202: The Grief No One Talks About in Personal Growth
Release Date: 01/15/2026
220: I Don't Know What I Want — And Why That's Not the Whole Truth
SayTheThings's podcast
If someone asked you right now what you want — not what's for dinner, not what everyone else needs — could you answer? For a lot of women, the honest answer is no. Not because you don't have wants, needs, and desires. Because somewhere along the way you learned that having them was inconvenient, and you got so good at editing yourself that you stopped noticing you were doing it. In this episode, we slow down and get honest about the difference between a need, a want, and a desire — three words we use interchangeably and mean completely differently. We talk about how chronic...
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219: I Will Be More Me When
SayTheThings's podcast
In February 2019 I introduced myself to the internet with this: I don't want to post my highlight reel. I'd rather journey through life sharing life as it is. Comparison is the thief of joy. And then I wrote the first line of the first real post: I acted many years without a why of my own. And I was not my own. This episode is about why women lose themselves — what the research actually says, why we abandon ourselves and call it love, and what the conversation with yourself actually needs to sound like when you decide to start telling the truth. We talk about the I will be more me when list...
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218: Someone Worth Coming Back To
SayTheThings's podcast
Only 23% of adult children say they know their parent extremely well — not as a parent, but as a person. This episode is about closing that gap. We talk about what actually belongs inside your circle of control — and what you have been reaching for that was never yours to manage. The shift from authority to witness. Why our kids aren't afraid of failure because we told them it was bad — but because we never showed them what it looks like to fail and still be okay. And what the small ordinary moments actually build over time. Also: 80% of conflict has no resolution. The goal was never...
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217: The Weird in Me Sees the Weird in You
SayTheThings's podcast
I didn't want to be there. I said it out loud to a woman I barely knew at a children's museum — overstimulated, exhausted, maybe just used to no one listening. She said me too. That friendship has lasted twenty years. That's what this episode is about. This week we talk about the loneliness nobody names — the kind that lives inside a full life — and why so many of us are performing fine in the presence of women who are holding the exact same thing. We talk about the should's that keep us quiet, why adult friendship is harder than it used to be, and what becomes possible when...
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216: The House that Built Your Silence
SayTheThings's podcast
I kept putting off a financial decision recently — not because I didn't have thoughts, but because a voice older than the decision told me I wasn't the one who gets to know things. That's not a money story. That's a family of origin story. This week we go back to the beginning. The house where our silence was built. Where we learned which version of ourselves got the warmest response — and took that lesson into every room we've been in since. We talk about the grief nobody names out loud, how to decide whether the conversation needs to happen, and what healing looks like when the other...
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215: Finding Your Voice in Partnership: Ten Thousand Small Conversations
SayTheThings's podcast
Nobody decides to stop being honest with their partner. It happens in increments — one small reasonable decision at a time — until the thing you were waiting to say becomes the thing you've decided not to say. This week we're talking about what builds up in the silence between two people, why resentment is almost always pointing at something unsaid, and the one question that changed everything in my own marriage: is this feeling coming from this situation — or from somewhere else entirely? Also in this episode: the important difference between a relationship that is hard and one that...
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214: Finding Your Voice For the First Time: Clumsy Is Not Failure
SayTheThings's podcast
Your voice is going to come out wrong the first time. Too loud, too soft, or completely sideways. That's not a sign to stop — that's the FFT. This week we get practical. We talk about what it actually looks like when you start using a voice you haven't fully used in years, why clumsy doesn't mean failure, and how to start building the muscle with something genuinely small. I also share what happened five weeks into my separation when my voice came out at a family dinner in the worst possible way — and what showed up in my phone within minutes. Find your practice space. Start there.
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213: The Fear Is Real. And It's Lying To You
SayTheThings's podcast
You can understand exactly why you go quiet and still go quiet anyway. Insight isn't the same as change. What keeps the silence in place isn't confusion — it's fear. Specific, legitimate, deeply grooved fear. This week we name it directly. What you're actually afraid of underneath the practical reasons. Why that fear is historically accurate — and why it's still lying to you about what's on the other side. Plus the story of what happened when I said the thing at 23 and the institution failed me anyway — and why I still don't regret saying it. Your voice doesn't always change the room...
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212: Who Taught You To Be Quiet?
SayTheThings's podcast
In this episode, I explore something that sits underneath so much of our lives — our voice. Not the one we speak with, but the one that knows what we think, what we need, and what we will and won’t accept. I talk about how many of us didn’t lose that voice by accident — we were trained to silence it. We learned to edit ourselves, to keep the peace, to stay small. Today I start unpacking where that training came from and what it has cost us. This episode is an invitation to begin noticing it — without judgment — and to prepare for the work of finding that voice again.
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211: The Bridge Doesn't Wait
SayTheThings's podcast
I lost my best friend from high school this January. The bridge between us was always there — until it wasn't. That's what this episode is about. The conversations you've been meaning to have. The person you've been meaning to show up as. The things you've been meaning to say. Not someday. Now. Your practice this week: catch yourself once in the act of not saying the thing. Write it down. That's it. That's where we begin.
info_outlineAs we do the work of letting go of beliefs, patterns, and behavior - as we stop performing to earn value and set boundaries - something sneaks in like pre-dawn fog: grief. Grief is unexpected and often ignored, and it can hold us exactly where we are. This week I'm normalizing grief in personal growth and helping you namen what you're actually mourning. We're not just taking about capital G Grief (the profound loss of someone we love). We're talking about lowercase g frief - the ways grief weaves in and out of our lives as we grow and change. Including the strange grief of mourning someone who's still alive, still physically present.
In this episode:
- What we're actually grieving: the version of herself we'll never be again, relationships that didn't survive our growth, the years we lost, and the beliefs we're releasing
- Why growth requires goodbye—every time we step into a new version of ourselves, we close the door on who we used to be
- The four frameworks that explain grief and growth: growth requires goodbye, we grieve our unlived lives, anticipatory grief lives in liminal space, and joy and sorrow are dance partners
- How grief actually shows up: unexpected crying, exhaustion, anger, nostalgia for hard times, feeling lost and untethered
- Why we can't skip the mourning period—and what happens if we rush to fill the void with new commitments
- How to hold space for your grief: name it, feel it without fixing it, explore it, and create ritual for release
Quote of the week: "There's a Zen teacher that said what's holding you back is what you're holding onto."
Practice for this week: What identity, attitude, behavior, mindset, action, or belief are you holding onto that's holding you back? Notice the negative thought that says "that's not gonna work." This message kept you safe at some point—safe from ridicule, failure, the spotlight—but does it still apply? Thank it. Allow yourself to grieve it. And prepare yourself, because over the next few weeks we're gonna talk about building a life that suits you now.