Healing Is Your #1 Job in Widowhood Grief | Hope Speaker

If you’re a widow who feels stuck, like you’re surviving, or even "maintaining" and "functional" (but in a life you're not thrilled with) I want to give you this piece of empowerment:

Healing is your primary work right now.

Not optional. Not when things calm down. Not later.

It is your first job in widowhood.

I know that can feel heavy—especially when you didn’t choose this loss, this pain, or this responsibility.

But healing changes your entire experience of grief, and also your entire future ahead.

Why Your Brain Resists Making Healing the Priority

In my own widowhood, I lived in fear and lack. I truly believed I didn’t have the resources to invest in myself. Everything felt uncertain and unstable. I didn't realize that my brain was trying to "protect me" from more harm... while keeping me trapped in what I hated.

I remember being an early widow in the summer after my husband died by suicide. His identity had been stolen. I spent hours at the police station handling fraud, wearing his shirt, our rings around my neck in my deep grief.

I was dangerously thin. Dehydrated. Not eating enough.

I pulled into a smoothie shop that hot summer day after being at the police station for hours, again, about his identity theft, because my body needed something.

But instead of giving myself nourishment, hydration, and honestly just something positive in all I was going through, I sat there crying, telling myself, “I can’t afford this anymore. I can’t.”

That mindset — fear, lack, believing I couldn’t invest in myself — kept me stuck.

Widows often say:

“I don’t have the money.”

“I don’t have the time.”

“I can’t prioritize myself right now.”

I said all of that too.

And none of it helped me heal or move forward in HOPE.

Surviving & Maintaining Are Not Healing

Many widows confuse endurance or perseverance with healing.

We keep going.

We show up for our kids.

We function.

I believed pouring everything into my children was the most loving thing I could do. But the truth was unavoidable:

As I crumbled physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually — that was still falling on them, and would continue to.

Pain doesn’t disappear because you ignore it.

It leaks into every part of your life.

Grief, unfortunately, does not change with good intentions alone. It changes with intentional healing work as time passes.

This is why widow grief support / widow grief counseling, and the right grief community / group.... matters! Not casually, but as an absolute priority.

Deep Healing Should Not Be Optional

Listen, sister. I felt the fears, heard the lies and said all the reasons I couldn't radically invest in my healing. I did it, too.... until two suicide attempts later.

Here is the truth widows to face:

You cannot afford not to heal.

You don't need "more time."

You don't need to just stay busy.

You don't need to "just keep trusting God more."

You don't need to "be ok with being alone."

You need the right supports that have been proven to bring healing, with safe people.

You need to choose to do it.

Healing isn’t one area of life — it touches everything:

• How you feel each day

• How you parent

• How you make decisions

• How you move into the future

When healing is delayed, everything else suffers. There is simply no getting around it.

Why Healing Must Be Your #1 Job

I’ve been a nurse for over 14 years, including ER, ICU and around surgery. If you don’t assess and treat the real wound, it doesn’t heal. It worsens.

Grief works the same way.

Ignoring it doesn’t make you strong. It deepens and spreads the damage.

Healing requires:

• Intention

• Investment

• Proven, effective methods

That’s why healing must become your primary focus — even though you didn’t choose this season.

The Way Forward: Do the Work That Actually Works

There are evidence-based ways to heal grief — and this is WONDERFUL NEWS!

It means there are supports that actually move you forward through grief instead of staying stuck in the painful places forever.

But they require this decision:

👉 My healing comes first.

Not because it’s easy, or a one-time decision.

But because your present life and your future depend on it, as your most important work in widowhood.

A Gentle Invitation

If you’re ready to get unstuck, move out of survival or "maintenance" modes, and to stop doing grief alone... here is your next step.

Let's begin your healing with intention, support, and proven tools—I am here to guide you.

I am also a Certified Grief Recovery Method Specialist, and I include this where needed in my Coaching.

👉 Learn more about one-on-one Coaching and schedule a consultation at

https://hopespeaker.com/coaching

❤️You don’t have to figure this out alone anymore.

With you,

Rachel

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