From Barely Surviving to Rebuilding: 5 Levels of Support for Widows - BW: 194

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Brave Widow Resources Mentioned

• Join the free Brave Widow Community: https://bravewidow.com/free
• Brave Widow Academy (apply): https://bravewidow.com/academy
• Renew: A Brave Widow Retreat: https://bravewidow.com/retreat

 

 

Description / Show Notes

In today’s episode, I walk you through the exact ways you can get support inside Brave Widow – from completely free resources to the most personalized, hands-on coaching – so you can stop guessing and know which next step is right for you.

 

If you’re somewhere between barely surviving and starting to wonder if there’s more than just “getting through the day,” this is for you. 

 

We’ll talk about:

• A totally free community where you don’t have to do this alone
• A gentle new space (Foundations) for deep grief and overwhelm
• Brave Widow Academy for widows who are ready to rebuild
• 1:1 coaching for the most tailored support
• Our in‑person Renew retreat for widows ready to recenter and rise

 

You do not have to do all of these. My goal is to help you see the “support ladder” and pick the one step that fits where you are right now.

 

Chapters:

02:00 – Why I’m creating a “support ladder” for widows
03:20 – Level 1: Free Brave Widow Community (what you get & who it’s for)
09:20 – Level 2: Introducing Brave Widow Foundations
22:40 – Level 3: Brave Widow Academy – when you’re ready to rebuild
46:00 – Level 4: 1‑1 coaching – when you want a guide just for you
60:00 – Level 5: Renew – the Brave Widow Retreat
66:00 – Feeling overwhelmed? Here’s the one step to take
69:00 – Final encouragement: don’t do this alone

 

 

💛 Ready for deeper support?
Brave Widow Academy is my 6‑month, faith‑based program to help you heal your heart and rebuild a life you can love again. Small group, step‑by‑step roadmap, and weekly support. Learn more and apply here: bravewidow.com/academy

 

Subscribe for more faith‑based, hopeful grief support for widows:
@BraveWidow on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram & Facebook

 

💬 If this episode helped you, please: 

• Hit Subscribe 
• 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:

 

Speaker: [00:00:00] Hey, hey, and welcome to another episode of The Brave Widow Show. This is episode 194.

Guys, I just got back from a whirlwind amazing trip to Italy. We went with Nathan's parents, who... Nathan is my late husband. We went with his parents to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, and I went also with Robert, who's my husband now. We've been married just over two years. And so I'm not gonna talk a lot about that trip on this episode.

I'm gonna save that for a future episode because I'm still processing everything. I'm still unpacking all of the correlations that I've observed between that trip and grief and just living this new life, this new normal in what feels like sometimes an impossible situation. So I've already been sharing in [00:01:00] our Brave Widow community on our Momentum Monday calls some of the lessons that I've been pulling out, but there's still, I just know, so many golden nuggets there to pull out and unpack and dive deep into.

So, that's gonna be coming up in the future. What I wanna share with you today is we have a lot of things going on in Brave Widow, and I know I feel like I say that a lot, but it's true. We are growing and expanding and structuring and refining really the right containers for people and where they are in their grief journey.

And so my goal today is to help you learn a little bit more about each of the different ways that we serve and support widows inside of Brave Widow and to help you identify what may be the best option for you if [00:02:00] you want to go a little bit deeper, if you want support or guidance, or you're trying to figure out what's the best option for you.

If you're listening today, you're probably somewhere between barely surviving and starting to wonder if there's more than just getting through the day. You might be someone who's in a deep, raw grief, and you're barely functioning. And so just listening to these podcast episodes may be helpful. You might be somebody who's functioning and you feel like you have your feet underneath you, but you feel very lonely or stuck or like you're just walking in place.

You might be somebody who's ready to rebuild and to take brave action, but you just feel lost, like not even sure where to start, how to start, what to focus on first, and it just all feels really overwhelming. So today, I wanna walk you through every way that you can get [00:03:00] support from completely free to the most hands-on, full-out support so that you can know exactly what's inside Brave Widow and what makes the most sense for you right now.

As I walk through our different options, I encourage you to think about this as a support ladder, okay? So we're gonna start at the very bottom with step one, just not being alone. Step two, getting tools and small wins. Step three, starting to rebuild your life with structure and accountability.

Step four, deep personalized work. And step five, getting away to reset and rise. And that's how we're gonna walk through some of the different options, okay? You do not need to do all of these things. In fact, when I talk with widows, I don't always recommend all of these options. I recommend the best [00:04:00] option for each individual person.

So let's talk through what are some of the options that we have inside of Brave Widow. So level one, we have Brave Widow community. This is completely free support. Totally free. Y- all you need to do to sign up is enter your name and your email. There's no credit card, there's no trial, there's no anything other than name and email to get access and to get started inside the free community.

Inside the free community at Brave Widow, I have a few mini courses to help you get started with things like how do you navigate life when you have brain fog? How do you get unstuck from grief when you feel stuck? We ha- also have what we call our Momentum Monday calls. So every week we host a call where we're sharing the latest tips to help you, [00:05:00] or I identify some of the patterns and trends of things that I'm hearing frequently in coaching or in our academy classes, and I'll talk about a particular topic and what you can do.

There's no structured curriculum here, so every Monday it's a little different of what we talk about and what you can find helpful. And what I always encourage people is to look for the one thing that they can find out of that Momentum Monday call, plug it into their life for that week, and find a small step forward.

Find one small win that they can experience for that week. It's also a great place to come if you feel stuck and you wanna ask a question or you want just some brief, quick support to take your next step forward. Momentum Monday is a great place for that. We meet each Monday, and we also record and share just inside the Brave Widow community those replays.

So if you can't make a call, you can always go back [00:06:00] and watch or listen to the replay that we have. We host monthly prayer calls. This is led by one of our Brave Widow coaches named Patty, and we host those, she hosts those one evening each month, and this is not recorded. So this is a time where you can submit prayer requests in advance, or you can come and ask to just listen, or you can ask to pray for specific requests that you have, and we just really honor God and honor the hearts that are inside of Brave Widow and pray for some of those needs and those requests.

You also get access to a private messaging group. In, an app that we use called Telegram. It's free app to download. It's fairly easy to get plugged into. We can help you. If you feel like you're not tech savvy, don't worry, we'll help you get into the app. But [00:07:00] it's a great way to see, get reminders of when the calls are coming up that you can participate in.

It's a great way to just share what's on your heart and mind, to share what you're struggling with, to ask other people what they have done in different situations. Like, when did you take off your wedding rings? Or, my first year of the date of his death is coming up, what should I do for that day?

Like, you just want feedback from other people in the group. This is a great place to get that feedback, to learn more about other people who are there, and to form friendships. We've had several brave widows who have met up in real life, in person, and formed friendships that will last a lifetime, and this is a great place to come and do that.

So again, this is Brave Widow Community. This is totally free. This level, this tier of access will always be free to, help support and elevate widows. [00:08:00] So it's for widows who are just trying to survive, or maybe money or finances are tight. It's a great way if people aren't sure if Brave Widow is right for them, I always encourage them to start in the free community, because you can get a feel for the vibe.

You can get a feel for how people interact. You can get a feel for our teaching style, our coaching style, our philosophy, how we incorporate faith and scripture, different tools and things that we're using. It's just a great way to dip your toe in with no risk and just get a sense of what is Brave Widow all about.

Could this be a place for me too?. What the community will help you with is feeling like you're not alone. It will give you some simple next steps. It will provide an environment for prayer and also encouragement

[00:09:00] Go to bravewidow.com/free and get on the email list, jump into the free community, and you will automatically be signed up for all the free trainings and resources that we have available.

All right, so that's level one of what we do in Brave Widow. We have the always free community. And again, it's a great way just to get a feel for Brave Widow and what we're all about by joining that community. We don't do heavy sales in there. We don't pressure people that they need to join something else.

We just are there to help people in the group and to demonstrate what it's like to be part of Brave Widow. I believe that when people are ready for that next level of support, they will raise their hand, they will ask, and they will step into what is right for them as a next step. Okay, so level one, Brave Widow community.

Level two is coming [00:10:00] soon. So you're getting a little sneak peek of what we're doing. Now, some of you, if you've been listening to me for a while, and if you haven't, it's totally fine if you're new. Hi. But if you have, in the past, you know I have offered a course called Grief Recovery Method. And I'm just gonna hold up, if you're not watching me on video, I'm holding up this purple book called The Grief Recovery Handbook.

And I offered this as sort of a precursor step into Brave Widow Academy, a way of helping you build a good foundation of grief recovery and emotional healing before you started your journey on the academy. And a lot of our academy students actually started in Grief Recovery Method as a first initial step, and then decided they wanted to continue on with academy.

So one of the things that I've noticed as we have people in academy and [00:11:00] coaching and grief recovery, is that academy is a great place for widows who are ready to rebuild. And we also know that before we feel ready to rebuild, before we feel ready to even learn how we would be doing that, . That there's a bridge that is needed between being in deep grief, being in overwhelm, and being ready to focus on rebuilding. And so Grief Recovery Method is an evidence-based program. And it's been around for, I think, 40 years now . And evidence-based means that it's been studied by a third party and proven to be effective to help people with grief recovery.

I've spoken very highly of this program many times. I went through a certification to be certified to facilitate it, and I also invest in my coaches who are part of the Brave Widow [00:12:00] team to get them certified as well. So they are certified and knowledgeable of the tools that are in this program here.

Okay? So what we have is this level two when you're ready to step up t- into that level. We're gonna call it Brave Widow Foundations. And so what it is is really a space for widows who are in deep grief or they're in a season where they feel a lot of overwhelm. In the beginning, I thought about this as a space for widows who are newer as a widow or earlier on in grief, but I've also learned that grief and our timeline and what we think as far as who's a newer widow, who's struggling with grief, who's not, isn't always tied to the amount of time that you've been a widow, right?

So I have clients who have been widowed three years, five years, seven years. I [00:13:00] have one who's been widowed 25 years. And it wasn't until we walked through this program together that she felt her heart actually beginning to heal, which is amazing. And I reference her story often because I, I tell people over and over that if you just give things time, your grief may become less volatile, right?

You might become numb to some of the things, but grief doesn't heal on its own just with time, just with waiting. That doesn't help us process our emotions. That doesn't help us build a life that we can enjoy again. And often, if we shove our grief down, if we ignore it, if we suppress it, it will begin to manifest physically in our body.

There are a lot of studies to suggest that emotional anguish and pain, when suppressed and avoided, brings about chronic illnesses, [00:14:00] chronic pains, and all sorts of things that can come about in the future. And so, in this program, one of the, the things that I quote most often is that the key to recovery and grief is action and not time So I don't only think of this space as someone who's a new widow, someone who's only been widowed one or two years.

It doesn't matter how long you've been widowed because not only is the space going to be a container for widows who are struggling with grief or struggling with just life being hard, it's also for widows who are in a season of suffering. They're in a season of overwhelm. And so sometimes we have widows, maybe they've been widowed a year, three years, five years.

Again, the time doesn't really matter, but they're going through a season where life is unrelenting. Maybe it's [00:15:00] the pipes, the water pipes in their house have burst and made their home unlivable, and they're going through months of being displaced from their home and construction and not knowing where they're gonna be and that's just disrupted their world.

Maybe it's dealing with very difficult relationships or family members or friendships, or they just have a series of loss after loss after loss after loss. And these widows are hurting. And so it's hard to think about rebuilding a future when all you can think about is just getting out of the chaos, getting out of the overwhelm, just being able to get through the next day or the next hour and not have a new problem, a new issue pop up.

Like, you just wanna catch your breath. You just wanna get a break. And that can happen to any of us at [00:16:00] any time. We can go through a season that's really hard and really overwhelming. So Brave Widow Foundations, which is coming very soon, is a space specifically for people who are going through the hard.

They are suffering. They're grieving. They're overwhelmed. They just want a space that's very gentle and structured and helps them with calming their nervous system, helps them calm down out of the chaos, helps them figure out how to move forward when something seems really overwhelming or impossible to figure out or, like, there are so many steps you have no idea how you're ever gonna do that.

We have a way of helping people take it one step at a time. Just focus on the one next thing in front of you. And to [00:17:00] come to a place where you feel stable, you feel like you have your feet underneath you again. You're not living in constant chaos and overwhelm. So in this space, we are gonna meet weekly and have the ability for people to drop in, who want that support, and we're also giving you a pass to take Grief Recovery Method at any time during the year.

So we offer, we're gonna be offering Grief Recovery Method multiple times throughout the year, especially as we, we have two of our coaches who are certified. We have another one who's in process. And so between the four of us, we are gonna be offering times that you can go through Grief Recovery Method, and there's no rush,

so you'll have a year to decide when you want to be able to go through Grief Recovery Method. It's an eight-week class, and we can facilitate eight people at one time, so it's a very small group that you'll be interacting with when you go through it, and we [00:18:00] ship the book to your house.

So you don't have to worry about finding the book. You don't read the book in advance. You read the book and do some homework, but it's all included in Brave Widow Foundation. So immediately you can get access to some of the concepts we teach in the academy like Chaos to Calm, which is all about getting out of the overwhelm, getting your feet underneath you, helping make life manageable so that once you are stable, once you are out of deep grief, once the dust from the storm has settled, then you can feel ready to start taking those next steps to actually rebuild and to think about the future.

But when you're in the middle of the chaos and the storm, you can't think about the future. It's impossible. All you want is the past. All you want is stability. All you want is peace. There's nothing really about the future that, that is conceivably good often when people are in this [00:19:00] place. So Foundations will be a great place to just share the hard together, to talk with other people who are also going through some of these same challenges and frustrations.

And there's no time pressure, right? Like, there's no, "Oh, it's a six-week program, and then good luck to ya." Um, it's a full year. Of support in that container and access to take Grief Recovery Method at any time. And with all of our clients, we tr- we track and work with you so that you don't forget, right?

Like, we, we wanna form a relationship with you so that we know when is the best time to take this, um, what all's going on in your life right now, and how do we make sure that we get you plugged in so you don't have to worry about remembering. You don't have to worry that you're gonna be left behind or that you're gonna miss it.

Like, we very much understand that widow brain, brain fog is real, [00:20:00] and we're there to help you keep things organized and structured and supportive so it doesn't feel overwhelming. So now, if you are already in Brave Widow Academy or you're in one-on-one coaching, you will be gifted the foundations container for, for the first year absolutely free.

So you're gonna be gifted that and included in that automati- automatically. So it's not anything separate that you need to sign up for. You'll be gifted that. To join Brave Widow Foundations, I anticipate we're gonna go live with this in June or July. And if you wanna be among the first to know about this, to be ready to sign up for it you wanna make sure that you are on the email list.

And the way to get on the email list is to go to bravewidow.com/free, start with the free community, get your name and email on the list, and then make sure the emails aren't going to your junk or your spam. Put 'em, get 'em to your main inbox [00:21:00] so that you can know when we're opening the doors to, um, start foundations.

And for those of you who know me, you love that I love to generously gift all kinds of fun additional bonuses and levels of support for people who join early and for people who are among the first to join one of the new containers that we have. So you will want to be on the email list and to be among the first because we always love to gift bonuses and things for those individuals.

So if this sounds, if Brave Widow Foundations, this level two support sounds like something that would be a good fit for you, go to bravewidow.com/free, get in the free community, and you will get emails when we're ready to go live. All right, so we had level one, our free community. Level two, Brave Widow Foundations.

Level three, Brave [00:22:00] Widow Academy. So Brave Widow Academy is for the person who is tired of feeling lost and stuck They have a whisper inside that says, "There has to be more than this." I remember that after about a year or so after I'd been widowed, maybe closer to 18 months, I felt like I was going crazy because I had my feet underneath me, I had my new routine, and I just kept thinking like, "Is this it?

This? 30 or 40 more years of this? Like, this is my new reality? This is my life now? Like, the best, the best years are just behind me? This, this is what it is now? I'm just gonna be sad and sit on my porch and drink coffee like an old person for forever? What?" And I desperately wanted to believe that there could be more in my life, that life could feel [00:23:00] full and vibrant again and not just a hollow shell of the life that I had before.

But I wasn't sure. I didn't really know for sure. And I believed it could be possible because when I would ask other widows and widowers, what they did that helped them, a lot of people would say, "Well, you just have to give it time." And I just remember feeling like I was going crazy, 'cause I'm like, "Time is not helping me."

Like, how much time does it take? And what do people say when you ask that? "Oh, it's different for everybody, and grief has no timeline, and it's just you gotta just go with the journey, and grief doesn't g- get better. You just get better at handling it," and all of these, like, vague responses. And I'm like, "Yeah, but how?"

There has to be something I could do. There has to be something that could help me just, you know, h- have a good life. [00:24:00] Like, this life I'm living, I have work that I'm doing, I'm taking care of my teenagers, and that's, like, what I have capacity for, running my household. But, but surely there's more than just this.

What else is there? It wasn't until I went through a certific- a six-month certification through an accredited life coaching academy that I learned about life coaching and that I learned about how if we want a life that's different, if we want a life that feels full and vibrant, we must intentionally rebuild it.

And at first, I thought about how unfair that was. Like, that's so unfair. I've lost everything. It was taken from me. My whole world imploded. I don't even feel like the same person anymore, and now I'm gonna have to rebuild my social circle? Now I'm gonna have to [00:25:00] figure out who I'm supposed to be now? I kept wanting to go back to the old version of me.

But it wasn't until I heard a podcast where Dr. John Delony was saying, " Your old life is in ashes, and you get to decide to rebuild a new life." It wasn't until then that it clicked for me. Like, oh, that... I feel that. That makes the most sense. That's right. I can't go back to my old life. It's not there anymore.

It's gone. I can't be the person I was before. I'm not that person anymore. I see things, I see everything differently than I saw it before. And so now I have a choice to make. I can continue to just sit in the ruins and the remain of the old life I had, and I can keep looking to the past and yearning for that.

Or I can [00:26:00] decide that I'm gonna stand up with shaky legs like a newborn little deer and figure out how I'm gonna rebuild a totally new life. How, how do I build a life that is full and vibrant, and isn't one that feels like it's in the shadows of the life that I have before? And so for what ended up taking me two and three years to learn how to rebuild life, learn how to rebuild a social circle, learn how to rebuild a life that I enjoy again after loss, there was nothing that was helping me do that.

Yes, there are grief programs out there, and there are things like Grief Share, and Grief Recovery Method, and widow support groups, and grief support groups, and places where people are focused on grief, but then it's like they just turn you out into the world and say, "Good luck.

Good, good luck out there." Now that your heart hurts a little bit [00:27:00] less, best of... With like... Like, that's where they ended. And to me, that's where Brave Widow Academy begins. So inside of Brave Widow, we do focus on things like emotional healing, on processing grief, on grief recovery. And so how I think about it- I'm pulling up my purple book again.

Okay? I visualize it as grief recovery and emotional healing are our foundation. If we don't have this, if we haven't processed our grief, if we haven't done emotional healing, if we have not acknowledged the horror and the trauma of what we've experienced, then no matter what we do in the future, if we don't have a good foundation, we're gonna continually fall back to the core pain that's limiting our capacity for happiness.

It's limiting our ability to rebuild. And so to me, how I think about [00:28:00] it with my clients, is that we need a solid foundation. And so for you, maybe you have done a lot of, maybe it was counseling, maybe it was grief share, maybe it was a grief support group, maybe it was EMDR, maybe it was... It could have been anything.

But an intentional focus around processing grief and emotional healing, especially if there were some traumatic elements to that, I think therapy is very needed in that regard to be able to, to face it and to process it, right? Then that becomes our foundation, and now we can build the rest of our life upon this.

So that is why we have foundations, right? Is our level two, where we're gonna focus on this as well as share, sharing supportive community where people can support each other. Okay? [00:29:00] So Brave Widow foundations, grief work, emotional processing, getting you out of the overwhelm, and then that's where academy really begins.

Our first academy is a six-month group coaching program. We meet every week for two hours a week, and the first hour, 45 minutes to an hour, is going over educational content of things that will help you. In the second hour, we do open sharing and coaching and getting guidance so that you never feel stuck.

Brave Widow Academy is forward focus. It is action-driven, which means we don't talk about things just in theory, but we actually start to implement them. For example, we had an academy session where t- and we were focused on relationships, and we were focused on making new friends and just, like, reigniting relationships that we had, and one of the students was like, "Oh, I [00:30:00] just can't seem to text this person I know and ask them to go to coffee.

It's like, every time I go to text them, I'm just like, eh, I don't really wanna do it, and I just keep putting it off." And on the call, I looked at her and I said What if you just picked up your phone right now while we're all here together, and you just text that person? What if you just did that?" And she's like, "Okay."

Got out her phone, text that person, and by the end of the call, that person had texted back and accepted the invitation to go have coffee, okay? So we're not just talking about theories, we're not talking about... We do learn neuroscience, we learn how the brain works, we learn how the body responds to grief.

Because all of those things are important with normalizing what you're experiencing and understanding what's really happening there, right? So there's a lot that we do cover there. But also, the focus and the intention is not just to learn those things, but to [00:31:00] observe and identify, how do I use this information to identify what is happening with me, and how do I leverage that to make a real change in my life?

To show up differently, to have more boundaries, to change the relationships I have, to start to try new things. Like, how do I take this information and actually start implementing it every week? We have things to focus on and do that make real change. So we don't pretend that your grief is magically gone, we don't pretend that your person doesn't matter anymore, right?

Again, the grief and the emotional healing is our foundation. And so Academy is all about, how do I rebuild a life while navigating this awkward new world of life after loss? Of, of being able to hold the [00:32:00] capacity that I loved my life before, I loved the person that I had here with me, and I'm seeing glimmers of hope and possibility for the future.

Now I'm actively rebuilding without feeling swallowed up by guilt. I don't feel like I'm walking away from my person. I'm learning how to weave my person into my future life, and to figure out, like, what does that look like? What does that mean for the holidays? What does that mean for the big milestone days?

What does that mean for our anniversary date? Like, how do I weave that into my life so that I still have that emotional relationship with my person? That is all are things that we do in the academy. And guess what? Guys, I just got my first draft in of the Brave Widow Academy textbook. If you cannot see this, this is a [00:33:00] masterpiece, okay?

I'm just telling you right now. So in the six months program, we, I don't just call it academy for no reason, but we have a full curriculum with modules and sub-modules. So what does that mean? That means this is a very structured and intentionally created program that gives you real tools that we learn in grief recovery, that we learn in life coaching, that I've learned through coaching my own clients, through my own experience, and I take those tools and I take that information that you need, and I package it up in a way that helps you know here's how I can go from a place of grief and chaos to a place of going from chaos to calm, which is our first module, to rebuilding confidence, to looking at and changing and rebuilding relationships, to [00:34:00] finding purpose and meaning again in my life, and to then be empowered to be able to step forward and build a life that I somehow love again, even though that seems impossible.

So this textbook is spiral bound, which is amazing for you note takers who love to take notes, okay? It's spiral bound. Amazing. Look how chunky this is. It's over 200 pages, okay? And I'm... If you're on video, I'm giving you a sneak peek of the worksheets and things that are inside, right? So it's not heavy text where it's just pages and pages with words.

There's spots in here for you to have notes and reflections that we do in class. There are spots for you to fill in the blank. Just so many great things. Like this memorializes your journey through the academy. In fact, um, in one of the [00:35:00] first, I think it's the second session, we will set an intention for the academy and what you want to get out of the academy, and we revisit that in the middle, halfway through, and we revisit it at the very end.

We look back on what was your intention, what did you want to get out of the academy, what have you been able to get out of the academy, where are you, have s- has that vision and that intention changed? Is it different now? We look at all of those things. We also track your progress. So we look at things like overwhelm, and purpose, and relationships, and confidence, and we track how you feel about them in the beginning, and then every week through the program in class together, okay?

So if you hate homework, it's fine. We track those things in class together so that over time you can see- How you've changed, how those areas have [00:36:00] improved, or how you've changed how you think about them. But we can start to track and to quantify things like purpose that feel very intangible.

They feel like how, how do you say whether or not someone's sense of purpose improved while they were in the academy? We track it through our weekly tracking sheets that we do in class together every single week, and we reflect on that as one of our last sessions, is looking at what you rated everything in the beginning, what you rated everything now, and

all the wins you've documented, all the things you've struggled with, all the things you wanna share about. Like, we track that every week, so it memorializes it for you so that you have something that you can see on screen or have in paper and say, "Oh. Oh, wow. Like, look, I really have changed. I really have noticed a difference in how I think about things or how I handle things that's different."

In fact, [00:37:00] my group, my academy group that started last November, just this week we had one of their final sessions. Next week they're graduating, and I'm so... I'm excited and I'm sad because I love this, I love this group. I love meeting with them each week. But we went through the session, and they just shared some amazing observations that they've made about how they would show up to the calls or how they thought about things back in November, right before all the holidays started, right, versus now, here in May, how they're thinking about those things.

So I'm gonna share in the, a future episode just some over- overarching examples of how people have changed from the academy groups that have already graduated, and hopefully it will inspire you that you can experience the same. All right. So in the academy, you're actually gonna get both of these books, um, because you will be [00:38:00] encouraged to participate in Grief Recovery Method if you've never taken it.

If you've already taken it, that's totally fine, but you'll still get both books. They're both yours to keep for forever. And, I love that this is spiral bound. Like, students have been asking for this for a long time, and I'm excited it's here. We're just making a few more edits and adding in some reflection sheets, and it's gonna be great.

But our next group starts July 13th. They are going to meet every Monday from 5:00 to 7:00 PM Central Time.

So your leaders for the July group will be Allyson and Nicole. And, they've both gone through Brave Widow Academy at least once. They have gone through a Brave Widow coaching certification that I've created. I meet with them every single week specifically around coaching. And I'm there to support and supervise and to guide them.

But they will [00:39:00] be great coaches for you. These are really amazing widows, wonderful people who just have a heart to help other widows. And which I think is amazing, to go from a place of feeling like you're barely surviving or feeling like you're lost to a place of, now I'm ready to start helping other people.

Like, I think that's huge. So, the academy starts July 13th. We are capping the group at 20, so no more than 20 will be in the group. We have four people already in. Four people who signed up, paid, like they're gonna be in the group in July. And so we have 16 spots left. And if you join, if you decide to join the academy by May 31st, I'm also gonna gift you four private one-on-one coaching calls with any of the Brave Widow coaches of your choice.

Now, I highly recommend Allyson or Nicole, [00:40:00] because they're gonna be leading the academy, and I can tell you more about each of them so that you can find the person who's the right fit. We have five total coaches any of which would be happy to support you based on who you may resonate with the most.

Also, I remove all the risk in you going through this program. Okay? So Brave Widow Academy, is a, a program with an investment. It's, $3,000 for the six-month program which, by the way, gives you full access to Grief Recovery Method, which is a $400 program, and also Foundations as well. And most of the other things that we do, like Brave Through the Holidays is a whole holiday group we do each year.

That's a $300 program. There are a lot of things that I include- In Academy. That's like our flagship program for widows to go through. So [00:41:00] if you prepay in full, we do discount it to $3,000 as a one-time payment, or you can do payment plans monthly if that's better for you. But once you sign up for that, then we also, if you're doing that by May, we'll gift you the four one-on-one private coaching calls.

I'm not planning to offer Academy again until the fall after this July group kicks off. So if you're thinking about starting here in the next few months, this is really the perfect time to join the Academy and to go ahead and start getting plugged in. If you're listening and you know you're ready to rebuild, you know you're ready for something that's structured and supportive, that will help you be accountable, that will help you get out of the overwhelm and take a step-by-step approach to rebuilding your life, go to bravewidow.com/academy.

There's a simple application we just ask you to complete to make sure that you are [00:42:00] a good fit for the Academy program and that this is the right time for you to go through the program. So, but if you go to bravewidow.com/academy and complete the application, then we will review that. And if accepted, then we'll get you plugged in right away. For the academy, I remove all of the risk. Okay? So let's say that you join the academy, and you participate in at least 80% of the calls, and you fill out your progress tracker each week while you're there in class, and by the end of the six months, you still feel like you haven't made progress, you haven't moved forward, you aren't where you wanna be.

Okay, here's my guarantee. We will work with you for free until you do.

Alternatively, okay, let's say that you join the academy and your life just happens things [00:43:00] happened in your home, things are happening with relationships, you break a leg and go in the hospital, like, you just had a lot of life things happen, and you weren't able to come to the calls the way that you wanted, and you weren't able to absorb things the way that you wanted.

What I do in that case is I allow people to go through another academy cohort at no additional cost. Okay? So my goal with any of these programs, and especially with the academy, is no widow gets left behind. So whether I'm leading the academy or one of the coaches, we're... Because we keep it small, we keep it to 20 people or less, we know who's coming, who's not coming.

We look at your progress trackers every single week to see what's going on. We stay in touch with you in our Telegram private messaging groups. And so we know when life is happening. We generally know oh, we have someone who's not coming to the calls, who's feeling overwhelmed, who has a lot of things going on, or I've even had people [00:44:00] who, who say, "Well, I thought that day and time would work for me, but actually it's not, and I've been really disappointed because I wanted to go to the live calls, but I couldn't show up."

And so I've no problem at all with allowing people to repeat the academy again at no additional cost because I wanna make sure that you feel that you not only got the value out of academy that you invested for, but that you actually get more. You get real change that you can see and observe in your own life.

And so if you show up, and you participate, and you still didn't get the progress that you wanted, I will continue to work with you for free until you do. Or if you join academy, and things are coming up, and you just can't- Can't dive in the way that you want, you feel like you're, you're overwhelmed or you, you can't be available, then you can repeat Academy again and join another cohort at no additional cost.

So either [00:45:00] way, you are guaranteed that you will be able to take steps forward. It doesn't mean that your life is perfect. It doesn't mean that you're over grief and you've reached a finish line and you're never sad again, right? But it means that you've been equipped with the tools and with what you need to be able to move through all the seasons of grief.

And so even if you feel like you're not quite to the end quite to the point where you just love life every day, right? Maybe you still feel like you're in the midst of the journey. You still have the tools. You have what you need to know how to coach yourself, to know how to navigate some of those challenges, and you have the community to go back to, to ask for support, to go when you feel like you're stuck, and to have that there.

So again, removing all the risk for these programs, especially for [00:46:00] the Academy.

All right. So we had level one, Brave Widow Community. We had level two, Brave Widow Foundations. Level three, Brave Widow Academy. Now we have level four, which is one-on-one coaching.

So first let me say, if you are someone who is in one-on-one coaching, you have access to pretty much everything that we offer in Brave Widow. You have access to the Academy to take that at any time that you're part of one-on-one coaching. You have access to Brave Widow Foundations. You have access to our alumni group once you've been through the Academy at least once.

You have access to all of the additional pop-up classes that we have, like Brave Through the Holidays or Love After Loss or any of those things that may happen throughout the year, you get access to that. If you're in one-on-one coaching or the Academy, you have the most access to everything that we offer because these are [00:47:00] the people that we're working the most closely with that I really wanna make sure have all the resources and access and availability that they desire.

In our one-on-one coaching program, I do very limited one-on-one coaching with people because I'm so focused on our Academy groups, on the community. I'm still leading a lot of our weekly calls for the community overall, so I'm involved with people who are coming into the group. I'm also investing a lot of time and energy and effort into training up- my five clients who are now coaches and who are now coaching people.

And so I work intently with them with the idea that to exponentially increase my impact. I am one human. I'm very limited how many clients I can work with on a one-on-one basis. So I do still do some one-on-one coaching, [00:48:00] especially if it's more of a niche topic like maybe dating or business owners or executives who have additional challenges beyond things that we cover in the academy. I do some one-on-one coaching there. But really to have the most impact possible, I think about it as a ripple effect.

So I invest a lot of my time into our coaches, into our programs, into the things that are gonna help as many widows as possible. I have five amazing clients who raised their hand when I asked who might be interested in coaching or who I tapped on the shoulder and said, "Hey, I think that you would make a great coach, in the future."

For some of them before they felt ready, but when do we ever feel ready, right? And so I am teaching them things that I've learned in multiple different containers, in masterminds, in certifications, in courses, in [00:49:00] college classes, in things that I have learned where we've compiled our Brave Widow tools and resources.

They're learning all of that and learning how to coach, guide, and support other widows, through this crazy journey. So, they're available for one-on-one coaching, and we have times available during the day and times available during the evening. It's a very flexible approach.

Now, if you're thinking about one-on-one coaching but you're not quite sure or you're not sure, do I need academy, do I need coaching, what is it I need? I'll just share with you how I think about one-on-one coaching when I'm investing in it for myself. So I have several different groups that I'm part of based on what I'm wanting to learn, whether I'm wanting to learn how to market and grow my business, whether I'm wanting to learn how to become a better public speaker, whether I'm wanting to learn how to be a better coach or how to navigate grief.

I'm in several different [00:50:00] programs, and I've also worked with some coaches one-on-one. Especially when I've had a particular goal in mind. So I've had a, a period of time where I was working with three different one-on-one coaches, and we were focused on different things with each one of them, right? So for example, when I was invited to give a workshop at a really large conference in New Orleans at a funeral directors convention, I hired a coach more than six months before I was expected to give that presentation to work with me on public speaking, on crafting a really great speech, and on having the confidence to be able to deliver that in front of hundreds of people.

Now, could I have spent time on YouTube learning what makes a good speech or presentation? Sure. But there's probably 50 different opinions on YouTube [00:51:00] about what makes a good presentation, and also that's really time-consuming and probably overwhelming. You're gonna get lots of different advice, lots of different opinions, and sometimes it's hard to know, like, who's right?

Who should I listen to? Who's real? Who's fake? Like, I don't know. So that's the free option is, like, YouTubing it, trying to figure it out, right? I could have joined a public speaking group, and I could have gone through the prerecorded courses. I could have learned how to do it. I could have joined the weekly calls and raised my hand and got some coaching on those weekly calls, and that would have helped me.

But I felt like that would take me too long, right? The reason I decided to hire a one-on-one coach is because I wanted to have the most impact in the shortest amount of time I didn't want to share my time with a bunch of other people on the call.

Okay? I wanted time for me [00:52:00] and my one-on-one coach, and I didn't want her to tell me to go watch videos. I didn't want her to tell me to go find this course over here. I want her to say, "This is what you do next." Okay? I wanted her to pull up a Word document and say, "Let's start writing some of this stuff out."

I wanted her to give me specific feedback on my speech. I wanted her to know who was my audience, why is this important, what d- what do I want them to take away, what do I want them to have as their next step? I wanted her mind, her brain power, her to help me with the strategy of, specifically for me with what I'm trying to accomplish, how can I do that in the most streamlined way possible?

And I wanted to feel luxurious that I had an hour every week to go to this expert, to go to this person, and to work with them through all of the challenges up and down of figuring out how to best [00:53:00] craft not only the presentation, but she helped me to think about things like, how do I stay in touch with these funeral directors after the presentation?

What is something I can give them that will be valuable, that will help me to connect with them afterwards? How can I talk to the media and to people in press? How can I... I got invited last December by CBS National News. Listen, I got invited by CBS National News to go to New York City during Christmastime in December to sit as an audience member in a town hall they were doing on faith and grief.

And I got to go to my coach and celebrate that with her, and she helped me think about, "While you're there, reach out to these other media outlets. Here's how we're gonna leverage your time there." I never would've thought about that on my own. I wouldn't have learned that from YouTube. [00:54:00] And if I was, I was in a group, I might have been able to bring that up and have 5 or 10 minutes of airtime on a call.

But because she was my one-on-one coach, I got to deeply build that relationship and celebrate and strategize and talk about all of the ways that I can make this work for me. When I am thinking about a one-on-one coach, I don't need one for every area of my life, right? So every group I'm in, I don't have a one-on-one coach on that.

But there are times when I want to hire a one-on-one coach, and that's typically if I have a specific goal in mind. It's typically if I feel like I want more time on me. I want more focus on me. It's typically if I want s- to know someone is in my corner, and they're thinking about me, if not every week, every if not every day, at least every week.

Their number one goal is to, [00:55:00] is figuring out how to help me be successful. And the same can be true in grief. When I went through the six months program of the Faith-Based Life Coaching Academy, it was taught, it is taught by Dr. Betsy Guerra, and she was a clinical psychologist for 20 years. She still had a counseling practice at the time when she was starting this academy.

And not only was she our group coach, but she was also my one-on-one coach. And having that level of support changed my life. It's why Brave Widow is here today. It's why I'm talking to you on this podcast today. She radically helped me change my life. And not only with, "Here's how you become a life coach.

Here are things that you can do," but on the weeks that were so hard, on the weeks I was struggling personally, whether it was [00:56:00] with teenager stuff, whether it was wrestling with guilt and dating again, whether it was wondering if I could ever find happiness again, I could just show up on the call. Like, I remember showing up on a call one time, and we were supposed to be celebrating something.

And she got on the call, and she was all smiles, and she was so happy, and she was ready to celebrate. And I just looked at her warm, beautiful face that was full of love, and I just burst into tears. And I could just tell by the look on her face, she's like, "What is happening? What, w- what went wrong?" And instead of spending that hour of us focused on celebrating what we had planned to celebrate, she helped me through one of the darkest, most difficult times of my life.

She helped me deal with something that had become all-consuming, where I felt helpless and paralyzed, and I [00:57:00] had no idea what to do. I felt like I was way in over my head. But I got to leave that call feeling more encouraged, feeling lighter, feeling guided, not feeling like I had to figure it all out for me, but that she's in my corner.

She's helping to guide me through this situation. I'm not alone in this And so there are those types of moments where I think one-on-one coaching is so helpful. If you want that dedicated time, maybe it's to unpack all the things that are going on. Maybe it's like in the case of some business owners that I work with, sometimes they burst into tears when they see me.

And it's like, " Emily, you are my safe place. You are the place where I can just... I don't have to be strong for everyone else. Everyone else depends on me. My family depends on me, my employees depend on me, [00:58:00] my customers depend on me. I have to have all the answers. I have to have it all together., This is the one space I can set the armor down and just be." And there is something so beautiful and supportive and deeply intimate about that type of experience. And if any of that resonates with you, then I strongly encourage you to at least consider one-on-one coaching. And I can help you get matched up with a coach who I believe will be the best support and guide for you based on what I know about each of these individuals, their background, their experiences, how they show up for other people on the calls, the type of environment they create for other people, and just knowing who I believe would be the best support for you.

So if you're interested in one-on-one coaching, the [00:59:00] best place to start there is really with going to a consult where I can get to know you a little bit more. I can help match you with a coach who I think would be a great fit. You can have a free, no obligation call with them to see if you believe also that this would be a great fit for you, and then we can get you plugged in to having that additional support.

And when I take people through one-on-one coaching, a lot of times I will suggest that even if they don't participate in academy, that they at least go through and watch At l- at least some of the specific videos and modules that we have, and I'll even send them a link sometimes and say, "Hey, I think this will be really helpful for you," because there are a lot of things we dive deep into that I think are super helpful.

Okay, so we have Brave Widow Community level one, Brave Widow Foundations level two, level three Brave Widow Academy, level four one-on-one coaching, level five. Are you [01:00:00] ready? This one I'm really excited about because this is the first time that we've ever offered this, and I will be honest, I put off offering this because it's extremely time intensive. It requires so much logistics and planning and planning and planning and things that inevitably may go wrong and more planning and contingency plans and all of the plans.

And I am a planner, right? This is the Brave Widow Retreat. It's called Renew: A Brave Widow Retreat, this is a three-day in-person retreat in Klamath Falls, Oregon, at the Running Y Resort. Now, let me tell you what this retreat is not, okay? The retreat is not for people who are in deep crisis. It's not for people who are deep in grief [01:01:00] and completely overwhelmed. We will not be diving a lot into the past, unpacking emotionally things that are really heavy, spending a lot of time processing grief.

That's really not what this particular retreat is for or about, okay? It's called Renew because our goal is to help you recenter, reconnect with yourself, to leave feeling refreshed, renewed, and ready to rise into the person that God is calling you to be in this next season, okay? So we're not pretending grief doesn't exist.

We very much have to figure out this new life along with our grief. We're not pretending it doesn't exist. We're not gonna not talk about our people, but the intent is not for it to be a grief-heavy retreat. The [01:02:00] intent is to arrive, to hug each other around the neck. If you're not a hugger, it's okay.

But to meet in person the women, some of whom I've known for two, three years now, almost four. To be able to meet up in person, to be able to acknowledge and honor the things that we have gone through on this crazy journey. The lens that we look at life with that most other people wouldn't understand.

And to say, how do I recenter myself into what God has in store for me, into what I want my life to look like or what I want more of in my life, and to feel just refreshed. So my goal is to have a future podcast episode talking more about the retreat, but it's just gonna be [01:03:00] amazing. And so if the idea of go- going away for a few days with other widows in a space that's future-focused lights something up inside you, go to bravewidow.com/retreat and sign up for the Brave Widow Retreat called Renew.

And if you join by May 31st, you're gonna save $200 with our early bird pricing. So early bird pricing is $599. After May 31st, the pricing goes up to $799. Go join before May 31st, and come to a place where you can be around other widows who are focused on the future, focused on faith, for- focused on learning how to build a new life and to find a sense of purpose and meaning out there in the world together.

Okay. So I hope that today's [01:04:00] episode was helpful for you in learning a little more about the different offerings that we have inside of Brave Widow. And here's the thing. It's easy, especially in widowhood, for us to experience confusion and overwhelm and paralysis analysis, and for us to go, "I don't know. If I don't pick the perfect one, this might be wrong for me. I, I'm not really sure I should do this." And so here's the thing. Start by just signing up to the free community. Like, whatever you're thinking about- Jump in the free community. Go to bravewidow.com/free, F-R-E-E. Get on the email list. Get in the community.

I can personally help guide you into what would be the right next thing for you right now. And don't... And here's the thing, like, I do this from a very unbiased place. I wanna feel really good that you're gonna get what you want and more out of whatever program is the right fit for you. So I'm not going [01:05:00] to encourage you to join something that isn't gonna support you.

Or I may even say, "Here would be the pros and cons of joining this one. Here would be the pros and cons of joining that one." And either way, no matter what you decide, I can help you figure out one exact next step to take to get you unstuck. So whether or not you join, there's no pressure on the call, there's no pressure in the DMs, in the chats, but my goal is to help you say, "This specifically is what I need to be able to get unstuck from where I'm at right now and take my next step forward."

Six months from now, you could still be wondering if there's more than a life that's full of just surviving, or you could be surrounded by other widows who are walking this journey with you. Truly wanna encourage you not to do this [01:06:00] alone, and to get plugged in to a like-minded community of faith-based widows who can help you move through some of the most difficult days of your life.

All right, I'll see you inside the free community.

 

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.