My Why audio version of this blog available here.
This week I thought it would be a good time to just explain the various episodes we put out on The Silent Why and why we do them. For any new listeners but also in case we’ve never fully explain it all in one place.
The Silent Why podcast was born out of my husband, Chris, and I wanting to do something together that dovetailed our skills and passions. Chris’ career has been in journalism, broadcasting and the media, and mine has been a mix of admin, marketing, PA roles and writing. So eventually we got to the idea of starting a podcast. Even though Chris did float the idea quite a few years ago, but I wasn’t really sure what the whole podcast thing was back then!
Since we’d been through some rather strange and confusing losses to process, the main one being infertility and childlessness, we decided there must be other people out there also navigating similar situations, and with our joint love of deep conversation, we thought we’d like to chat to them. So we looked at all the possible losses people face and might need to grieve and decided we’d try to find 101 different types of loss. And here we are, 25 losses in (although you haven’t heard them all yet).
However, if you wander onto our podcast feed you’ll find a few different types of episode pop up, which have grown over time, and I thought I’d just briefly explain the differences.
The Silent Why Loss Episodes
They come out every Tuesday in the early hours (by UK time) and we release an episode that starts with a title that starts with ‘Loss of…’. That’s one of our main Silent Why episodes. These are episodes are usually between 30-60 minutes and Chris and I chat to a guest about a specific loss they’ve been through, or share one of our own. This is where we’re gathering our 101 losses and you can find a list of these as we count through them on the website under ‘101 losses’ (I’ll put a link in the show notes). Every ten losses we do an episode reflecting on the last ten and play clips from them, usually the Hermans. Which nicely brings me to the one thing these episodes have in common, the last question we ask every guest is ‘What’s your Herman?’ If you have no idea what this means you can visit thesilentwhy.com/herman to read the blog or listen to the podcast episode called ‘What’s your Herman?’ (which was the second episode and blog we put out after our trailer). We also like to finish all these episodes with a quote that somehow ties in to what we’ve been talking about.
My Why Episodes
These go out every Friday in the early hours (by UK time) and I release a much shorter episode around 10-30 mins called a ‘My Why’. These are audio versions of the blog that I write for the website every week, a chance for people to listen or read some thoughts I’ve had on any subject, but largely around things to do with loss, grieving, the childless life or something poignant to me.
Let’s Chat Episodes
Once a month or so I release a ‘Let’s Chat…’ episode on a Tuesday instead of the usual Silent Why episode. These are around 30-45mins and involve me chatting to a guest on a subject that can either help us through loss, help us prepare for loss, or is linked to loss in some way. These episodes are a chance for me to go further into subjects we cover with people who have expertise or experience in these areas. Through these episodes I’m slowly building a metaphorical tool shed by asking my guest what tool their experience, expertise or subject would be if it was something from a shed. So far I’m building a great collection of things that can all help us through loss. And I’m working on a way to make this more visual one day too.
So they’re the main three types of episodes, then every now and then if we feel like it we might release something different, like a short daily series on Hope in between Christmas and New Year, or something else we think might be valuable for our listeners. We want to keep our content as relevant and flexible as possible to serve those that are listening as they navigate this tricky thing we call life.
So, that’s The Silent Why podcast for you. Currently between myself and Chris we produce and edit all our own content and social media. It’s a full time job for me right now, which I love, but also involves a lot of time and cost to keep it running. My dream is that one day I can find ways to finance it so I can continue it as a passion that financially supports itself and me, which would be brilliant. As some of you will have heard in previous My Why’s, one of my greatest passions is writing and I’d love to write and release novels that work alongside the podcast as books to offer hope, joy and empathy with those who face loss. I’m also working on ideas for things I could offer that you could gift to others in their loss when you just don’t know what else to do. So, watch this space…
In the meantime, there are costs associated with producing this podcast, so if you’re enjoying it or finding it helpful you can help to support it financially by buying me a coffee on www.buymeacoffee.com/thesilentwhy (although I’ve actually called them ‘fancy teas’ because I do love an Earl Grey with my marzipan!). There’s a link at the bottom of the show notes for this or you can visit www.thesilentwhy.com/support.
And if you’re not sure about the whole money thing, but would love to support my work with The Silent Why, one of the best things you can do is spread the word, whether on social media, with friends or through other networks. The more people we have listening, the more people we help, the more ways we can branch into helping others and the more chance we have of making this financially stable.
A great way to do this is to leave a rating or review on your podcast app, these really help other people find us and work out if they want to listen, so if you haven’t done that already - please go rate us - and if your podcast app doesn’t let you do that (we see you Google podcasts!) you can find a list of other apps to listen to podcasts on on our website from the home page, just click on ‘help me’ in the section on how to listen to a podcast, there’s a picture of a pepper with scary eyes, and if that’s not worth popping over to the website for, I don’t know what is.
And we want to offer a huge thanks to those of you that are listening and regularly tune in to join us, we’re heading for 6,500 downloads of the podcast, which is an amazing number of people over our first seven months. It spans across 885 cities and 44 countries and territories. Our top countries are the UK, the US (which is starting to overtake the Brits, come on Brits!), Canada, Australia, Germany, South Africa, Ireland, Sweden, Israel and Switzerland!
And we see you top listening cities, yes, that’s currently (feel free to cheer if you see yourself!):
Cheltenham and Gloucester (shout out to our local peeps!)
London, England
Perth, Australia
Calgary, Alberta
Bury St Edmunds, England
Vancouver, Washington
Chicago, Illinois
Portsmouth, England
Peterborough, England
Vienna, Virginia
Selkirk, Manitoba
Ross on Wye, England
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Midlothian, Virginia
Portland, Oregon,
Cambridge, England
Evesham, England
Ashburn, Virginia
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Oxford, England
Thank you all so much, and if you’re not on the list yet, get the word spreading locally and maybe you’ll get to hear your place one day.
And thank you to everyone that’s left us a review or rating. We don’t get notified when they happen, so just occasionally when we wander into them, and we’re surprised by some lovely words, it’s a huge boost to what we’re doing, and so far they’ve all been good.
When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed. Maya Angelou