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Nicole O’Brien

@nicobrien22

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Living with grief + healing out loud 🤍
In honour of my husband Cst. Rick O’Brien
Brave Hearts 🩵
Joint Forces Foundation 💙
Joint Forces Jamboree 🚓🚒🚑

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Come smash a pumpkin with us! 😂🎃🔨

Your ticket includes a whole afternoon at Hopcott Farms…with time to reflect, smash, catch your breath and connect.

Here’s what’s included:

🎃 Your pumpkin, ready for you to write on…and smash.
🔨 Use of the smashing equipment.
🩵 A guided experience from reflection through to grounding afterwards.
☕ Food and refreshments to enjoy together.
📓 A journal to take home and keep putting words to whatever life brings.

There’s room for the hard + messy stuff…and plenty of room for laughter too.

I’m really looking forward to this…and I’d love for you to join us. 🩵

RELEASE • Pumpkin Smash
Sunday, November 1 • 1–4 PM
Hopcott Farms • Pitt Meadows
$45 per person

Book Pumpkin Smash on its own or join the complete five-experience series. Tickets through the link in our bio. 🎃

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I’ve been asked why I chose a Pumpkin Smash as the first Brave Hearts experience.

The honest answer starts with what I was living through at this time last year.

The trial for Rick was about to begin. I was preparing myself to walk into a courtroom, face the man who murdered my husband and listen as the worst day of our lives was pulled apart & examined…knowing that when court ended each day, I would have to carry all of it back outside with me.

And honestly? I wanted to smash something.

There comes a time when talking isn’t enough. I had talked. I had written. I had tried to name what I was feeling. And all of that mattered.

But there were still days when it felt like the anger, fear, grief and helplessness were sitting inside my body with nowhere to go. I didn’t need better words in those moments. I needed a way to let some of it out.

That is where the idea for Pumpkin Smash came from.

I wanted to create an experience where we could name what we’ve been carrying, write it directly onto a pumpkin and physically put it outside of ourselves.

In some ways, it’s like writing a letter you never intend to send and then burning it. You take what has been living inside you, give it somewhere else to go…and then physically release it.

Except this version is louder, messier and involves picking up a bat or sledgehammer and smashing the hell out of it. 😂🎃

Not because smashing a pumpkin fixes grief, trauma or any of the hard + messy things life brings us. It doesn’t. And not because we are expected to erase what happened or simply “let it go.”

But sometimes releasing even a little of what we’ve been holding can create some breathing room.

Room to exhale. Room to reconnect with ourselves. Room to walk into the rest of the series and explore what else might help us move through what life has brought us.

I wanted our first Brave Hearts experience to make space for all of it…the reflection and the release, the meaning and the laughter, the quiet moments and the glorious mess.

That’s why RELEASE comes first. 🎃🩵

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Brave Hearts was never meant to exist only in the rooms where our experiences happen.

Because when the experience ends, life continues…and sometimes it is the days between gathering when connection matters most.

That is why we created the Brave Hearts Community on Onelight. 🩵

This is where our conversations can continue, where we can explore the topics that matter and where we will share practical tools and resources to carry into everyday life.

It is also where you’ll be the first to discover new Brave Hearts pop up events.

But there is another part of Onelight that feels especially meaningful.

Sometimes you know you need connection, but you can’t find the words to explain what you need or don’t know how to ask for it.

On Onelight, you can turn your light on.💡

It is a quiet way of letting the community know…

I’m here.
I could use some connection.
I’m open to a conversation.

Turning your light on becomes an invitation for someone to reach out…an invitation for a conversation or simply an invitation to connect.

You don’t need to explain everything.

You don’t need to have the right words.

And you don’t need to be ready to share your story.

You can also join quietly, look around and begin in whatever way feels comfortable for you.

You don’t need to have attended a Brave Hearts experience.

You don’t need to know anyone.

You just get to come as you are.

Because our stories may be different, but none of us has to carry the hard + messy parts of life alone.

CONNECTION CHANGES WHAT BECOMES POSSIBLE.

Join the Brave Hearts Community on Onelight through the link in our bio.

There is a place for you here. 🩵

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BRAVE HEARTS…HERE WE GOOOOO!!!🩵

Our first Brave Hearts Experience Series is officially here…and registration is open!

Five gatherings.

Five different ways to explore what may help you reconnect with yourself, connect with others and move through whatever life has brought.

🎃 RELEASE: Pumpkin Smash

An invitation to name some of what you have been carrying…and physically let some of it go.

🩵 REST: TAP OUT
Tapping + Meditation + Sound Bath

An invitation to stop doing for a while…settle into your body, receive and explore practices that may help support your nervous system.

🎨 EXPRESS: MESSY + BRIGHT
Creative Holiday Experience

An invitation to create, play and make room for everything the holidays can hold…joy, grief, memory, change, connection and absence.

🌿 RECONNECT: SHIFT HAPPENS
Inner Resonance Therapy

An invitation to turn inward, become curious about what is happening beneath the surface and connect with yourself in a different way.

🌬️ BREATHE: BREATHE THROUGH IT
Somatic Breathwork + Sound + Movement

An invitation to come back into the body through breath, sensation, sound and gentle somatic practice.

Every experience will offer something different.

Something to experience.
Something to explore.
Something practical you can carry forward.

And because healing does not always have to feel quiet or serious…there will also be room for creativity, curiosity, messiness, laughter and fun.

You can begin with the experience that speaks to you…or join us for the complete five-part Experience Series and explore all five together.

There is no better or braver way to begin.

Just the way that feels right for you.

Our first experience begins Sunday, November 1 at Hopcott Farms with RELEASE: Pumpkin Smash. 🎃

Because sometimes healing looks like…

SMASHING A PUMPKIN.
Yes. Really. 😂

Choose one experience or join the complete Experience Series through the link in our bio.

Come curious.
Come as you are.

There is a place for you here. 🩵

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We talk a lot about connection at Brave Hearts.

Not because we believe community can fix everything.

Some things cannot be fixed. Some losses cannot be undone. Some experiences change us in ways we are still learning to understand.

But being beside people who understand something about carrying hard things can change how alone we feel inside them.

Brave Hearts was built around the belief that we were never meant to carry everything alone.

Not necessarily because someone else will have the answers, know what to say or be able to make everything better…but because there is something powerful about being human beside other humans while we each find our own way through.

Our stories do not need to be the same for us to recognize something in one another.

There can be room for different experiences, different needs and different ways of being together.

That is what we are creating through Brave Hearts.

Smaller, gentler spaces where people can come exactly as they are, experience something together and begin reconnecting with themselves and others.

Because connection changes what becomes possible.

Not because it fixes everything…but because we don’t have to find our way alone.

There is a place for you here. 🩵

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Walking into something new can feel like a lot…especially when life has already asked a lot of you.

That is why the way a Brave Hearts experience feels matters just as much as what we do when we are together.

You will not be expected to arrive as a polished or prepared version of yourself.

You will be welcomed into a warm, thoughtfully guided space created for real life…and for real people having real days.

There will be structure, support and choices along the way because participation can look different for each person…and it can look different for the same person from one moment to the next.

You may arrive feeling nervous and slowly begin to settle in.

You may come looking for release and find yourself laughing.

You may feel uncertain about trying something new…and surprise yourself by how good it feels.

You may connect with someone else…or simply notice something within yourself.

Some moments may be quiet.

Others may be creative, messy, playful or full of laughter.

Every Brave Hearts experience will be different, but each one is being created with the same intention: to offer something meaningful you can experience, explore and carry with you.

We will begin sharing the experiences themselves very soon…and we cannot wait for you to see what is coming.

For now, know this…

You don’t have to show up brave.

You just get to show up as you are.

There is a place for you here. 🩵

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Sometimes you know exactly what changed everything.

A death. A diagnosis. A relationship ending. A traumatic experience. A life you thought you were building suddenly becoming something completely different.

And sometimes…it isn’t one thing.

You simply know you don’t feel like yourself anymore.

You’re tired. Disconnected. Overwhelmed. Going through the motions. Laughing one moment and falling apart the next.

Maybe you’re carrying something you haven’t found words for yet.

Maybe you’re doing everything you’re supposed to be doing…but something inside you still feels stuck.

Or maybe life has just been really fucking hard lately.

You don’t need a particular story to belong here.

You don’t need to know what kind of healing you need.

And you don’t need to arrive polished, positive or ready to talk about all of it.

Brave Hearts is a place to explore what helps you feel more connected to your body, your mind, your soul…and to life again.

We’ll move. Create. Rest. Breathe. Release. Laugh. Get a little messy. Try things that might feel unfamiliar…and discover what feels meaningful for each of us.

Because healing looks different for everyone.

If you recognize yourself somewhere in these words…there is a place for you here. 🩵

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Some people have a way of bringing people together without ever really trying.

Rick is one of those people. 💙

He connected with people wherever he went…through hockey, through work, through his ridiculous sense of humour, through the kids he worked with, through the community around him and through the uniform he was so proud to wear.

But I think what matters most is how he made people feel.

Included. Seen. Part of something.

The two guys kissing Rick in that first photo? 😂

That was Trevor and Ben at our wedding.

Years later, they are both at the Jamboree…still showing up, still part of the connections Rick creates.

And they’re only two of so many.

People who may never have crossed paths are becoming friends. At the Jamboree, those connections are happening everywhere…on the ball hockey floor, in the arena, throughout the Kids Zone and in the First Responder Zone.

People from different parts of Rick’s life and across the community are coming together because of something that matters deeply to him…connection.

And every year, that circle gets a little bigger.

That is what Joint Forces was created to carry forward.

It isn’t only about remembering Rick.

It’s about continuing something that came so naturally to him…bringing people together.

The roots of this work were here long before there was ever a Foundation.

They were in him. 💙

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There are so many different ways we stay connected to the people we love.

After Rick died, I had this bear made from some of his uniforms. 🧸

Every detail was recreated so carefully…right down to the layers underneath, the buckles and pieces of his RCMP uniform. And over the heart of the bear is Rick’s badge number.

It stays on my bed.

It isn’t just something made from pieces of clothing. Those pieces belonged to him. He wore them. They were part of a life he lived, a job he loved and a person we loved very much.

Grief has taught me that connection doesn’t disappear when someone dies. Sometimes it changes shape.

Sometimes it’s a memory.
Sometimes it’s a photograph.
Sometimes it’s the people who still gather because of them.

And sometimes…it’s something you can still hold. ❤️

This week, as we share more about the person at the heart of Joint Forces, it felt right to share this little piece of Rick too. 💙

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One of my earliest dates with Rick wasn’t exactly a typical date.

He was taking a group of young people from Squiala First Nation to a BC Lions game…and he invited me to come along.

I have a photo of the two of us from that night, but I don’t have any photos with the kids.

What I do have is the memory of watching him with them.

When Rick and I met, he was working two jobs at the same time. He was an educational assistant in Chilliwack and was also employed by Squiala First Nation as an at-risk youth worker.

He had to work two jobs…but neither one was simply a job to him.

He spent time in the kids’ world. He created experiences for them. And he had this natural ability to make young people feel like they mattered.

The BC Lions game was one of those experiences.

As our lives came together, I watched that same part of Rick become woven through our family.

Between the two of us, we had six kids…and Rick genuinely loved being part of their world.

He joked around with them constantly. He loved playing video games with them, taking them out to the field to throw a ball around, showing up at their games and cheering from the sidelines. He watched sports with them on TV and loved talking smack with them too. 😂

And he loved making dinner for whoever happened to be home. With six kids and schedules going in every direction, we didn’t often get to sit down for big family dinners…but if there were kids in the house… Rick was usually pretty happy to feed them.

He loved the everyday parts of being a family just as much as the fun ones.

And yes…he was also the grown ass man coming down the tiny slide at Maan Farms with Brayden right behind him. 😂

Even when we visited a school in the Dominican Republic, Rick naturally found his way to the kids…and they found their way to him.

It didn’t matter where he was or how old they were.

Rick knew how to meet young people where they were.

He didn’t become someone who cared about kids when he put on the uniform.

That was already who he was.

And it’s one of the reasons carrying his legacy forward through youth feels so incredibly right. 💙

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A little joy from the Jamboree archive. 😂💙

Flying ball hockey balls. Big saves. Bigger celebrations. Kids and first responders chirping each other, laughing together and getting completely caught up in the game.

These are some of our favourite moments…not because they need a big explanation or lesson attached to them…but because they were simply fun.

There has been so much heaviness surrounding Rick’s death and the trial.

But his legacy also holds this.

Joy.
Play.
Connection.

People coming together and having a really great day.

We have hundreds of photos and so many happy memories from the Jamboree that deserve to be shared…and we’re really enjoying looking back through them with you.

The Jamboree gave this community a reason to come together…but the laughter, friendships and memories created here belong to all of us.

This is Jamboree joy. 💙

So today, let’s make room for the happy part of Rick’s legacy too.

Tell us the moment that still makes you laugh, smile or shake your head. We would love to relive it with you. 😂💙

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You may recognize this little face from our 2027 Save the Date. 💙

This is Madden.

I know his mom Megan through my UPS Store…and from watching her stories and posts, I knew how much Madden loved fire trucks.

So when we were planning this year’s Jamboree…I thought of him.

I invited Megan, her husband and Madden to come explore our First Responder Zone, where he could see a real fire truck and some of the other first responder vehicles up close.

And then this happened.

Madden climbed inside one of the vehicles…and this became one of my favourite photos from the entire day.

What I love most about it isn’t only the experience he was having. It’s the connection you can see happening between them.

Look at both of their faces.

Madden is completely caught up in the moment…and the first responder beside him looks like he is enjoying it just as much.

Madden got to have a pretty incredible experience. His parents got to watch their little boy light up. And a first responder got to share in the excitement and connect with their family in a completely different way.

Everyone received something from that moment.

This is exactly what the Joint Forces Jamboree is all about…creating opportunities for children and families to meet the people behind the uniforms in a positive and relaxed environment.

No emergency. No crisis.

Just a little boy who loves fire trucks…a first responder willing to share the experience with him…and the kind of mutual connection we created the Jamboree to make possible. 💙

PS: 🗓️ Save the Date: May 22, 2027

📸 @photos_with_tucker

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