Emma Heming Willis on Battling Grief, Caregiving & Finding Joy

Change Your Brain Every Day

Dr Daniel Amen

Braintrauma, Healthtips, Sleep, Obesity, Anxiety, Braininjury, Depression, Ptsd, Mentalhealth, Mood, Brainhealth, Health & Fitness, Energy, Disease, Addiction, Mental Health, Healthadvice, Adhd, Memory, Focus

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Emma Heming Willis' husband, actor Bruce Willis, was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, she felt like her world has fallen apart. In this heartfelt conversation with Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen, Emma opens up about the hidden grief of ambiguous loss, the weight of caregiving, and how she's turning pain into purpose through her advocacy and new book The Unexpected Journey. With raw honesty and hard-won wisdom, she shares how she found strength, community, and resilience while holding onto love in the midst of heartbreaking change. Whether you're a caregiver, grieving, or walking alongside someone you love through illness, this episode will remind you that you're not alone—and that hope can be found even in the hardest places.

Emma's new book, The Unexpected Journey:

https://www.amazon.com/Unexpected-Journey-Strength-Yourself-Caregiving/dp/0593833945

Transcript

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0:00.0	You fell in love with Bruce when he was one way and now frontal temporal lobe dementia,
0:05.0	which steals the front part of your brain, but he's still relatively physically healthy.
0:12.0	Yeah, I mean, he is physically healthy. It's just his brain that is failing him.
0:17.0	Emma Heming Willis is a mother, stepmother, wife, advocate, and the co-founder of Make Time
0:23.4	Wellness.
0:24.4	After her husband, Bruce Willis's dementia diagnosis, she became a passionate voice for care
0:29.7	partners and families navigating neurodegenerative disease.
0:33.1	In her first book, she shares her caregiving story.
0:35.4	Alzheimer's, any type of neurodegenerative disease is terrible. But I had always heard that FTD was like the worst of the worst. And walking in that day, that was not what I thought that I would hear, but I did. It was like I was free falling. I remember like buzzing in my ear. And I remember leaving that office with nothing, no hope, no roadmap, just to check
0:55.6	back in in a couple of months.
0:57.1	Like that's it, we're just leaving.
0:59.1	So what advice would you give someone who just received a similar life-changing diagnosis?
1:04.9	You know, for me it was about...
1:07.2	Every day you are making your brain better or you are making it worse.
1:13.6	Stay with us to learn how you can change your brain for the better every day.
1:19.6	This podcast is brought to you by the Change Your Brain Foundation,
1:26.6	dedicated to ending the concept of mental
1:30.9	illness by creating a revolution in brain health. Go to change your brain.org to learn how you can
1:41.7	support our mission. We are so excited today for this podcast is going to be very important.
1:52.9	With us is our friend Emma Heming Willis, who's a mother, stepmother, wife, advocate, co-founder of Make Time Wellness,
2:07.2	a brand devoted to women's brain health.
2:10.9	After her husband, Bruce Willis, was diagnosed with frontal temporal lobe dementia,
	...

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