BW 172: Season 3 of Grief: Self-Discovery & The Connection Protocol (Boundaries, Friends, and Real Connection)

[transcript below]

 

Book a free consult here: https://calendly.com/bravewidow/widow-consult-call

 

•  In Part 3 of the Four Seasons of Grief series (R.I.S.E.), we’re in Season 3: Self-Discovery: the messy middle where many widows get stuck. I walk you through my 5-step Connection Protocol to rebuild safe, real relationships:
1. Redefine Connection
2. Boundaries 
3. Rebuild Key Relationships
4. Meet People & Make Friends
5. Communicate Clearly 
•  Why you feel pulled back into Isolation, and how to keep going without “losing progress.” 
•  A gentle reminder: you’re allowed to hold big emotions at the same time; grief and moments of joy can coexist.

Timestamps 

•  00:00 Welcome + why Season 3 feels tricky
•  03:00 Self-Discovery = exploration mode (who am I now / what do I want?) 
•  07:30 The Connection Protocol overview (5 steps) 
•  15:50 Boundaries: the “puzzle piece” analogy & holiday examples 
•  26:00 Rebuilding relationships after losing ~75% of your circle 
•  27:00 Meeting people & the “make-a-friend in 30 days” challenge
•  29:30 Communication: think in pictures, speak in words 
•  31:00 Why progress isn’t linear + how coaching keeps you moving 

 

CTAs 

•  Grab the free Connection Protocol Starter Worksheet: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cbvHNyllSxcET1CJ45Ya6J1R8DH_Wrm2io293SmeBQk/edit?usp=sharing
•  Book a free consult: bravewidow.com (no pressure; get your next right step).

widow, grief, grief support, self discovery, boundaries, friendships after loss, connection after grief, brave widow, four seasons of grief, communication after loss, dating after loss (mindset)

 

 

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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

 

 

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

 

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YouTube | @bravewidow

 

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TRANSCRIPT:

BW 172 Seasons 3 of Grief The Connection Protocol
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Emily: [00:00:00] Welcome to episode number 172 of the Brave Widow Show. Today we are on part three of four of our series of the Four Seasons of Grief. And if this is the first one you're listening to, it's not a problem at all. You don't necessarily need to know about the first two seasons before you hear about the third one, but I do recommend that you have a good understanding.

Of all four seasons and what you can focus on while you're in each season. Only because it will help you with where you are and it will help you know what's coming up next and what to be prepared for. We have some good stuff today, guys. So here in the third season of grief, this season is called self-discovery. Just as a quick recap, the Four Seasons, and remember we spell the word Rise. We have an acronym for rise. Season one is Rawness two, [00:01:00] isolation three, Self-Discovery, and four Empowerment.

So we are on season three today, self-discovery, and yes, we call them seasons because it's very. Transitional. We do not like to put people in boxes. And so you might be like, oh, I feel like I'm in a couple of seasons, or I'm bouncing back and forth between seasons and that is totally the point. Like here today in Arkansas, it is 80 plus degrees, almost 90 degrees.

And a couple days ago it was like 70. Low seventies and tomorrow it'll probably be like 90 something. I don't know. It bounces around a lot with the different seasons and here it is almost Halloween, which is crazy. The point is not to slap a label on you, to put you in a box, or to put you in a container, but to say, here are some commonalities that I have observed, not only with myself, but with hundreds of other widows, with thousands of other [00:02:00] widows that I've spoken with in what they experience when they are on a path to rebuilding life after being in a season of grief.

Self-discovery season three. Self-discovery. This is a really tricky time for widows as if the first two seasons weren't tough enough, but this season many times is where widows start to get stuck, and there's a reason for that. I'm gonna tell you why people tend to get stuck, but we tend to have this cycle between season two and season three.

And so season three is really this. This mode, if you will, like a, an exploration mode. So we had survival mode, we had maintenance mode. Now we're in exploration mode, which is who am I now? What do I like? What do I not like? What do I want for my future? And so often widows in these stages [00:03:00] are curious can I have a future that I can enjoy again?

Is it possible? I think it might be possible, but what would I have to do and what do I want that to look like? I don't know. I don't even know where to start. I don't, haven't really even built up. Friendships or connections with other people. Like I literally just sit in my house or go to work and come home.

And for me, I realized like the life that I was living was pretty boring, even though it didn't feel boring at all. But if I were to think about what my life was comprised of, it was. Getting through the day, getting through work, getting my kids where they needed to go, and so it felt like I was just, I existed for everyone else.

I existed for people at work. I existed for my extended family. I existed for my kids to [00:04:00] provide, to give, to do, to complete. It was all about me, like the utilization of me as a tool for everyone else. And it's easy to get into a mode where you're just living. You're just surviving, but you're not really alive.

And for me, one of the longest periods of time through my journey as a widow has been this desperate desire to want to believe that a future that I could enjoy and be excited about was possible, but I didn't really know. Was it actually possible? Could it actually happen for me? I wasn't sure. No one could really tell me how this was going to happen.

People would just say, oh, give it time and you'll feel better. It's okay I feel okay now. I feel blase eh, I would laugh. I would experience moments where I would smile and have fun. But on [00:05:00] my feel it in the soul joy and excitement meter. Maybe it was on like a six out of 10.

It was like where you would smile, but the smile wouldn't really reach your eyes or you would laugh, but it, you felt hollow on the inside. And so I often wondered. Will I ever truly experience joy on a could I get to a nine out of 10? Could I get to a point where I have something that I look forward to and I'm truly excited about it?

I'm not just oh yeah, that's nice. Was it possible I didn't know? I went on this whole journey of learning and growing and dedicating myself to stubbornly, refusing to give up, to figuring out how it is possible, how would it be possible. And from that, and from. My having coached clients over these last few years, like this is where the Four Seasons of grief have come from.

These are where the Brave Widow systems have come from. [00:06:00] This is everything that I've created to give other people the roadmap, the blueprint, the step-by-step. If I had to go through this again, this is what I would do. This is the order of things that I would focus on. So it's very intentional that in the last season of grief, we focused a lot on confidence and understanding confidence and knowing where it comes from.

Because this week and this season of grief, we're gonna focus a lot on relationships. So a second season of grief was isolation. Often we find ourselves as the dust has settled with little to no relationships or close connections with people. And so in this season, we are focused on doing several things in parallel.

Okay? We are focused on figuring out who we want to be. Now. Now notice I didn't say who we are. Who [00:07:00] we want to be. Now you get to decide, okay, this isn't, you're not like lost out. We feel lost out in the ocean. I use that analogy all the time. You're not actually lost like you. You will get to decide who you want to be.

In this next chapter, this next season that you're moving into, okay? So in this season, you're figuring out who you wanna be. You're figuring out what you want more of in your life or what you want less of, and you are starting to play with dreams for the future, play with what you enjoy, what you don't enjoy.

Just this culmination of things. And so we tackle each of those three things simultaneously. Through the Connection Protocol, which is a system inside of Brave Widow. Okay, so in the academy, this is a five week module and I don't throw that out there for you to be like, oh my gosh, it could take me five weeks to learn all this.

But we try to break it down very simply and give you actual [00:08:00] practical tools that you can use to start developing relationships or strengthening relationships. Okay, so there are five steps. To the connection protocol number one is redefining what connection is. Number two, boundaries. Hello. Number three, rebuilding relationships.

Number four, meeting people and making friends. And number five is communication. So now you can see maybe why I've broken these down into five steps, because that's a big jumbled up what feels like a, a spider's web of things, right? And so it is by. Defining our boundaries by rebuilding relationships that we work on, building relationships with people, getting closer to people, understanding who we wanna be now, like what type of boundaries [00:09:00] will we have.

It is through meeting people and making friends that we learn what we enjoy doing, what things we might wanna engage in. Plus we're practicing meeting people and making friends and all of the things. And then as a separate bonus off to the side, because not everyone is gonna be interested in this and please hear me.

If you decide that you choose not to date in the future, you choose not to get remarried, that's a totally perfectly whole and acceptable decision. Okay. There's nothing incomplete about you for remaining a widow or widower. There's nothing wrong with you. So much of society tells us like, oh, you're supposed to grow up and get married and start a family.

Or if you go through a divorce or you become widowed, you're supposed to date and get remarried, and you're incomplete until you have that other person in your life. So I want you to hear from me that. Dating and choosing a [00:10:00] spouse or a partner, however that is for you in the future, is not feel a hole or a void in your life.

Okay? And you can also be at a point where you're like, I don't wanna decide that right now. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe I'm open to it, maybe I'm not. I'm not sure. You get to decide that later, or you get to decide that. You'll just figure it out. Maybe you'll change your mind. It'll be okay. So I do have a whole dating Masterclass series that you'll have access to inside of Brave Widow as part of the academy.

And what I love about the Dating Masterclass series is I put a ton of valuable information in there that is above and beyond just stating that is about relationships and communications. Really, I'm really proud. I'm really, if you can't tell, I'm really proud of what I put in the dating Masterclass series.

But we're gonna put that off to the side for now. We are not, do not have time to [00:11:00] cover that. That could be a whole nother podcast episode, and maybe I'll do that later in the year. So the connection protocol, we start with redefining what connection is. We look at things like. Your current family and friends, people that you might wanna have a relationship with in the future.

Maybe you had some relationships that just fizzled out, or people stopped checking up on you, or they aren't as strong as they used to be. So we look at existing friends and family. We look at people who are in your board of advisors, which we talked about last in last week's episode, building a board of advisors, but also you might develop close relationships with some of those people.

We also look at people who have shared values or shared interests. So these might be people who go to the same church as you, or they play on a pickleball team, or [00:12:00] you decide that you wanna try a new hobby. We also look at people in that category. We look at people who are in a category of being on a same journey as you.

I'm just gonna pause for effect there. Okay. So you can meet other widows and widowers, you can meet other people who are grieving, but you want people or who are on the same journey. Not everyone who is grieving is on the same journey. So what I mean by that is that we can acknowledge and we can honor, and we can sit with each other in our pain and in our grief, and also.

We can be on a journey of healing, of learning, of growing, of expanding. I have a client that sent me the most beautiful message, like I don't think she even realized how well she put this, but. She is supporting [00:13:00] her extended family in a horrible tragedy, like horrible tragedy that is hard for anyone to imagine.

And she also, during this time of supporting that extended family, she got to experience something precious and beautiful and magical for herself. And so I'm not gonna go into the details of what either of those things are, but she said it so beautifully of. I'm gonna be there for my family on this date, in this capacity doing these things, and I'm also gonna treasure this beautiful thing.

I'm just gonna tuck it away for right now. I'm just like putting it in my pocket. I'm just like putting it over here so that I can show up for my family and be there to support them. But I thought it was such a beautiful way how she said it, because I thought there it is. That is like sums up one of the big things that I [00:14:00] try to coach people through, which is you can experience.

Big emotions. You can hold big emotions at the same time. One does not have to diminish the other. She could have easily said, oh, I feel guilty for this good thing. I feel bad. I shouldn't be happy. I shouldn't take joy in this. I should only experience grief. I should only be there for my family. No, it doesn't have to be either or.

You get to do both. You get to hold both. You get to honor and. Be present in both. So it's moments like that when my clients say things like that, and I see that they have these realizations and to them now it's just become normal. That's just what I do, right? It's not oh, should I feel guilty?

Am I a bad person for enjoying this moment and should I cancel these plans over here so that I'm just 100% available to my extended family? [00:15:00] There was none of that. It was just like. Yep. I have both that are happening right now. I'm going to be present where I am needed and how I can serve.

And also in my private moments, I'm going to enjoy and savor this other amazing thing, and my heart is so full when I read those messages. Okay, so coming back to our connection protocol here, we're gonna redefine the connections that we have. We are going to work on our, the second thing that we're gonna do is work on our boundaries.

Many times, not always, but many times, the people that I work with struggle with, people pleasing with, feeling guilty with just trying to be there for other people or in being able to say I have a limited capacity here. Like I can only do so much. So in the connection protocol, we have a deep dive that we do specifically [00:16:00] around boundaries.

We cover it. In the confidence module and self-trust system, we also revisit part of that in the connection protocol and we share some sample scripts of what you can actually say to people and show how you can go from gently pushing back on boundaries to becoming a little more firm, to becoming even more strong in what your boundary is and being able to.

Debrief and look on how those conversations have gone, how that relationship has gone, and we work through all of that. One of the great things that I learned from Dr. Betsy Guerra in her life coaching program was around things like the family systems theory. And one of the beautiful things that she taught me that I remember to this day is this analogy of puzzle pieces.

Yeah. And one of the things that we talked [00:17:00] about was how when you are, when you have a relationship with someone else, especially a longstanding relationship, each person, so whether that's your whole family, right? Oh, collectively our family, or it's just you and another person. Each person has their own shape of a puzzle piece.

And just like a puzzle, the pieces fit together. Now, you might have a great relationship with someone, or you might have a not so great relationship with someone. It doesn't matter if you routinely get together, if you have had a history of certain dynamics, the puzzle pieces fit together. So you might think of this as like when families get in dynamics oh, uncle Bob, he's just crazy.

You have to ignore him. Or Aunt Susie, she's so bossy. She thinks she can just tell everyone how it is. We just roll our eyes and go on, right? Like families have these roles and dynamics and things that we just get used to. [00:18:00] And so we all, we are all individual puzzle pieces and we all have our shape and we fit together.

Once we're in this like routine behavior, and so what happens is when we go through an experience like being widowed, when it comes to boundaries, we often wanna default back to the way that things always were back to the roles we always play back to the person and the way that we interacted and the way that we behaved.

But now what we get to do inside the connection protocol is really evaluate. Do we have good and healthy boundaries, or have we actually been operating in dysfunctional, toxic, hurtful, difficult relationships? And this is a good time to really evaluate what you want for the future, how you want people to treat you in the future.

And so what [00:19:00] happens is, as your behavior changes. As you start to take different actions in these family dynamics, the shape of your puzzle piece changes. I wish I had puzzle pieces here that I could show you on the screen, but just imagine like you have on the left side a piece that like goes out and on the right side, a piece where the space goes in, and so those two like plug in really well.

Now maybe your shape, it also goes out. Now there's a lot of friction because all of a sudden these puzzle pieces aren't fitting together anymore.

And so what will happen over time is that there will continue to be this friction or there will be space and separation. Or ideally the other person will change their puzzle piece shape. To match yours and you will come back together. The boundaries is a really tricky [00:20:00] topic let's say that in the past, in your family, for holidays, you were always the organizer, the planner, the person who checked on everyone else. The person who made sure everyone had their drinks and food and life was good. But now you've reached a point where you're like, oh, I just can't do this anymore.

I'm exhausted. I'm not gonna be able to show up for Thanksgiving or Christmas and be that person. And so your behavior changes when you have that family get together. You're sitting quietly on the couch or maybe you brought a side dish, but you're not running around like making sure people have their drinks, their food, they have everything they need, their this, their, that.

So your behavior has changed. The shape of your puzzle piece has changed. Other people notice, right? If you change your behavior that dramatically other people will notice. And what will they say? They might say something like, oh, what's wrong with Emily? Emily is not very talk. Emily, [00:21:00] what's wrong with you?

You're not very talkative. You used to do this, and this. Why aren't you doing that? What's going on? And if you're early on in grief, they might be more understanding like, oh, she's grieving. She's just sad. But there will come a point when people are expecting you to go back to normal, which is back to the way you used to be.

So maybe for the first Christmas, people are understanding, maybe on the second Christmas, they're understanding by the third Christmas they're gonna be like, what is wrong with you? Like you have just become this unhappy person. You're not like you used to be. And there will continue to just be this friction over time.

And either the other person will adapt to you and your new behavior and be like, oh, okay Emily's not doing this anymore, so someone else can step in and do it. Or we can decide to do something different. Or they will have space like I'm not going over there. If she's gonna be like that, I'm not even gonna invite her if she's not gonna be, helping out and helping us decorate and helping us do this and [00:22:00] that.

So there'll even be friction. Which eventually will turn into space or friction that turns into other people changing their own behavior to adapt to your puzzle piece and your new set of behaviors. And this can be really hard because when we don't have boundaries or we're used to people pleasing or we're used to defaulting back to that old behavior, we feel like we should do that.

Oh yeah, I should be checking on people. Oh yeah. I should be running around making sure everybody has what they need. Oh yeah, I should be doing that. And not feeling like we can lean into these new boundaries and say it's okay if other people get upset that I didn't cook five side dishes, that I only brought one.

Or it's fine if somebody wants to pout because I didn't ask offer to refill their drink for them while I was up. I'm doing what I am able to do. I'm showing up how I'm able to show up, or guess what, the first year, [00:23:00] I just may not even show up. So I'll give you another example. So when Nathan and I were married, we hosted many, many a Thanksgiving for our family, and Nathan had this awesome recipe to cook the Turkey.

And because he was just the way that he was, he cooked pretty much most of the meal, right? Like he cooked the Turkey a bunch of sides, and many times we hosted it at our house and we just did a lot of the work. In 2021 after he died in July. Then Thanksgiving was very near around the corner. And I remember having all of these thoughts like, oh, I'm supposed to host Thanksgiving.

I'm supposed to do this, I'm supposed to do that. And I just remember utterly feeling exhausted just thinking about it, plus the fact. Nathan had cooked for 20 years of our marriage and I was really good at making like grilled cheese. I don't think people wanted [00:24:00] grilled cheese sandwiches for Thanksgiving.

And also I was exhausted. I didn't wanna host all those people and have to clean and have to organize and get things a certain way. So that first year, I just let everyone know, Hey, I'm not gonna be hosting Thanksgiving this year. You'll need to find like another place to go. Basically. I love you guys.

I'm not gonna be able to do it, and I'm probably not even gonna be able to join you. And so now my side of the family at least, has a separate tradi new tradition where they go over to my aunt's house and she hosts everyone and it works out really well. And even though that first year I had a lot of turmoil, a lot of doubt, a lot of.

Guilt that I had to work through, I ultimately just stubbornly leaned into the fact of I'm only able to do so much. So I don't care. I don't care if somebody is upset about it, let 'em be upset. If somebody gets angry with me, let 'em get angry. I can't control how they feel about it. I can't control [00:25:00] whether or not they understand.

And to be fair to my family, they were very gracious about it. So I was fortunate in that respect. Not everyone is as fortunate. But I also had to be at peace with people are gonna respond the way that they're going to respond. It doesn't change what I am able to do. What I decide is going to be a boundary for me.

All right. The third step in the connection protocol is rebuilding relationships and what's. Really interesting to me is that many of my clients we're reevaluating and redefining what their relationship with their family or their extended family has been historically, and what people are uncovering is that. Even longstanding relationships, familial relationships. They've been in these relationships that are harmful. Dysfunctional, [00:26:00] toxic or have just allowed bad behavior or allowed a lowering of the boundaries and expectations. And so we really work on identifying relationships that people want to reignite, want to rebuild.

Let's face it. The statistic that I read was that most widows will lose 75% of their social circle in the first year. And a lot of times this is by well intentioned, well-meaning people, and. It's not because they don't wanna be around us, that they don't wanna support us. Maybe they just don't know how, or they just get wrapped up in their own life.

And so as we're evaluating current existing relationships, we look for people who we may wanna reach out to. We may want to reignite or rebuild that relationship with.

Step four [00:27:00] of the connection protocol, meeting people and making friends. Now, this is one of the more intimidating steps for a lot of people because they're like, where do I go to make friends? How does someone my age even do that? Doesn't everyone already have friends? And I'm just the oddball out what does that look like?

This is how we tackle those things in parallel, which is what are the things that I wanna do in my future and in my life now? And I also want to be able to form relationships and make friends. So we do that by going to places to meet people. Then learning how to make friends. How does someone navigate small talk?

How do you get to deeper topics and conversations? How do you overcome being that weirdo that's asking them to lunch or asking them to do something with you? These things are really intimidating to people to go to new places for the first time or to start [00:28:00] having conversations, especially if you're an introvert, especially if you're a homebody, especially if this is totally out of your comfort zone.

And so this is exactly what we focus on in this part of the connection protocol. We even did a 30 day make a Friend challenge within the Brave Widow community where people either could decide to strengthen an existing relationship or find and make one new friend in 30 days, and people had. Really remarkable results where either they were able to strengthen a relationship or meet one, and in some cases even two people to take on as friends and relationships. Step five of the connection protocol is all about communication, attachment styles, communication styles, how to foster ongoing communication. We tend to think that we're really good at communication and [00:29:00] we tend to overestimate just how good we are at that. We think we're great communicators and of course we are able to communicate.

What we're thinking, how we're feeling. But at the end of the day, we do a lot of times expect people to read our minds, expect other people to be the ones who reach out, who make the invites, who are following up with us when we have a choice, that we can be doing some of those things, and that we can be the people who are communicating clearly and communicating effectively.

I love the analogy that Dr. John Delony uses, which is we think in pictures and we speak with words, which means a lot of times we have opportunity to improve our communication and to improve our expectations of how other people may or may not choose to communicate. So those are the five steps of the connection [00:30:00] protocol.

Redefining connection, boundaries, rebuilding relationships. Meeting people and making friends and communication. And as like a bonus attachment with that is the Dating Masterclass series. So now maybe you can see why this is generally a five week process that we work on inside of the academy because there's so much there that we're able to unpack.

And what I try to remind people is that this process is simple. It doesn't mean that it's easy, doesn't mean that it's not difficult, but that's why we focus on confidence first. That's why we focus on understanding what brings us confidence and what brings us safety first, and then we move into figuring out who we wanna become, rebuilding relationships, making new friendships, trying new things for the first time, and being able to start [00:31:00] rebuilding our life.

Now what can happen in this season of grief, this third season of self-discovery, is that as widows and widowers are trying something new, or they're putting themselves out there, or they're trying to form a new friendship, that they're hit with a big wave of grief, or they feel like they've been making progress, they haven't cried in a while, things are looking better, and then bam.

They have a bad moment or they have a hard day and they feel like they've gone backwards or they feel like they've lost progress or that they just had tricked themselves and that they aren't actually doing as well as they thought they were. And so what can happen, what happens to a lot of widows who don't have support and guidance is they get caught in this loop of, they start to try new things.

They start to feel that they're making progress. They struggle with grief and having a hard [00:32:00] day, and then they just give up because the underlying belief is what's the point? Why keep putting myself out there. Why try being someone's friend when all they're gonna do is reject me or tell me they're too busy or not make time for me?

Why would I keep doing this if it's never gonna get better? And so the value of having guidance of having this roadmap, and especially of having me as your coach, is that I can help you with understanding. That part of this is just a normal part of the process, that there is no switch that is flipped and you experience no grief and you experience no hard days and you experience like life is just perfect.

Healing through grief is not linear, meaning it doesn't just go from hard to better, to amazing that it has tons of ups and downs and loops and swirls and. All sorts of [00:33:00] things that are part of this crazy weird journey now of figuring out who you are now and what you want life to be like in the future.

That is normal and here are some of the things that you can do when that happens. And we're gonna keep trying. We're gonna keep stepping forward. Maybe we're gonna adjust what we think it looks like as we're stepping forward and what we think it means and what we make it mean. And so having a coach is, to me, invaluable.

Invaluable during that process. I've shared with you guys that I work with coaches. I pay other people to be my coach. I invest in myself because I wanna know, here's something I'm working on, is what I'm experiencing normal. I'm working with a PR coach, Jen. She is amazing, and she's helping me with pitching news media outlets for maybe [00:34:00] publishing an article, being featured in the outlet, maybe being on someone else's podcast or on a TV segment.

Just all kinds of different things, and I chose to invest in her as my coach because I don't wanna try to figure that out on my own. Could I YouTube it and spend hours trying to figure it out? Sure. Could I submit a bunch of pitches and then hear crickets and then feel discouraged and give up because I think my stuff isn't good and their lack of response means that my stuff isn't worthy.

That's totally possible. But I wanted a coach to tell me, here's the next step, here's the next step, here's the next step. Oh, you sent out a pitch to 10 people and you didn't hear back. We need to pitch like a hundred and out of the hundred. Maybe you're gonna hear from two. And then after we get those two, here's what we're gonna do.

Like I wanted someone in my corner over my shoulder telling me all of those things so that I don't get discouraged so that I can [00:35:00] go, oh yeah, this is normal. Okay. What have other people experienced? And I can stay encouraged and I can keep up the hope and the faith that if other people also pitched to 10 places and didn't hear back, but by their 90th pitch, they started to get some features in the media that if they can do it, then I can do it too.

And so as I share with you all as my audience that I love. How important it is to have a container of support, a community of support of people who are on your same journey of having a coach to help you with, what is my next step? Is this normal? What can I do differently? What else could I be doing to navigate this, to learn and grow from this?

I don't say it just because. I want you to hire me as your coach. I'm saying it because [00:36:00] it's true, because I do that for myself because it saves me time, it saves me energy, it saves me frustration, confusion, doubt, and fear. Like when I get discouraged or frustrated or confused, I reach out to my coaches and they help me.

Why would you not want that? Why would you not want. To have that coach in your corner who you could immediately reach out to for help or your community, your support system of people who are able to help. One of the other coaches who's in a mastermind that I'm in, she teaches on a topic of a narcissistic.

Relationships and when you are essentially forced to interact with someone who's a narcissist because of your relationship with them or because of your dynamics and what has happened, how to navigate that. And I am going [00:37:00] out of town part of October and so I asked her to come. To the academy and to fill in as an interim coach for the day.

It's gonna benefit all of my students as she shares how to do, how to navigate these very difficult relationships that you can't just walk away from sometimes. You don't always have that option. So what can you do to navigate those challenges in relationships, which is something that several of my clients are dealing with and are working through, and it helps grow her her network and her outreach of people that may want to work with her.

And it just helps strengthen the relationship that we have, like it's. It's amazing. And if I hadn't been part of that mastermind, I wouldn't know that person. I had a widow reach out to me last week who is 20 [00:38:00] minutes away from one of my current clients geographically. And I know that one of my current clients, she's been wanting to build her friendship group of other widows who are wanting to heal and learn and grow.

And so I asked this person who reached out to me, if I could connect the two of them and I did, and it may work out, it may not work out. Who knows? Time will tell. But just being able to be my client. Is part of the academy and is one of my clients and is part of this community and group. Her odds of being able to meet people, even geographically in her area, are much higher than if she were isolated and she were alone and she weren't part of that.

I will reiterate here that you want to find people who are on a same journey as you. There are tons and tons of widow groups of grief groups [00:39:00] of just support groups who are not on a journey of healing, learning, growing, and rebuilding. They're just not, they are validating. They are supportive and also they are doom and gloom.

They are full of ways to distract yourself in the short term, whether it's retail therapy, whether it's hookups, whether it's, whatever it is, it's oh, just you deserve it. You deserve it. Whatever's gonna make you feel good, just go do it. But I know that those short-term responses lead to long-term pain.

And that distracting yourself completely from grief only prolongs the amount of pain and the amount of grief that you're gonna experience throughout your life. And so as you're choosing your community and as you're choosing your support group or whatever that looks like is why I wanna reiterate [00:40:00] here in this season of grief, especially as you have emerged out of the cave and you are leaving isolation and you are going to a place of self discovery.

Choose wisely who has access to you and who you spend your time with. You may have heard this quote, it's one of my all time favorites by Jim Rohn that says, you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with, and it's so true. So looking at who you intentionally spend the most time with.

Are they the people that you want to be like, are they doing the things that you would like to do? Are they inspiring and encouraging to you and give you, a kick when you need to get moving forward? Are they those kind of people? Are they people who complain, who tell you things are never gonna get better?

Who tell you about all the injustices that you have faced and [00:41:00] how you deserve everything you want and everything your heart desires because you've experienced all of this hurt and pain and they're only focused on what you have lost versus how you can honor what has been lost? Begin to heal your heart and know that your life isn't over.

It's not over. It doesn't have to be. It can be. You can decide that. You can decide. That's it. Life's over. I'm done. I just had someone message me who has been in deep hurt and deep grief as they said to me for 14 years. 14 years and my heart hurts every time I get one of these messages or comments because the first thought I have is, but it doesn't have to be that way.

It doesn't have to be [00:42:00] 14 years. It doesn't have to be the rest of your life. You can have hope. You can see progress. You can go through the pain and the grief. The only way out of the hurt and out of the pain is through it, is to a place of purpose and meaning and rebuilding.

She's not been in the right communities, or maybe she's tried the right communities and it just didn't resonate with her. Or maybe she's remained isolated. I have no idea. It was just a very short message, but it was enough of a message that my heart hurt for her. And do I think the Academy is for everyone?

No. Do I think my coaching is for everyone? No. I only want to coach people who wanna be coached, who want to learn to grow, to be challenged, to be

pushed. I'll say, as I've told two of my clients this past week, [00:43:00] my goal is to push you just outside the comfort zone. It's not to push you off. The edge of the cliff is not to throw you to the wolves, but just enough where you're uncomfortable. So that you stretch a little bit more and you have to take another step forward.

But not everybody wants that. There are a lot of people who don't, and so my heart hurts for those people, and I hope that they get plugged into the right place and the right people who can help them and who can help bring hope to them and to their future. All right guys, that is season three of Grief Self-Discovery.

Talked about the connection protocol. One more time. Five steps. One, redefining connection. Two, boundaries. Three, rebuilding relationships. Four, meeting people and making friends. And five, ultimately is communication. If you would like further support and guidance, I would love to [00:44:00] speak to you on a consult call.

It's not a big sales call. It's not a big pressure call. I just love helping you figure out your very next step on your journey to healing your heart and rebuilding your life. To schedule that consult call, go to brave widow.com.

If you're tired of feeling lost, lonely, and second guessing every decision, my coaching program is meant for you. I help clients find clarity, create real connection, and build confidence up for good. Inside the Brave Widow Coaching Program, you'll learn real tools that you'll be able to use for a lifetime.

If you're ready for the next step, go to brave widow.com to book a consult. It's free. It's no pressure, and it can be your brave next step to healing your heart and building a life you love again. Go to brave widow.com today to book your consult. [00:45:00]