Jeff Brazier trained life coach, presenter and author of The Grief Survival Guide talks frankly about grief on this week’s episode of his ‘Only Human’ podcast.
He shares his own experience as well as giving advice on how to support loved ones when they’re faced with painful anniversaries in the latest episode, ‘Grief Is Not A Straight Line’.
Speaking about his sons’ first Christmas without their mother and how he’s tried to make the day special, Jeff says: “The first Christmas after the boys lost their mum, I wanted to make the day as special as I could. I made extra effort. There was maybe extra presents, extra food, sweets, cakes everything was extra. But what I was missing was the reality that you can’t make that day special… It’s a reminder that someone isn’t there.”
Jeff shares his thoughts on how to make painful anniversaries go better as his two sons spend their 12th Mother’s Day without her: “The way to make anniversaries go better is to make sure we recognise the person that we’ve lost as early on as we can. Like us, today we’ll go and visit their mum’s special place, it might be we look at some pictures.”
There’s also some ideas on how we can support our loved ones through social media during a hard time like Mother’s Day and advice on what you can do if you know someone is dying and you have some time with them to prepare.
During the podcast, Jeff gets emotional speaking about Mother’s Day: “Talking about the subject has made me feel emotional,” he says, “I’ve got two boys that are really going to be missing their mum today. They miss her every day. My vulnerability in this moment right now is that I, as a parent of two kids that lost their mum, I have got the responsibility on my shoulders of guiding them through the day.”
You can submit your dilemma to Jeff by emailing jeff@onlyhumanpod.com
Jeff Brazier – Only Human is available to download every Tuesday from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, the Absolute Radio app, absoluteradio.co.uk, and all mainstream podcast providers.
