When her father died of cancer, a few days before her 18th birthday, Laurel Braitman started running. Running towards the academic and professional accomplishments her father pushed her to achieve and running away from the intense shame and guilt she carried about their last conversation. It wasn’t until her 30’s that Laurel stopped running long enough to face her greatest fear: feeling her feelings.  

Laurel’s newest book, What Looks Like Bravery: An epic journey through loss to love, chronicles her quest to connect with grief and how it led to the biggest adventure of all - opening up to love.  

In our conversation we delve into: 

• Growing up with her father’s illness and the threat of him dying 

• Running from guilt & shame in grief 

• Overachieving as a coping mechanism 

• Wanting to be a “geriatric kid” at Josie’s Place, a peer grief support program for children & families  

• What Laurel learned about grief from being a volunteer facilitator in that program 

• Learning a new way of being in the world & staying open to love 

• Having a “cosmic do-over" in helping her mom at the end of her life 

• The co-existence of love and sadness