2: After The Storm: Where Healing Begins presented by Brian D. Smith - Episode 22: After The Storm: Where Healing Begins presented by Brian D. Smith - Episode 2
UK Health Radio Podcast
Brian D. Smith expands the meaning of grief to include visible and invisible losses, from bereavement to broken dreams, and explains how unprocessed pain shapes body, mind and behaviour. He offers practical tools and gentle reflections to help people move from mere survival towards a more present, compassionate life.
44:48•26 Jun 2026
After the Storm: Naming Invisible Grief and Letting the Thriver Out
Episode Overview
- Grief includes losses of identity, health, relationships, futures and pets, not just physical death.
- Unrecognised and unprocessed grief can accumulate as “invisible loss” and keep people stuck in a psychological waiting room.
- The body can store unprocessed grief, affecting sleep, immunity, relationships and general wellbeing.
- Recognising inner personas – survivor, watcher and thriver – helps people see how self-protection may be limiting their lives now.
- Simple, small “5% steps” and a personal timeline of losses can gently start the process of metabolising long-held grief.
“You’re not stuck because something is wrong with you. You’re stuck because you’ve been carrying something real that nobody taught you to name.”
Curious about how others manage the weight of grief that doesn’t fit into a funeral programme? This episode of “After The Storm: Where Healing Begins” with Brian D. Smith broadens what many people think grief means and speaks straight to anyone carrying quiet, unseen losses. Brian, a certified grief guide and bereaved father, talks in a calm, gentle style that feels part teaching, part honest chat over a cuppa.
He widens grief beyond death to include divorce, job loss, health changes, estranged relationships, miscarriages and even the death of a cherished pet. His message is clear: “you can’t heal what you can’t name,” and, as he puts it, “you’re not stuck because something is wrong with you.
You’re stuck because you’ve been carrying something real that nobody taught you to name.” Drawing on grief educator Christina Rasmussen’s idea of “invisible loss”, Brian explains how small and large moments of rejection, abandonment or humiliation stack up over a lifetime and can keep people trapped in what Christina calls “the waiting room” – a half-lived life where the survivor part of you runs the show and the playful “thriver” self hardly gets a look in.
He weaves in research from Bessel van der Kolk about how “the body keeps the score”, making this episode especially helpful for anyone curious about the link between emotional pain and physical health. The style is practical and grounded; Brian offers a simple timeline exercise to map out life’s losses and then gently asks what each one may have given as well as taken.
This episode will speak to people in bereavement, those in recovery from alcohol or other addictions, and anyone who senses their low-grade anxiety or numbness might be tied to unspoken grief. It might just leave you asking: what invisible losses have you been carrying, and what small step could you take to let your inner thriver back out?
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