Esther Ghey: ‘Having mindfulness in my back pocket saved me’
5/4/20261 hr
How do you navigate the world after the murder of your child?
John is joined by Esther Ghey, mother of Brianna Ghey who was murdered in 2023. Following her daughter’s death, Esther found herself confronting an online world filled with hostility and harm.
Esther shares how her own past has shaped her capacity for compassion, and how mindfulness became a lifeline in the aftermath of her daughter’s death. Now, Esther is campaigning for phone-free schools, and shares urgent insights for parents navigating the difficulties of the online world.
Esther’s book Under a Pink Sky is available now.
You can find out more about Esther’s campaigning work via Phone Free Education and Brianna Ghey Legacy Project
There’ll be more from Esther on Thursday in our bonus episode, The Gratitude List, where she shares the five things she’s most grateful for right now.
If you need support, you can find advice and someone to talk to by visiting Mind and Samaritans
You can send in your thoughts and reflections to hello@howdoyoucopepod.com or via howdoyoucopepod.com
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsJohn Robins· Host0:00
Hello, everyone. It's John here, just letting you know that I've written a book. It's called Thirst: 12 Drinks That Changed My Life, and it's available to pre-order now. In many episodes of How Do You Cope?, you'll have heard me talk about my relationship with alcohol, and in writing Thirst, I wanted to explore what alcohol means. Why did it mean more to me than other people? Why did it mean some things felt better? And why did it mean so many things went wrong? I also talk about lots of other things you'll have heard me and my guests discuss on How Do You Cope?: meditation, physical pain, gratitude, trauma, and therapy. There's even a chapter about my bum and its relationship with Buddhism. So if that piques your interest, Thirst is available to pre-order now, and the audiobook, read by me, is available to save or pre-order wherever you get audiobooks from. [upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to How Do You Cope? with me, John Robins. This is the show where I sit down with special guests to talk about the challenges they've encountered in their lives and the coping mechanisms that have helped them to find a way through. Today's guest is Esther Gih. In February 2023, Esther endured every parent's worst nightmare when she learned that her 16-year-old daughter, Brianna, had been brutally attacked and murdered in a local park. She was lured there by two teenagers who stabbed her 28 times. Brianna was a trans teenager, and her murder