Episode 181: Love, Loss, Grief & Healing
9/16/26
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You are listening to the Life Reconstructed podcast with me, Teresa Amaral Beshwate, grief
expert, best-selling author and widow. I’m so glad you’re here because in this and every
episode, I shine a light on the widowed way forward.
Hello and welcome to episode 181. Whether you’re brand new to this podcast or you’ve been
listening for years, today we’re taking it back to basics. I want to share what I believe about
loss, love, grief, and healing—not because you have to believe what I believe, but because these
are the ideas that changed everything for me and now shape the work I do with widowed people.
Take what resonates, stay curious about what challenges you, and know that you are always
welcome here.
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If you’re new around here, welcome. I’m really glad you found your way here.
And if you’ve been listening for a long time, welcome back.
Today I want to take things back to basics.
I’ve recorded 180 episodes of this podcast now, and over those episodes I’ve talked about
everything from guilt and regret to relationships, loneliness, identity, purpose, birthdays,
anniversaries, holidays, and all of the very real, very practical parts of learning to live
after your spouse dies.
But every one of those conversations is built on some foundational beliefs I have about love,
loss, grief, and healing.
So today, I thought I’d tell you what they are.
And before I do, I want to say something that I think is important:
You don’t have to believe everything I believe.
There are a lot of voices in the grief space. There are different philosophies, different
spiritual beliefs, different experiences, different ways of understanding what happens to us
after someone we love dies.
This is mine.
Some of what I share today may resonate deeply with you. Some of it may challenge something
you’ve believed. And some of it may not fit you at all.
That’s okay.
You are always welcome here.
Take what serves you. Think about what challenges you. Leave what doesn’t fit.
I’m not interested in telling you how you should grieve.
I’m interested in helping you understand that you have more agency in this experience than you
may realize.
And I know that because I spent a long time not knowing it myself.
In case we haven't met...
I’m Teresa.
I was widowed suddenly in 2012.
And for about the first six years, I was stuck.
I was functioning. I was doing the things that needed to be done. From the outside, I probably
looked pretty capable.
But I was suffering tremendously.
And I thought that was grief.
I thought grief was something that happened to me and that my job was essentially to endure it.
Wait.
Survive.
Hope that eventually enough time would pass that it wouldn't hurt so much.
And then I found tools that changed everything for me.
Not because they made me stop loving my husband.
Not because I “got over” him.
Not because I left him behind and moved on.
Quite the opposite.
They helped me understand that I could love him completely and learn how to live fully.
Eventually, I shifted my coaching practice to work exclusively with widowed people.
And everything I teach today is influenced by both of those experiences: being widowed myself
and spending years coaching other widowed people.
So here’s what I believe.
1. I believe there is no one right way to grieve.
There is no correct timeline.
There is no schedule you should be following.
There is no point at which you should be “over it.”
Your spouse died.
Your marriage was yours.
Your relationship was yours.
Your circumstances are yours.
Your grief will be yours, too.
I don't want you measuring yourself against someone else who started dating sooner, traveled
sooner, took off their wedding ring sooner, went back to work sooner, cried less, cried more, or
seemed to be “doing better.”
None of those things tell us anything meaningful about how well someone is grieving.
You get to find your way.
2. I believe love doesn't end when someone dies.
I don't speak about loving my husband in the past tense.
I loved him then.
I love him now.
Death changed the way I experience that relationship. It did not erase the relationship or the
love.
And I don't believe healing requires you to sever that bond.
You don't have to stop loving them in order to love your life.
You don't have to diminish your marriage in order to create a future.
You don't have to choose between your spouse and living.
I think that's one of the most important things a widowed person can know.
3. I believe pain and suffering aren't exactly the same thing.
Losing your spouse hurts.
There is no tool I can give you that makes that fact not hurt.
And I wouldn't want to.
Pain is part of loving someone and losing their physical presence.
But we can unknowingly add suffering to that pain.
“I shouldn't feel this way.”
“I should be further along.”
“I should have known.”
“I should have done something differently.”
“If I laugh, it means I don't miss him enough.”
“If I have a good day, I'm leaving her behind.”
“My best years are over.”
“I'll never be happy again.”
We have thoughts about our grief, and then we experience those thoughts as though they are
facts.
I did this for years.
One of the most important things I eventually learned was:
Don't believe everything you think.
4. I believe misery is not evidence of love.
This one was enormous for me.
Somewhere along the way, I had connected my suffering to my love for my husband.
If I was devastated, that made sense.
If I was miserable, that made sense.
But if I laughed?
If I had fun?
If I felt happy?
That could feel almost disloyal.
I eventually realized that my suffering wasn't proof of my love.
My love was already established.
Nothing I did after his death could make our marriage more real or prove how much I love him.
And sadness is not the only way I can honor him.
Joy can honor him.
Growth can honor him.
Adventure can honor him.
Laughter can honor him.
Living can honor him.
5. I believe feelings need to be felt.
I spent a lot of time trying not to feel.
I stayed busy.
Other people cope in other ways. We overeat, overdrink, overspend, overwork, scroll, isolate,
sleep, stay perpetually busy—anything that gives us a little distance from what is happening
inside.
But feelings don't disappear because we avoid them.
And one of the most liberating things I learned is that feelings are neither forever nor fatal.
You can feel grief.
You can feel longing.
You can feel anger.
You can feel guilt.
You can feel loneliness.
And you can learn how to experience those emotions without being swallowed by them.
That's a skill.
And it can be learned.
6. I believe grief changes.
It will not always feel exactly the way it feels today.
That doesn't mean you will stop missing your spouse.
It doesn't mean you'll stop loving them.
It doesn't mean there will come a magical day when everything is “finished.”
It means you will change.
You will become more practiced at carrying what happened.
You will learn.
You will develop tools.
You will build emotional strength.
You will experience things you can't imagine experiencing right now.
And if you're very early in your grief, I especially want you to hear that.
How you feel today is not evidence of how you will feel forever.
In fact, that's one of the reasons I'm teaching a free live webinar tomorrow called What Newly
Widowed People Need to Know.
If you're in that early season after loss—or you know someone who is—I created this specifically
for you.
We're going to talk about three core concepts that can help in that first year, why widowed
people can stay stuck and suffering, ways to lighten some of the burden you're carrying, and
what healing actually means.
And we're going to talk about why rebuilding a meaningful life is not a betrayal of the person
you love.
It's tomorrow, September 17. You can find the registration link in the show notes.
I would love to have you there.
7. I believe grieving is learning
The most useful way to view grief is learning. I know, it’s a class you didn’t sign up for. But
here’s the thing: you simply don’t know how to navigate this loss. You shouldn’t know. You’ve
likely never done it before. And no one could have prepared you.
To the degree you can be a student of this experience, a curious observer of your grieving self,
and who you are now, the journey will be lighter.
8. I believe time doesn't heal.
You probably know this one if you've been around here for a while. My newest book is all about
this.
Time passes.
That's what time does.
But simply accumulating days, months, and years doesn't necessarily teach us how to work with
guilt.
Or regret.
Or anger.
Or loneliness.
Or fear.
Or the thoughts we have about our future.
I know this firsthand because I spent six years waiting.
What changed my life wasn't the passage of time.
It was learning what to do with my brain, my emotions, my beliefs, and my choices.
Time doesn't heal. Intentionality does.
9. I believe healing doesn't mean forgetting.
It doesn't mean moving on.
It doesn't mean leaving your spouse behind.
And it certainly doesn't mean reaching some point where their death no longer matters.
Healing, to me, means learning how to live with what happened without requiring your life to
remain defined by the pain of it.
Your spouse can be part of your story.
Your marriage can matter.
Your love can continue.
And your life can continue, too.
Those things can coexist.
10. And finally, I believe you can build a meaningful life.
Not the life you planned.
I would never insult you by pretending that what happened doesn't matter because you can just go
create some shiny new life.
That's not what I mean.
There are losses that cannot be replaced.
There are futures we expected that will never happen.
There are experiences we wanted to have with our person that we will not get to have with them
physically here.
We can tell the truth about that.
And we can also tell the truth about this:
You are still here.
Your heart is still beating.
There are people you haven't met yet.
Things you haven't experienced yet.
Ways you haven't grown yet.
Parts of yourself you haven't discovered yet.
There is still life available to you.
And choosing to participate in that life doesn't diminish the person you love.
I believe it can be one of the most beautiful ways to honor them.
So, welcome.
If you're new here, that's what I believe.
And now you know a little bit more about me and the lens through which I approach this work.
You don't have to agree with every word.
I hope what you find here is a place where you can be curious.
Where you can question some of the things your brain tells you.
Where you can stop judging yourself for how you're grieving.
Where you can learn practical tools.
And where you can begin to imagine that loving your spouse and loving your life are not mutually
exclusive.
You get to do both.
And if you are newly widowed, please join me tomorrow for What Newly Widowed People Need to
Know.
Come exactly as you are.
You don't need to have anything figured out.
You don't need to be ready to “move forward.”
You don't even need to believe yet that things can get better.
I'll hold that possibility for you until you can see it for yourself.
The link to register is in the show notes.
I'm so glad you're here.
And remember that I believe in you, and I'm here for you.
Take care.
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If you’re newly widowed, or you know someone who is, join me tomorrow, September 17th for a live presentation called What Newly Widowed People Need to Know. The link to register is in the show notes. It will also be available as a replay.
https://www.thesuddenwidowcoach.com/newly-widowed-webinar
