ABOUT

About Rise & Thrive

Rise & Thrive exists because two women believe forgiveness is one of the most powerful — and most misunderstood — healing tools available to human beings. And they wanted to make it free, accessible, and impossible to dismiss.

The Podcast

Rise & Thrive is a podcast about healing — specifically about a structured, 8-step forgiveness method developed over decades by healing teacher and author Mary Hayes Grieco. Each episode walks listeners through a piece of the method: what it is, why it works, and how to use it.

The show is co-hosted by journalist and producer Erin Warhol, who has spent years studying forgiveness as both a journalist and a student of the method. Erin brings the perspective of someone who came to this work skeptically — and stayed because it works.

With nearly 40,000 downloads, Rise & Thrive has quietly built an audience of people who are done carrying pain they didn’t deserve and are ready for a real way through.

Mary Hayes Grieco — Host & Healing Teacher/Author

Mary Hayes Grieco has been teaching forgiveness for over 35 years — in workshops, retreats, universities, hospitals, treatment centers, and private practice. She has helped thousands of people release pain they had carried for decades: the weight of childhood abuse, divorce, betrayal, loss, illness, and grief.

Her 8-step method — which she calls the Eight Steps to Freedom — grew out of her work with her own mentor, Dr. Edith Stauffer, a psychotherapist who spent over 35 years developing the principles of unconditional love and forgiveness. Mary learned the method, lived it, and over years of teaching expanded it into the form it takes today.

She is the author of Unconditional Forgiveness (Atria Books), which has introduced the method to readers around the world.

“It just reliably works. There are very few things in life you can say that about.” — Mary Hayes Grieco

Erin Warhol — Co-Host & Producer

Erin Warhol is a journalist and producer with years of experience in media. She came to this project as someone who had encountered forgiveness as a concept but never had access to a method — a structured, step-by-step process that made it actually possible. When she met Mary and learned the Eight Steps to Freedom, she recognized something rare: a tool that works, that’s teachable, and that’s essentially free. Her goal with Rise & Thrive is simple — to make this method available to anyone who needs it, wherever they are.

The Eight Steps to Freedom

The Eight Steps to Freedom is a structured forgiveness method with roots in transpersonal psychology and decades of real-world application. It was originally developed by Dr. Edith Stauffer and expanded by Mary Hayes Grieco into the form taught today.

The method works by guiding a person step by step through the process of releasing an expectation that has been causing them to suffer. It doesn’t require the other person. It doesn’t require an apology. It can be done privately, in a single session, for any issue — from everyday frustrations to the heaviest wounds a person can carry.

It is not therapy. It is not religious — though it welcomes any spiritual framework. It is a practical, learnable skill that produces reliable results.

The complete method is taught, step by step, in our podcast series. Start here →

You can learn more about Mary’s book, “Unconditional Forgiveness” or purchase it HERE.

Atria Books is a division of Simon & Schuster.