Whether you are a caregiver, a professional, or someone quietly thinking about your own future, this gathering offers a chance to meet uncertainty with curiosity, and complexity with care.
Dive In and Digest: Dementia Deck
Want more? Join us on Monday at 11 am PST to dive more into the topic shared the previous Friday. This time together will allow those who want more time to digest and explore together. We will gather in an open zoom room for more ease in connecting and sharing.
Dive In and Digest: Medicare Decoded
Want more? Join us on Monday at 11 am PST to dive more into the topic shared the previous Friday. This time together will allow those who want more time to digest and explore together. We will gather in an open zoom room for more ease in connecting and sharing.
Medicare Decoded: What It Means for You
The health care system can be overwhelming, Insurance often a compounding hardship when we are ill or helping someone negotiate care. Join us for an hour digging into Medicare and the most important things for you to know and consider.
Dive In and Digest: Things to Believe in When You Don’t Believe in Things
Want more? Join us on Monday at 11 am PST to dive more into the topic shared the previous Friday. This time together will allow those who want more time to digest and explore together. We will gather in an open zoom room for more ease in connecting and sharing. Join us!
Things to Believe in When You Don’t Believe in Things
Serious illness can make us question what we believe in. How does one find meaning and purpose in a challenging situation? Join us for a deeper dive into existential thinking and ways to create purpose. We will attempt to find things to believe in, even if you don’t believe in dogmas or religions, in the face of something new (and maybe scary).
Dive In and Digest: The Work of Grief & Gratitude
A Mettle Webinar Dive In and Digest Discussion: Join us on Monday at 11 am PST to dive more into the topic shared the previous Friday. This time together will allow those who want more time to digest and explore together. We will gather in an open zoom room for more ease in connecting and sharing.
The Work of Grief & Gratitude
Join us for a dialogue between Ned Buskirk and Chelsea Coleman of You're Going to Die, a non-profit bringing diverse communities into the conversation of grief, loss and our shared mortality - inspiring a more connected and meaningful experience of being alive. Chelsea will be sharing music throughout the session, and we will have time for questions and reflection.
Caregiving and Dementia
Caring for someone living with dementia is a long-term experience—one that deeply affects both the person receiving care and the person providing it. This webinar explores the unique challenges of dementia caregiving and highlights why the caregiver’s own resilience and nervous system health are essential to sustaining care over many years. Join us for a conversation on new ideas, supportive perspectives, and ways to tend to your own well-being while showing up for someone else in a big way.
Reconciliation and Forgiveness
Join Mettle Health counselors Heather Isaacs and Bridget Sumser for a discussion on reconciliation and forgiveness, as relates to end of life. We are human, and as such, we will have hard moments with other humans in our lives. Sometimes these are issues that can be discussed and resolved before the end of a life, and sometimes they are not. We’ll discuss both possibilities, along the idea of “closure” as relates to death and dying.
Talking to Children About Illness and Dying
A discussion on talking to children about illness and end of life. Children can be supported around the dying process in age appropriate ways: using clear language about death, not talking in euphemisms, preparing them for changes that happen to body. We'll discuss all this and answer your questions.
Relating in Relationships
Join Mettle Health counselors Ladybird Morgan and Heather Isaacs for a discussion on relating when living with illness or at the end of a life. Our romantic partners, spouses, soul-mates, hold an important place in our lives; and that relationship dynamic can be seriously stress tested when living alongside a serious or terminal illness. Join us for a discussion on what can happen in a relationship when illness enters the picture, how to navigate the ups and downs, while trying to make space for love and connection.
Mettle Method: Building Mutual Relationships
The Mettle Method modules are offered in three sections that participants can take over time. Sign up for any topic- with the flexibility of choosing one date for each course. Each module is live with a facilitator and provided over Zoom.
Mettle Method: Caring for Yourself
The Mettle Method modules are offered in three sections that participants can take over time. Sign up for any topic- with the flexibility of choosing one date for each course. Each module is live with a facilitator and provided over Zoom.
Illness and Survivorship
A special conversation with Mettle Health community member on what it is to be a "survivor" or illness. Having a long remission, especially longer than anticipated, is a very tricky space to occupy mentally. You get a grim view of the future, but then time goes by and you’re still "well" one wonders "What should we think?"
Mettle Method: Orienting to the Person
The Mettle Method modules are offered in three sections that participants can take over time. Sign up for any topic- with the flexibility of choosing one date for each course. Each module is live with a facilitator and provided over Zoom.
Mettle Method: Building Mutual Relationships
The Mettle Method modules are offered in three sections that participants can take over time. Sign up for any topic- with the flexibility of choosing one date for each course. Each module is live with a facilitator and provided over Zoom.
Mettle Method: Caring for Yourself
The Mettle Method modules are offered in three sections that participants can take over time. Sign up for any topic- with the flexibility of choosing one date for each course. Each module is live with a facilitator and provided over Zoom.
Mettle Method: Building Mutual Relationships
The Mettle Method modules are offered in three sections that participants can take over time. Sign up for any topic- with the flexibility of choosing one date for each course. Each module is live with a facilitator and provided over Zoom.
Autonomy
Autonomy is often framed as independence, self-reliance, and control—but what does it mean when you're living with a chronic illness or navigating a period of vulnerability? This webinar explores autonomy not as isolation or self-sufficiency, but as a deeply human, relational experience shaped by interdependence, trust, and community.
The Last Days of Life
A discussion on what to expect from a body close to dying. We'll cover physical symptoms those at the bedside might see; understanding why the symptoms are occurring can bring comfort instead of worry for all involved as well as give people guide-posts as they sit vigil.
Understanding MAID and VSED
A discussion that covers the emotional and practical aspects of both MAID: medical aid-in-dying, and VSED: Voluntary Stopping Eating and Drinking. Both are choices that involve the whole care circle and understanding how the steps work logistically as well as play out in a body are important aspects to navigating these decisions.
Uncertainty
Join Tom Grothe for a discussion on uncertainty. A new and difficult diagnosis throws us into uncertainty. All your assumptions about your life and your future are thrown into disarray. Yesterday you knew what next year was going to be like; now even forecasting tomorrow can be difficult. Will treatments work to slow disease progression? Can you keep working? What does this mean for your relationships? How do you adjust to living life daily AND not knowing what is in your future? Of all the many things that a serious diagnosis takes from you, some believe that this loss of the assumptive world is one of the hardest. This webinar will explore possible meaningful ways to live in uncertainty. We will explore uncertainties relationship to hopefulness and finding courage. It’s likely we will present some science behind uncertainty, as well at what philosophy and religion says about uncertainty.
Perfectionism in Illness and Death
Phrases like a "good death" can lead us to think that this is another area we need to control and manage. But then, how does it feel to those who did not achieve this "good" experience? Have they failed? Illness and dying are unpredictable, messy, beautiful, and hard (just to name a few). Trying to perfect the experience isn't always possible, and we ask: is perfect really the goal?
Finding, Hiring and Living with Aides
Hiring aides is generally a mysterious process until you find yourself in need of additional help.
the myth of “disability”
Disability is a minority group that any of us could join at any time. For something so normal, disability remains shrouded in shame.
Navigating Holiday Stress
There aren’t a lot of places caregivers and patients can go to talk about stress of holidays when ongoing merriment is the expectation. Join this real time discussion on navigating the joys and pains of giving, and receiving, care during the holidays.
culture and care
Healthcare uses a one-size fits all model in order to streamline care, but who we are influences our health care and relationships with providers, meaning you need to advocate for yourself, your culture and your preferences.
dialectics: holding multiple truths
Too often, our journeys through illness get simplified. In reality, our experiences are complex, rich, and far from simple. When we create a space to hold dialectics-- to hold two seemingly opposing things as simultaneously true, with neither negating the other-- we often come in touch with a more authentic truth.
advance care planning: polst and dnr documents
POLSTS and DNRs are tricky to complete if you don't understand the context or consequences.
all about palliative care
Hospice and palliative care are too often confused with each other; but are importantly different.
realities of healthcare in america
The realities of health care in America can be bleak. What really happens versus the ideal, how you might navigate the reality to meet your goals? While our healthcare system is broken, it's the only one we have so it's important to know how to best use it and also set expectations.