BW 153
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Introduction and Episode OverviewIntroduction and Episode Overview
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[00:00:00]
Welcome to episode number 153 of the Brave Widow Show. People told me the first year of grief was the hardest, but nobody warned me about year two. Just kidding. Almost everyone I talked to would tell me as a widow that year two is worse. . And this is a widely and greatly debated topic in Facebook groups.
It gets heated in the comments anytime I post about it on TikTok or Instagram. And so today we're gonna settle the debate once and for all. Is the second year of grief harder or easier than year one? Let's go. All right.
Life Update: Personal Milestones and ReflectionsPersonal Life Update
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Before I dive into today's episode, I just wanna give you guys a little life update.
It's been a while since I've shared about what's going on in the world of Emily, and so I invite you to my personal life [00:01:00] of what all is happening.
By the time this podcast airs, Lord willing, I will be in Hawaii with Robert on a week of work, trip slash vacation, and it's one of those moments in my life where I have to sit back and say, wow, God really did it. He really brought a life to me that was better than I ever could have imagined. I had the belief and the faith.
I took the action steps forward. I did the work of putting myself out there of embracing the vulnerability and the awkwardness, and committing to being coached myself and refining who I am and building up my own ability to help other people. So I've done a lot of work and [00:02:00] also God just continues to bless me with things that are better than I could have imagined.
Two years ago, I didn't even know Robert, and now here we are, two years later, we Honeymooned and Turks and Caicos. Our first wedding anniversary was literally in a castle on the beach in the Dominican Republic. We're going back to Hawaii in June.
At the end of June, we're gonna go back to Miami and this is gonna be such a full circle moment. I need you to hear this May of 2023. When I was graduating from the Faith-Based Coaching Academy. We did a very special planning session. Where we created these vision planters and instead of having a vision board, we put our vision and our hopes and dreams on a planter and we actually put some of our dreams inside the planter with our plants to plant them as [00:03:00] seeds.
And I'm happy to say that two years later, every one of those has come to fruition or is well underway and coming to fruition. And one of those things was a little bit of romance. Little bit of love into my life, and I remember at the time my coach, Dr. Betsy and some of the other ladies that I was graduating with were just all giddy and excited and had these whole amazing experiences about me finding peace with.
Knowing that here on earth, Nathan didn't want me to date, he never would've wanted me to get remarried. Not being able to believe when people were saying like, oh, Nathan would want you to be happy. And I would say no. Trust me, I. It's not that he wouldn't want me to be happy, he would not want me to get remarried, like wrestling with all of that mind drama, to coming to a place of peace and hope [00:04:00] during that graduation two years ago to just a couple months later, meeting Robert talking to him for the first time, meeting him for the first time, and getting to go back two years later to this next group's graduation where.
Robert will get to come with me and some people will get to see him in real life. This is amazing. I also am going because two widows who are graduating actually were clients of mine and the one-on-one. Coaching container and once we were done with their coaching program and we had their celebration call and we were planning on their futures, I actually referred them back to Betsy to the Life Coaching Certification Program.
And so now they have gone through that over the past few months and they are graduating, and so I am getting to go in June to be part of their graduation, to be [00:05:00] part of the Miracle Retreat that Betsy puts on, which is. Always phenomenal and to see in person, some of her students that I've been helping to mentor through building their coaching businesses, building their online presence, like this is such a beautiful and remarkable full circle experience and I could not feel more.
Blessed and excited to be able to go. So in June, I will be having two fun, amazing, rewarding trips that two years ago just seemed so incredibly far away. And so I wanna encourage you that even though today you might not know what your future looks like, you might have only a tiny seed. Of a dream, of a hope, of a desire.
That little seed could be in full bloom in a year, in two years, in six months. Like [00:06:00] depending on you and where you're at and what you are willing to do to bring that to fruition, your life could also look totally different. And that to me is really exciting. On another note, I have two teenagers that are still at home that are driving, and one of my kiddos has been driving and working and on prom night, got into a pretty significant car crash and totaled out his car.
So the past few weeks have been fairly hectic with getting him back and forth to school, to work, to home, getting all of the kids. We have three teenagers total still at home. Where they need to be and looking for a car now for that son and for my second son, who also is practicing and learning how to drive.
So this mama is very busy. I basically feel like Uber mom. Transporting all these kids everywhere, [00:07:00] and even though some days it feels hectic and crazy and wild, I still am so grateful that I have been able to build not one but two businesses that I can run and manage and pour into that. Our, for the most part, I'm able to achieve all of that while my kids are in school.
And so I don't work, have to work evenings or weekends or times when they're out of school. Like I can find the right balance that works for my family and I, and it's just been such an amazing and rewarding experience. So when I speak to you. In this podcast and on this show about you being able to build a life for yourself that's beautiful and abundant and better than you could ever imagine.
[00:08:00] I don't say that because it sounds good. I say that because I have done it. I say that because my clients have done that. My brave widow members have done that. And I just feel so passionate about wanting that for everyone, every widow, I believe you deserve it. You deserve to have a beautiful future that you're like, wow, I didn't even think I could like my future much less.
Be at a point where I'm like, I love waking up every day. I love getting up and getting to see what kind of impact I get to have on myself, on my family, on other people.
I live it, and I want you to live it too, because it is amazing.
Emily: Welcome to the Brave Widow Show, where we help widows find hope, heal their heart, and dream again for the future. I'm your host, Emily Tanner. After losing my husband of 20 years, I didn't [00:09:00] know how I could ever experience true joy and excitement again for the future. I eventually learned how to create a life I love, and I've made it my mission to help other widows do the same.
Join me and the Brave Widow membership community and get started today. Learn more at BraveWidow. com
Year One of Grief: Survival Mode
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So diving back into today's episode, year one versus.
This is always a hot topic in the widow community, and on one hand some widows feel really blindside all right, year one versus year two. This is always a hot topic in pretty much every widow community, and you can find people that sit on both sides of the fence. One being that year one is hard, the most hard year, the most difficult year, the most traumatizing year.
Other people will say year two, no. Year two is the hardest. It's worse. It's the most difficult year that you will experience. [00:10:00] When I was widowed and I was going through my first year, I just felt so discouraged by all the people that would say, oh yeah you're in your first year and you think it's hard.
Just wait till you get to year two. Just wait till you get there because it's only gonna get worse. And that was soul crushing to me. Year two, it's gonna be harder. It's gonna be worse. How was that even possible? Like those first few months especially, I felt like I could barely function and survive. And then you're gonna sit here and tell me that year two is supposed to be worse.
What? You also have people that go through year two that. Write these just devastating posts in these groups or share these devastating stories of I thought I was doing better. I thought I was getting better and I was able to laugh and I was having a good time. And then I heard this song where this milestone happened and it just thrust me back to the [00:11:00] beginning of just gotten knocked all the way back.
It's like I'm starting from square one. This is so horrible. Year one was nothing compared to this year two.
So let's talk about what is actually happening in year one versus year two. And we're gonna talk in generalizations because everyone's not the same. Everyone's grief timeline is different, right? People will say grief never goes away and. Yes, to an extent that's true. But the volatile grief that you feel in year one and even in year two, isn't the volatile grief that you have to live with the rest of your life.
You can live with it, you can choose, and by choosing, you don't process your grief, you don't heal, you don't rebuild your life, but you can also choose a different path.
So let's talk about what is happening in year one versus year two. Speaking in generalizations, what I experienced, what most of my clients have [00:12:00] experienced, what most widows who come to me experience and why this is actually happening. So in year one, you are often in survival mode. This is why I named season one of widowhood devastation.
AKA survival mode because that is what it is. In that first year, people are typically the most gracious, the most understanding that you're grieving, you're having a hard time. They are in the first few weeks at least bringing you meals, maybe offering to help or at least saying, if you need something, I'm here.
They tend to be a little more compassionate and empathetic. You meanwhile. Are running around sometimes like a crazy person when you have to. Cycling between that and between just not even being able to get outta bed or function. [00:13:00] You have so many logistics. You have paperwork, you have finances, you have the funeral.
You have maybe children at home. You have maybe elderly parents that you're caring for. I have clients who were empty nesters right around the same time as they lost their spouse, so they experienced a whole nother. Wave of grief and major life changes with empty nesting. You are contacting social security, you're closing out credit card accounts.
You're going through probate, potentially with an attorney, on and on. All of these demands that the government and that companies, and that the courthouse have of you and all, it's all you can do to just function. To go to work if you're still working, to try to find time where you can talk to a therapist or maybe grieve and feel that to just trying to figure out what this new life is.
Maybe you've never had to pay the bills before and now you have to do that. Maybe you never mowed the [00:14:00] lawn before. Maybe you've never had to cook before in your marriage, and so you're taking on all of these things. Then something goes wrong in your house and you have to color a pair person, and normally your husband would do that, and then something goes wrong with your car because you didn't know you need to get the oil changed every few thousand miles, like the list goes on and on.
Of things that are happening in that first year. You also are suffering from brain fog, and the reason that is happening is because that survival part of your brain, the amygdala, the fight or flight, I'm running off of instinct. Part of your brain has felt the trauma of what you've experienced and it has decided to take over.
It's like we do not have time to fully process everything that's happening. We're running off of instinct. We're running off of adrenaline. We don't have time to relax and feel safe. We gotta go. Or we have to cripple [00:15:00] ourselves and lay in bed and not get up because we cannot function. It is not safe out there, out in the world.
And so in its attempt to keep you safe, your brain is shielding you from feeling everything maybe as fully as you could, but it also is shielding you from being able to think clearly, and that is why we have widow's brain, brain fog, whatever you wanna call it. It's hard to think clearly. It's hard to think beyond the next minute, the next hour, certainly beyond the next day or two.
If you can't even thinking about the future, forget that. You can't even think about the next week. So this is all happening typically in year one. It might be six months, it might be eight months, it might be a first year. But in that first year, you also have all of the first, and you're also bracing yourself typically, right?
So the first anniversary, the first birthday, the first date that they died, Christmas, Thanksgiving, [00:16:00] new Year's, all Father's Day, mother's Day, all the holidays, Valentine's Day, on and on all year long. All these milestones, all these events, all of these holidays, things that you would celebrate together are constant reminders that your present isn't there, and you brace yourself for impact because oh, the first Christmas is gonna be hard.
The first Father's Day. Awful. The first, Valentine's Day. Wow. Can we just forget this holiday? All of that is happening in that first year.
Year Two of Grief: Reality Sets InYear Two of Grief: Reality Sets In
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Now let's talk about what happens the second year. So as you start to go around the corner and you're moving into that second year, you start to let your shoulders down a little bit because you're like, whew, okay.
I've gone through all the firsts oof that. Nothing could be worse than that. That was horrible. And then you think, okay, we have a holiday coming up, or we have his birthday coming up and yeah. It's probably not gonna be bad. It's probably not gonna be [00:17:00] great, but it's not gonna be as bad as last year.
As you're going into year two, you also have a greater sense of having your feet underneath you. So season two of widowhood I call desperation or maintenance mode. So now you're running on autopilot. You have a new routine. You figured out how to get the bills paid so your electricity doesn't get shut off.
You figured out how to get things fixed around the house if needed. You're in your new routine. You don't love it, it's not great, you've got your feet underneath you a little bit. You're starting to get a little more confident in I'm gonna survive. I'm going to start to figure this out.
So in year two, this is the biggest thing is year two harder, harder. My stance and my opinion, and I'm allowed to have my opinion. Is that year two feels more real. So year two is when reality starts to set [00:18:00] in. Oh, this isn't a bad dream. This isn't just a nightmare. This is really happening. This is really real.
My person is not going to walk through the doors, and it's like I know that. I know intellectually they're not gonna walk through the doors, but then there's something about feeling it and knowing it in your body versus just knowing it in your mind. Like those things start to connect and it starts to be like, okay, this is our second Christmas without 'em, what do I want Christmas to look like?
And I think Christmas isn't gonna be so hard 'cause it's my second one, but then it like sneaks up on me. The grief just like sneaks up on me and it takes me to my knees and it's oh my gosh, is this ever get better? How is this year feel more emotional than last year? In year two, maybe your brain fog has started to die down, or maybe it's gone.
[00:19:00] Maybe you are able to start thinking more clearly. You are starting to try to think about your future more, but it feels even more impossible. Whereas in year one, thinking about your future was like, forget that. I don't wanna think about it. In year two, you're starting to play around with the idea, like what could this future be?
And it's just scary. Because nothing about it seems good. The thought in the back of your mind is what? What would any of it matter if my person isn't here? I don't even want a future. Future. What's the point? What do I do now? What do I do next? What? How am I supposed to move on, move forward from this?
You start to realize that you're not even sure who you are anymore, and while you're waiting to go back to normal and you're waiting to start [00:20:00] to feel normal again, there's this unsettling feeling of I'm not even the same person that I was. I can't go back to normal. I can't pretend. That I'm the same person.
I can't laugh the same. I can't. I don't even get enjoyment out of things I used to enjoy. I don't even like doing that stuff anymore. Who am I now? Am I going crazy
In the second year? Generally speaking, people expect that you are better now that you should be over it. You need to move on. It's been a year. It's time to move on. It's time to move on with your life. First of all, what does that even mean? And secondly, it hurts my heart. Every time I'm speaking with a widow and they're like, all my family and friends think I just need to move on.
But how can I, we had 20 years together, we had 40 years together. We only had two years together, but we [00:21:00] were planning our whole future. Doesn't matter. You don't just move on from one of the most stressful life events a person can experience in a year. And everything's perfect and fine and beautiful, but people are less understanding.
They're ready for you to get back in the role that you used to play. The good daughter, the good mother, the good. Sister, the good friend we're ready for you to jump back into your role the way that you were. You've had enough time, and so because of those things, year two might feel harder for people.
The way I look at it is year two is just different. Year two might be when the numbness has started to wear off, when your loneliness deepens because you realize I'm living in a year. He never will have lived in or I'm older than he was when he died, or he's never going [00:22:00] to see our grandkids be born or see our kids get married or have kids if we didn't have kids.
He's never gonna experience that.
And so here's what I want you to know. If you're experiencing any of these thoughts, any of these things, and here's what I want you to know. If you're in year one and you're dreading year two, I don't love it when people say year two is harder. And in fact, I don't believe it is harder. Because as I am now, almost four years out, and I look back at my last four years of living, of grieving, of rebuilding a life, year two was hard.
Year two was tricky, and it was difficult. And I poured everything of myself into figuring out how I could find a life, how I could build a life, how I could create something that was gonna mean anything. And beyond just meaning something I wanted to enjoy and feel life. I wanted it to be vibrant and [00:23:00] beautiful and abundant, and I didn't know if that was possible.
But when I look back at year one versus year two felt more real. Year two felt more confusing. People weren't normalizing what I was feeling and what I was thinking. I felt like I was the only one. But there is no amount of money. There is no way I would ever pick reliving year one versus reliving year two.
Now, everyone's different. Everyone's allowed to have their own opinion about which year is different. But I would never tell a widow in year one oh, you just wait. You brace yourself now because year two is gonna be harder and here is why. Number one, I don't believe it is harder. I believe it's just different and it's hard in a different way.
Okay. That's maybe the best way to say it. Year two is hard in a different way than year one was hard. Year one was about surviving. Year two was more about [00:24:00] realizing and figuring out the path forward. Which is very unsettling in its own way, but it wasn't that I was drowning and I could barely breathe.
That was year one. Okay? But the other reason why I don't ever tell widows year two is gonna be harder. It's gonna be different. It's gonna be more difficult, right? Is because our brains operate on what they call officially confirmation bias. It's like a fancy technical term that basically means whatever you believe, whatever you're looking for out in the world, your brain is looking for evidence of it.
One of the best analogies to this is like when you buy a new car, even if it's used, it's new to you. Let's say that you bought a white Tahoe. Okay. Those first few weeks, especially in those first few months as you're driving, you're just like [00:25:00] so proud. You got this white Tahoe, you get in there and you start driving and you're like, wow, look, there's a white Tahoe.
If there is a white Tahoe, you go park it in the parking lot at the grocery store and you come out and you're like, oh, I almost went to the wrong car. There's a white Tahoe, and you are like, wow. I never realized how many white Tahoes are out there. Who would've known I picked such a popular car?
The reason that you start noticing all the white Tahoes is because your mind is looking for a white Tahoe. It's not looking for a red one, it's not looking for a blue one. It's looking for the white Tahoe it, you have trained your brain. The white Tahoe is important. This is the one we're looking for when we come out of the store.
It's the one we're looking for when I come out from work, when I leave my home. The white Tahoe is important. We focus on that. And so when you are thinking about year two in grief and people are telling you [00:26:00] year two is harder. It's gonna be harder. It's gonna be worse. It's gonna be more difficult. Then as you start to enter year two, what is your brain looking for?
Bingo. It's looking for all the ways. Year two is harder. You have trained it and you have allowed it to believe that year two is going to be harder. So now every time there's an inconvenience, there's a difficult moment. There's a song that made you sad. There's a smell that just brought you back in time.
Your brain is gonna go see. They told you year two was gonna be harder. See, I knew it was gonna be harder. See, you thought you were gonna be okay, but you are not. Your brain is going to find the evidence to support what you believe. So what? What can you do instead? First what I want you to know is that you're not broken.
Okay? If you see [00:27:00] or believe, or experience these things, you are not broken. Guess what? You're normal. Nothing has gone wrong. You're not going backwards. You're not going crazy. This is a normal response, a human response to trauma, to long-term grief, and to such a drastic change going through grief isn't just linear.
This is what we want to believe so badly is that every day I am doing a little better and a little better, and a little better, and a little better, and a little better. And I think I'm doing really good. And then I have a really bad day and I'm like, oh, that means I'm doing bad. Ah, I'm so disappointed in myself.
I thought I was doing better. I thought I would be okay, but I'm not. I'm doing awful. But here's the thing, grief is not linear . Healing doesn't mean that you just stop hurting [00:28:00] and that you're never gonna feel sad. You're never gonna feel that Ugh, I missed my person.
I wish I could talk to 'em. It means that you are growing.
So grief isn't linear, like from the bottom to the top. Grief is full of. Bottom to the top with lots of ups and downs in between. Have you ever seen that graph that's like people think success is, I start down here and I go all the way up here over time. And really success is I start down here and then I go up to this mountaintop and I go down to this valley, and then I go up to a higher mountaintop and I go down to a little deeper valley and I go up and down.
But over time, continuously, I'm going up.
Navigating the Seasons of Widowhood
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This is one of the reasons why. I created what I call the four Seasons of widowhood because I want you to know what to expect. I want to normalize the process for you so that oh, okay, this doesn't mean that something's wrong with me. This is normal. It doesn't mean [00:29:00] that it's easy.
But this is normal so that when you go into year two, your brain isn't looking for evidence to tell you like, oh yeah, year two's worse. Just buckle in. We gotta get to year three because year two's gonna be awful. I want you going into year two or to season two and season three of widowhood with. A realistic expectation of what that should look like.
So when you have that feeling of oh my gosh, this is it feels so real now. Like I felt at first I was just in shock, and now it's just like sinking in that it's real. And I want you to know in that moment, that's normal. It's normal, it's okay. I know it's hard and I know it hurts, and I know that.
It can be really discouraging, but it is normal. It's okay. We're gonna feel this. We're gonna process it. We're gonna honor and acknowledge it, and we're gonna continue to move [00:30:00] forward.
Navigating the Seasons of Widowhood
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So in season two of Widowhood, this is our maintenance mode. This is often when people are in year two. This is really the transition from season two to season three, which is about exploring and discovering discovery mode.
That transition from season two to season three is when most widows find me. It's when most widows come to me because they're like, I don't know what to do next. I've gone through the shock and the horror and the pain. For most of them, they've gone to therapy. They've tried a grief group or grief share or something, and maybe it's helped, maybe it hasn't.
It's about 50 50, but. Either way. They still come to me at a point where they're like, what do I do? Now they're in this season two of I have my new routine, but I don't like it. I want to believe I can have a good future. I'm scared to believe that because I'm scared it's not actually true. So I am living proof and many of my clients are [00:31:00] living proof that it is true.
You can love your life. You can have a beautiful and abundant and amazing future. And I created the Four Seasons of Widowhood as the roadmap. For you to follow so that you don't get stuck. Because what happens is people get stuck in this vicious cycle of trying to put themselves out there, trying to make friends, trying to do new things for the first time.
And when it's hard or when they question like, why am I trying this? There's no point. He's not gonna be here to enjoy it. They fall down and they give up. I don't want you to give up. I want you to know that when you have that feeling of like, why am I trying this? There's no point. He's not here. I want you to, in your mind to go, oh yeah, that's normal.
It's normal. I would feel that way, and it's okay. I can be sad and this moment, and then tomorrow I'm gonna try again. And it might [00:32:00] be that way again tomorrow, but I know I gotta keep doing it. I gotta keep trying, I gotta keep going. And that over time, these volatile waves that are knocking me around get less and less volatile until they're just barely ripples.
That's what I want for you.
So if you are in year two, or if you are in year one and you're trying to plan for year two, or. Maybe you're not in any of those years, maybe you just still feel that this is the point that you are at because it is true. People can feel like they're in survival mode years later. I can help you overcome that.
I can help you move through each of the seasons of widowhood. So even if it has been five years for you, or 10 years for you, or seven years for you, or nine years for you, it doesn't matter. What matters is that we focus on the fundamentals that help us move from where you are to the next season of Widow Hood.
And we continue to move forward. [00:33:00] So as you're thinking about year two, or you're thinking about this next season, you feel right now you're in survival mode, that you're feeling foggy, you're operating on fight or flight, those sort of things. To prepare for the next season, we really wanna structure you with some routine and making sure that your basic needs are met.
As much as you can, ask people to help you as much as you can, accept and allow people to help you lower that ego, lower that pride. Ask for help. Receive and accept help. That will help with managing all the to-dos and the overwhelm. We also wanna start building up real connection. So in last week's podcast episode I talked about making friends, meeting people, and rebuilding up that social circle that often disappears.
So we wanna focus on real connection on [00:34:00] being within a safe community, not something that's superficial, but something that allows for a deep connection. And at first, that might be other widows. That might be your first group that you go to. Eventually we're gonna move you to where you're going to new places of people that have similar interests, beliefs, or values, and we want you to start making friends with people who, this is the version of you they know, and these are not people that are looking for you to go back to who you were.
They're not people that have any expectations of who you are or how you are, or what role you have to fulfill. They're just like, oh, this is you. And we like you and we like you being part of our group. Okay? We also want to begin to explore your new identity and who you want to become. Sometimes life isn't about finding who you are as much as it is creating who you are and deciding who you wanna [00:35:00] be.
So we tap into a lot of that in coaching in our community.
Having support and guidance of someone who understands the long road, the roadmap, what is needed to help you to keep moving forward is invaluable. It is why I believe so strongly in coaching, I believe so strongly, and what we're doing in the membership community, because I have laid it out exact step by exact step, so you no longer have to be lost.
Have to feel like you have no idea the next step that you should take. I guide you step by step along the way, and help normalize the process for you, help you know what to focus on, like what's gonna be the most helpful at each of the seasons of widow Hood. Each help keep you encouraged so that you don't get stuck in this cycle of trying and feeling like you're failing.
Or feeling like [00:36:00] you've just unhealed and gone back to the beginning, which is not possible. But we believe that. We think that's real
Conclusion and Support ResourcesSupport and Resources for Widows
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So if you're in year two or. You're 20 and you're wondering why grief and your life still feels heavy, you still feel unclear, uncertain where to go. I want you to know that you're not alone. This is exactly what I help widows navigate within the one-on-one coaching program within the Brave Widow membership community, and I would love to help you find the clarity, confidence, and peace again.
You can schedule your consult. Call [email protected] until next time.
Conclusion and Starter Kit Information
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If you're newly widowed and aren't sure where to start, you need the brave new widow's starter kit inside brave new widow. You'll find a starter guide to help you through your first few months. A quick start guide. You can share with family and friends so they know how to help you. [00:37:00] And a collection of some of the frequent topics that widows want to learn more about. To get the brave new widow series.
Just go to brave widow. Dot com slash start it's free and you'll get instant access. That's brave widow.com/start S T a R T. See you there.
