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LIVE HEALTHY NOW - Episode 21
Changing your life: Love, loss and life
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As part of our February mini-series focusing on how when life is hard or throws major challenges at you, the only way to move forward is to take better care of yourself, we bring you a truly incredible and inspiring guest, Cat O’Brien.
“People think it’s a badge of honour to wear if you don’t need very much sleep, but sleep’s not like a bank account. You can’t stock it up and tap into it when you need to speak it. When you’ve lost it you’ve lost it.”
— Nicola Mercer
“With a little resilience and a lot of support you can definitely find a way forward. Everything you do in keeping a healthy mind and a healthy body keeps up that resilience to deal with something traumatic when it happens in a physical way.”
—Cat O’Brien
Just a little forewarning that in today’s episode we chat about death, loss and grief.
This episode is such a powerful and inspirational one and we cannot wait for you to take a listen.
Today Cat is sharing her story of the sudden loss of her much loved partner and soul mate, Jon. She explores her response to the trauma his loss triggered and explains why you have to move forward in a way that works for you. She emphasises that there is not a one size fits all approach to your health and for her this meant finding what worked for her to simply be able to keep going, and how it’s continuing to evolve as she builds back her strength and health.
Cat gives so much priceless advice for anyone who is struggling with grief or would like to understand better how to support themselves or others when grief comes into your life. She shows how it’s possible for anyone to find growth in grief and how this has enabled her to now be on a path she wouldn’t have chosen, but one she is filled with purpose to now follow.
You’ll learn so much in this episode about:
The power of a morning routine in having a purposeful day.
The choice that lies in front of you when you experience a sudden loss.
How grief invokes a trauma response and impacts your physiology.
The different ways you can support yourself to work through grief and why this has to be individual to you.
The role goal setting can play in helping you to navigate grief.
Focusing on the para-sympathetic nervous system to help mange the physical and mental impact of grief.
Why we need to get comfortable with talking about death and grief.
Basing your recovery on fundamentals like getting outside and having quality sleep.
How Cat’s used community to support her strengthening her health and wellbeing.
The different ways we can all build resilience to support ourselves and others for any traumatic life event we might experience.
About Cat:
Cat O'Brien is passionate about helping bereaved people integrate grief into their life and have the opportunity to thrive once more whilst still holding space for grief. Cat's partner Jon died suddenly in November 2020 at just 46 years old, and it set Cat on a journey she could not have predicted and wouldn't wish on anyone. Cat has learned that there are aspects of grief that make you feel like you don't have choices, but now knows that we always have a choice, we just have to find it. We can grieve in a healthy way that honours what we must do to continue, and the memory of who or what we have lost.
Cat offers support for anyone experiencing or wanting to understand grief better in her Facebook community - Love, loss and life. She welcomes anyone to this supportive and safe community, and also has coaching services and retreats coming during 2023.
Connect with Cat in her free Facebook group:
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