Podcast Interview with Thinking Out Loud Pod

We were honoured to be asked to be a guest on Thinking Out Loud Pod. When asked this, the initial thought is oh wow, but then it turns to this is great, we definitely would love to take this opportunity…..

Please see Podcast Interview with Thinking Out Loud Pod which covers:

Introduction
Bio’s from Jermaine and Ben: Thinking Out Loud Pod
Podcast Interview with Thinking Out Loud Pod
Our final thoughts/Our YouTube Video

1. Introduction

We first became aware of Thinking Out Loud Pod through Amber Jeffery from the Grief Gang Podcast. Amber was working with us on our Community Grief Support topic and suggested we contact Thinking Out Loud Pod to see if they would also like to be involved. We are so happy that we did this because they were available and interested in being involved.

For my sister and I, we truly admire everyone within our grief community, but we feel it is brilliant that there are men within it openly discussing matters of grief, health, and mental health. These can be deemed as taboo matters at the best of times, but for men even more so, as typically men are expected to be “strong” and not show emotions etc. These are notions and stereotypes that need to be broken down.

We commend Thinking Out Loud for the Great work they are doing.

For my sister and I, part of the reason for wanting to start our blog was to try and help break down taboos. Throughout our journey and experience, we have learnt even more that communication is key to many things, it can make a huge difference to how situations and circumstances in life can turn out.

Our story is shared mainly through our blog, with some introductions to videos on our YouTube channel, we welcomed having a YouTube channel as it gave a visual aspect of us. But those videos are short snippets. This is why we embrace the opportunity to be interviewed as we get to share our story in a different way.

In this interview, we speak about many things ranging from the complaint against the hospital, anxiety due to the pandemic, counselling we have had along our journey.

These are things that we haven’t openly spoken about, we have written about them but not vocally spoken about them in this way. For these reasons we are grateful to have been able to do so, we only hope that by doing this we are also making a difference.

Please see Podcast Interview with Thinking Out Loud Pod:

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2. Bio’s from Jermaine and Ben: Thinking Out Loud Pod

Bio from Jermaine:

Life as I knew it changed for me when I lost my mum in 2015. I just about accepted the loss of my dad the previous year, but never in a million years did I think I would lose my mum so soon.

That pain that I now recognise has grief has shaped my life and it’s given me a sense of purpose: helping others through their grief. Don’t get me wrong I’m not insinuating I’m some sort of messiah or the poster boy for grief, but I feel like losing my parents has sparked a passion to help people.

Starting this podcast with Ben, my brother from another mother, my partner in grief, the list goes on, has probably been the silver lining in my journey with grief. We use it as a space to have open and honest conversations about our grief and invite others to share their own stories. We’re only 18 months in but I’m excited to see how far we will go. So here’s to another 18 months of conversations and most importantly to continuous change when it comes to the narrative on grief and loss.

Bio from Ben:

I’m 25 years old, a Co-Founder of Thinking Out Loud podcast alongside Jermaine.

I lost both my parents at a young age, my dad in 2009 and mum in 2015 which forced me to grow up quickly and take ownership of my life as I didn’t have the time to process the grief.

The whole purpose of ‘Thinking Out Loud’ is to share my experiences with other people going through similar issues.

I’m really into Fitness learning the human body, in my free time I enjoy playing sports, reading, watching films, documentaries and fashion.

My advice to anyone going through grief is to take your time and don’t be afraid to reach to family, friends or therapist for support.It’s really important to have a support system when dealing with grief. Also my faith in God gives me the peace, strength and endurance to ensure the process is easier to deal with.

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3. Podcast Interview with Thinking Out Loud Pod

In this episode, we join the podcast to talk about our dad who passed away in March 2017. We speak about his diagnosis, the care he received in hospital, the motivation behind our blog, Grief and Probate Journey and how dealing with Probate has impacted our grief.

We were so thrilled, appreciative and uplifted with some encouraging words from a good friend after they listened to the episode, that we asked if we could share it. We were pleased when they said yes 😁. Please see it below:

YouTube Interview clip:

In this clip, I talk about what probate is for us and the legalities.

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4. Our final thoughts/Our YouTube Video

Jermaine and Ben have created a safe and relaxed space for guests to speak openly. When talking to Jermaine we felt so many similarities in our story and our journey. This is something that we are realising and appreciating, even more, the mutual understanding within our grief even though we are on individual journeys.

It also feels like by what we are doing we are helping to normalise talking about grief, this is something that we feel honoured and humbled about.

But as we also discussed with Jermaine, who knows if we are only on this path because of our Dad passing away, or would we have arrived at this destination had things been different.

We can never know, but as this is the path we are on, we hope to do our best and do our best to honour our Dad.

When speaking in this interview, we felt as though we are part of the change, creating change about normalising these types of conversations, it is a good feeling.

Our YouTube Video