03: Life Feels Heavier Than Expected
What do you do when life feels heavy?
If you’ve been carrying something you can’t quite name, this might feel familiar.
In this episode, I talk about that kind of heaviness—and what it looks like to stay with it without rushing past it.
In this episode:
what it feels like to carry heavy feelings
why we try to move past discomfort
a simple practice that may help you when things feel heavier than expected
If this is where you are, this episode might help you stay with your life, without needing to fix it.
Links + Resources From This Episode:
Start with a 21-day Guest Seat at The Table
Find me on Instagram @denisa.o.nica
Download a transcript of this, and every episode at www.denisaonica.com
Find Denisa Elsewhere:
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I’m Denisa O. Nica, and welcome to Walking Anyway. You’re listening to episode 3. This is a podcast about living faithfully in uncertain seasons— when life feels unclear and nothing is quite settling yet. If you carry questions and you’re not quite sure how to move through this in a way that feels steady and true, you’re in the right place to keep walking anyway.
I’m an author and spiritual director, and the founder of The Table—a contemplative space shaped by a weekly rhythm, where women practice this kind of faithful living together, at their own pace, in the middle of their real lives and faith. I live in Spain, where life moves a little slower…and that has changed the way I pay attention, and the way I live inside my own life.
Listen in.
I was in seventh grade, and I was spending the summer at my grandparents’ house, the way I always did. Except that this time something had shifted in a way I didn’t yet know how to name. The night before my grandfather died, we had spent the evening together in prayer, just as we had so many times before, and then by morning, he was gone. He had been, in so many ways, my closest companion—my best friend in that house—and suddenly the place that had always felt familiar no longer held in the same way.
I remember my parents asking me to stay for a while, to keep my grandmother company in those first weeks after he died, and even though everything in me wanted to go home, I stayed. I didn’t have language for why it felt so difficult, only that the house itself felt different, as though the air had thickened, as though something had settled into the rooms and wasn’t leaving.
Part of it was the smell. In the Orthodox tradition I grew up in, myrrh is burned in the house after someone dies, and that scent—soft and smoky and unmistakable—had already filled the church during the funeral. But now it lingered everywhere. It clung to the curtains and the furniture, to my clothes, to the quiet of the afternoons. Even now, if I catch that scent unexpectedly, I feel something in me return to that place, to that summer, to that sense of loss that didn’t have anywhere to go.
And I think what made it feel so heavy was that I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to go home, back to my own room, back to something that felt untouched by what had just happened, somewhere I could breathe without that reminder pressing in on me from every direction. Some part of me thought that if I could just leave, the feeling might loosen, or at least fade enough that I wouldn’t have to carry it all the time.
But I didn’t leave. I stayed for the rest of the summer. And the heaviness didn’t lift.
I think that was the first time I felt what heaviness feels like—how it can stretch across your days and make it feel like it might never end.
I didn’t have a word for it then. I just remember waking up and feeling it already there, like the day hadn’t even started yet and it already felt like something I had to carry. Nothing around me was asking for attention. Nothing urgent was happening. But the weight of it was just there, steady and quiet and hard to escape.
Of course, I understand now, looking back, that I didn’t know how to make sense of what had happened, and I don’t remember anyone helping me find words for it either.
And for some reason, I’ve been thinking about that summer again lately, because something about these days has carried that same kind of weight —when life feels heavy and doesn’t seem to be changing.
Not because the circumstances are the same, but because the feeling is. That same kind of weight that doesn’t move quickly, that doesn’t respond to effort, that just stays. I’ve been waiting on something for a long time now—years, not weeks—and it hasn’t shifted. And around it, life keeps going.
And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re living in a moment that feels heavy in more ways than one. There are things happening in the world right now—wars, instability, and uncertainty about the future— and it has a way of settling into us, even when we’re just going about our ordinary days.
And I don’t think we’re very practiced at this, at being with feelings that don’t resolve quickly. Heaviness is uncomfortable, and most of the time we’re looking for a way to move past it, to get to something lighter or easier to carry.
And I recognize that feeling now, that particular kind of heaviness that doesn’t come from one clear thing, but from something that just… stays.
But the life of faith doesn’t always move that way. It doesn’t skip ahead to the part where everything makes sense. It makes room for the parts that don’t.
And I think sometimes we need to be reminded that God is not offended by our heaviness. Not by the days that feel slow or unclear, not even when we can’t point to a reason for it. It’s just what’s there.
Sometimes it simply feels like this for a while.
So maybe when things feel heavy, instead of trying to move past it or make it lighter right away, you could notice the urge to skip ahead and gently resist it.
Not forever. Just for a moment. Long enough to be here with what is actually present. This is heavy…and I’m still here. This is unresolved… and something in me is still reaching for life. And some mornings, maybe you wake up with that same weight already there, and still notice the birds outside, the way their songs cut through the quiet. It doesn’t change the heaviness. But it’s there too.
And maybe it isn’t about choosing one or the other. And maybe that’s closer to what life with God actually looks like, not one replacing the other, but both somehow held together. Joy and sorrow, side by side.
I remember taking our horse, Stella, out for a walk. The days were heavy and confusing, and I would step outside and hold the lead in my hand, feel the air against my face, reach up and pet her between her eyes. She would turn her head slightly, soft and steady, and for a few minutes, I wasn’t trying to figure anything out. I was just there. It was still heavy. And I was still there.
And maybe that is enough for today. Not because the heaviness has lifted, but because we are still here… and something else, however small, can be true at the same time.
So may we resist the pressure to turn pain into progress. And may our questions, our weariness, and our uncertainty be met with kindness, not advice. Bless you, who carry a heart made heavy.
Thanks for listening to episode 3 of Walking Anyway.
I hope this simple practice of holding what’s heavy, and letting something else be true alongside it… will help you notice the ways God meets you there, sometimes not by removing the weight, but by lifting it just enough for you to keep walking anyway. And the way you’re walking through this—right in the middle of what hasn’t settled yet—is already forming something steady in you.
If you’re wanting a place to actually practice this—not just think about it —you can begin with a 21-day guest seat inside The Table.
It’s a quiet space where you learn to stay with God in your real life and where you don’t have to do that on your own.
You can find that at denisaonica.com or on Instagram at denisa.o.nica. As you step back into your day, notice what stayed with you… and let that be enough for today. And just like light moving through a room— you don’t need to see everything at once to keep living faithfully here. Thanks for listening. I’ll be here with you next time.