351. Is It Selfish to Want to Move On?
The Widowed Mom Podcast
Krista St-Germain
4.9 • 695 Ratings
🗓️ 16 February 2026
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Have you ever wondered if it’s selfish to want more for your life after your person dies? If the desire to date again, set boundaries, rest, or feel joy brings up guilt or heaviness, you are not alone.
In this episode, I unpack the question so many widows quietly wrestle with: Is it selfish to want to move on?
Tune in this week as I help you redefine what selfish really means, recognize internalized conditioning, and reclaim your agency without shame. You’ll hear why the phrase “moving on” can feel triggering, why “moving forward” is different, and how the fear of being selfish is often rooted in lifelong social conditioning, not truth.
Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.coachingwithkrista.com/351
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Mentioned in this episode:
Celebrate Turning 50 With Me!
As part of my 50 Widows Forward celebration, you can currently receive 10% off Grief Essentials or Mom Goes On. This offer ends June 20… or when 50 widows join. Get the discount code and more information by going to: https://the-widowed-mom-podcast.captivate.fm/50widowsforward
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Before we jump into today's episode, I want to share something that might help if you're in the |
| 0:05.0 | early days of grief. Grief Essentials is an eight-week course with live support designed to make |
| 0:11.3 | grief feel more manageable. Get the tools, clarity, and compassionate support you need to find your |
| 0:17.9 | footing again. Visit Coaching with Krista.com forward slash grief essentials for all the |
| 0:25.0 | details. Welcome to the widowed mom podcast. Episode 351, is it selfish to want to move on? |
| 0:38.9 | Welcome to the widowed Mom podcast, the only podcast that offers a proven process to help |
| 0:45.3 | you work through your grief to grow, evolve, and create a future you can truly look |
| 0:51.5 | forward to. |
| 0:52.9 | Here's your host, Master certified life coach, grief expert, |
| 0:57.2 | widow and mom, Krista St. Germain. Hey there, welcome to another episode of the podcast. |
| 1:04.6 | Today I want to talk about a question most widows ask themselves at a certain point in their grief. |
| 1:09.9 | They might not ask it out loud. It might |
| 1:12.2 | just be an internal question that they wrestle with. And for some of us, it doesn't even show up in the |
| 1:17.4 | form of a question. It just feels like heaviness and maybe guilt, even before we've changed anything |
| 1:23.4 | about the way that we're living. And that question is, is it selfish to want to move on? |
| 1:30.4 | Now, if just that question rubbed you wrong, I want to start with the language because language |
| 1:35.9 | matters. When people say moving on, a lot of widows bristle. I definitely did. And I think that's |
| 1:43.3 | for good reason, because moving on can feel like |
| 1:46.5 | replacing them with something or someone else or leaving them behind or forgetting them or closing a |
| 1:53.2 | door. And for many widows, that doesn't feel right. It feels undesirable. It can feel downright |
| 1:58.7 | offensive. So if moving on feels wrong to you, |
| 2:02.4 | that makes sense. And what most widows I work with are actually talking about isn't moving on |
... |
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