Learning to Grieve with Brooke James, Host of the Grief Coach
After Brooke's father's death, she realized that no one knew how to speak to her about grief. Most people are uncomfortable with the topic, which is why she started The Grief Coach Podcast. Grief, love, and pain can be hard to talk about and articulate in words with family members. With this loss, Brooke had to reformulate her own expectations around what a family life looked like. Luckily, her family came together despite losing their gravitational center.
We discuss how traditions are less than ideal when you don't fit into the standard box and why Brooke felt pressure to have kids on a timeline. Stay tuned as Brooke speaks about the pressure of having kids, finding emotional endurance, and feeling lighter after the grieving process.
Takeaways:
Processing grief can take a lifetime.
It’s okay when death affects a family; make new traditions to get through the grief.
When grieving, let yourself be sad.
Grief, love, and pain can be hard to talk about and articulate in words with family members
Traditions can be painful if your life doesn’t fit into the box
You envision your life to be a certain way, then life gets in the way and throws you a curveball. You have to find the emotional endurance to get through it.
In This Episode:
[ 5:00 ] What Brooke is aiming to do with grief conversations
[ 7:30 ] About Brooke’s family dynamic. Her father was the gravitational center of the family
[ 13:50 ] How Brooke thinks about family after the death of her father
[ 14:21 ] Why Brooke felt she needed to have kids on a timeline and how she feels about weddings today
[ 18:40 ] Feedback for someone going through the grieving process: let yourself be sad
[ 30:30 ] About feeling lighter after the grieving process
[ 34:38 ] Admitting publicly that your grief is a work in progress is difficult because we want to project success on social media
[ 36:32 ] Processing grief is messy and don't let people make you feel bad for how long it's taking you - we’re all on our own timeline
