From Brokenness to Compassion: Gina Economopoulos on Grief, Faith, and Finding Purpose

🗓️ Episode Summary:
In this deeply moving episode of Walk With Me, host Stephanie Bloom speaks with Gina Economopoulos—author, end-of-life doula, and former Catholic nun—about how life's deepest wounds can cultivate our greatest compassion. Gina shares her journey through chronic illness, profound grief, religious trauma, addiction, and recovery, and how these trials ultimately equipped her to serve others at the threshold of death.

Her story, told with unflinching honesty and fierce grace, invites listeners to reflect on how pain doesn't disqualify us—it prepares us to walk with others through theirs.

📚 Gina is the author of Shake the Dust Off Your Feet and Walk, a memoir of loss, love, and liberation.

💡 Key Topics Covered:

• Growing up with illness and internalizing unworthiness
• Seeking belonging through people-pleasing and performance
• Joining—and being expelled from—a religious order after 12 years of service
• Losing her fiancé to alcoholism a month before their wedding
• Discovering her own alcoholism and beginning the healing journey at 49
• Becoming an end-of-life doula and rediscovering purpose through presence
• What it means to help others die with dignity
• How trauma, grief, and spiritual surrender shaped her story of transformation

📌 Notable Quotes:

“I got so used to bad things happening that it became normal. But healing meant choosing not to expect pain as my identity.”

“I don't fear death. I see Jesus in those I sit beside in their final hours.”

“If nobody told you they love you today—I do.”

📖 Resources & Links:

• 📕 Shake the Dust Off Your Feet and Walk – Available on Amazon
• 🌐 Visit Gina’s website: www.ginaecon.com
• Learn more about end-of-life doula work: INELDA.org

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