18: After The Storm: Where Healing Begins presented by Brian D. Smith - Episode 1818: After The Storm: Where Healing Begins presented by Brian D. Smith - Episode 18
UK Health Radio Podcast
Brian D. Smith talks with Julie Wright Halbert about the sudden death of her husband, the impact on their children, and her shift towards "living and dying awake". Their discussion centres on grief as enduring love, the coexistence of grief and joy, and practical ways to bring more presence and meaning into life after loss.
47:14•30 Oct 2026
Live and Die Awake: Julie Wright Halbert on Love, Loss and Finding Meaning After Death
Episode Overview
- Grief is described as an expression of deep love, and a companion that stays rather than something that disappears.
- Growth after loss is framed as a choice shaped by how you relate to the grief, not by the loss itself.
- Intentional presence – returning from constant doing to simple being – is presented as a core daily practice for living "awake".
- Unprocessed feelings and unresolved relationships are said to make dying more agitated, while emotional work in life can ease the transition.
- Children’s grief needs dedicated support and policies, with peer-based programmes offering a vital sense of being seen and understood.
“Grief is love. Grief is the greatest love that we know.”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey and wider healing after loss? This conversation on UK Health Radio’s "After The Storm: Where Healing Begins" brings together host Brian D. Smith and guest Julie Wright Halbert for a deeply human look at grief, love and the strange ways life carries on. Brian, a certified grief guide whose 15-year-old daughter Shana died suddenly, sits down with Julie, whose husband Jim died just three weeks after a shocking cancer diagnosis.
Julie talks about those chaotic hospital days, the cold rooms, failed attempts to "fix" the problem, and the shattering impact on her two teenage sons. She admits, "My soul did not break. It cracked wide open," capturing how grief can wreck your life and still open a new path.
You’ll hear how Julie moved from being a national education attorney to training as a certified death doula, and how she now lives by a simple idea she calls "live and die awake" – making intentional choices every day so that both life and death are met with presence rather than avoidance.
She shares her seven presence vows, the difference between doing and being, and why learning to sit with feelings (instead of running from them) matters for our final days as much as for our current ones.
The episode also touches on children’s grief, with Julie describing her work on bereavement support in schools and a programme where teens say, "Blue Butterfly saved my life." Together, Brian and Julie talk about grief and joy coexisting, grief as a lifelong companion, and the choice to grow through loss by changing the relationship you have with it.
If love continues after death and grief is its echo, how do you want that love to shape the rest of your life?
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