The Grief Disruptor®

Donielle Young

Welcome to The Grief Disruptor® Podcast.

If you've ever felt like the world moved on while yours stood still... you're in the right place.

If you've ever wondered, "Who am I now?" after losing someone you love... you're not alone.

Come sit with me. Listen in your car, on your morning walk, while you're folding laundry, or during one of those nights when sleep just won't come. Wherever you are, I'll meet you there.

I'm Donielle Young. At 44, I lost my husband to Stage IV colon cancer. Overnight, I went from wife to widow, caregiver, and ultimately to rebuilding a life I never imagined.

The Grief Disruptor® is where honest conversations replace toxic positivity. Here, we talk about grief, widowhood, caregiving, healing after loss, resilience, identity, dating after loss, and finding purpose again.

Because healing isn't about forgetting. It's about learning to live again.

New episodes twice a month. Subscribe and join thousands changing the conversation around grief.

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10 episodes
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English

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S1 · E7
October 28 · 15 min
They said they'd be there. Then they disappeared.
They showed up at the funeral. They hugged you. They looked you in the eyes and said the words we've all heard. "If you need anything, I'm here." "Call me. Anything you need." And then? They disappeared. The phone stopped ringing. The check-ins became fewer. And suddenly, you're not just grieving the person you lost. You're grieving the people who promised they'd stay. Now you're questioning yourself. Am I too much? Am I too sad? Is my grief making everyone uncomfortable? But here's what people don't understand. Grief doesn't end when the funeral is over. It doesn't disappear after six months, on birthdays, during the holidays, or on anniversaries. If our grief makes THEM uncomfortable, imagine how WE feel living in it. THREE TRUTHS People don't always disappear because they don't love you. Sometimes your grief forces them to confront their own fears about loss. That explains their discomfort, but it doesn't excuse their absence. Their disappearance is not a reflection of your worth. You're not too much. You're not grieving the wrong way. And you are not responsible for making other people comfortable with your pain. Remember the people who DID show up. The friends who washed the dishes, brought food, sat with you, and remembered your person. Their love matters, too. Don't let the people who disappeared overshadow the ones who stayed. You are not responsible for their disappearance. You are not too much. And you are not alone. G³ Framework: Grief → Grit → GlowUp™ This episode lives in Grief, confronting broken promises, abandonment, and the pain of losing people who were supposed to stay. Watch on YouTube. Listen on Spotify. Instagram · Facebook · TikTok: @thegriefdisruptor ABOUT DONIELLE Donielle Young is The Grief Disruptor®, founder of MHDS Media, author, keynote speaker, and corporate grief strategist. After more than two decades in corporate leadership, she lost her husband Dwaine to stage 4 colon cancer and is raising their son as a solo parent. Through her G³ Framework, she challenges traditional narratives of grief and helps people navigate life after loss. Subscribe. Leave a review. Share this with someone who needed to hear it. #TheGriefDisruptor #TheModernWidow #GriefSupport #LifeAfterLoss #GriefJourney #Widowhood #G3Framework
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S1 · E6
October 14 · 11 min
He's Not Judging How You Grieve. They Are. | Birthdays, Anniversaries & Proving You Loved Them.
The date's coming. You've been dreading it for days. And somewhere in that dread is a question you'd never say out loud: what am I supposed to do this year? Throw the party? Post the tribute? Order the cake? Because if you don't, somebody's going to notice. Somebody's going to wonder if you've moved on. If you ever really loved him. You're already missing someone. Now you're managing an audience. I'm going to say it so you don't have to: he's not the one judging you. They are. I've done the big party. I've done the quiet dinner. I've done the year I don't even remember. Every one of them was love. Not one of them needed an audience. If you're a widow, a widower, or a divorcée staring down an anniversary, a birthday, a holiday do whatever your heart wants. Throw the $5,000 party. Sit in the dark. Have cake with your kid. All of it counts. The only question is who you're doing it for. THREE TRUTHS 1. The date is yours. Doing nothing doesn't mean you forgot him. Doing everything doesn't mean you're performing. It only matters who it's for. 2. Some years you'll feel nothing. Some years you'll want the grand gesture. Let your body decide. Not your family. Not your friends. 3. Choose joy unapologetically. You were the wife, the caregiver, the one holding the whole ship together. Throw a bash for him if you want. Throw one for yourself if you want that more. To the non-grievers: don't go quiet on these dates. Send a voice note. Tell us a story about them. We want to hear it. Stay for the end. Somebody sang Happy Birthday off-key and I had to address it. What's one thing you've felt expected to do on a birthday or anniversary after loss? Tell me in the comments. G³ Framework: Grief → Grit → GlowUp™ This episode lives in Grief. Watch on YouTube. Listen on Spotify. Instagram · Facebook · TikTok: @thegriefdisruptor ABOUT DONIELLE Donielle Young is The Grief Disruptor®, founder of MHDS Media, author, keynote speaker, and corporate grief strategist. For over two decades she worked in corporate finance advising C-suite executives. She lost her husband Dwaine to stage 4 colon cancer and is raising their son as a solo parent. Subscribe. Leave a review. Share this with someone who needed it yesterday. #TheGriefDisruptor #TheModernWidow
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S1 · E5
September 30 · 25 min
He Chose Me Every Day for 16 Years. Then Nothing. | Who Are You When He's Gone?
Fair warning: this is a Grit episode. No soft landing. I'm handing you a mirror and three things to do with it. He chose me every single day for 16 years. On October 18, 2022 nothing. And I found out what being chosen had actually been doing for me. Being chosen didn't heal me. It covered me. When you become a wife or a caregiver something quietly gets covered: the insecurity, the abandonment, the part of you that never believed you were enough. Then the covering gets ripped away, and everything underneath is still there. I call it open-heart surgery. Here's the part nobody tells you: that's not the end of the story. That's where the real work starts. And once you do it, you stop shrinking for anyone a man, a friend, a family member. You stop accepting less because you finally know what you're worth. If you're a widow or a divorcée who's been wondering who you are without the title, I've been there. I am there. The woman underneath the covering was never the problem. She was just waiting for you to come get her. This is where you start. THREE TRUTHS 1. Name the wound the marriage covered. What went quiet when he chose you? It's still there and naming it is the first step to healing it. 2. The work is not finding a better man. The work is becoming someone who won't accept less. 3. Say it until it stops feeling like a lie: I am more than his wife. I am more than his widow. I am too much and enough in the same breath. G³ Framework: Grief → Grit → GlowUp™ This episode lives in Grit. I'm not a therapist this is lived experience and decades of my own therapy. Get your mental health checkup the way you get your physical. Send your brothers and uncles too. Watch on YouTube. Listen on Spotify. Instagram · Facebook · TikTok: @thegriefdisruptor ABOUT DONIELLE Donielle Young is The Grief Disruptor®, founder of MHDS Media, author, keynote speaker, and corporate grief strategist. For over two decades she worked in corporate finance advising C-suite executives. She lost her husband Dwaine to stage 4 colon cancer and is raising their son as a solo parent. Subscribe. Leave a review. Share this with someone who needed it yesterday. #TheGriefDisruptor #TheModernWidow
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S1 · E4
September 16 · 19 min
I Went Dancing While I Was Grieving. And? | Rewiring Your Nervous System After Loss
I went dancing by myself weeks after my husband died. Then I cried in the Uber home. Both are true. Both were necessary. This episode is about what happens when the emergency finally stops and your body doesn't know how to live in the quiet. After years in survival mode, I had to find out if the woman inside me was still alive. So I did something people had a lot of opinions about. If you've lost a spouse, survived a divorce, or carried anyone through devastation, your nervous system has been running on adrenaline for a long time. This is your permission to go find the baseline again even when people talk. Especially when people talk. THREE TRUTHS 1. Joy and grief coexist. You can dance at 10pm and cry at midnight. That's not fake. That's healing. 2. You don't rewire your nervous system by thinking. You rewire it by doing and doing it again when you don't feel like it. 3. They weren't in the trenches with you. They don't get a vote on how you repair. G³ Framework: Grief → Grit → GlowUp™ This episode lives in Grit. Watch on YouTube. Listen on Spotify. Instagram · Facebook · TikTok: @thegriefdisruptor ABOUT DONIELLE Donielle Young is The Grief Disruptor®, founder of MHDS Media, author, keynote speaker, and corporate grief strategist. For over two decades she worked in corporate finance advising C-suite executives. She lost her husband Dwaine to stage 4 colon cancer and is raising their son as a solo parent. Subscribe. Leave a review. Share this with someone who needed it yesterday. #TheGriefDisruptor #TheModernWidow
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S1 · E3
September 2 · 19 min
I Took Off My Wedding Ring. The Grief Police Will Survive.
I wore my husband's wedding ring for four years after he died. Then, in the middle of recording this episode, I took it off. Not because I stopped loving him. Not because I've "moved on." And definitely not because somebody decided four years was the appropriate amount of time to grieve. I took it off because grief had forced me to confront a harder question: When does holding on stop honoring the person you lost and start keeping you from the life they helped prepare you to live? In Episode 3 of The Grief Disruptor® Podcast, I'm talking about widowhood, letting go after loss, the objects we turn into proof of our love, and the grief police who appointed themselves authorities on what moving forward is supposed to look like. We talk about the ring. His clothes. The hospital sheets I kept folded in my linen closet. And the realization that changed how I understand all of it: What lives in your heart cannot be decluttered. Taking off the ring doesn't erase my marriage. Letting go of his things doesn't erase Dwaine. And rebuilding my life doesn't mean I've stopped grieving the one we built together. THREE TRUTHS FROM THIS EPISODE 1. Holding onto things is not the same as holding onto love. The ring, the clothes, the toothbrush, the sheets. They can feel like proof that someone existed and that what you shared mattered. But letting go of an object cannot remove what lives inside you. 2. Nobody gets to decide when you're ready. Not his family. Not your family. Not social media. Not some imaginary grief timeline. Moving forward after losing someone is deeply personal, and you don't owe anyone an explanation for when or how you choose to do it. 3. Sometimes honoring them means using what they gave you. Dwaine didn't spend our marriage helping me build wings so I could refuse to use them after he died. He gave me everything I needed to fly. So I'm making room. Not to forget him. To fly. The Grief Disruptor® Podcast is a raw, unfiltered conversation about grief, widowhood, identity, dating, parenting, rebuilding, and learning how to live after life doesn't go according to plan. The G3 Framework: Grief → Grit → GlowUp Instagram: @thegriefdisruptor Facebook: @thegriefdisruptor TikTok: @thegriefdisruptor The Grief Disruptor® Podcast: YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all major platforms ABOUT DONIELLE YOUNG Donielle Young is The Grief Disruptor® and founder of MHDS Media. After losing her husband, Dwaine, to stage 4 colon cancer, she left a two-decade corporate career to build a platform challenging the rules, timelines, and expectations society places around grief. The Grief Disruptor® Podcast is for the woman who is done being told how to grieve and ready to rebuild her life on her own terms. If you've ever wondered whether letting go means you're leaving them behind, this episode is for you. Subscribe, share the episode, and tell me in the comments: What have you been afraid to let go of?
- Transcript
September 1 · 40 sec
Episode 3 - Teaser
I Took Off My Wedding Ring: The Grief Police Will Survive. Episode 3 Dropping Thursday! IF YOU’VE EVER BEEN AFRAID THAT LETTING GO MEANS YOU’RE LETTING THEM GO, THIS ONE’S FOR YOU. If you’ve ever felt guilty for moving forward, this episode is for you. Donielle Young, The Grief Disruptor®️, is challenging the rules about what it means to let go after loss. Don’t miss it. Subscribe now so you don’t miss Episode 3. Everywhere you get your podcasts!!
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S1 · E2
August 19 · 14 min
The Checklist Is a Lie: Killing the Five Stages of Grief
They gave you five stages. Told you to feel it in order. Told you there was a right way to grieve. They lied. In this episode, Donielle Young, The Grief Disruptor®, burns the checklist down and tells you the truth about what grief actually looks like when nobody is performing it for anyone else. If you've ever felt like you were failing at your own grief, this one's for you. THE G3 FRAMEWORK® Grief → Grit → GlowUp FOLLOW THE GRIEF DISRUPTOR® 📱 Instagram: @thegriefdisruptor 📘 Facebook: @thegriefdisruptor 🎵 TikTok: @thegriefdisruptor ABOUT DONIELLE YOUNG Widow. Mother. Founder of MHDS Media. Over two decades in corporate finance advising C-suite executives. Now disrupting the way grief is packaged and sold. The Grief Disruptor® Podcast drops twice monthly. Subscribe. Leave a review. Share this with someone who needed it yesterday.
- Transcript
August 17 · 30 sec
Episode 2 - Teaser
The Checklist Is a Lie: Killing the Five Stages of Grief Episode 2 Dropping Thursday! Somebody put your grief in a box. Gave it five neat little stages. Told you to feel it in order and come out healed on the other side. They lied. Donielle Young - The Grief Disruptor® is burning that checklist down on Thursday. If you’ve ever felt like you were grieving wrong this episode was made for you. Don’t miss it. Subscribe now so you don’t miss Episode 2. Everywhere you get your podcasts!!
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S1 · E1
August 5 · 18 min
The Audacity of The Audience
Where were they when you were sitting in hospital rooms? When you couldn't sleep? When your entire world was falling apart? And why do the people who weren't there suddenly think they get to decide how you should grieve... how long you should grieve... or how you should rebuild your life? In this first episode of The Grief Disruptor® Podcast, Donielle Young shares the raw truth about what happens after the funeral, when the casseroles stop coming, the phone stops ringing, and everyone seems to have an opinion about your healing. This isn't about grief. It's about reclaiming your identity after loss. You'll learn why you don't need permission to smile again, date again, dream again, or create a life that still brings you joy. Through her G³ Framework (Grief → Grit → Glow Up®), Donielle shares practical tools and hard-earned lessons to help you stop living for other people's expectations and start rebuilding a life that's yours. In this episode: Why people judge grief they never witnessed The truth about "I'll be there if you need me" How to stop carrying other people's expectations Finding the courage to rebuild after devastating loss Three practical ways to protect your peace and reclaim your life If you've ever felt judged for how you're healing, this episode is for you. 🎧 Subscribe to The Grief Disruptor® Podcast for honest conversations about grief, identity, resilience, dating after loss, parenting, rebuilding your life, and finding hope in the messy middle. 💛 If this episode resonates with you, share it with someone who needs to hear that they're allowed to live again.
- Transcript
August 4 · 30 sec
Trailer - The Grief Disruptor® Podcast is here!
Everyone talks about the loss. We're talking about the messy middle. The part no one prepares you for. The moments when your world has changed, but life expects you to keep going. When you don't recognize yourself anymore. When you're grieving a person, a relationship, a career, a dream... or the version of yourself you thought you'd always be. I'm Donielle Young, author, keynote speaker, and creator of the G³ Framework™: Grief. Grit. Glow Up. I created The Grief Disruptor® because I've lived through the kind of loss that changes everything. I know what it feels like to wonder if you'll ever feel like yourself again. This podcast is for anyone who has ever lost someone, something, or themselves and is ready to stop simply surviving and start rebuilding. Each episode brings you raw conversations, real stories, and practical tools to help you navigate grief, rediscover your identity, and create a life you never thought was possible. This isn't a grief support group. It's where grief meets grit... and healing becomes your glow up. Welcome to The Grief Disruptor®. Your story isn't over. It's just beginning.
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