5: After The Storm: Where Healing Begins presented by Brian D. Smith - Episode 55: After The Storm: Where Healing Begins presented by Brian D. Smith - Episode 5
UK Health Radio Podcast
Brian D. Smith shares how four simple daily practices—gratitude, movement and sleep, mindfulness, and self-care—became his lifeline after his daughter died. The episode focuses on practical, science-backed ways to live with grief while still honouring the person who has passed.
47:02•24 Jul 2026
GEMS for Grief: How Brian D. Smith Stays Standing After Loss
Episode Overview
- Grief is described as a vast wilderness, and surviving it requires more than simply enduring day by day.
- A simple gratitude practice can retrain the brain’s negativity bias and is linked in research to reduced depression and increased well-being.
- Regular movement, especially walking outdoors, acts like medicine for stress and depression while supporting better sleep.
- Mindfulness helps keep attention in the present, reducing the torture of living in past regrets or future fears.
- Self-care is presented as essential maintenance rather than selfishness, forming the foundation for all other healing practices.
“"Enduring isn't living. I had two people counting on me to actually live."”
Experience the emotional and inspiring tales of recovery as Brian D. Smith shares how grief reshaped his life after the passing of his 15-year-old daughter, Shana. A certified grief guide and life coach, Brian speaks directly to people carrying heavy loss, including those in addiction recovery who know what it feels like to have their world torn apart.
Instead of quick fixes, he talks about four practices he calls "GEMS" – gratitude, exercise (and sleep), mindfulness, and self-care – and how they quietly became the reasons he’s still here. You’ll hear him admit that, at first, he wanted nothing but sleep and an escape from pain, saying, "Enduring isn't living," and describing grief as "a vast, uncharted wilderness" with no map and no compass.
Brian walks through how gratitude moved from something he resented to a tool that changed his mental focus, backed by science on neuroplasticity and the brain’s negativity bias. He breaks down how daily walking turned into a sacred ritual, a "prayer with my whole body", and explains how movement and time outdoors work like medicine for depression and stress.
Mindfulness comes in as a way to stay in the present rather than being dragged into the past or future, while self-care – the last piece he embraced – becomes the ground that makes all the other practices possible. He’s clear that none of this means “getting over” a loved one or pretending the pain isn’t real; instead, it’s about building enough strength to keep loving and keep living at the same time.
If you’re wondering whether healing after loss is possible without abandoning the person you miss, this episode might be the gentle, practical reassurance you’ve been waiting for. What small step from Brian’s GEMS could you say yes to today?
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