We've reached the end of Season 2! Over these past six months, we've heard from 23 incredible voices - psychologists, artists, fellow widows, writers, parents, and researchers. Each person brought their unique perspective on grief, reminding me (and hopefully you) that grief has many faces and touches every aspect of our lives.

If there's one message I want you to take from this season, it's this: pay attention to how your grief shows up in your body, your choices, your relationships, and your vision for the future.

Grief doesn't always look like despair. Often, it wears the mask of rage, exhaustion, numbness, burnout, or physical pain. Our bodies remember even when our minds try to forget. If you're experiencing stomach pain, headaches, or getting sick constantly, please check in with your doctor. Grief can seriously impact both your physical and mental wellbeing.

I believe grief is something we learn to live with, not something that should take over our entire lives. There's room for both grief and life, and with the right support, you can rebuild after devastating loss.

In our final episode, I spoke with Natalia Millman about her moving art exhibition "Letters to Forever," based on letters sent to her from people around the world. The exhibition opens August 7th for about three weeks in St. Albans, just a short train ride from London.

You can learn more about this powerful project at https://www.nataliamillmanart.com/griefletterproject

I'd love to meet you there! I'll be at the exhibition on August 13th from 12-4PM. This immersive experience is filled with stories of loss that I think you'll find deeply inspiring. There are workshops and activities planned throughout the three-week run, so check the program and sign up. If you're planning to come, please email me at [email protected] so I know to look for you!

Thank you for sharing this Season 2 journey with me. If you're new here, welcome! I encourage you to check out our previous episodes.

I'm excited to share some news about what's coming next. One topic that repeatedly emerged this season was how to navigate relationships after loss. I've noticed this question comes up frequently in our community, often loaded with guilt, fear, pressure, and conflicting feelings.

Some of you feel pushed to move forward with life, while others can't imagine a future with someone new. You might worry about judgment from others (or yourself), feel guilty for thinking about new relationships, or fear opening your heart again.

If you've been feeling stuck or uncertain about relationships after loss, I've created something special for you. This September, I'm launching a free six-part audio mini-course all about relationships after loss. We'll cover:

Navigating modern dating as a widow/widower

Handling judgment from family, friends, and yourself

Preparing your children for your dating life

Breaking the news that you're seeing someone

Managing grief while building new relationships

As always, everything will be grounded in psychology, packed with practical tips, and informed by lived experience. Visit https://www.guidetoafterlife.com/dating to join the waiting list and be first to know when it launches. You'll also receive my grief-friendly dating guide filled with exercises to help you reflect and prepare.

It's been such an honor to share this journey with you. I hope you have a restorative summer break, and I look forward to seeing many of you in St. Albans on August 13th!

Connect with me on Facebook and Instagram @guide_to_afterlife for more grief tips and resources. And don't forget to visit guidetoafterlife.com to send me your questions and access the grief MOT, your free first aid program for grief.

Thank you for being part of our community. Season 3 begins in September with our special focus on relationships after loss.

This week’s conversation is with Natalia Millman—a Ukrainian-born, UK-based artist—whose exhibition Letters to Forever transforms grief into a deeply immersive, multisensory experience.

After losing her father in 2019, Natalia found herself unable to return to her former art practice. Instead, grief redefined her identity as both a person and an artist. In this moving conversation, Natalia opens up about how her father's death sparked a creative metamorphosis—and how the need to do something with grief gave rise to a global project of shared mourning.

Together, we explore:
💌 The origin and emotional power of Letters to Forever
🌀 Why unspoken grief needs a physical space
🌊 The role of sound, scent, and embroidery in expressing loss
🎨 How creativity can bypass language when words are not enough
🌍 Cultural grief, diaspora identity, and the war in Ukraine

Natalia also shares powerful reflections on co-creating parts of the exhibition with her mother, a fellow mourner, and why art has become their shared language of remembrance.

If you’ve ever struggled to talk about your grief or wished for a space to simply feel it—this conversation will speak to your heart.

🖼 About the Exhibition: Letters to Forever

🗓 Dates: 6–28 August 2025
📍 Location: St Peter’s Church, St Albans, Hertfordshire (30 mins by train from London via Thameslink)
🌐 www.nataliamillmanart.com

Letters to Forever is not just an exhibition—it’s an act of communal healing. Visitors will encounter grief letters from around the world, transformed into visual and sensory artworks. The exhibition features a walk-in cube installation made of letters and drawings, sound healing stations, grief meditations, interactive creative areas, and live performances.

🎤 Opening Night:

7 August, 6:30pm

Live music, drinks, performance readings, and an informal welcome

🎭 Closing Performance:

28 August, time TBA

Collaborative sound and video piece featuring Natalia’s live letter readings, created with another artist in memory of their respective parents

🧘 Workshops (advance booking required):

Grief Yoga

Mindful Play: Building a Grief Container

Breathwork & Journaling Circle

Grief Support for Carers of People with Dementia

Creative Grief Workshop for the Ukrainian Community

All proceeds donated to Cruse Bereavement Support. Spaces limited.

Resources:

Guest’s Bio:
I'm Natalia Millman, a multidisciplinary artist born in Ukraine and based in the UK for 24 years. After my father's death in 2019, I turned to art as a way to process grief. My latest project, Letters to Forever, invites the public to write letters to their lost loved ones, which I transform into drawings, installations, and performances. It is a tribute to love, loss, and what still connects us.

Connect with Natalia:
🌐 www.nataliamillmanart.com
📸 Instagram: @nataliamillmanart

This week on A Guide to After Life, Dr. Monika Wieliczko is joined by clinical psychologist and author Dr. Claire Plumbly to explore the often-overlooked intersection between grief and burnout. Together, they unpack how the nervous system responds to grief, why burnout is so common after loss, and how we can begin to rebuild capacity when simply getting through the day feels overwhelming.

Claire shares insights from her book Burnout: How to Manage Your Nervous System Before It Manages You and offers a powerful framework for understanding the nervous system like a car engine with different gears—and how knowing what gear you’re in helps you navigate recovery more effectively.

They explore:

How grief-related burnout differs from emotional exhaustion

What it means to be in “survival mode” and why you can’t just breathe your way out of it

The three types of burnout and how they show up in widowhood and solo parenting

Why nervous system regulation matters—and how to start shifting gears gently

How professional identity, parenting, and purpose get redefined after loss

Resources:

Where to Buy Claire’s Book:
📘 Burnout: How to Manage Your Nervous System Before It Manages You (UK edition)
📘 The Trauma of Burnout (US edition)
🛒 Buy the book directly from Claire’s website: www.drclaireplumbly.com/burnout-book

Guest Bio:
Dr. Claire Plumbly is a clinical psychologist with expertise in trauma, burnout, and nervous system regulation. She is the author of Burnout: How to Manage Your Nervous System Before It Manages You and founder of Good Therapy Ltd. in Somerset, UK. Claire is passionate about helping people understand that burnout is not a personal failure, but a nervous system stuck in survival. Her practical tools and compassionate approach empower people to reclaim their energy, purpose, and self-trust after loss.

Connect with Dr. Claire Plumbly:
🌐 Website: https://www.drclaireplumbly.com
📱 Instagram: @drclaireplumbly
📘 Facebook: Claire Plumbly Psychology
🔗 LinkedIn: Dr. Claire Plumbly
🎥 TikTok: @drclaireplumbly

What happens when grief is more than just sadness—when it floods your entire system, leaving you feeling unsafe in your own body and mind?

This week on A Guide to After Life, Dr. Monika Wieliczko sits down with Dr. Chloe Paidoussis Mitchell, a UK-based Chartered Counselling Psychologist and author of The Loss Prescription, to explore grief through the lens of trauma. Drawing on over 20 years of clinical experience, Chloe offers a powerful and compassionate roadmap for anyone navigating the devastation of traumatic loss.

Together, they dive into:

What makes grief traumatic—and why it matters

How grief affects the nervous system and mental health

The difference between grief and suffering—and how to reduce the latter

The vital role of nervous system regulation in trauma recovery

Tools and therapeutic “prescriptions” to rebuild life after loss

How to honour your emotions without becoming overwhelmed by them

The intersection of personal loss, chronic pain, and resilience

Whether you’ve lost a partner, a parent, or a sense of who you were, this conversation will help you feel seen—and give you practical ways to begin healing.

💡 Resources & Next Steps:

🔍 Take The Grief MOT – your free first-aid tool to help you assess and understand your grief journey.
👉 Take the quiz at guidetoafterlife.com

📖 Buy Chloe’s book, The Loss Prescription, on Amazon – a holistic, trauma-informed guide to grief recovery
👉 Get it here

🎧 Subscribe to A Guide to After Life podcast to hear more real conversations on grief, trauma, and rebuilding after loss.
💬 Book a free 15-minute consultation with Dr. Monika Wieliczko to discuss your Grief MOT results.
🤝 Join a Grief Therapy Group led by Dr. Wieliczko for shared healing and support.
📖 Not sure whether to see a psychologist, psychotherapist, counsellor or grief coach? Read this blog post to learn more.

👤 Guest Bio:
Dr. Chloe Paidoussis Mitchell is a Chartered Counselling Psychologist, trauma specialist, and the founder of The Grief Clinic. Her groundbreaking book The Loss Prescription blends evidence-based psychological tools with deeply personal insights to support people through grief in all its forms. Chloe is passionate about normalizing conversations around trauma, grief, and the nervous system, and currently advocates for a more compassionate, holistic approach to healing after loss.

📚 Buy her book, The Loss Prescription, on Amazon

📲 Connect with Chloe:

Website: https://thegriefclinic.com

Instagram: @dr.chloemitchell

LinkedIn: Dr. Chloe Paidoussis Mitchell

 Grief obliterates the scaffolding of who we once were and we all ask this basic question in the aftermath of a profound loss: what is left of me after you are gone?

This is the topic of this week's conversation with Dr. Nikki Paul, a paediatrician, grief coach, and widowed mother—about the profound identity shift that follows the loss of a partner. From the sudden death of her husband just days after moving into their “forever home” to navigating life with three young children, Nikki shares how grief reshaped every part of who she thought she was.

Together, they explore:

The silent struggle of widowed parents

How grief impacts professional identity and purpose

The role of the body in unprocessed grief

Why coaching and therapy matter in rebuilding life after loss

Resources:

I'm Nikki, a mum, a widow and a doctor. My husband Fletch died in a car crash driving to work in 2018. My life changed instantly. Shattered. Grieving, isolated away from my support network in a renovation project house in the country, whilst on maternity leave. I am not sure I could have felt more lost and alone. Surrounded by packing boxes with our youngest just 3 months old along with his 2-year-old sister and 4-year-old brother. I had to rebuild my life. It was not easy, but I did it and I am truly happy.

Alongside my real-life experience as a widowed mum, I am a doctor with 20 years of experience working in the NHS, an accredited coach and an Advanced Grief Recovery Specialist.

Connect with Nikki:

https://thegriefcoach.co.uk/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-nikki-paul-grief-coach

https://www.instagram.com/the_grief_coach/

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557172545932

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering “Why do I still feel so stuck?” or “Will I ever feel like myself again?”—this conversation is for you.

In this episode, I speak with Karen Sutton, grief coach and widow, about the thing we so often resist but desperately need when we're grieving: community.

Karen’s story begins with the sudden loss of her husband—a day that shattered everything. What struck me most wasn’t just her honesty about how lonely and lost she felt in those early days, but how she actively chose not to let grief define her. And it wasn’t about moving on or pretending she was fine. It was about connection. Real, messy, vulnerable connection—with people who understood.

We talked about:

The moment you realize the old “you” doesn’t fit anymore—and what to do with that

How being around others who get it can change how grief lives in your body

Why some support groups leave you heavier—and how to find ones that truly lift you

The hidden belief systems we carry around grief, guilt, and what it means to start living again

I left this conversation feeling deeply moved and strangely lighter—like I had just exhaled a truth I didn’t know I’d been holding.

Whether you're newly bereaved or years in and still aching, this episode offers more than comfort. It offers perspective, possibility, and a gentle nudge toward connection. Sometimes, that’s all we need to take the next step.

🧡 If you’ve been carrying your grief alone, I hope this episode helps you feel a little less alone.

🔗 Explore Further:

Karen’s grief community & retreats: https://www.karensutton.co.uk

Resources:

Mentioned books: The Grieving Brain by Mary-Frances O’Connor and The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

What happens when a psychologist becomes the patient of grief herself? How do you go from burning candles through tears to writing a bestselling book on loss in just one month?

In this deeply moving episode of A Guide to After Life, Dr. Monika Wieliczko speaks with clinical psychologist and author Dr. Marianne Trent, whose personal journey through the loss of her father changed not only her heart—but also her professional path.

✨ Marianne shares:

The story behind The Grief Collective and how she rallied strangers and friends to create a raw, compassionate tapestry of grief experiences

What it's really like to mother young children while mourning a parent

How creativity (like candle-making) and community held her together during the most broken days

Her honest reflections on returning to work, being a grieving therapist, and what “functioning” looks like seven years later

Why grief doesn't have a hierarchy—and why every loss matters

How grief quietly reshapes our identity, and how to make room for new love without erasing the old

If you’ve ever wondered:

“Will I ever be okay again?”

“Am I allowed to grieve this much?”

“How do I hold grief and joy at the same time?”

…this episode is for you.

Tender, candid, and beautifully real—this is a conversation that will make you feel seen.

Resources:

Guest's Bio:

Dr Marianne Trent is a Clinical Psychologist in Private Practice. She specialises in Trauma, Grief, Anxiety & Depression. She supports the needs of Aspiring Psychologists and also helps coach psychologists to develop their own passive income streams. She is the lead author of The Grief Collective Book.

Social links:

Website: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/

Business fb: https://www.facebook.com/GoodThinkingPsychologicalServices

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-marianne-trent-psychology/

https://twitter.com/DrMarianneTrent

https://www.youtube.com/c/DrMarianneTrent 

https://www.tiktok.com/@drmariannetrent?lang=en

https://www.instagram.com/drmariannetrent/

What do you do when the pain is too much to bear? In this moving and unfiltered conversation, clinical psychologist Rosalind Coon joins host Dr. Monika Wieliczko to explore the devastating emotional terrain of loss that doesn’t always come through death—but feels just as unbearable.

Rosalind opens up about the sudden and traumatic end of her 25-year marriage, describing the intense grief, denial, and terror that followed. As two psychologists and fellow women in grief, Monika and Rosalind examine what it means to "sit with pain," why we are so resistant to emotional discomfort, and how true healing often begins where control ends.

Whether you’re grieving the death of a partner or navigating another form of profound loss, this episode is a powerful companion in the darkness. With honesty, clinical insight, and human connection, we uncover:

🔹 The psychological toll of ambiguous loss
🔹 Why growth in grief feels impossible—yet happens anyway
🔹 How to stay present with emotional pain (even when it feels unbearable)
🔹 The myth of “getting over it” and the reality of learning to carry it
🔹 Ways to foster self-compassion and resilience during crisis

✨ Key Quotes:

“I didn’t want to grow—I wanted my life back.” – Rosalind Coon
“You can’t be fully alive without making space for suffering.” – Dr. Monika Wieliczko
“There wasn’t a clear end. The end of a relationship can be a slow, unbearable unfolding.”

Resources:

- Unsure whether to see a psychologist, psychotherapist or counsellor or grief coach for grief support? Read this blog post to find out more.

Your Host’s BIO:

Dr Monika Wieliczko, Chartered Clinical Psychologist D.Clin.Psych, MSc, MA

Psychologist by profession, and a widow, in private.

Connect with me on social media:

Facebook 

Instagram  

Linked In 

Death Matters Awareness Week Special 

Most of us avoid conversations about death—until we’re forced to have them. But what if talking about death could actually help us live more fully?

In this special episode for Death Matters Awareness Week (5–11 May 2025), clinical psychologist and widow Dr Monika Wieliczko sits down with existential psychotherapist Dr Ali Ross to explore how we can better support the dying, why talking about death doesn’t have to be morbid, and the unexpected gifts that come when we embrace our own mortality.

You’ll learn:

— How to start meaningful conversations with someone who is dying

— Why avoiding death talk increases fear and isolation

— The surprising ways mortality can deepen joy, presence, and purpose

This is a powerful listen for anyone grieving, caregiving, or simply curious about living more intentionally.

Resources:

- Unsure whether to see a psychologist, psychotherapist or counsellor or grief coach for grief support? Read this blog post to find out more.

Guest BIO:

Dr Ali Ross is an existential psychotherapist working with individuals, couples and adult families. Outside of private work I was a specialist psychotherapist in an NHS cancer and palliative care team. My doctorate was in military to civilian transition and I have worked across a range of sectors throughout my career, including domestic abuse prevention, for Child Line, Mind and a drug treatment service. This has given me a breadth of experience but I am particularly skilled in helping with anxiety, stress, bereavement, crisis of values, depression, confidence, panic, intimacy and relationship issues. While I have experience of working with children and young people I currently work exclusively with adults.

https://www.cayatherapy.co.uk

- Instagram

Your Host’s BIO:

Dr Monika Wieliczko, Chartered Clinical Psychologist D.Clin.Psych, MSc, MA

Psychologist by profession, and a widow, in private.

Connect with me on social media:

Facebook 

Instagram  

Linked In 

Life can sometimes throw us the most heart-wrenching curveballs. Losing a life partner is devastating enough, but when it's coupled with the challenges of infertility or the loss of shared dreams to build a family, the grief can feel overwhelming.

In our latest Guide to Afterlife podcast episode, we dive deep into this complex and often overlooked aspect of loss. Dr. Kara Davey, a clinical psychologist specializing in baby loss and infertility grief, joins us to shed light on:

• The unique challenges of grieving a partner while longing for parenthood • How trauma can complicate the grieving process • Ways to navigate conflicting emotions and societal expectations • Resources and support are available for those experiencing multiple losses

Resources:

Guest Bio:

Dr Kara Davey is an award-winning Clinical Psychologist accredited with the British Psychological Society, Health Care Professions Council and the EMDR Association. Kara spent a lot of her NHS career supporting individuals after difficult or traumatic life events.

She is now the founder of ‘Kara Clinical Psychologist in Sussex’ and ‘Dr Davey Coaching’. Kara has lived experience of recurrent miscarriage and Stillbirth and so is extremely passionate about supporting individuals experiencing infertility, traumatic grief and/or who have sadly become bereaved parents.

Your Host’s BIO:

Dr Monika Wieliczko, Chartered Clinical Psychologist D.Clin.Psych, MSc, MA

Psychologist by profession, and a widow, in private.

Connect with me on social media:

⁠⁠Facebook ⁠⁠

⁠⁠Instagram  ⁠⁠

⁠⁠Linked In ⁠