002: 10 Things I Did to Help With Grief After Losing My Wife
In this powerful and deeply personal episode, I share the ten things I did in the first four weeks after losing my wife, Lani.
I talk openly about grief, the choices I made to protect my mental health, and how I chose to rebuild instead of unravel.
If you're navigating loss or supporting someone who is, this episode offers a raw, honest insight into what it means to heal with strength and intention.
1. Surrounding Myself with People
Rather than isolating, I spent time with family and friends in Sweden and on a trip to Camber Sands. Being around loved ones helped ground me and gave me space to feel without falling.
2. Sharing Memories on Social Media
Posting memories and moments with Lani helped me honour her publicly and created a wave of support and encouragement from others – even people I hadn’t spoken to in years.
3. Getting Back Into Routine
I leaned into structure – returning home, planning meals, creating a habit tracker, and focusing on daily actions that kept my mind and body strong.
4. Controlling What I Consumed Mentally
I made conscious choices about what I watched, read, and listened to. I avoided sad music and heavy content, and instead focused on uplifting audiobooks, podcasts, and a project management course to keep my brain engaged.
5. Getting Out in Nature Daily
Morning walks with my dogs, away from my phone, gave me space to reflect, release emotion, and connect with nature, God, and myself.
6. Avoiding Junk Food and Alcohol
I resisted the urge to comfort eat or drink. I knew those habits could easily lead me down a darker path, so I stayed focused on nourishing my body well.
7. Eating Well and Training Regularly
I stocked up on quality food and trained consistently – mostly CrossFit. It helped me maintain discipline, feel stronger physically, and be around a positive community.
8. Prioritising Sleep
Good sleep habits helped my recovery. I followed a simple routine (3-2-1 rule), used an Oura Ring to track progress, and paid attention to what supported deep rest.
9. Thinking About My Future
Instead of sitting in limbo, I began visualising and planning a new future – one that Lani would be proud of. I used journaling, meditation and even ChatGPT to explore my next steps.
10. Living in a Way That Makes Her Proud
Every day, I ask myself if Lani would be proud of the way I'm showing up. That question guides me and helps me stay aligned with the man I want to be.
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Transcript – 002: 10 Things I Did to Help With Grief After Losing My Wife
When I lost my wife, I didn't know how to handle grief. I hadn't been taught, I haven't been shown or told and hadn't experienced grief before. So it was something new to me.
And the only kind of, I guess, experience or insight or versions of grief that I've seen before is in media. You know, you watch TV or you watch movies and you know, a man loses his wife and he responds by drinking alcohol, getting depressed, isolating, becoming numb, and then potentially becoming suicidal.
And I made a decision very early on that that wasn't the path I wanted for myself, and it definitely wouldn't have been the path that Lani would've wanted for me. So, you know, as Lani was battling her cancer journey. I got some news beginning the year that she only had a few days left to live. She didn't, in the end, she ended up, um, last another six weeks. That's Lani.
But you know, when I got that news, I made the conscious decision not to drink beer. I, I'm never been a big drinker anyway, but I do enjoy a beer. I'm watching the football, taking it the edge off after a long day. But from that moment I was like, okay, I'm not gonna rely on alcohol to numb my feelings or anything and I'm gonna feel the emotion.
So when did pass? That's what I decided to do. Okay. What were the things that I could do for myself that were gonna be good for me? You know, I, I don't know, or didn't know how close I was to becoming depressed or suicidal. You know, I haven't experienced this before. I don't know how close those emotions are to becoming real. I.
And I did wanna find out, you know, people don't choose to be depressed. I don't choose to become suicidal, so I wanted to give myself a good chance of that not happening to me. So I needed to make decisions that were gonna move me away from those dark places instead of move me towards those dark places.
I knew if I drank alcohol or ate sugary foods, it was gonna affect my mental health as well as my physical health. And it's gonna probably lead me into a route. So in this podcast, I wanna share the 10 things that I did within the first four weeks of Lani passing that I feel really helped me, um, really put me in a strong place and handled the situation in a way that I'm really proud of. And that one that Lani be proud of as well.
No, I, I feel like I'd had an unfair advantage. Um, okay. We built a life coaching business. Lani was a great life coach, and we invested a lot of money in ourselves in the time we were together with personal growth and learning new things. Lani was always someone that wanted the best for herself and also for me. She always called me outta my bullshit if I was just settling in life.
So we always wanted to move forward. We'd always say if we, if we're not growing, we're dying. So we always invested in tools and mentorship and courses to strengthen ourselves. So when Lani passed, I felt like I had a lot of those tools in my arsenal that I could rely on. Again, that was a real testament to Lani, to, to fuel us that way in life and to really kind of strengthen ourselves.
So 10 things that really helped me. After Lonnie passed within the first four weeks.
First one was surrounding myself with people you know, my family and friends all live down south in England. I'm up north in Manchester, so it is quite isolating at times. And I had an opportunity, you know, the Lonnie passed on a Wednesday and my parents were flying to Sweden, see my brother on the Friday. It was his, it was his birthday on the Sunday. So I went with him and that was probably the best thing I could do is kind of get out. The environment. Get out of my apartment that I shared with Lonnie. Be around my family. See my nephews I hadn't seen for a long time. And just be around people that loved me and and supported me and were able to take my mind off things.
You know, it was my brother's birthday, so it was cool to focus on that. He had a gym in his garage so I could go out there and work out with my brother and just kind of spend some time bonding with him and my dad and my nephews. And there are times where I did retreat. To the bedroom on my own and dealt with my emotions and thought about Lani and that was great. But being around, being around my family for those first kind of four or five days was was really fantastic.
And then the following weekends, a friend of mine suggested we go to get a cottage down in Canvas Sands, take our dogs with us. It was Easter weekend. And again, that was really helpful as well. Just not being in my apartment on my own with the dogs, but having, having a friend there, someone I could play ball games with, you know, watch TV with and take the dogs for a walk on the beach. It was really helpful.
And you know, after those 10, 11 days, I spent my friends and family, I did feel the need to have, okay, I can come and have some time to myself and I'll go through that a little bit later on. But. Yeah, get some, get some people around you. Don't isolate and just be with people that love you and able to support you and ideally think, get out the environment as well that you used to and just kind of shock yourself. Shock your body. Shock your mind into, into new things. Maybe waking up in new places that aren't so familiar with you and, and the loved one that you lost.
Number two was sharing memories of Lonnie on my social, on Instagram. Lonnie was always someone that wanted me to take photos of her and videos when we was out, if we was going out for dinner. You know, she wanted videos and, and photos for social media and, uh, sometimes I'd be gradually do it. I'm so glad I did. 'cause having all of that to look back on was, is really helpful. Anytime I want to.
But just sharing it on social media and obviously it helps her friends and family. You know, Lonnie was from California, so a lot of her friends and family out there, so being able to share those memories with those was really helpful. This, and then the messages, the support that I received. Every time I'd post a story up or a video with Lani or a photo. I'd get a lot of messages and just support and just knowing that I'm, I'm, I wasn't alone in this and I had a lot of support from people I didn't even know, to be honest.
I've got hundreds of messages from, you know, Facebook friends and Instagram followers that I had probably lost connection with over the years, and people from cottage from like 20 years ago when I came. I heard about your wife, you know, I never met her, and just like real messages of support was really empowering. And really helpful. So if you, if you have that collection and you know you can share those with other people and put that out there, then it's something that really helped me.
And then number three, like I touched on, you know, is getting back into a routine after those kind of 10, 11 days I spent being around people. I did crave some time to be on my own. And, you know, I'm a man of routine. I like my structure. So coming back home is something that excited me and I wanted to have some alone time. Again, just to process those emotions by myself is cool. Being around some people with cool, being around people sometimes, but yeah, I felt the need to actually, I need to go, I need some time on my own now just to kind of go through this myself and start building habits in place that were gonna support me.
Yeah, before I got home, I placed an order online for some grass fed meat. I enjoy eating a particular way and I knew that I needed to support myself physically with good food and, and working out and a lot of other habits. So building that routine and coming home was really important. So something that I did was built a spreadsheet, simple habit tracking spreadsheet. Again, I'm a man of structure. I. So I had to kind of put a list together of things that I knew I needed to do to get my mind strong and get my body strong. Things like meditating every day, stretching, breath work, making sure I'm eating well every day, counting my steps, counting how many hours sleep that I'm getting, um, am I using an ice bath? I have my ice bath at home, I hadn't used for a long time. So I, I set that up and I knew that these things gave me something to focus on each day. I'm a bit of a nerd, so I enjoyed logging the numbers and everything and, and seeing that, but I knew that these things and doing things that were gonna keep my mind right. I was obviously gonna keep me away from those darker places, so I. It gave me focus and it moved me away from having to feel those negative emotions, you know, or being pushed towards those negative emotions.
Not to say that I don't sit there in sadness and cry and feel those emotions, but like I, I said I didn't want to get depressed or, or weighed down in darkness. I wanted to do things that were gonna make me in a, put me in a better place, so. That really helps me is spending some time by myself and focusing on good habits that are gonna affect my mental and physical wellbeing and, uh, you know, having that habit sheet just kind of become a daily reminder of things as well. I reached out to a nutrition friend of mine was like, okay, what supplements can I be taking to help me get back into working out and also keep my body right? So I put those in the, on the spreadsheet to make sure I don't forget to take those. So every, every day I log into the spreadsheet. Put my stats in there from yesterday, tick off the boxes. I did everything I wanted to do, give myself like a little score, and it just kind of keeps me motivated to do those things every day and to see that feedback is something that works well for me.
Number four was controlled. What went into my mind really. And you know, thinking about music and TV and movies. I found it really hard for the first couple of weeks to listen to music. I didn't play any music. I wanted to stay away from like, sad songs coming on. Um, again, I just didn't want to keep on triggering sad emotions, you know, I was feeding those anyway at certain points in the day, which I welcomed. I didn't need to sit there all day, you know, listening to sad songs and, and getting upset. And same with. TV shows and movies. I, there's certain emotions I didn't wanna be fed, I didn't want watch heavy TV shows about negativity and, you know, bad things happening to other people. If I was to watch a movie, it'd be very mindful. I, I, I, I'd find a movie I'd want to watch online or think about one, and then I would turn on Netflix and find that movie and watch it. I wouldn't just kind of scroll through Netflix trying to find something to set my mind off things. I was very purposeful and instead I focused on things. That were gonna be helpful to me. So audio books, normal books, podcasts, and I started to do a course. So, um, a couple last year I started a project management course, got like a course of the way through it and stopped it. And then I started that up again after like two or three weeks of line passing. I had a lot of time off work. They were very supportive. So I was like, okay, this is a good opportunity for me to put some attention somewhere and to. Use my time in a creative way, not in a destructive way. So I went through the project management certificate and, and did that for three weeks. And it was really cool. Just kind of give myself some structure each day in terms of what I could be doing with my brain. And then also putting on audible books around know mental health and personal growth and that kind of stuff. And that was much more beneficial than watching tv.
And if it's not something like a Call Sean do in terms of. Like stretching your mind. Maybe look at new hobbies, you know, take skate skateboarding or you know, learning how to dive in a pool and just kind of focus on doing something different. And the chance to say, you may find a community in there as well, and community's really helpful and being supportive. For me, my community was in CrossFit. So maybe if you haven't got a hobby and or you wanna take up a new hobby, then that's a good opportunity to kind of, not just spend your time scrolling and numbing, but doing something more positive with your mind or your body.
Number five was getting out in nature every day. Its something I've been doing for years. I've got two dogs that we rescued from barley, and two and a half years ago, we moved them back to England with us. So in barley, we could just open the doors and the dogs would go out for the whole day and keep themselves busy. In the uk I've gotta be a bit more mindful of that and I've gotta take them out for walks myself. They'd always got in the habit of waking up each morning and, and taking 'em for walks, but this time it was more purposeful. I. You know, we'd go over to the park and then reserve, I'd leave my phone at home and, you know, switch myself off from distractions and it was, we'd go out at like 5:00 AM in the morning. My dogs are crazy. I like to wake up super early. So it was quiet and peaceful and I'd use that time to, you know. Feel my emotions and, and speak to Lonnie and speak to God, and I'll just kind of have conversations. Probably look like a mad man walking around, but no one else was around anyway, and just, um, felt a lot of release from those mornings and I still do it now. And it's just nice getting that in nature and seeing the greens and the blues, and hearing the birds and the animals. So if you can find something like that around you and potentially use that as an opportunity to speak to your loved one, or speak to God or speak to yourself. I found that really helpful.
Number six was avoided junk food and alcohol. So something I mentioned before, it's, you know, these are two things that. You know, pull people into sadness and depression at the best of times. So me, at my worst time, I don't want to kind of fuel those things. So the amount of times I probably went onto the Domino's app or Deliveroo app and kind of scroll through different items of foods, window shopping, I, that's called it. I stayed away from ordering takeaways and made sure I just kind of stuck to the foods that I knew would help me. For me, it's, it's red meat, fruit, honey, and dairy. That's something I did really well. That's something I enjoy eating, something I enjoy cooking on, so that helpful. And then avoiding alcohol. So when I was in Sweden, he had a couple of beers, my dad and brother, and loved that. But then since then, I haven't really touched alcohol. I had two beers on my birthday last week, and if I ever do feel the need for a, for, for a beer, it's alcohol free, which is really good ones these days. But. It's wanting to keep a keep away from those two kind of things. Sugary foods, junk foods, alcohol. That's gonna kind of pull you into a place that you don't really need to be pulled into. So think about keeping the stuff that goes into your body as healthy as you can to keep your body really healthy.
Number seven was excise. And ate well. So in, in contrast to not eating shit, I ate really well. So again, making sure that I was restructured with my days in terms of eating, making sure I had a fridge full and a freezer full of food to rely on, and I didn't have to go down to the co-op of Sainsbury's and, and give into cravings. It was, okay, this is the food that I have in my apartment, this is what I'm gonna eat, and then I'm going to exercise four or five times a week. And get back into that. Take it L and easy. I'm not trying to set any world records here or personal bests, but for me, CrossFit's a really good place to go and train. I don't have to worry about programming for myself. And there's people there, there's coaches there that supported other people around. But again, I confided in what I was going through. And found support for them. They reached out to me, people that I'd hardly knew and said, Hey, if you ever wanna grab a coffee, I'll come over to my for a chat. Then I'm there and I'm available for that. And just having that support again, just really helpful. Definitely in a place where I'm quite isolated with friends and family, having, having CrossFit in that community was really helpful. So. Obviously there's benefits to exercising. If you can continue to do that, whatever works for you. I recommend community based stuff like High Rocks or CrossFit or joining in a sports club, and just being around people is gonna help push you at a time where potentially you find it hard to push yourself.
Number eight is sleep. So understanding that. Exercise. Eating well and a good sleep and a sleep routine was gonna be helpful to me, was very important. So I understand that I can't always control how I sleep, but I can control things like my sleep routine leading up to bed, on my bed routine, and making sure I'm giving myself the best opportunity for a good night's sleep. So again, eating three hours or the last thing I ate was three hours before bed. The last time I drank was two hours before bed, and the last screen time was one hour before bed and before bed. I would do some breath work or something like kind of movement and stretching and that kind of put me in a better place to fall asleep earlier or do a meditation or sleep meditation as I'm about to sleep and I have an AA ring. I've had, I've had an AA ring for like five years. I. Never used it really, um, before. Okay. Would be interesting to kind of track my sleep and not get fixated on how I am sleeping, but Okay. Is there anything that I can do better leading up to my sleep? Can I, and I put this in my habit tracker. Um, I'll get a score from Aura and to say how my sleep was, or how my readiness score is, I have or recovered from the previous day, really from the next day. And again, it's logging those into the habit tracker. Allows me to look back and be like, okay, these positive things that I'm doing are having a positive outcome on, on my sleep data as well as my weight and body fat that I get from a scale. So I find that really cool just just to see that. So making sure I'm getting the best opportunity for good night's sleep.
And then number nine, I found this really powerful is thinking about my future, you know, after Lani passed. I didn't just lose my wife, I lost, you know, our future together. I lost our plans and everything that we had, we had thought about doing together. You know, we, we, we were living in England, Annie's American, as I said, and we had a plan to get my visa and move over to the US and obviously that's all changed. Now she's not here, but this didn't want life to happen to me now. I just didn't want to just kinda sit there as a bystander, feel sorry for myself. I wanted to start making plans. About what I wanted to do with my life. So I started to work on that. I started to have a conversation with chat, GBT. I've been like, Hey, this is what's happened. You know, as a UK citizen married to a US citizen, I believe I'm eligible for a visa, which is called for the us. It's a widow visa. So that's something I'm gonna look into applying and, and, and move to the us. Myself. I had a conversation with Jack TPT and I'm like, Hey, what states can I go to in terms of this is what I'm wanting from the weather climate warm, obviously. Um, this is the career that I'm in and this is where I wanna go with my career. What kind of cities we best for at. And we come up with a plan. We're looking at Austin in Texas or Miami, Florida and come up with and looking at houses in those areas and which, you know, parts of those suburbs would be best in terms of me in terms of wanting to CrossFit, have somewhere I can walk the girls and enjoy the weather. So that was really cool. And bringing that into our meditations every day and visualizing that future, you know, there's some quotes out there that say if you don't build your dream, someone else will hire you to build their dream. And I think it's really important to, to have a dream, to have a plan. I want, I want an 18 month or two year plan because if I don't have a plan in place, I dunno where I'm gonna go. And I don't want to just let life happen to me. So every day I am, you know, I'm working towards that plan and, you know, all the gurus out there will tell you to visualize. So I bring that into my meditation every day. It's, it's something that I do and enjoy doing. Where I, I see myself in Austin in a house with the girls, my dogs, and, um, feeding that Austin heat, tasting that Austin barbecue food and, and, and using that as a real driver for the things that I do every day now, rather than just thinking, oh, I dunno what's gonna happen to me. I dunno what my life's gonna look like. I'm building a plan and it's, again, something that's. It takes my attention and takes my focus, which is really good. Instead of allowing my attention and focus to drift away to me and into negative places, asking questions that I never get answers to, I wanna take control of that. So I. Think about your future. Think about what, what you want from it. Now, obviously it's, it's gonna be a big change on, on what you thought your future was gonna be like, and that can be hard. So obviously to, to get around it might take some time to, and, you know, the future you plan now in two years may not be the future you want in two years, but just having something in place that you can think of and visualize are, are found really motivating and helpful.
And then the last thing that I, I did or I do since losing Lonnie is live my life in a way that would make her proud. You know, I think about every day and think to myself, would Lonnie be proud of who I am and what I'm doing? And that's a big driver for every day, and I wanna honor her. I don't want to let her down. And she wouldn't want me to throw my life away. So I, I take every, every day as it comes, but I'll make the most of it. And those previous nine things really help me kind of to get up each day, have an impactful day on myself, and start moving towards my future.
So I hope that helps. 10 things that I did after losing my wife, probably in the first four weeks. And yeah. Thank you for listening.
I have a website, www.therebuildlab.com. There's a newsletter on there if you'd like to sign up. If you enjoyed this podcast, if you're going through something similar to what? To what I'm going through, I wanna put together a. A community of men, you know, just kind of bring together a brotherhood of people and men that are going through this and, and we can connect. And that would start with signing up for my newsletter. And then I'm excited to see what that may lead to in the future.
So if you're listening to this podcast and you feel like you've got something from it or you're going through something similar, then I would love, would love to connect with you. Thanks for listening.
