November 2, 2025 • 8 mins
Content Warning: This episode discusses grief, loss, and deep emotional pain. Three months after losing someone I loved, I sat on my bed at 5:30 AM with my running shoes on, unable to move. Just crying. Still unable to breathe right. This is my story of what happened when suffering broke me wide open. This isn't a motivational episode. There's no "5 steps to heal" or "how to get over grief quickly." This is just honest talk about pain that stays. About loss that changes you. And about what I learned in the valley. In this episode, I share:
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/be-better-bit-by-bit--4216679/support.
Thanks for listening!
If this episode helped you, I'd love to stay connected.
About me: I'm a CA ranker (AIR 48), ultra-marathon runner, and author with 20 years of work experience. I believe in getting better bit by bit—through daily journaling, honest reflection, and small actions.
Here's how we can work together:
📱 Download UPLY - Our app for daily growth and mindfulness
📚 Read my books & journals - Available on Amazon (search my name - Nishith Goyal)
🌐 Visit bebetterbitbybit.com - Free resources, blog posts, and more
🎯 Join my workshops - I teach journaling, mental wellness, and the GATE concept
One bit at a time, we all get better.
See you in the next episode!
- What grief actually feels like (the ocean, not the wave)
- How pain strips away everything fake and shows you what really matters
- The run that saved me (crying for 5 kilometers)
- What my journal held when I couldn't speak
- How suffering taught me gratitude, strength, and connection
- Why transformation happens in the valley, not on the mountain
- Viktor Frankl's wisdom on changing ourselves when we can't change our situation
- David Brooks' insight that "suffering breaks us open"
- Small sacred moments: a daughter's laugh, a friend's text, rain on windows
- How pain makes you gentler with others
- Why I don't wait for "someday" anymore
- You're grieving right now and feel alone
- You've lost someone and the pain won't leave
- You're in the valley and wondering if you'll ever climb out
- You need someone to say: "Take your time. You're not broken."
- You want honest talk about pain, not toxic positivity
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/be-better-bit-by-bit--4216679/support.
Thanks for listening!
If this episode helped you, I'd love to stay connected.
About me: I'm a CA ranker (AIR 48), ultra-marathon runner, and author with 20 years of work experience. I believe in getting better bit by bit—through daily journaling, honest reflection, and small actions.
Here's how we can work together:
📱 Download UPLY - Our app for daily growth and mindfulness
📚 Read my books & journals - Available on Amazon (search my name - Nishith Goyal)
🌐 Visit bebetterbitbybit.com - Free resources, blog posts, and more
🎯 Join my workshops - I teach journaling, mental wellness, and the GATE concept
One bit at a time, we all get better.
See you in the next episode!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Before we start today, I want to say something. This
episode is different. It's about loss, about grief, about pain
that doesn't go away. If you're going through something hard
right now, I see you. If you've lost someone you love,
I'm with you. And if you're just trying to get
through today, this one's for you. I was sitting on
(00:22):
my bed at five point thirty in the morning. My
running shoes were on, my journal was open in front
of me, my coffee was getting cold on the nightstand,
but I couldn't move. I just sat there, tears running
down my face, body shaking. It had been three months
since I lost someone I loved, and I still couldn't breathe.
(00:43):
Right today, I want to talk about pain, not the
kind that goes away after a few days, the kind
that stays, the kind that changes you. And what I
learned when suffering broke me wide open. Here's what nobody
tells you about grief. It's not one big wave that
knocks you down and then goes away.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
It's the ocean. It stays.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
It sits with you while you brush your teeth, while
you eat breakfast. At the same time you pretend to
listen in meetings. Some mornings I'd wake up and forget
for three seconds, just three seconds of peace. Then I'd remember,
and the weight would crush my chest all over again.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Why me, Why this? Why now?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
I asked those questions a thousand times that the silence
never answered. One morning, I was forcing myself to journal.
My hand was barely moving, my words weren't making any sense.
I was reading this book at the time, The Second
Mountain by David Brooks. I flipped to a random page
and I saw this line, Suffering breaks us open. I
(01:51):
stared at that line four ten minutes, because that's exactly
what was happening to me. I wasn't just broken, I
was cracked wide open. Everything I thought mattered, my job, title,
my plans, my daily routines suddenly felt small, meaningless. The
(02:11):
only thing that felt real was the pain. And somehow,
through that pain, I was seeing things that had been
blind to my entire life. When you're suffering, everything fake
falls off, the politeness, the small talk, the pretending everything's fine.
You can't maintain the mask anymore. You're too tired, too raw.
(02:33):
I remember sitting in a work meeting. Someone was presenting
quarterly targets, graphs, numbers, strategies. Everyone was nodding seriously, and
I was sitting there, thinking, who cares?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
None of this matters. But here's what did matter.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
My daughter's laugh when she showed me her drawing, the
way my friend texted thinking of you without expecting a reply,
the feeling of my feet hitting the ground during morning runs,
the rain on my window at night. Pain made me
notice the small things i'd been racing past my whole life.
Three weeks after the loss, I forced myself to run.
(03:15):
I didn't want to. My body felt like it weighed
a thousand pounds. My mind was screaming at me to
stay in bed, but I laced up my shoes and
I stepped outside. Two minutes in, I started crying, full,
ugly crying while running. A neighbor saw me. I didn't care.
(03:37):
I ran and cried for five kilometers. When I got home,
something had shifted, not healed, not fixed, just lighter. Running
became my conversation with pain. Some days I'd cry, some
days I'd feel strong, but I always came back different
from when I left. I've been journaling for years, but
(04:00):
after the loss, my journal became something else. It became
the only place I could be completely honest. Some entries
were just I can't do this. Some were angry, this
isn't fair. Some were confused. I don't know who I
am anymore. But slowly, between the messy pages and tear stains,
(04:23):
something started appearing. Gratitude for small things, recognition of my
own strength, understanding that I was still here, still breathing,
still trying. The journal didn't judge me. It just held
everything I couldn't say out loud. During those dark months,
I kept thinking about Victor Frankel. He survived concentration camps,
(04:47):
he lost everything everyone, and he wrote, when we are
no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged
to change ourselves. I couldn't change what happened, but I
could change how I carried it. I thought about ordinary
people I knew who lost more than I could imagine.
Parents who lost children, people who lost their health, families
(05:10):
torn apart.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
They didn't just survive.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
They found a way to keep living, with gentleness still
in their eyes. If they could do it, maybe I
could too. Suffering taught me gratitude in a way success
never could. When you lose something precious, every small thing
(05:33):
becomes sacred. A text from a friend, a warm meal,
the fact that you woke up today. It taught me
I'm stronger than I thought. I genuinely believed i'd fall apart,
that I couldn't handle it.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
But I didn't fall apart.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
I bent, I broke, I cried in grocery stores and
parking lots, but I didn't disappear. And I'm still here.
And it taught me how to connect with others. Pain
makes you gentle. You stop judging people so harshly. You
realize everyone is carrying something heavy. You hug longer, you
listen better, You ask how are you and actually wait
(06:12):
for the real answer. I still miss them every day.
The pain doesn't go await, it just becomes part of you,
like a scar that reminds you of what you survived.
Some days are heavy, some days are okay. Most days
are somewhere in between. But here's what changed. I don't
take phone calls for granted anymore. I don't scroll through
(06:35):
life half present. I don't wait for some day to
tell people I love them, because suffering taught me that
nothing is guaranteed, not tomorrow, not an hour from now.
David Brooks wrote something else that stays with me. The
valley is where transformation happens. I've spent the last few
(06:55):
months in the valley, not on any mountain, not achieving anything,
just surviving, breathing, healing, bit by bit. And maybe that's
the point. Maybe growth isn't about climbing higher. Maybe it's
about going deeper. If you're going through something hard right now,
listen to me. Don't rush it, don't force yourself to
(07:18):
get over it on someone else's timeline. Sit with it,
cry through it, run through it, write about it. Your
pain isn't a detour. It's teaching you something you couldn't
learn any other way. One day, I don't know, when
you look back and realize you're not the same person
(07:40):
you were before this happened, you'll be someone who knows
what really matters, someone who doesn't take life for granted,
someone who carries both grief and gratitude in the same breath.
That's what suffering does. It breaks you open, and through
that crack the light gets in once a moment at
(08:00):
a time.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Thank you for listening. Take care of yourself. Let's be better,
bit by bit.
Before we start today, I want to say something. This
episode is different. It's about loss, about grief, about pain
that doesn't go away. If you're going through something hard
right now, I see you. If you've lost someone you love,
I'm with you. And if you're just trying to get
through today, this one's for you. I was sitting on
(00:22):
my bed at five point thirty in the morning. My
running shoes were on, my journal was open in front
of me, my coffee was getting cold on the nightstand,
but I couldn't move. I just sat there, tears running
down my face, body shaking. It had been three months
since I lost someone I loved, and I still couldn't breathe.
(00:43):
Right today, I want to talk about pain, not the
kind that goes away after a few days, the kind
that stays, the kind that changes you. And what I
learned when suffering broke me wide open. Here's what nobody
tells you about grief. It's not one big wave that
knocks you down and then goes away.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
It's the ocean. It stays.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
It sits with you while you brush your teeth, while
you eat breakfast. At the same time you pretend to
listen in meetings. Some mornings I'd wake up and forget
for three seconds, just three seconds of peace. Then I'd remember,
and the weight would crush my chest all over again.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Why me, Why this? Why now?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
I asked those questions a thousand times that the silence
never answered. One morning, I was forcing myself to journal.
My hand was barely moving, my words weren't making any sense.
I was reading this book at the time, The Second
Mountain by David Brooks. I flipped to a random page
and I saw this line, Suffering breaks us open. I
(01:51):
stared at that line four ten minutes, because that's exactly
what was happening to me. I wasn't just broken, I
was cracked wide open. Everything I thought mattered, my job, title,
my plans, my daily routines suddenly felt small, meaningless. The
(02:11):
only thing that felt real was the pain. And somehow,
through that pain, I was seeing things that had been
blind to my entire life. When you're suffering, everything fake
falls off, the politeness, the small talk, the pretending everything's fine.
You can't maintain the mask anymore. You're too tired, too raw.
(02:33):
I remember sitting in a work meeting. Someone was presenting
quarterly targets, graphs, numbers, strategies. Everyone was nodding seriously, and
I was sitting there, thinking, who cares?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
None of this matters. But here's what did matter.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
My daughter's laugh when she showed me her drawing, the
way my friend texted thinking of you without expecting a reply,
the feeling of my feet hitting the ground during morning runs,
the rain on my window at night. Pain made me
notice the small things i'd been racing past my whole life.
Three weeks after the loss, I forced myself to run.
(03:15):
I didn't want to. My body felt like it weighed
a thousand pounds. My mind was screaming at me to
stay in bed, but I laced up my shoes and
I stepped outside. Two minutes in, I started crying, full,
ugly crying while running. A neighbor saw me. I didn't care.
(03:37):
I ran and cried for five kilometers. When I got home,
something had shifted, not healed, not fixed, just lighter. Running
became my conversation with pain. Some days I'd cry, some
days I'd feel strong, but I always came back different
from when I left. I've been journaling for years, but
(04:00):
after the loss, my journal became something else. It became
the only place I could be completely honest. Some entries
were just I can't do this. Some were angry, this
isn't fair. Some were confused. I don't know who I
am anymore. But slowly, between the messy pages and tear stains,
(04:23):
something started appearing. Gratitude for small things, recognition of my
own strength, understanding that I was still here, still breathing,
still trying. The journal didn't judge me. It just held
everything I couldn't say out loud. During those dark months,
I kept thinking about Victor Frankel. He survived concentration camps,
(04:47):
he lost everything everyone, and he wrote, when we are
no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged
to change ourselves. I couldn't change what happened, but I
could change how I carried it. I thought about ordinary
people I knew who lost more than I could imagine.
Parents who lost children, people who lost their health, families
(05:10):
torn apart.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
They didn't just survive.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
They found a way to keep living, with gentleness still
in their eyes. If they could do it, maybe I
could too. Suffering taught me gratitude in a way success
never could. When you lose something precious, every small thing
(05:33):
becomes sacred. A text from a friend, a warm meal,
the fact that you woke up today. It taught me
I'm stronger than I thought. I genuinely believed i'd fall apart,
that I couldn't handle it.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
But I didn't fall apart.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
I bent, I broke, I cried in grocery stores and
parking lots, but I didn't disappear. And I'm still here.
And it taught me how to connect with others. Pain
makes you gentle. You stop judging people so harshly. You
realize everyone is carrying something heavy. You hug longer, you
listen better, You ask how are you and actually wait
(06:12):
for the real answer. I still miss them every day.
The pain doesn't go await, it just becomes part of you,
like a scar that reminds you of what you survived.
Some days are heavy, some days are okay. Most days
are somewhere in between. But here's what changed. I don't
take phone calls for granted anymore. I don't scroll through
(06:35):
life half present. I don't wait for some day to
tell people I love them, because suffering taught me that
nothing is guaranteed, not tomorrow, not an hour from now.
David Brooks wrote something else that stays with me. The
valley is where transformation happens. I've spent the last few
(06:55):
months in the valley, not on any mountain, not achieving anything,
just surviving, breathing, healing, bit by bit. And maybe that's
the point. Maybe growth isn't about climbing higher. Maybe it's
about going deeper. If you're going through something hard right now,
listen to me. Don't rush it, don't force yourself to
(07:18):
get over it on someone else's timeline. Sit with it,
cry through it, run through it, write about it. Your
pain isn't a detour. It's teaching you something you couldn't
learn any other way. One day, I don't know, when
you look back and realize you're not the same person
(07:40):
you were before this happened, you'll be someone who knows
what really matters, someone who doesn't take life for granted,
someone who carries both grief and gratitude in the same breath.
That's what suffering does. It breaks you open, and through
that crack the light gets in once a moment at
(08:00):
a time.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Thank you for listening. Take care of yourself. Let's be better,
bit by bit.
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