Orla Blackburn - Grief Guide for Widows

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Orla Blackburn - Grief Guide for Widows Holistic Widow Guide | Nervous-System-Led Grief Support

Talking alone isn’t enough when grief has hijacked your body. Join us inside the free group today.

I help widowed women settle their nervous systems, rebuild a felt sense of safety, and gently reconnect with life — from the inside out. Welcome to a space where grief is not rushed, fixed, or ignored. I’m Orla Blackburn, a widowed woman, grief guide, and movement teacher who helps women after loss find a way to feel safe again — in their body, their mind, and their life. Inside my free community, Beyond Bereavement Into Bravery, you’ll find:
🖤 Free gentle yoga for grief
🖤 Support from others who truly get it
🖤 Guided tools to help you rebuild your inner world
🖤 Monthly free sessions & honest conversations

➡️ Ready for a little hope again? https://www.facebook.com/groups/beyondbereavementintobravery/

This is the bit I don't think we talk about enough.Not the raw early grief.The bit that can come later.When you're funct...
26/09/2026

This is the bit I don't think we talk about enough.

Not the raw early grief.
The bit that can come later.

When you're functioning again — perhaps functioning really bloody well — but something still feels missing.

You're living.
You're just not always feeling very alive.

And those aren't the same thing.

I'm Orla, your Holistic Widow Coach, for widows who want more than simply getting through life.

Over the next few weeks I'm talking about what can keep us in this flat place — and what can help us find our way into something richer.

If this is where you are, save this or follow along. There's more coming.

If you want to take some action on how you are feeling right now - send me a DM, or find the link in my bio to book a call

23/09/2026

You may already know a LOT about your grief.

You’ve read the books.
Love the podcasts.
Found great community in the widow groups.
Maybe you’ve had counselling, done courses, done everything to try and be ok again.

And it may all have helped.

But understanding your grief and feeling differently in your life aren’t quite the same thing.

You can be past the rawest part.

Back at work. Going out. Travelling. Laughing. Making plans.

And still feel flat.

Empty.

Like you’re doing life rather than really feeling it.

It’s easy to think: maybe this is just what living with grief feels like now.

I don’t believe it has to be.

You can deeply miss the person who died and deeply experience the life that’s still here.

That’s where my work sits.

I’m Orla — a widow, and mind + body coach for widows who want more than simply getting through life.

And over the next few weeks, I’m going to talk about what can keep us stuck in that flat place — and what can actually help us shift it.

If you’re thinking “YES — but how?” follow me. That’s exactly where we’re going.

If you are ready to make those deep inner changes now, send me a DM and let’s chat.

18/09/2026

This won’t be every widow’s experience.

Some people are left financially devastated when their person dies. Money really IS the barrier, and I would never pretend otherwise.

But there’s another experience we don’t talk about very much.

Having the money — and finding it incredibly difficult to use it.

I know something about this one.

After my husband died, I did the sensible thing. I paid off the mortgage.

And then I became frightened of touching the money that was left.

Because it wasn’t just money.

It was money I had because Andy had died.

For a long time, I felt I needed to earn my own money. I needed to know that I could provide for my son and myself.

And as I’ve gradually proved that to myself, something has shifted.

I’ve invested significantly in my own growth and learning.

And this year I said yes to spending a month in Bali — a month in which I wouldn’t just be spending money, I’d also be choosing not to earn it.

That would have been almost unthinkable to me before.

And it’s made me curious about the women for whom money itself isn’t the thing standing in the way.

Maybe you already have financial security. Maybe you’re still earning very well. Maybe your circumstances mean you have choices available to you.

And yet actually using those choices for yourself can bring up guilt, fear, loyalty, deserving, responsibility — all sorts of things that have very little to do with the number in your bank account.

You can change an awful lot on the outside and still carry the same things on the inside.

That’s the work I’m increasingly interested in.

Not telling you what you should do with your life.

Helping you understand what you want from it now — and what’s getting in the way of allowing yourself to have it.

If you’re reading this thinking, Oh God. This is me, I’d love to hear from you.

I am a Holistic Widow Coach, widowed almost 8 years, and I help you neurologically, somatically and emotionally discover the parts of you that actually starts to enjoy this life again.

DM me. We can start with a conversation.

13/09/2026

That’s why I continue to offer these free sessions every month — a simple way to experience this work for yourself and notice what it does for you.

But there are lots of ways I support widowed people, depending on where you are in your loss, what you need now, and what you want for the life ahead.

From these free monthly sessions and ongoing body-based support, to deeper programmes, widows’ retreats and one-to-one coaching.

You might need somewhere safe to land.

You might want practical ways to feel calmer and more at home in your body.

Or you might be further down the road and thinking:

I’m ready for more than surviving. What do I want now?

You don’t need to fit neatly into a particular stage of grief — and you don’t need to know which kind of support is right for you.

Start where you are.

You’ll find the different ways I can support you on my website — link in bio.

Orla x

10/09/2026

Maybe nobody would even know.

You’re doing things.

Going away. Seeing friends. Working. Making plans.

You’ve done a lot of work to understand your grief and you’ve found ways to live alongside a loss you never wanted.

But underneath all of that...

you still feel a bit bloody flat.

Not desperately unhappy.

Not unable to function.

Just... not really excited by your own life either.

And perhaps you’ve started telling yourself:

Well, of course I feel like this. He’s dead.

Maybe this is just who I am now.

Maybe this is as good as it gets.

And this is where I want to make an important distinction.

I can’t help you not miss your person.

I’m not going to coach away the pain of the fact that they died.

But the loss itself may not be the only thing shaping how your life feels now.

There may be beliefs you’ve carried for years.

Ways you’ve learnt to protect yourself.

Things you do because they’re expected of you.

Parts of your old life you’re trying to make fit because you don’t know what else you want.

Fears that make a different choice feel impossible.

Or perhaps you’ve changed so profoundly that you simply don’t know this version of yourself yet.

That’s the stuff we can get curious about.

Not:

“How do we get rid of your grief?”

But:

“What is getting in the way of you discovering what feels good for YOU now?”

That’s the work I do 1:1.

We look underneath the thoughts, patterns and responses that are shaping how you’re living, so you can understand yourself differently, make different choices where you want to, and discover what actually works for the woman you are now.

Because I don’t believe missing your person means you’re sentenced to a dulled-down version of your own life.

You can miss them desperately and still want your life to have zest in it.

If you’re thinking YES. That’s what I want, but I haven’t got a clue what’s stopping me — DM me ZEST.

I currently have two spaces for 1:1 coaching.

Let’s talk. See if we’re a good fit.
x

You don't have to arrive calm.You don't have to be good at meditation.You don't even have to think this sort of thing is...
10/09/2026

You don't have to arrive calm.

You don't have to be good at meditation.

You don't even have to think this sort of thing is for you.

That's rather the point.

Come as you are and notice how you feel afterwards.

Free for widowed people this Sunday at 8pm UK | 3pm ET | 12pm PT

Want to experience how this feels for you?
Join my private group for the widowed - Beyond Bereavement into Bravery . You will then gain access to the free sessions, a supportive community, and questions to help you understand this life you hadn't planned for but want to get better at.

Orla x

02/09/2026

That was me too.

I worked full time.
Built my career and became Head of Creative.
Cared for our baby, kept working, while Andy went through cancer the first time.
Worked ridiculous hours.
Made decisions. Solved problems. Kept things going.

I knew how to cope when life got hard.

And then Andy died.

And everything I had relied on to get me through hard things seemed to disappear with him.

I couldn’t think properly.

Stringing a sentence together could feel too hard.

Making the simplest decision could overwhelm me.

The capable, problem-solving woman I’d always relied on?

I couldn’t seem to find her either.

And I couldn’t work harder at this.

I couldn’t organise my way out of it.

I couldn’t think my way out of it.

All my old strategies had fallen apart.

And maybe that’s where something else slowly began.

Not me finding a better way to push through.

But learning a completely different way of being with myself.

Learning to notice what I needed.

To listen to my body.

To understand what was happening underneath my thoughts and reactions.

To question things I’d spent years assuming were simply “who I am”.

And eventually, to hear and trust my own answers again.

That’s a huge part of the work I now do with widowed women.

I’m not here to make you more capable.

Blimey, you’re probably capable enough already.

I’m here to help you understand yourself, reconnect with what you need and want, and begin trusting yourself to choose what feels right for you now.

Because the goal isn’t to turn you back into the woman who could cope with anything, nor is it to “fix” your grief.

It’s to discover who you are now — and what becomes possible when you don’t have to cope with everything in the same old way.

If you’re a widowed woman who knows you want something to change, but all the ways you’ve always figured things out aren’t getting you there, this is exactly the kind of work I do 1:1.

I currently have two spaces available.

DM me MORE and we can talk about where you are, what you’d love to feel different, and whether working together feels right.

You don’t need to have the answers.

Finding them is part of t

31/08/2026

Because you didn’t only lose your person.

So much of what made your life *your life* changed too.

For me, I was no longer Andy’s wife. I was a widow.

I was suddenly a solo mum.

The future I thought I knew had gone.

And the career I’d worked bloody hard for — a huge part of how I defined myself — no longer felt like somewhere I wanted to be.

So yes...

Who the f**k was I now?

For a long time, I think I assumed I needed to somehow find my way back to myself.

I don’t believe that anymore.

Because over the years I’ve discovered parts of myself I didn’t even know were there.

I’ve questioned things I’d always assumed were “just who I am”.

I’ve learnt what I need.
What I want.
What feels right for me.

And I’ve become far more able to trust my own answers.

I would still choose the life where Andy didn’t die.

Of course I would.

But that doesn’t mean the life I have now has to be something I simply endure.

And neither does yours.

Maybe the question isn’t:

*How do I get the old me back?*

Maybe it’s:

**Who am I now — and who do I want to become?**

This is a huge part of the work I do 1:1 with widowed women.

Not telling you who to be or what your life should look like.

Helping you uncover what might be underneath the uncertainty, reconnect with yourself and start trusting YOUR answers about what comes next.

I currently have 2 spaces for 1:1 coaching.

If you’re reading this thinking *Who the f**k AM I now?* — DM me **ME** and let’s have a chat.

You don’t need to know the answer yet.

That’s part of the work. x

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