BW 189: Widowhood Reality: Your Old Life Is Gone – How To Rebuild A Life You Love Again

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MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Apply for Brave Widow Academy:
  👉 bravewidow.com/academy
• Book a free consult (no pressure):
  👉 bravewidow.com/call

When your spouse dies, it can feel like your entire life burned to the ground. You don’t recognize yourself, you don’t know what’s next, and part of you is terrified that rebuilding a new life means abandoning the old one.

 

In this episode, I’m inviting you into my personal story and the exact mindset shifts that helped me go from “life is over” to becoming the architect of a new, hopeful, faith‑filled life.

 

We talk about:

• Why you can’t go back to your old life (and why that doesn’t mean leaving your person behind)
• What it really means to be the “life architect” of your next chapter
• The coaching rooms, mentors, and programs that radically changed my grief journey
• How one decision at a retreat opened the door to meeting my now‑husband, Robert
• How coaching helped me collapse years of suffering into months of transformation
• Why Brave Widow Academy exists and who it’s truly for

 

If you’re a faith-based widow who is tired of feeling stuck, lonely, and “not really living,” this episode is for you.

 

TIMESTAMPS

• 00:00 – Being a “life architect” after loss
• 03:40 – “Your old life is gone. It’s ash.”
• 07:00 – Deciding who you want to be now
• 09:30 – Hearing Dr. Betsy’s story and the moment everything shifted
• 13:00 – The priest’s advice that changed how I see grief
• 15:00 – Investing $10K+ in a coaching program I barely understood
• 18:00 – How healing in community changed me from the inside out
• 21:00 – Miami retreat, guilt about dating, and a powerful moment of healing
• 24:00 – Praying for a future spouse… and meeting Robert two weeks later
• 26:30 – “Who are you becoming?” vs “What are you learning?”
• 27:30 – Hiring a speaking coach for NFDA and becoming a different woman
• 30:30 – Stepping into the identity of “author”
• 35:00 – Overwhelm, exhaustion, and discovering my iron was severely low
• 38:00 – Re‑energizing my relationship with Brave Widow
• 43:00 – Why I built Brave Widow Academy as a group coaching space
• 46:00 – Stabilize, explore, build: the 3 stages inside Academy
• 48:00 – How widows “collapse time” in Academy
• 50:00 – Who Brave Widow Academy is for (and who it’s not)
• 52:00 – How to apply + free consult option

 

 

 

WHO THIS IS FOR

Brave Widow Academy is for widows (from a few months to 20+ years out) who are:

• Tired of waiting on “time” to magically fix things
• Done just surviving and ready to rebuild intentionally
• Longing for a faith-based, hopeful roadmap and real community
• Ready to take gentle, practical steps toward a life they can love again

 

If that’s you, apply at bravewidow.com/academy. Our next small cohort (under 20 women) starts Thursday, April 2.

 

 

💬 If this episode helped you, please: 

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• Leave a quick rating & review – it helps more widows find this support
• Share this with a friend who’s facing grief or the holidays without their person

 

If you’re new here, my name is Emily Tanner. I’m the founder of Brave Widow and Brave Widow Academy.

 

I help widows move from barely surviving their loss… to rebuilding a life they can actually love again without feeling like they’re betraying their person.

 

By day (and for 20+ years), I’ve led large teams and complex operations in the corporate world. 

 

After my husband Nathan died in 2021, just shy of our 20-year anniversary, I took everything I knew about leadership, systems, and change — and started applying it to grief.

 

Since then, I’ve:

Shared my story publicly to make widows feel less alone.

Launched the Brave Widow podcast, now with 180+ episodes and listeners around the world.

Coached hundreds of widows 1:1 and in groups, and talked with thousands more through the podcast, communities, and events.

Built Brave Widow Academy, a 6-month coaching program with a clear framework for moving from deep grief to rebuilding a life you can love again.

 

I don’t teach “just think positive” grief tips.

 

I teach widows how to:

Heal their heart.

Stop waiting on “time” to fix everything.

Take small, brave steps toward a life that feels meaningful again.

 

How I Got Here…

 

2021: My husband Nathan dies unexpectedly. I’m 4 kids in, overwhelmed, and drowning in paperwork, decisions, and pain. Therapy helps, but I still feel stuck with no roadmap.

 

2021–2022: I start devouring books, interviewing widows, trying grief groups, and studying coaching — desperate to find something that actually helps me feel different.

 

2022: I start the Brave Widow podcast, recording episodes while terrified and crying between takes — but determined that no widow should feel as alone as I did.

 

Year 1: I begin coaching widows 1:1. Word spreads quietly. The same patterns and problems keep showing up, so I start building frameworks instead of one-off advice.

 

Year 2: I launch Brave Widow Academy — a structured, 6-month coaching program with a step-by-step path: from deep grief, to stability, to rebuilding.

 

Year 3: Brave Widow has listeners around the world. I’ve personally coached hundreds of widows and spoken with thousands more through consults, lives, emails, and DMs. 

 

Today: My work is simple:

 

Help widows stop surviving each day… and start rebuilding a life that makes them genuinely glad to be alive again.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, hey, and welcome back to another episode of The Brave Widow Show. Guys, today we are getting personal. And I'm gonna invite you to get personal with yourself, with your vision for your future, with your dreams and desires, even if they feel tiny or impossible or wrong. And. So today's podcast episode is gonna be a little bit different. 

I'm gonna be sharing some very personal things with you, things to help. Just give you an example of my mindset when it comes to the decisions I make, the choices I make, the things that I intentionally decide to spend time doing. And. As I was sitting here this week, I was thinking about our next Brave Widow Academy group that starts on [00:01:00] Thursday, April 2nd, and I was thinking about who are all the right people for the room. 

This year or this round, we're doing an application process. It's very short and simple. Less than, five to seven minutes. But I really wanted to be intentional about who's in the room, who we're investing in, and 

just making sure that we really have the right people in the room. It's a small room, less than 20 people. And so we wanna be intentional about that. And I was thinking about why, why would someone choose to join the academy? What is it they're looking for? What do I think is gonna be the most helpful for people? 

And so I'm gonna share that with you today as well as how I have thought. About different rooms I've joined or different coaches I've worked with, and really what helped me make those decisions. 

Today I wanna talk with you about [00:02:00] being a life architect, about being the designer and creator of this new life. And I know that immediately some of you have thoughts that are resistance, that are like, whoa, we don't get to design our lives. We don't get a choice. I didn't choose to be here, and so therefore I have no control and I just, there's no point. 

And I would invite you to be open-minded. If that is your thought process, you might not be able to receive some of the things that I wanna share with you. And my heart goes out to you because I do fully recognize that we do not have control over our life in the future. That's true. That's true that we didn't choose to be where we are in many respects. 

But there are things that we can choose. We can choose the thoughts that we decide to believe. And we can choose the actions that we take to greatly influence the [00:03:00] outcome of our lives. So we can't control everything in our life. We can't control fully the outcome of our life, but we can heavily influence it. 

I can choose to eat healthy and go to the gym, and I will influence a different outcome in having a healthier body and feeling better than if I choose a path where I eat potato chips and sit on the couch and don't have any physical movement that influences a different outcome. I may not be able to control everything about life, but I can decide what path to go down and I can be the architect. 

Of what I desire and what I want for the future. When we. Lost our person. When we experienced the trauma and the pain of grief and of losing a person, then for many widows we feel like we don't even know who we are anymore. We're changed. We're in this weird new in between. [00:04:00] And in the beginning of grief, often we wanna go backwards. We wanna go back to our old life, back to the old person. 

We were back to having our person with us. And many widows share with me that one of their fears and hesitations about building this new life is that they feel like they're walking away from their old life. They're walking away from their person, they're leaving the past behind them. And if they choose to build this new life, that means that they've moved away from their old life. 

And what I gently try to remind people is that you are already in your new life. Your old life is gone. It's an ash. You can't go back to it. So this really isn't about you walking away from your past or walking away from your person. We're gonna bring your person with you. We're gonna incorporate in a way that you choose the spirit of who they are, how they loved you, how they made you feel. 

We're gonna weave that in. To your [00:05:00] future, so you're not walking away from them, you are just deciding to stand up out of the ashes. Now you can decide to stay there, and that's true. You can decide that life is over and it's never gonna get better, and you're always gonna feel like this and it's life isn't fair and all of those things. 

And you can decide that and you can be right, and those things can all be true. 

Or maybe you're like me and there's this whisper inside of, oh, there has to be more. I desperately wanna believe that my life can be better and different and not feel like this every day. The rest of my life, I don't. I may not know how it's possible. I may not know how I'm gonna get there, but I am going to. 

Decide to believe that some way, somehow it, it is possible. It could be possible. It might be possible. It is possible. I wanna be able to go down that path. And so [00:06:00] even though we don't have full control, we didn't choose to be where we are today. We get to choose what we are going to think and believe going forward, and what actions that we're gonna take to influence a different life and a different outcome. 

We get to decide who we're going to be next. Life isn't about finding ourselves, it's deciding who we want to be. This person that you see on video or that you're listening to is the result of the past several years of me deciding who I wanna be and how I wanna be and what type of person I wanna show up as. 

And I'm still a work in progress. I just saw a video the other day from Tony Robbins who was talking about how, what we see now as Tony Robbins on stage or on video is nearly 50 years of his career in the making of who he decided he wanted to be of, how he decided how he wanted life to be. 

It's not about uncovering some [00:07:00] mystery of Ooh, who are we really? It's who do I wanna be? So we get to participate and we get to decide that now we get to be the life architect for that now. So I wanna share with you some of the rooms that I've decided to be a part of and the type of change or transformation that I decided to go through. 

It was fall of 2022. This was just a little over a year after Nathan had died. He died in July of 2021, and I had just recently left my big career in healthcare. And for many people that I worked with, they thought I was crazy. I worked for a multi-billion dollar company in which I was responsible for 40% of the workforce, had thousands of employees. 

I made a really, really good salary, Valerie. I had spent 20 years in healthcare. I [00:08:00] started working in the basement as a temporary person being pregnant. All the way up to senior vice president in a boardroom, helping with multimillion dollar contracts, making decisions that impact thousands of people, and having what most people viewed as like a very prestigious role, especially for a woman and healthcare, which healthcare tends to be a little older industry and. 

For so many people. They looked at me and they were like, she's made it. She's made this big career. Look at her. She is wow. And so when I decided to take a break from this demanding, challenging, amazing career, people didn't understand that I worked about another year after Nathan died. Felt like I needed to catch my breath, like I needed to do something different. 

And so shortly after I left, there, which was a very emotional, very hard to do. I worked with some of these people [00:09:00] for 15 to 20 years, and we were very close, we were very bonded, and some people understood and some people didn't understand at all. And so it was really difficult to leave that environment and to really step into a whole new world. 

And while I was exploring some things that I, I was interested in. I heard this woman telling her story on a podcast, and she was on this podcast because she was starting a life coaching school and she was asking questions from the podcast host about, how she should think about sales and getting people to join and all, all of those things. 

That's why I was listening to it. It's how I came across her. But in the conversation, she was sharing her story and so I want you to imagine. First of all, you have to imagine, Dr. Betsy, I've spoken about her many times on the show. Dr. Betsy Guerra is from [00:10:00] Miami, and Miami is very heavy in Cuban, Cuban culture, Latina culture. 

It's very colorful and vibrant, and just larger than life, right? And so I want you to imagine. Like Miami wrapped in a person and Dr. Betsy was on this podcast and she's sharing her story and she's so full of life and love and passion and like overflowing with all these things that she wants to do for her future students and life coaching school. 

And I remember sitting there thinking like life coaching. That sounds like a made up job. Like I worked in healthcare. Doctors, nurses, people who did very concrete black and white things. So I'd heard of leadership coaches or executive coaches, but life coaches. Whatever that sound like a made up job. 

But I'm listening to her. She's a, a 20 plus year practicing clinical psychologist and [00:11:00]psychotherapist, and she was speaking about her faith and, and just overflowing with this joy, like it was so infectious listening to her talk and so on this podcast, she's sharing her story of losing her daughter several years ago and not just losing her daughter. 

But this deeply moving story of how at, a large get together with her family, they were having this big pool party and there's all these people in the pool and they're cooking out and all this stuff is happening, right? And someone asked an innocent question, where's Sophie? And she, everybody starts looking around like, where is she? 

Sophie is, her daughter's about three years old at the time. So everybody's looking around, where is she? Where is she? And Betsy's I looked at my feet at the bottom of the pool and there was my daughter. 

And if you haven't heard Betsy's story, oh my gosh. Go back and find it on the, on the podcast. I'll, I'll put the link in the show notes, but this is such a [00:12:00] moving story, obviously, because it changed the trajectory of my life when I heard it, but. She talked about how she looked at the bottom of the pool. 

Her daughter was there, they weren't sure whether or not her daughter was gonna make it over this period of time where they're rushing her to the hospital and they spend the next several minutes or hours praying that God would just bring her back, bring her back, just make her heart beat again. And I am listening to this story and I'm like, wow, someone who has not only known the pain of grief and loss. 

Like there's pain with any type of loss, especially of a spouse, especially of a child, especially of a person that you share life with every day, but also the pain of what must have felt like guilt of what we're, she must have told herself such horrible things and felt responsible. For her daughter's death, and how do you recover from that, right? 

Like I'm sitting here [00:13:00] thinking I can't recover from my husband dying, of which I had no control. I can't even imagine being in her shoes and recovering from that, but she shared what helped her on this journey. How she spoke to her priest and how she asked her priest like, do people ever get over grief? 

Do people ever find joy again? And how? He said, some people do and some people don't. And the biggest difference is what they decide. They choose, they can choose that they will find joy and happiness again, or they can choose to stay in their grief. And that is the difference. And I will never tell Betsy's story better than she tells it. 

But when I heard that story and when I saw. How she was full of love and passion and like wanting to give back and just her faith in [00:14:00] God and how this has changed part of her story and who she is. I didn't know anything about life coaching. I didn't know anything about this academy that she had that was gonna cost thousands of dollars. 

I had no idea, but I knew in my mind, I want what she has. I wanna know what she knows. I wanna experience what she has experienced. If she can go through all that and show up on this podcast full of life and love and joy, that's what I want. Maybe it's called life coaching, maybe. I don't know what it is, but I know that she could help me. 

And so on a Sunday, I sent her an email. I filled out the application on her website to join this life coaching academy. I like, I don't know, life coaching sounds a little crazy, but okay, we'll give it a try. If only my coworkers could see me now, like those were the thoughts I was having. Oh [00:15:00] my gosh, I can't tell people about this. 

They'll think I'm crazy, but I go and fill out the application. It costs over $10,000 to join this program. I didn't care. I knew what I saw and I knew that if she could show up, if she could. Be this transformed as a person. I wanted that for me, whatever it took, whatever it costs, whatever I needed to change. 

And so I sent the application on a Sunday. I didn't really expect a response. She actually responded back the same day and we hopped on a phone call. I was like, whoa. And she's Emily, we started, we actually, that podcast is a few weeks old. We started five weeks ago. We already have people broken up in pairs. 

We've already started the curriculum. She's if you're willing to get caught up on the curriculum, which by the way was nine hours of curriculum for the past five weeks, so nine times 5, 45 hours of curriculum. It was a very intense program. I needed to get caught [00:16:00] up on 45 hours worth of content and be assigned to someone in a group and do the, all the homework to catch up. 

And I told her I was willing to do, I was like, yep, I, I will do it. I don't know how I'm gonna make that work, but I give you my word, I'll figure it out. Even though I felt overwhelmed, even though I had no idea, but I held. In my heart and in my mind, this vision of her, right? Like I wanna, I wanna be like that. 

That is what I want more of in my life. So if she said, okay, I'm gonna ask the other participants if you can join. And we'll go from there. And she got back to me a few days later and she's I have great news. Everyone is so excited to welcome you in with open arms. We would love for you to be part of this group. 

Here's what you'll need to do to get caught up and you'll need to keep me posted on how you're gonna do that. And all of the thing, like I, I didn't hear much else, right? I was just like, I'm in, I'm in. I want in whatever I have to do. And so I [00:17:00] joined, I did get caught up. And I stepped into this program having no idea what I wanted for the future, what my life was gonna look like. 

I was wrestling with a lot of things like, where am I gonna live? Would I ever get remarried again? How can I ever really feel or experience joy again? I wasn't sure. I felt like on a scale of one to 10, my joy meter, like the fullest it would get is like a six. And that scared me ' cause I'm like, I don't, I don't know if I'll ever feel excited about something again, if I could ever feel true joy for something. 

Again, I didn't know where I was going in my life, but I knew one thing. I knew that I wanted more of what she had, what she shared with the world. And so I joined this program, which has. 

It feels like an understatement to say that joining that program changed my life and it did. And it wasn't just [00:18:00] about the things we learned. We learned all sorts of things about tools in psychology tools and counseling tools and coaching psychotherapy. We learned about family systems. We learned about cognitive behavioral tools. 

We learned about neuroscience. We learned about abundance and quantum physics and manifestation, and a spirituality and faith, and like all of these things combined together, which I absolutely loved. Because you really don't see those things come together in very many programs. But it wasn't just about the tools and the things that we learned in there. 

It was about who I became through this program. I, and many of the women I were with, we didn't get on there and. Just talk about things superficially, or talk about, different attachment styles and attachment theory and how that worked in relationships. Like we did peer coaching. 

We coached each other alive in front of other people. [00:19:00] We cried. We healed deep wounds. We healed family trauma. We healed grief. We healed. All sorts of things in our lives that we weren't even aware of was an issue. And I remember one time in particular. I was getting on a one-on-one call with Betsy and something positive had happened that I had started up with Brave Widow and I just started the podcast and there were some things that I was excited to share with her. 

And so she gets on the call and she's all smiles and she's ready to celebrate with me, and I see her beautiful radiant face and I break down into tears. Because while I was experiencing some positive things, I also was experiencing a kiddo with severe mental health issues, and I felt super overwhelmed and I felt lost, and I felt how much more suffering God can a person handle? 

Like how much more suffering do I have to [00:20:00] handle? Instead of spending that time celebrating as we had planned to do together, Betsy showed up for me and she helped. Helped me to heal, helped me to figure out how to get out of the overwhelm, helped me to figure out how to support my kiddo, helped me figure out how to navigate what was really the most challenging time of my life. 

And so the value of going through this coaching academy and going through the program, yes, there's the value of I have the tools, I have the strategies, I know how to coach and help other people, and I know how to do those things. Yes, there's value in that, but there's. Whole different value and to the person I became on the other side of that program. 

I'm gonna share one more story about what happened to me in that program. When I was in the coaching Academy, we all flew down [00:21:00] to Miami, for our graduation and four hour retreat, and we, we spent a day or two in Miami and then we went down to Key Largo where Betsy's. Places right on the beach and had our sunset graduation. 

It was like the most magical experience ever. And we did this thing called the Miracle Retreat. And I remember I arrived in Miami a day early. I was walking around with one of my coach peer coaches and we were just chit-chatting. And at this point, this was six months later, so this was almost two years from when Nathan had died. 

This was May. 2023. And so we're, I'm walking around with this coach and she's asking me about if I had thought about dating again or getting remarried and that, that probably Nathan was proud of me and he would want me to be happy. And I just remember I laughed. Like whatever. 

And so I shared with her like, people say, oh, Nathan would want you to be happy. I said, but it was a running joke. But I was like, he was so proud to be married to me. He was [00:22:00] so like being married and him and I together, like that was just. He centered his life around it. He loved it and he would always joke that if anything were to happen, I was not supposed to date anyone. 

I should never get think about getting remarried and even. When we get to heaven, even though the Bible says we're like angels and we don't, we're not married in heaven. He and I were gonna be married in heaven. And he would laugh and he'd say, no angel boyfriends for you. Like it's just you and me. 

And that's it. And you're, you're mine. And we're together. We are one. And so I was just sharing this with her, right? And I said, so there are moments where I think, yes, I would like to date again. I would like, I would like to not be lonely the rest of my life. I would like to be with someone else in Share Life together, but I also wrestle with this over here, right? 

Of I know people say, Nathan want me to be happy, but I know he wouldn't. And she said, don't you think in heaven, like we're [00:23:00] elevated, we have a greater understanding. We're not the same as we are on earth. So maybe he, he is happy for you. And I just laughed it off and said, yeah, you're probably right. 

Like I, I don't think about it too much because I think about it too much. Then my, my, the petty side of me wants to say, then you shouldn't have died and we wouldn't be in this situation. That's just where my mindset was. But during our, our graduation, so that was one conversation I had with one coach. 

But during our graduation, we had this most incredible experience. And I'm not gonna go into a lot of details because I've shared a lot already on how this program has changed me. But there was a very significant moment when I was healed of. This guilt, this doubting, this wrestling with what Nathan would've wanted and should I date or should I not date? 

And what does that look like? Like I had a [00:24:00] very profound healing experience that I talk about inside of the academy. And I was able the next day to sit down at a table and instead of doing vision boards, we did vision planters. I was able, in a guilt-free way to put on my vision planter that I desired a little romance, and I was able to pray during that graduation retreat like, okay, God, I finally feel ready. 

I am excited about life again. I have. Amazing things I'm working on. I was about to go through Grief Recovery Institute to get certified on Grief recovery method. I was about to go in June to Dave Ramsey's Entree Leadership Conference and. Go alone to an event with 3000 other people and, and just meet other business owners and meet other people who were leaders. 

And I was starting to like, rebuild life. I had things I was excited about. I was in July, had already scheduled an Alaskan cruise with my daughter. Like I was in a really good [00:25:00] place in life after these six months of, of going through this program and feeling more free and lighter. And I remember praying at that retreat God, okay, I'm ready. 

I'm ready to meet the person. If there is someone you have for me, I'm ready to meet them. And two weeks later, Robert and I would start talking. Robert is now my husband of over two years, and it has been the most wonderful, amazing, incredible experiences of my life, 

and I share that. Because when you are thinking about designing your life, when you're thinking about joining a program or thinking about doing something that you might find helpful, it isn't just about the things that you learn along the way or or the tools that maybe you can implement or the things that you can do. 

We wanna approach it from a lens of who are you becoming? Who are you becoming in life and experiences through programs [00:26:00] or coaching or whatever it is that you choose to do? How are you stepping into this future version of you that is full and vibrant and full of joy and love and life like? Betsy was like, I am today. 

Over these past few years I've joined other programs. And how I view it and look at it is I am the architect of my life. I am intentionally deciding who I wanna become, what things I want to be able to excel at, and I want to get there in the most supported, elevated, luxurious, amazing ways possible that are deeply transformational. 

In October of 2024, I spoke at the National Funeral Directors Association, their annual convention and expo in New Orleans. And this is a, a workshop. This is a convention that normally has around [00:27:00] five to 6,000 attendees. So this was a big deal that I was gonna be doing this. And so backing up to March of 2024. 

I knew myself well enough to know that I had a little over six months to get ready to deliver this presentation to these funeral directors, and I knew that I tend to be a procrastinator with things. I tend to want to put that kind of stuff off, or I would tell myself I work better under pressure. But this speech was really important to me. 

This really felt like my opportunity to share with all kinds of funeral directors. How they can support widows beyond the service. That was the name of my presentation. Beyond the service. So we talked about like beyond the casseroles, beyond the flowers. 

Like how do you truly support widows? And this was deeply important to me. And so instead of. Swinging it. Instead of spending [00:28:00] hours on YouTube figuring out like how to give a good speech how to be a good public speaker, what makes a good presentation, instead of doing that, I decided that I wanted to take this seriously, and I looked at it like, what if I give more presentations? 

What if I give more workshops? Could I envision myself being a public speaker? If I were to envision myself being a public speaker, what would I do to show that I am taking this seriously and that this is important to me? And so I ended up hiring a one-on-one coach, and I met with my coach every week for six months. 

And I was nervous about this because I thought I'm not a public speaker now and I don't even really know, like I, I know I want to. Help funeral directors know how to support widows beyond this service. But I don't know, like what I'm gonna be putting in my speech. So I, I'm not really sure if, if this is right for me or not right for [00:29:00] me. 

But I knew already from my experience with coaching and being in Betsy's program that we want to embody this future version of us. And how powerful coaching actually is not in just teaching us things, not in just getting us through a short amount of time. But in working with my coach, her name is Jen. 

In working with Jen, I became a different person over those six months. I still use the things that she taught me back in 20, 24, 2 years later. I still use the story that she helped me to craft the story of me sitting in the memorial garden on the bench and that decision point of deciding not to give up on life, but deciding to become, to, to have a future and to get on the other side of grief. 

I still use that in my presentations today. And am I training? But I knew if I was gonna take myself seriously as a speaker and if I wanted to become someone [00:30:00] different. And to do something really impactful that I was gonna have to do something different other than just doing what I was doing other than just staying the same. 

And I've, I'm, I'm a part a member, a participant in several programs, but one more I'm gonna share with you. One of my clients who has been with me the longest over three years now, Sue, you guys have probably heard me talk about Sue. But Sue wrote and published a bestselling book. She's also co-authored two other bestselling books. And I remember just as she was going through the process of writing her own book that I was living vicariously through her. 

'cause I was like, oh, I've always wanted to be an author. I have so many books. I would love to write. Like I just envision myself like sitting in the cabin with my sweater and my coffee and sitting with a laptop typing away on a cloudy day like. I would love that. That would be amazing. I love books and reading and writing and all of those things. 

And so I was living [00:31:00] vicariously through her and she's you should write a book. If you wanna write a book, go write a book. And I'm like, no, I, I'm not ready to commit to that. Like I, I've got a lot going on. I'm not ready to commit to that. And I told her it had to be a year or two years ago now that I was like 20, 26. 

I think that'll be the year. That'll be the year. I'm gonna write a book. And so on January 1st of this year of 2026, I was sitting in my recliner in the living room and I was sitting next to Robert, and I was thinking about, what all I wanted to focus on this year and how I wanted that to look. 

And I saw an email come through from a company called Hope Writers, and they help authors write. Publish and promote their books. And they also are a like traditional publisher, a publishing company. And they had sent an email that came through and I remember sitting there looking at the email and I clicked on it and I went to the [00:32:00] website and I looked at the cost and I was like, wow, like that, that's an investment. 

I've invested in a lot of programs, but this is really an investment. I remember sitting there thinking do I need this though? I know so many people who've written a book. I love to write, so that's not really an issue for me. I've write, I've written and self-published other books like The Brave New Widow Workbook. 

I've developed the Brave Widow Academy Textbook and Curriculum. I'm doing one to certify coaches in Brave Widow that I'm walking my clients through now, do I really need someone to help me? Write and publish a book. I think I could do it. And as I sat there, I thought, yeah, it's true. 

I could do it. But would I do it the most effectively? Would I do it consistently? Would I, or would I do it like when I find time to do it? 

There. I just made a decision. I looked at Robert and I said, I think I'm gonna join this program because [00:33:00] I want, I don't wanna have to figure it out. I don't wanna have to YouTube, but I don't wanna have to go and ask other people and get bits and pieces there about how to do it. And then there's 10 different opinions on how to write and organize your book and this, and then I would have to find someone who could print it and then I would have to do this and that. 

Like it's just a lot. Like I was like, you know what? I, I wanna invest in myself and invest in becoming an author, a published, a traditionally published author. I wanna invest in that. I wanna feel guided. I wanna follow a proven process. I wanna be able to raise my hand and ask questions and get answers. I wanna, I want somebody to get me unstuck. 

If I feel like I am getting stuck along the way, yeah, that's what I want. Could I figure it out on my own? Sure. Would it take me two or three times as long probably. I was like, I wanna, this isn't about investing in some [00:34:00] program to generate a book. This is about investing in myself to step into the identity of becoming a traditionally published author and having a structured process and writing and creating and, and birthing out this book. 

The the transformation that's gonna happen within me to be able to not only write the book, but to add in something new on top of other things, while my word of the year is simplify and trying to keep my life simple, I'm like, I'm planning an in-person retreat for the first time that's happening in June. 

I'm teaching one of my kiddos to drive. I have a kiddo who's graduating high school this year. I am really focused on growing the academy and writing a book and adding all these things into my life. My goal is also to simplify, so I'm like, how could this be true? How could this, what we do in [00:35:00]coaching, how could it be true that I would be capable of doing all these things without feeling overwhelmed, without burning out, without feeling like I have to work 12 hours a day and working on weekends and doing this, and being asked to lead a Bible study and being asked to do these things that I've never done before. 

Okay. Yeah. I feel like I need to invest. I need to invest in myself and who I'm becoming on the other side. I have one more example because this is very recent. Okay. This is very personal. So starting in. February when I moved to my new office here out on our land where we built our shop, where I can see my donkeys outside the window, which is like what? 

Amazing. But when I moved to this office, I had an issue with a microphone connection to a mixer. And the mixer, I don't know, was going out, wasn't working. I felt frustrated 'cause I couldn't do a podcast and have great audio, and somehow I also have misplaced my mobile mic that I use with my phone. 

And so I was feeling discouraged about that and [00:36:00] I just really felt run down. Every day I felt exhausted. I was doing so many calls balancing one-on-one coaching clients and all. We have three academy groups that are going right now. Another one's starting. Here soon, I'm doing this coaching certification program. 

I'm trying to write, find time to write this book and lead this Bible study on Sunday evenings, and teaching my daughter to drive spending hours, several hours a week doing that, and just like trying to juggle it all. So I just kept telling myself like, oh, you're just stressed out, you're just tired, you're just exhausted. 

You're fine. That's normal. You're fine. Just kept telling myself that. And I finally went to the doctor and said, Hey, could we just, it was for like an annual wellness visit and I just asked Hey, can we run some labs? I don't like, nothing's really wrong, but can you just run some labs and let's just see. 

I haven't done that in a few years, so it'd probably be a good thing. And he's sure. And so we run some labs, results come back. My heba globins low and we go back and forth. This takes a [00:37:00] couple of weeks and I'm like, Hey, could you run some more labs? Meanwhile, I'm still frustrated at myself. I haven't been producing podcasts. 

I haven't been going live on YouTube or TikTok. I've been really quiet and I just kept telling myself, it's like I'm just, I'm just trying to figure it out. I'm just tired, I'm overwhelmed. I need to do less. It's fine. It's not a problem. I'm just really tired. And I noticed that also I was getting really outta breath. 

And so then I was shaming myself about that. Ugh, my, I'm so outta shape, like I need to go to the gym. Like I need to add that onto my life too, right? Wow, how am I so outta shape? This is so sad. I walk up stairs to where my office was at home and I'm like, out of breath. This is ridiculous. 

And. So then at the 1st of March, I see a program from someone I've taken a program from before, and this was all about focusing on March and focusing on the relationship with your business and like re-energizing yourself with your [00:38:00] business, right? So I was like, oh, I need that because right now I'm just feeling. 

With Brave Widow like I have to do, I have to do this, I have to do that, I have to do this, and I'm just feeling so run down. I need to re get reenergized. I need some more energy, and so I'm going through this program and I'm intentionally refocusing recentering on the purpose of Brave Widow, why I'm doing what I'm doing, how I can incorporate all of these additional things. 

In a way that doesn't feel super husty and busy and grind it out. Just get it done. Strong arm it. Do it through sheer discipline and willpower. I'm like, no, there's another way. I don't want it to be that way. That's how I've lived so many years of my life. Burn yourself into the ground. Do whatever it takes. 

Go, go, go. And I'm like, I, there has to be a better way. So I really have. Dove into this [00:39:00]program, and every day I'm listening to the person who is delivering an audio or a video and really getting myself back into the energy of. Falling in love with Brave Widow and moving from a place of I have to do this, and I have to do that to like, oh my gosh, I get to, oh my gosh, I have so much I wanna tell my students. 

I have so much I wanna say on the podcast and being able to reenergize myself, right? So I order a new piece for my microphone. I still don't know where my mobile mic is, so I'm gonna have to order another one of those. But instead of feeling just so utterly drained and worn down and. Sorry for myself really. 

I started like really reenergizing myself. Guess what? I get my other lab results back. Finally. This is like a lot of back and forth. I go back and get my results and my iron levels are so severely deficient that my [00:40:00] doctor's we really need to get you on some infusions, some iron infusions. So if you don't know when your iron is low, or especially if you have severe low iron, it causes things like fatigue, 

dizziness, lightheadedness, all of which I've experienced. And also your body is not producing enough to sufficiently carry oxygen to different parts of your body. So you have restless legs, which I've had that you get out of breath really easily. You have heart palpitations and just physically, oxygen is not. 

Getting to different parts of your body the way that it needs to, and the light bulb went off for me like, oh, oh, okay. No wonder I felt so run down. Like I thought I was just feeling overwhelmed. I thought I was just really discouraged with my business and where it was going. I thought all of these other things, but what's remarkable, I still haven't had those iron infusions yet, right? 

We got, we're gotta take some iron [00:41:00] vitamins for six to eight weeks. See how that goes. And then they might do infusions if that hasn't helped. So physically I, what I wanna convey is this, physically I have every reason to feel exhausted, overwhelmed, dizzy, worn, out, tired. But for the last several weeks, I've been part of a program. 

Designed around intentionally creating energy, like energizing yourself from the inside out so that you can operate from a place of joy and from a place of I have so much to do and I am excited to do it, and I'm gonna get this done. I'm gonna get that done. I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna share that. 

And there's so much more I wanna do and, and I have this capacity and I'm tired. But it's like a good tired, like at the end of a really productive day, and you're like. Whew, I'm tired, but man, that was a good day and like I've been able to get myself to that place, even though physically that [00:42:00]doesn't make any sense. 

My iron levels aren't better physically, that nothing about that has changed physically. I should still be worn out and tired and overwhelmed and stressed out. So what I am doing from a physical body aspect doesn't make any sense. From someone who now has been in the coaching space for several years, it makes perfect sense. 

Yeah, there's so much we can do when we decide I'm gonna change, I'm gonna transform, i'm gonna create energy so that I can operate from a place of abundance and I get to versus from a place of lack and oh, I have to do all of this. And so as I think about being the architect of your life and, and being the person who designs and creates and decides who you want to be and what kind of life you wanna have, I could spend hours telling you the things that I have been able to do, the ways I have personally changed, and I'm gonna be doing a future [00:43:00] podcast with some of my clients so they can tell you. 

How their own life has changed in going through the academy or going through coaching. I could spend hours telling you about that and whether or not you decide you wanna join the academy or, or you wanna participate in any sort of program, the point is to find something that helps propel you forward, that helps transform you. 

This is exactly why I created Brave Widow Academy. This is a space for women who are ready not to just survive loss, but to intentionally rebuild. Yes. In Brave Widow Academy, I lead you through tools to help you heal your heart. To help you navigate grief and navigate life after loss, which is a whole nother thing, navigating life after loss, dealing with grief, and trying to become someone new. 

That is what this space is for. This is a [00:44:00] space for support, courage, identity, work, and becoming. A space where you don't have to figure this out on your own. You don't have to spend hours on YouTube. You don't have to read 25 books. You don't have to ask different people and get 10 different opinions, right? 

You can decide to be supported and guided and transformed. 

I have widows who in the program who were three weeks out when they joined, I have widows who are up to 25 years from the time they lost their person. What they have in common, regardless of where they are in their journey, what they have in common. That they're intentionally deciding that they want to rebuild, that they want to heal, that they want to figure out who they want to be and what kind of life they wanna lead and live, and how they wanna do that intentionally For people who say, oh, just give it time. 

[00:45:00] You'll go back to the old way you were, you're back to normal. I'm inviting my, my client who waited 25 years, hopefully she show me on the podcast to tell you that's not true. It's not true to tell you that 25 years later. It wasn't until she started working with me that I, I took her through. The program. 

She's in the academy right now. It wasn't until she decided to join that space that her heart began to soften, that she began to realize these last 25 years she's been avoiding, she's been distracting. She's been not, not processing her loss. Not intentionally deciding who she wants to be, and I am in deep admiration that she so openly shares this. 

She's not the only one. Some people are just more bold about sharing it than others. I have widows who have waited a year, five years, [00:46:00] 10 years, doesn't matter. What matters is that you get to decide today that you don't wanna continue living the life that you're living right now, that you want to become someone different, that you want to live a life that is different, and that you can do it in a way that doesn't mean you're leaving your person behind. 

You're not. 

In the academy, I teach widows how to calm down out of the overwhelm, come down out of the chaos. If your life feels chaotic and overwhelming and stressful and your, your nervous system feels on edge and you're in that season of grief, we come down out of the chaos. It's literally called chaos to calm. 

And come to a place of peace and calm, and we help you stabilize. And once you get stabilized, then we help you explore who you wanna be, what kind of life you wanna live, how full you want your life, how social you want your life. If you wanna move, if you don't wanna [00:47:00] move, if you wanna date again, if you don't wanna date again, like we help you navigate all of those things like exploring. 

And then our third stage is building. We help you stabilize so that you can get clear, so that you can build a life that you love again. And yes, I teach you the technical tools and the strategies and that I give you the templates and the worksheets, and I give you everything that you need. 

But you also come out the other side of this program totally transformed. Like you literally can see. The way people would show up to calls in the beginning, week after week, they show up to the calls, they present a certain way. Three months later you notice a difference and six months later they're like a totally different person getting on these calls. 

It's amazing. And it doesn't mean in six months that life is perfect and you'll never have grief and you never miss your person and you none of that. But you are changed. You are a changed. Person and you [00:48:00] are on a path in the academy. We collapse time, which sounds crazy. 

Speaker 2: Things that clients thought would take years, often take months or weeks or sometimes less than a week, whether you're buying and selling a house, whether you are considering a career change, whether you are putting in boundaries with difficult family members. People inside the academy are able to collapse time and do things much more quickly than they ever imagined and the reason I created Brave Widow Academy as a group coaching container is because community matters. The life changing program that I experienced with Dr. Betsy wasn't just because she's an amazing person, or the content that she was teaching was amazing, which both are true, but it also was that I got to go on this journey with. 

Other amazing women. I got to see [00:49:00] and learn from other people's experiences. I got to witness their growth, change, and transformation just like they did mine. And so often in the academy, we encourage people. As you're witnessing growth, as you're watching others change, that you think about how you could apply that to your life or that you can prepare yourself if you come across some of those ch same challenges in the future, and this is one thing that people often comment on the most, is how much of a change they've seen, even in other people that are coming just as much as they see in themselves. 

The Brave Widow Academy is different. It's different than any other program that I've come across, and in fact, this is why I felt so compelled to create it. I never thought I would be a grief coach. I never expected that I would be helping widows build a life they could actually enjoy and love [00:50:00]again, but that was something I desperately desired for myself. 

I went to counseling. I went to grief groups. I interviewed hundreds of widows. I learned what the things were that helped people after grief, but I wanted a roadmap. I wanted to be guided. I wanted someone to help me, specifically me with exactly where I was, what I would need to focus on next to help me move me through that next season. 

Which exactly what we do in helping some of our clients and students who are inside of Brave Widow Academy. 

So if you are in a season of rebuilding and you're ready for support, brave Widow Academy is the room I created. Just for you. Our applications are open now. You can find them at brave widow.com/academy, and our next group kicks off on Thursday, April 2nd. You already have a few amazing people in the room, and I [00:51:00] know they will be so supportive of you and just a great, great environment for you to be part of. So I would love to see you there and to be able to help support and elevate you. 

The academy is for widows who are tired of feeling stuck, who are done waiting for time to just magically make things better. Who want a plan, who want structure, who want guidance, who want to be able to take those baby steps forward and figuring out who they're gonna be now and what kind of life they wanna live while also juggling the challenges that grief sometimes throws our way. If that sounds like you go to brave widow.com/academy. Fill out the quick application. It takes five to seven minutes, and if it looks like you will be a great fit, I'll send you the link for you to sign up and join us. We do limit the number of people who are in each cohort so that we can keep it small, private, and very focused on the people that are in this group. And we're gonna do something a little [00:52:00] bit. And I'm adding in something new specifically for this cohort. So every week in the academy we fill out a progress tracker. We track our wins. We track how we're rating different areas of our life, and then people share anything else they want me to know. And so what I'm gonna be doing every week for this group is going through reviewing their specific progress tracker and giving them my feedback based on either what they brought up in the call for that week and or what they put on their form and where they want some help getting unstuck. 

So every week they get feedback from me on what I would specifically focus on for them. To help them stay unstuck, to help them be able to take that very next step forward. 

Lastly, if you're just not sure if this would be a great fit for you, or you're really on the fence and you really want some help making the decision, you can set up a free consult call. There's no pressure. It's not a big sales call. It's really me [00:53:00] understanding where you are, your current challenges. 

We'll walk through some structured questions I already have ready, and then you'll walk away with your next steps plan on rebuilding your life. To sign up for that, you could just go to brave widow.com/call CALL, and I'll be happy to walk you through the process. All right. Hope to see you guys in the academy.  

Emily: 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  

Speaker 9: the Brave Widow Academy  

Emily: 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. 

 [00:54:00]