For the first time ever, Erika has a guest.

Donielle Young, known as the Grief Disruptor, lost her husband to stage four colon cancer, is raising a teenage son alone, and built an entire movement for women who refuse to disappear after loss. She is the founder of MHDS Media and the creator of the G3 Method, a framework that takes you from grief, through the grit, to the glow up.

But this isn't an interview. This is two women who know what it costs to keep going, sitting down together with no script and no performance.

They go deep on what nobody talks about: the second loss, the one that comes after the funeral. The loss of who you used to be. They talk about why grief exposes everything you were before it arrived. Why the glow up isn't a finish line. Why joy comes with guilt, and where that guilt actually comes from. And what to say to the woman whose grief nobody brought a casserole for.

This one is for every kind of loss. The death, yes. But also the divorce, the career, the identity, the version of yourself you thought you were finally becoming.

Connect with Donielle Young at https://mhdsmedia.com/

Instagram | TikTok

Book: From Grief Through the Grit to the Glow Up

The lease renewal came. The rent stays the same. And Erika cried anyway.

In Episode 4 of Purpose Not Pity, Erika Hernandez gets honest about what it feels like to face losing the first home she ever chose for herself. Not out of desperation. Not for her kids. For her. And how a survival decision she made years ago, an $825 car payment that exists because she chose to feed her family instead of ask for help, might be the reason she has to walk away from it.

This episode also carries something heavier underneath it. In one week, her son Jovan would have turned 21. Erika is recording this knowing he is watching. And she is choosing to keep moving forward not because she has it all figured out, but because she owes it to his memory to not give up on her own life.

This is not a highlight reel. This is the messy, real, unfinished middle of rebuilding. For anyone who has ever had to make a decision that looked like a step back but was actually survival. For anyone who has confused their square footage with their worth.

You are not your rent. You are not your car payment. You are the one who survived the fire.

I recorded this episode four times. Did my hair. Set up the lights. Tried to make it look put together. And every single time, I deleted it.

So this is version five. No makeup. No lighting. Just me in my pajamas being honest about something I did not want to say out loud.

I am almost 46 years old. And a few weeks ago, I texted my mom to ask her to cover my rent.

In this episode, I talk about what it actually looks like to survive a hard season when you are the type of person who refuses to ask for help. The delivery apps. The savings account I emptied out. The back that gave out twice doing Instacart. And the 20 minutes I sat staring at my mom's name in my phone before I finally sent the text.

I also talk about the pressure that comes with being in your 40s, 50s, or 60s and still being in the middle of it. The shame of not being "set" by now. The lie we were handed about what this stage of life is supposed to look like. And why I am done pretending that getting through hard things looks like a 30-second montage with an uplifting song.

This one is for everyone who is white-knuckling their life right now because they are too embarrassed to need people.

You are not behind. You are just still in it.

Most of us don't question the structure holding our identity together, until it's gone. In episode 2, Erika gets honest about what happens after the loss you planned for turns into the disorientation you didn't see coming. The job. The relationship. The version of yourself that existed before the hardest thing you survived.

This episode is about the invisible architecture we build our sense of self on, routines, roles, rhythms, and what shows up when that architecture disappears. Not just sadness. Not just anxiety. Something quieter and harder to name: the feeling of being mapless.

Erika shares what unemployment looked like by day five, what a Sprouts grocery run had to do with identity, why shame doesn't need to be loud to do damage, and why the real question was never "when will I feel like myself again?" but "who am I now?

If something in your life has shifted and you're still standing in the middle of it, this one's for you.

Purpose, Not Pity drops new episodes every first and third Tuesday. Subscribe wherever you listen.

What do you do when life hits you again — right after you thought you had finally found your footing?

Two days after the Season 1 finale aired, Erika's position was eliminated. In this episode, she opens Season 2 with the unfiltered truth about sudden job loss, financial uncertainty, and what rebuilding actually looks like when the ground starts shifting again.

If you are navigating job loss, starting over after a setback, or rebuilding your life while managing grief, this conversation is for you.

Because the question is not when will life settle down. The question is: who are you when it doesn't?

Forward, intentionally.

No one is coming to hand you the stability you've been waiting for. That is not a harsh truth, it is a freeing one.

Season 2 of Purpose, Not Pity: After the Impact is an honest look at what recalibration actually feels like. Not the performed version. The gritty, daily work of finding your footing while the ground is still moving beneath you.

This season covers identity after loss, rebuilding after setbacks, and what intentional living looks like when the clarity is incomplete and the guarantees are gone.

If you are in the middle of something right now, this season is for you.

New episodes every 1st and 3rd Tuesday.

Forward, intentionally.

In this deeply reflective episode of Purpose, Not Pity, Erika explores the quiet, often unspoken emotional space that many people find themselves in during the holidays after loss, heartbreak, or major life change.

Not the kind of grief that demands attention.
Not the kind of healing that looks inspirational.
But the kind that shows up as restraint, reflection, and not knowing how to explain what you feel.

Erika opens up about how the holidays have shifted for her over the years, from childhood magic, to single motherhood, to grief, to this in-between season where nothing feels wrong, but nothing feels the same. She speaks honestly about loneliness, peace, uncertainty, and the pressure to perform joy when your inner world has changed.

This episode is for anyone who:

• Feels disconnected from the holidays but can’t explain why
• Is healing but still grieving parts of the life they didn’t get
• Feels pressure to show up joyful when quiet feels more honest
• Is learning to let the season be what it is, without forcing meaning

You don’t need to fix the holidays.
You don’t need to explain yourself.
And you don’t need to feel alone in this.

A gentle, grounding conversation for anyone navigating the holidays while becoming someone new.

Support the show

Stay connected at byerikahernandez.com or on your favorite social platform.

TikTok: @by.erikahernandez
Instagram: @byerikahernandez
YouTube: @byerikahernandez

🎧 New episodes drop the 2nd & 4th Tuesday of every month

📬 Want to share your story or connect?
Email: byerikahernandez@gmail.com

💚 Thanks for listening. Keep choosing purpose, not pity.

In the Season One finale of Purpose, Not Pity, Erika closes the year with a letter, not to who she was, but to who she’s becoming.

It’s a love letter to the future self, the woman still in the making, the version shaped by healing, motherhood, grief, resilience, creativity, and purpose.
It’s about identity after loss, rebuilding after life breaks open, and becoming someone you don’t recognize yet, but hope to meet.

This episode isn’t about grief as tragedy, it’s about grief as transformation.
It asks: Who do we become after the worst thing happens? Who do we become when the world forces us to grow? Who do we become when survival stops being enough?

If you’re in a season of becoming, after divorce, after loss, after heartbreak, after disappointment, or simply after a year that changed you, this episode is for you.

Season Two begins March 17th.
Until then, Erika will be sharing a new series on TikTok called The Intentional Interruption, for the moments life reroutes you, pauses you, or hands you a choice.

Support the show

Stay connected at byerikahernandez.com or on your favorite social platform.

TikTok: @by.erikahernandez
Instagram: @byerikahernandez
YouTube: @byerikahernandez

🎧 New episodes drop the 2nd & 4th Tuesday of every month

📬 Want to share your story or connect?
Email: byerikahernandez@gmail.com

💚 Thanks for listening. Keep choosing purpose, not pity.