You Can't Go Back: How to Build a Life You Actually Love Replay
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welcome to a bonus episode of the Brave Widow Show. On today's episode, I'm gonna share with you a replay of a recent live event that I held where I walk widows through the fact that our old life is over. We can't go back, and so often we're looking for ways to go back to feel normal, and the reality is that we can't go back.
Our old life is now in ash. However, what we can do is we can decide to build a new life and we can decide to build something that we can actually eventually enjoy again. And in this live event replay, I walk you through how we actually make that happen, the [00:01:00] four Seasons of Grief framework and what to focus on through these seasons.
And of course, it invites you to join me in the Brave Widow Academy. So enjoy the replay and I would love to see you in the academy.
If I remember to record it. So I've got YouTube stream going, I've got the Zoom room. So if you wanna be in the Zoom room with me, go to brave widow.com. You can sign up and still get the link for the Zoom. And then I've got TikTok going and um, that's amazing. Try, I'll manage all the screens here. So Gigi says she's from California, Debbie's from Colorado, Margaret is from Toronto, Ontario.
Amazing. Sue og, brave Widow, right there. Sue is from Indiana. Welcome. [00:02:00] Okay, we have a lot, we have a lot of ground to cover today. So, hi Jay. I'm doing a lot. What am I doing? I'm doing a live training. That is what I am doing, so, all right. I'm gonna move my chat over and I'm gonna make sure my folks here
can see my screen. Okay, here we go. Perfect. All right. Can everybody see my screen and hear me okay? Just type yes in the chat if you're with me. What is this free training on? This is called We Can't Go Back, how to Create a Life You Actually Love Again. That's what we're doing. Yes, you can see my screen and you can hear me.
Amazing. Okay. We are gonna get started here quickly because we have a lot to cover and I gave myself an hour and a half, but I don't know. I may go over, so [00:03:00] fortunately I hit record, so if you can't stay and we do go over, I will have that on the replay. That is not a problem. All right. So I am gonna get started just by saying a prayer because that is, um, how I roll.
So let's pray real quick. Um, dear Heavenly Father, thank you for our time together today, and thank you for the ability just to speak into the lives of everyone that is here with me and help us to be able to pull out of this training today. One thing that you'd like us to walk away with and that we can implement immediately.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Sorry, I've gotta sign this thing. I don't know what it is. It won't go away. Um, just bear with me. That would be amazing. Okay, so, [00:04:00] um, if you're not in the zoom room, you can't see my screen, just bear with me. Um, but today I'm gonna walk through my story and who I am. We have lots of new people that probably don't know who I am and why I'm talking about this, and sometimes I still get questions if I'm actually even a widow.
So, yes, I am a widow, and yes, I have experienced, um, all the things that come with widowhood. So I'm gonna walk through my story and then I'm gonna talk about the problems that we face. Like, why is it so hard to figure out how to go from deep grief to healing your heart, to building a life that you love?
We're gonna talk about some, like, pieces of the puzzle that we try to figure out and like mush together, but why we have problem, a problem in not knowing how to do that on our own. Hint, [00:05:00] it's not you. Then I gonna talk about the solution then Ben, I am going to invite you to join me in the Brave Widow Academy, and if you guys are okay with that, I would love to tell you about some bonuses we have that are going on today.
Um, so if you're good with that type yes. In the chat please. And then I'll know if I, if you're good with me sharing that. Mm-hmm. Lots of hearts and yeses over here. Yes. Okay. Thank you. All right, so. This, if you can see my screen here, um, this is a picture of my family. So just at four. It's hard to believe it's been four years as of this month.
Um, if, if you would've asked me four years ago if I ever would've thought that I would be able to sit here and share my story, I would say absolutely not. [00:06:00] Uh, four years ago, my life was completely changed. July 17th, 2021, I watched as my best friend and my husband was taken away from our home just three weeks short of our 20 year wedding anniversary, so much as the ambulance came and took him from our home never to return.
We both had COVID and we've, COVID nowadays is different than COVID was back in 2021 and the Delta variant was coming out, and so we had both been bedridden. This was actually, um, since right before the 4th of July, we were supposed to have a, a family vacation. I had some friends coming in and I'm glad my friends came in because they took care of my kids while my husband and I were bedridden that entire week.
And [00:07:00] eventually I had to call the ambulance because he couldn't get out of bed anymore and couldn't keep anything down. We had COVID, it morphed, did double pneumonia and spiraled into a lot of other things. And, um, there were lots of ups and downs. He would be in ICU for 11 days. Half of that time he would end up being unconscious on a ventilator, and then one day I would just be called to the hospital.
Sat in a room where I waited for an hour and a half, and finally the physician walked in the room and she sat down and there was no warmth, there was no kindness, there was no smile. She just looked at me across the table and said, we think your husband is brain dead. And in that moment, my entire role just stopped and I tried to wrap my mind around how, [00:08:00] like, how did we actually get here?
How did we get here? And fast forward, they would run a few tests, ultimately declare him, um, brain dead. And I had to figure out how I was gonna go home and tell my four teenagers that their dad had died. So. Here's a picture of just a few weeks later. So three weeks later, um, I was supposed to host family and friends over for our 20 year wedding anniversary celebration.
And if you see the screen, you can see that I literally already ordered the T-shirts, um, for that celebration. So instead of having family and friends over to celebrate our 20 year wedding anniversary, I had family and friends over to celebrate Nathan's life and to honor him.[00:09:00]
Several months later, close to a year later, I had this memorial garden built for Nathan, um, in our side yard of our house. And this garden was supposed to be a, a beautiful place that was like a great memory and tribute to Nathan's life. And instead of it being a place where I was comforted by it. It was a place that I was tormented every day because every day it was just a reminder that he was never coming back.
So I remember I was sitting on this exact bench that you see here one afternoon, and I was just sobbing like it was supposed to help me feel better. And it said I would just go out there and cry my eyes out. Right? And I remember I was just sobbing uncontrollably so bad that my chest hurt and I thought my heart was just gonna explode.
Like there was so much pain [00:10:00] that I just didn't wanna live anymore. And so I cried until the tears just wouldn't come. And I thought about my kids and I thought about how essentially, even though I was still alive, that effectively they had lost two parents. I felt dead on the inside. And I thought about how I could understand why a surviving spouse dies of a broken heart, because that's what I wanted.
But the longer I sat there and the more I thought about my kids and, and people who relied on me, I thought, you know, I've got, I decided that I needed to choose to live for them. I didn't know it was possible. I didn't know how anyone like got over grief. I didn't [00:11:00] know, like, how would I ever enjoy life again?
What would ever be the point? But I decided that I was gonna figure out some way, somehow to actually get over grief, get over this hurdle that weighed me down every day and learn how to actually enjoy my life again. And so I. Remember as I was sitting there, right before I got up, I closed my eyes and I said, Nathan, I love you and I miss you, and I can't live like this anymore.
I have to figure out how to move forward. And so I stood up, I walked into the house and that was really the beginning of my journey of stubbornly, uh, a stubborn personality, whether you wanna call it perseverance, resilience, stubborn, whatever. But I wanted to learn everything I could about grief. So I read all the books.
I talked to hundreds of widows. I even [00:12:00] launched a podcast called The Brave Widow Show, and I interviewed there over a hundred widows of their story and what helped them and how they got to a point that they felt that they were on the journey of healing. How did they get unstuck? What helped them the most?
I began my own journey of, or like radical healing and then starting to go on my own adventures. I traveled, I've traveled now to five new countries. I started real estate investing. I got to go meet Dave Ramsey in person. I'm now a public speaker. Uh, I just, I got, I've been able to go on so many wonderful and amazing adventures that I never even thought possible, I never even anticipated when I first started out on this journey.
And I'm happy to also share that just over a year, about a year and a half now, I got remarried to the most [00:13:00] amazing, supportive, wonderful human being and gained that bonus on in the process. And so my approach to serving widows and what, how Brave Widow is different is that. This is not just a grief recovery container where I walk you through a program of learning about grief recovery and learning about emotional healing.
We do that. There is a space for that, and our focus is on healing your heart and rebuilding a life that you can actually love. So I was trained rigorously by a 20 year practicing clinical psychology psychologist, who is also faith-based, which is highly unusual to have a psychologist who trains you on counseling tools on psychology tools on spirituality and divine guidance, and incorporating that into a practice of coaching clients and working with clients.
And so I became certified through her life [00:14:00] coaching academy and also through the Grief Recovery Institute, which is a faith, not faith-based, excuse me. It's an evidence-based program, which means it was independently studied and proven to effectively work in grief recovery. So that's my background, who I am and why I'm here talking to you today.
So are you in the right place? Had some people asking me in the chat. Like, um, am What is this about? Somehow I ended up on this. I'm not even sure what I signed up for. And, um, for people on Zoom, if you'll notice at the bottom of your chat, there is a, um, thing that says to host and panelists and a thing that says to everyone.
So if you wanna type in the chat to everyone, just flip that to everyone and everyone will see that. If you only want me to see it, you can change it to host and panelist. And if you're in Zoom, at the bottom of your screen, there is a [00:15:00] q and a box. So if you have a question, put it in the q and a box because that creates a list for me of all the questions and I make sure that your question doesn't get lost.
Okay? So you are in the right place if you are tired of feeling stuck, numb, or lost. You're tired of just getting by. So put a fire emoji in the chat. Put a heart in the chat if any of these resonate with you. If you want clarity, confidence, and connection instead of feeling isolated and not being sure what's next.
If you've tried therapy, you've tried grief groups, you've tried just giving it time, but you still feel hollow. If you're ready to stop waiting for life to get better and you're actually ready to start creating a life and creating an experience that is better. If you are faith-based and you wanna be able to honor your past while building a new chapter for your future, then you are in [00:16:00] the right place.
Okay? You are not in the right place, okay? This is not for everyone. So how do you know if you're not in the right place? If you are waiting for time? To heal you and your, your mantra, your philosophy is, I'm just gonna wait on time. If you're looking for a quick fix or a magical solution, I don't have a magic pill to sell you.
Okay? What we do is deeply transformative and it, it's a journey. It's a process. If you're unwilling to invest time and energy, you're not in the right place. This takes time, takes energy, it takes effort. If you live in a mindset of, I can't do it, I don't wanna learn, you are wrong. People love tell me that in the comments all the time.
You make it sound so easy. It's not that easy, okay? I'm telling you it's not easy, but it's simple. We can make it simple, okay? If you're looking for traditional grief group or [00:17:00] counseling, I'm not a counselor, not a licensed counselor. I do host grief recovery sessions, but as one of my friends put it, this is like grief recovery plus.
It's like grief recovery, but also a lot of focus on life coaching and life building. We're very forward focused. We're very action based. Okay. Therapy is great for unpacking and processing. Coaching is great for getting you to step forward. Okay? So that's how you know if you are in the right place. Okay, so what are the problems that we face that keep us from being able to move forward or that keep us feeling stuck?
Have you guys ever felt that put like a little fire emoji or, or something in the chat? Have you felt like stuck and you just don't know? Am I doing this whole grief thing right? Am I stuck? Am I lost? Like I, I'm just confused. Um, if you have ever felt that, put that in the [00:18:00] chat. Okay? Alright. I love it. Fire, fire, fire and hearts.
Perfect. Okay. There's a reason for that and it, it's really caused by three main problems. If I had to simplify it, why this is so hard is there are three main problems. Okay? So we're gonna walk through each of these. We have isolation, we have lost confidence, and we have a lack of guidance.
Okay? So the first problem that we have, the first challenge that we have here is that it is that one of isolation. So the statistic that I've read is that 75 widows will lose 75% of their social circle in the first year. Have you guys experienced that? Put a yes in the chat, throw up a emoji, a sad face, whatever you have.
Let me know in the chat. Have you ever felt that? Yes, yes, [00:19:00] yes, yes. Yes. Okay. And for some people it's more than 75%. For some people it's more like 99% or a hundred percent. Um, but it feels like everybody just disappeared. Like, you're like, where did everybody go? They're all gone. Uh, we also can feel like we're not even the same person that we were before, that we're a totally different person than we were.
So we're isolated. We feel alone. We feel that other people don't really understand us anymore or understand this journey that we're on. We also have lost confidence. Does this sound familiar? Maybe you feel broken. Maybe you second guess every single decision. Maybe you find yourself waffling all the time.
Should I do this? Should I not do it? Should I do it? Should I not do it? Should I do it? Okay. We lost our, our safety net. Even. I had a client that told me, she's like, I used to make every decision. My husband literally did not wanna make any decisions, but it was the [00:20:00] fact that I could sit there and talk to him about it.
That made me feel like if I was about to drive off a cliff, like he would say something. And now I don't have that anymore. We are afraid to try new things. Has there been things that you've been afraid to try? We even lose confidence in ourselves. Like, well, who would, who would wanna be my friend? All my friends left me.
The people who, who liked me, the people who used to do things with me, they left me. So why would anyone else want to be my friend? Why would anyone else be interested in getting to know me?
So we have isolation. We have a lack of, we have lost confidence, and we also have a lack of guidance, which is like, how am I supposed to do this whole thing? Right? We go to counseling. Some of us, we unpack, we process, we start to emotionally heal, and then we're like, well, now what do I do? Right? Or we go to [00:21:00] a grief share, or we go to grief recovery method, or we go to another recovery program.
And you can go through the programs multiple times, but you may get to a point where you're like, the number one question that I get is, what do I do next? What am I supposed to do? Tell me.
When I was in, in grief and navigating it, I felt the best word to describe it is that I felt untethered. I felt like I was a tiny boat in the middle of this huge ocean with water all around me. All these waves were just smacking me around with grief, right? And I'm just like spinning out there in the ocean.
I felt so lost. I didn't even know which way to turn the boat. Much less move it forward. And that was scary to me because I have always been very [00:22:00] clear, very ambitious, driven, clear. Like you talk about someone who thinks about goals and dreams every day, multiple times a day. That's me. My husband and I, we already knew our retirement plans.
Okay? We were going to Wyoming. We were gonna live on a thousand acre ranch with a bazillion horses live out in the wilderness, away from everybody. And that was our retirement plan. And all of a sudden I didn't want that anymore. I'm like, I, I don't even know who I am or what I want. There was no guidance.
I, there was no compass. I didn't know where I was going. Okay? So we often think like, is this normal? Is it even possible to enjoy life again? Like I thought I was doing better. Am I, am I doing this too soon or not soon enough? Like there's no, everyone has an opinion, but there's not one clear voice telling us how to move forward.
And then this last one, how many of you have heard or said, I just need to give it time? [00:23:00] Okay.
Yep. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Me? I just need to give it time. Okay. So let me tell you a little bit about time, and I'm gonna tell you about Soia, who was on the Brave Widow Show, episode number one 10. If you wanna go back and watch that or listen to that. But I think her story is very telling in time and how we think we just need to give things time, right?
So Soia. Was a young widow. Her children were ages five and eight when her husband died. And she thought like, like most widows, that you just need to give a time, she kept waiting to feel normal again. She kept like powering through, going through the motions. Have you guys done that? You're just like going through the motions.
You getting up going to work or doing your thing every day and you're just like waiting magically you're gonna feel better, right? [00:24:00] And so Soia did the same, and she did that for three years. Okay? Three years and three years later, COVID happened and she found herself in an area that had lots of lockdowns and quarantines.
And so she spent a lot of time with her kids and she realized one of the things as she began to talk more with her kids. Spend more time with her kids was that even though they were so proud of her for going through the motions, for being strong, for like keeping it together, that they felt incredibly disconnected from her and they felt like they were just kinda watching her do her thing out there in the world.
And they were all waiting to feel better. Yes, this person says, I'm still doing it. Five years later. Yep. Still waiting. So when she started to have these open conversations with her [00:25:00] kids, it broke her heart and she started to talk, really reflect on how she felt, really talk about where her head and her heart were.
And she realized three years later, she tells you this in the podcast. Three years later, she actually felt worse than she did when her husband died. So time did not magically make her feel better. So what she decided to do was to start to process her pain. She started with journaling. She started with some reflecting.
She started really processing her emotions and facing her grief and facing her pain for the first time. I'm proud to share that now. Soia is in a much better place. She's actually a coach now and helps other people through grief. But she's very adamant with people that waiting and just giving it time doesn't magically help you to feel better.[00:26:00]
The way I like to think about it is just like a physical wound. Like let's say you broke your arm, okay? When you, if you broke your arm, like let's say it's bad, okay? You go immediately to seek for help. You go to the doctor, you go to the emergency room. Wherever you go, you would go seek medical attention.
You don't sit back and say, well, I'm just gonna give it time and my arm's gonna heal. Okay. Now, can a broken bone heal over time? Can it, yeah. Kind of. Is it gonna be set correctly? Maybe, maybe not. There are some injuries that if they heal, if the bones heal and fuse back together a certain way, the bone may actually have to be re broken in order to be set correctly and then allow it to heal in its proper state.
So [00:27:00] time is a component. How I think about time is time is a component. You can't just magically heal and everything's perfect tomorrow. Time is a piece of that. But time isn't the only thing. Time is only gonna create more of what it is that you are doing. So what is the solution through these three problems that we have talked about?
Okay. The solution and what I teach CO and Coach Widows through and how we rebuild a life that we love again, is through a framework called the Four Seasons of Grief. And for the first time, my Brave Widow community, they got to vote on the names of what we're gonna name these four Seasons of Grief. So for the first time, they're getting to see the results of their survey.
So for those of you who can't see my screen, we call it Rise Rising through Grief. So it's rawness, isolation, [00:28:00] self-discovery, and empowerment. Okay. So I'm gonna walk you through each of these and what they look like and um, for people, whether I work with them one-on-one in coaching, or whether they're part of the community or.
One of my clients, um, I have a set number of things that we focus on in each season. So if you wanna know, so many of the people who write to me, who comment to me who they wanna know, like, what if I, what if I'm still in deep grief and I've been there, like the person that said they were there for five years?
What am I supposed to do? How do I move forward? What is my next step? I'm going to tell you what to focus on in each season in order to be able to move forward. Okay? So you're gonna get all of that today. So as I describe each season. If you are experiencing it now or you've experienced it in the past, tell me in the chat, I'd love to know.
You could put an emoji, you can [00:29:00] say yes or me or however you wanna describe that, but I wanna know in the chat. Okay. So the first season of grief we call rawness, and this is really a season where you may feel shame, you may be overwhelmed by sadness, you may feel guilty or regret, and you're really just in survival mode.
Like it's hard to function. You have brain fog often. Um, you now have all of these tasks that you're responsible for. It may feel like your nervous system is on edge or on fire. You may feel like you're living in fight or flight mode. So any of you guys experienced that? Karen says, me too, Sue. I was there.
Yes. Okay. So this is often what we call survival mode. So one of the number one questions [00:30:00] I get is, if I'm still in this season, even if it's years later, what do I focus on? What am I supposed to do? Okay. So the first thing that we always start with is emotional healing. And I recommend Grief Recovery Method as a starting point.
It's a tool that I use. Um, it's a great program and process. You can do it virtually. You can do it in person, whether you do it with me or not. You just need to do it. Okay? But processing your emotional pain and your hurt is like one of the first things that we wanna start with. We also wanna adjust our expectations for what we can actually do.
So even if you were an ambitious, driven, accomplished person, now all of a sudden you're reeling with like, I, I can't even function. Like I can't do now. Things that I used to do in the past, [00:31:00] much less, all these other things that just got piled on my shoulders because my spouse used to do them, right? So, we wanna adjust and lower our expectations for what we expect for ourself.
We wanna learn how to ask other people for help and how to accept help, because while we can feel overwhelmed, we also are very quick to decline help. I, I should be able to handle it. I'm good. I, I should be able to do this. Why can't I, you know, do these same things. I don't wanna be a burden to anyone.
Does that sound familiar? Carter says, I'm close to the one year mark. So starting to feel myself slip back towards rawness. Charna said, tore my heart apart. Yes. Okay. So emotional healing, adjust our expectations. Ask for and accept help. And then the fourth one is creating physical and emotional safety. So what [00:32:00] happens when you experience a trauma like losing a spouse, which is by Statista been rated as the number one most stressful life event that humans go through?
Losing a spouse. Okay. What happens in our mind is the saying trauma as if a tiger is chasing you down street. Okay. Like think about like caveman days when you were in physical imminent danger and you just. React or you freeze or you run away, or you do what you have to do to survive. Your body produces adrenaline, it produces cortisol, it gets you all keyed up, right?
And you're hyper aware of everything. Okay? So you go in a crowd and everything's like super overwhelming, and you go to the grocery store and you just feel all hyped up and you never feel that you can just let your shoulders down and [00:33:00] just go like,
I'm good. I'm like rested, I'm calm. I feel so peaceful. Very rarely does it feel that way. Like you're keyed up all the time. And so one of the things that we focus on here is we need to create experiences where we're bringing our mind or we're bringing our body to intentional safety. What does that actually mean?
Okay. So what we're trying to do basically is to reprogram your body and your mind that you are safe as the underlining fear, anxiety. Have you guys felt a lot more anxious when you were in this season? Like really afraid, like even making a decision if I make the, the wrong decision, like my, my experience was I was so afraid that something was gonna happen to my job and I was gonna go broke and I was gonna get fired, and then we would be bankrupt and then we're gonna be [00:34:00] homeless, and then we're gonna be on the streets, and then we're gonna get kidnapped and like it just on and on and on and on, right?
And the underlying theme is like, I'm not safe. I'm not safe. I'm not safe. Because everything that you knew about reality and what was real and what was safe has now been shattered. And so the part of your brain, the amygdala, the part of your brain that keeps you alive and keeps you safe, actually they call it.
Hijacks your brain that instinctual I have to survive. Part of your brain takes over the part of your brain that thinks logically and clearly. This is why we have brain fog. This is why we can't make decisions without going back and forth all the time. This is why everything feels like the stakes are really high.
If I make this wrong decision, I'm screwing up my entire life. I'm screwing up my kids' lives. This is like, oh, it's a huge decision and it's really not. But it feels that way. Okay? That's when we [00:35:00] know we need to come bring ourselves, our mind and our body. Like down into places where we feel safe, we feel fully at peace.
We're relaxed 'cause we're like repro programming our nervous system that we're safe. Your body was meant to run on adrenaline for short periods of time. For like sprints, right? Tigers chasing you down the street. You're like sprinting down there. Your body wasn't meant to run on adrenaline and cortisol for long periods of time.
So when you live in that for years, then you start to notice things manifest physically, whether it's an illness, it's an accident, it's an injury, it's a chronic pain that pops up. Those are all things that oftentimes can be tied to periods of grief or loss. How do you find that space? Great [00:36:00] question. This is really gonna depend on each person.
Where I like to start, are things that totally set you at peace. That could be meditation, it could be breathing exercises, it could be yoga, it could be putting a puzzle together. It could be gardening, crafting. A lot of, um, people tend to do things that are. Almost tedious or very creative because you cannot operate really in a creative way if you're under a lot of duress.
So you've heard of things like art therapy, writing therapy, um, whatever that is for you. Getting a massage. Yeah. Shauna says Stretching helps somebody. Candy Crush. Well, I don't know if that's super relaxing, but, okay. Well if it maybe Candy Crush for you, whatever it is that just lets you go, [00:37:00] I'm good. I'm okay.
Okay. Those are, those are the things that you're looking for in that moment. Sue said I was very scared of every decision that I had to make. Yes. Karen says, I still have brief moments of this occasionally, but now I've learned to coach myself through it. What once went on and on now has a quick end.
Perfect. So in Brave Widow, what we teach are the Heal Your Heart Method, which is what I use with Grief Recovery Method and also the Calm to Chaos blueprint. And in there I teach you how to set a routine where you can have a semblance of normalcy and a normal life. And you can also integrate some of the bigger rocks or like bigger things that you wanna get done.
So for example, I have a client who, uh, wanted to declutter her home and she's like, it's gonna take me two years. I think I set a [00:38:00] goal of two years and I'm like, we're not letting this take two years. We're gonna come up with your routine and we are going to plan out some times where you can do things like declutter your home or get some of your bigger goals accomplished.
And guess what guys? She's already overachieving what we set on the plan, which is amazing. So shout out to her. She knows who she is. Um, Patty says, yes, it should be chaos to calm. I totally have that flip flopped here. We don't wanna go to chaos. Patty says, A simple walk, noticing the sky, listening to birds and breathing can help too.
Yes. And for Karen, she says, music has been huge for me. Yes. All right, so quick, briefly, I know I gotta speed it up here. Okay. Briefly, I just wanna introduce you to one of my clients named Michelle. And if you are not on Zoom, you can't see her beautiful picture. But she is a young mom. [00:39:00] She of, uh, young mom.
She is a young widow, a mom of four, a military widow. And, uh, I worked with her. We started a year ago and she was struggling with having a sense of routine, having consistency, managing the household, working on, um, healing her heart. She was very much in that rawness state of feeling a lot of guilt and just.
All, all of the big emotions. She also struggled a lot with her confidence. I think it was like a two when we rated it on a scale of one outta 10. I think it was a two or three when we started. And, um, I, we worked together and six months later she got back on the call and she rated her confidence, uh, nine out of 10.
And she's like, I don't even know who I am. Who is this person on the call? Like, I just, I feel so much more confident. I feel so much more at peace. [00:40:00] And I realize that now between myself and through the God who lives in me, that I can do things. I can be confident in myself. I can know that I will figure things out.
And I sharing here a graduation picture that was just taken, uh, recently, I got to go to Key Largo and watch, this is actually two of my clients here. Um, both of them, young widows who. Worked through healing their heart, rebuilding their life, and they decided to be coaches in different areas. So Michelle is now a certified life coach and, um, Lily, the other person here, she is, um, has started her own business as a personal trainer and nutrition coach.
And both of these ladies are faith-based, they are amazing people, and I'm glad to get to share a little bit about them with you. All right. So season one was rawness. Season two is what we call [00:41:00] isolation. So that first season we really are in survival mode, uh, can't function very well. I have a lot of widows that get referred to me in this season and they just, most of the time feel really overwhelmed and like, I'm just not ready.
Uh, I need some more time. So as we get our feet underneath us, we get into our new routine. For me, what happened was. It was like, um, I had my new routine. I knew what my life was, and I looked around and I was like, is this it? Like this, this is my life. This like 40 or 50 years of this. What? This is awful. I hate this.
Like, th this is my life now. You know? It's like you go through counseling or you go through a grief program, they pat you on the back, you're done, and you're just looking around at this wasteland. You're like, what am I supposed to do now? And no one has the answer. Right? Um, I also [00:42:00] think about this as when we are in deep grief, we tend to isolate.
We pull into our cave, we turn n word because our whole world has just exploded. And we're trying to function, we're trying to get, get through the day. And so we've like hibernated back in this cave, and now as we're starting to get our feet underneath us, we step forward. Like we're coming out of the cave and we're looking around and everybody's gone.
Have you, you guys have experienced that, right? Like everybody just poof, vanished. They're like, where did everybody go? So often in isolation, you feel hollow, dull, lonely. I felt like I was a shadow of my former self. You start to question who you are now. Am I a wife? Am I not a wife? Am I single? Am I not single?
Am I married? Am I not married? Do I wear my ring? Do I not wear my ring? Mm-hmm. Right? [00:43:00] You really question your purpose. Like, well, especially if you don't have kids at home, it's like, well, who needs me now? Right? Like, what am I here for? And generally you feel stuck. This is really where most people start to find me and the number one question they have is, what am I supposed to do next?
What, what do I focus on? I don't know. Okay. So things that we focus on when you're in the second season of isolation, this is what I call maintenance mode. Um, this is a really great place to create what I call your dream schedule. Like what you want your new routine to start looking like. This is a good time to getting, start getting plugged into a community of other people who are on a similar journey.
Natalie says, absolutely. Debbie says, I felt and still feel this isolation. We're also starting to explore our new identity of who we are, and we begin to have like little, tiny dreams. [00:44:00] Usually this is where people are still pretty skeptical. Like, can I enjoy life again? Would I want to, why would I want to, why would I wanna enjoy my life again, my person's not even here.
So it's usually skeptical that it is possible to enjoy life or that they would want to, like why would I want to? That's usually, um, another question that we have. So we wanna focus on joining a community to help overcome some of the loneliness here. Starting to explore who we are, what do we want our schedule to look like?
What do we want our life to look like, and what are these small dreams? So when we are at a point where, um, we do goal setting and planning with widows, I always acknowledge that you may be at a point where you're like, I have no goals, I have no dreams. I just want my life back. Okay. Understandable. So when I talk about small dreams, what I mean [00:45:00] here is like, what do you want more of in your life right now?
And it could be more kindness, more gentleness, more, um, feeling connected and seen. Doesn't have to be a humongous goal. Like, oh, I wanna be on a TV show, or I wanna travel, you know, Emily, I wanna do all those things that you did, right? Like in the beginning it seems almost even pointless. So these are the things that we focus on when we're in the second season of grief.
And we also have a system for that called the self-trust system, which is where we rebuild confidence. So we rebuild confidence in ourself, we rebuild confidence in our ability to do things, to navigate the unknown, to navigate, um, through fear. To. We also learn how to set up a board of advisors, so you learn [00:46:00] how to set people, a board of advisors around you to help you make those big decisions, to help you feel like you have a safety net.
And so I teach you how to pick out those people who they should be different types of people who should be on your board of advisors so that you don't feel so alone and like you're just navigating this all on your own. Meet. Karen. Karen, I think you're still with me on the Zoom. Everybody say Hi, Karen.
Karen has been very public and I am eternally grateful. Karen. Forever, uh, with her story on the podcast and, and being willing to share her story. Some people are very open with, um, sharing their story and their pictures and what their experience has been. And I've got other people lined up who, um, are happy to do the same and other people who are like, there is no way I ever want my face out there and I'm not [00:47:00] comfortable with that.
And both are totally okay. That's perfect. Fine. So, Karen's story, um, Karen joined Brave Widow, um, back around November. We were doing like a fun Black Friday thing and she joined and it had been, um, three-ish years since her husband had died. And she just still felt stuck. She'd tried counseling, Karen. She tried counseling, that wasn't a great fit.
She tried grief groups. That wasn't a great fit. She felt frustrated, right? And she was at a point where she was like, I just, I have to try something. And she's like, I'm not even gonna think about it. I'm just gonna put it on the credit card. I'm gonna go for it. Like, I have, I have to do something. This sounds like something that could work for me.
And um, later on, I think it was December, her leadership at her work set her down and was like, you know, the work performance, [00:48:00] the work interactions, you know, we need to see a change here. And I used to have to sit down and have those conversations with people. It's a never a fun conversation on either side and for her.
It felt like somewhat of a, a wake up call of, I, I have to do something different. But just a few months later, we walked through grief recovery method. We had also been doing some coaching, and the next meeting that she had with her leadership and her workplace was like, what are you doing that's different?
Like you are showing up. Totally different than you were before. We had this mandatory, like, who loves mandatory HR training? Uh, uh, we had this mandatory training we were gonna make you do, but you've improved so well that we're not gonna make you do that anymore, and we wanna know how we can best continue to support you.
So her employer actually sponsored a period of time for her coaching, [00:49:00] and Karen will share that she, this was her words, an answer to a four year long prayer that within a few months, does that mean Karen is perfectly like a hundred percent perfect and happy and has no problems in life? No, of course not.
But that in a short amount of time, you can experience. A shift, you can experience something very different. And um, if you wanna listen to her story, you can go out to the webpage or go listen to the podcast. She goes into a lot of detail. Um, but I'm just happy when I'm able to show people that you can wait for time to heal you to make things better for years, or you can decide to do something different and to start creating the type of life that you want.
And you can experience a huge shift in a short amount of time. What I tell most people is, [00:50:00] if you are in coaching or you wanna the programs after your first call, you're like, oh, this is different. Within three months, you're like, I'm showing up to these calls. Different like, Hmm, interesting. Right? And then the biggest leaps are between that three and six months where people really start to see big shifts and big changes.
There. Okay. Self-discovery. This is season number three. So we had rawness, we had isolation, we have self-discovery and self-discovery. This is where we're in like exploring mode or discovering mode, and we're figuring out like who we are and we're trying new things and we're stepping forward. But this season is also super scary.
And so I have up here a picture of a woman walking through a forest because I think about it that way a lot because self-discovery requires that we do things that are [00:51:00] uncomfortable, meaning we try new hobbies, meaning we go to some place we've never been before. We go meet people we didn't know before.
We are figuring out what we like, what we don't like, and all of that's very oof. Awkward and uncomfortable and weird and, and nerve wracking and all of the things. And we do it as a step forward of faith that one day it's not gonna feel that way. That on the other side of us doing all of these things, that we're gonna have a beautiful life that we love and enjoy, but we can't see that.
We hope it's there, but we don't know. So I think about it like you're walking on a path through a forest and there are curves in the forest, and it's like Lord of the Rings, and maybe there's a monster in the bushes, or maybe you know, there's an ally who's waiting there. Maybe there's a beautiful adventure, or maybe it's a storm like you don't know because you can't see around the corner, you can't see the [00:52:00] outcome.
But you're taking a step forward, out of faith that as you move forward, you're going to be able to experience a life that you enjoy, a life that you love again. So this is all about self-discovery. So in this uh, season, you have little glimmers of hope. Like, oh, maybe I'm not gonna be miserable the rest of my life.
You are very maybe curious about, Hmm, I wonder if I like this. Like I try to, um, I went to a pottery class. I went to a line dancing class. I went to, um, a paint and sip class. Like I did all sorts of different things, trying to get a feel for what I liked and what I didn't like. Some of them I enjoyed, some of them I didn't, um, want to incorporate all the time.
But this is a great time of curiosity, of wonder, of feeling like a child again, of like, oh, I don't know anything about this, but I'm gonna try it, of feeling anxious. Because as we're rebuilding our [00:53:00] social circle, we're starting to try to make friends with people, which feels super awkward and weird. And so one of the number one questions people have is, am I doing this right?
Am I doing this like whole grief thing? Right? Because let's say we go out to the. Nathan and I used to go to the movies every Friday night, even if it was a terrible movie. We just like, I don't know. I just like going, I wish there were better movies out more often, because I just love going to the movies.
Um, so we used to go all the time, and then there was a period of time, especially with COVID right? That, you know, going to the movies wasn't really a thing. And then, um, it was weird going without him, right? Like the first time I was like, okay, I'm gonna try going to the movies. And so you go and then all of a sudden you start crying and you're like, why did I even try this?
Why, why did I even do this? What was I thinking? I tell a story often that there was a time where I [00:54:00] wanted to see Dr. Jordan Peterson. He was going to be speaking in Tulsa. Is a couple hours for me. And this was the first time, I think, probably the first time at all that I had decided to try to do something like solely for me.
Not the kids, not everybody else, but for me. So I'm like driving to Tulsa. It's a two hour drive. I stop halfway 'cause you gotta get the gas station snacks, right? Um, so I stopped like halfway
and all of a sudden I just start bawling, like the makeup, everything. I was just crying because all I could think about was like, why are you doing this? Why are you pretending like everything's okay? You should be at home. What are you doing? Like, Nathan's not even here. How, how are you supposed to go enjoy this?
Right? And I remember I got my little napkins from the McDonald's there and was like wiping my face off and I [00:55:00] just, I was like, Nope, I'm just gonna keep going. Drove to Tulsa. I went to the mall 'cause I had some time before the show that night and one of my kiddos starts having a mental health crisis at school.
And it's like, I don't know if your kids ever do this, but it's like text, text, text, text, text, text, and your anxiety. Like I could just feel it like welling up all throughout my body and it's like, I can't take this anymore. You know? Just whatever you can imagine. That's among the worst things to receive as a parent, just.
Imagine it was being said, right? And all I could think about again is like, why am I doing this? Why am I trying? See, your kids need you. You should be at home. Why are you out? Like, who are you? Why should you get to have any fun? These kids don't even have their dad anymore, and you're out here like going to the mall trying to have fun, like, oh my gosh, right?
Like all the thoughts that just spin, sit there and spin. [00:56:00] I text my mother-in-law who of course was watching the kids while I was gone. She got everything handled, but it just threw me off the whole day. I shared that example because when you're in this season of self-discovery, most widows get caught in this cycle, which is like, I'm trying something new.
I'm trying to go meet people, I'm trying to do something for myself, and then this big wave of grief hits me and I get knocked back down and then I give up. 'cause what's the point? I just wait. I just need to wait longer. I didn't give it enough time. Have you guys ever experienced that? Natalie says, this is when I realized I couldn't just be surviving in life.
I need to start thriving in life. And Sue said, I love that. Yes. So when we're in self, when we're in self discovery, what we wanna focus on, our trying new things, okay? This is when I would be encouraging you to not just [00:57:00] have a life where you're sitting at home on the couch watching Netflix, okay? To meet people and to make friends.
You have to get off the couch. And I know that this is very hard because I am a hardcore introvert. I like my alone time. I don't like big crowds of people. I don't like small talk. I don't, I didn't know what to say to people. Like, what do, how's the weather out there? Yeah. Okay. I used to be socially kind of awkward.
Okay. But I learned ways of navigating conversation, ways of connecting with people that made this a lot easier, um, and a lot more doable. So in self-discovery, I'm encouraging you to try new things to build up your life, which is building up your social circle different, and I teach you different types of people to build that up with.
Um, teaching you how to create again, that dream schedule of [00:58:00] like, well, how full do you want your life to be? Do you want pickleball on Tuesdays and Thursdays? And then Wednesdays we're going for line dancing, and then Fridays we're doing this. We don't need to stay busy all the time, but there's a good in between where you have a life that's full of things that you enjoy or that you wanna do or that you wanna explore, and not a life where you feel like you're just sitting at home and everything's just passing by.
Okay. We learn how to take risks that where the stakes are low stakes aren't high, so it doesn't feel as anxiety inducing. We grow our capacity for what I call both and Okay, which is a lot of times we think things have to be, or for example, I love the life that I had with my husband. If I say I love my life now, then [00:59:00] people's reaction is like, oh, so you moved on then, right?
Like you forgot about that old guy over there. You forgot about that life you had and you just like moved on. Because we think as humans, like, oh, well, either you love the life you had or you love the life you have. Now, it's not both, but it is both. It's both equally. And I can say that now. I wasn't able to say that for a long time, but I can say that now.
But I teach you how to be able to hold these big emotions, right? So I was on a call with a client earlier who was like, I'm very excited about this and I'm very sad about this over here. And I go back and forth and back and forth and I said, just do both. It's okay. You can be happy about this and you can be sad about that, and you can hold both emotions at the same time.
So we learn how to do that. We also wanna build up our community of other people who are on the same journey. There's lots of different widow groups out there. There's lots of different neighborhood [01:00:00] friend groups that are out there. But if those people aren't on the same journey as you are, then you'll continue to feel unseen.
You'll continue to feel not validated. Sue says, I was asked by my husband's brother and wife to make a decision if I wanted to go on a trip with them two months after the funeral. I didn't wanna say yes, but I decided to say yes and it ended up being a really great experience of healing and stepping forward for all of us.
Oh, I love that. I love that. And we did one podcast episode on traveling, um, through grief and how one person in particular, um, did a lot of traveling and just grieved as she did it. And most of us would think like, well, if I'm gonna go travel and I'm gonna go on a trip, then it's supposed to be happy. And I can't go until I feel comfortable.
I can't go until I'll be able to not cry. And my philosophy is [01:01:00] go anyway. Cry. It's fine. You can do both. So the systems that we use in self-discovery are the connection protocol, and we call the discover your Purpose Plan, where we teach people that your purpose often feels like, oh, this is my one grand purpose.
This is what I was meant for in life. But instead, we can have a smaller purpose, which is how we show up every day in our life, how we create intention and meaning, and it doesn't mean that we have to come up with this ginormous purpose. Okay, so warning about self-discovery here is that this is where most widows get stuck.
This is really between seasons two and three is where I would say. Probably 80% of people that I meet and clients that I work with, that's where they are, are kind of in this like [01:02:00] cycle of either feeling lost or they've tried some things. It's been really difficult, and now they're questioning if they're doing this right or what they should do next.
Okay. Are you guys still with me? Put, put me a heart or smiling in the chat if you're still with me.
Speaking of Sue, let me introduce you to Sue Peters here on my screen. Sue is one of the OG brave widows who has been with me now almost three years, November-ish, I think it'll be three years. And Sue's also been very open about sharing her story on multiple. Um, I'm on the button. Oh. Um. She's also been on multiple, um, podcast episodes and just been very gracious in sharing her story.
But, um, when I first met Sue, um, she hated being [01:03:00] called a widow, and I totally understood that because I used to hate it too. I used to feel like a black label and, um, like I didn't associate it with, with me. I was like, no, I'm not a widow. That's for the old people. That's like for the 90-year-old poor person who's crying in their house every day.
That's not I, I'm not a I that can't be me. Right. But what I have learned over time, and what even Sue has learned over time is that being a widow is something, yeah. This person says almost five years, and I still haven't called myself that. Yeah. But what we have learned is that a widow now is almost a badge of honor in a way.
Not of a way of dismissing the hurt and the pain that we've been through, but because so many widows I know are incredibly resilient, incredibly generous, [01:04:00] have overcome so much and are willing to keep giving to other people, it's amazing. Like I'm proud to be part of that community because the community of widows that I invest the most time with are very giving people, they're very supportive.
They're very much like sit with you and your sorrow and celebrate your successes, and that's amazing. Sue says, yes. It's been an awesome journey with you and the other brave widows here, Emily. Karen says, I love your story, Sue. Yeah, so Sue, over time she started traveling to new places by herself, which I think is pretty brave.
She went on this whole journey of marrying her heart, which I know just sounds like you have to know what that means, right? Well, she published a book about it and it's a now an Amazon number [01:05:00] one bestseller called The Miracle of Marrying My Heart. And I was so incredibly proud of Sue. I lived vicariously through her as she was writing this book.
And then just like that, she goes and co-authors two more books, um, which you could find all those on her website and like she shares in the chat, like she was terrified at first. Right. Just, I felt pointless. Just everything felt very scary. But I think she's just a beautiful example of someone who was willing to be brave, who was willing to step forward through the fear, through the uncertainty, through the, I don't know how this is gonna work out.
Type things and almost like that blind faith of just stepping forward. Um, so great job, Sue. You are amazing, as are all of my brave widow peeps. Okay? Okay. So we went through the three seasons of grief. Three of four. [01:06:00] So we have rawness, isolation, self-discovery, and now empowerment.
I haven't referred to my husband as not on time either. I meet people that think I'm married. Well, that's okay. Um, that's okay. So empowerment, let's talk about that. Um, when you are in this fourth season of empowerment and the reason that I. Created this framework of four Seasons. It's because if you're in season one or two or three, I want you to know that season four is coming.
So in season three of self-discovery, it's very, can be scary. We're doing a lot of new things, we're really growing very rapidly and we're getting to have a little bit of fun. So it's nerve wracking. And also we get to [01:07:00] start having a little bit of fun. And when we move to empowerment, this is when we get to have the most fun.
Okay? This is really when we feel confident, we can feel joy again. Like when I was widowed, I, my joy, if I was to rate it on a scale of one to 10, my Joy Max would be like a five or six. Like I genuinely did not know if I could ever feel joy so deep that it would feel closer to a 10. I know that today. It is possible.
But then I didn't think that it was like, I always felt like it would be like me watching myself laugh, not me, like feeling it here. So you begin to feel more confident, you're more joyful. You feel purpose filled. Bigger dreams start to emerge, and you may also have a desire to impact others. That doesn't mean you need to become a coach or an author or do [01:08:00] anything in your mind that's super big, right?
But impacting others can be how you show up for your family, how you show up and help friends. Whether that is inviting people to your home, whether that is, um, changing relationship dynamics, whether it is learning how to connect with people that sometimes frustrate you. But just a desire now to go beyond yourself and to be able to feel that you are growing, you're grounded, you feel very good about where you are, and now you're able to start supporting other people or showing up for other people or doing something that feels very meaningful to you.
This is where we are here. So when we're in this season of grief and growth, we wanna focus on is just really getting clear about your future de desires, [01:09:00] pursuing goals that are meaningful to you, growing yourself, and then beginning to lead or mentor or show up for other people. And that can look a lot of different ways.
If you hang out with me, I don't care how many years, you know me or you hang out with me, I'm always gonna encourage you to grow. I'm always gonna push you to the next level. Like I shared with you my client earlier who's like, oh, I wanna move. I'm gonna declare my house, but it's gonna take me two years.
I'm like, Nope, it's not gonna take two years. We can do this in like months, not years. Right. Or another client I have who's working on creating something that felt like it was gonna take six months or a year or two years, or however long that is, and we collapsed the timeline down to less than four months.
I believe that we, I am a [01:10:00] lifelong learner. I always have been. I love to learn. I love to grow myself and my ability. I have coaches who teach me, um, every single week. And I feel that it's important to just constantly be on a journey of growing and learning. To me, that's exciting, and that's what helps me feel alive.
I don't wanna be in a room of people where I'm the smartest person, where I am the most successful, the most whatever it is. I wanna be around other people that challenge me to be better, to do better, to expand my own ability. And so, regardless of where you are and on your journey, um, and regardless of the things that you've accomplished, I'm always gonna be encouraging you to do more, to step outside of your comfort zone and to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
So I wanna share with you just very briefly here, several of the folks that are in our Brave Widow [01:11:00] tribe. Um, because all of them are working on really amazing things, whether it's, I have several people on moving right now, so several widows who are buying and selling a house. That's been a theme over the past few months.
I have widows who are working on family dynamics, some who are working on just figuring out what they want for their life in the future. Um, some who are focused on supporting and showing up for others, like they're all doing just really great and amazing things. So I want you to give them some love, send them some hearts, um, for all the things that they are working on.
So. Might be wondering what, what do I do next with all of this information? What am I supposed to do? What are my next steps? So I'm gonna take a break, just a moment to grab a drink. So if you have any questions over what I have covered, then please go ahead and put that in the q and a box so that I can make sure I answer your [01:12:00] questions, because I would love to start telling you about Brave Widow Academy and what we are doing there.
Like I said, we may go over, um, just because there was so much I was trying to teach you in a very short amount of time. Um, but that's okay. I'll hang out for a while if we do. So now that you can see where you are in this, in the seasons right, we had rawness, isolation, self-discovery, and empowerment. So now that you can see like where you are and what would be possible for you as you move through the next seasons, I wanna share with you the roadmap and the support system that I use with my one-on-one coaching clients, and the container really that I've created as we move forward to actually make these things happen.
So, I'd love to introduce you to The Brave Widow Academy. [01:13:00] This is going to be the most accessible, the most complete program that I've ever created and that I know of, that help people go from feeling stuck, from feeling lost, lonely, unsure, to feeling very clear, confident, and connected. Okay. You are not going to feel lost or not know what you need to be working on next, which is typically one of the biggest challenges that we have.
And let's be honest, most of us are trying to just piece this all together, like a bunch of puzzle pieces, right? We have, oh, there's therapy, there's grief groups, there's books, there's podcasts, there's um, courses, there's, you know, all these different things, but there's not something that really like brings it all together.
And that's really been my mission with what [01:14:00] we're doing inside of Brave Widow. What we're doing in the Academy is to give you a roadmap. Like even if you're at the very beginning, I have something for brand new widows. It's actually free on the website. I have resources for brand new widows all the way to people who have been widowed for decades.
And I use the Four Seasons of grief as our framework there. So. The reality is that you don't need more time. You need a plan, a community and coaching that will actually help you to move forward. I talked with someone recently who she had been widowed seven years, and when I was talking to her about doing coaching, she seemed really interested.
She said it was exactly what she needed, and then she is like, uh, I just don't know if I can really invest that in myself. I just, I, you know, I think that [01:15:00] I just need to keep giving it some more time. I'm like, no, you've waited seven years. How much longer do you think you need? How much longer until you're tired of just giving it time before you decide you're gonna have to do something different.
I totally relate. I have struggled my entire life with being consistent with our workout plan, and I just keep thinking, I'll start Monday. I'll start Monday, I'll start Monday, right? Like I'll, I'll start after the new year. I'll start after Christmas, but time doesn't make me any more fit, doesn't make me any stronger, doesn't make me have more stamina.
The only thing that time's gonna help me, the only way time helps me is if I'm consistently taking action. If I'm consistently doing things. If I go to the gym consistently over time, then time helps me. [01:16:00] But if I sit at home and I just wait, like, oh, well, I'll wait to go to the gym. I'm gonna wait and just, I'll wait to get fit.
I'll wait to get comfortable to go to the gym. I'll wait to be confident till I know how to use all the machines. A time's never gonna happen. You have to decide to do it before you're ready. So when, when our first thought is, I just need more time, I want you to know that's actually a myth that we learn about grief.
The Grief Recovery Institute teaches us that the keys to recovering grief is action, not time. Okay. Karen says, I'm in this season now. My challenge is keeping on when Steph in my world threatens to derail me, but with the Lord and Emily's help, I'm moving forward and I recover more, more quickly. Yeah.
Amazing. And there's no like end point on this journey where you feel like, oh, I've made it. I have no problems. You just get more skilled at coaching yourself, at being able [01:17:00] to navigate all of those things and get to get to a good place quickly. So.
Um, what is the Brave Widow Academy? So, the Academy is a six month coaching program that will help you move through these seasons of grief and help you be able to build a life that feels meaningful to you. Again, it's not a typical support group, although we do support each other, but we actually have a structured program.
There's a curriculum, there's a syllabus, there are tools that you'll be using. There are worksheets. I had one of my clients say, is this gonna be like college? I never got to go to college. And I was like, yes, it's gonna be like college, but I'm not gonna grade your papers unless you ask for it. So we're gonna have real tools.
We have live calls every week. You are gonna get individual feedback. So in a typical group coaching [01:18:00] program, you might be in there with, obviously you're in there with a group and you don't necessarily may feel that you get a lot of one-on-one attention. However, this is more of a hybrid approach, meaning that I have a way for you to send in your progress each week and each week I am gonna send you personal, private, one-on-one feedback of what I would focus on next, what I would do to navigate where you are, what your exact next step would be.
You also have a community of other amazing widows who are rebuilding law, uh, right alongside you. And you've got several of 'em in the chat. We got Karen, who I know is joining us. Sue is gonna be in there. Sue, I got your email. You're in the academy, don't worry. I've got you. Patty's gonna be in there. Mary Ann.
Um, we have several people that are gonna be in the academy with you, and you are gonna get to learn from them, learn from coaching that they receive, and they [01:19:00] get to learn from you too. So, what is in the academy here? So we're gonna have weekly live coaching calls, two hours every week. Uh, these are on Mondays from noon to 2:00 PM Central time, and they're recorded.
So you get to watch the video replay if you can't come live. And I am throwing them up on a private audio podcast. So if you're someone who likes to listen on the go, make it very easy for you to be able to do that or multitask and listen and, and learn. At the same time, you have a private community with people who are only other people who are part of the academy.
Um, I've already uploaded all of the courses and tools that are the foundation of what we're gonna be learning. You don't have to watch them, you don't have to watch them all. Okay? But there are lots of videos on there. If you're a [01:20:00] content junkie and you love courses and you love watching videos and you love learning, they're in there for your learning pleasure.
But I will be walking you through each week the content that's in there and what you need to know, like the essentialist things that you need to know to be able to. Take a step forward. As Sue said in the comments, this is learning for an authentic and real life. Yes. Um, you're also gonna get private messaging support to me.
So, um, we are gonna set you up on a messaging app and 24 7, you can shoot me messages, questions, comments, struggles, whatever it is, and I respond Monday through Friday to you so you have that support as well. And then, um, let me see here. So I had a pre-enrollment bonus that's going through today, but it ends tonight.
And then I have another bonus that's ending next Monday. So the bonuses that go away tonight, um, are. [01:21:00] Extra group calls. So we have our weekly call that you'll have access to. Then I'm also doing additional like open office hours calls where you can drop in and get real time coaching. Or if you want help navigating the system or like whatever it is that you would like my help with, I will help you do that.
Um, you also will get three bonus one-on-one private calls with me and you can schedule them at any time during the program. So you might wanna do like start, middle end, um, but they're there for you to schedule when you want them. And you also will get a chance to win a VIP day with me, which is a four hour experience where we do a deep dive on where you are, how we do a, a session, where we envision your future and what you would like to see or what it could look like, and then come up with a very distinct plan for you or.
If there's something that you really want help with, like [01:22:00] maybe you're at the point where you're dating or you are, um, working on your resume or whatever it is, I will actually spend the time with you hands-on doing it for you. So, um, you would have a chance to win that experience with me if you sign up today.
Okay. So if you were to get this level of support, whether it's through therapy, life coaching, workshops, tools, whatever it is, you could easily spend over 10 K this year and still feel like you're taking all the pieces of the puzzle and putting that together. I personally have spent multiple tens of thousands of dollars investing in my own coaching to learn how to navigate this and also how to help other people get through that.
But don't worry, I'm not asking you to spend a thousand dollars on the academy. Um, we do a six. It's $600 a month for six months, [01:23:00] or you can save $600 if you wanna pay in full at three K. Okay? So those are the two options of going through the academy. And because I've made it a hybrid of group coaching and one-on-one coaching.
This is really my best, like meet in the middle of the most accessible, the most value that I can package in this program. Um, if you want one on, if you want to upgrade on one-on-one coaching, um, that's 5K for six months. Um, but the academy is three K for six months and one of our pre-enrollment bonuses is an extra month.
So it's a six months program. But if you opt in early and you become one of our founding members, I'm actually doing a whole seventh month. So you get seven months for the price of six. If you're a bargain shopper, [01:24:00] then this is like the best, best bargain. It's absolutely amazing. And the reason that I have created these bonuses is because I want you to get off the fence.
Okay. I'm not here to convince you that you have to do this, you need to do this, you need to join it. I want you to feel at peace and to feel like this is something you're called towards that you wanna be part of. And if you're not, it's fine. But decide. Don't be the person who waffles back and forth and spins an indecision for weeks and months at a time.
Like just decide that this is something that would work well for you or it wouldn't. And if you want help deciding, I do free consult calls. You can schedule 'em at my website, brave widow.com. Set up a consult call. It's free. I don't pressure you, I don't try to convince you, but I will help you come up with your specific roadmap of next steps.
I email it to you so you have it [01:25:00] and you can implement it and you can do it without joining the academy. There's like, it's my way of giving back to you so you have clarity and that you can also see what is possible for you. So. Sue said that is an awesome deal. Thank you, Sue. Um, Karen says I'm a lifelong learner and can't wait for this to start.
Yes. Also, we are starting with a pep rally, so I don't know when the last time many of you have been to a pep rally. I was homeschooled, so I never got to go to a pep rally. Um, but we are gonna have one for opening day on August 11th, which will be so much fun. So, the reasons why you should join this round of Brave Widow Academy.
First reason you're going to become a founding member, and I've only done this, let's see. Two other times when we first started Brave Widow and then when we did the Mastermind, we had founding members. So I've only done this two other [01:26:00] times where I've recognized members as founding members. So you get special merch, swag, whatever you wanna call it, that I'm sending out for founding members.
You also get alumni pricing. So when we do events in the future, you get special like legacy or loyalty, pricing, however you wanna look at that. You also will be invited to our Inner circle so you can help shape the future of Brave Widow that you can pour into what you want to see, what, what support you want, how things could be easier, what frustrations, you know you have with the system.
Whatever it is you get to help shape the future of that. You get early access to everything that's already uploaded. The private one-on-one support the extra month of sessions, extra group calls, the bonus one-on-one coaching calls, and then the opportunity to win a VIP date with me. I try to make this so like ridiculously valuable that you would feel silly saying no, that this is not right for you.
So [01:27:00] I wanna know excuses that you felt like you had to be on the fence or you weren't sure whether this is right for you. Karen says, pep rally, 50 years. Woo. Woo. Let's go. We got this. Debbie says, I'm so ready. Thank you. You are welcome. I am excited. So, um, here are just some comments and, um, messages from people who have been part of the coaching program or part of Brave Widow for a period of time.
I know we're running short on time, so I'm gonna wrap it up. Um, but you can watch, uh, we have several video testimonials or recommendations from people. It's all on the front page. You can go watch the stories, um, of people who have signed up. Oh my gosh, Sue just said she's gonna throw in a free signed copy of her book, the Miracle of Marrying My Heart to Anyone Who Signs Up.
Thank you, Sue. That's so generous of you. Okay, that's a wrap. [01:28:00] That's what we have for today. So, um, if you are interested in signing up, go to brave widow.com. Enroll in the academy. If you're not sure, go ahead and schedule your consult call. You don't have to have your consult tomorrow. It doesn't have to be a week from now, but at least sign it up.
I will talk to you privately, one-on-one. I will help you decide not from a place of pressure. From a place of peace, we actually have a decision making tool that my coach, Dr. Betsy taught me called the PEACE acronym. So I'll help you come to a place of peace about your decision. Um, so that either way you feel good about it, Patty says it can seem kind of scary.
It all seems, it may seem like a lot of money. However, at this stage, investing yourself is so worth it. You will learn a lot about yourself. Yes,
everything I've invested, I think the most expensive [01:29:00] was 20 K that I invested in for six months. Um, but I've invested everything from a thousand dollars to $20,000 and everything in between. But I will say each time I got way more value out of what I invested than the actual cost of what it was. So thank you for saying that.
Okay. I hope that today was helpful and I hope that you were able to identify where you are in the seasons of grief and what your next step could be of things that you can focus on. While you're there, I would love to see you in the Brave Widow Academy. If you have any questions, just send me a dm, send me an email, schedule a consult, and I will help you decide.
Until next time, I will see you guys later.
The Brave Widow Academy is open now, and it's where I help widows [01:30:00] just like you move from surviving to living with a proven path coaching and a community of other widows who get it. If you're ready to take the next step, go to brave widow.com/academy to join us. I'll see you on the inside.
