Speaker 1: 0:00

If someone's down in the mud, like they're just down in it, we want to pull them up, like we want to comfort, we want to help them, we want to pull them up and sometimes what we need most is someone who's just very curious and someone that will acknowledge, like, tell me what you've been experiencing, and without judgment, without advice, without any of those things like just really listening and really being curious about that person's experience and just validating where they are and how they feel, even if you don't agree.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Welcome to this Empty Nest Life. Join Jay Ramsden as he leads you on a transformative journey through the uncharted seas of midlife and empty nesting. If you're ready to embark on this new adventure and redefine your future, you're in the right place. Here's your host, the Empty Nest Coach, Jay Ramsden.

Speaker 3: 0:56

Emily Tanner, the brave widow, thanks for being here. So glad to have you on the show.

Speaker 1: 1:01

Thanks, Jay. I'm really glad to be here and appreciate the invite. So glad to have you on the show.

Speaker 3: 1:05

Thanks, Jay. I'm really glad to be here and appreciate the invite. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to say I'm excited to have you here and I know like widow and excited don't normally go together. But what I'm excited about is the journey that you've been on and I'm just like I guess off the bat, like I'm really curious, when your husband passed, what was the impetus to be like I need to start the brave window community? What did? What did that look like? What was that journey like for you?

Speaker 1: 1:33

that's a great question, yeah and um. It is weird sometimes to be excited and talking about widowhood, and I always like people's expressions when I say I can talk about grief and death and all those things like all day. I just love it. We don't love it in the beginning, but it's been such an interesting journey. But my husband died in July of 2021. We had four teenagers. They were all teenagers at the time and shortly after he died, within a couple of months, I, for my workplace people just started reaching out.

Speaker 1: 2:12

There were other young widows who were losing their husbands and people wanted to know, like, how do I help them? What do I do? What do I say? And I really it just tugged at my heart, this drive of I have to help other people, because people would give you platitudes and say, oh, he's in heaven and that's where God wants him. And, as a widow, that doesn't help you at all. But also, culturally, we're not educated on grief and we don't know what to say and we don't know what to do. And so I just started creating checklists, I started creating posts to share on social media and I just got a lot of positive feedback that people felt or in searching for someone that could help through grief. It really just didn't seem like there were a ton of options out there. So ultimately I felt just this really strong desire to help other people and to create a community and an environment of what I wanted when I was going through it at the time.

Speaker 3: 3:26

Yeah, and I think that's a great like kind of journey story and so important, Emily, because I see it a lot with my empty nesters and that's why I'm excited that you're here so so often. I'll get, I'll post something. And then somebody will say, well, try, empty nesting and losing your spouse or partner at the same time or within a year or two of each other, and it's like a double whammy worth of grief. In that moment and I think we talked a little bit about this when I was on your show is like grief is grief right, and there's different layers to it depending on what you're going through. And when it hits double, it's like whoa right. It's like not only did I lose my partner's spouse, but now the kids are starting to move on it and I'm, to an extent, losing them as well. What kind of advice or information could you share about people who are going through the double.

Speaker 1: 4:20

Yeah, I think what's so interesting is when we lose our spouse and when we lose you know, quote unquote lose our kids, because they're moving upwards and onwards we don't often expect how much it's going to change our identity and our sense of meaning and purpose, our identity and our sense of meaning and purpose, and we can have this loss of well, now what am I supposed to do? Because my job was to be a wife or a mom or you know, I did all these things like. That was my purpose, that's what I was here for, and now I don't feel like either one of those things. So what I often try to describe to people is and there's a beautiful way that Dr John Deloney talks about grief and loss is that the life that you had before is really in ashes. Now it's over, it's gone, but that doesn't mean that something beautiful can't come next. It's just that we have to choose to build something different and to build a new life and to find other things that fulfill our purpose.

Speaker 3: 5:37

Yeah, I love that piece, but you had mentioned earlier kind of like the identity right, the identity of being a mom or a dad or a husband or a wife or a partner, and then when we get so wrapped up in that and it disappears literally overnight. That's, I think, what people struggle with the most right, and I would imagine you see the same thing with the widows that you help.

Speaker 1: 6:02

Yeah, that's one of the core things that I really focus on is that emotional healing and processing grief is really just foundational. Whereas there are a lot of programs, that that's the soul and key focus and it's very much needed. But as we look at the rest of our life, most of the time the people that I work with, they come to me and they're like OK, I did the emotional healing, I have processed my grief, but now what Like is this? It Is this, what am I now? What do I do now? Emotional and the grief and the loss is really the foundation of building this new identity and creating this next version of who you want to become and what you want your life to look like.

Speaker 3: 6:53

Yeah, and I think that's why I like, I'm so drawn to your message because it's similar to the message that I have is like it's a life transition that happens in a moment that I have is like it's a life transition that happens in a moment, right, your partner, your spouse, passes away, and it is a moment in time and then the question is like, okay, now what? And the same thing with when the kids go to empty nesting and I was talking to other people recently, like the fires in LA, it's another life transition in a moment, now what, right. And so when we have these now what moments in life? It isn't necessarily. It is right Process the grief and the loss and the pain and the emotions in the moment, but then what's the next stage? Like, what's the next step? How do you help widows through that?

Speaker 1: 7:37

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:38

So really I walked them through what I call four stages of widowhood, which could also be four stages of just creating this next part of your life, which is you've gone through this period of devastation.

Speaker 1: 7:52

Then you move through this stage of like you're in survival mode and you're in a new routine, but it's not great, you're not excited about it, it's just what it is.

Speaker 1: 8:06

And so then I start to work with widows and to help people, start to explore what life could be, and I think about it like we're walking through this path in a forest and we can't see very far ahead and we don't know what's on the other side, like who am I, what do I like, what do I think I might like doing, and so, similar to a toddler, we're trying new things and it's awkward and it's weird, and we just do it anyway, and we form new relationships with people and we start sorting what this life could be and really gaining clarity on what we want for our future. And the final stage is around creating that, or you want to think about it as manifesting it or bringing it forward into your life. Of what kind of life do you want to have? What do you want more of in your life and how can you start tapping into that? How can you start engaging in those activities now to bring that forward faster?

Speaker 3: 9:11

Yeah, what's? What would most of the people that you work with say Like? What do they want more of? Is there like a generic, or is it all over the place for your folks?

Speaker 1: 9:22

Oh, that's a really good question. I think most people want connection, someone, and a lot of the positives of learning, because we teach emotional intelligence, I teach attachment styles and communication. And it's a double-edged sword because on one hand, you learn a lot, you're elevated in how you communicate with other people. Having gone through grief and loss, you understand others as they're going through that much better, you can show up more, and on the other side, it kind of feels like you're leaving family and friends behind. Maybe they haven't had a great relationship with you, maybe, like one widow I talked to earlier today, she's had years of family dysfunction and just thought that's the way it's supposed to be. So people learn boundaries and they learn healthy relationships and communication, which is wonderful on one hand and also difficult. So what most widows are craving is someone who sees them, who hears them, who wants to understand, like who they are and how they think, and just have that deeper sense of meaning and connection now that their literal other half is no longer here.

Speaker 3: 10:43

Yeah, and I know a lot, of, a lot of people that you do work with find that in it's in your brave little community, right. They find that connection, that belonging, that understanding. How do they parlay that into life at home?

Speaker 1: 10:58

So one of the things that we have fun teaching is how to meet new people and make friends. So I just teach them different strategies and things that I've used and other widows have used. Even if, like, I'm an introvert, I'm a homebody, I don't really care for a lot of small talk. I had to learn how to embrace that. I didn't always know what to say, so I teach people you know, when you whether you go to a conference or a local meetup or you want to be that, that person that awkwardly ask someone else if they want to go out for lunch like how to put themselves out there to start either nurturing existing relationships or meeting new people and building up those relationships over time.

Speaker 3: 11:48

Yeah, so good. I had somebody share recently with me about just making friends, right, or friends when you're older, and I think it applies here too, and there were three keys to that and it was the same time. I think it was Mel Robbins. He shared Mel Robbins, but Mel was talking about it from her book Let them, and it was a on the same timeline, like you're in the same spot in life, and then the next one is the same energy, right. And then finally, it is like proximity, like who's close to you? So is there a way that you teach your widows to kind of find that for themselves? Like I guess the proximity part is what I think of most is like OK, how can I connect with other widows locally? Or what does that look like? Or I don't know if it's branched out for you and your membership, where people are like oh, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here, what does that look like?

Speaker 1: 12:50

here.

Speaker 1: 12:50

What does that look like?

Speaker 1: 12:50

So one of the we actually just went through this exercise a couple of weeks ago with a group of I have them just identify, you know who are existing family members that they might want to rekindle or nurture a relationship with, again Existing friends that they've had in the past that haven't really been there for them, but we want to try to see if we can reconnect and nurture that relationship.

Speaker 1: 13:15

I encourage them to go to whether it's widows groups or grief groups, but someone who understands kind of that one point you made about, like they're in the same season of life or they're on the same journey, someone where I don't really have to spend a lot of time explaining what it means to have lost a loved one, but we already kind of know. I just get to talk about it. And then I encourage them to develop friendships of people who haven't known them in the past, who aren't expecting them to go back to the way they quote unquote were, but who have shared interests or hobbies or goals that they have, whether it's a pickleball group or a real estate investing group or, you know, a women's group, like whatever. That shared interest or goal is that they start spending time to that proximity principle a little bit more with those folks so that they have a really good, well-rounded support system of people around them that they can connect with on different occasions.

Speaker 3: 14:23

Yeah, that's so good and I think it's true for empty nesters too. Right, if you're going through that and you're going through widowhood or widowerhood, right, that it is like take those steps and implement them to try and find folks that are close by that can support you, because I think support is the biggest piece that sometimes folks are missing. We talked about the one widow who just thought that's how life operated, with family dynamics, and that's not always the case and it can always change. You can always choose other family. That's not blood to find.

Speaker 1: 15:03

Yeah, that's true. Who's an empty nester? You probably get all kinds of feedback from people of like, oh, you should be happy, this is the best time of your life, and you're just thinking to yourself this is not helping me.

Speaker 3: 15:17

So true, so true it's. I think that's like a good segue is like how do we talk to people, whether it's empty nesting or whether it's someone who's lost a partner or spouse and then I saw a post recently to get about the LA fires. Like how do you talk to somebody who's lost everything in their home? Right, it's not like you're going to be great or you'll find someone new, or you know well, are you kidding me? Like empty nesting? This should be the best time of your life. You have no responsibilities. Like for the people who don't get it and if you're listening, maybe you get it right, because that's why you listen to this show. But if you want to pass it on, like what are some things people could say to someone who's newly widowed or a new widower that can help, that aren't beyond, like it'll be okay. Or you know people are looking out for you like what are some key words that they could use?

Speaker 1: 16:08

yeah, and I um, I get this question a lot and I will say tongue-in-cheek like sometimes the best thing you can say is just to listen and, um, there is nothing that people can say to take away the pain, to make someone feel better, to pull, like Simon Sinek sometimes thinks about this. Like if someone's down in the mud, like they're just down in it, we want to pull them up. Like we want to comfort, we want to help them, we want to pull them up and sometimes what we need most is someone who's just very curious and someone that will acknowledge like this is a bad thing that happened, or this is a hard time, or I can't really imagine what you feel. Like. What is it like?

Speaker 1: 17:02

Like tell me, tell me what you've been experiencing, and without judgment, without advice, without any of those things, like just really listening and really being curious about that person's experience and just validating where they are and how they feel, even if you don't agree, like, oh well, you should be happy you don't have kids at home. But if someone's expressing like this is a really hard time for me just saying like, oh, that has to be really hard. Like, tell me about it. Like tell me how hard it's been. Just acknowledging their pain or their hurt or where they are can go such a long way.

Speaker 3: 17:43

Yeah, and I love that you brought up Simon Sinek. I think Brené Brown says something similar. It's just to be like, yeah, that sucks Right, and I'm here for you.

Speaker 2: 17:52

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 17:52

Whatever you need to, even to sit and listen or say nothing at all, just be in a room together, right, no words need to be spoken. I think that's sometimes the greatest support there is, where you can trust that nobody's going to say anything or try to fix it for you. And so I love that piece about the mud. It's like sometimes you just got to get in the mud with your friends or your close ones.

Speaker 1: 18:15

Yeah, and it can be awkward and uncomfortable and weird and we don't like which is awkward, like it's against our nature, especially for maternal people, because when we do that, it stops them from expressing and processing what it is that they're feeling. And so, as awkward and weird as it can feel at times, just allow like leaning into that and letting that person cry and letting that person be in their sorrow and just allowing them to know like hey, I'm right here with you. You don't have to go through this alone. As long as it takes, I'm going to keep showing up.

Speaker 3: 19:11

Yeah, I love that. The imagery that popped in my mind is when someone's coughing and you encourage them to keep coughing right, it's like that's how you process that particular thing and it's the same with our emotions. It's like I always believe like all feelings are valid and to show them is the way that we process through them, right, and I love that you brought that up. I think it's important for folks who aren't going through it, but maybe have a partner spouse or a friend sorry who have lost a partner spouse or who are empty nesting or whatever it may be, is just to step back and be like I'm just here.

Speaker 1: 19:46

Yeah, definitely, and there was a statistic I read that I want to say widows lose 75% of their social circle in the first year. Most widows I know would probably say it's more like 95% instead of 75. But people, for whatever reason I don't know if empty nesters have the same challenge, but it's like as you're going through this season of your life, we become very internal, we focus inward. Our world has stopped. We don't really reach out to other friends because we don't have the bandwidth to do that at, but then people just disappear, and the people who we thought the most would be there and would keep showing up often aren't. And so just continuing to show up, continuing to reach out, that's, I think, one of the best things that people can do.

Speaker 3: 20:41

Yeah, no, I love that.

Speaker 3: 20:43

And you know, we in my friend, like my close friend circle, I had one of my friends lose his wife, someone that we went to the beach with every year.

Speaker 3: 20:52

This was like almost five years ago now, but one of the things that kind of I worked on with my other friends was to be like, okay, this is happening, right, check, check on it. Like this is your week to check, this is your week to check. That Like just let's make a purpose of like checking in and not to let that like disappear, right, and let's even just reinforce that throughout time. And so, even when something new comes up now, five or six years later, it was he had to give back a foster dog. His daughter had just graduated and was moving away, and there was, um, it was also the time like the week of the anniversary of the passing of his wife, and so I just texted my friends and was like, hey, just want you to know these three things are happening. It may seem insignificant in individual pieces, but all three of them together just send a text, just check on them, and so I think that's so important for people to know.

Speaker 1: 21:49

It's like that's how you can actually keep somebody you know from getting lost in the shuffle absolutely, and those like the anniversary of his wife, um, those are dates that most people don't think to track or remember or put on their calendar, but but to that person it's a lot. So I'm sure he's very blessed to have you and your friends as support around him.

Speaker 3: 22:16

Yeah, and I don't share it to be like, oh, this is something. It's more like hey, people, this is something you need to do for your friends in their lives, right, this is how you show up as a friend in a time of need forever, right, it's such an important thing to support.

Speaker 1: 22:34

Yeah, I totally agree.

Speaker 3: 22:36

Ellie, I'm curious, like what's one thing you have learned about yourself in this journey?

Speaker 1: 22:42

Oh, so much.

Speaker 1: 22:45

Maybe she has more than one, okay, so I think it's. I have learned, and you know as a coach, how important our thoughts are and how our thoughts drive our feelings and drive our actions and all of these things, and so it has been so interesting for me to just evaluate, like, what are the core thoughts that I've had throughout my life? What have the themes been? Why am I thinking that? What you know, what's behind that? Just getting curious about what are some of the things that I tend to default to or my brain likes to feed me?

Speaker 1: 23:28

You know, like you know, I'm afraid of letting people down or I'm afraid it's not going to be good enough, or I have this insane internal desire that I want people to be proud, like I want people to be proud, like I want you to be proud, I'm a guest on your show. I want my husband now to be proud that I'm his wife. And so just peeling back, I think, some of those layers and figuring out, okay, what drives that and what does? Where does that come from and how is that influencing, you know, my ability or my tendency to want to people, please, and how can I develop healthy boundaries in keeping myself from feeling resentful and burnt out when I want to give and give, and give, and give and give, and then I resent people because I feel like I'm being taken advantage of, when really it's myself and my tendency to want to overcommit or to make someone happy or you know, just learning what my tendencies have been and where that comes from has been one of the biggest things I think I've learned about myself.

Speaker 3: 24:35

I love that in that you're self-aware about what it is that may or may be driving you and driving your actions. How do you use that self-awareness in your work with widows?

Speaker 1: 24:49

Yeah. So I have worked very hard to constrain, for example, my calendar, or to constrain like I'm a teacher and I love to teach all the topics and I love to teach as much as I can about everything, and so I really have to coach myself on not doing that. So, for example, when I started Brave Widow, I wanted clients and so I would bend over backwards to be available or to do evening calls, or had somebody that wanted to meet on the weekends, and because I wanted them to be happy and because I wanted to be a peer accommodating, you know, I would agree to those things and I did a lot of classes in the evenings and things like that. But ultimately what would happen is, you know, I had four teenagers, three still at home, and we have bunches of activities that happen in the evenings and on the weekends and I just felt this frustration of, well, I have to teach classes in the evenings and I have to do this and I have to do that.

Speaker 1: 25:56

So over time I really just got to where I would constrain my calendar and say, look, this is my availability. You know, I'm sorry if that doesn't work for you, this is what I have that works for me. It may not make everyone happy, but most people figure it out. They figure out how to make it work Right and it just allows me to show up with for my kids in a very focused way. It allows me to show up for my clients in a way where I don't feel resentful, like I have to be on this call with you now but to be like, yes, I'm so excited to be here. So a lot for me has been about constraining my time. Even response time to people who reach out, not feeling like I have to respond right away because I have this level of urgency, I think has helped me just feel really good about how and where I show up and how I'm dividing my time.

Speaker 3: 26:51

Yeah, I get that too. It's the same like when we're coaches. As coaches, we want to help people and we want to be available to help people all of the time, and you know we we want to be available to help people all of the time, and you know, we've got to be able to balance our lives with that too, and so I appreciate you sharing that for sure. It's like how do you balance life Right?

Speaker 1: 27:11

Yeah, absolutely. And how do you not? Sometimes I realize I bring things on myself. So if I respond to a lot of emails or I use Voxer a lot for messaging, you know, if I'm responding to those things on evenings and weekends and when I normally wouldn't check them, am I teaching people like, oh, this is the time that you should reach out and message me, because that's when you'll get a response, versus like OK, well, let's wait until a time where I have it scheduled. I know I can be consistent at responding at that time and then I don't have to feel like I'm always on, like I can have a time where I'm like OK, I'm focusing on something else now, I'm taking a break, and it creates just a little more consistency in my life.

Speaker 3: 27:59

Yeah, thinking of boundaries like what's like the number one boundary that widows need to learn, is there one?

Speaker 1: 28:08

Well, there's many, actually a lot of widows are struggle with people pleasing and struggle with boundaries, with the.

Speaker 1: 28:22

It's really to me the expectations they put on themselves. Well, I should be able to do this, I should be able to mow my lawn and I should be able to figure out all the passwords to all the websites and I should be able to do my laundry. Like, how hard is it to do laundry? But when you're in such deep grief and you're going through all the red tape of notifying all the people, getting car titles changed over and all of that, the expectations you have on yourself should be significantly lower than what you're normally used to being able to do. And so I think sometimes that one of the biggest boundaries is that widows are resistant to asking for help and to being clear about like hey, could you come wash dishes for me? Could you mow the lawn, could you have someone do this? And so they don't have a boundary with what they expect of themselves and therefore it's really difficult for them to ask for help or to communicate what it is they need.

Speaker 3: 29:29

Yeah, it's like stop stop shooting on yourself, right, like yes exactly. To paraphrase Right, but right, you can. I can see where your mind went with that and it was purposeful. Like, yeah, stop shitting on yourself. Like should this, should that? It's like it doesn't help? Right, it just layers on. But how do you teach people to ask for help?

Speaker 1: 29:51

Yes, I have a whole course on that, and where we start is actually have a comprehensive list that people can use to even know what to ask for help with, Because in the early days you're like I don't even know.

Speaker 1: 30:05

I don't even know what I need. I'm just surviving day by day. So we start by saying like here's a detailed list of all the things you could ask for help with, and either you can check the it's a literal checklist you can check the boxes to say I need help with these things, or you can give that list to family and friends and say please let me know what you would be able and willing to do. Here we teach widows how to make you know specific requests like hey, I really need to get my lawn mowed by next Saturday. Could anyone do it between now and then? So just being able to vocalize what they need help with, or if they're really uncomfortable with that, then either assigning someone to be like a personal liaison who will help coordinate help for them.

Speaker 3: 30:55

So good.

Speaker 1: 30:56

Or to even ask people like for recommendations, like, oh hey, do you know someone who could help with some house cleaning? Do you know someone who could help with X, y or Z? And sometimes people you know, oh, this light switch isn't working in my kitchen, do you know someone who could help with that? And a lot of times people will be like, oh, I could do that, or my brother could do that, or it kind of spurs people to want to be able to help. But if we don't vocalize with some specificity what it is that we need, then people don't know how to show up for us.

Speaker 3: 31:33

Yeah, the specificity part right. It's like there's this open list of things and if you don't purposefully say X, y or Z, people are just going to leave it up to guessing. Right. And I see that happen a lot with other things in life, where you know maybe there might be an instance and you know somebody wants to start a meal train for somebody and the next thing you know your freezer is full of like 30 different casseroles. Is that what you really needed in the moment? But no, people didn't know how to help any other way. So unless you ask for it, they don't know what to do.

Speaker 1: 32:04

Yeah, yeah. And my number one tip because I get this question a lot too is like okay, what should we give you know to somebody who's grieving or going through a hard time? Is like disposable everything. Disposable silver, silverware, plates, napkins, paper towels, like anything they don't have to wash, take care of. They could just throw it away. That helps make their life a little bit easier.

Speaker 3: 32:26

Yeah, that's a great tip to such a great tip. Before I let you go, tell me what your life motto is, now that you've gone through this journey.

Speaker 1: 32:35

Oh, my life motto as I've gone through this journey is that currently, what I would say it is is how can this be true?

Speaker 1: 32:48

Which is kind of a weird motto to think about, but I have found myself at so many times where I just thought something was really impossible and in grief.

Speaker 1: 33:00

A lot of times we tend to think very either, or like either I loved my late husband, I loved the life I had before, or I love the life I have now. We have a really hard time wrapping our minds around that two things can feel opposite, but true. And so even if it's something like I have 10 things I need to get done on my calendar today and I start feeling really overwhelmed, like there's just not enough time. There's literally physically not enough time to get all of this done. And once I stop and say OK, how could it be true that I can have enough time to get all of this done and suddenly, magically, I come up with a solution. So that has been kind of my mantra and my motto is for things that feel impossible, how could it be true? Because I have come up with the most interesting solutions at times, but making things possible that feel so impossible.

Speaker 3: 34:00

Yeah, how could it be true? That's where that curiosity piece comes in, and I think that's such an important life lesson for people to embrace too is no matter what has happened in your life, whether you're an empty nester, whether you're a widow or whatever it may be. Whatever life transition you're facing is how can you be curious about what's next and how to help yourself through this?

Speaker 2: 34:22

Yeah definitely.

Speaker 3: 34:24

Thank you so much for being here, Emily. I really enjoyed having you on the show.

Speaker 1: 34:27

Well, thank you so much for the invite and thank you for coming on my show as well. I you're always full of great insight and value.

Speaker 3: 34:36

So, thank you, thank you. Where can people find you if they want to connect with you?

Speaker 1: 34:40

Yeah, they can go to bravewidowcom and there's a contact me link there and I'm also really active on Instagram at brave underscore widow.

Speaker 3: 34:52

Excellent, awesome. Put it in the show notes and people want to reach out to you. Don't know where to find you.

Speaker 1: 34:57

All right, thank you. Thank you. Don't know where to find you. All right.

Speaker 2: 35:01

Thank you. Thank you. Are you ready to start living and enjoying your empty nest years? If so, head over to jasonramsdencom and click work with me to get the conversation started. This empty nest life is a production of Impact. One Media LLC. All rights reserved.