Grieving Awake with Joya

Identity Rebirth After Loss: How Grief Rewires Who You Become

That Mystic, Rev. Dr. Joya Episode 12

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0:00 | 18:15

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Your identity can feel solid until life interrupts the script. When reality changes fast, through death, heartbreak, illness, or even the quiet realization that you don’t want what you used to want, your brain’s predictions get scrambled and your sense of self goes with it. I talk about what “identity rebirth” actually means, why so many people are feeling an identity crisis right now, and how disruption can become a doorway instead of a dead end.

We dig into the neuroscience idea of the predictive brain and how repeated thoughts shape your wiring, your nervous system, and the life you build next. I share why grief is more than death, it’s the loss of anything meaningful, and how the mind can accidentally get stuck rehearsing the worst day. From there, I offer a grounded path for grieving awake: staying in the present moment, practicing radical acceptance, and treating yourself with real kindness when the ego is panicking and everything feels messy.

You’ll also hear the core practice I lean on to rebuild from the inside out: choosing a truth that lights you up, holding faith in your heart, and building trust through action in your gut and nervous system. We zoom out to purpose and collective consciousness too, including the reminder that purpose doesn’t have to be big or public. Sometimes it’s as simple as dancing in your garden and meeting each moment without masks, steady in who you are and flexible in how you respond. If this resonates, subscribe, share it with someone walking through change, and leave a review with the one truth that lights you up right now.

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Welcome To Identity Rebirth

Joya

Hello, beautiful friends. Happy Wednesday. Today we are going to be talking about identity rebirth and what that actually means and entails. Because identity, change your identity, the identity summit. There's like all these identity things popping up coming onto my radar. And of course they are, because as the collective consciousness is changing, which it is, it's going to create an identity crisis in a lot of people. Because what your identity is based on is what your brain is predicting about reality. And so when your predictive reality gets interrupted, it interrupts your identity. It interrupts your place in the world. And the more of an experience that you go through of this disruption in your reality, the greater the disruption in your identity. Which is why grief, going through bereavement when someone dies in your life, when someone leaves their body, I should say, is one of the most shocking things to your system. And so with each identity interruption that you have, depending on the severity of that interruption, you are now going through a process of rewriting your meaning within the world you live. And that's exactly what your mind starts to go to work doing. Your brain starts to create new wiring and neurons that fire together wire together, which is why when you're going through this process of rewiring your identity, that you consciously participate in who you become through it. If you don't, then you get rewired to be stuck in the worst day of your life. I am so grateful that I recognize that so early on in my grief journey.

When Reality Shifts, Identity Shifts

Joya

And I think it's one of the most important things that someone can realize when they go through any kind of identity transformation. When you go through any kind of loss, it is an identity transformation. And it's messy and it's hard. And the ego does not like it. And the more that you are decimated, the more your ego is going to freak out. And you're going to go through the dark night of the soul. And all of this has been well mapped for eons by mystics. This spiritual awakening journey. Or the journey of just becoming more highly conscious, evolved human being. But we are going through it right now as a collective society. And as more and more and more of us awaken and grieve awake, that going through that process of grieving awake, going through that process of consciously participating in who you're becoming every single day, day in and day out, is going to change you, even if you haven't been through a profound loss. But if you have been through a profound loss, it's going to wire faster and deeper. Because your brain will start predicting a new reality. And can you see why if the brain is a predicting reality, which is what neuroscientists think the brain is doing, its job is predicting reality and creating based on what it's predicting is going to happen. That if this is what it's doing, and you wire yourself to be stuck in thoughts of the worst day of your life, where you're stuck in grief, you're stuck in fear, you're stuck in pain, you're stuck in trauma, that that energy then is what you're going to create from the rest of your life. I am so passionate about this. It is so unfair that people don't know this. Because I've had someone ask me with the way that I've walked through grief, which I'm going to share some of my tools here in a minute. But she said, Aren't you afraid that when you get to the end of your life, everything that you believe to be true isn't true? And I looked at her and I said, Well, then at least I will have lived a happy life. I don't believe that being miserable shows my son how much I love him and how much I miss him. And if our life is our curriculum, which it is, we can change this predictive programming at any time and create a completely

Grief As A Full Rebuild

Joya

different experience. And so grieving awake is walking through loss consciously in the present moment with radical acceptance and utter self-kindness. Those are the three things when you're in acute loss that you can bring to yourself present moment awareness, self-kindness, and radical acceptance. So how do you consciously participate in who you become? Well, it's through your actions, and it's through the first three movements that are in my book, Grieving Awake, that Weston taught me. And they are identifying your truth that lights you up, having absolute unwavering faith in it, and having absolute unshakable trust in it. The truth that lights you up lands in your mind, those become your thoughts. You just think about it all the time, make it a mantra. Your faith is in your heart, you feel it, you see it, and your trust is in your gut, your nervous system, because it's your action center, it's what you take action on. And so these are your three centers of action in your body mind, heart, nervous system. And you activate all three of those through these that that process right there, and you put them into coherence. And when they come into coherence, you are entering into the three-centered being where just a stream of awareness seems to come into you that's of a higher nature. You're you're welcoming in your soul, which is really observing. It knows it's observing through the body, it doesn't think it's the body. And that is the most radical identity shift that a person can have is that identity shift from ego-driven, wounded autopilot into highly conscious co-creator with your soul doing what you came here to do. And I love this. I have a friend and Mara, if you're listening, I just loved what she said where uh we were talking about this, and she's in my my sisterhood group, and she said, My purpose is to dance in my garden. And I love that. That's purpose right there. That's my purpose to dance in my garden. And I thought if you're dancing, one person dancing in their garden, living and feeling the fullest expression of who they are, is putting out such a powerful frequency of love into the field of collective consciousness. And so she is helping to raise the collective consciousness I talked about at the beginning, where people are now picking up these higher frequencies because more and more people are realizing that your purpose doesn't mean that you're on a stage with half a million people in front of you. Your purpose doesn't mean that you have a yacht or a jet, your purpose doesn't mean that you have the biggest house and a Maserati. Your purpose doesn't mean that you lose weight and get to the size you want to be. Your purpose doesn't mean anything in this world. Absolutely nothing in this world is your purpose. But you being in this world as the fullest expression of who you are is your purpose. And I just gotta say, these stream of consciousness conversations flow so much better for me than when I'm reading a Claude script. Even though Claude writes great podcast scripts, they

Presence, Kindness, Radical Acceptance

Joya

just don't sound the same when I read them. So I just like riffing as I am right now, non-AI, 100% all organic me channeling. Because you're also never not channeling when you get to this state of consciousness because you're always in your soul's consciousness, and your soul is always connected to the oneness. And it also leaves me connected, of course, with my son. And not in the same way, obviously, but energetically I can sense him. And I especially when I get into a state of joy where I feel that giddy, happy, joyful state. I really feel him with me when I get into that frequency. And that tells me that's where his frequency is at, which I can't, oh, that if he's like there and that's his normal state, I know that frequency that he has, and I love that frequency. It's just so joyful, and so I can tune into it and I can feel it. And that's part of my new predictive programming because I know it and I believe it, and so I can do it. And that is exactly the process right there. Know it, believe it, do it. And that's the process that Weston gave me as I constantly walk in that circle of trust, faith, truth. What is my truth that's lighting me up? Where's my faith? Is it in my fear or is it in my truth? Where's my nervous system? Is it in doubt? In limitation, in fear, or is it in my truth? And as you take those risks and move and take action, that proof then you have evidence, becomes belief. And that's how you start rewriting your beliefs. And those beliefs are small in the beginning when you're m walking through loss, when you're walking through something that really dismantled your identity. But they're so important. They're the little tiny mustard seeds you're planting, they are so important. And it can be as simple as what do you believe happens when someone dies? What are your truths that that light you up? Not really what you think, but let it feel like feel inside of you if it lights you up. And it's for me, it was as simple in the beginning of

Truth, Faith, Trust In The Body

Joya

feeling West and I know he's here. I know he's here. That's my truth. No one could take that truth from me. So as we're going through identity rebirth, make sure that the identity that you come out with on the other side, as you consciously walk through identity transformation, the identity that you come out with on the other side is way more fluid and is situational based rather than I am this. And what I mean by situational is that you are always your steady self. Okay. This is not about being wishy-washy or putting on masks in front of people. You're always you, whether you're sitting on your couch by yourself or you're in a room with 5,000 people, you're always centered as you. And then you meet the world as you without the masks. And so what arises before you informs you how to meet the world. There's fluidity. If you are you're in the party and Hank walks up and you greet Hank with a friendly, approachable, but boundaries energy kind of thing with Hank. And then you turn and you look, and there's your friend Nancy, and you greet Nancy with a big hug and a big smile because you're very good friends. And then you say somebody drop their glass and it shatters, and you see a roll of paper towels, and so you run, you excuse yourself, and you go run and get the paper towels, and you help clean up the mess and you make sure that nobody's cut. That's what I'm talking about. It's just a very fluid meeting the situation as it arises without any kind of set mask. The identity of the soul and living your own qualities of aliveness, which is your divine identity. Your qualities of aliveness are the expressions of the divine that are given to you for expression because you are the divine expressing itself, and it has no expression other than you, other than your soul. Those are the divine expressions. You are the divine expression, and your qualities of aliveness come from the divine as your gifts, your talents, your personality, your abilities, your sense of humor, your everything. It's your code. It's your code that's coded into you. I have it as like frozen music. I feel like the moment that we're born, all of the stars and everything's everything is making a frequency, everyone's everything is making a sound. And the

Purpose, Joy, And Collective Frequency

Joya

minute that you are born, that sound is like it gets stamped into your being, into your energy field as your sheet music for the music of your soul. But hold that lightly, hold it all lightly, because none of it is you. And so as you are interested or going through identity transformation, and so many people are that because it's the energy, it's the I don't know who I want to be anymore, I don't know what I want anymore. This relationship isn't satisfying me anymore. Those are grief, those are loss. Grief is not just about death. Grief is the loss of anyone or anything that was meaningful in your life. And it's a process of identity rebirth. And my book, Grieving Awake, is all about participating consciously in your own becoming. And I invite you to go get your free qualities of aliveness assessment. It's not an assessment, it's based on your birthday, your qualities of aliveness signature on my website. And it's based on an ancient numerology system, and it will tell you your qualities of aliveness that you're here to live in your life number, your karma number, and what's coming for you. And it's a great place to start. And as always, let us sound into our identity today by just taking three deep breaths and three heartfelt tones. As you ask, ask and you shall receive. Ask. You know, most of us don't ask for what we want because we fear rejection. Ask for what you want. Ask now silently in your mind for what you want. And I can tell you that mine is always the same.

Living Fluidly Without Masks

Joya

I want a strong connection with my son. That is always what I want. So you choose what you want and have your ask. We're gonna tone it out into the field from our heart. Feel your ask and tone it in. Breathe it in. Feel your ask. And inhale love from the field.

Free Signature And Closing Practice

Joya

And I always end my meditations with voice by saying shh, shh, shh, which is the Aramaic sound of the universe and the name of heaven. All right, beautifuls, I wish you a beautiful and blessed week. Until then, be kind to yourself.