Actively grieving is often described as a heavy shackle, yet Kari Driskell joins us to share the profound realization that while grief is lifelong, the state of active devastation does not have to be. As a widow who turned her personal loss into a “Heart Work” methodology, Kari discusses the vital distinction between the permanent presence of grief and the choice to move toward a sense of aliveness again. We explore the “messy and ugly” reality of parenting through acute loss, the importance of witnessing a friend’s sadness without trying to “fix” it with a tissue, and how to nurture that tiny flame of hope that says life can be beautiful again. It is a raw, honest look at the “buffalo” mentality—running straight into the storm of healing to find the calm on the other side.

I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others. 

Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: Psychology Today Suicide Hotlines and Prevention Resources Around the World.

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Watch the episode here

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Actively Grieving: Choosing Joy After Loss With Kari Driskell

Choosing Joy: The Difference Between Grief And Active Grieving

Our conversation with Kari Driskell is going to challenge you. Have you ever wondered, “Could I choose to find joy? Could I choose to no longer be in a depressed state?” This conversation with Kari is going to allow you to think about whether it is a choice. What are the choices you are making daily? Let us get into this conversation now.

Kari, I am so grateful for you to be here. Before we get into the whole part of the conversation about how grief has shaped you, tell me about who you are today.

I am grounded. I am sure. I am not afraid. I am happy. I am calmer.

As people listen to this conversation, what is something important that you want them to take away from this discussion?

My biggest message that I can share as a widow who has been through some s***. I can cuss. I probably should not have used that word.

This is not TikTok, but be warned that on certain platforms, they do have to bleep it out if that is going to happen. It is up to you. This is your discussion. I am just guiding it.

After having gone through some hard times of losing my own husband, I want people to know that there is a difference between grief and actively grieving. You do not have to actively grieve forever. You can choose not to.

Actively grieving. What does that mean, the difference between the two, assuming that someone is listening to this conversation, and they are like, “Grief has different words? I’m grieving, what are you saying here?”

After my husband, Eric, died, I had some girlfriends come over. Of course, I am at a low point. I am in acute grief. I am actively grieving. I remember people are witnessing me, they are listening to me, and they are validating me. Some of them are dismissive because sadness is hard to be around. One of my very good friends said, “Kari, you are going to grieve Eric forever.”

When she said that, I was like, “The hell I will.” I was 38, because my kids were 18 and 11, and because of how I was feeling, I could not do that the rest of my life. That is a hard way to live. I was able to take a three-year sabbatical, and I just became a student of grief. I am a former teacher, and I have a Master’s in Education. I used to teach middle school math. I have always been a helper of people, and everything is figure-outable. I am going to figure this out.

I became a student of grief, and I was like, “Listen, grief is something that we deal with our entire lives.” When we are born grieving, leaving the womb, we grieve small things, we grieve big things, we grieve inconveniences. We grieve significant losses.” Actively grieving is like when your grief is so big that it affects your everyday living ability, your sense of aliveness, and your ability to find happiness. You do not have to actively grieve a significant loss forever. You can choose not to. Does grief show up? Do I grieve Eric still, even nine years later? Sure. I am not constantly actively grieving him.

Thank you. How does that relate to acute grief? You mentioned that term too.

They consider acute grief to be in the first two years after a significant loss. Acute grief is actively grieving. I would say it is like the first year. They say statistically the second year is harder, and that is because the administrative part of death is usually finished, and now the reality of the loss has set in. Your brain is still rewiring all of the things. Acute grief generally lasts for the first two years. Yes, you are probably actively grieving consistently in acute grief.

You said you had become a student of grief and everything is figure-outable. Is grief figure-outable? This is your new term. I am going to use it. After grief, we are going to go from the span of my first dog dying to someone close to me, because grief is beyond the death of a loved one. It is expensive. You talked about the different types of things that we grieve. I would dare say also the patterns in which we learn to manage those different griefs come up, and how we show up in life. Is it something that one can figure out?

Yes and no. It is something that we learn to live with. It is something that we grow around. The way that I see it, people have gone before us. People have grieved for years before us. People have figured it out. One of my core beliefs and one of Eric’s core beliefs was that everything is figure-outable. When it came to overcoming any type of adversity, anything that I had used prior to Eric’s death was not working.

I said that, but it was not. I had to do something else, something new, to figure this piece out. Every day I miss Eric. Every day I love him. Every day I wish he were here. Every day I think about Eric. I am not actively grieving him, and I am loving the life that I am living now, even while I miss him and his absence is noted. Does that make sense?

It does. I am going to challenge you if someone is tuning in to this and they are thinking, “She did not love her spouse as much as I love mine. That is the only reason that she has been able to find joy and be happy. She chose to just forget about him, and she is going on with her life.”

I would say this, Dr. Tina. I felt the exact same way. I thought there was no way in hell I was ever going to get over it. Before Eric died, we had a mutual friend, one of Eric’s coaches. Eric was the head football coach at our local high school. One of his coaches died of cancer 30 days after being diagnosed. Eric came home one day after practice and said, “Kari, guess what? I have the best news.” I was like, “What is it?” He said, “Greg’s wife is engaged.” I was like, “What? How is she engaged already? It has only been like three years.”

We listen, and we do not judge.

I said that because I was naive, because I had never been there before. People do not know until they know. Sometimes, when we are in acute grief or when we are actively grieving, and somebody is saying that there is hope, you will find joy again in your life, you may reject it completely because you cannot see past your own handprint. You cannot see past your own hand if you were to stick it out. You cannot see past the fog.

Holding Space: How To Support A Grieving Friend

For the people who are also tuning in because they have a friend who is grieving, because, as you said, we have been dying, and we are going to keep dying. How do I show up for them if I do not push them along on this? How do I show up for them if they are actively grieving and there is no way just to push this forward? What would you say to them?

I would say to witness them, you validate them. Do not dismiss them. I have a free grief guide on my website to help your grieving friend. I have four of them. One of them is to help your grieving friend. It is the very first one that I ever wrote. I did that because people were asking how they could show up for me. Through my experience and because of the work that I do now, it has evolved, but it is available on my website.

I talk about being able to hold space. I talk about not interrupting their thought processing by offering them a hug too soon. Let them say all the things that they need to say before you offer them a tissue, or you pat them on the back, or you hug them because you are uncomfortable with their sadness. In the grief guide, I talk about being able to sit with their sadness and to say, “I cannot imagine what you are going through. I am so sorry you are going through this.” That validates them, and it does not dismiss their grief. It also gives you practical tools.

You play back that people are giving tissues and hugs because they are trying to shut down the grief moment and just move it along. What are you saying about that?

Probably a little bit of a lot of reasons. We do things like that because we are uncomfortable and because we feel like we want to comfort them. We want them to feel better because we have been taught to offer comfort and love, and this is how we do it. When you do that, it interrupts their thought processing and the expressiveness of their emotions. They are like, “I am making her sad,” or “I am crying, and I did not know I was crying. I need to wrap it up and gather myself together again.” What a grieving person really needs to do is to get it out.

In those early stages, you’re raising two young children and managing yourself. What did that look like for you in trying to figure it out?

It was messy. I think being messy is accurate for all of us. I will tell you that there were times when I would be going through my own s***, and I would try to explain things to my girls. I was told by other widows, friends of mine, that they would cry in the bathroom in the shower. I did that, but I did not stop my kids from seeing me crying. Part of that was because I could not help myself.

I cried all the time. When I am actively grieving in my acute grief, I have a blanket over my head. I am in bed. I am sleeping. I am rocking in the corner. I am not able to show up and be the best mom that I usually am. It is hard to know that because I know that, especially my little one, who was eight at the time. She stepped up in that role. I know that she put her grief aside to help me with mine. She is still in therapy, and she has been talking about that with her therapist lately.

The Burden Of The “Strong Parent”: Navigating Loss With Children

What was the moment that you realised that your children were offsetting their grief because of yours? It may not have been a moment, but a point. Maybe it was seven years later.

Recently, I have realised this because Laurel was eight when Eric died, and now she is 17. She has been working with a therapist on and off throughout that time. She had symptoms of intense anxiety before. After Eric died, they all came to the surface, and it exploded. It was manageable before. Recently, because she is older and she has the thought patterns and she can process her big emotions now, she recently shared with me that she does not remember. Her therapist asked, “Do you remember what it was like to be sad after your dad died?” She said, “I do not remember being sad.”

I have photos of her being sad. I do not know why I documented it, but I did. She said, “I remember my mom being sad.” In February, it will be nine years since Eric died. He died in 2017. She recently said that to me this last month. That was a gut punch. What she remembers in her grief is how sad Mom was. Because I was becoming a student of grief when I was actively grieving, I knew that it was important to talk about Eric.

My talking about Eric gave my children permission to talk about him because they did not want to talk about him, since they knew it would upset Mom. Mom is already upset enough, so we are not going to bring up dead dad. I would bring up dead dad. My oldest, who quickly turned twelve after Eric died, was like, “Mom, not everything has to be about my dad.” I just was like, “That is messy and ugly.” It was just a journey. It is practising, it is experience, it is testing, it is messing up, it is apologising, and seeing how we can do better. I think I answered your question and more. It was not good. It was ugly.

At the beginning of the conversation, I want to transition. This conversation will bridge us into the work that you do. You said you can choose to actively grieve, not to be in this acute state, or you can choose to move on. Someone was listening to this conversation, saying, “How dare you? My whole person died, and you think I choose to live like this?” What are you saying to that person if I hear your statement correctly?

I am saying that you do have a decision. Right now, it may feel like you do not have a choice, but you do. Every single one of us knows someone who has endured a huge, significant loss in their life and never recovered. It first starts with a decision that I cannot be like this forever, or a desire to want more. Just that tiny little flame of hope can grow. It is what you choose to do with the tiny flame of hope. That is what I want to offer.

If someone is tuning in and you’ve intrigued them, what are some of those very tiny steps that I may say, “I believe life does not always have to be this way.” Tomorrow I wake up and say, “Yes, it does.” What are some of those tiny steps that you would suggest? I understand it would be a lot of conversation beforehand, and this is generic, but what does that look like for a person to believe it is possible?

Just know that it is like a dance. We take some steps forward, and then for a moment it feels like we take steps back. You have been able to take steps back because you have taken steps forward. It is a dance. Even now, nine years out, I take steps back. 2025 has been a hard year for me because my kids have had huge milestones as they are growing into adulthood. Eric should be here for it. I have taken some steps back where I was not expecting to. It is that constant dance.

Let’s get into some more granular responses. Instead of a dance, instead of taking steps backwards, what are these steps? What does it look like? Describe those so that I can walk away with one small step on how I would move forward.

Small steps forward look like self-assessing if you are feeling some sort of joy. Think about an emotional scale. Super sad and despairing, and 100% joy. There are all those scales of emotions in between. I would say growing towards joy is a sign, and that might resonate in your body. I say self-assess because it is different for everyone. I met with a client, and he said, “In the last ten days, Kari, I have been okay.”

I am okay with okay because I know what devastation feels like. You cannot go from devastation to joy overnight, but you are working your way up. Even those tiny little fleeting moments of joy, whether it be a smile or a laugh or a chuckle inside, those little things or a moment of gratefulness, and you see a beautiful sunset, and you’re like, “That’s gorgeous.” Ewan that are signs of hope. Those experiences help you move forward. Try to create more of those.

How do you deal with the guilt of those moments?

I would say to acknowledge that you are feeling guilty and to remind yourself that it is normal and that it is okay to feel it.

Thank you. You mentioned the work that you do. What has been your training and certification? What is the work that you do now?

The Heart Work: Reclaiming Identity And Moving Through The Storm

I teach a process that I call the Heart Work. As a previous teacher, I have a Master’s in Education. This is what we do. We take curriculums and lessons from organisations and people, and we create our own. I have been certified with several grief coaches and several grief experts, including the Grief Recovery Method, David Kessler, and Joanne, the widow coach.

There are so many that I cannot even tell you. What I have done is I have taken practical tools, and I have studied with someone who coached with the Life Coach School. I have created my own Heart Work. I work privately with clients, and we do that in seven or eight sessions. I also have a membership where I teach that. I also have different rooms in my membership. I call it a Grief-Easy, like a speakeasy. We have got three rooms.

The first room is for people who just need to be held, witnessed and validated in their grief. The second room is where we are ready to heal. Those are the practical tools that move us forward intentionally in healing to help you sit with and end your grief process. I have the third room, which is re-beginning. That is where it is like, “I am feeling better, but now what, because I have to reinvent myself after this significant loss.”

How does one contact you, and what does the first conversation look like?

I am on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. I have a website, KariDriskell.com. The first conversation is going to be a simple conversation in which you tell me your story, and then I share with you what it looks like to work with me. You decide if you want to, if it is a right fit, if you are ready, and how you want to go about doing that, whether that is in the membership or working with me one-on-one. Just telling me your story and me listening to it. I like the conversation piece because it allows me to assess you as you share it. Your fluency, your tone, and whether or not you are having an emotional reaction. You share with me what you want and how you want to move forward.

Does your practice fall into coaching, therapy, or different modalities? What does that look like as far as the services that you’re providing?

Technically, I am a certified life coach, and I specialise in grief and widowhood.

Have you ever worked with someone where, even though they said they were ready, they were not, and you recommended they work with a therapist? Have you ever had those types of situations?

Yes and no. Several of my clients also work with a therapist while they work with me. While the work that I do is therapeutic, it is not therapy. I do not think any of my clients come to me and I have said, “This is not the right work for you.” Once we have gotten started. Usually, we catch that before.

Someone was working with a therapist. What are you providing that the therapist is not? What have you found in the work you do?

What I’ve been told by my clients feel like they are able to talk about whatever comes up for them in the moments when they are working with their therapist. With me, I am very grief-oriented. I specifically work on the grief. I did hear this analogy from David Kessler, who told me about it. I’m sure you heard it from someone else. The people that I work with are more like the buffalo.

In the animal kingdom, some animals see a storm, and they lie down. Some animals see the storm, and they run away. The buffalo run into the storm, and they do that because the anticipation of the storm and their time in the storm is less than if they were to do the other two options. We are like the buffalo. My clients are like the buffalo. We are going head-in.

What are some things from your own personal grief journey that have aligned with the work that you do and how you show up?

All of it.

You were determined you were not going to be in this place called stuck. That is carrying forward to how you show up with other people.

Yes, but I do feel like I was stuck. That first year, for sure, I was stuck. I did not want to be stuck, but I did not know how not to be stuck in the grief. I felt like grief had shackled me. I was not living life, and I did not know how to break the shackles. I also know that I have that experience of being stuck and not knowing how to feel better. That is part of the work that I do.

We are going to do this step by step, which is part of me being an educator. I have objectives, and everything builds. By the end of it, we are going to feel better. Even if you feel like s***, you are going to come to me, and you are going to feel better. If you think you feel pretty good, we are going to take you to the next level.

The Physicality Of Grief: Rewiring The Brain And Body

In profound grief, the neurological part of grief is that something you can really overcome, the grief fog, the physical lag? The things that your body is trying to rewire, looking for someone or something that is no longer there, and the body is trying to process. Is that being stuck or just the process of grief?

It has to be both, Dr. Tina. It has to be both because you are never going to be the same. You are going to be better. You also have this gift of grief called perspective. The stuff that you worried about, the person that you were before, you are going to learn so much more deeply. I feel like I live a richer life now because of what I have learned and the love and the life and the loss that I shared with Eric. I want to circle back to grieving with young children. I can see I did not see your question, though.

No. I want to circle back to grieving with young children. You said that one of your daughters was in therapy. How did you manage their grief and your own?

That is the word. It was awful. It is so hard. It is hard to help your children grieve when you cannot help them because you cannot help yourself. Their person is gone. My person is gone. Their lives have been shattered, too. I kept thinking I did not want them to lose both parents after Eric died. The younger they are, the more you have to repeat yourself. Children learn through repetition.

We have to repeat it over and over again. I repeated things over and over again for Laurel more than I did for Rachel. Rachel was 11 or 12 when Eric died. I would explain things to her more or differently or more age-appropriately than I did for Laurel. With Laurel, I held her. With both of them, I comforted and reassured them that I am here.

It is hard because they do things like, “Mom, please do not die.” You are like, “Honey, I am trying.” We have all learned we are not in control of that. I do not want to die for a really long time. Next month it will be nine years. Honestly, I did not see myself alive this long because we are hit with our own mortality when our partner dies. Anything could happen.

You and I are on similar timelines. March 11th will mark nine years since my husband, Mark, took his last breath. You mentioned earlier about identity changing or wrestling with the reality that I will never be the same person. What does that mean for someone who is just really trying to grasp? I mean, “I’m the same person, what do you mean I’m not?”

My identity changed. My personality changed a little bit. That is a weird feeling because you are the same person, but you are not. You look at your hands, and you are like, “This is still me,” but everything else is different. All the connections, like Eric being a football coach, made me the head coach’s wife. I was not a coach’s wife anymore. I was not a wife anymore.

Even though my husband is dead, death does not end a relationship. I am still Eric’s wife, but he is not alive for me to be married to. It is so confusing. The music that we listen to, I can listen to any music without losing my mind. I reverted back to old Kari ways so that I found classic rock and roll and AC/DC and Metallica comforted me a little bit more again.

Now I am able to listen to the music that Eric and I listened to. Do not get me wrong, I still love Metallica. Metallica still has my heart. Many changes and shifts, and it is normal, but it is confusing. You have to sit in all of that, and it is overwhelming because you are grieving too. All of that is like secondary losses when the primary loss is your person being gone. All the secondary losses just make things so much more confusing to begin with.

What is your email address, Kari? People want to reach out to you.

My email is KariDriscoll@gmail.com.

I try to allow my audiences to be the podcast hosts. Do you have any questions for me?

Secondary Losses And The Struggle To Find Your New Self

Why not? We could ask so many questions. What do you think was the hardest part of being a widow?

Coming to terms with the finality that he is not coming back. That was it. We were on a little getaway vacation. He had a heart attack, and I came home by myself. That was how the story ended. Waking up every day and telling myself, “Tina, Mark died.” I did not allow myself to slip into thinking he is still on travel, or he is doing this or that.

The intentionality to tell myself this truth and to operate in that, no matter how it showed up. One time, I was in the bathroom. I pulled open what was his drawer in the bathroom, and I immediately closed it and said, “He will take care of that when he gets back.” It was some bizarre time in the morning when you have to go use the bathroom.

I was like, “We cannot play these games.” Now I am looking like this frenzied lunatic woman cleaning out the bathroom drawer at this ungodly time. My daughter was like, “Mom, what are you doing? Just go back to bed.” I needed to do it then. That was hard to see myself suffering his absence and still trying to come to terms with his absence.

Because Eric was gone for football so much, he left the house at 5:30 in the morning and got home at 8:30 at night. At 8:30, I would expect him to come home, but he would not come. Our minds play games that he is still at football, or he is working late, or he is out of town talking football. Do you remember the first time that you walked into the home after your vacation, when you walked in by yourself? Do you remember that day?

We were three and a half hours away from home. I called some friends to pick me up and take my vehicle home, and another family to pick up Mark’s vehicle and take it home. My girlfriend, Jennifer, and her husband, Paul, picked me up. I am usually chatty. She picks me up, and for three and a half hours, I do not have anything to say. She was obviously afraid because she was like, “She is not talking.” She asked if I wanted something to drink. I said, “No.”

I am just staring out the window. I think she was driving my vehicle, and her husband was driving their vehicle. She gets to my house, and she and Paul are walking towards me, like, “Where are you all going?” I said, “No, you’re not.” I know she was afraid. She was like, “I do not want you to be by myself.” I was like, “I need to be.” In my mind, I knew whatever amount of time it was from when she dropped me off until everybody started finding out, I was not going to have another moment in the house by myself.

This was going to be my last moment alone in the house for a bit because I have a lot of siblings and amazing close friends. I could perceive the whirlwind that was about to happen. I forced her and her husband to leave. There is a conversation on the podcast with Jennifer Pilant talking about this and how she was not a fan of that. I closed the door, and I fell down. I was beating the floor and screaming. I fell asleep right there at my door, crying. I did not wake up until the doorbell rang.

I am trying to figure out, orient myself. “Tina, you are at home.” The doorbell was ringing, and neighbours were there. Unfortunately, somebody posted on Facebook. I was not ready for that. Now people are calling and asking how I found out. That was not my doing. People are coming to the house. I am not sure if I woke up because my brother knocked on the door or family friends nearby. I remember the doorbell ringing, and my brother was there.

He lives in California, and I lived in Pennsylvania. I was like, “Jessie?” He was like, “Are you going to let me in?” I was like, How did you get here?” He said, “I took a plane.” It had not even been 24 hours. The house was empty for a little bit, but it was full thereafter. When my sisters came, they were camped out in my bedroom. It was a long time before I slept alone because the house was full. I remember thinking that you would think it was a party for him.

Everybody is here and all the things and the celebration, and I was like, “He is dead. This is so final.” In that moment, those days, I would have never conceived that nine years later to have a conversation that may seem very casual but is intentional about that man dying. I was just like, “What? I do not understand, but I do.” That is why I have these conversations, because people often want to know they’re not alone. As I say, ear hustle into a conversation.

They may be ready to listen, but they may not be ready for direct contact because this is still unbearable, incomprehensible. It’s like, “How is it possible for anybody to endure this, and life makes sense afterwards?” It’s important for them to know, take your time. It’s supposed to hurt this bad. It’s supposed to be this devastating, and in time, it has the potential to change. It does. I will say the elapsed time alone does not make this difference. What would you say does?

The Myth Of Timelines: Knowing When You Are Ready To Heal

I would also say that there’s a saying that there’s no timeline in grief. That’s true. What that also means is that you do not have to grieve forever. What that really means is it’s never too soon or too late. It’s just whenever you’re ready, and everybody is ready at a different level. Everybody is ready at a different place. It’s whenever you are ready. You were talking about coming home that night and knowing that you needed to be alone.

I was the exact opposite. I did not want to be alone. I could not be alone. The first day that I was truly alone was the Monday after Eric had collapsed and died, and the girls wanted to go back to school. Here I am alone in my house, and I called my mom. My mom and I are not close. We do not have a great mother-daughter relationship. I remember my mom saying, “It must be bad if you’re calling me.” It was.

I knew it was bad. My sisters are at my house, and my middle sister said, “I’m moving to Virginia.” Now she is the quietest one of them all and usually sits in the back before making decisions. I was like, she’s telling me what she’s doing. I was like, “This is really bad.” The other time I knew it was bad was when my mother handed me a whiskey sour. She’s like, “Here you go.” I was like, “This is officially a problem here.”

It’s awful. For a while, it’s exactly where you’re supposed to be.

I think people need to hear and understand that. Because trying to rush that, I’m going to get past this, and I’m going to make this happen and push back that. I feel like that level of denial is a setup for a problem because grief will pack us back and patiently wait for you as you’re trying to work late and show everybody that you’re fine and you can do this and be gone.

Now I’m like, sure hope I didn’t seem like that. I did not want to be like that forever. Did you ever watch The Hunger Games? The books are better, but The Hunger Games. My kids and I loved The Hunger Games. There’s Katniss Everdeen, and her mom’s husband dies. Katniss’s dad dies. There’s a scene when Katniss goes into the Hunger Games, and she looks at her mom, and she takes her mom by the shoulders and says, “Mom, when I leave, if I die, you cannot disappear on the little sister like you did when dad died.”

For some reason, like that scene, probably because the girls and I watched it all the time, we loved The Hunger Games. That scene came into my head, my memory after Erica died, and I was like, I cannot disappear. For a while, I couldn’t help but disappear in my grief because you have to. At some point, I was like, “Not forever. I have to do better, be better, feel better somehow.”

Escaping The Echo Chamber: Finding Community Beyond The Sadness

The intentionality and desire anymore is a key points to get more. What more looks like is different for each person. One person may say, “I always thought about going to California and roller skating on the boardwalk. I’m going to do that.” Another person may say, “My loved one and I always planned on taking this trip or taking this class. I’m going to do it and honour them as I do this.” Another person may say, “I need to relocate near my family because being here by myself in this place does not suit me anymore.”

I do believe that when we isolate and have zero community, that is the beginning of very dangerous times in our grief. When we isolate, the only thing we have is talking in our head, and we do not have anyone else to bounce this off because things in our head sound really smart. You sit out loud, and your friend is like, “No, that’s not cool.” You need one or two people in your tribe to be able to. When I say that, I understand that someone will say, “All of my friends have ghost meat, make new ones.”

Make new friends. I would say be careful who you hang out with because those people are validating the crazy s*** that’s in your head. For a while, I understand that in grief, crazy shit makes sense to us. When you’re in acute grief, let that make sense for now. Eventually, it needs to shift. Find people who help you help that shift. I’ll tell some of my clients, like “It’s okay to leave really sad grief groups if they’re just circulating in the sadness and you’re ready to heal.”

Who has not seen those, and I think that they’re good for the space that they’re in, and I was in those groups where it is the full lament, the sadness. For me, there was a certain point where it did not fit me anymore. That adjustment was necessary to be somewhere about different things.

As I’m reaching nine years, I mean, I know that you are too. That I remember early in my grief, I joined a Facebook group, and I remember somebody reading through all the comments, and there was a woman in there who said, “I’m here to tell you, you never stop grieving. Life s***. It was terrible. “I’m nine years out, and life is still s***.” I just thought, “No, I’m going to ignore this woman, because it was not serving me. I did not want his life to s*** nine years out.” Now I’m approaching nine years, and I keep thinking about the woman that I saw on that Facebook group. Isn’t that funny how things are with you?

Yeah. Tell us about what you’re doing on TikTok.

I do not know what I’m doing on TikTok. Kids tell me I’m too old to be on TikTok. I’m on TikTok just sharing my story. I’m on TikTok just talking briefly. Just like me. I cannot do anything fancy. I do not do much b-roll and over-vocal stuff. I’m not that person. Other people can do that. That’s not me. I’m just a big old talking head, and let me share the shit of grief. That’s what I do on TikTok.

I’ll say I’m trying to get her to go live with me, but do not cut that part out. I’m just saying that. I know this conversation is going to encourage someone. I would like you to wrap up this discussion. Maybe there’s something we did not talk about that you wanted to cover, or some final words that you would like to say for the people who joined us in this conversation.

To piggyback on the stuff we were just wrapping up with, wherever they are is exactly where they’re supposed to be in this moment. There is always hope. There’s always hope for more. When they’re ready and when they want it. Just know that it exists, and do not be scared to find it.

Kari, thank you for being here. Thank you for this conversation. I look forward to staying in contact with you.

Thanks for having me, Dr. Tina.

Important Links

• Kari Driskell
• Kari Driskell on Facebook
• Kari Driskell on Instagram
• Kari Driskell on TikTok
• KariDriscoll@gmail.com
• Jennifer Pilant – Silent Strength: The Power Of Friendship With Jennifer Pilant – previous episode

About Kari Driskell

After losing her husband unexpectedly to a massive brain aneurysm, Kari Driskell learned firsthand that time alone doesn’t heal grief; intentional heart-level work does.

His death was devastating. Telling her young girls was a nightmare. But learning how to do life and wanting to do life in his absence has been the hardest thing she’s ever done.

Kari is now a certified Grief + Widow Coach. She’s a remarried widow, married to a widower, and is deeply honest about grief. When her husband died, she had two big fears: that she’d become an old, bitter woman and that she’d fuck up her kids.

Through her private work and The Heartwork Collective, Kari helps widows feel better and more like themselves again, sooner rather than later. Because while you can grieve forever, you don’t have to.

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KariDriskellLLC
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grief.coach.karidriskell/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@karidriskell
Website: https://www.karidriskell.com/