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Emily: [00:00:00] Everyone's shouting, happy New Year and proclaiming their resolutions. And then there are some of you thinking, I don't even want this new year because my person isn't in it. If that's you, this episode is for you.
Today I am gonna share some things that have really helped me be able to rebuild my life. And get unstuck and step forward without feeling like I'm just leaving my person behind In the past.
Before I dive into today's episode, I just wanna do a quick reminder. We have our Brave Widow Academy Scholarship applications that are open until January 2nd. Brave Widow Academy. Our next group starts on Thursday, January 22nd, and I created an academy and coaching package valued at $5,000 that we are going to be awarding to a.
Recipient who will be able to start with us here in January. So [00:01:00] I'm really excited about that and to apply for the Brave Widow Academy. If you've been thinking about joining or maybe you've wanted to join but haven't had the financial resources to do go to brave widow.com. I put it right there on the front page, and you can apply for your scholarship right there.
And then lastly, if I still have a couple of spots left for Grief Recovery Method, I don't know because I'm recording this a couple weeks in advance, but if we do, if you go to brave widow.com, there's a join grief recovery tab right at the top. You can click on that and that group is meeting on starting on January 6th.
We meet on Tuesdays from one to 3:00 PM Central Time, so if you're interested in learning more about that or signing up for either one, go to brave widow.com. All right, let's talk about something weird. I know. Shocker to you. For those of you that I've listened to a while, Emily, talking about something weird.
What? But I [00:02:00] wanna talk about something weird, which is moving forward in time, while it feels like you're leaving your person behind as we look at the horizon of this new year, 2026, it can create this. Really surreal, eerie kind of feeling that we are moving forward to a year that our person never experienced. Even for me, I think about how when Nathan died, he was 40, I was 37. It was right before my 38th birthday, and now I'm 42.
Now I'm older than Nathan. That's weird. A little unfair because you won't ever have to be old and go through all the old people things, and maybe I won't either. Who knows? We don't know what the future holds, right? But it is weird. It's a weird thing to wrap your mind around in the beginning, and to me, it increased my anxiety a little bit of.
[00:03:00] I'm being propelled forward in time into the future, and I'm leaving Nathan behind, like I'm leaving behind a year that we were both in together and later I would leave the home that we were in together for the last time. So it is just a strange, very strange feeling.
People often look at the new year as new resolutions, new year, new me. Here are all the amazing things I did in 2025, and here are the amazing things I'm gonna do in 2026. And you can snicker to yourself because for a lot of people they make resolutions. And by the end of January. Those have just gone down the toilet, but so many people look forward to a new year as like a fresh start, A way of growth, a way of expanding, and most people look forward to it with hope filled eyes.
But for people in grief, a lot of times we're dreading going into this new year. [00:04:00] I stopped making New Year's resolutions years ago. I started using a word of the year every year to focus on instead of having a bunch of resolutions, and my thought process behind that was just simply, if I focus on this one word.
Then I will become more of that. I will bring more of that into my life and that will be show up in many areas of my life as coming to this one word. And I had no idea how prophetic it would be when my word of the year and 2021, when Nathan died had been resilience.
I always felt like a resilient person. I was a person who persevered and got things done and bounced back and navigated challenges, and didn't matter how many times I got knocked down, I would get back up. So I always have resonated with that word, but I had no idea. No idea that [00:05:00] year when I chose that word, what that would really mean for me and my family and my life.
By the way, I'm never choosing that word again.
Needless to say, in 2022, I chose a very different word, which actually ended up being kindness. I felt like the world was so harsh and cruel, and I needed more kindness in my life, more gentleness, more things that were softer. Instead of so harsh and cold and cruel, which was what I felt like the back half of 2021 was for my family and I.
So as widows who are moving through grief, and as we're thinking about this new year, we feel a lot of resistance into moving forward to it, or a lot of dismay about moving into it. One of the things that helped me was I heard someone say that when we lose our person, we're afraid to move forward [00:06:00] because it feels like we're leaving them behind In the past.
I remember thinking like yeah, duh, that's what we're doing, right? I'm getting older, we're going into future years, and it's just heartbreaking because that means I'm leaving my person behind. But then they said, the reality is if you believe that you're gonna see your person again in heaven one day, then the steps that you take forward the further into the future you go.
The closer you get to seeing them again, the closer you're moving towards being reunited with them. And I just thought that was a really beautiful way of thinking about it, of thinking about, I'm not actually leaving them behind, but every day that passes is a day that I get closer to seeing my person again.
So today I wanna talk to you about a concept that sometimes I have difficulty explaining. Not because it's [00:07:00] super complex and hard to understand, but when you're earlier on in grief, it's hard to wrap your mind around how it's possible. And this concept is that your life
can be better than anything that you can imagine right now. And. For most people, especially widows in grief, it's like the meme with all the numbers, coming up and trying to wrap your mind around something that feels impossible. And people are like, but I don't want a better life. I want my, I wanna go to the past.
I don't want anything good for the future. I only want the past. And if that's you, that's totally normal and you're not wrong for wanting the past. You're not wrong for wanting your old life. What I will say is that as you give yourself time to heal, as you get your feet underneath you, the point that I came to was I'd gone to counseling.
I'd interviewed hundreds of [00:08:00] widows about their journey. I had done all of the things right. I read books. I listened to podcasts. I joined, I don't know, like 50 Facebook groups and lurked in there all the time. Like I had done all of the things and my life just felt so empty. And I remember thinking that I wasn't stuck in deep grief.
I wasn't like crying every day. I did feel better about grief, but it was nearly two years later and I just felt so hollow. So untethered. So what is the point of what I'm doing? I didn't, I remember thinking to myself, I don't know if I can laugh again and it's ever gonna feel real, like deep in my chest, real, like I can laugh and things are a little bit funny, but my joy capacity was like a six out of 10.
Was like the max that I could [00:09:00] get to from what I knew in the past. And I'm like, I don't, is it even possible to get back to a eight out of 10 or a nine out of 10? Or am I just stuck here? Am I just here to raise my kids and get them on their own? And then my job is done, my life is over because it felt like my life was over.
And so when you reach this place of wondering. Life will always be like this. Can it be different? Is it even possible? My goal today is to give you hope that your life can be better in the future than anything that you can imagine right now. Notice I say the words can be because ultimately you will come to a crossroads where you get to make a choice.
And you can choose that you are gonna continue to float through life. That you are gonna live as a grieving widow the rest of your life. That you are going to be married to your person and your heart for forever, and that [00:10:00] life isn't gonna be the same, and it is going to be pointless, and it's going to be hopeless.
And you will be right. You'll be right, or you will get to choose that even though. It's hard to imagine that you could have a life that would be at least better than the life that you're living today, and that you are willing to do the hard and weird and awkward things to figure out is that true?
Can I have a life that's better than anything that I could imagine right now? And some people get upset with me in the comments. Some people get a little upset with me. That's okay. I don't expect everyone to understand because I think what comes across sometimes is, I'm trying to say the life that you have in the future will be so much better than the life that you had in the past.
Forget about your person. Forget about the stuff you don't even know. Like your life is gonna be amazing now in the future. And that's not what I'm saying. But [00:11:00] often for widows, we look to the future with dismay, everything is gray. Everything is pointless and hopeless. And so you can have a life that's much better than that, much better than anything you could imagine right now.
And you can learn to grow your capacity so that you can honestly say. I love the life that I had. I love my person and I love my life now. I love the life that I'm living now. I love the things that are happening now.
So I wanna share an example with you of when I started Brave Widow. So I started Brave Widow just over three years ago. Completely scared, completely thinking that life coaching was like a made up, not a real job that. I don't know, can this be a business? Like all of the fears and the doubts and wanting everything to be perfect and everything was far from perfect and all [00:12:00] of the imposter syndrome and fears three years ago, and for the first. Year and a half or so of Brave Widow, I really struggled to grow this business.
Looking back, I see why I struggled. I didn't know what I was doing. I was just trying to figure it out. And even though I had people who were helping me and guiding me along the way, when I started Brave Widow, I didn't know what the future could look like, and often people would tell me like. This isn't gonna be a real business.
Oh, you're starting up something for widows. That's really cute. Tell me about your, tell me about your nonprofit.
People would say you're probably gonna have to go back to work. You're probably gonna have to find another way to support your family. This is just gonna be an expensive hobby for you to be able to do this, to help widows. And this is just, it's not gonna be a real company. It's going to be [00:13:00] an expensive hobby, and I wanted to believe that it could be something different and better, right?
And as widows as we think about the future after our person, we think that it's ridiculous that how could life be good again? How could life be better than what it is right now? How? How could I ever smile again or enjoy life again? That just seems so beyond what I'm able to comprehend. It just doesn't make sense and.
Even for myself and starting Brave Widow, I didn't know I was taking these blind steps forward in faith because I wanted to believe that it could be real. I wanted to believe that it could be recognized as a company that does help widows in grief. And so for the first year and a half, probably close to two years that I started Brave Widow, I had very slow traction.
I invested a lot of money. Into this company to [00:14:00] keep it afloat, to pay for the technology and the tools, and to get coaching myself and to take courses myself and to learn how to do things, to reach people to, automate things. So I wasn't doing everything manually to just grow as a person and as a company.
I was investing in a lot of things. And I even remember talking to my coach, Dr. Betsy, and I would just be crying on our coaching calls. 'cause I'm like, I don't get it. I'm hosting the webinars. I give away tons of stuff for free. I have hundreds. Maybe by now thousands of hours of content for free. I have downloadable workbooks and courses and communities.
I was doing community calls every single week for free, and it just seemed like I was speaking into the void, like just was very slow. It was just very. Disheartening and there were so many [00:15:00] times when I just felt like I wanted to quit. I just wanted to give up because it was taking so many hours of my life.
Now I do own some rental properties. I have another business that I also run. And so fortunately I did have some income coming in during that time to help keep everything going. But yeah, it just. Really was a super discouraging time. And so I think about for widows when you're trying to rebuild your life, when you're trying to figure out what do I want life to look like and what do, what things do I want in my schedule?
And do I wanna be super social? Do I wanna spend a lot of time at home? Do I wanna pick up new hobbies when you're trying to figure it out? You're gonna have these moments where you're like, yes, this is great. And then other moments where you're like, this is just, this sucks. Going to a new place, trying to meet new people, trying to fit in, like this just really [00:16:00] sucks and you wanna give up.
But my goal today is to encourage you to give you hope, to keep going, to believe that your life can be better than you've ever imagined. So over the course of this year and a half to two years, I'm pushing out podcasts every single week. I'm hosting live trainings. I'm hosting community calls pretty much weekly.
I am creating content like you wouldn't believe. That is my jam. Creating content and learning. And probably it was about a year and a half in when I started really doing one-on-one coaching. I had avoided one-on-one coaching because I am resistant to having lots of meetings on my calendar, and so I didn't wanna overcommit because I also struggle with overcommitting on things and then becoming resentful that now I have all these commitments that I have to fulfill.
So I'm very self-aware. I know this about myself. But [00:17:00] as I started working with a coach, my coach Megan, who's amazing, one of the things she coached me on is that if I want to have Brave Widow, a group program, and Brave Widow, I need to start with one-on-one, build up the demand, build up the knowledge to create my own proprietary systems, to have a group program that would appeal to a number of people.
And so even though I went back and forth with her out of reasons, I didn't wanna do the one-on-one, I didn't wanna commit a lot to that. I bit the bullet and I was like, okay, obviously she knows what she's talking about. I just need to do what she said. I need to do what my coach is telling me to do. So I started doing one-on-one and I really started to see a lot of traction.
It was slow in the beginning. As my now husband, Robert would encourage me, he would say, it's just you're changing one life at a time. You're impacting one person at a time. And that's how it always starts. It's one person at a [00:18:00] time. Every time we would go to a conference or I would go meet with funeral directors and maybe I wouldn't get the response I was looking for.
He would just encourage me it's just you're helping one person at a time, and that will lead to something. And as widows as you are working on rebuilding your life. As I work with my clients, I encourage them a lot. Like it starts with meeting one friend. It starts with trying one thing new. It starts with you continuing to show up over and over, and not knowing if it's gonna work out, and all of the signs saying this isn't gonna work out for you.
You're not going anywhere before ultimately, that you can have a breakthrough. And so as I listened to my coach and as I implemented the things that she taught me, I started to identify patterns that I could see in every widow that I was coaching, or widows that I had interviewed and talked with over the [00:19:00] years
During this time, I also ended up hiring a coach named Jen. Jen is my PR and media coach. Jen is also amazing because again, I know myself and I somehow had been selected to speak at the National Funeral Directors. Annual Convention and Expo, which is a big deal. There's thousands of people that go every year.
That year, it was the October of 2023 and it was in New Orleans, and I knew that I needed someone to help me prepare a really impactful speech and to practice because I knew if I didn't have any accountability, I would probably wait until the week before. Come up with my presentation and then be a nervous wreck as I went to actually deliver the presentation.
So I worked with Jen for about six months to prepare and to learn about speeches and communication and media and all of the things. And it was through working with her that she really [00:20:00] got me to think about what was the journey of. A widow. What is the journey of someone who works with me or someone as a widow in general?
And the way she said, it just inspired me to open a spreadsheet, which I love spreadsheets, so that was very easy for me to open a spreadsheet and say, okay, we've all heard about the five stages of grief. And I learned from the Grief Recovery Institute that the five stages of grief don't apply to widows.
It was never meant to. It was created as a way to describe the journey for someone who had a terminal illness and diagnosis. But it was never meant to describe the journey of a widow. And so I thought about what is the journey of a widow? And it was through all of this. Mapping and thinking about different stages that widows are in, that I created what now is known as the Four Seasons of Grief, and I wrote in [00:21:00] every season, what is happening, what are the thoughts people have during that season?
What are the things that help them move to the next season? What are the things that they struggle with? And really map that out. And now it's part of the Rise framework that helps people move through the four Seasons of grief. And as I started to talk about the four Seasons of grief, it started to resonate with people.
And then as I started to coach my one-on-one clients, I started to identify. A lot of similarities and patterns. I created five systems.
That people work through that help them move through the four seasons of grief. So think about these five systems like modules or a curriculum that basically helps widows move from A to Z. It gives them everything they need to be able to go from a place of deep grief to a place where they can ultimately start to love their life again.
And that was huge for [00:22:00] me that when I initially launched it, it's been just over a year ago. I called it a mastermind. I called it a mastermind. 'cause that's what we do in the coaching world when we have small group coaching is their masterminds.
Widows are like, what's a mastermind? I've never heard of that before. So then the next year we rebranded to Brave Widow Academy, and for me, that is when everything started to change. Because now, instead of widows feeling lost and confused about where to start in Brave Widow, they had access to so many courses to me, to so much information, but it just felt overwhelming.
Like it was like a Netflix assortment of things that they could learn about. But I think it maybe it was just confusing for people to know where do I start? Where am I in this journey, and where do I start? So in working with my coaches, I was able to come up with something very clear. So we now have the Four Seasons of Grief, and you can take the free [00:23:00] [email protected].
You can find exactly what season of grief you're in. You can learn what will help you in this season to prepare for the next one. And if you want more. Direct and detailed structure and guidance and coaching. The six month program of the academy walks widows through everything they need to know. It gives them the tools, it gives them the resources, and we do things together.
So when we work on our routine, we create our routine together. When we work on our holiday triggers, we work on them together. This isn't something where I'm pushing out a lot of homework and telling people to go do that on your own and come back as much as possible. We are doing things together, implementing together, doing life together, and this year.
We incorporated our group chat and messaging like that has changed so much this year for me in how it [00:24:00] resonates with people inside of Brave Widow.
And so for you as a widow, as you're thinking about. A future that could be better than you could imagine, and how you can't quite see it yet. I want you to know that's normal and that's okay. And that's why it requires a blind step of faith. When I first started Brave Widow, it was like $7. Okay? And it was a membership and you had these courses in there and we had routine calls, but I knew I wanted it to feel like, but I didn't know exactly what it was going to look like.
And what I tell people who are like, didn't you wanna give up at some point? Didn't you wanna keep going? What I tell people is that, in the beginning I had decided. This was going to work. I was going to figure it out. I didn't know what it was gonna look like. I didn't know if it was gonna be successful the way I had started it, and by the [00:25:00] way, it wasn't necessarily I had changed it.
I have changed it many times. But I knew that there had to be a way it could work. There had to be a way that this could be considered a real business, that it could be taken seriously in the grief community, and it could really help, really, truly help widows and widowers change their life. I just had to figure out like, what was it going to be?
What was it gonna take? How was that going to happen? I didn't have that part figured out yet. But I knew some way, somehow it had to be possible, and I was gonna refuse to give up until I figured it out. If nothing else out of stubbornness of I have to figure this out, what is it gonna take?
What does that look like? I would figure it out. And so for you as a widow, I wanna encourage you as you think about. This new year, and you think about having a life that could look better than it looks today, is that you will get to [00:26:00] decide. You can decide that some way. Somehow your life can look better today than it does right now, and you don't know exactly what that looks like.
You don't know how you're gonna get there. You don't know. It's hard to envision in the beginning, which is why we have to take these steps of faith forward 'cause that's how we start to figure out what it's going to be. One more thing I wanna share with you. So by the time you hear this, it will have been a couple of, a few weeks ago when I got, I woke up.
To an email from CBS National News, and I thought maybe it was spam at first. I wasn't really sure if it was real, but the email address was from cbs.com. There weren't any weird links. It looked pretty legit, and essentially it was an invitation for some of my clients to come out to New York City mid-December during Christmas time.
To [00:27:00] sit in the studio audience as they held a town hall with Barry Weiss and Erica Kirk, and they said they reached out because they were looking for audience members who are interested, who would deeply resonate with the topics of faith and grief during the holidays and as they were looking for people to invite, they came across Brave Widow and they recognized the important and relevant work that we do in Brave Widow and how that could be a great fit for members of that studio audience.
And I just remember that was. A huge moment for me,
not because of the prestige of the media outlet that reached out. I remember just thinking wow, these are one of those moments that is like way better or nicer than something that I could have imagined in the very beginning to [00:28:00] think out of a hundred studio audience members, out of everyone in the nation, out of the widows and grief groups, and counselors, and therapists and coaches and everyone across the United States.
That they came across somewhere, brave Widow and said, we wanna reserve a few spots so that these people can attend, because these people are focused on faith and grief and they're doing some important things out there in the world,
and it was a whirlwind of something just magical.
We went to New York City. We attended the town hall with Barry Weiss and Erika Kirk. It was an awesome experience. The people at CBS news were so hospitable and friendly and amazing, and even after the town hall event, they gave us all Charlie Kirk's latest book.
And I just remember thinking like, wow, this experience [00:29:00] is wow, I, this is something I never expected. This is so amazing and wonderful and I just embraced it. And I got to spend a few days in New York City going to watch the Rockettes at Radio City Hall and going to Rockefeller Center and seeing the big tree and riding a horse carriage through Central Park and all of the.
Beautiful, touristy, amazing things that there are to do in New York City at Christmas time. And I just relished and savored every moment because this was something so unexpected, so different, and it was so something better than I could have imagined six months ago, even three years ago. And. I watch all week while I'm in New York City.
My phone, my, we use the Telegram app in our academy groups and in our brave through the holiday group, and I'm just watching my phone light up with [00:30:00] messages all week long where people are sharing what's happening in their week. They're asking for encouragement or feedback, or they're sharing pictures and videos and people are celebrating with.
Them and people are praying for each other and people are encouraging each other, and I just was like, this is exactly what I wanted Brave Widow to be. It isn't about me, it's not reliant all just on me and only I can help people and I'm the one giving feedback like we are a tribe. That's how I feel like we are this tribe of people.
This, I hate to say the word family 'cause I feel like that gets thrown around loosely and people don't always resonate with that. But I feel like Brave Widow, like those are my people and. We, are doing life together. It's not about jumping on a call and learning something in a course and trying [00:31:00] to figure out how that applies to your life.
Like literally, we are doing life together and people are supporting each other. They are celebrating with each other. They are sharing in the struggles and in the sorrow with each other. Like it is exactly what I wanted it to feel like and look like over three years ago. But back then I didn't know. I didn't have it all figured out.
I didn't know exactly how that was gonna be, and it's taken a lot of trial and error to get here. So I just use this as one example of so many that I could share with you in giving you hope for the new year. If you leave with nothing, I wanna give you just the tiniest little seed of hope that some way, somehow your life in the future can be so much better than anything that you can imagine right now.
[00:32:00] It's okay that you can't imagine it. It's okay if you're like, I don't even know how that's possible. Emily. I'm gonna borrow your belief because I don't know that I believe it, but if you believe it for me, I'm gonna borrow your belief until I start to see it for myself. But I'm telling you, like so many people in our group.
Have more hope than they've had in months or years, just within the first couple of calls, just within the first few conversations. And so my tagline when I started Brave Widow was to help widows find hope, heal their heart, and dream again for the future. And for the most part, that hasn't changed except now instead of dreaming for the future, we're actually building your future together.
So that's where it has changed. But point number one and number two has always been the same, which is to give people hope. Hope that it's not always going to be this way, and not [00:33:00] in a way of diminishing your pain and your sorrow and your grief. Lean into the pain. Lean into processing your grief and your hurt and your sorrow.
Feel it fully. Process those emotions. Just know in the back of your mind that there will come a day where it won't feel like that every day, that there will come a time in your life where you're actually enjoying life again. I just had a widow in our academy group who shared, by the time you hear this, we will have already had the widow winter solstice, and her name is Sylvia.
And so you will have. Been able to hear part of her story, but what she shared in our academy group earlier this week as I'm recording this, was that she has many more days that she wakes up full of joy rather than grief. Many more days that are full of joy and hope for the future, whereas in the beginning.
[00:34:00] Every day. She felt discouraged and hopeless. And so I just share that with you because I want you to know that it is possible, and it's okay if you don't know what it looks like, and it's okay if you don't know how to get there. The point is that you get to decide if that's something that you want to pursue in the future.
It takes time and it takes intentionality, and it takes effort. It's not just time alone. Time alone was not helping me my first year and a half to two years of grief. I kept just trying to give it time and that wasn't working. So it takes intentional effort and energy to create a life that you can be excited about, that you can enjoy, that you can actually look forward to again, and if you want support or guidance or help in creating that's exactly what the Brave Widow Academy is.
Four. Our next Brave Widow Academy Group starts Thursday, [00:35:00] January 22nd. We're gonna meet every week from 12 to 2:00 PM Central time. I would love for you to be part of the academy and to be part of intentionally rebuilding life from the ashes and from the sorrow of grief into something that you can actually enjoy and that you can start to love again.
When you are ready, you can come to brave widow.com to learn more. All right. I hope that you found today's episode helpful, and if nothing else, I hope that you leave with the tiniest seed of faith and hope that one day your life can be better than you ever imagined, and that there is a way to getting there.
I will talk to you guys again in 2026.
Emily: If you're tired of feeling lost, lonely, and second guessing every decision, my coaching program is meant for you. I help clients find clarity, create real connection, and build [00:36:00] confidence up for good. Inside
the Brave Widow Academy
Emily: you'll learn real tools that you'll be able to use for a lifetime.
If you're ready for the next step, go to brave widow.com to book a consult. It's free. It's no pressure, and it can be your brave next step to healing your heart and building a life you love again. Go to brave widow.com today to book your consult.
