What happens when you spend so long adapting to someone else's life that you can no longer recognize your own?
In this episode of The Healing Mindset, Ria sits down with Eva Levina, the pen name of a Ukrainian-born American memoir author, for an intimate conversation about emotional abuse, losing your identity, rebuilding self-trust and discovering who you are after a life-altering relationship ends.
For Eva, a healing mindset begins with something deceptively simple: getting to know yourself.
After her marriage ended, Eva describes spending more than two years doing what she calls "mental house cleaning." She examined childhood wounds, relationship patterns, her own fears and the beliefs that had shaped the way she lived. One of her most important realizations was that she couldn't heal herself by constantly trying to heal other people.
The conversation also explores why leaving a painful situation can be so difficult. Eva points to the fear of uncertainty: How will I survive? Who will I be without this relationship? What happens when everything familiar disappears?
Her answer isn't to suddenly become fearless. It's to slowly rebuild your relationship with yourself.
Sometimes that starts incredibly small. Get out of bed. Brush your teeth. Make your bed. Care for your pet. Create one reason to participate in your day. Eva argues that purpose isn't always something we magically find. Sometimes we create it.
And when difficult emotions return? Eva shares advice she received in therapy: don't hide your feelings from yourself. Give yourself permission to acknowledge grief, fear or sadness while also creating commitments that help you continue moving forward.
About Eva Levina:
Eva Levina is the pen name of a Ukrainian-born American author whose memoir writing explores emotional abuse, coercive control, identity, resilience and rebuilding a life after trauma.
She is the author of the two-volume memoir series Death Is No Reason to Stop Living, based on her experience of a long marriage marked by emotional abuse and the process of rebuilding her life afterward. Her official biography describes her work as focused on helping readers recognize emotional abuse, reclaim their voices and see that healing is possible.
Her verified Goodreads profile lists both Death Is No Reason to Stop Living: In the Fog of the Spell and Death Is No Reason to Stop Living: Beyond the Fog of the Spell.
Key Takeaways:
- A healing mindset can begin with getting to know yourself again.
- Trying to rescue or heal someone else isn't a substitute for doing your own inner work.
- Fear of the unknown can keep people attached to familiar situations, even when those situations are painful.
- Rebuilding self-trust helps you understand what feels safe, meaningful and aligned for you.
- Healing can eventually change very ordinary parts of life: how you sleep, eat, dress, socialize, work and spend your time.
- You don't need to discover one enormous life purpose before you can move forward.
- Eva's advice is to create a small purpose and build from there.
- Professional support played an important role in Eva's own recovery process.
- Difficult emotional days don't automatically mean you've lost all your progress.
- Acknowledge what you're feeling rather than hiding it from yourself, while maintaining commitments that help you continue.
- Healing isn't about becoming perfectly repaired. It's about learning how to live differently with what you've experienced.
The Kintsugi Metaphor
One of the episode's strongest moments comes when Eva discusses kintsugi, the Japanese practice of repairing broken pottery while highlighting its fractures.
She connects it to the imagery used in her second book: something that has been broken doesn't necessarily become less valuable because of its cracks.
Eva's Goodreads profile similarly features her reflection that survivors can be understood through the metaphor of kintsugi, where the repaired scars become part of the object's story and value.
This gives the episode a strong emotional message:
Your healing doesn't require you to pretend you were never broken.
Connect with the guest:
https://www.evalevinabooks.com/
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