19: After The Storm: Where Healing Begins presented by Brian D. Smith - Episode 1919: After The Storm: Where Healing Begins presented by Brian D. Smith - Episode 19
UK Health Radio Podcast
Brian D. Smith reflects on how grief and joy can sit side by side after the loss of a loved one, sharing personal stories, spiritual ideas and research. He offers practical ways to ease guilt around feeling better while staying deeply connected to the person who has died.
47:21•6 Nov 2026
Walking Between Two Worlds: Grief, Joy and Letting Yourself Live Again
Episode Overview
- Guilt after moments of joy in grief is common and reflects love, not failure.
- Joy and ongoing love for the person who died can exist in the same heart at the same time.
- Psychological research shows that genuine smiling and laughter during grief often link with healthier adjustment.
- Maintaining a continuing bond with the deceased can support healing rather than block it.
- Simple practices—like walks, music, spoken permission and small daily rituals—can help balance deep pain with glimpses of peace.
“You are not choosing between loving them and living your life. That was never the choice.”
How do people find hope in the darkest times? This episode of **After The Storm: Where Healing Begins**, hosted by grief guide and bereaved father Brian D. Smith, sits right inside that question. Speaking as someone who lost his 15-year-old daughter, Shana, Brian talks directly to anyone who’s grieving and quietly wondering if it’s wrong to laugh again.
He starts with a moment most bereaved people know too well: the first time you genuinely laugh, then feel a wave of guilt crash over you. Rather than treating that guilt as proof you’re doing grief “wrong”, Brian reframes it as proof of love: your heart trying to protect a bond it thinks is under threat. As he puts it, "You are not choosing between loving them and living your life.
That was never the choice." Across the episode, he challenges the familiar phrase “return to the land of the living”, arguing that it unintentionally paints our loved ones as stuck in a dead, empty place.
Drawing on spiritual ideas, near-death experiences and his work with grieving parents, he suggests those who have passed are more alive than ever and want one thing repeated again and again: “Please be happy.” Brian weaves in research on grief, including George Bonanno’s work on how genuine laughter during bereavement can signal healthy adjustment, and the dual process model that shows why moving between pain and everyday life is normal.
His scuba-diving metaphor of “neutral buoyancy” brings it home: being human after loss means constantly adjusting between the heaviness of grief and the lift of spirit. He rounds off with practical suggestions—like simple rituals, talking to your person as you laugh, and finding your own “walk between two worlds”—that make it feel possible to carry both grief and joy. If you’ve ever wondered whether feeling better means leaving someone behind, could this be the gentle reassurance you’ve been waiting for?
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