‘I want to help people to cope with their grief and loss’

Podcaster Briona Gallagher was 21 when her father died suddenly of a heart attack. She wants to use her spiritual journey since then to help others, she tells Deirdre McArdle

Briona Gallagher wants to help to “validate people’s ongoing connection with loved ones who’ve died”

Briona Gallagher suffered greatly when her father died suddenly a decade ago. Now she has set up a podcast to try to help people through their grief.

The Cork woman says the purpose of Naturally High, the podcast, is to attempt to reassure people that death is a transition, not an ending.

The podcaster was just 21 when her father died suddenly, of a heart attack, aged 57, in 2003. They were close and she often turned to him for advice.

Losing him unexpectedly left a giant hole.

Her 20s were a pivotal time in her life and, without her father’s guidance, she felt lost.

Gallagher says: “I was a bit paralysed by it. I lost my confidence in a lot of areas.

“His passing spun me out a little bit in so many different ways. It took me years to find my footing and get back to my own life.” Though Gallagher found the grieving hard, she says she “really accepted the fact that he was gone”.

“I wasn’t particularly looking for answers. In fact, any answers I was looking for were more like, ‘How do I feel better?’ or ‘How do I get back on track?’”

In 2013, and still struggling to find her way again, Gallagher visited a medium.

“I had no real beliefs at that stage about anything. A friend suggested this medium to me, and I thought I’d go along, more out of curiosity than anything else.”

For the first few minutes of the ‘reading’, Gallagher says she didn’t really connect with what the medium was saying, but suddenly that changed.

“[The medium] was looking over my shoulder and she mentioned that a man was with us in spirit form. She said the man told her he was 57 and he was clutching his heart.”

Briona Gallagher sees her podcast as a way to “reassure people about death in a light, joyous and creative way"

That was Gallagher’s father’s age when he died of a heart attack. She didn’t want to reveal anything to the medium, so she simply nodded.

Gallagher says: “She then started describing him: Average height, dark hair, and she pointed at her forearms, saying they were very tanned. My dad played golf and had what we’d call a golfer’s tan.” Then came the point that Gallagher says led her to believe that her dad was present in the room.

“The medium burst out laughing, as you would when someone says something funny. She said, ‘He’s after saying to me “and good looking”. I started laughing at that point, because that is something my dad would definitely say.”

For Gallagher, it wasn’t so much what the medium said to her, it was more the fact that she was “clearly responding to something or someone in the room”.

Afterwards, Gallagher sat outside and tried to process what had happened. “I sat for ages, going through it.” The experience left her with the strong feeling that she had communicated with her father.

Her first thought was, ‘How do I do this again’. But this time without a medium. Was it something she could do herself?

Gallagher says she then embarked on a “personal journey” in which she sought guidance from the spirit of her late father. The communication she has had since then has been internal guidance, not seeing or hearing him, she stresses.

“I experience a sense of knowing and feeling that he’s with me, and there are times when a thought will come to me that will not be my own thought, it’s come from outside.”

Gallagher adds that she sometimes feels even closer to her dad now, because the connection is so personal and interior. Her focus on the spirit world at times feels isolating for Gallagher, but she nevertheless says she feels she is “on the right path”.

“It’s still hard to talk about, because I don’t like being thought of as illogical or ridiculous. I’m a creative strategist by day and my job is to come up with logical solutions to problems. So I have found it difficult at times.” Despite that, she says, she “ended up really walking my own path”.

That decision led her to set up Naturally High, where she interviews mediums, healers, and everyday people who claim to have lived experiences of the spirit world.

The Cork woman sees it as a way to “reassure people about death in a light, joyous, and creative way”.

With the podcast, Gallagher wants to create a place where people can share their experiences without judgement.

Her goal isn’t to try and convert those who are sceptical about the spirit world, but she hopes listeners take from it whatever resonates with them.

“Maybe by hearing specific, grounded stories like my own and my other guests’, people who are unsure can at least move from thinking, ‘That’s mad’ to ‘Ok, maybe there’s something in this’.”

Gallagher also hopes the podcast can help to “validate people’s ongoing connection with loved ones who’ve died” and “offer perspective and comfort to those in acute grief”.