This episode is dedicated to empowering brave widows to find hope and healing after loss. Join Emily Tanner, founder of the Brave Widow community, as she shares her powerful journey through grief. She offers practical strategies and insights on rebuilding your life and finding joy again. Discover the importance of community, self-care, and emotional healing as you navigate the challenges of widowhood. Emily’s inspiring story will empower you to embrace your future with courage and create a life you truly love.

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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The Brave Widow’s Guide To Healing And Hope With Emily Tanner

Emily, welcome to the Widowhood.

Thank you, Tina. I’m grateful that you invited me to come.

Are you serious? After this lovely winter solstice you allowed me to participate in? Before I read your bio, can you talk about the winter solstice, what that means, and how you came about with that project?

I don’t even remember where I got the idea from, and nobody will claim credit. We’re just going to say it was a divine moment. The meaning behind the winter solstice event is an event where we host a panel of widows, and Tina graciously served on our panel. We asked them some tough questions and tried to get their insights. We have giveaways. We play music and have activities.

It’s one of the most popular events that I participate in throughout the year. The concept behind the winter solstice is that it is the longest night of the year. We come together as widows knowing that even though our days may feel dark and the nights feel long, every day going forward is going to be a little bit brighter and a little bit brighter.

That is beautiful. Now that you have a bit of a sense of her heart, I want to read her bio. One month shy of their twentieth wedding anniversary, Emily was widowed unexpectedly at the age of 37. She and Nathan have four children, who were the ages of 10 through 19 at the time. She founded Brave Widow, a membership community, to help other widows navigate grief, heal their hearts, and create a life they love again. She is certified by the accredited Faith Coaching Academy and the Grief Recovery Method Institute.

How Personal Grief Led To Creating Brave Widow

Prior to Brave Widow, Emily served as a Senior Vice President for renew cycle in the healthcare industry, leading teams of 4,000 associates in 100-plus hospitals across the US. She earned her MBA at John Brown University with an emphasis on leadership and ethics. Her passion for servant leadership, collaboration, helping people, and bridging gaps is the driving force behind why Brave Widow exists. Her website is BraveWidow.com, and you can email Emily at Emily@BraveWidow.com. When I read your bio, it gives me the sense that in some bigger-than-life way, you were prepared to lead Brave Widow.

It’s an interesting observation. I think that I have always been the person that is ready to help, step up, and lead sometimes to my own detriment because I can overcommit or allow myself to feel taken advantage of after a certain point. I felt compelled. Shortly after Nathan died, I had several employees or co-workers who were either widowed themselves or knew someone who was widowed asking me, “What can I do? How do I help them? What are the next steps?” Naturally, in those first few months, I started putting together a checklist, ideas, and suggestions. It just came very naturally to me.

Months into Nathan no longer breathing in this world, you are now setting up the genesis for Brave Widow. When you look back at that, how do you see that being helpful or impactful to your grief journey?

For me, I approach it from a very tactical standpoint. I didn’t found Brave Widow until probably a year later, but the founding pieces were there. A very tangible checklist of, “Here are specific things that widows want and need, but they’re too ashamed to ask for. They don’t even know what they need, or they struggle asking for help. Here’s a way that you can talk to a widow. Here are things that you can say that are helpful or things you should avoid saying.” For me, in those first few months in that first year, it was what I wish I had known or what I wish people around me had known, and what resources I wish I could have found but just couldn’t seem to find anywhere.

The Impact Of Loss: What To Avoid And What To Do Right

That is a good point, because there are so many people, I believe, that mean well, and they’re trying to say what they think is helpful or do different things, but they are landing badly. There are some people that know how to just do it right. Unfortunately, I believe the people that learn how to do it right do so because of a significant loss that they’ve learned from experience. I’ll ask the question that people always want to know, what are some things people should not do?

Instead of starting with what they shouldn’t do, when people ask, “What should I say? What can I say?” sometimes I’ll respond tongue-in-cheek and say, “The best thing you can say is listen. It’s just to be there.” What we tend to want to do, it’s very much in our nature, is we want to help people. We see someone that’s hurting, they’re struggling, or down in the mud, we want to pull them up. We want to lift their spirits. We want to make them feel better and comfort them.

What I didn’t know until I went through this, and what most people don’t know, is that there aren’t words that you can say to take away someone’s pain. The most priceless gift that you can give them is your time and your willingness to sit in the awkwardness of the tears, the sadness, and that guttural sound that comes from the pit of your stomach when you’re crying so hard, of saying, “This is awful. I’m so sorry this happened to you. I’m going to be here with you through all of it.” That’s one of the best things that I think people can do.

Navigating Life In The Absence Of A Spouse

I agree with you because it’s not fixable. There are no words that you can say, and it is very uncomfortable, generally seeing someone you love and care about probably the most distraught you will see them in their entire life and to know that you are powerless. Being present, I want to circle back to that, the power of listening, and not listening to answer but just letting them talk and share whatever may come out of their mouth at that moment in time. You’re not trying to end their conversation. You’re just trying to hold space for them. I would certainly agree to that concept being very important. Is Brave Widow for women only, or is it for men as well? What does that look like?

I only have women that are there. I do have the community and some of the courses that men could go through as well, but a lot of my marketing and a lot of the things I speak about are women-focused.

There’s a different place because we have a men’s-only grief support group. They do want their own time. They want to express their emotions in a safe place outside of women because, as you mentioned, there’s a part of you in this process that you are also finding yourself. You are who you were, and what that looks like in the absence of your spouse is different. How did that look for you?

I married Nathan when I was eighteen. I moved straight out of my house. We got married. We had a child less than a year later. We grew up together, essentially. I felt very much most of my life and most of the memories I had were with Nathan, not without him. For me, I had no idea who I was as an individual person, and that was one of the most unsettling things for me. I felt so untethered, like a little boat out in the ocean, not sure which way I wanted to go because I didn’t even know what did I like to do on my own.

Do I still have the same dreams and goals? What I learned was that there were a lot of things that we wanted to do together in the future that, if it was just going to be me, I didn’t want to do that anymore. It didn’t seem right, or it felt overwhelming, or it felt pointless. I had to figure out this new version of me and this next chapter of life. What life did I want to live? What adventures did I want to go on? What legacy did I want to leave behind?

I can relate to every bit of that. My late husband, Mark, and I met when I was eighteen in the military. I had left my parents’ home, joined the military, and met him at my first duty station. I literally became the woman I am in that relationship with Mark. I know for a lot of women, trying to navigate finances, the house, and all the different parts of life is challenging because, when you’re in a marriage or partnership, someone else is doing a piece of it. Any recommendation for someone that is trying to navigate this whole life that’s been left to them in the absence of their partner?

Ask for help. It’s the one thing that we tend to struggle with and ask for help that’s clear. If you want help with your laundry or mowing the lawn. If you have a friend or a family member that’s that type A, they like to be in charge, be the boss, or be organized, let them be your liaison and lean on them and say, “Could you find some help for me with these three things? Could we hire someone to do that? Could you call around and get some bids so I can get my roof fixed or I can have the plumbing looked at?” People feel good about being able to help you.

The more that you will lean into that, the easier it will be for you. For me, I thought it was just an issue I had with asking for help because I’m such a high achiever. I’ll do whatever it takes, I’ll get it done, type personality. I would look at tasks that should be simple and tell myself, “I should be able to do this. Why can’t I? Why am I struggling with this?” The reality is, in grief, your ability to do things is reduced. Plus, you have everything else piled on your shoulders overnight. Give yourself grace, lower the expectations that you have, even on the things you were able to do in the past, and lean into asking for help.

Lovely advice. I want to circle back to that a little bit more because I had no idea that my mental capacity would be reduced to such a level. When I talk to people, they’ve often not heard that grief would impact their brain, such as being in a traumatic event, grief fog, or grief brain. When you hear those different terms, what are some things that come to mind to you that other people should go, “That is me. Now that I’ve heard that, I can resonate.” The reason I want you to explain that, is it reduces the bar. It’s like, “This is what it looks like and I’m okay in this messy place.”

One of the things that I learned is that through grief, when you have a traumatic experience like that, the part of your brain that puts you in survival mode, fight or flight, and gets that adrenaline going, it takes over. The part of your brain that can think clearly, see the big picture and think logically is overshadowed by your natural instincts. That’s one reason we tend to feel exhausted, because our nervous system is keyed up. It’s tight. You might even feel a tightness in your shoulders and your neck and a general sense like you’re on high alert all the time.

One of the stories I love to share is that within the first few weeks after Nathan died, I remember I was getting all the paperwork together for our attorney to look at our estate and probate the will. I pulled out all my file folders, and I was organizing all the important paperwork. I picked up our car titles and put them in a specific stack on the floor like, “This is important. I’m going to put this here.”

I put the rest of the things away, went to bed, came in the next morning, and no car titles. I pulled out all the file folders. I spent hours going painstakingly page by page. I pulled out trash cans and boxes. I was like, “Where did I put these car titles? I would find them a year later across the other side of my house in a silverware drawer.

That is so real.

How, why, or when I did that? I have no idea. There were so many times where I finally felt my husband had ADHD. I finally felt his pain of walking from one room to the next and going, “Why am I here? Why did I bring hand soap to my office? This is weird.” Feeling confused. It’s important for people to know that that’s normal. I’ve always used Post-it notes a lot, but I live and die by these Post-it notes, reminders on my phone, and events on the calendar to bring some sanity to your life when you’re living in the fog.

Navigating Grief In The Workplace: Tips For Supervisors

Those are excellent. As you said that, I can envision from my own experience sorting through the paperwork. You get up with this title, and you’re crying, thinking about when you purchased a car and what that looked like. You went to get some silverware, and then you do something else. It is incomprehensible the level in which you’re operating. Some people have to go back to work in a very short period of time. Do you have any suggestions on how to navigate the workplace, or to supervisors that may be reading this conversation and they have someone that’s newly widowed or a widower and they don’t even know how to be their manager from your experience and coaching?

I went back to work because I wanted a sense of normalcy. We had been sick for three weeks at this point before he died. I was emotionally and mentally tired of sickness and death and all of the things. I wanted a feeling somehow that my life was back to normal. I went back to work fairly quickly. I would suggest that if people can take FMLA, or take some time off work, that they do, or if they can go back in a part-time capacity and use part-time FMLA or employee benefits.

You may also have employee benefits for things like counseling or a grief group. There may be lots of options you don’t know about that you could talk with your HR department about. One of the things that I found to be helpful was I sat down with my team of leaders that reported to me, and I just explained, “Folks, I’m here for you. I don’t feel like the same person. I probably am not going to come across the same way. There may be days or times where I seem irritable or different or weird. I just need you to say, ‘This isn’t normal.’ Call me out on it, and we’ll have a conversation. Know that I’m doing my best. I’ll do whatever I can for you, but I don’t even feel like the same person at this point.”

I had an amazing team. They were very supportive. From the supervisor aspect, I had employees who lost an adult child or lost a spouse, and I had no idea. They have bereavement leave, so after three days, they’re going to be good. They might be a little bit sad, but bereavement is a good 3 to 5 days, and we just need to get back. What I would encourage, if you are managing someone who’s gone through grief, is to recognize that they are not going to be able to operate at the same level that they were before.

They may even have a significantly increased apathy for work. They just don’t care about it the way they used to. I would be extremely kind and understanding and even help by engaging them in conversations about whether they need to take a less demanding role or if they would like to explore something new in the future. I forget the statistic, but there is evidence that many widows will change careers, change jobs, or change companies within the first couple of years of widowhood. I think employers have an opportunity here to come side by side with people that have gone through this and help salvage that employee somewhere in their organization.

The Power Of The Grief Recovery Handbook

I can relate to that. I was one of those people. For me, nothing felt right. It didn’t feel the same. It was too painful to think about going to this workplace and coming home to Mark’s absence. I needed to change that narrative. I relocated from Pennsylvania to Virginia. We were in the process of trying to move to Virginia. In fact, Mark had already taken a job, but I can relate to what that looks like. I see the little purple book over there, The Grief Recovery Handbook. Can you talk about your journey of grief? How is that so helpful? Read the book before they may get into the next level of help with that.

I read so many books about grief, and I tend to nerd out about different topics. I just wanted to understand, like, why is this so hard? Someone had recommended The Grief Recovery Handbook. It was the first book I read that made me go, “This makes sense now. I’m not going crazy.” Everything I learned in there about the different myths about grief, about why it hurts when people try to say things they think are helpful like, “Your husband’s in a better place now.”

Why does that bother us? Why is there such a disconnect with what people say? It gave can you some tangible tools that you could start using as you read the book that opened my eyes to loss that you’d experienced my entire life that maybe you’ve never even acknowledged. For me, it was such a powerful book. I didn’t even know that there was a system and a process. Once I read it, I was like, “I have to get certified. This is good.” It’s one of the top recommendations that I give to widows.

Thank you. When you talk about the grief in your past, and you’ll know this better than me. When they take you through that timeline to identify your first losses and what was the pattern of dealing with loss and walking that through, then identifying the patterns that you’ve learned. I’ll say lesser losses cannot fill this space but being reflective and being able to do that is very insightful. How do you feel about journaling?

I think it’s very helpful. I tend to type a lot faster than I can write. I know there’s also power in putting pen to paper. I wish I would journal more because it’s very helpful to see your progression over time and how you change how you view and think about things. I use it primarily as a way to get all of the noise out of my head and onto a place where I can look at it and evaluate like, what am I thinking? What am I feeling?

For me, I can help other people evaluate their thoughts and feelings ten times easier than I can my own. Sometimes, I need to jot them all down and then look at them and go, “Here’s what I need to do to move forward.” For people that don’t like to write or type, sometimes I’ll recommend that you do voice memos. A lot of software now will auto-transcribe it for you, or you can keep that in a record somewhere. Getting out your thoughts and what you feel can be powerful.

Living With Loss: Coping After The Death Of A Loved One

When Nathan left this world, did you feel like you no longer could exist and life was unbearable? Was it the children that pulled you into having to function?

I felt like the thought that I had continually was, “What’s the point? What does it matter?” We had some pretty big life dreams. We got married very young. We were very broke and worked very hard. I went back to school and we had kids. We were on this trajectory of reaching certain life goals, and we were very close to hitting some of those. It felt like, as I would get to experience them over the next couple of years, they were soured very much by the fact of, “What does it matter? He’s not here.”

One of the stories that I tell is that I had a memorial garden made for him a few months after he died, and I thought that it would be a great idea and it would be a celebration of his life. I would just go out there and be tormented. It was just a constant reminder that he was never there. I can remember one day just crying so hard, and my chest hurt so badly. I thought my heart was going to burst right there.

I remember a specific afternoon when I was doing that, and I thought about my kids and the fact that they had lost their dad. Even though I was technically still alive, I felt just like a shadow of the person that I was. I was just going through the motions and living life. I thought about how, if I have a typical life, this is another 40 or 50 years of this. I couldn’t wrap my mind around, “This is it.”

I’ve done some grief work but this was supposed to be my story? I couldn’t fathom it. Sitting on that bench, I decided, “I have to figure out how to be able to get on the other side of grief. Not only for me but for my four kids that very much don’t want to see the legacy of their father be that it destroyed their mother’s life as well.”

Thank you for that. At 37, Nathan is gone. You are wrestling with, you said, technically still alive, like existing, but that idea of what you have in the brain, widow, wanting people to have a life they love. That first came from you. It sounds as if you started with yourself with that desire and have been multiplying that with other people.

I was so curious to understand whether or not it was even possible. It came from a place of curiosity. How can people get to a point where they’re happy again? Marrying someone seemed very repulsive at the time, but I was like, “How do people get there?” I joined tons of Facebook groups. I talked to hundreds of widows. I asked all the questions and consumed it so that I could start to predict what people would tell other people and started to understand that it requires action and being proactive to rebuild your life.

What I will tell widows, if they’re early on, is that it starts with the belief that you can enjoy life and love your life again. You don’t have to know how. You don’t have to see the pathway there. You just have to have this tiny shred of belief that some way, somehow, it’s possible. If you don’t believe it yet, I’m going to believe it for you. We’re going to trust the process, and we’re going to take baby steps.

As people take those steps, they start to see that for themselves. They start to get a glimpse of it. I did not realize I was going to have to rebuild my entire life, social circle, interests, and my goals like from the ashes starting over. With everything that I’ve learned and I’ve been able to see other people go through as well, that is where we are starting from, almost square one.

I like that, just believe it’s possible. If you can’t believe it, I’ll believe it for you. When I hear that, words are powerful. Our thought process is going to dictate where we’re at in that grief journey. If I constantly say, “I’m going to be miserable the rest of my life. This is going to be horrible. My life is never going to be happy again.” If we’re constantly telling ourselves that, we will create that world for us.

That is different than, “I’m sad that he’s no longer here, and I’m trying to figure out life.” It’s a sense of doom and eternal misery that you cannot get out of. If you start there and you continually tell yourself that, the pull out of that becomes difficult. If I were the discovery call and you leaned right into it. You’re sitting down and that’s my message. What would that look like in working with you?

What I help teach people, and this takes a lot of practice and time. Your thoughts directly impact your feelings, and that will downstream into your actions and your results. We start with your thoughts. You’re so right, if you have this thought of “It’s hopeless. Nothing I can do matters. I’ll never feel this way.” That’s why I said you have to start with the belief that it’s possible.

You don’t have to have a new thought that’s like, “I’m going to love my life, and it’s going to be great.” It has to be something true and you can get behind. You can get your energy behind it. Your new thought might be, “I don’t see how it’s possible, but I choose to believe that it is.” It could be, “I’m going to take one step at a time. I’m going to figure this out. I’m going to trust the process.”

I work with people to understand what is the most true thought for them that we could start to work with and even just encourage them. If you’ll trust the process, whether it’s going through the Grief Recovery Method or taking them through something else, you’ll see in a few weeks your entire mindset start to shift. Time alone is not enough to heal our wounds. That’s one of the big components of what grief recovery method teaches. You have to put action behind that decision. You can’t just sit back and wait for things to get better because oftentimes, you may find they feel worse.

Are you saying when people tell me that in time my grief will get better, they’re not accurate?

Correct. I encourage people to think about it like a physical wound. Let’s say you break a bone. Coming from healthcare, it feels very natural to me. What do you do immediately? You seek medical care, and you get that bone treated. If you were to not seek medical care and let that bone try to heal on its own, what you may find months or years later is that now there’s going to be a complicated healing process. They’ve got to rebreak it, reset it, have surgery, and it may be a more difficult process.

Not to discourage people if they have already waited that time, but just to be aware that there’s not going to be a time where you magically feel better. I had a wonderful widow on the show who talked about this. She waited three years of going through the motions, and trying to get through the day. A few years later, she felt worse than she did when her husband died.

Getting Unstuck In Grief: Practical Steps To Overcome Isolation

I can relate to that. When I hear that, I think about somebody being stuck in a space. You mentioned that for this to change, it requires us to take action. It requires us to lean into what is the most painful thing that we don’t want to lean into. It makes me think of someone. They used to go to the grocery store, so they don’t go to the grocery store anymore. They start pulling back from all of the things that they enjoyed doing with their spouse. They’ve isolated and feeling stuck. Often, people, whether it is a unfortunate passing of a parent, a child, or whoever it is that they are grieving, are there some things that people could consider or do to try to get unstuck from that place?

It starts with doing the work of emotional healing. That might be therapy, a grief group, or reading some grief books, but allowing yourself to sit in and process the pain. My coach, Dr. Betsy Guerra, talks about pain is like poop. It can be a fertilizer if we embrace it, process it, and let it go. We don’t want to do that because it stinks and it’s awful. We don’t like that. If you’ll process it, it will fertilize and help you grow, and you will blossom and thrive through that.

For me, I tell people it starts with emotional healing. You don’t have to feel pressure to get out there and start doing a bunch of things. Over time, start taking some of those steps to connect with people, to go to the grocery store, and know it’s going to be hard, awkward, and weird. If you will keep doing it, what is happening is your brain needs time to make new associations. That’s why holidays and milestones are hard, because they only come around once a year. It takes longer for our brain to stop associating that holiday every time with that person.

Joining The Brave Widow Community

That’s good. If I were a member of Brave Widow, what does that community look like? How does that help me on my grief journey?

We have all sorts of courses and things inside the community where we help widows wherever they are in the journey. Typically, I’ll connect with widows as they come in, make sure I understand where they are, and recommend the exact next step for them of where they should focus. We also have calls twice a month. At the time of this recording, the next day will be Valentine’s. We’re doing a special Valentine’s Day work session where we’re going to honor the love that we have for our late person.

I’ll have a group coaching call where people can come and get coaching, or they can just get to know other widows and connect there. We have private forums, which is like a social media set up. You can see other people’s profiles, chat with each other, direct message each other, and build relationships there. Throughout the year, we have different mastermind groups or specific topics we focus on.

In the general community, in March 2025, we’re going to be focusing on decluttering your mind and your home, some tips on how to maintain your home throughout the year and how to get through the challenges of, when do I get rid of my spouse’s things, what do I do with them, and how do I make the process easier. Every month has a different theme in what we do in the overall community.

I like that March is coming into spring and spring cleaning that mindset and leveraging that. That is amazing. I am so grateful for you being willing to be a part of this conversation and to be connected. Widowhood is already there for the long game. Are there some things that you wanted to make sure we spoke about or some things you wanted to highlight that maybe I haven’t covered in this conversation?

You’ve been a phenomenal host. My goal in this conversation, which we covered is to help inspire someone to believe that no matter how hopeless, pointless, and frustrating the journey is, and it is a frustrating journey. They can have that tiny spark of belief that it is possible to have a life they truly love and be excited about for the future. I know it’s possible for you.

Managing Grief While Supporting Children

That is beautiful. I did think of one thing. We did not touch upon managing the grief of young children as you’re simultaneously managing yours. My children were adults when their dad passed. I think there are unique challenges in each of those groups. I often hear of younger widows with young children who are very apprehensive about showing their grief to their children because their children will start trying to take on the role of the missing parent, or they don’t want to scare their children. What are some things that you had to navigate from your perspective with having younger children? You had a range there from 10 to 19. You were doing it all together, if you would share some of that, please.

One of the most helpful things I learned early on was managing my expectations of what I thought grief should look like for them. They all responded very differently. We think about the five stages of grief, so we expect everyone to cry or look a certain way or talk a certain way. All four of my kids responded very differently. I’m grateful that I learned that early on or else I would have worried a lot about, “This one hasn’t cried yet. What’s wrong?” I did put each of them in therapy and counseling. Some have stayed much longer than others.

How I thought about it was, I wanted to be honest with my kids. We had a conversation early on where I said, “This whole grief thing is going to be difficult to navigate. There may be days where I’m irritable or sad, or someone’s in a bad mood and we don’t know why. That’s probably the grief in the background, underneath the surface. We just want to be understanding with each other and also be able to talk about it.”

I had tissues in every room of the house. It wasn’t like, “I have a teary moment, and I need to cry for a minute.” However, where I did hold back or schedule my grief, if you will, was when that pit-in-your-stomach, sobbing, weeping, and wailing and all of those things. I did not do that in front of my kids. I also didn’t hold back regular tears, talking about things I was thinking about, and all of that.

Overcoming Challenges To Support Others Through Grief

Thank you so much for sharing that. I’m so grateful. I know you’re super busy, you’re getting ready for the call and everything you have going on, and yet you’re still taking time to reach out to other people. One thing I’ve learned is that everyone needs an opportunity to connect with someone and hear something different because it helps them pick a piece of that nugget in their own particular journey. Thank you for making time for this conversation. Do you have any questions for me? I like to ask people if they have anything. Sometimes there’s something in the back of my mind. It maybe not be, but I figure I’d ask.

I don’t know that I have a question, but I want to give you kudos because what you didn’t mention about the Winter Solstice was that you had committed to being on the panel. You showed up for the panel, and you were also incredibly sick and your beautiful spirit still came through. You gave so many wisdom bombs to the widows, and it was obvious. I can’t remember exactly what you had.

Pneumonia. I literally had been feeling like something was coming on, and I went to the emergency urgent care or something. I couldn’t get into my primary care, and they were like, “You have pneumonia.” When I came home, I was a hot mess. It was the day of that. I was telling my husband, I was like, “I’ve committed to this because I know what it’s like to be in that place. I know what it’s like when people say they’re going to do something for you, and then they don’t show up.”

I know what it’s like to have to do the event. I know what it’s like to be that widow who may have read that one bio and wanted to hear from that person. Sometimes, as you said, it’s those small things you’re trying to hold on to. When you have something to hope for and look forward to, you want that thing to happen. If not, the letdown seems so much worse for me after Mark died than a letdown I dealt with before. I don’t take that lightly.

My journey of breast cancer before Mark died showed me how to say no and not overcommit. When I do say yes to things, as you can tell, my intention is to be there. I was so hyped up on medication, and propped in the chair but I was like, “I want to be there for those widows because there were people that were there for me.” After that, I was laid out for like 3 or 4 days. He was so mad at me. When I left out of this office, he was standing there with the meanest face I’ve ever seen. He was like, “What?” I was like, “I’m sorry.” I medicated and was out. I wanted to be there for them.

I appreciate that. I can hear your heart through that story. I just want your audience to know that this event was late in the evening, and I gave you an easy opportunity to bow out gracefully and your strong-willed response of, “No, I’m here. I’m doing this. It’s going to happen.” There was no question. Thank you for that as well. Thank you for hosting me on your show.

You’re welcome. I like to give my guests an opportunity to close a conversation. Any final thoughts or things you want to share? I think we covered how they can reach you, but anything you want to wrap up this discussion with?

The last thing that I would share is that grief recovery and healing your heart is the beginning. You can build a life that is so much more abundant and beautiful. It allows you to hold two things that feel like opposing truths in your hands, which is, “I love my person. I love the life I had. I love my life now equally.” Until you get there, it’s hard to believe that that’s possible, but I want to encourage you that it is possible for you, too.

Thanks for being here. Thank you, everyone, for reading. I’ll see you in the next episode.

Important Links

• Emily Tanner on LinkedIn
• Emily@BraveWidow.com
• Faith Coaching Academy
• Grief Recovery Method Institute
• Brave Widow
• Brave Widow on YouTube
• Brave Widow on YouTube (Featured)
• Brave Widow on Facebook
• Brave Widow – Widow Winter Solstice 2024 Replay
• Brave Widow on Twitter
• Brave Widow on Instagram
• The Grief Recovery Handbook

About Emily Tanner

Just one month shy of their 20th wedding anniversary, Emily was widowed unexpectedly at the age of 37.  She and Nathan have 4 children who were ages 10 – 19 at the time.  She founded Brave Widow and the membership community to help other widows navigate grief, heal their heart, and create a life they love again.

She is certified by the accredited Faith-Based Coaching Academy and the Grief Recovery Method Institute.

Prior to Brave Widow, Emily served as Senior Vice President of Revenue Cycle in the healthcare industry leading teams of ~4,000 associates in 100+ hospitals across the U.S.  She earned an MBA from John Brown University with an emphasis in leadership and ethics.

Her passion for servant leadership, collaboration, helping people, and bridging gaps is the driving force behind why Brave Widow exists today.