The Dead Truth Podcast

Jen Salazar
  • 5.0 (9)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Weekly

The Dead Truth Podcast normalizes conversations around grief, widowhood, and identity after loss — bringing these conversations to the front of the room and giving a voice to what it really feels like to survive love and loss. Host, Jen Salazar, shares her lived experience as a widow for over 2 years—raw, real, and unfiltered—in hopes that it helps you feel seen, understood, and a little less alone. Through real -time experience, research, and podcast guests sharing their own truth, the podcast empowers listeners to find meaning, belonging, and resilience, one conversation at a time.💜

  1. 3d ago

    Prepared, Not Panicked: Emergency Preparedness in Widowhood

    What is one shift that happens when you become a widow that isn’t always talked about? In the “before” of your before and after… you didn’t have to think about everything. Your spouse held part of the weight. And now? You’re the one thinking about: Safety, Finances, Emergencies, and “What if” scenarios. Before loss, safety was shared.But the part you weren't prepared for? It’s the moment you realize, you’re the plan now. You’re the one who must execute everything that needs to be done. It’s the invisible load that is now very visible. It’s the quiet awareness that there isn’t a backup person. It’s in the “no one else is here” moments when something happens and your first instinct is to look for them…and then you remember: it’s just you. So, here’s a reality check, without fear. As a widow, you must have some kind of preparedness plan. Let’s make this real… and doable together. I have some scenarios with suggestions. These are common scenarios; some are extreme situations and some are normal life moments that could feel very different when you’re the only one there to respond. What is the second shift you'll make once you have preparedness supplies and plans in place? You will start thinking a little differently. You move from “I hope I’ll be okay” in an emergency… to “I’ll make sure I am.” 💜#grief #griefsupport #griefandloss #widow #widowhood #emergencypreparedness #emergencyprep #safety #podcast #thedeadtruth #thedeadtruthpodcast

  2. Oct 21

    Still Grieving. Still Growing. Still Showing Up. | My Interview With Stacey Comer

    Five years into widowhood, Stacey Comer isn't pretending to have it all figured out. And that's one of the things I love most about her. Stacey met her husband, Chris, later in life, and as she describes it, their love was simply “just right." But when Chris's health began to decline, Stacey became his caregiver, his biggest advocate, and the person standing beside him through years of uncertainty. After Chris died in 2021, Stacey sold their home, moved back in with her parents, and began the complicated process of figuring out who she was without him. And five years later? She's still figuring it out. But here's what I found so remarkable about Stacey. She's open. She's honest. She's transparent about her experience. And she has a genuine desire to help other people navigating loss. Not just widows. Anyone trying to find their footing after losing someone they love. Now she's working to bring Chris's Place, a nonprofit located in Florida, created in honor of her husband. And let me tell you, this woman is putting in the work! In this episode of The Dead Truth, Stacey and I talk about finding love later in life, caregiving, anticipatory grief, losing the life you knew, the strange reality of starting over, and what it looks like to carry your own grief while showing up for someone else's. This isn't a conversation about having all the answers. It's about being willing to talk about the messy, complicated, sometimes beautiful, sometimes completely unfair reality of life after loss. Because you can still be figuring out your own life and make a difference in somebody else's. And Stacey Comer is doing exactly that. Welcome to The Dead Truth.💜 Follow @TheDeadTruthPodcast on all your favorite podcast platforms for more honest conversations about grief, widowhood, and what death reveals. Links to Chris's Place: Facebook: @chris'splacefl Instagram: @chrissplacefl Email: stacey@chrissplace.org Website Coming Soon 💜 #grief #griefjourney #griefsupport #widow #widowlife #widowhood #caregiver #anticipatorygrief #love #podcast #Chris'sPlace #nonprofit #thedeadtruth #thedeadtruthpodcast

  3. Oct 14

    The Future We Never Got: Loving Someone Through Loss + Separation

    Content note: This episode discusses addiction, mental health struggles, and suicide. In this deeply personal episode of The Dead Truth Podcast, I sit down with Emerley, a 38-year-old mother of four who lost the father of her two youngest children. Their relationship wasn't perfect. There was love, addiction, separation, and the hope that someday they would find their way back to each other. But that someday never came. Now Emerley is navigating grief while raising her children, grieving a future she believed was still possible, and facing a question that so many unmarried partners struggle with: Does my grief count if I wasn't his wife? We talk about the loneliness of grief, the complicated emotions surrounding an unfinished relationship, the reality of parenting while grieving, and the heartbreaking connection between losing her own father as a little girl and watching her children experience that same loss. This isn't a conversation about sensationalizing someone's death. It's about the woman left living with it. Because sometimes grief isn't what's complicated. The circumstances surrounding the loss are complicated. They weren't married. They were separated. But their love story wasn't finished. And perhaps the most important truth of all? Their love story still gets to be a love story. The ending doesn't get to steal the beginning. Follow @TheDeadTruthPodcast on all your favorite podcast platforms for more honest conversations about grief, widowhood, love, and what death reveals. Find The Dead Truth on IG, Facebook, Substack, and TikTok. Follow and subscribe to help push the conversations about loss, grief, and widowhood to the front of the room. #grief #griefjourney #griefsupport #widow #widowhood #widowlife #complicatedgrief #parentingwhilegrieving #loss #podcast #love #thedeadtruth #thedeadtruthpodcast

  4. Oct 7

    Loneliness Vs. Being Alone: Loneliness Isn't About Who's in the Room...It's About Who Isn't

    Being alone and being lonely are not the same thing. Widowhood taught me that.I've spent nights completely by myself and felt perfectly okay. Peaceful, even. And I've stood in rooms full of people and felt painfully alone.Because sometimes loneliness isn't about needing more people around you. It's about missing one particular person.The person you told the everyday stuff to. The person who understood the look across the room. The person who knew something was wrong before you said a word. The person who received all those completely ordinary, completelyinsignificant pieces of your day. For me, that's the lonely part.In this episode of The Dead Truth, I'm not giving you seven ways to overcome loneliness. Thank God. 😂 I'm just talking about what loneliness has actually felt like since losing Mel—the quiet, the crowded rooms, the empty side of theconversation, and the surprising realization that sometimes I genuinely like being alone.Because I don't necessarily miss having someone around.I miss having my person.And there's a hell of a difference.#grief #griefsupport #griefjourney #griefandloss #widow #widowhood #widowlife #widowingfreestyle #love #podcast #thedeadtruth #thedeadtruthpodcast

  5. Oct 1

    Grief And The Secondary Hidden Losses Nobody Talks About💜

    When someone dies, we expect to grieve the person we lost. What we don't expect are all the other losses that quietly follow.The loss of your future plans. Your sense of safety. Your identity. Your confidence. Your routines. Your financial security. Your friendships. Even the little moments that once felt ordinary. These are called secondary losses, and they're one of the most overlooked parts of grief.In this episode of The Dead Truth, I explore the hidden layers of loss that can leave grieving people wondering why certain moments still hurt so deeply—even years later. Together, we'll talk about why grief often feels heavier than we expected, why random moments can still bring us to tears, and why recognizing these hidden losses can replace self-judgment with self-compassion.If you've ever wondered why a simple trip to the grocery store, an empty chair, or signing your name alone suddenly brought your grief rushing back, this conversation is for you. Because sometimes you're not grieving all over again. You're discovering another layer of love...and another layer of loss.If this episode speaks to your heart, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who may need the reminder that they aren't grieving "wrong." They're simply carrying more than they realized.Until then... be gentle with yourself.💜#grief #griefsupport #griefandloss #griefjourney #griefawareness #grieving #widow #widowhood #widower #love #podcast #secondaryloss #lifeafterloss

  6. Oct 1

    Episode Rewind: The Secondary Losses of Grief💜

    Not every episode is meant to be heard once and forgotten. Some conversations hit differently depending on where you are in your grief, what kind of week you’re having, or what life has decided to throw at you lately. That’s why we do Episode Rewinds—bringing back conversations worth hearing again, or maybe discovering for the first time. So if you missed this one, hit play. And if you’ve already heard it… you might be surprised by what lands differently this time. 💜 When someone dies, we expect to grieve the person we lost. What we don't expect are all the other losses that quietly follow. The loss of your future plans. Your sense of safety. Your identity. Your confidence. Your routines. Your financial security. Your friendships. Even the little moments that once felt ordinary. These are called secondary losses, and they're one of the most overlooked parts of grief. In this episode of The Dead Truth, I explore the hidden layers of loss that can leave grieving people wondering why certain moments still hurt so deeply—even years later. Together, we'll talk about why grief   often feels heavier than we expected, why random moments can still bring us to tears, and why recognizing these hidden losses can replace self-judgment with self-compassion. If you've ever wondered why a simple trip to the grocery store, an empty chair, or signing your name alone suddenly brought your grief rushing back, this conversation is for you. Because sometimes you're not grieving all over again. You're discovering another layer of love...and another layer of loss. If this episode speaks to your heart, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who may need the reminder that they aren't grieving "wrong." They're simply carrying more than they realized. Until then... be gentle with yourself.💜 #grief #griefsupport #griefandloss #griefjourney #griefawareness #grieving #widow #widowhood #widower #love #podcast #secondaryloss #lifeafterloss

  7. Sep 23

    What Grief Leaves Behind: Generations of Widows with Dori Ann Dupré

    What gets passed down through generations of widows? Strength? Resilience? Survival? Or do we also inherit the silence, fears, expectations, and ways of grieving that the women before us learned simply because they had no other choice? In this episode of The Dead Truth, Jen sits down with author and widow Dori Ann Dupré, whose new novel, Widows & Children, follows generations of women connected by love, loss, widowhood, and the complicated things families carry forward. But this conversation goes beyond the book. Dori shares her own story of loving and losing her husband, Eric, the generations of widows within her family, grieving alongside her daughters, and what nearly ten years of widowhood has revealed about the woman she was—and the woman she is still becoming. Jen and Dori also explore Versions of Her: Do we actually become someone new after loss? Or are we still the same woman, carrying every version of ourselves—the woman before him, the woman who loved him, the woman who lost him, and the woman learning how to live in the life that came after? And perhaps the biggest question of all: What did the widows before us carry that eventually made its way to us—and what do we finally get to put down? This isn't simply a conversation about surviving loss. It's about generations of women, the families shaped by grief, the love that continues, and what we choose to carry forward. This is The Dead Truth with Dori Ann Dupré. dorianndupre.wixsite.com/books IG: author.dorianndupre FB: AuthorDoriAnnDupre

  8. Sep 16

    Living Inside Grief: When Loss Becomes Part of the Room

    People talk about living with grief. But sometimes that doesn't feel quite right. Because grief isn't always something sitting beside you. Sometimes it feels like the room you're standing in. You wake up inside it. Go to work inside it. Grocery shop inside it. Laugh inside it. Build things inside it. Have surprisingly good days inside it. And sometimes, out of nowhere, grief kicks the damn door down like it still pays rent. In this episode of The Dead Truth, I'm talking about what it actually feels like to live inside grief—the contradictions, the ordinary moments, the laughter, the anger, the missing, and the strange realization that grief doesn't necessarily get smaller. Sometimes life simply starts getting bigger around it. Other people get to visit your grief. You live there. And perhaps the goal was never to find the exit. Perhaps it's discovering how much life can still exist inside the room. #grief #griefsupport #griefandloss #widow #widowhood #widowjourney #widowlife #loss #love #podcast #thedeadtruth #thedeadtruthpodcast

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About

The Dead Truth Podcast normalizes conversations around grief, widowhood, and identity after loss — bringing these conversations to the front of the room and giving a voice to what it really feels like to survive love and loss. Host, Jen Salazar, shares her lived experience as a widow for over 2 years—raw, real, and unfiltered—in hopes that it helps you feel seen, understood, and a little less alone. Through real -time experience, research, and podcast guests sharing their own truth, the podcast empowers listeners to find meaning, belonging, and resilience, one conversation at a time.💜

Information

  • Creator
    Jen Salazar
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    40
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Jen Salazar
  • Show Website
    The Dead Truth Podcast

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