Jo Leightner has a Master’s Degree in Education with a Reading and Writing endorsement and has educated many teachers and youngsters in her 30 years of teaching. She also had a 15-year career as the Unit Coordinator of an inpatient hospice care center and was certified as a hospice grief group facilitator. 

Jo is a writer whose memoir, It’s Beautifully Complicated: Love and Loss in the Adoption Triad, will be released in 2025. When she is not writing, she reads, plays marimba with her Machickichori group, does yoga, and splits her time between family and friends. 

Jo resides in Broomfield, Colorado with her husband and lives just miles from her two daughters and four grandchildren.

The Grief Recovery Method fell into Jo’s lap in 2006, after a series of substantial losses brought her to her knees.

• Her mother died.

• Her father’s dementia exacerbated; he was moved into an assisted living facility.

• Her 14-year romantic relationship ended when she took custody of her grandson who was born at 24 weeks weighing 1 pound 12 ounces.

• She grieved the challenges her neurotypical daughter would face living in a typical world. 

The Grief Recovery Method was the perfect antidote.

Jo believes wholly in the Method’s efficacy and effectiveness and wants to share it with everyone whose grief, which often looks like anxiety or anger, is preventing them from living more fully in the present.