Hi, and welcome back to the Young Widow Podcast. I’m Britany, your host, and today we’re diving into something that I know many of you have been thinking about—or dreading—as the year comes to a close: the grief of a new year.

Today we are going to talk about the difference between Christmas Grief and New Years Grief, what is happening in our brain and why it feels different emotionally, and then some small recommendations as we move into the New Year grief period.

The holidays can feel like a storm of emotions—especially Christmas. It’s deeply personal. Christmas tends to revolve around family, traditions, and memories that are tied to intimacy and closeness. But New Year’s grief? That’s different. It doesn’t necessarily pull at the same strings. Instead, it pokes at timelines, milestones, and the relentless passage of time. New Year’s is about looking forward, setting goals, and planning ahead—and that can feel impossible when you’re grieving. It forces us to face the reality of time moving forward, with or without our person—highlighting a different kind of grief tied to fear of the unknown.

Welcome to the Young Widow Podcast for Episode 21: Finding Your Voice. I'm Britany, your host and I'm happy that you could join today.

I want to dive into a big challenge that many of us face in grief and is really important with the holidays coming. It's important that we talk about it now and we get it out there and it's finding our voice and advocating for ourselves.

When we lose someone it's easy to get lost in making sure everyone else feels comfortable around us, that everyone else has having their grief managed. And then also we get lost in worrying about what others think about our choices and how they feel about it. But here's the thing, prioritizing yourself and setting boundaries isn't selfish, it's necessary in grief.

So today we're going to talk about:

Why prioritizing your needs isn't selfish and why you're the only one who really knows what you can handle. 

We're also going to cover how to handle triggering questions, using an approach. I call acknowledge advocate and redirect. Steps to start finding and using your voice. 

And then why being selfish is critical in the art of healing while going through deep grief. 

So Let's Dive In!

Hi, Welcome to the young widow podcast and thank you for joining me today for Episode 20: Holiday Anxiety in Grief.

I am Britany your host and happy you could join today. Today I want to talk through Holiday anxiety – and why it is only October? It is so very normal in grief to experience anxiety – especially the first and second year WEEKS ahead of the actual holidays itself. So today we are going to talk about

• Why does this happen so early

If you’re feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or like you’re stuck in this,, you’re not alone. I want this episode to be a real, raw conversation between us. No fluff, no platitudes—just some honest talk and actionable things that helped me and might help you too.

I know there’s a lot of pressure out there to feel a certain way or act a certain way around the holidays but we are going to break it all down

Hi, Welcome to the young widow podcast and thank you for joining me today for Episode 19: Working Through Regrets.

I am Britany, your host and I am happy you could join me today. Second podcast rolling out this week, finally getting back into my groove and lets not jinx it!

So today, I want to talk about Working Through Regrets.

What regrets do we have?

Why do we have them?

How do they affect our healing and growing in grief?

And then, I am going to leave you with a small exercise that I use in my coaching that I would like you to try if you have regrets.

So with that, lets jump right in.

Hi, welcome to the Young Widow Podcast and thank you for joining me today for Episode 18: Letting Go of the Perception of Widowhood. I'm Britany, your host and happy you could join today.

Life has been crazy and has had me thinking a lot about my early days of grief.

Why did I act the way I did?

Why were my thoughts what they were?

How did my perceptions and thoughts drive my actions and alter my path of grief in the early days?

So today, I want to share some of those things with you. 

I want to talk through the perception of widowhood and letting go of ill conceived notions we have for ourselves, and why? Because it's so very important in grieving and growing.

Thanks for joining for Episode 17! Today we are going to talk about duality in grief and cover quite a few thins:

• What is duality?

So let's jump in!

Welcome to Episode 16! This is a slightly different style as I am going to talk through a topic and explain to you how you implement these processes into your daily life with grief - to help you move forward through a grief plateau or active grieving.

Today we are going to talk about:

What is witnessing your grief? Like what does that statement really mean? How do you witness your grief? What is true self care in grief?

So let's jump in!

 Hi, welcome to the Young Widow Podcast and thank you for joining me today for Episode 15: the Fog of Widowhood.

Today, I want to talk about the fog of widowhood. 

You know, when you go through loss, you can't remember old memories or you forget simple things in your daily life. I want to normalize those and validate it for you. 

So today we're going to talk about what is the fog of widowhood and what are examples of it? What causes our brain to go hazy after loss? And how to work through that feeling of being confused and like your brain isn't operating at a normal level and how long something like this could even last for.

Hi, welcome to the Young Widow Podcast and thank you for joining me today for Episode 14: Acceptance vs Agreeance and Early Grief Healing

I'm Britany, your host, and I'm happy you could join today. There has been a lot of confusion on my Instagram page and I think this topic warrants a deeper discussion. This topic is focused on early and active grieving, again my niche is the first few years in grief. Not everyone is ready for growth in grief at the same time… in the early stages – you are just trying to figure out how to work through your emotions, what your emotions mean, and just flat out survive because it seems in-survivable. Emotions in grief run so deep that it can seem like there is nothing on the other side – you can’t look past the pain. So let’s talk about, lets validate it because you are growing and accepting even if you don’t think you are.

Today we are going to talk about:

What is acceptance vs agreeance

How are the two different and why are the terms not synonymous

And then we are going to touch on what early grief healing really is.

So let’s get started!

Hi, welcome to the Young Widow Podcast and thank you for joining me today for Episode 13: The Loss of Physical Intimacy in Widowhood

I'm Britany, your host, and I'm happy you could join today. This is a topic that was requested on Instagram. I'm always happy to do those topics. This is going to be a very intimate and personal topic, and I'm going to do the best to give you the advice that I can.

 It is really hard to replace physical intimacy in widowhood. Whereas when you're dealing with the emotional aspect of grief, you're able to work through coping mechanisms for that.   While those two aspects of loss and widowhood go hand in hand. They are very different when you're trying to navigate it.

Today, we're going to cover the loss of physical intimacy, how that affects you physically and emotionally, as well as what that may feel like, thoughts that may be going through your head,  and then any advice that I can give you.