What if healing isn't about having everything figured out, but learning how to give yourself grace while you're figuring it out? In Episode 5 of Unpacking the Mess, Donna McClendon closes the podcast's first chapter with a personal conversation about grief, mental health, therapy, self-forgiveness, boundaries, relationships, positive self-talk, and learning to let go of what we cannot control.
Throughout the first several episodes, Donna and her guests have unpacked motherhood, infertility, addiction, setbacks, relationships, grief, and transparency.
Now Donna reflects on what those conversations have taught her.
One of the biggest lessons?
Grief isn't only about death.
We can grieve a relationship that ended, a friendship that changed, a career we thought would last forever, a pregnancy loss, a future we imagined, or a version of life that simply didn't happen the way we expected.
Donna also opens up about therapy, journaling, affirmations, learning to lean on her support system, and recognizing when a bad moment is beginning to turn into a bad day.
She explores friendship breakups and closure, asking whether reconnecting with someone from your past will genuinely bring peace or simply reopen a wound.
And she reminds listeners of an important boundary:
“No” is a complete sentence.
As Unpacking the Mess prepares for its next chapter, Donna also looks ahead to conversations with men about mental health, fatherhood, therapy, family, and the emotional weight men are so often expected to carry silently.
Because sometimes the most important thing we can ask another person is simply:
How are you doing?
This chapter may be ending, but the unpacking isn't.
It's getting started.