How talking about death helps us live a richer, fuller life - with Sue Revell

How talking about death helps us live a richer, fuller life - with Sue Revell

We often avoid talking about death because it can feel like inviting darkness in, especially when life is challenging or even ebbing away. But what if the opposite is true? In this latest Insights episode, I reflect on my conversation with Katie Costello and the idea that talking more honestly about death can help us live a richer, fuller life. It's not that talking gives us all the answers. Nor does it makes grief easier, or loss less painful, or life more predictable. But it does bring us closer to what really matters, often at a time when it matters the most. Katie’s work as a soul midwife, funeral celebrant and death educator offers a powerful reminder that some things in life can't be fixed. They can only be witnessed, honoured and met with presence. So this episode isn't simply about death. It's about how we live alongside what is difficult. How we stop running from the conversations that matter. How we resist the urge to rescue, advise or make everything better. And how love sometimes looks like staying beside someone when there's no answer, no agenda and no route out. Because perhaps a richer, fuller life isn't a life where we avoid the darkness. Perhaps it's living in a way that we become less afraid to sit beside it. In this episode, I reflect on: • why talking about death does not diminish life • what Katie’s work teaches us about presence • the difference between helping and fixing • why we often fear saying the wrong thing • how unanswered questions can add pain to grief • why love does not always arrive with answers If Katie’s interview (Ep 19) invited us to talk more openly about death, this episode asks what those conversations might teach us about being more fully alive. For more information about my new programme - Celebrate YOU! https://bookme.name/MissionUnstoppable/lite/celebrate-you-tell-me-more [https://bookme.name/MissionUnstoppable/lite/celebrate-you-tell-me-more] Connect with Sue: Website: https://www.suerevell.com [https://www.suerevell.com] Social Media Links Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/] Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social] LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell [http://www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell]

Death, dying and the legacy of love - with Katie Costello

What does love look like when someone is dying? Not the polished, sentimental version of love. The real, human kind. The kind that sits at the bedside, makes the tea, starts the difficult conversation, writes three things on a Post-it note, or simply stays present when there is nothing to fix. In this episode, I’m joined by Katie Costello, a multi-award-winning soul midwife, funeral celebrant and death educator whose work is rooted in choice, autonomy and love before, during and after death. Together, we talk about death and dying in a way that is honest, practical and deeply human. Katie shares what it means to work alongside people at the end of life, why presence can matter more than perfect words, and how open conversations can spare those we love an unnecessary layer of pain when the time comes. But this is also a conversation about becoming. Katie speaks beautifully about trusting the doors that close, learning to stop apologising for who she is, and recognising the deeper wisdom that guides her work. We explore the difference between fixing and witnessing, between fear and love, and between talking about death as something morbid and talking about it as part of living well. In this episode, we explore: • what a soul midwife or death doula really does • why death is a labour, not a single moment • the courage to stay present when we cannot fix things • how small conversations can become acts of love • the weight of unanswered questions in grief • what it means to live, love and leave legacy with intention Because the legacy of love isn’t only found in what we leave behind. It’s in what we are brave enough to say, share and honour while we’re still here. To connect with Katie: Website: https://www.katiecsoulmidwife.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katiecsoulmidwife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katiecsoulmidwife/ LInkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-costello-endoflife/ Katie's book: "The Gift" [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gift-Part-Funeral-Story-Letter/dp/1036955605/ref=sr_1_1?crid=Y1GH08V5OFX1&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.N22NIBUZdo7aIgSRwOMnmMGUbZE3qjzQEh8tlOlySVE.diV4w6HHTowm7V9puyH5uLkj8htomI0zf3qBcuJoM6s&dib_tag=se&keywords=a+gift+katie+costello&qid=1783459071&sprefix=katie+costell%2Caps%2C123&sr=8-1] For more information about my new programme - Celebrate YOU! https://bookme.name/MissionUnstoppable/lite/celebrate-you-tell-me-more [https://bookme.name/MissionUnstoppable/lite/celebrate-you-tell-me-more] Connect with Sue: Website: https://www.suerevell.com [https://www.suerevell.com] Social Media Links Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/] Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social] LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell [http://www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell]

When did love become so frightening? - with Sue Revell

What if the thing we're most afraid of losing is also the thing we're most afraid to let ourselves have? In my conversation with Tom Fitzsimons, he spoke with extraordinary honesty about only now beginning to understand love. About learning to say it, receive it and trust it. About the fear that can grow when loving people becomes closely tied to losing them. That stayed with me. Because fear rarely announces itself as fear. Sometimes it sounds like caution. Independence. Self-protection. Sometimes it persuades us to say less, hold back more and keep one foot outside the thing we most want to trust. In this Insights episode, I reflect on what it means to choose love anyway. Not recklessly. Not by abandoning ourselves. But by noticing where fear may be making decisions on our behalf. I explore: * why love can become frightening after loss * how self-protection can quietly become distance * what it means to trust someone who sees our potential before we do * the courage of borrowing another person’s belief * Zoe’s beautiful phrase about “living around Tom’s edges” * whether love can be learned, practised and trusted again Tom’s story reminds us that refusing to name love does not protect us from loss. It only risks leaving the most important things unsaid. This episode is for anyone who has ever confused distance with safety, caution with wisdom, or silence with strength. Because love may be scary. But a life shaped by fear leaves too much love unlived. For more information about my new programme - Celebrate YOU! https://bookme.name/MissionUnstoppable/lite/celebrate-you-tell-me-more [https://bookme.name/MissionUnstoppable/lite/celebrate-you-tell-me-more] Connect with Sue: Website: https://www.suerevell.com [https://www.suerevell.com] Social Media Links Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/] Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social] LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell [http://www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell]

From 20 pints a day to running 3100 miles across America - with Tom Fitzsimons

For Tom Fitzsimons, alcohol offered something he’d been searching for since childhood: belonging. After moving from Belfast to England and losing his father at just thirteen, he spent twenty years believing the world was against him, using drink, anger and violence to escape the grief and disconnection he didn’t know how to name. Then running gave him another way forward. Tom went from being unable to complete his first run without vomiting to completing the Marathon des Sables and then running 3,100 miles from San Francisco to New York in 100 days. But this isn’t simply a story about extraordinary endurance. It’s a raw, honest conversation about addiction, recovery and the stigma that remains long after someone becomes sober. It’s about the loneliness of changing your life, the people who hold belief in us before we can hold it for ourselves, and the quieter work of becoming that continues when the cheering stops. Tom also speaks movingly about the deaths that have shaped his life, his struggle to understand and express love, and the poetry that has become a new way to release what he once carried through running. Together, we explore: • Why belonging can sometimes lead us towards the very things that harm us • The difference between what we want and what we truly need • Why sobriety deserves to be noticed, honoured and celebrated • The stigma still attached to addiction and mental ill health • Learning to receive and express love when it hasn’t always felt safe • Why creativity isn’t reserved for people who already call themselves artists This is a conversation about survival, responsibility and second chances. But perhaps most of all, it’s about holding on to a passion for life, despite the sadness. To connect with Tom: LInkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-fitzsimons-opportunity/Instagram: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=659801018 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tomfitz2014/ For more information about my new programme - Celebrate YOU! https://bookme.name/MissionUnstoppable/lite/celebrate-you-tell-me-more For more information about my new programme - Celebrate YOU! https://bookme.name/MissionUnstoppable/lite/celebrate-you-tell-me-more [https://bookme.name/MissionUnstoppable/lite/celebrate-you-tell-me-more] Connect with Sue: Website: https://www.suerevell.com [https://www.suerevell.com] Social Media Links Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/] Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social] LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell [http://www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell]

At the threshold: introducing Season Two - with Sue Revell

There are moments when we know life cannot continue as it was. Sometimes the threshold is unmistakable: a death, a relationship breaking open, a truth we can no longer avoid. At other times, it arrives quietly, as the growing realisation that who we’ve been can’t carry us into whatever comes next. Season One of Life, Love & Legacy explored identity, visibility, alignment, kindness, truth and becoming more fully ourselves. Season Two takes us deeper. These conversations move through addiction and recovery, relationship rupture and repair, death and dying, grief, conflict, reconciliation, ceremony, ancestry, nature, community and transformation. They ask what we do when something must be faced, honoured, released or remade, and what may become possible when life changes us. In this short launch episode, I introduce the seven guests joining me this season: Tom Fitzsimons Motivational speaker, author, and former endurance athlete Lottie Moore Modern day medicine woman and guide Monica Douglas Conscious relationship mentor and minister Penny Boycott Celebrant, founder, community-builder and AMC Head of Learning Katie Costello Soul midwife, death educator and funeral celebrant Jo Berry CBE Peacebuilder, founder and international speaker Richard Tyler Soul therapist, poet, performer and Bard of Bath Seven very different people, each bringing lived experience, wisdom and deeply human questions to the threshold. Join me. For more information about my new programme Celebrate YOU! https://bookme.name/MissionUnstoppable/lite/celebrate-you-tell-me-more For more information about my new programme - Celebrate YOU! https://bookme.name/MissionUnstoppable/lite/celebrate-you-tell-me-more [https://bookme.name/MissionUnstoppable/lite/celebrate-you-tell-me-more] Connect with Sue: Website: https://www.suerevell.com [https://www.suerevell.com] Social Media Links Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/] Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social] LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell [http://www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell]