Show Notes
☕️ Coffee and Conversations for MEN
🎙 #12 Episode Title: From Breakdown to Breakthrough: A Real Talk About GRIEF
🎯 Theme: Grief, Loss & the Hidden Stories Men Carry
🎧 Episode Overview
In this powerful and revealing episode, Jay and Brian open the door to one of the most unspoken and misunderstood experiences for men: grief. But not just the grief of losing someone—this is a conversation about the many formsof loss that go unnamed.
From lost careers to death of loved ones, from injuries and aging bodies to broken friendships, this episode explores how men experience grief in silence—and how that silence shapes our fitness, food, emotions, and identity.With honesty and vulnerability, Jay and Brian share personal stories and insights that help listeners recognize and release the grief they didn’t even know they were carrying.
💡 Key Messages
-Grief isn’t just death—it’s the loss of identity, dreams, relationships, and time.
-If you don’t process grief, it processes you—through your habits, health, and hidden pain.
-Movement and food can be healing—but they can also be a mask for what hurts.
-Giving grief a name is the first step toward healing.
-You don’t need a funeral to grieve. And you don’t need to suffer insilence.
☕️ 0:47 Overview
☕️ 2:08 The Why???
☕️ 4:21 What’s in Your Coffee Cup?
Jay – https://www.receivercoffee.com/collections/coffeeBrian – https://estatescoffee.com/
🔍 Featured Topics & Segments
💪 6:16 Fitness & Grief: When Movement Masks the Pain
-Grieving the body, career, and routine post-retirement
-Obsessive fitness as control and coping
-Numbness hidden behind wellness
🥦 15:23 Nutrition & Grief: When Regret Shows Up on Your Plate
-Emotional eating as silent grief
-The gut-brain-grief connection
-Comfort foods as coping, not nourishment
🧠 23:38 Mental Health & Grief: Naming the Unspoken Loss
-Grief isn’t always sadness—it can be anger, addiction, anxiety
-Trauma stored in the body, triggered decades later
-Midlife crisis… or midlife grief?
❤️ 35:30 Relationships & Grief: When Friendships Fade
-The invisible pain of broken brotherhoods
-Making peace with endings that don’t have closure
-Missing people who are still alive
📘 47:00 Lifelong Learning: What Loss Leaves Behind
-Grief as a teacher, not just a taker
-From journaling to storytelling—healing through meaning
-Finding growth in the cracks left by grief
📚 Referenced Research & Resources
Anderson, E. & Stell, A. (2020). Masculinity and Social Loss.Psychology of Men & Masculinities.
Cryan, J. F., et al. (2019). The Gut-Brain Axis in Grief and Emotion.Neurobiology of Stress.
Harper, F. G. (2022). Unfck your grief:Using science to heal yourself and support others (E. Bennett, Narr.) [Audiobook]. Blackstone Publishing.
Levine, P. (2021). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma. NorthAtlantic Books.
McAdams, D. (2015). The Art and Science of Narrative Identity. APA Psychology.
Prigerson, H., et al. (2021). Prolonged Grief Disorder. WorldPsychiatry.
💬 Final Reflection
“Grief doesn’t always look like mourning—it can look like running, numbing,overeating, overworking.”
“You don’t have to lose someone to feel loss. And you don’t need permission togrieve.”
“Grief, named and voiced, becomes wisdom. Silence only gives it power.”
“You’re not broken. You’re grieving.”
👥 Join the Conversation
DM us or email to share your own experience with grief—whether it's a relationship, identity, body, or time you lost.
This podcast is a space for men to heal, grow, and be real—together.
Jay and Brian
📲 Connect with Us
Instagram: @coffeeandconversations4men
YouTube: @CoffeeandConversationsforMEN
Email: CoffeeandConversationsforMEN@gmail.com
Facebook: Coffee and Conversations for MEN
