3 Reasons Why "The Morning" is Getting a Podcast.

For the past few years The Morning has been a helpful and hopeful resource for women who have experienced miscarriage, still-birth or infant loss. On Wednesday August, 1 The Joyful Mourning Podcast will launch as an extension of The Morning providing even more helpful and hopeful resources for grieving woman. The Joyful Mourning Podcast's mission is simple: to provide honest conversations about loss, grief and finding joy amidst the mourning from women who have experienced it first hand.While the content here on The Morning will continue to be helpful and hopeful, the podcast will be even more-so. Here are 3 Reasons why:

1. You Are Not Alone. One of the primary reasons The Morning exists is to remind hurting mamas they aren't alone in their grief. Losing a baby and the subsequent grief afterwards can feel incredibly lonely, and the thought that "no one understands what I am feeling or am walking through" can be pervasive and oftentimes true. By providing a way to tangibly hear another woman's voice as she shares her story of loss and finding hope in the middle of it or hearing out loud from a mama who has survived such heartbreak words like: "you aren't alone," and "you're going to be ok" can be invaluably helpful to a grieving mother. Not to mention, just like any other season of life, it is helpful to hear that the day-to-day things (the strange, confusing, awkward, and hard moments of grief) you are experiencing are normal and you are in fact not crazy.
2. Brain Space & Attention Spans. For the woman grieving, any task that requires a functioning brain and any sort of attention span is not really fair or helpful. Amidst grief, especially the early days, it can be hard to concentrate on anything, especially reading long posts. A podcast, on the other hand, feels incredibly simple. Tune in while running errands or going for a walk or cleaning the house or just laying on the sofa -- and the episodes are simple, just honest conversations between women who have a really hard thing in common, talking about that hard thing. It's like eavesdropping but without the guilt and incredibly more helpful.
3. Real Women Over People's Opinions. The Joyful Mourning Podcast gives listening mamas the freedom to grieve in their own way. Because grief doesn't come with an instruction book or a manual, almost every decision following the loss of a baby can be doubted. Even the seemingly simplest decisions can make a grieving mother feel crazy, like planning a funeral or celebrating a birthday or when to share or how to share or how to answer the infamous question "how many children do you have?". Often we can make decisions about all of those things based on what we think others will think about us as grieving mothers (Am I crying too much? Am I not crying enough? Did I laugh too soon? Should I have done this at the funeral? Should I have gone to the doctor sooner? Do they think it was my fault?) -- which is never a helpful or wise rubric for decision-making or living, especially amidst grief. Hearing from real women who are walking through a similar experience will provide the wisdom necessary to make decisions based on what feels right for you, despite what others may think.

For those 3 reasons and many more, The Joyful Mourning Podcast is going to be an incredibly helpful resource for grieving women.If you haven't done so yet listen to the Trailer and click Subscribe so you don't miss a single episode.