After speaking with grief coach and this week’s guest, Shelby Forsythia, author of the upcoming book, Of Course I’m Here Right Now, I’ve been thinking about how narrowly we define loss for ourselves and how we acknowledge it in a friend’s life. We show up well when someone dies. There are rituals, language, and expectations for that kind of grief. But loss also comes with divorce, estrangement, a diagnosis that changes everything, the quiet end of a friendship, your sense of safety, your faith, or the life you thought you were going to have but don’t for any number of reasons. In my conversation with Shelby, she talks about how people often don’t get support during these moments because their loss doesn’t “count” in the obvious way it does with the death of a loved one. There’s no funeral and no clear thing to say, so friends stay quiet with fear of saying the wrong thing. Shelby pointed out how this silence can become a secondary loss, and our conversation centered on the three things you CAN say to a friend. What I loved about the episode was how we did not focus what “not to say.” Instead Shelby offered her three helpful phrases and explained why they work. You can find those three phrases in the episode! Listen to episode #182 on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and anywhere you listen to podcasts!
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Sunday, 1 February 2026
Rethinking How We Define Loss
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