Where I’ve Been: Grief, Life & Returning to Yourself

After an unexpected month away from the podcast, I’m returning with a more personal episode than usual.

Over the past few weeks, my mom passed away and I travelled to the States for her funeral and to be with family. In this episode, I’m sharing some honest reflections on grief, emotional overwhelm, life interruptions and the strange process of finding your way back to yourself afterwards.

This isn’t just a conversation about loss — it’s about what happens when life suddenly pulls you out of your routines, your identity, your work and your emotional rhythm… and how we slowly begin again afterwards.

Together, we talk about the reality of complicated grief, emotional exhaustion, spirituality during difficult human experiences and the often unseen process of healing and returning to yourself after life changes you.

A gentle, grounded conversation for anyone navigating grief, change, emotional exhaustion or simply trying to reconnect with themselves again.

Trust your path. Honour your truth. And always — keep listening.

Ways to Connect with Mesina: 

Website: https://psychic-whispers.com 

Book a Reading: https://psychic-whispers.com/collections/all

Join The Circle on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/psychicwhispers

Email: mesina@psychic-whispers.com

Socials: @psychic.whispers

New episodes every Wednesday 

Transcript

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Hello, and welcome to the Psychic Whispers Podcast. Hello, beautiful souls, and welcome back to Psychic Whispers. Oh, you know, it feels really good to be sitting here recording again. You know, truth be told, I didn't expect to step away from the podcast for this long. And I didn't even get the chance to tell all you beautiful listeners out there that I'd be gone. Life moved very suddenly and unexpectedly for me. And sometimes we just have to roll with that. A few weeks ago, right after my last podcast episode, my mom passed away. And I had to travel to the States to be with my family and to plan and have her funeral. As everything had happened so incredibly quickly, uh, I simply had to take that step away from work, social media, the podcast, all of it really, and be fully present with what was happening. And as I just found such a great rhythm with this podcast, suddenly there's this long break that I had to take. And I just had to be as present as I could be. That was it. No choices, just actions. But sitting down to record tonight felt important. Not because I suddenly have everything figured out. I absolutely do not, by the way. But because I think there's something deeply human about learning how to return to yourself after life completely interrupts you. And that's really what I want to talk about today. Not just grief, but those moments when life just totally sideswipe you and you don't have anything but to deal with whatever's going on. The kind of life interruptions that suddenly pull you out of your routines, your plans, your work, you know, your emotional rhythm, and leaves you trying to emotionally catch up with what's happened. I think one of the hardest things about grief or sudden loss is how quickly your ordinary life disappears. One moment you're just thinking about your schedule, your work, you're applying to messages, you're planning your week, and then suddenly none of those things feel important anymore. Your priorities change instantly. And your nervous system changes instantly. And there's almost this strange emotional whiplash that happens because your mind is trying to catch up with a reality that shifted far too quickly. I don't think we talk enough about how disorientating that can feel. Especially in this modern life where we're so used to constant movement, constant communication, and constantly feeling reachable. There's very little room culturally for people to simply stop for a while. And emotionally, sometimes we really need to. We need to just stop. And one of the strangest things about loss or emotional overwhelm is that life around you just keeps moving. You know, messages still come in, emails still arrive, people still need things, bills still exist. The world continues. And meanwhile, a part of you feels like it's standing completely still. I know many people experience that after grief or heartbreak, trauma, burnout, illness, or any major life shift. There's this weird in-between space where you don't feel fully like the version of yourself that you were before, that you also haven't quite settled into whoever you are now and whatever we're learning. And that space, honestly, I think that space deserves far more compassion than we give it. Because there's often this silent pressure to return quickly, get back to normal, be productive again, to answer everyone, to reconnect, to smile properly, you know, to pull yourself together. And while of course life has to continue eventually, emotionally, it's just not that simple. Especially when grief is complicated. And I think complicated grief is something that many people just kind of deal with on the quiet. You know, grief is not always just sadness. Sometimes it's sadness mixed with love, maybe even confusion. Sometimes it's exhaustion. Sometimes it's guilt. Sometimes it's relief mixed with guilt for even feeling relief. And sometimes you grieve not only someone who was, but also what the relationship could have been. Sometimes we grieve an outcome that we never got to see fulfilled, like the last chapter that we really wanted wasn't written. I think a lot of people carry grief for the things they never got to fully experience or resolve, heal, or say. And that can create a very different kind of emotional process. One thing that I've reflected on deeply over the past few weeks is how spirituality and real life have to coexist together. You know, being spiritual doesn't remove our humanity, of course. Being intuitive doesn't stop pain. And having spiritual beliefs doesn't suddenly make grief neat or even graceful. You know, spirituality isn't meant to remove us from human experiences. They help us relate, understand, and conceptualize human experiences. And true spirituality, it helps us move through them. It helps us hold ourselves through uncertainty, through loss, through emotional exhaustion, through the moments when life just doesn't make sense. And sometimes I think we accidentally put pressure on ourselves to heal in a way that looks wise or evolved or beautifully meaningful straight away. But real healing often looks so much messier than that, so much different. Sometimes healing looks like just getting through the day, drinking water, going for a walk, laughing unexpectedly for the first time in days, answering just one message, returning to work slowly, recording one podcast episode, beginning again in very small ways. And I think there's something incredibly important about allowing ourselves to return slowly instead of forcing ourselves back into life before we're emotionally ready. Your nervous system, it matters. Emotional processing matters. Rest matters. Rest matters a lot, by the way. And so many of us are far harder on ourselves than we would ever be toward anyone else. You know, one thing I noticed after coming home was how disconnected I felt from my normal rhythm for a little while. I actually welcomed that. Routine felt strange. Even joy can feel unfamiliar after emotional survival mode. And honestly, even returning online felt a bit weird to me. But I welcomed it too. I didn't shy away from that space. I thought, no, that doesn't feel right. I don't, that doesn't, it feels weird. I just leaned into that and let myself migrate towards the things that didn't feel weird. And I didn't want to pressurize myself to get back straight away and throw myself in the deep end. I was tempted to, very, very tempted to, but there was a large part of me that realized and recognized I needed some time. I needed space. I needed to breathe and get back into that rhythm breath by breath, moment by moment. You know, when something significant happens in your personal life, there's this odd feeling of stepping back into spaces where people last saw the normal version of you, you know, the previous version. And internally, you feel completely different now. And I think a lot of people experience this after loss or major change. You almost become aware of how much life continues externally while internally you're still processing emotions, thoughts, past stuff, present stuff. Can I look at the future yet? And I think that's why many people just disappear when they're hurting. They retreat. It obviously because they don't care. Of course they care. Not because they don't want to return. Of course they do. But sometimes it takes time to reconnect to yourself enough to feel visible again. And I also think grief has a way of making you look at life so differently. It changes what feels important, it changes what feels urgent. It changes how much emotional energy you're willing to give certain things. And strangely, even though grief is so painful, it can also create moments of incredible clarity. The kind of clarity where you suddenly realize life is a little shorter than we think sometimes. We say it, we hear that, but grief makes that real. You know, people in life can sometimes feel more fragile than we think. Time matters a lot. A lot. Connection matters. Presence it matters. Presence really matters. And sometimes the things we spend the most time worrying about are not actually the things that matter most at all. Grief strips life back to what's real. And maybe that's part of why these experiences change us so deeply. Because they force us to stop performing for a little while. They force us to become quite honest. Whether that's about our limits, honest about our emotions, about what matters, and really honest about what no longer does. But maybe a part of healing is accepting that we don't return as exactly the same person. Maybe we return a little softer in some ways, wiser in other ways, more tired in some ways, more aware of what matters, more aware of time, of people, more aware of ourselves. And maybe healing isn't about getting back to who we were before, but instead meeting who we are now. That's something I'm definitely leaning into at the moment. I'm being reminded in my own life, not just what I learned through readings and the experience of channeling the messages, but I'm living it now. Right now, I'm living that. Getting to be a different person. Getting to learn so much more about myself in this process of grief, to stop expecting myself to just bounce back emotionally overnight and immediate clarity. I don't expect that either. I'm getting a lot of it right now. But there's things that I still think, I don't have the answer to that right now. And that's okay. I need to let that sit a little longer and develop before I know for sure where that might be going. And to stop forcing myself to feel okay before I actually do. I've been really real about whether I'm okay and when I'm okay. And I've learned a lot about myself and how I grieve and how I share my grief. That's been really insightful. But I've just allowed myself to slowly re-enter my life piece by piece. That's been the healthiest and best approach for me. And I certainly would say if you are identifying with this process yourself right now, just let that stew too, piece by piece. It slowly starts to trickle back. We don't need to rush back in for anything. We can do this at our own pace. If you're listening to this while you're navigating your own difficult season, whether it's grief or burnout or heartbreak, anxiety, emotional exhaustion, uncertainty, or just simply feeling disconnected from yourself. I really want you to hear that. You are allowed to return slowly. You do not have to have every answer before you begin again. You don't have to force healing into a neat little timeline. It doesn't work like that. We're people, after all. And people are complicated, and healing is complicated and it's messy. Please let it be messy. You do not have to become okay overnight just because the world around you keeps moving. Sometimes strength looks really under the current. It's a little quiet. Sometimes healing begins with just one small step back toward yourself. And honestly, I that's what I'm doing. That's how I'm coming out of this. One little small step back towards me. What feels good for me? What do I need? I'm going to take that little step. Every little milestone, every little win, every one email answered, every I got back to this and scheduled one more thing in. That's a little return back to me. One more dog walk. That helps me a lot right now. Time with my wife helps me immensely. It's been so healing. Thank you for giving me the space to step away for a little while. And thank you for being here as I return. I have genuinely missed this space. It is so healing for me to be here. And I am really, really grateful to be back with you. Now, until next time, trust your path, honor your truth, and always keep listening.