The Widowed Mom Podcast

The human brain has a remarkable ability to adapt to both positive and negative life changes, eventually returning us to a baseline level of happiness.

When your person dies, it can feel like your happiness baseline has been permanently lowered. Many widows worry they'll never experience the same level of joy or fulfillment they once knew. But here's what modern science tells us: your happiness is changeable through consistent, intentional practice.

Join me today to learn how hedonic adaptation works like an emotional thermostat that pulls you back to your normal happiness level, what keeps some people stuck at a lower happiness set point, and how savoring micro-joys interrupts hedonic adaptation and strengthens positive neural pathways.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.coachingwithkrista.com/326

Mentioned in this episode:

A Widow’s Guide to a Happier Holiday Season

Navigating the holidays after losing your loved one doesn't have to mean just gritting your teeth and surviving. Join Happier Holidays, a free 3-day online event for widows from November 10th through 12th, to learn practical tools for managing difficult emotions, releasing guilt, and taking control of your holiday season.

Happier Holidays 2026

Grief doesn't follow a straight line. It spirals. When intense emotions resurface months or even years later, when you circle back to feelings you thought you'd already processed, it's not a sign of failure or regression.

The Healing Grief Spiral is a framework I created that reflects how grief actually works: as an upward expansion cycle where we revisit three core steps over and over, each time from a place of greater strength and awareness.

Join me today to discover how to work with your grief instead of against it. This isn't about moving on or reaching some final stage of acceptance. It's about building the skills to be a real human experiencing grief while creating a life you want to live.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.coachingwithkrista.com/325

Mentioned in this episode:

A Widow’s Guide to a Happier Holiday Season

Navigating the holidays after losing your loved one doesn't have to mean just gritting your teeth and surviving. Join Happier Holidays, a free 3-day online event for widows from November 10th through 12th, to learn practical tools for managing difficult emotions, releasing guilt, and taking control of your holiday season.

Happier Holidays 2026

Community isn't just about having people around you - it's about finding those who truly understand the weight of what you're carrying.

When Jennifer Schroeder lost her husband Jerry after 40 years together, she discovered that the isolation of grief was almost as crushing as the loss itself.

Join us this week as Jennifer shares how joining a community of widows transformed her relationship with grief. From arguing that loving life again was "a bridge too far" to finding peace in the belief that her days as a widow were always meant to be, she reveals the specific tools and mindset shifts that helped her move from survival mode to building a meaningful future.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.coachingwithkrista.com/324

Mentioned in this episode:

A Widow’s Guide to a Happier Holiday Season

Navigating the holidays after losing your loved one doesn't have to mean just gritting your teeth and surviving. Join Happier Holidays, a free 3-day online event for widows from November 10th through 12th, to learn practical tools for managing difficult emotions, releasing guilt, and taking control of your holiday season.

Happier Holidays 2026

Life after loss can feel heavy. Not just in the early days of grief, but years later when you're managing moves, anniversaries, and unexpected challenges all at once.

When your brain gets stuck in "everything is hard mode," it becomes a pattern-seeking machine that filters every experience through that lens. The to-do lists multiply, the emotions intensify, and suddenly you're living in what feels like a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. But here's what I've learned: You don't have to change everything about your situation to make it feel more manageable.

Join me this week to learn why your brain might be stuck in "everything is hard" mode, the two key shifts that can help you feel more capable, and practical ways to support yourself when life feels overwhelming.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.coachingwithkrista.com/323

Mentioned in this episode:

A Widow’s Guide to a Happier Holiday Season

Navigating the holidays after losing your loved one doesn't have to mean just gritting your teeth and surviving. Join Happier Holidays, a free 3-day online event for widows from November 10th through 12th, to learn practical tools for managing difficult emotions, releasing guilt, and taking control of your holiday season.

Happier Holidays 2026

Do you find yourself second-guessing every decision since your loss?

When grief hits, the ground beneath your feet doesn't just shift - it disappears entirely. The person who helped you think through decisions, who was your emotional anchor and nervous system co-regulator, is gone. Now you're trying to navigate life with a brain on high alert and a body that's exhausted, wondering why every decision feels impossible and why you can't seem to trust your own judgment anymore.

Tune in this week to learn why self-trust after loss isn’t just about confidence - it’s about your entire relationship with yourself. You’ll hear why this loss of self-trust is so common after losing your spouse, and more importantly, how to rebuild it.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.coachingwithkrista.com/322

Mentioned in this episode:

A Widow’s Guide to a Happier Holiday Season

Navigating the holidays after losing your loved one doesn't have to mean just gritting your teeth and surviving. Join Happier Holidays, a free 3-day online event for widows from November 10th through 12th, to learn practical tools for managing difficult emotions, releasing guilt, and taking control of your holiday season.

Happier Holidays 2026

Feeling stuck after loss looks different than most people imagine. You're functioning, checking off your to-do list, and everyone thinks you're doing well. They tell you how strong you are. But inside, you're watching your life happen from the outside, going through the motions without really feeling connected to any of it.

This particular kind of stuckness happens when you're past the point of barely surviving but nowhere near thriving. You might feel detached or foggy, not excited about the future but not wanting to go back to the past either.

Join me this week as I pull back the curtain on what's really happening when you feel stuck after loss, and more importantly, why you don't have to stay there.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.coachingwithkrista.com/321

Mentioned in this episode:

A Widow’s Guide to a Happier Holiday Season

Navigating the holidays after losing your loved one doesn't have to mean just gritting your teeth and surviving. Join Happier Holidays, a free 3-day online event for widows from November 10th through 12th, to learn practical tools for managing difficult emotions, releasing guilt, and taking control of your holiday season.

Happier Holidays 2026

There’s an invisible ceiling above you, limiting what you believe is possible for your life after loss. You didn't put it there consciously, you probably can't even see it clearly, but you can feel its weight pressing down on everything you do. This quiet but powerful belief problem shapes your entire future without you even realizing it's there.

After losing your person, you put one foot in front of the other and get through the practical stuff. You hold it together for your kids, your job, your family. Eventually you reach a place where you're not in crisis mode anymore, but you're not really living either - you're just existing inside patterns that feel familiar and predictable but not great.

Most widows never stop to consider that the way they think about what's possible for their lives is just a habit, not a fact or fixed reality. This week, you'll discover why feeling stuck is so common and learn that possibility is something you can create based on the beliefs you choose to cultivate for yourself.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.coachingwithkrista.com/320

Mentioned in this episode:

A Widow’s Guide to a Happier Holiday Season

Navigating the holidays after losing your loved one doesn't have to mean just gritting your teeth and surviving. Join Happier Holidays, a free 3-day online event for widows from November 10th through 12th, to learn practical tools for managing difficult emotions, releasing guilt, and taking control of your holiday season.

Happier Holidays 2026

When Hugo died, people kept assuming I'd be furious at the driver who had meth and alcohol in his system. But the anger just wasn't there - it felt like a tragedy, not a betrayal. The emotions I carried were heavy with sadness and shock, but not the white-hot rage everyone expected.

This time around, with my recent breakup and having to sell the house, I'm experiencing wave after wave of intense anger. Maybe you've been caught off guard by unexpected waves of anger, or perhaps you're wondering why you're not feeling angry when everyone expects you to be.

Join me this week as I share my own real-time experience with anger in grief, and how drastically different it can look from one loss to another. I'll show you how to let these waves of emotion move through without letting them drive your choices, whether your anger comes early, late, or not at all.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.coachingwithkrista.com/319

Mentioned in this episode:

A Widow’s Guide to a Happier Holiday Season

Navigating the holidays after losing your loved one doesn't have to mean just gritting your teeth and surviving. Join Happier Holidays, a free 3-day online event for widows from November 10th through 12th, to learn practical tools for managing difficult emotions, releasing guilt, and taking control of your holiday season.

Happier Holidays 2026

Black-and-white thinking shows up everywhere in grief - in the harsh judgments we make about ourselves, in the impossible standards we hold ourselves to, and in the rigid rules we create about how healing should look.

It's that voice that says you're either doing grief "right" or you're failing completely, with no room for the messy middle ground where most of us actually live.

In this week’s episode, you’ll learn a more gentle way of thinking about your grief journey. I show you how to break free from black-and-white thinking, and why making space for nuance might be exactly what you need.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.coachingwithkrista.com/318

Mentioned in this episode:

A Widow’s Guide to a Happier Holiday Season

Navigating the holidays after losing your loved one doesn't have to mean just gritting your teeth and surviving. Join Happier Holidays, a free 3-day online event for widows from November 10th through 12th, to learn practical tools for managing difficult emotions, releasing guilt, and taking control of your holiday season.

Happier Holidays 2026

In this episode, I'm addressing the productivity pressure that so many widows face - that nagging feeling that you should be doing more, moving faster, or getting back to normal. This isn't just about recognizing the pressure; it's about understanding how deeply our culture has tied our sense of worth to our output.

Join me this week to discover how to identify when productivity pressure is affecting your grief process, even when you think you're just being realistic. I share specific questions to help you examine your beliefs about rest and worthiness, and most importantly, you'll learn why slowing down isn't failure - it's actually essential for processing grief.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.coachingwithkrista.com/317

Mentioned in this episode:

A Widow’s Guide to a Happier Holiday Season

Navigating the holidays after losing your loved one doesn't have to mean just gritting your teeth and surviving. Join Happier Holidays, a free 3-day online event for widows from November 10th through 12th, to learn practical tools for managing difficult emotions, releasing guilt, and taking control of your holiday season.

Happier Holidays 2026