BW 115: What I Wish I Knew as a New Widow: Essential Advice for Navigating Grief, Loneliness, and Life After Loss

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In this heartfelt episode, I’m sharing the wisdom and lessons I wish someone had told me when I became a widow. 

 

These are my personal insights and practical advice on how to navigate the overwhelming emotions and challenges that come with losing a spouse.

 

 

 Key Takeaways:

1. **Your life isn’t over, even though it feels like it**  

   Rediscovering joy, holding onto hope, and building a future you’ll love are all possible.

 

2. **Give yourself grace**  

   Learn why you don’t have to be strong all the time, how to establish healthy boundaries, and the importance of taking breaks to refill your cup.

 

3. **Learn about grief**  

   Emily debunks common grief myths, explains why the 5 stages of grief aren’t the roadmap for everyone, and how to manage expectations around healing.

 

4. **People won’t always understand**  

   Discover how to handle bad advice, judgments, and the well-meaning but hurtful things people say. Plus, why it’s crucial to ask for help and accept it when offered.

 

5. **Building a new life that you love**  

   You don’t need to have all the answers right now, but there is hope. Emily shares how to embody the life you want for the future, even when you feel lost.

 

 

00:49 Reflecting on Widowhood

01:53 Life Isn't Over

07:52 Give Yourself Grace

15:12 Learning About Grief

20:21 People Won't Understand

24:30 Building a New Life

31:02 Recap and Final Thoughts

31:52 Join the Brave Widow Community

 

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Hey, Hey. And welcome to episode number 115 of the Brave Widow show. Today, I'm going to share with you five things that I wish I would have known as a widow.

Introduction to Brave Widow Community
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Before I dive into today's episode, I want to invite you to join me in the Brave Widow membership community.

I created Brave Widow to be a container and an environment of what I would have wanted as a widow.

In the community, I'm going to help you heal your heart. I'm going to help you learn how to navigate all of the crazy ups and downs of grief. I am going to help you learn how to build a life that you can love again.

And I'm going to be there for you every step of the way. To learn more about the membership community,

go to BraveWidow. com.

All right.

Reflecting on Widowhood
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So for those of you that may not know, it's been just over three years for me since Nathan died and I became a widow. And I've done a lot of thinking these past few weeks about what I tell people when they're newly widowed, what I wish I would have known when I was newly widowed, and what would have helped me the most in just normalizing what was happening.

I spent so much time wondering if I was going crazy, if other people were experiencing the same things, if I just happened to be some exception to the rule, and I just wish someone would have told me that. A lot of what I was experiencing was totally normal. How I could think about those things instead and what in the world I could do to get my feet underneath me and to start to move forward.

So as I've thought a lot about this, I have tried to boil it down into five things that I wish I knew when I was a new widow.

Life Isn't Over
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The first thing I wish I knew is that your life isn't over, even though it feels like it. When you're first widowed, it feels like your entire life is over. It feels like there's no point. It feels like there's no hope. And even trying to imagine half hearted approach to a life, some sort of life in the future just seems pointless.

I mean, what's the point of accomplishing some of the dreams, goals, and expectations you had for the future, if the number one person that you wanted to be there to see it with you isn't going to be there?

There's so much conflicting advice out there in different Facebook groups and online, and really it's a mixed bag with people saying like, oh yeah, give it time, it does get better, and other people saying you never get over grief, you just learn how to deal with it better, there's no finish line to grief, this is just the rest of your life now, which is super depressing.

And also not necessarily true, by the way,

all of the illustrations, the memes, the gifs, there are so many images of how our grief doesn't shrink, of how we just grow around it, and we just get bigger, and we just learn how to deal with it, and we learn how to navigate grief as a friend, and all of these images that just seemed honestly depressing.

Like, I could not fathom having to live another 40 or even 50 years the way I lived the first six months as a widow. It took me to my knees. It was everything I could do to just keep putting one foot in front of the other and to think that my grief wasn't going to get better, that I would just have to learn how to deal with it, that I would just grow around it, all of that seemed so foreign to me.

So what I wish someone would have told me, what I wish I knew early on is that your life isn't over, even though it feels like it now. You can have joy. You can have a beautiful life. You can feel fully happy and excited and joyful for things again. And not every event has to be ruined by the dark cloud of grief hanging over your shoulder, reminding you that your person isn't there.

The main thing I would want someone to know, Is to have hope that even though, yes, it is going to take some time. Yes. It's going to take some work of things that we don't want to do. There is hope that you can get there and that you will get there.

If you choose to heal, to process. And to move forward with honoring the person that you love, it doesn't matter right now if it feels impossible. It doesn't matter that you don't see the path to getting there. It doesn't matter that you can't fathom how it was possible. For me, I just had to believe that it was possible.

I would read posts from other widows, I would talk to widows, I would see people that seemed to be able to enjoy life again. And so for me, I started with hope. The hope that even though I could not wrap my mind around how it was possible for someone to enjoy life again, or how it was possible for someone to Have dreams and hopes again for the future.

I just believed it was possible. And in the beginning, that's all you need.

In the beginning, you need hope. That it is possible and that you can find the path to getting there.

This is one of the core things that I work with some of my widows and the brave widow community on is helping them to hold belief

and surrounding them with so much love and patience and understanding and believing for them. That they can have a beautiful life and a beautiful future until they can start to see it for themselves. And let me tell you. There's not much that's more rewarding than watching a widow grow over time and heal her heart and move from a feeling of hopelessness, of life being pointless, of doubting that they can enjoy life again, to healing their heart, and to seeing those glimpses of hope for the future.

Just seeing those flashes of light in the darkness. That reassure them like, okay, maybe this is possible. Maybe I can get there. And then watching them take those steps and sure. Sometimes they stumble and sometimes it's hard and sometimes they do it afraid and they have to do it anyway, but to see. The hope that continues to rise up within them and to see the light that fills their eyes and to hear the change of the sound of their voice over time, as I help guide them through the process of grief and into the process of rebuilding a life.

This is one of the most rewarding things in my life that I get to do is to watch widows go on this journey. To believe that it is possible and to believe that I will help guide them along the way to get there. To start to see on the horizon, a beautiful future ahead. I love it. It's what makes my job probably the best job in the world,

and I'm so thankful that God has given me the opportunity to be able to walk side by side with some of these widows, into this journey, into the beyond, and to see them take step after step of faith. It is amazing.

Give Yourself Grace
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The second thing that I wish I knew was that as you're going through grief, you should give yourself. Grace,

so many times in grief, we hear the phrase, Oh, you're so strong, or you have to be strong for your kids, or I can't imagine what you're going through. You're just so strong. And I desperately just wanted someone to say, you don't have to be strong for me. For just 5 minutes even. Let everything go. Let your guard down and just be.

Just exist. Just acknowledge that you are going through a really hard time. That this is a bad thing that has happened in your life. That I don't have to be reassured that it's going to be better. I can know that this is a bad thing and I can grieve that loss and it's okay. I don't have to pretend to be strong.

It's okay to significantly lower the expectations that you have of yourself. In our lives, so many times, there's different roles that we fill. There's the role of being a wife, which is what we had. There's the role of being a mom, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a worker, a leader, a volunteer. We have all these roles that

we Fulfill in life, and when we're going through grief, we shouldn't have the expectation and the obligation that we need to continue to do those things. If you've heard me share my story, you've heard me talk about the first Thanksgiving after Nathan's death. Nathan died in July, and the first Thanksgiving would have been in November.

Four months later after he died and Thanksgiving was like Nathan's thing, you know, he made the turkey for multiple family get togethers. He made all the sides. He didn't like to have other people help. We hosted Thanksgiving at our house. Like it was always a big. ordeal at our house was to have people over for Thanksgiving.

And because I was drained and exhausted and couldn't even fathom hosting Thanksgiving, I just let my family know, you'll need to do Thanksgiving somewhere else this year. I'm not going to be able to host it here. And what you need to hear from me, especially if you're newly widowed, is that's perfectly okay.

Even though you may be a go getter, even though you might be a high achiever, even though if you're like me, you're somebody that we do whatever it takes. We burn ourselves in the ground if we have, to get something done. We will go above and beyond. We'll do whatever is needed to make sure that certain things get done, to take care of other people.

that's just our mentality. It's in my blood. It's, it's how I've operated my entire life. And so it was really hard for me to have to shift gears and admit that I can't operate like this anymore. My body was shutting down from a lack of sleep, from grief, from managing the life of four kids now, all solo, of managing the house and the property and all of the headaches that come with the situation that I was in, I had to admit that I can't continue to run myself on fumes anymore, and I have to take a step back and be okay with the fact that I need to take a breather.

And I wish somebody would have told me, Yes, you should do that. That's okay. It's normal. It's What should be expected. The first few months and maybe even a year of widowhood are all about survival, about getting your feet underneath you, about processing the trauma of this loss and this experience that you've had, and figuring out how you get to some stability before you can even think about building a whole brand new life.

That just seems overwhelming and so far away. And so this whole concept of giving yourself grace is about being able to lower expectations that you have for yourself, being able to say no more, to commit to fewer things, and for allowing yourself all types of Buffer time of breathing room of just pure gentleness and kindness to yourself.

This also means building in healthy boundaries, boundaries with existing relationships of family and friends. Boundaries of meeting new people and connections, of commitments and obligations that you've made, of commitments that you've had in the past. This is really a time to evaluate what you want those boundaries to be and to look like for now, knowing that you can decide to change them in the future.

This isn't something you're committing to for the rest of your life. But it is important that you feel comfortable enough implementing some of those healthy boundaries and being able to communicate to say unfortunately, this is where I am right now. This is what I can commit to. This is what I'm willing to do, but I'm no longer going to tolerate.

being walked over, being talked down to, being in toxic relationships and environments, spending time with people that don't really care about me, aren't really there for me, doing things that no longer give me a sense of purpose and meaning because I feel like I should or I have to or there's an obligation there.

Giving yourself grace is also about building in breaks for things that fill your cup. Your mind and your body need a break at times from grief. Brain and your body need a way to rejuvenate, to recharge, to feel rested. And especially in those first few months, that can be extremely difficult. I had insomnia for the first few months where I was getting maybe two or three hours of sleep at night at most.

And so I was super productive with getting stuff done. I don't know how effective all of those things were because I was exhausted and worn out, but because I didn't sleep, I technically got a lot of things done, but I also did not do a great job of building in time for just things that filled my cup.

For you, maybe it's drawing, maybe it's gardening, maybe it's going to yoga,

but it is important that you identify, the things that fill your cup or explore things that could fill your cup. And that you build in some breaks so that you can do those things. It gives your brain. a break from the grief and the sorrow that you feel, and it allows your nervous system to be exposed to a different environment and to a different mindset.

Learning About Grief
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The third thing I wish I knew is that there's a lot to learn about grief. There is so much we are not taught about grief and how to process loss, how to process trauma, and how to help support other people. So unfortunately, there are a lot of myths out there about grief that are Not facts, they're myths, and there are a lot of misconceptions about grief.

Grief is not a linear process where we start at the first stage of grief and wind up at the fifth stage of grief. In fact, the five stages of grief, although a helpful tool in its time for its purpose, was not meant for you. The five stages of grief is not applicable to widows, but that's one of the myths of grief.

And one of the things that is openly shared with people is, oh, here are five stages, and you should go through them until you reach acceptance. And then, ta da, you reach the finish line and you are at the end of the five stages. Unfortunately, that's not how it works.

There are myths people tell us, time heals all wounds. And yes, time is a component of the healing process. Time is an ingredient in the recipe. Time is necessary because you can't process and heal a loss in one day. It's just. It doesn't happen. So time is a component, but

time alone is not the only thing. It's what we choose to do with our time that determines whether or not a year from now, two years from now, five years from now, we're healing, we're growing, we're creating something beautiful and wonderful and honoring to our person and honoring to the time that we had together.

Or our actions can determine that. A year, two years, or five years from now, we're stuck. And as I heard on a John Deloney podcast today, we're frozen in time. There are people that choose to hang on to the death and the loss and the hurt and refuse to let that go. And to let that person go and to let that memory and that day and that experience and all of those things go there, hold on, they cling to it tightly, they live in that day.

And so life and time happens around them, it passes by them, it floats past them, but they end up years later, the same level of volatility and hurt. And pain, as they did on the first day of grief. If you've listened to the podcast a while, you've heard Saubia's story. Where she has shared that three years after her husband died, she actually felt worse.

Because at that time, she'd chosen not to process the pain. She'd chosen to just go through the motions. So learning about grief is learning what truly supports and helps people from a factual, scientific, psychological perspective versus all of the platitudes that people throw around and that we hear.

Although those things may be well intentioned, they actually can cause a lot of pain, a lot of misdirection, and ultimately some bitterness from people.

The reality is culturally, we don't teach people how to process grief and how to process loss. And so unfortunately, sometimes it's a blind leading the blind in navigating grief and this crazy journey. So what I wish I knew was that is culturally where we are. That is somewhat the norm, so it's okay that you feel like these things people say don't resonate with you.

It's okay that the fact people say time heals all wounds, that that's not accurate and true for you.

And that there is a much better way. If you're interested in learning more about grief, there are two books that I recommend, that I continue to recommend. One is a little more scientific, it's a little more technical, it's called The Grieving Brain, and it teaches you about how the brain works and why grief is so painful and so difficult.

It's really a good read if you like to nerd out about, like, why is grief so hard, and Why is this something that we just have a difficult time with? The other book that I recommend and actually the program is called Grief Recovery Method. I learned about the program from the book. So I read the book and then did the program because the book was so phenomenal.

The book addresses all of the myths of grief that have been identified. It walks you through the process of truly how to navigate grief, how to process hurt and loss, and how to be able to move forward in a way that doesn't leave your person behind. You don't leave that relationship behind. You continue to have a relationship with your person, but it teaches you how that relationship transforms over time.

These are also concepts that I teach in the Brave Widow community and part of the, as part of the program.

People Won't Understand
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The fourth thing I wish that I knew is that people just won't understand there's gonna be so many judgments so many opinions So much bad advice that gets thrown out there from people who may be well intentioned who may be well intentioned, but unfortunately are just misinformed for the reasons that I just listed.

Sometimes I'll jokingly say that there can be 10 people standing around a widow, and a situation can be presented, and you'll get 10 different answers. opinions on how that specific circumstance should be handled. So not only are people opinionated, they can be judgmental, they can be misinformed about how to navigate situations, but they're also conflicting in what those opinions are, and that can cause a lot of Confusion among the widow, it can cause a lot of fear because you're afraid of being judged.

You're afraid people are going to look down on you. If you take your ring off too soon, if you move it to the other hand, if you wear it as a necklace, if you keep wearing it, there's so much mind drama around, well, when should I take my ring off? What should I do with it? Is it going to be too soon?

Is it not soon enough? Are people going to think I need to move on faster? People think I'm moving on too fast. There's lots and lots of mind drama. That goes on in grief and navigating all of this craziness through widowhood. And unfortunately, the people who are around us, because most of the time they don't understand and they haven't been in that situation, they aren't necessarily helping us.

In fact, a lot of times we lose our family and friends.

Because through loss and through grief, in many ways we become a new person and our family and friends have maybe years of history with us as the old version of us. So in many ways, they keep looking for us to go back. They look for us to return to normal, to go back to the way we were, to move on. As if somehow that magically makes us the person that we were before.

But unfortunately that doesn't happen. In most cases we are transformed into almost a whole new person. There are some things about myself. Sure. That I look back on that have always been core to me and to who I am, but I am a person transformed. I am very different in many ways than how I was before.

But one of the top challenges. Every widow that I've worked with has faced is that the majority of their social circle, their family and friends don't know how to support them and ultimately end up disappearing. So widows are faced with the challenge of rebuilding their social circle, of making new connections, of building relationships or investing in existing relationships back to the point where it's cultivated and they're surrounded again by a group of family and friends that they can depend on.

I also encourage widows in this area to accept all the help that they can take. So many times we're quick to say, Oh, don't worry about that. Or I I'm fine. I don't really need anything or I'm making it. But the reality is, especially those first few months, you need all the help that you can get.

So in the community, I have lots of education. I have resources. I have checklists. I have all the things that you need to be able to adequately ask for help to get the help and support you need. And if you have some superstar friends, family, workplaces, churches, where they want to learn more about how to best support you.

I have all of those resources, training, materials, tools, all of that is in the community.

I also have training and help work with widows on how to ask for help. So how to ask for help without feeling like a weirdo, without feeling embarrassed that you need to put your needs out there. I teach you all of that in the community and I would love to teach you too.

Building a New Life
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The fifth thing that I wish I knew is that you now must build a new life. The old life that you have, An ash, it's gone. You will never go back to that part of your life and how it was and who you were and all of the things that were associated with that.

And this is not something that's easy to digest, to have to consider that you are a new person now. You're not even really sure who you are. You're not sure what you like. You're not sure what goals or hopes or dreams you might have for the future.

You're not sure where your family and friends went. And it feels daunting to think about, oh, I have to start all over? I have to rebuild a life? A life that I can enjoy again, a life that I can love again,

and while that feels really overwhelming, I just wish someone would have told me. For the longest time, I felt like a tiny ship in the middle of this huge ocean. And I felt like I was just getting smacked around by grief, turned in different directions, and that everywhere I would look, it was just water.

I didn't know where I was. I didn't know which direction I needed to go. I felt so just untethered. Like I was just drifting and things were happening and I was reacting to those things. I wasn't going anywhere and that scared me. I'm a planner. I love to plan. I love to dream for the future. I love to have goals.

I like to know like where I'm going, what the big picture is, what the point is, and this is one of the most Unsettled times I've ever had in my life because I didn't know any of that.

I didn't know how to figure out who I was, how to even think about where I wanted to go, what was even possible for me, what were realistic expectations, all of that. I felt so lost for a really long time.

Part of building a new life is also accepting that you don't have to have all the answers right now. That was so hard for me.

There's this meme I often think about and I think it was taken from the movie Night at the Museum 3 and it's an interaction between Ben Stiller's character and Robin Williams and Robin Williams character essentially says, it's time for your next adventure. And Ben Stiller's character says, I have no idea what I'm going to do tomorrow.

And Robin Williams replies, how exciting. And I've seen that image done in different formats.

But once I saw that, I held on to it. Because it was a way of thinking about how exciting this is a new adventure. This is something that you're going to get to explore. You're going to get to change direction in life and have a completely new perspective, insight and wisdom as to what's really important in life as you head through these next few years.

And so while in the beginning of grief, That may not sound really encouraging or your first thought might be bitterness, right? Like, oh, yeah, how exciting. Yeah, my husband died. Great for me. But my goal would be to instill hope that you don't have to have all the answers now. You'll get to explore. And right now you may not want to.

And right now, that may seem so incredibly far away, but There will come a time or there can come a time when you can be excited about the future and this whole notion of exploring and discovering and trying new things can be exciting again for you.

One of the things that I teach widows is that when they're creating a life, That they want for their future. They get to embody that future life now. So the things that they want to do in the future, the ways they want their life to look, they get to create that. They get to build that. They get to experience some of that now.

And you can experience some of those same things too.

I just wish someone would have told me it's hard enough to wrap your mind around. It's really tough to wrap your mind around when you have to come to that self discovery. And when no one really puts it out there, that look, the life that you had, the life that once was, it is in ashes. It's over. You can't go back to what was, but I promise you, you can have a beautiful future and a beautiful life.

And I know, I know, right now, you probably don't want that. You want your person back. You want the life that you had back, and

I'm so sorry that you find yourself here. With me

in this circumstance, but don't lose hope

because even though right now it feels incredibly unfair and frustrating and Just crappy that you have to start over and you have to rebuild and you have to Do all of this very heavy work in the beginning. I am here I can guide you. I can hold your hand as you're walking through each step of this journey.

I can help normalize the process for you and get you to a place where you are excited again. Where you are grateful, not that your person is gone, but you're grateful that you have the wisdom and the insight now to know what's truly important to you. Who are the relationships you want in your life? What are the priorities that you want? What are the things that you want to chase after that you never would have had the guts to do before?

What exciting adventures are lying ahead for you?

Recap and Final Thoughts
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Okay, let me recap the five things I wish someone would have told me as a widow. Your life isn't over, even though it feels like it. Give yourself grace. Learn all the things about grief. Know that people won't understand and build a new life that you love.

If you're a new widow and you're listening to this, I would love to help you on your journey through grief, beyond grief and into creating a life that you can love again. You don't have to know the steps to get there. I've got you. All you have to believe is that some way, somehow it is possible for you

and you'll see incredible things come to life.

All right guys, that's it for this week's episode.

Join the Brave Widow Community
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Join me in the Brave Widow community.

I would love to have you there. To learn more, to sign up, go to BraveWidow. com. ​

[00:31:59] Emily: Are you a widow who feels disconnected? Do you feel like you're stuck or even going backwards in your grief? Widowhood can be lonely and isolating, but it doesn't have to be. Join us in the Brave Widow membership community and connect. We teach widows how to find hope, heal their heart, and dream again for the future.

Find your purpose and create a life you love today. Go to bravewidow. com