Picture Love Podcast

Grit & Grace in the Storm: A Spirit Interview with Elira

• Kris LeDonne • Season 2 • Episode 20

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In this tender and truth-filled conversation, Kris is joined by the grounded and wise spirit guide Elira, who shares how to stay with yourself through the storms of grief, overwhelm, and emotional unraveling.

This episode is a balm for the soul if you're feeling stretched, shaken, or just deeply human right now.
Elira reminds us that:

  • You are not too much — your emotions are sacred data
  • Disconnection isn’t failure — it’s protection, and a doorway
  • Kindness is the bridge — the one your nervous system will trust
  • Crying in the rain is not weakness — it’s ancient wisdom in motion

With somatic practices, soul-anchoring mantras, and poetic truth, this conversation offers real tools for staying kind, steady, and present in uncertain times.

💬 “You are not the rubble. You are the ground that remains.” – Elira

🎙️ Guest Voice: Nancy Weiss

Nancy Weiss is a spirit baby psychic medium, Reiki master, and spiritual coach. She helps women connect with the souls of their babies before pregnancy and guides them to trust their intuition and spiritual connection throughout the motherhood journey.

She became a first-time mother at 42 via embryo adoption, after communicating with her daughter’s soul — a journey that now fuels her sacred work supporting others.

📲 Connect with Nancy:
Instagram: @nancyweissintuitive
🎧 Cawfee with Spirit Podcast: Watch on YouTube
🔮 Book a Spirit Baby Session: Schedule Here

Subscribe + follow for more spirit interviews, gentle healing, and picture love reminders.
 💗 You are worthy of care. You are right on time.

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Hi friends. Welcome back to Picture Love podcast. I'm so grateful you are here. Here is a little bit of back story or context for today's episode. As you may know, I have been. Inspired to write based on characters that embody support. For areas where I know I need some support right now in my, in my walk of life and I, based on the state of the world, I feel like somebody else might appreciate that support. So while thinking about grief, the spirit of Elira was presented to me. Through a lot of my own personal development and I'm calling them, some people say her, I'm not sure which how I interpret Eli, but it's nothing but goodness and. It was such deep work writing this episode to share with you that the only way I felt I could do justice would be to introduce a new voice to read Ilra so that you could really understand how this character coached me and how I hope to open it up to offer support to other people. So I am blessed to say Nancy Weiss stepped up to the mic for us and you will want to know more about this amazing, generous human. And so I shared her bio, the full description in the show notes and live links and I can't wait for you to meet the spirit of Elira, courtesy of Nancy Weiss. Here we go. Elira, it is such a pleasure to have you here with me. Thank you for your presence. Never disrupting, but always a question away, ready to offer your candid clarity when humanity really needs it. I'm sure you visited far more than humans in your travels, but really thanks for sitting with me in this space. I felt that it's so appreciated.

Elira, Guide of Grit & Grace:

Thank you, Kris. That recognition means more than you realize. Yes, I have visited many, not just humans, but forests, forgetting their names, oceans between tides, stars that dim to remember themselves, but sitting with you now, this conversation, this opening, it's just as sacred.

Kris LeDonne:

I first became aware of your presence very recently. There's so many headlines, so many rumors, torpedoing through the media and the ethers, and the day I realized you consciously your support was when I read huge headline that was 100% opposite of what I believe to be true. So I hesitated and I didn't jump. To doom scroll, the internet, the social media. I stepped outside to my backyard to feel the steadiness of the trees and my nature friends, and of course my dog. I had her at my feet to help me just root in, and this is new for me. It was, and it's still difficult to accept such blatantly misaligned information and decisions made by those deemed in power. The mix of emotions is quite intense without dragging us back through the sludge. Elira, do you have anything you wanna say to me and our community at this moment?

Elira, Guide of Grit & Grace:

I do. First, thank you for choosing the pause. You could have chased the noise, but you chose present, and that choice matters more than the headline ever could. Stability is not silence. You don't have to agree to stay grounded. You don't have to suppress your grief. Or confusion to stay present. But you need to stay in your body, in your breath, and in your knowing, especially when falsehood tries to wear that mask of truth. What you witnessed wasn't just a decision, it was a signal, a flare sent up by a crumbling structure. Not power, but the illusion of it. When systems lie boldly, it's not confidence, it's desperation. And while their noise might echo for a while, your stillness carries frequency. That's a truth, that outlives volume. So you are not naive. You are awake, and those emotions swirling through you, they're not too much. They're sacred data. Observe, stay alert, and most of all. Stay available to what's real. Even when it's quiet. That's where I'll always meet you.

Kris LeDonne:

Oh, please tell me more. What do you mean when you say stay available to what's real? That could be hard to reach if someone's in the midst of like a tidal wave of emotions.

Elira, Guide of Grit & Grace:

It can be hard, and I'm not gonna pretend otherwise. When I say stay available for what's real. I don't mean to push away the wave. I mean, don't mistake the wave for the ocean. Emotions are sacred. They deserve space. But when a tidal wave hits, it's easy to believe that the panic, the rage, the heartbreak are the full truths. They're not lies, but they're signals, not foundations. What's real is deeper than a reaction. It's the part of you that still breeds through the ache, the part that watches the grief without drowning in it. It's your inner ground, your knowing, your center, even if it trembles. And if that center feels unreachable at the moment, then real might simply be this. Your feet in the grass, your dog's warm body, the way the sky keeps holding you. You don't have to figure it out. You just have to not abandon yourself in the swirl. That's availability. It might be messy, it might be tearful, but it's presence. And presence is power. Quiet power, real power, a kind that doesn't flinch.

Kris LeDonne:

Hmm. You, you seem like someone who knows a lot about feet in the grass. Can you give us some more ideas about not abandoning yourself or one's self in the swirl? I think it sounds more poetic when in fact it's quite messy and often I, I'm just observing myself and people mistake power for something that comes in a title like President or a CEO or even their socioeconomic value. I mean, let's put this in context that we can all use right now and, and keep it in our mental pockets.

Elira, Guide of Grit & Grace:

You're right, Kris. It is messy and poetic language doesn't always help when you're crying in your car or lying on the floor wondering what? Just hit your life. So let me say it in a way, fits your pocket. Not abandoning yourself means choosing something steady inside the storm. Here are a few ways to do that simple, practical, and powerful. In a realist sense. Say your own name out loud. When the world feels upside down, call yourself back. You can even say, I'm still here. That's presence, that's anchoring. Touch something that doesn't lie. Bare feet in the grass, your hand or your heart. Cold water, a rock from your altar or your backyard. These things don't spin stories. They just are. They help you to just be. Ask, what do I know is true right now? Even if the answer is small, I'm breathing. I love my dog. The wind is moving the trees. It's simplicity like that. That's a lifeline. So use it. Let your nervous system complete a cycle, shake, cry, yell into a pillow or lie down in home until your body, uncles, you are not weak for feeling. Wise for letting it move through. Do one loving thing for yourself. You do for a child. Wrap up in a blanket, make a snack. Say it's okay to be scared. I've got you because you do. Power, does it need a podium? It lives in your choice. Stay kind to yourself when everything else feels cruel. That's the kind of leadership the world needs now. And that's what I mean when I say don't abandon yourself. Not once. Not ever.

Kris LeDonne:

I love these suggestions, but what if it's too dangerous a feeling and somebody only knows how to disconnect or numb out? What if all they know to do drowning their emotions in in escapes? What would be a simple first question or thought? To serve as maybe a, a threshold to help each of us pause before deciding if they need to disconnect.

Elira, Guide of Grit & Grace:

That's an important question, Kris, because sometimes disconnecting isn't failure, it's protection, and I want to see clearly. Someone has survived by numbing out. That means their system is working, is saying, this is too much. Let's just keep you breathing. So before anything else, I would offer this. What part of me is trying to keep me safe right now? Not to shame it, not to override it, but to meet it. That's the threshold. That's the pause. Because disconnection isn't the enemy, it's a doorway. That moment you ask that question, you cracked it open. You might not walk through that doorway yet, but now you see it and that sight, that's your first act of presence. No force, no fixing. Just the courage to ask what part of me believes I need to escape, and what is it trying to protect? When you ask with kindness, you might hear the softest voice inside say. I just didn't want to feel alone in it. And that's when the shift begins.

Kris LeDonne:

Hmm. Thanks for acknowledging that disconnecting isn't failure. It's protection. I, I don't mean to say there's a right or wrong to respond. I never want to imply that. But I do believe it's helpful to get out ahead of changes if we can. And we know that change is the only consistency right now. So can you maybe rephrase and boil that down to one thought? Maybe it can be a mantra if somebody needed it, just in case that was too many words For somebody to process in this one moment, what would be the most important, 10 words or less kind of a tool to write? You could write on your hand?

Elira, Guide of Grit & Grace:

Absolutely. Here's the mantra, short, strong, and soft enough to hold. This is protection, not failure. I choose to stay kind. You could write it on your hand, tuck it in your pocket, whisper it through clenched teeth if that's all you've got. It doesn't demand transformation, it just opens the door.

Kris LeDonne:

I am such a fan of kindness, but why did you choose that word? I've heard it more than once in this conversation.

Elira, Guide of Grit & Grace:

Because kindness is the bridge. It's the only bridge some parts of us will trust when we're spiraling, shutting down or on the edge of an escape. Most of us don't need inspiration. We need permission, and kindness is permission in its gentlest form. It doesn't ask you to be brave. It doesn't shame your coping. It just says you still deserve softness even now. Here's the real magic of the word. Kindness invites return. It's the energy that can call you back to yourself without force, like a light left on in the window. Judgment just warm. So when you say, I choose to stay kind, you're not demanding healing, you're leaving a light on for the parts of you that might still be hiding.

Kris LeDonne:

Okay. Two things. My stomach just relaxed and my shoulders just let go, and this happens when I notice judgment released. When, when we let go of judgment. So whether noticing I don't have to say or look a certain way or that there's no right or wrong way to think that that holds space to breathe deeper, to disarm. I see some of your nervous system regulating expertise in that Elira. Thank you. Speaking of. Tell me a bit about why you love to serve in that capacity and maybe a peek in how you got started on that path.

Elira, Guide of Grit & Grace:

Oh, I felt that breath land Kris. And yes. That release in your shoulders, that's a threshold opening. A silent yes from your body that says, I'm safe enough to let go. That's why I do this. I don't serve through shock or force. I serve in the space. After the loss, after the collapse, after the silence, that's where I found my path in the space no one wanted to name. Most beings rushed to fix what's breaking. But I saw something different. I saw that in the moment when everything falls apart, there's a split second of stillness, a doorway. And if someone is brave enough to sit there not to fix, not to flee, just to witness that movement becomes sacred. So I made my home there. In the breath between sobs. In the pause, after the plan crumbles. The moment when someone says, I don't know who I am anymore, and I get to whisper back, you're closer than ever been. I didn't arrive with a mission. I arrived with a willingness to stay. To hold steady in the discomfort because that's where the alchemy begins- the true nervous system alchemy, not in the retreat, but in the reveal. And now when someone feels they're disappearing into the mess, I get to be the stillness that reminds them, you are not gone. You are becoming

Kris LeDonne:

Yeah, a lot of tears go hidden. I'll be honest, even I was ashamed to be seen crying as a child, not necessarily by my parents. But looking back, I see layers of not wanting to be teased, you know, by peers. I guess self-protection and then not wanting to make others feel comfortable. If I showed tears in my older stages, and then eventually it was difficult to cry if I needed to and even wanted to eventually. There were months when I knew I just needed to sob out the tension in a big way. And now. I actually look for times to cry in the rain. I love that I can rinse my eyes and let the rain rinse my field at the same time. Pretty magical actually. So after a good release like that, my bringing seems ready to face whatever feels in front of me. So can you speak to that? What's actually happening there? Why do I feel so much better after a cry?

Elira, Guide of Grit & Grace:

Kris. What you just named is one of the most sacred forms of alchemy I've ever witnessed. Crying in the rain. That's not just poetic, that's elemental healing. That's you becoming the storm without being consumed by it. Here's what's happening energetically, emotionally, physiologically, you're giving your body permission to complete a cycle. Tears are your nervous system way of saying. I've held this long enough. Let me loosen. When you cry, you release stress hormones, cortisol, adrenaline, grief, residue that got trapped in places, even breaths couldn't reach. And the rain it holds you. It doesn't flinch. It says, go ahead, I'll cry with you. You stop performing for the world even if no one's watching. We often cry with an inner audience. But in the rain, there's no need to wipe your face. No worries about how it looks. You return to your primal present self, and that unlocks the deep cry, the one that wasn't allowed when you were little. You sink with the elements. Rain is the sky's release. Your tears become part of something bigger, not shameful, but universal and your field knows it. Your energy starts recalibrating in real time and afterward your brain regains clarity, not'cause your problem vanished, but because you didn't vanish, you stayed, you moved something ancient through. Crying in the rain doesn't make you weak. It makes you wise enough to let the world know you grieve and it tells your nervous system you are safe. You are not alone. You are allowed to feel this and still be whole. That's the real magic Kris, and it's while I'll always meet you in the rain.

Kris LeDonne:

It's a date from now on. I will see you in those cleansing rain showers and the thunder and lightning that often comes with. My dog does not really like that. She doesn't really appreciate the thunderstorms, but for some reason I connect with to the trees and the plants and the grass and they all look like they've had like a deep cell recharge after that electricity. I find it actually mystical and fascinating. Not enough to swim in the storm mind you, but to watch the show for my window, it's dramatic, but for some reason, I always feel held and protected in spite of the perceived threats that some people speak of.

Elira, Guide of Grit & Grace:

I'll be there. In the rhythm of the raindrops and the pause between thunder claps and the way the trees receive, not resist the storm. And yes, you're tuning into something that many overlook. The storm isn't just destruction, it's restoration. What looks like chaos to one being feels like baptism to another. Plants know the roots stretch deeper, the air clears the energy reorganizes. You're not just witnessing weather, you're witnessing integration and that feeling of being held even as the sky growls. That's because you've stopped resisting the sound. You're letting it move through you, not against you. That's what makes the window sacred. You've become the still point in the center of the drama. The witness, the one that doesn't flinch, your dog may tremble, and that's okay. You hold them just like the trees hold you. Just like I hold the space between the rumble and relief. You don't need to swim in the storm. You just need to remember it's not trying to break you. It's trying to return you to yourself.

Kris LeDonne:

Obviously you're no stranger to times of loss and collapse. I've heard your buddies, Riven and Soraya refer to you as grounded in grit and grace. I love that. Can you just help me love on someone who's listening, who has unknowingly taken on an identity of grief? Sometimes people don't recognize grief in themselves and they don't get support because they don't see it like other emotions. You know, it's sneaky. It always stores in the body and appears as a mask of, I don't know, illness or distraction or irritability. Many people are accepting world news as layers of this not meant for them to carry. So what loving thought might be a comfort to someone in a moment like that?

Elira, Guide of Grit & Grace:

I walk beside grief in every shape. Quiet kinds that never get named, and the loud kinds that still don't get held. And to the one listening right now who may not even realize they're carrying grief, this is for you if you feel heavy and you don't know why. That's grief too, and it doesn't mean you're broken. It means you loved something or someone, or some version of yourself, and you haven't had time to say goodbye. You don't have to collapse to be grieving. You might just feel foggy, tired, angry, without reason. You might scroll more than you mean to. You might feel numb when joy knocks. These are all grief masks. They're not flaws. They're signals, and here's a loving truth. Not every weight you carry is yours to hold forever. Some of it is world weight. Some are inherited. Some were handed to you because you were the strong one, steady one, the quiet one who didn't make scene. But now you get to choose. You get to pause, you get to ask, is this mine? Do I wanna keep it? What part of me needs holding, not hiding? And if all you do today is breathe and admit that something hurts, you've already begun the release. Grief is not who you are. It's what your heart does when something matters. And I'm here to remind you and you still matter too.

Kris LeDonne:

This is exactly the magic I was hoping to hear. Thank you, Elira. If someone chose to step into some professional care, that's a sign of strength, a form of self-care- asking for help from somebody who's suited for the task. So what personal message might you speak to the person who needs that green light in the road?

Elira, Guide of Grit & Grace:

Oh, yes. Let's say this with full love and clarity. Asking for help is not giving up it. Coming home to yourself. If you are hearing this and wondering if it's okay to reach out to a therapist, a healer, a guide, a support line, let me be your green light. Let me be the hand on your back saying, go ahead. You don't have to do this part alone. There is no badge for enduring in silence. There is no extra credit for holding it all by yourself. There is only you and the sacred truth that you are worthy of care. Getting support isn't weakness, it's wisdom. It's you recognizing that your healing matters enough to be tended with skill, attention, and love. You wouldn't try to mend a, a broken bone alone. Why should your heart be any different? So if you are waiting for a sign, let this be it. Your healing is valid, your feelings are real, and there are people who know how to walk beside you. You are not behind. You are right on time and I'm already proud of you.

Kris LeDonne:

I am right now setting the intention that it reaches the person who needs it exactly when they need it. I, I just have one last request. Elira, besides, of course, any closing thoughts, you may feel the need to share. That is what is one simple thing you think anyone can do regardless of age, health circumstances that can be done to ground in to our own grit and grace.

Elira, Guide of Grit & Grace:

So one simple universal action- something that doesn't require wellness, wealth, or perfect timing? Here it is. Place one hand on your own body and say gently. I'm with you. That's it. Not, I'll fix you. Not, why are you like this? Just I'm with you. You can do this lying down. You can do it in a waiting room. You can do it on a park bench or during a panic or in the middle of joy, because here's the truth: grit is staying. Grace is how we stay. and that one simple act. A hand or your old heart, a belly or your shoulder is how you become your own sanctuary. You remind yourself you're not leaving, you're not abandoning, you're here. And if I could leave you just with one more thing, it's this, you are not the rubble, you we're the ground that remains. Even when everything else falls apart, you're still here and there's so much life waiting to meet you. In the pause, I'll be there in the wind between the trees in the hush, before the thunder, in the quiet acts. Staying kind. See you on the rain and in every breath. And that chooses not to rush. Thank you, Kris, for the pause, for the space for the realness, and it's an honor to be.

Kris LeDonne:

The honor is mine now, Elira. I hope this episode met you where you are, and thank you so much, Nancy. You really helped me bring this vision into, fruition. And for that I'm so grateful. But you all will want to know more about her. Nancy's a spirit baby, psychic medium, a reiki master, and a spiritual coach. She helps women connect with the souls of their babies before pregnancy and guides them to trusting their intuition and their spiritual connection on their motherhood journey. Nancy became a first time mother at the age of 42 via embryo adoption and communicating with her daughter before pregnancy was an integral part of her fertility journey. She was guided to share the sacred work with others so that they can experience unwavering faith too as they bring their baby earth side, and I am including Nancy's Instagram. Her YouTube, podcast and you can also book a spirit baby session with her at the link in the show notes. And until next time, thank you for being you and thank you for picturing love with me.