The Catholic Grief Podcast

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Grief doesn’t only affect how we feel. It can change our relationships, catch us off guard through unexpected triggers, and leave us wondering how we are supposed to move forward when everything feels different.

In this episode of The Catholic Grief Podcast, I’m welcoming Catholic grief coach Nichole Haugen back to the podcast. This time, we’re going deeper into what grief coaching actually looks like and how it can help someone learn to carry grief without ignoring or suppressing it.

We talk about the difference between truly “offering up” our suffering and simply trying to push our emotions aside, why grief can create tension within families, how to set healthy boundaries while still choosing forgiveness and charity, and what to do when a grief trigger seems to come out of nowhere.

Nichole also gives us a preview of the practical tools she will be sharing during our upcoming At the Foot of the Cross: An Immersive Catholic Grief Workshop, including navigating difficult family relationships and preparing for grief triggers, anniversaries, holidays, and other difficult days.

If you’ve ever wondered whether you are grieving the “right” way, struggled with family relationships after loss, or found yourself suddenly overwhelmed by a memory you weren’t expecting, this conversation is for you.

Register for our grief workshop here: https://thosewhomournmag.com/at-the-foot-of-the-cross

Support the show

Jenny Burba is a Catholic widow, speaker and author helping Catholics navigate grief through faith and creativity. Through her Creative Resilience program, she guides Catholics in gently rebuilding their lives after loss.

If this episode spoke to your heart, be sure to follow, share, and leave a review so more Catholics can find hope in their grief.

You can learn more, explore resources, and connect with Jenny at jennyburba.com

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What do you do with grief when you don't have the words to explain what you're feeling?

In this episode of The Catholic Grief Podcast, Jenny introduces Creative Resilience, the faith-centered approach that grew out of her own experiences with grief and creativity. She explores how the creative process can help us recognize what we're carrying, reflect on what comes to the surface, and bring those discoveries into prayer.

You'll also be invited to try a simple Creative Resilience exercise using nothing more than a piece of paper and something to write or draw with.

Jenny also shares more about At the Foot of the Cross: An Immersive Catholic Grief Workshop, happening virtually September 17-18, where she'll guide participants through two deeper Creative Resilience experiences alongside Catholic grief leaders Eileen Tully and Nichole Haugen.

Creative Resilience isn't about making beautiful art or trying to fix grief. It's about creating space for what you're carrying, inviting God into it, and discovering what moving forward might look like.

Registration for At the Foot of the Cross is available in the links below.

https://thosewhomournmag.com/at-the-foot-of-the-cross

Support the show

Jenny Burba is a Catholic widow, speaker and author helping Catholics navigate grief through faith and creativity. Through her Creative Resilience program, she guides Catholics in gently rebuilding their lives after loss.

If this episode spoke to your heart, be sure to follow, share, and leave a review so more Catholics can find hope in their grief.

You can learn more, explore resources, and connect with Jenny at jennyburba.com

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What happens when grief doesn't just break your heart, but shakes the way you understand God?

In this episode of The Catholic Grief Podcast, Jenny sits down with Catholic speaker, writer, grief coach, and Those Who Mourn Magazine creator Eileen Tully for an honest conversation about child loss, complicated grief, faith, and learning to trust God when His answer is not the one we prayed for.

Eileen shares the heartbreaking story of losing her identical twin daughters, one following an in-utero surgery and the other after 47 days in the NICU. She talks openly about the exhaustion, guilt, relief, trauma, and questions that followed, including the belief that if her faith were stronger, grief somehow wouldn't hurt so much.

Together, Jenny and Eileen talk about why grief does not follow a neat set of stages, how loss can change our relationships with God and others, and what it means to return again and again to what we know is true about God when our thoughts tell us otherwise.

Eileen also shares how Our Lady of Sorrows became an unexpected companion in her grief, why the words “lift up your hearts” took on an entirely new meaning for her, and how her own search for Catholic grief resources eventually led her to create resources for others.

They also share a little about their upcoming Catholic grief workshop, At the Foot of the Cross, and their desire to give grieving Catholics practical, faith-filled tools they wish they had received in the earliest days of their own grief.

If your faith has ever felt shaken by loss, your prayers have felt impossible, or you've wondered how to trust God while carrying a broken heart, this conversation is for you.

Links:

At the Foot of the Cross Workshop registration: https://thosewhomournmag.com/at-the-foot-of-the-cross/

Those Who Mourn Magazine: https://thosewhomournmag.com/

More about Eileen Tully: https://www.eileentully.com/

Support the show

Jenny Burba is a Catholic widow, speaker and author helping Catholics navigate grief through faith and creativity. Through her Creative Resilience program, she guides Catholics in gently rebuilding their lives after loss.

If this episode spoke to your heart, be sure to follow, share, and leave a review so more Catholics can find hope in their grief.

You can learn more, explore resources, and connect with Jenny at jennyburba.com

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Season 2 of The Catholic Grief Podcast is here.

After an unplanned summer break, Jenny Burba returns to reflect on what it means to step away, come back, and keep moving forward when life does not go according to plan.

In this welcome-back episode, Jenny shares why returning to something after a pause can feel surprisingly difficult and how that experience mirrors so much of the grief journey. Our capacity changes. Our needs change. Grief changes us. But taking a break does not mean we have failed or have to start over.

Jenny also shares what is ahead for Season 2, including more guest interviews, honest conversations about Catholic grief, widowhood, faith after loss, and a deeper exploration of her Creative Resilience framework and how creativity can help us process grief when words are not enough.

Plus, hear about the upcoming At the Foot of the Cross: An Immersive Catholic Grief Workshop, created to give grieving Catholics a space for prayer, reflection, creativity, and honest conversations about loss.

If you have ever felt stuck, fallen out of a helpful routine, struggled with your faith after loss, or wondered how to move forward without leaving your loved one behind, this episode is an invitation to simply return.

In this episode:

• Returning after an unexpected break
• Why grief and healing do not follow a perfect timeline
• Giving yourself grace when your capacity changes
• What Creative Resilience means
• What to expect in Season 2
• Catholic grief, faith, creativity, and moving forward after loss

Support the show

Jenny Burba is a Catholic widow, speaker and author helping Catholics navigate grief through faith and creativity. Through her Creative Resilience program, she guides Catholics in gently rebuilding their lives after loss.

If this episode spoke to your heart, be sure to follow, share, and leave a review so more Catholics can find hope in their grief.

You can learn more, explore resources, and connect with Jenny at jennyburba.com

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In this honest and compassionate episode of The Catholic Grief Podcast, Jenny Burba talks about a tender topic that is well known in the widow community but rarely discussed in Catholic circles: widow’s fire.

When a spouse dies, a widow grieves more than the person she loved. She also grieves the loss of affection, physical closeness, marital intimacy, and the sacred bond of covenant marriage. Jenny shares openly about the fear, shame, desire, and confusion that can come with young widowhood, while bringing the conversation back to prayer, confession, spiritual direction, Scripture, and God’s mercy.

Reflecting on 1 Timothy 5:11–16, this episode offers hope and encouragement for young widows who long to love again and wonder whether remarriage can be good, wise, and faithful.

The desire for love and intimacy is not a character flaw. It is part of grieving a real and sacred loss.

Support the show

Jenny Burba is a Catholic widow, speaker and author helping Catholics navigate grief through faith and creativity. Through her Creative Resilience program, she guides Catholics in gently rebuilding their lives after loss.

If this episode spoke to your heart, be sure to follow, share, and leave a review so more Catholics can find hope in their grief.

You can learn more, explore resources, and connect with Jenny at jennyburba.com

Send us Fan Mail

In this episode of The Catholic Grief Podcast, Jenny Burba shares from her own experience about the first moments of widowhood and the emotions that can follow when life changes in an instant.

Jenny talks honestly about the fog, anger, memories, loneliness, dreams, dating after loss, judgment from others, and the pressure widows can feel to grieve according to someone else’s expectations. She also reflects on the importance of support, prayer, journaling, spiritual guidance, counseling, and learning how to become comfortable in your own skin again.

Whether you are newly widowed, loving someone who is grieving, or trying to understand the complicated layers of loss, this episode is a reminder that every widow’s grief is different. There is no perfect timeline. There is no one right way to move forward.

Give yourself grace. Give yourself time. And remember, you are not alone.

Support the show

Jenny Burba is a Catholic widow, speaker and author helping Catholics navigate grief through faith and creativity. Through her Creative Resilience program, she guides Catholics in gently rebuilding their lives after loss.

If this episode spoke to your heart, be sure to follow, share, and leave a review so more Catholics can find hope in their grief.

You can learn more, explore resources, and connect with Jenny at jennyburba.com

Send us Fan Mail

What do you do when grief comes in layers — loss after loss after loss, with no time to catch your breath?

In this episode, I sit down with Nichole Haugen, a Catholic grief coach and former hospice nurse who knows that question from the inside out. Her story is heavy, her faith is honest, and what she shares about bringing your anger to God might be exactly what you need to hear today.

Find Nichole at catholicgriefcoach.com — she offers a free grief consultation to anyone who reaches out.

Support the show

Jenny Burba is a Catholic widow, speaker and author helping Catholics navigate grief through faith and creativity. Through her Creative Resilience program, she guides Catholics in gently rebuilding their lives after loss.

If this episode spoke to your heart, be sure to follow, share, and leave a review so more Catholics can find hope in their grief.

You can learn more, explore resources, and connect with Jenny at jennyburba.com

Send us Fan Mail

What happens when the person who has always been your rock is suddenly gone? 

In this episode, I sit down with Theresa Matters, a certified Catholic mindset coach, speaker, and retreat facilitator inspired by Saint Therese of Lisieux. Theresa shares the story of losing her father, Deacon Randy Matters, suddenly on Mother's Day, the day before his birthday, after only four days in the hospital. He was sixty years old.

Theresa opens up about the layers of loss she was navigating all at once, including divorce, a three-year annulment process, and co-parenting three children, all while watching her rock be taken home too soon. She shares her honest wrestling with anger toward God, the slow shift toward healing, and how she has come to see herself and her father as a team, with him interceding for her from heaven.

This conversation is for anyone who has lost a parent, who is carrying grief they cannot yet see through, or who needs permission to bring their anger and questions straight to God.

You will also hear Theresa's beautiful PB and J practice: Pause, Breathe, and invite Jesus in. A simple tool you can carry into any moment of grief or overwhelm.

In this episode:

Navigating divorce and a three-year annulment process as a Catholic woman

Who Deacon Randy Matters was and the quiet, lasting way he shaped his family

The four days in the hospital and the goodbye Theresa did not see coming

Wrestling with anger toward God and why that is not a sign of weak faith

How Catholic mindset coaching helped open the door to healing

Finding gratitude for a father who makes it so hard to lose him

Saint Therese, the Little Way, and why Theresa believes they have been journeying together all along

 Connect with Theresa:

Instagram: @little.way.freedom

Email: [email protected] or [email protected]

Free resource: Little Way Rose Novena PDF https://mailchi.mp/6bf019fccdd1/fdyrr1tes2

You can also book a free discovery call here:
https://calendly.com/littlewayfreedom/welcome30minutecoaching

Support the show

Jenny Burba is a Catholic widow, speaker and author helping Catholics navigate grief through faith and creativity. Through her Creative Resilience program, she guides Catholics in gently rebuilding their lives after loss.

If this episode spoke to your heart, be sure to follow, share, and leave a review so more Catholics can find hope in their grief.

You can learn more, explore resources, and connect with Jenny at jennyburba.com

Send us Fan Mail

There is a specific kind of grief that comes when you lose the person you were supposed to grow old with. It is not just sadness. It is disorientation. It is your world being turned upside down.

In this episode, I share the story of losing my husband Shawn to COVID in October 2021. From the morning we drove to the ER, to the 20 days he spent on a ventilator, to the early hours of October 23rd when I drove to the hospital alone in the rain, praying my rosary, knowing what I was driving toward.

This is the longest episode I have recorded so far. It is heavy. But it is also a story about the presence of God in the middle of the worst night of my life. About the priests who showed up. About the friends who carried me. About the peace that came when there were no answers left. And about why, despite not getting the miracle I begged for, I still believe.

If you have lost a spouse, especially during COVID, I hope this episode meets you where you are. You are not alone. And you are held.

A Note Before Listening

This episode contains detailed accounts of hospital experiences, the death of a spouse, and the early hours of grief. Please listen with care, in pieces if you need to, and at a time when you can be gentle with yourself.

Support the show

Jenny Burba is a Catholic widow, speaker and author helping Catholics navigate grief through faith and creativity. Through her Creative Resilience program, she guides Catholics in gently rebuilding their lives after loss.

If this episode spoke to your heart, be sure to follow, share, and leave a review so more Catholics can find hope in their grief.

You can learn more, explore resources, and connect with Jenny at jennyburba.com

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Episode 7 is coming — and it's taking a little longer than planned, because some stories deserve more than just getting through them.

In this short episode, I'm pulling back the curtain on why recording the story of losing my husband Shawn has been harder than I expected, and why I think that's actually okay. I also share a few honest reflections on widowhood — what it really does to your identity, why it's so exhausting in ways people don't always talk about, and why it doesn't have to be the end of your story.

If you are a widow, or you love someone who is, this one is for you.

Episode 7 is coming soon. Thank you for being here while I get it right.

Support the show

Jenny Burba is a Catholic widow, speaker and author helping Catholics navigate grief through faith and creativity. Through her Creative Resilience program, she guides Catholics in gently rebuilding their lives after loss.

If this episode spoke to your heart, be sure to follow, share, and leave a review so more Catholics can find hope in their grief.

You can learn more, explore resources, and connect with Jenny at jennyburba.com