We recently connected with Tae’Lor Landa and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Tae’Lor thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the story of how you went from this being just an idea to making it into something real.

My cousin and I were in the process of planning to do another podcast one weekend and I remember driving around and thinking to myself, “What if I started a podcast about what my life was really like as someone who lost their mom?” I knew that my grief was a journey but because I was telling my story, I came up with the name ‘The Grief Journal: The Unwritten Pages of My Grief Journey.’ I felt that the name fit because the transparency that I was hoping to convey on my episodes would be the same transparency anyone would have if they were writing in a journal that wasn’t going to be published. ‘The Unwritten Pages of My Grief Journey’ means that I’m sharing information about my grief process that people may not have known or would not have thought to ask.

From there, I Googled the Podcast name to make sure I wasn’t stealing it. I went on Canva to create a flyer to announce my first episode. I decided on a Journal template since the word journal is part of the podcast name and created the flyer. I originally wanted to write a devotional book on grief, so I had already listed the topics on my phone. I had taken these topics and arranged the order that I wanted the episodes to air. This was my first podcast, so I researched podcast recording software/platforms and found Podbean. Podbean is a podcast host that allows you to record, and upload episodes and sends them to listening platforms such as Apple Podcast, Google Podcast etc. When my cousin and I were doing one episode of our podcast, we used a video streaming serviced called Restream, which records the videos but allows you to go live on social media platforms. Once the recording s completed, you can download the episodes and upload them to the podcast host to get the episodes streamed to listening platforms.

From there, I created social media page for my podcast and started broadcasting my episodes there.

Tae’Lor , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Tae’Lor Landa and I am a high school counselor. I’ve been working in education since I graduated college. I lost my mom about three years ago. I was my mother’s only child, so all of the medical and financial decision making and funeral planning fell mostly on me. Because of the relationship that I had with my mom, other people were concerned about my well being and had said to me directly that they didn’t know how I was going to survive without my mother since we were so close. I felt that people were assuming what my journey was going to look like one way or the other without even understanding me as a person and how I cope with my issues. Thus, The Grief Journal was born.

The Grief Journal: The Unwritten Pages of My Grief Journey is a podcast that talks about my grief journey, but also offers tips on how other people can cope with their grief. Grief is a touchy subject, and not many people know how to deal with their own grief and those in their support system may not know how to support friends that are grieving. What makes this podcast different is that it touches on various topics that someone might encounter during their grief journey such as going through the belongings of their loved one, healthy coping skills, what to do when people stop calling, and dating while grieving. I also aim to be really transparent; I don’t hold anything back on any of my episodes.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I think what’s helped build my reputation would be my consistency and word of mouth of other people. I’ve been doing my podcast for about a year now, but I usually release an episode once a week to keep my momentum going but I do take my breaks as needed. My friends and family support by listening to my episodes, and I’m seeing them share my episodes or tagging me in posts about people looking for grief resources. The people around me are seeing the work that I’m doing, know it’s important and help me in sharing about my project to help other people. Because I’m also talking about grief – a topic that people don’t touch on often and one that’s not a common podcast topic – it captures people’s attention because it’s so unique. I don’t know too many people that have podcasts on grief so it makes me stand out.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I LOVE when people share my episodes, but it’s heart warming when people come to me personally and tell me that my podcast episodes have helped them while they’re grieving and that I need to get going. I’m still learning how to properly promote myself so my work can get discouraging when I see a lower amount of shares for my episodes. But I also learned that just because my posts don’t get the amount of shares that I need it to, doesn’t mean the episode didn’t fall into the right hands and that it’s not making an impact. In fact, I would almost much rather have people give me personal testimonies in person about my podcast rather than share it because I know that it’s genuine.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://open.spotify.com/show/25b0mryM2cODJGg5BeixL7?si=14d12339494d446b
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/people/The-Grief-Journal-The-Unwritten-Pages-of-My-Grief-Journey/100071267754356/?comment_id=Y29tbWVudDoxMjAzNzcxMTA3MDc4NDEzXzE2MTkyNTQ4MjUxMzY0MDE%3D&scrlybrkr=092bbe20
• Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-grief-journal-the-unwritten-pages-of-my-grief-journey/id1577678259

Image Credits
Her Perspective Photography, LLC