BW 165: From Grief to Growth: How Small Steps Can Heal After Loss with Brad Morell and the Grief Observed Podcast
Aug 26, 2025[TRANSCRIPT BELOW]
In this episode of The Brave Widow Show, I sit down with Brad Morell, a licensed professional counselor and host of the Grief Observed Podcast.
Brad shares his journey from corporate life to counseling, his personal experiences with divorce and the death of a best friend, and how grief has shaped his calling to help others.
We explore:
- Why moving forward (not “moving on”) is essential in grief recovery
- The surprising science behind tears as healing
- How family dynamics and expectations complicate the grieving process
- Why men are beginning to reach out for mental health support more than ever
- The power of Kaizen: small steps that change your life
Brad and I also talk about the importance of faith, connection, and simply showing up for grieving friends.
✨ Whether you’re in the early stages of loss or years into your journey, this episode offers hope, perspective, and practical tools for healing.
Connect with Brad:
- Podcast: Grief Observed Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/grief-observed-podcast/id1714188718
- Website: griefobserved.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/griefobservedpodcast/
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@griefobservedpodcast
Emily’s episode on the Grief Observed Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/grief-observed-podcast/id1714188718?i=1000722104513
✨ Work with Emily: Ready to stop just surviving and start rebuilding? Book a free consult at bravewidow.com.
Timestamps:
00:35 Brave Widow Academy Updates
02:13 Upcoming Grief Recovery Program
04:23 Introducing Brad Morell
05:17 Brad's Journey to Counseling
06:46 Personal Experiences with Grief
12:01 The Importance of Asking for Help
13:32 Challenges in Mental Health and Grief
16:29 Family Dynamics and Grief
21:39 Moving Forward After Loss
24:30 Understanding Kaizen: The Power of Small Steps
27:51 Managing Expectations in Life and Relationships
33:40 The Role of Faith in Overcoming Loss
35:15 The Healing Power of Tears and Emotions
40:48 Finding Hope and Resilience in Grief
42:40 Resources and Support for Grief Recovery
📌 Subscribe & Stay Connected
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💬 Leave a comment if this story resonates with you or if you want to share your own experience.
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Ready for more support?
Book a free consult here: https://calendly.com/bravewidow/widow-consult-call
Download the Brave New Widow Starter Kit: A free guide to help you navigate the first steps of widowhood. → https://bravewidow.com/start
Join the Brave Widow Academy: https://bravewidow.com/academy
I’m Emily Tanner. I was widowed at age 37, one month shy of our 20 year wedding anniversary. Nathan and I have four beautiful children together, and my world was turned completely upside down when I lost him.
Now, I love my life again! I’m able to experience joy, achieve goals and dreams I thought I’d lost, and rediscover this next version of me.
I did the work.
I invested in coaching for myself.
I learned what I needed to do to move forward and took the steps.
I implemented the tools and strategies that I use for my clients in my coaching program.
This is for you, if:
- You want a faith-based approach to coaching
- You want to move forward after loss, and aren’t sure how
- You want to enjoy life without feeling weighed down by guilt, sadness, or regret
- You want a guide to help navigate this journey to the next version of you
- You want to rediscover who you are
- Schedule a consult with Emily: https://calendly.com/bravewidow/widow-consult-call?month=2024-08
Find and take the next steps to move forward (without “moving on”).
FOLLOW me on SOCIAL:
Twitter | @brave_widow
Instagram | @brave_widow
Facebook | / bravewidow
YouTube | @bravewidow
TRANSCRIPT:
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Introduction and Welcome
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Emily: [00:00:00] Hey, hey, and welcome to episode number 165 of the Brave Widow Show. Today I talk with Brad Morell, who's a licensed counselor, and someone I connected with over TikTok. I've been hanging out on TikTok now. It's been a lot of fun and I'm learning so much about TikTok and about what all goes on over there.
So, if this is how you found the podcast. Welcome, and if you wanna join me for some random live streams or things like that, you could follow me over on TikTok.
Brave Widow Academy Updates
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Emily: This has been week two of the Brave Widow Academy and we are just really having an amazing time.
If you've been following me for a while, you know that Brave Widow has changed and evolved and adapted over these last almost three years. Guys, it's almost the third birthday of Brave Widow, which is. [00:01:00] Amazing. And we have grown.
There's so much engagement and encouragement and pictures and people commenting on each other's stuff, and the fact that we have this group of dedicated people. Who are gonna be spending the next six months together has just created this sense of camaraderie and connection that I have been working to be able to create.
And I feel like we are finally there. We're never gonna stop learning and growing. I'm always looking for ways to make Brave Widow easier on the technology side, easier for my students and my clients. And so I've done that as much as possible to send emails and to post in the app so that people can join without having to sign in, without having to go to multiple different places.
We are making it. As smooth and intuitive as [00:02:00] possible, removing all the clunkiness out of trying to navigate the system. So I'm really proud of that and of the people who really are just diving into what this is going to be.
Upcoming Grief Recovery Program
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Emily: I wanted to make sure that you know that we'll be starting another round of grief recovery method starting on September the eighth.
It will be on Monday evenings. I'm still working out my times. It'll either be four to 6:00 PM Central time or five to 7:00 PM central time, and I would love for you to join us. And normally I do this for my one-on-one coaching clients or for my academy students, and this time I'm gonna have a couple extra spots for other people to join us.
If you listen to me for long you know I love the Grief recovery method and not because it's some hyped up program, but because it was the first evidence based. Grief recovery program [00:03:00] in the world, which is amazing. Evidence-based means that it's been studied and reviewed and proven to help people in grief recovery.
Now it's an eight week program. Whenever it's done as a group and does going through grief recovery for eight weeks mean that you're healed and life is perfect and you move on? No, of course not, but it does equip you with the tools to know how to navigate grief to be able to free yourself. From guilt, from regret, from all of the things that you wish you could still say, or maybe you have said in the past, but it wasn't acknowledged.
It helps you heal from the hurt of things that might've happened in that relationship or even in your unmet hopes, dreams, and expectations for the future. So. Whether you take it from me or not, I believe [00:04:00] every human needs to take grief recovery method. And if you would like to take it with me, we starting on September the eighth and it will run through October 27th.
So if you're interested. Send me an email or set up a consult call at bravewidow.com. My email is [email protected] and I will give you more of all of the details of how you can join us.
Introducing Brad Morell
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Emily: All right, let me introduce you to Brad.
Brad is a licensed professional counselor, mental health service provider in Tennessee who specializes in grief. He teaches grief seminars and he's the host of the Grief Observed Podcast. You can find him griefobserved.com and some various social media handles, which I will put into the show notes for you.
Brad was a gracious host and allowed me to come on his podcast recently, and we just decided to do a podcast swap. So you're gonna be able to hear this episode, and then as well, I'm gonna be [00:05:00] sharing part of the episode from the Grief Observed Podcast. All right, let's dive in.
Brad, thank you for being willing to come on the show to share your story and your perspective on grief. I appreciate that.
Brad: Yeah, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be on here.
Brad's Journey to Counseling
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Emily: I know our audience would just love to know a little more about you and what you do and how you help other people so I'd love for you to just introduce yourself and share that.
Brad: Sure, and again, my name's Brad Morell. I'm a licensed professional counselor in Tennessee. It was kind of a late decision or a later in life decision to do that.
I had done many things. I went off to the Navy for a while. I did a lot of retail management, things like that. Then I went into a corporate setting, uh, where I worked for a phone company on the government side of things for about 16 and a half years. And I'm just like this just isn't [00:06:00] really fulfilling my life.
I'm not really helping people. And that was something that I wanted to do. So I started going to school. And finally I got to a point of like, no, I'm going all in. I'm leaving my corporate job and I'm going to be a counselor. And so that was how the journey started, but I think my life calling started a lot earlier and I'll, I'll kind of weave in a little bit with, um, how grief.
I got there, but I'll state that I think my life journey started way, way, way earlier. Even now looking back probably a lot further than I thought even a few years ago.
Personal Experiences with Grief
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Brad: So my parents divorced whenever I was 15. And I grew up in what would, what I would call the Cleaver family. If you've ever watched Leave It The Beaver.
It was the perfect family. We were in church every time [00:07:00] the doors were open and it was just. I don't know, the perfect family. Even when my parents divorced, everybody's like, oh my gosh, I can't believe your parents, you know? And I, I'll be 50 in October, so divorce was not near as common back then.
I mean, it's, it was starting to be more prevalent, I guess. Now it just seems like everyone goes through a divorce if, if they're unhappy. So I went through life and I swore I would never go through a divorce. Went off to the Navy, came back, got married, and unfortunately five years later, went through my own divorce.
That was what I say is my second pillar of life. And I have four pillars that I, I feel like I stand on, which will come into this in a moment. The third is. The death of my best friend 15 years ago. And then the fourth was a really, really difficult relationship that I went through. [00:08:00] So I've seen many types of grief although I, I generally like working with physical loss more than anything.
But I went to my own therapy session probably about five or six years ago, and I was telling my therapist, I said, I just told her those same four things. My parents divorced my divorce, my best friend's death, and this really, really difficult relationship. And right after I stated that to her, I said, you know what?
I like me. Mm-hmm. And I just started crying. I'm like I've never said that before, you know? And here I am, 44, 45 at the time, and for the first time in my life stating I like who I am. That was, I think, groundbreaking for me. And I realized at that point that I had to go through those difficult things to become the guy that I like.
And. As I sit here and think about it still, if I [00:09:00] removed any of those pieces from my life, no matter how difficult they were, maybe I wouldn't be the guy that I like today.
Emily: Yeah.
Brad: You know?
Emily: Yeah. I think that's really a powerful concept, and I know for a lot of just the people that I, I work with or in my audience, it's, we grow, we expand, we become such a different version of ourselves that we can become proud of the person we are.
And also sad that maybe the person our spouse or the person that we were in a relationship with didn't. Get to experience this new version of us and who we're becoming. But I love that you're able to look back and see that you have a different life now, and even you, yourself are a different person.
Brad: Yeah. When I first started getting into counseling, it was for the divorce aspect. In fact, I had taught a divorce class at my church, like a divorce recovery class [00:10:00] for 14 years before. Probably before I even started school to be, a therapist. And when I look back now I see that calling in my life.
From probably the time I was seven years old. I remember being in like the churchy yard and all the kids are playing football and stuff like that. And of course I did those things, but so many times I would go up to what I, I say back then I stated, was the old people, which is probably my age now, 50.
But I would go up to 'em and I'm like. How are you doing? How are your kids doing? You know, and I was just talking to people and I think that's a lost art that people, especially when we look at cell phones, the introduction of cell phones and how that's changed communication. And when you start going down the ss of or the pathways of grief, it's like, if I can just send a.
Simple text and say, Hey, [00:11:00] I'm sorry for your loss. We think that's okay. As opposed to, let me take time on this Saturday and go visit such and such, because that's meaningful, that's connection, and, it's truly a lost art and I hate that. This is what we've become.
Emily: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. It's just being willing to show up in service to the person and knowing how, like my pastor did a series, on Job, and, it's talking about like the power of just sitting with someone in their suffering and not saying anything, but literally just, just sitting with them and being with them or seeing what you can do to help them.
Now it's just a. If you need anything, let me know, or I can order you a meal or drop off a casserole, but it's not fully seeing and embracing that person in grief and, and showing up [00:12:00] in service.
The Importance of Asking for Help
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Brad: Yeah, and I, I think one of the things that I've found most helpful is asking people what they need as opposed to I often speak about how we, we just show up and we do have the casserole ready, right?
We probably have three or four in the freezer just waiting for that next call. Like, okay, I've got your casserole. But. Maybe asking what do you need right now? Or what can I be for you right now? I think that's some of the best questions we can ask people who are going through grief because maybe they need something like their yard mode.
Maybe they need someone just to sit with them, and listen and witness what they're going through. So many times we impose what we feel on other people. If I had lost my spouse, this is what I would want. This is what I would need, as opposed to just asking.
Emily: Yeah. Yeah. I, I definitely see [00:13:00] that.
And so often when we say let me know if you need anything, we're actually putting the burden on that person to tell us. Yes. And when you're grieving, you're not thinking clearly a lot of times, and you may not even know. What it is that you need. So just being able to ask that other person specifics or to offer what you know it takes to run a house, mowing the lawn, picking up groceries, doing laundry, cleaning the house.
Like just being able to put that specific offer of help out there can really go a long way.
Brad: Yeah.
Challenges in Mental Health and Grief
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Emily: So, Brad, I'm curious of someone who, it sounds like you had a, a. Career history of things that are very physical, like very hands-on, being in the Navy, I think you said, and doing some of those other things like that's not a mental health.
We care about your emotions. Typical type of environment. So when you decided like, oh, I wanna learn how to become a counselor, I wanna make a switch [00:14:00] in what I'm doing in my career, what kind of helped you take that leap and how did people react to that?
Brad: Well, here's something that a lot of therapists probably won't tell you.
I think all of us get into this field to either figure out ourselves or our family, because I always state, our family we want to believe that it's the best family in the world. Sometimes maybe people believe the worst of their families, but the truth is family dysfunction runs from one to 10, not zero to 10.
We all have some level of dysfunction. Whenever I was in the Navy, I started going through some really, really. Tough times, some depression. I started having panic disorder really badly and that is one of the drivers also for getting into mental health. It was the first time that I was away from home experiencing new things, having a lot of stressors that I, I just.
Never [00:15:00] imagined. And I think that's when I started paying attention to mental health. And I know that you have some widowers now out there, and I think kudos to them because a lot of men are really afraid to seek out mental health. I've seen that tide change a lot through COVID. Previously I would say my caseload.
It was 75% women, and now it is pretty close to 50 50. Wow. So a lot of men are really starting to reach out. And, I saw one of your, videos recently where you encouraged, other men to come alongside. That is not, even though it's the Brave Widow. There's the other side of that too. Men losing their wives.
Yeah. So it's encouraging though to see men reaching out and stating that, I don't have to have this all together. We are from a different generation now. I look at [00:16:00] generations past, and a lot was unspoken even from women back then, right?
Emily: Yeah, it was, and even my own dad grew up in an environment where you never said, I love you.
It was just shown. So even, oh, I go to work every day. That's how I show you. I love you and I care about you. So even the positive things that we associate with emotional experiences, it was very stoic, very, under the rug type. Thing.
Family Dynamics and Grief
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Emily: And I love that you, mentioned, and I'm just gonna reiterate it because I want people in the audience to catch it was you said about family dysfunction rates on a scale of one to 10, because everyone has that.
And what's so interesting is that's one of the top questions I get when people are privately talking about their family or their siblings or their parents, and it's always, am I the only one? Is it just my family? That's messed up or has issues or whatever, [00:17:00] and it's like, no, but people don't wanna post that on Instagram.
And because those relationships are often so close knit, you also don't wanna, set people off because you're talking about publicly or whatever. So it is kept a little more close to the chest, but it is something that a lot of people do struggle with.
Brad: Yeah, and you mentioned Instagram, and honestly, with all social medias, we put our highlight reels out there, right?
We want people to perceive us as our very best. And from a biblical perspective, thinking about whitewashed tombs we want people to see these beautiful things, although on the inside. There's hurt, there's disappointments, there's being overwhelmed. There's a lot of emotions that, are part of family dynamics.
And, speaking about family too, is I, I think there's a lot of guilt that's imposed on people that if I'm grieving differently than, let's say, i'm [00:18:00] the middle boy between two girls and that's, that's probably for a different podcast. But I sit here and think we are lucky to still have our parents, but when we lose one of our parents, I don't expect to grieve like my sisters do for that same parent.
Although I think that expectation a lot of times is there and to go further about family dysfunction. I've worked with enough grieving people to see some really, really ugly sides of grief. I'm down to fighting at a funeral and literally knocking over a casket in the middle of it, and I'm thinking, oh my goodness, like this.
This is not a way to honor the people that we've lost. And yes, we all grieve differently, but to be in that kind of a battle. At one of the most difficult times in life, and now they've got those memories that this is how [00:19:00] such and such left this world. This is what happened at their funeral. It's very, very difficult and I think the healing process too is the exact same that, people feel like maybe I should be healing quicker.
You know, because such and such lost their spouse and, and they're moving on. Maybe it's, there's a, a remarriage in that person's life and this person feels guilt for being stuck where they're at. And I'm sure you see a lot of that too.
Emily: Oh yeah. Yeah. And I think. Part of the reason for that is we don't have a great roadmap of knowing there.
There is a season of honoring our grief and allowing us to be in that season and being okay with that. And there comes a point where we get to decide, am I going to rebuild my life now or am is this just the reality of what the [00:20:00] next. 40, 50, 60 years looks like is just this emptiness that I have, especially if you have lost someone very close to you, that that was part of your daily life.
And so, for some people, they do choose to rebuild life and become a new version of them and to figure out what that looks like. And for others it's just. Unthinkable or dishonoring to their person. Mm-hmm. And so there's so many, as you know, so many different opinions about how things should be handled and how fast people should move on.
Or they're wrong for moving on too fast, but there isn't a playbook for that.
Brad: No. And
Emily: so it's easy for. I often will tell people, you could ask 10 of your friends their opinion, and they're all gonna have different opinions because there's no one right way to do this.
Brad: Yeah. And even if you include the opinion of yourself.
That's inaccurate as well, right? [00:21:00] It's how often have we seen ourselves at face value? Now we live with ourselves 24 hours a day and nobody else does. We probably know ourselves a little bit better than most, in most cases, but I think there's so many times I look back in my life and I, I think, I thought I knew who I was or what I was doing, and now there's certain regrets or, or.
Just maybe the guilt or the shame even, when you look at guilt says I've done something wrong. Shame says I am something wrong. It's guilt on, on steroids. And, so we have to be real careful.
Moving Forward After Loss
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Brad: And when I think about moving on, and I, sometimes I'll state that, but it's, I think it's more of moving forward.
You know, and moving on almost has the, the connotation of, moving past something and we'll never move past a spouse the loss of whatever we've experienced in life. [00:22:00] But we do have to figure out how to move forward because life doesn't slow down. Bills still need to be paid. Kids mouths still need to be fed.
Things continue on. And I think that's one of the hardest parts is we had this vision for what life was supposed to be. Now to be fair, I've never lost a spouse. I don't want to, I, I would certainly rather go before my wife does, or maybe at the same time, I think that's everybody's dream, right? But I feel like there are times where people have to figure out.
Moving forward because life requires it and being stuck, I think is one of the worst human conditions. I tell my clients moving forward. Makes obvious sense to us all, but I think even sometimes going backwards is not such a bad thing that maybe there's some things that I left in the past that maybe I need to go back and, and rediscover [00:23:00] or find so that I can move forward.
But being stuck is just, it's heartbreaking.
Emily: Yeah, it is. And I think sometimes in people's minds, they think moving forward has to be these huge leaps and these big achievements. Like, oh, now I'm able to, it's been six months and I haven't cried. Or I am happy all the time now. And really getting unstuck and moving forward to me is just.
One, it's one baby step after another. It's not giving up and feeling like my life is like this forever. And I just, I quit. I check out of life. Yeah. It's deciding like the next best step for me to today. Maybe it is to honor my past and to honor the pain of what I have faced. Maybe it's to.
Meal prep for the week. Maybe it, it just could be one small step that's helping to take you [00:24:00] forward and discover what life could be like in the future.
Brad: Yeah, I had, someone actually reach out last night on social media and told me she had lost her spouse and that she hated her job, but she just didn't know how to move forward.
And I spoke exactly of this same thing, small steps. I don't know if you've heard of Kaizen., A lot of things in the corporate world will go around this. It sounds like a Buddhist principle. It's not. It's made of two Japanese words.
Understanding Kaizen: The Power of Small Steps
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Brad: Kai, KAI means change. Zen means good. Most of us have heard of Zen, put it together.
It does mean good change, but it also means continual improvement. When you look at the concept of Kaizen and there's, there's a really great book out there called, uh, one Small Step Can Change Your Life, the Kaizen Way. When you look at it, it's kind of like if I stated, Hey, I want you to run a marathon right after this podcast.
Most [00:25:00] people listening are gonna think, oh my gosh, this guy's crazy. There's no way I can run a marathon. But what if I said, the rest of the day, all I want you to do is get up off of your couch once an hour on the hour and just stretch and then sit back down. Most of us would say, okay, yeah, I can do that.
That's maybe that's your small step and maybe you will get to the marathon later on. But what happens is our brains love repetition. So pretty soon, whenever we get up off the couch every hour, we're going to get bored of that. And it's like, okay, yes, I've got that concept down. I need something more.
So it, it actually. Brings us to a deeper hunger to start reaching out. But I think one of the hardest things is like getting outta bed. I, if that is your one step today and that's all you can do, [00:26:00] then get outta bed, go take a shower and put your pajamas back on and go back to bed pretty soon.
If you keep that up. You're gonna be like, you know what, maybe today I want to fix some breakfast after I get out of the shower, and then I'll go back to bed. And that's okay. You're starting to build on what you've previously done. And it is those small steps to go back to this post that this woman left me on social media.
I told her that maybe today. Your small step is actually just finding the old resume. That's it. That doesn't require much. Maybe tomorrow is how do I brush up this resume and then the third day, maybe today I'm just gonna make a phone call or maybe search Indeed or something like that. For what?
Available jobs. You don't have to hit a home run every day, especially after loss.
Emily: Yeah I think that's so [00:27:00] helpful and validating for people to hear because they can look at something like finding a new job, especially now where a lot of people are having difficulty getting interviews or even responses from interviews, and it just seems like this huge mountain, and it's like, I don't even know where to start.
Like our brain tells us that, right? I don't know where to start. I don't know what to do. And it's like, well, if you just. Took a moment and thought about it. You do know what the first step could be, but we often have this big expectation of ourselves like, oh, I need to find the resume. I need to update it.
I need to get it sent out to 25 people. Like that's gonna take me six hours to do all that. Instead of it's enough to do the one step, like for today, that's enough and it's okay.
Brad: Yeah. Yeah.
Managing Expectations in Life and Relationships
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Brad: You said the word expectation, and I love that and I use it a lot in counseling. I even have to, I guess, step back in my own life a little [00:28:00] bit and think about what expectations do I have for myself or for others.
I use this example I'll be sitting in my counseling office and I'll, I'll speak to my client and I state if I expect my wife to have dinner on the table tonight and she doesn't, which one of us are going to be disappointed? Me, right? Whoever holds the expectation, that's the person who's going to hold the disappointment.
My wife may have not known that I was hungry on the way home, right? But if I have a hope or a wish, it sets a different mindset to things that I can hope that she has dinner on the table tonight. And if she doesn't, guess what? I'm a big boy. I can make a sandwich for myself. We can cook together. We can go out to eat it.
It's almost like shaving a little bit off of the top, right? Like expectation almost sounds like perfection, right? And when you think about perfection, [00:29:00] none of us can achieve it. I. I've stated this a lot before on my own social media, but it's one of my favorite quotes from Michael J. Fox. And he says, I'm careful not to confuse excellence with perfection.
Excellence I can reach for perfection is God's business. And when I think about that along this alongside with expectations, I think expectation truly is this request for some type of perfection. So how do I just change that to literally excellence and excellence being, a, a little bit less than an expectation maybe that hope or wish.
Emily: Yeah. Yeah. And I think. We can have all kinds of expectations and how we thought family and friends were gonna show up for us. Mm-hmm. And how we thought the grieving process was gonna be. Or even, well, I thought I would be better by now, or I thought this was gonna be different. And one of the points you mentioned [00:30:00] earlier was about just.
Unmet expectations and hopes and dreams we had for the future that now are never going to happen. It's like one of the best analogies I heard was on Dr. John Maloney's podcast was a lot of times when we have a moment happen, like we get married or we have a baby, or there, there's a, a milestone in our life.
Our brain like projects a movie and we're like, oh, it's gonna be like this when I'm a parent. I'm gonna be the perfect parent. My child's gonna love me, it's gonna look like this. Or when I'm married, my wife's gonna have dinner on the table every night. It's gonna be amazing. Like we have this vision, but we don't.
Tell people about it. Like we don't tell our wife like, oh, this is what I'm thinking. And so then when reality doesn't match that movie or that picture that we created in our mind, we feel just this big disappointment or discontent with how things are. [00:31:00] And if we continue in that cycle, we just build up resentment for those people or for those things instead of saying.
Well, the picture in my mind looks different than what I thought it would be or what my reality is. Some of the times I might be able to communicate and make those changes, but either way, I can't continue with this expectation that it's just magically gonna happen and magically gonna be that way.
Brad: Yeah I sit here as you speak about that, Emily, and I think about,
hallmark channel. I probably just poked somebody's balloon and I'm so sorry. Hey, I've watched some Hallmark movies that are not all bad, even though I could probably tell you how it's gonna end up as soon as I watch it. And, and that's the thing about Hollywood is it sets up sometimes these false expectations.
That okay, my life should be like that person's right. They, they went through some type of adversity and, within a two hour movie, [00:32:00] it's resolved and happily ever after. You think about sitcoms, within 22 minutes and some commercials. Their whole problem of however that episode started is resolved and we can laugh about it or whatever, but life is not like that at all.
But I think a lot of times our brain sees that. And you think about the words television programming tell a vision programming, right? It's programming us to, believe a certain thing is true, even down to family dynamics. And I remember, there's certain movies, I wanna say hope floats may be one of those where, there is this moving on after a death or you know, maybe a breakup in a relationship or whatever that says, I can do this and it's gonna be a lot easier than I anticipated because.
They did it. You know, they, they made this [00:33:00] wonderful bid for a future. Why can't I do that? I think what happens is when we see a, a movie like that and we try to mirror it or think that's going to be how our life is, it does lead back to that grief element that I just want my life to be like that.
Emily: Yeah.
Brad: Which then I, I guess, becomes its own grief that I can't move on. I'm grieving the loss of a spouse and now I'm grieving a life that I've thought I should have and the life that I don't have. It's really difficult.
Emily: Yeah, it is. It is. So.
The Role of Faith in Overcoming Loss
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Emily: I know that you mentioned, before we recorded that you're very much a faith-based person and.
When appropriate, you include it in your counseling. And so I'm just curious because people always love to hear about others' experiences of when you went through those four key [00:34:00] losses that you've identified in your life. How did faith play a role in that, or how has your faith changed over time with.
Oh God is good. And also we have seasons of loss and suffering and sometimes just bad things that happen out there.
Brad: Yeah, I think one of the first things that, that pops off in my mind is when I lost my friend Chad. And as you can see behind me, I'm, I'm a musician and we wrote six songs together the year he passed away.
It was unexpected. He was 38 and had a heart issue that was genetic. Nobody knew about it and he didn't know about it, and, just died and. I really, really had to, clinging to God, I'd never lost someone that close. And when I say this guy was like a brother to me, it's I lived with his family for many years and he was a brother.
But I found this verse, [00:35:00] I think it's, forgive me, but I think it's First Thessalonians four 13 through 18, when it speaks about the promise of seeing our loved ones again and meeting them in the sky that is the verse that I, I hung on to during that time.
The Healing Power of Tears and Emotions
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Brad: One of the things that I think believers really need to, learn to do is maybe give themselves permission to lament, where there's this mix of grief and gratitude and truly pouring our hearts out.
One of the things that I really, really love to talk about is crying in tears. I love how many times have you said, oh my gosh, I just need a good cry, or, wow, I feel so much better. There is truly a scientific reason behind it, and it really speaks to just the love of our creator, God and. In tears is a [00:36:00] neurotransmitter called Leucine and kelin, and it is a painkiller.
So when people try to hold it together and try not to cry, you are truly robbing your body of something natural, something healing. That is why you feel better when you cry. It's, I'm like, it's so amazing that. God thought of this like I, we would've never thought, put a painkiller in your tear.
It's gonna make you feel better. But it does. And sometimes that's all we need is to give ourselves permission to cry out. I, I, I've, I'm not too ashamed, especially of being a man, you know, there's a lot of men that's like, I'm not gonna cry, and if Jesus wept, so can I.
Emily: Yeah. I don't know why some emotions we've decided are weaker or less valid than other ones.
And why? Anger's like the manly emotion and some of [00:37:00] these other things are not. But that's one of the things we get told from the time that we're little. Right? Don't cry, stop crying. Go cry alone. Go. I don't wanna see you cry like it just something that is reiterated to. A lot of us over the course of our entire life and you're right, it does feel like a release when we are able to cry and to just let go.
So many people would tell me, oh, you're so strong. You gotta be strong for your kids. Be strong. And I'm like, I really just wish one person would say for the next five minutes, you don't have to be strong for me.
Brad: Absolutely. Two, two segues in my brain here that I want to, uh, go after. And one is being, the anger thing.
I have challenged all my clients. Don't ever use the word angry again. Don't do it. Find out what it is behind the anger that you're really, what's the real problem? Anger is [00:38:00] what we see. It's what we it's the red face. It's the same things. We regret it. It's the actions that we take. But what's behind it?
Maybe I'm overwhelmed, maybe I'm frustrated, maybe I'm disappointed. Use those words, don't use. Anger.
Emily: I love that.
Brad: The one thing that, you just stated though. That I really think people need to latch onto is whenever you stated, maybe I just needed somebody to say it's okay to be weak in this moment, not, you're so strong.
I think those are very harmful words. I jokingly state, although I probably should. I wanna write a book about the hundred dumbest things said at funerals. We've all heard 'em and we're probably all guilty of saying one or two of them ourselves, even after knowing, number one, I know exactly how you feel.
No, you don't. You, you don't. And, but yet we say those [00:39:00] things. I guess trying to fill in the gaps of conversation or trying to. Say the right thing to these people. But not knowing what to state, but giving ourselves that permission, especially we were talking about the small steps earlier.
Maybe the small step is truly giving yourselves 15 minutes a day to totally check out. Not do anything at all. Maybe just sit and just be quiet. I think that is a great small step and, and if you fall apart in that 15 minutes, it's okay, but I think you have to give yourself permission to do that because.
Others are telling you're so strong, but they don't see you behind closed doors. They don't know the things that you truly are crying out for to God. They don't see that I'm trying to hold this family together. Missing one of the parts of this family. So giving yourself [00:40:00] permission is huge.
Emily: Yeah. And I, to your point, I try to give people grace and the benefit of the doubt because until I experienced it, I didn't know what to say either. And, culturally we want to make people feel better. We wanna pull them out of their sadness. We wanna comfort them. And so it's like, oh, don't be so sad.
Like you're, it'll be okay. Just give us some time and you're gonna feel better, trying to like. Help people feel better when really sometimes what they need is just to be seen and heard as they are. So I love that. Yeah. Brad, any last words of wisdom or things that you know, you would share that you have seen that have been, just really help you or, or helped other people through grief?
Finding Hope and Resilience in Grief
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Brad: Yeah, I wanna share I'll give you the short side of this story and it's one of hope and I think that's what most people need. I. This is partially not great, so just hang [00:41:00] in there with me through this story. There is a moral to it. In 1957, this guy, Kurt Richter, psychologist, created this study and the study will never be replicated because there's cruelty involved, but he wanted to see how long it would take for a rat to drown.
Turns out it was 15 minutes, roughly 15, 16 minutes. Then he said, and that was wild rats. He wanted to see what does a domesticated rat, how long will it take? And surprisingly, it took over 60 hours and it was because it had been shown love. And we learned a lot from this study. Um, I would encourage people to go read the full study.
And again, it's, I, I know it seems cruel and it is cruel, but we did learn that when there's hope involved that somebody loves me, somebody will rescue me. We do keep [00:42:00] swimming longer, right? It's, it's kind of like Dory from Finding Nemo. Just keep swimming. So I do encourage all your listeners to just keep swimming, find hope, go to places that offer you hope.
So many times we feel locked in other situations in our lives and maybe this is a time to recreate or, or revamp your life. You didn't ask to be here, but you do have a choice in what that future looks like. So go to the places where you can find hope.
Emily: I love that. So well said.
Resources and Support for Grief Recovery
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Emily: If people want to work with you, if people want to listen to your podcast, where, like where can they find you? What's the best way to reach out to you? What would you suggest?
Brad: Sure. As far as people working with me, I'm licensed in Tennessee. I can work with anybody. In Tennessee, even, even via telehealth, [00:43:00] that likely will change by the end of the year.
There's something called the counseling compact where they're really opening up, uh, the doors for therapists to where we can counsel in. They're probably about 35 states that have signed this compact, so. That's, that will occur eventually. I don't know all the ins and outs, but,, for now I would say, come to my podcast as well.
I appreciate you offering me the, the, uh, opportunity to speak about it and it's Grief Observe podcast. And, , also if you want to tell your story, , I offer that to anyone that wants to come on and speak of their story. Basically about the person that who they were. Who they lost and what is their grief story.
And I've seen people in early stages of grief. I've seen people in later stages of grief. But yeah. Grief Observed podcast, you can go to my website, which is just grief observed.com. It'll lead you over to the podcast. It'll show you more about [00:44:00] what I do professionally. I also do grief seminars. Somewhat willing to travel within reason to do those I generally do those at churches, like for a full, full day, like a nine to three on a Saturday or something like that. But grief is my passion. I do counsel people for all sorts of reasons, but, uh, grief, it takes one major loss and then it, it.
It changes who we are. And I think maybe that's the last thing I'll state is I found my passion through the hardest part of my life. I was going to be a therapist, but when I lost my best friend, that's what gave me the drive and love to help people through these tough times in grief.
Emily: Well, I love that.
And, I think it's definitely needed. Grief Recovery Method teaches everyone's experienced grief and loss at some point in their life, but it's, we don't have what seems like a lot of great resources out there [00:45:00] at times. So thank you for sharing that. And I'll put all the links to your website and your podcast and your socials in the show notes.
So for those of you who aren't able to stop right now and go check it out, you can look at those later and get connected with Brad. So Brad, thank you again for coming and thank you sharing your story and your insights with us.
Brad: Thanks.
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