Can Your Pain Become Your Purpose?

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Content Warning: This episode contains an in-depth discussion about suicide, depression, and grief that may be distressing for some listeners. Please listen with care.

Host Lira Ndifon opens this powerful episode with an urgent and heartfelt call for awareness, shedding light on the political violence, military brutality, and internet shutdowns currently happening in her home country of Cameroon.

From this space of global empathy, Lira sits down with Alicia Rupan, a first-generation American and successful floral designer, for one of the most personal conversations on the podcast to date. Alicia shares the raw and vulnerable story of the tragedy that reshaped her entire life: the loss of her beloved uncle to suicide. This is a must-listen masterclass in navigating profound grief, especially when it’s shrouded in the silence and stigma that often surround suicide in many cultures.

Alicia gets radically honest about the "what ifs" and the guilt that haunted her family, and the unique, personal coping mechanisms she used to heal—including keeping her uncle's phone number active for two years just so she could continue to text him. She offers a perspective that will change the way you think about loss, defining grief as "love that just has nowhere to go".

This episode is a tender and powerful guide for anyone who has ever felt lost in their grief. You will discover:

• The Truth About Grief: How to understand your grief as a form of deep love and why you must "ride the wave" instead of running from it.
• Healing When There Are No Answers: A raw look at the complex emotions that follow a suicide and how to process them without shame.
• From Pain to Purpose: How Alicia channeled her depression and grief into her floral business, turning her uncle's motto—"It's cool to be kind"—into her brand's identity.
• Unique Coping Mechanisms: The power of finding your own way to heal, even if it seems unconventional to others (like texting a loved one who has passed).

This conversation is a beautiful reminder that you are not alone in your struggle, that healing is not linear, and that our deepest pain can often be the source of our greatest purpose.

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