Why does it feel like the more healing work you do, the harder life hits back?

You’ve done the therapy. You’ve meditated. You’ve read the books. You’ve “done the work.” And then life hits you with a pandemic, a friend’s suicide, a divorce, and a toddler, all in the same week.

So now what?

In this episode of Crying Out Loud, I sit down with Devi Brown, a meditation teacher, podcaster, author of Living in Wisdom, and a self described wounded healer. Devi has spent over a decade studying healing traditions from around the world, but nothing could fully prepare her for the cascade of loss she experienced during the pandemic. What she discovered, in her own words, is that when you stop trying to tape the pieces back together and instead let yourself shatter completely, something miraculous happens: you meet God in the rubble.

Devi is warm, radically honest, and refreshingly un precious about pain. She doesn’t promise that meditation will make it all go away. Instead, she offers a guide for staying present, feeling the feelings society tells you to hide, and finding tiny, daily moments of joy even when your heart is at the bottom of the ocean.

In this episode, I also share my own journey of losing my son Sammy and then navigating my eldest child’s suicidal crisis, and how that “assignment” forced me to finally build a relationship with God. Devi and I explore why the original wound is always the root, why awareness is only the first step, and how mudras  can unlock energetic channels you didn’t even know were closed.

In this episode, we explore:

• What it’s like to lose a friend to suicide and a marriage in the same week while parenting a toddler during a pandemic

• Why the more healing work you do, the harder life sometimes seems to hit back

• The difference between self esteem and self worth, and why worth cannot be earned

• How to outsource your emotional safety from people to God even if you weren’t raised with faith

• The tiny joys practice and how a leaf, a copper dish, and sunlight through smoke can save your life

• Why your original wound is the queen bee and how healing it dissolves everything else

• The trap of intellectualizing your feelings instead of actually feeling them in your body

• What mudras are and how simple hand positions open energetic channels you didn’t know were closed

• Why meditation often makes you angry or restless at first and why that’s actually a good sign

• The difference between chasing happiness and recognizing enoughness

• How bearing witness to deep sorrow creates more capacity for real joy

• What it means to be a wounded healer and why God sometimes commands you to be on your knees

• The guilt and surrender of watching a child struggle with suicidal thoughts after already losing another child

• Why you don’t need to know what God looks like to start a real relationship with the divine

• What it feels like when advanced meditation becomes deeply pleasurable and even euphoric

Devi Brown is someone who has done the work  not the performative kind, but the real, on-your-knees, let-it-all-shatter kind. You can find Devi Brown on Instagram, tune into her Deeply Well Podcast, or join the Presence app for her daily meditations. Her new book, Living in Wisdom, is available on Amazon.

If you are seeking community, don’t forget the Grief Healing Collective is there for support, connection, and hope.

If this episode moves you, share your story or send your questions to cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com. None of us are meant to walk these roads alone—let’s feel, heal, and awaken together.