22: The Getting Real with Hilary Show with Hilary Burns - Episode 2222: The Getting Real with Hilary Show with Hilary Burns - Episode 22
UK Health Radio Podcast
Mindy Corcoran shares the story of losing her father and teenage son in a hate crime, reflecting on grief, brain fog and the importance of accepting help. Hilary Burns offers her own experience of parental loss as they talk about safe ways to release emotion and how workplaces can better understand grieving people.
46:47•24 Oct 2026
Choosing Love After Loss: Mindy Corcoran on Grief, Help and Healing
Episode Overview
- Grief shows up in many forms, including anger, exhaustion and brain fog, and can affect even basic tasks.
- Accepting help – from food to laundry to simple presence – can be one of the healthiest choices a grieving person makes.
- Finding a safe space to cry or express emotion is crucial; holding everything in can eventually harm physical and mental health.
- Different people, even within the same household, grieve in very different ways, from workaholism to sport to increased drinking.
- Employers need to recognise that bereaved employees are changed by their experiences and require time, understanding and flexibility.
“My concern is when people tighten that spigot or don't empty their heart, they don't find a safe environment… if you don't, you will get sick.”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey? This conversation on UK Health Radio’s *Getting Real with Hilary* turns towards grief, hate crime and the messy, human side of staying present through overwhelming pain. The episode centres on guest Mindy Corcoran, author of *Healing a Shattered Soul*, whose father and 14-year-old son were murdered in a racially motivated shooting at a Jewish community campus.
Mindy recounts the day her “soul shattered”, arriving at the scene minutes after the attack and finding her father and son already fatally wounded.
She talks candidly about trauma, saying EMDR therapy helped her share her story: “EMDR helped me detach when I need to from the emotion of what happened… so I can speak about it and I will feel it tomorrow.” Hilary shares her own experience of losing her 96-year-old mother and the unexpected anger, exhaustion and “hit by a Mack truck” feeling that followed.
Their back-and-forth offers a rare, honest look at how grief feels in the body, how brain fog affects simple tasks like using a calculator, and why comparison (“other people have it worse”) only makes things harder. Mindy stresses the importance of accepting help – from friends who organised round-the-clock support at her home, to the people who simply showed up and took out the bins or walked the dog.
She also introduces her forthcoming work on “grief leadership”, aimed at helping employers understand that “when we come back [to work], we are not the same person” and need space and gentleness. This episode speaks to anyone facing loss, trauma or supporting someone who is. It’s emotional, practical and surprisingly down-to-earth, asking a simple but challenging question: are you letting your grief out, or are you tightening the spigot and holding it all in?
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