I Lost My Three Children… and Slowly Found My Way Back to Living
After losing three children and enduring years of silent, suppressed grief, Shruti Trivedi discovered that true healing isn’t about “moving on”—it’s about making friends with your pain and allowing it to become a gateway for transformation. In this deeply moving episode, we sit down with the life coach and pregnancy loss practitioner to discuss how she navigated over a decade of emotional wounds before finally seeking the therapy that sparked her own profound rebirth. Shruti introduces her “Three-ACE” framework—Acknowledge, Allow, and Align—which provides a compassionate roadmap for parents and professionals to navigate guilt, process complex trauma, and reclaim their balance. By reframing grief as a doorway rather than an end, she illustrates how joy and sorrow can coexist, offering listeners a hopeful, actionable blueprint for rebuilding their lives, honoring their losses, and ultimately returning home to themselves.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:
- Reframing grief as a transformative doorway rather than a final destination to foster personal rebirth.
- The Three-ACE framework utilizing a structured method of Acknowledging, Allowing, and Aligning to navigate deep emotional pain.
- Mental cleansing practices implemented daily to prevent the toxic buildup of suppressed trauma and internal toxicity.
- The coexistence of joy and grief understanding that happiness and sorrow are not mutually exclusive and can hold space for one another.
- Breaking cultural stigmas that suppress vulnerability and prevent healthy emotional expression in both men and women.
- Meaningful ways to honor loss through active rituals, such as symbolic planting, to facilitate long-term healing.
SOME QUESTIONS IRENE ASKS SHRUTI:
- How did trying to stay strong for your family shape the way you handled your grief in those early years?
- What exactly is twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome?
- What helped you take the first steps towards healing and what motivated you to seek therapy?
- How did losing your babies become the beginning of your own rebirth?
- How did your personal healing journey lead you to create TulsiHeals Life Coaching and how you support people through coaching, NLP, and integrative practices?
- What has made the biggest difference in your own healing, therapy, faith, or something else entirely?
- How can honoring our emotions create space for growth and light?
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I Lost My Three Children… and Slowly Found My Way Back to Living
I hope this message finds each of you very well. I am speaking to you from my studio in West Orange, New Jersey. I could not be more delighted to welcome Shruti Trivedi, who is a coach, a speaker, and soon-to-be a certified loss practitioner for pregnancy and is the founder of TulsiHeals Life Coaching, a holistic coaching practice dedicated to helping people heal emotional wounds, navigate guilt, and reclaim balance after life’s most difficult transitions. Shruti’s path to this work was born from profound personal loss after experiencing two devastating pregnancy losses.
One at 9 weeks and another at 23 weeks. She spent years moving through life in silence, holding herself together on the outside while breaking on the inside. It took nearly eleven years and the courage to seek therapy for Shruti’s healing to truly begin. That transformation became her turning point when Shruti realized how deeply she wanted to help others also find their way back to themselves.
What makes Trivedi’s journey so powerful is the way she reframed grief, not as an ending, but as a doorway. Losing her babies became the beginning of her own rebirth, guiding her toward mental health advocacy, holistic healing, and a mission to remind others that even after unimaginable loss, it is possible to rebuild, renew, and rediscover joy. Through coaching, neuro-linguistic programming, and integrative practices, Shruti now supports working professionals and parents as they move forward with compassion, courage, and self-love.
I am looking forward to talking with Shruti, who is joining us from Herndon, Virginia, about the tragic loss of her identical twin boys and another loss. What helped her to take those first steps towards healing, and how grief can become a doorway we never expected. We will also talk about how Shruti’s own journey shaped the way she now helps others and more.
This powerful, hope-filled conversation about rebuilding, renewing, and returning home to yourself after unimaginable loss will surely inspire you and fill you with hope. A perfect example of this is that Shruti has healed and is now a loving mom with three children on the other side. That is a blessing. Talk about beautiful things coming after you heal and open, and not giving up and opening the door. That is quite a rebirth you had there, Shruti.
A warm welcome to you to the show.
Thank you so much, Irene, for the generous introduction and so many kind words. I am blessed, and I feel honored to be a part of this show.
Navigating the Pain of Pregnancy Loss and TTTS
It is truly a pleasure, and I think we are going to help a lot of people because you have quite an amazing story. You have lost three boys, two were twins, and one was another pregnancy. Now you have the blessing of having three other children. Are they all boys, or did you get a girl in that mix?
I have two girls and a boy, and with the other three losses, two were identical twin boys. Actually, the third one, I do not know whether it is a boy or a girl.
I know people can help you find out, but that is another subject for our mediumships. I just was curious, the twins were lost from a, were passed from a twin to twin transfusion syndrome. What was that like for you? I know that you tried to stay strong for your family, but you were falling apart. How did that shape the way you handled your grief in those early years? For audiences who may not know, what exactly is twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome?
The twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome is common in identical twins who share the same placenta, and it occurs when one baby gets more nutrition than the other. That is what happened to me at around eighteen weeks into the pregnancy with my twins. They were diagnosed with TTTS, and I was taken to the Johns Hopkins Hospital, where they performed a laser surgery inside my belly. I do not know exactly what they said, but they used lasers to balance the nutrition. The surgery was successful. However, there was a slight tear in the membrane, and the doctor mentioned there could be complications. There could be a chance of 0.1% complications in case the babies get too hard.
In my case, I fell into that 0.1%, and my water broke at 19 weeks. I was told to terminate my pregnancy. However, I was not ready for that. I fought with the radiologist and argued with him, and he said that there is a high risk of you dying, and that is the reason you need to terminate, or if you want to take a chance, you can try. There is a 0.00001% chance. I took the chance, I came back home, was put on full bed rest, and surprisingly, I was progressing. I made it to 23 weeks. It was my eldest daughter’s seventh birthday.
She was really excited and also feeling a little bad for me that I was on bed rest. She mentioned, “Mama, I am going to decorate your room, and we are going to cut the cake in your room.” That afternoon, I developed a fever, and I was in labor, and I delivered my boys. It was the most heartbreaking night, but also the most peaceful night, I would say, because I got to hold them that entire night. I could see them, their little hands, their little faces. They lived for about two hours. It is what the doctor said, that their heart will beat for two hours.
Also in that hospital room, I was always used to it with my previous kids, with my previous girls when they were born, to the noise in that room, to crying. I could hear cries from the other rooms in the labor and delivery department, and mine was quiet. One other thing after I got discharged that I had no idea about was that after I came back home, within a day, I started lactating, and I was producing milk. It felt like a dream. It felt like maybe this is some nightmare that I will wake up and I will find my boys inside of me.
Instead, it was just a cruel reminder that my body was doing what it is supposed to do, but my boys were not here with me. I was given a band to wrap around my chest very tightly so that I would stop milk production. It took me a couple of days to even process that and just realize. Every time it used to be, I used to close my eyes and just try harder. This is a nightmare. I am dreaming all of this, and I will wake up. Every time I opened my eyes, it was the flat dummy that I woke up to.
Overcoming Cultural Stigmas and Emotional Silence
How was your husband handling this? Was he a good support for you, or as lost as you were?
With men, how things are because men are being told to be even stronger, right? They are strong for the mom. We really did not communicate much. I remember when they were taking the boys from the hospital, he shed a few tears, and he turned around so that I could not see him crying.
Is that a cultural thing where you do not show your emotions to each other?
It is also generic, right? I have learned over time, like men do not cry, these phrases that the society has built up, like even when you hear a little boy crying. I have never liked this, but society always tries to say, “Are you a little girl? Why are you crying like a girl?”
That is so old-fashioned and so unenlightened.
I have never liked that. Physiologically, they are built differently. Women might be emotional, but if a man, a father, wants to be vulnerable, why are we tagging them as tough and macho, and they cannot be vulnerable, and they cannot cry? Hence, we really did not communicate. He grieved differently. I had a different way of grieving. We never spoke about it.
Women might be emotional, but if a man, a father, wants to be vulnerable, why are we tagging them as tough and macho, and prevent them from being vulnerable and crying? Share on X
Are both of you from Indian culture?
Yeah.
It is a cultural thing because I have actually interviewed a few men. Wonderful interviews who have really met with tremendous loss and tragedy and trauma and learned how to let their emotions be free, and they have, and a few of them are starting grief support groups for men who have so much trouble expressing their vulnerabilities and their feelings. I have interviewed quite a few of them.
Connecting Across the Veil: A Mother’s Intuition
You can find it on my podcast website, and they talk about what they do. They do different things. Each one has a different way he does it to get men to open up and become vulnerable and start to rebirth themselves after things that have happened that they can finally come in contact with their own feelings and read a lot of times redirect their lives. That is really very interesting. I know that one of your children communicates with the twins in some way, but have you gotten any communication with them?
Yes, that is an interesting story for me to share. My son is seven now, a couple of years back when he was in preschool. We have these pandas that we have purchased from IKEA. All three kids have like three pandas. They’re very cute. He started taking two of these pandas.
What do you call them, dear?
They’re stuffed animals. He used to hold these two stuffed animals together in both of his arms, and he just started going everywhere with those two stuffed animals, and I went to his preschool. We used to argue every morning that he was allowed only one stuffed animal to school, and he would be stubborn and say, “I have to take both.” He would put one in his backpack and only hold one, so the teacher would not see. Every morning, it was like a mini-fight, an argument with him. One day, I just got so frustrated and asked him, “Why do you have to take them together?” He just said, “Mama, these are my brothers.”
Did he know about the loss?
No.
You had not told him about them.
He has no idea. They do not know. I lost my identical twins in 2017. He was born in 2018.
You guys never talked to him about it?
Never. Even now, he’s seven. My middle daughter knows about it because she recently came to know. I have not talked to my son about it. I will just wait for some more time to talk to him about it. At that time, he was around 3 or 4 years old. Again, he should have had no idea that he had brothers. I just got stunned when he said that they have.
It was obvious they were communicating with him in some way.
Yeah. A few weeks went by, and he also used to put them into bed, a blanket over them when we used to leave the house, like, “They’re now sleeping.” Sometimes I used to just get scared or like, “What is this?” I did not really understand what was going on. After a few weeks, I could not keep to myself, and I asked him, “Why do you see that these are your brothers?” He said, “It’s because I saw them.” I said, “Where?” He pointed towards the sky and said, “Up there.” He stopped talking, and he went back to playing with something else.
He saw them probably before he manifested, before he came through. I wonder if he must not be a reincarnation of one of them. I do not know.
I have no idea. I was stunned. I was petrified. I had no words. I froze because for me, when some people shared stories like these, it took me a while to even believe in some of them. Like, “Is that really true? I do not know.” This incident happened to me. I am like, “There is some connection. He has probably seen the boys, or he has met them and his brothers. Now those two pandas have a really special place in my house. He does not talk about it, so I think it was only a phase because he does not play with them now.
When they’re very young, they can remember things. I have fraternal twin grandsons. One of them was coming out of the bathtub when he was about three or four years old, and he suddenly announced to me, “I was a caveman with my brother, and a lion ate me, and my brother ran away. A few days later, the lion ate my brother.” How could he absolutely remember something like that from prehistoric days? I have been told they come through a lot of lives together, and they’re fraternal. A lot of that happens because many kids remember until we tell them it’s not cool to remember anymore, or they get the message through society that what is that? That’s a little woo, but they have memories because they’re fresh off the other side. They have not been here that long.
That was an interesting incident in my life. It is always so close to my heart. It just feels like I have a picture with him. I have so many pictures where he’s holding those two pandas in his arms, and I’ve developed a special connection with those two stuffed animals.
The Turning Point: Seeking Therapy and Breaking the Cycle
That’s beautiful. Now you’ve had three losses with these children, and for a long time you pushed your grief aside. What finally made you realize that you could not keep doing that? Obviously, the whole thing in your home was kind of kept under wraps. What helped you take the first steps towards healing and indeed motivated you to seek therapy?
After I had my son, it was also a beautiful way of saying, like, my two boys are back as one life. It just felt so divine and serene, and I started convincing myself that yes, that’s how it is. I have three kids now, and I need to move on. That’s what society tells you. In the following five years, this is like in 2018. He was born in 2019, 2020, and even amidst the pandemic in 2021, I was having random panic attacks. Even at work, I would like to create a spreadsheet or presentation.
Tell everyone what you did for work at the time.
I am a former IT professional. I have worked in IT operations for over thirteen years. Being in project management and production deployments, I have worked in all these areas. I would be at work, I would be creating, say, a presentation for a director, and tears would roll for no reason. I remember this one particular presentation that I was presenting in the conference room, and I felt like I had to throw up.
I felt something was creeping up, and I was like, I have not eaten anything. I will just have my regular breakfast, but I felt the need to throw up, and I managed to finish the presentation. I rushed to the bathroom, and inside the bathroom, all I did was just break down crying. I did not understand, like I was in a position to kind of throw up, and what just happened. These kept on happening randomly, especially when going to bed in the shower. I am singing a song, and suddenly I am finding myself crying.
Look at how much you repressed your body.
Those are the times I think we are the meanest to ourselves. I have been like the meanest person to myself. I would not even behave with an enemy this way, the way I have acted with my own self, and the words that I have used, I’ve used all the curse words possible. I have liked being, “What’s the problem with you, Shruti? You have everything in life. You have a job, you have three beautiful children, you have a house, you have a wonderful and supportive family, and you still have a problem.”
During that time, I was just trying to shove it and swallow it back all in and trying to just move on, and like just “What’s your problem? Just leave it behind and let it go and cut it off.” At that time, my company was offering eight complimentary therapy sessions. I got to know that it was a part of their well-being. I attended a couple of meetings, and I said, “Let me just try to see.” I went with a very negative attitude, like with a trial/ I do not know what the therapist is going to say.
Five years ago, I lost my twins, but now, ideally, I should be over it, but I am still not, and I am still having these flashes, and I am having these attacks. I went with that attitude of, I thought the therapist was going to just say, “You just want to create problems in life.” I went with that attitude. On the contrary, my therapist was shocked to know that I had ignored and never processed my grief for the longest time. I was only mentioning like five years ago, five years ago.
Later on, I realized that I had not even processed the loss that I had back in 2011, the one baby that I lost at nine weeks. That’s how it came to be like eleven years of ignoring my grief and never processing it. This is in 2022, when I finally started therapy, I did so many exercises and experienced my own transformation. I remember this one particular session where I took out a red marker and wrote down, “I killed my babies.” Tore inside of me.
What horrible, negative thoughts you were giving yourself.
From there to writing it down, “I did everything to protect my babies,” was something so meaningful that I was like, “I know I have done everything possible, even when I knew that I could die.” There was a time when I was told that you have to terminate or you will die. I still gave that chance. Still, when it came down to blaming, I took the blame for not doing something better to protect them. I was not a good mother. I betrayed my babies.
That sounds like some very old messages that you had gotten earlier on, and it was easy to slip into that mindset. Am I right about that?
Absolutely. After that transformation, I realized how unspoken it is about. That’s where I decided to just talk openly about it to create that space where I was allowed to be vulnerable and process their feelings.
Turning Pain into Purpose and Advocacy
Now you are having this experience, and it’s opening a path to accept this connection of purpose, not only for yourself, but more than anything, as you’re starting to heal. I appreciate that you said that grief is not an ending. It could be a doorway. How did losing your babies become the beginning of this rebirth of yours? Your attitude has changed, but now you’re thinking about mental and emotional health advocacy.
Where is that coming from? Holistic healing and a mission to help others rebuild, renew, and rediscover joy after unimaginable loss. You are going from healing your own pain, which you never addressed, to now becoming inspired to help other people who have similar problems. There has got to be a story in between all of that that led you from point A to point B. You want to tell us about that?
As I experienced these losses, my own learnings have been that pregnancy loss is dismissed. Unfortunately, pregnancy loss is dismissed casually, like how it was only a week old, five weeks old, no heartbeat, as if they are not humans. It’s very unfortunate. For me, just to even realize that, and I had treated that as normal, and whatever I was feeling was abnormal, and people do not know what to say. People who are really loved and dear ones, they do not know what to say. As I was getting transformed, I was experiencing my own emotions and allowing them to feel.
Unfortunately, pregnancy loss is dismissed casually. Share on X
Were you sharing any of this with your husband now?
Yeah.
As you’re transforming now, you’re sharing with him. In a way, he’s healing alongside you, as you’re getting, right?
Yeah. To even say the names of my babies, that was a big one for me. I had named my twins. I did not know what my earlier loss was. I did not even know whether it was a boy or a girl, but I had named my boys, and I used to always call them twins, identical twins. I used to never name them. When I finally named them, their names are Yash and Raj, and it just felt such a deep connection. Like, yes, they are humans. They are not just something that came into my world and left. After my transformation, I realized how unspoken it is about many of my near and dear friends who had experienced loss.
I just did not know. Even in my family, there were some miscarriages or baby losses. I had no idea because again, we do not want to talk about this. We want to suppress it. That turned into my life mission now, where I want to openly talk about it, create that space for women and mothers where you can come here, you can process your grief. It does not have to be something that you experienced today. As in my case, it was eleven years.
It could be 20 years, 40 years, and you’ve still not processed it because it never goes away. Time will never happen automatically. What time does it get you occupied with other things in your life? It does not heal automatically. It will heal if you do something about it. That is how it is. That sentence, I find it partially true. People think time will automatically heal or that it will heal magically. With that, it just turned into a life mission that I want to create that space. I want to give men where they can be vulnerable, allow themselves to release all the emotions because when certain emotions come through your body, like if it’s laughter, we never tell a person to stop laughing.
When it’s crying, immediately, we want that person to stop crying. Even a good gesture, right? What do we do as a good gesture when somebody is crying? We offer them a box of tissues. Indirectly have not realized that we are asking that person to stop crying. We do not allow a person to cry as much as they want because sometimes even that helps, like just releasing that emotion. That’s what I want to do now. Just bring more awareness around it. Talk openly about it. Treat the babies as humans, no matter what.
They’re with you. They’re on the other side. They’re still very much with you.
I truly believe that life begins at the first second of conception and not any heartbeat or any stage, and we usually get to know a few weeks later when we actually take the pregnancy test, but life begins there. Life had already begun. It’s not that if there was no heartbeat, it’s like, there was no heartbeat, so do not worry about it, or people saying things like you’re just young, you’re only 27, you can try again, or comparing grief.
Life begins at the first second of conception. Share on X
It’s like children are so easy to replace. People do not understand that. I think about my own life. I have three precious grandsons. They’re each so different. No one could tell me that one would replace the other. They’re each very separate individual.
They are special in their own way. You cannot even compare in grief. Like telling me that this person has eight miscarriages and I had only three, or you already have three. Why do you want the other three? Just let them go. Just cut off. Just delete the pictures.
That’s about an unenlightened attitude.
I think that moving on with it has been the toughest for me for the longest time. After getting therapy, when it feels like you do not have to move on, you can move forward with your baby. It’s a beautiful way for me to say that I am a mother of six children, three in my arms and three in heaven. That way, I do not feel disconnected, or I do not feel like I am leaving them behind, which is very painful.
When it feels like you do not have to move on, you can move forward with your baby. Share on X
I agree. I think what you’re doing is wonderful. They are your other three on the other side. In interviews, I have introduced people by saying, “She has three on this side and three on the other side, or whatever that is.” All of this that you’re doing, motivating you to start this practice, helping people heal, is funneled into this TulsiHeals Life Coaching, right? Would you like to tell us about that and describe how you support people? I appreciate compassion, courage, and self-love, which sounds like a big lesson you had to learn first before you teach others. I know you do coaching. There are linguistic programming and integrative practices. Tell us about that. If people, if they want to reach out to you, can they do it remotely also?
Naming the Mission: Tulsi Heals and Honoring Lost Babies
How does that all work with TulsiHeals? I like to share what the name of my business is and the story behind it. As I was, and not ending, but with my therapy, I was trying to find out ways to honor my babies. It is something my therapist has mentioned to me, and I did not know how to honor my babies at that time. This was one spring when we were doing our regular gardening, and we were planting the Tulsi plant. Tulsi is a holy basil plant that we prayed to in Hindu culture. Something clicked for me.
I went to the store, bought two identical pots, and planted two Tulsi plants in those spots. That summer they bloomed, and in the fall they went away. I just developed that special connection with that, and with honoring in that way, just felt so peaceful. I started doing that every year, and when it came to naming the business, I remember I was on the deck that afternoon, thinking what should I name my coaching business, and I was next to these plants, and this name just clicked like it had to be something related to Tulsi.
That is how the name developed. Tulsi has indeed healed me, and the name is TulsiHeals Life Coaching, and the three leaves that you see represent my babies. It is extremely meaningful to me. It’s again like never moving on. They are in my background. They are with me together, a part of me, and they are definitely a huge reason for who I am today, from an IT professional to a full-time coach.
Look at how they took you from where you were, which was going to be doing your mothering, to because of this experience and getting and transitioning through it, now you’re helping so many other people. I can relate to that with what I’m doing, right? Do you offer your sessions? How do people get hold of you? Are all your sessions done remotely? Are they on Zoom?
Mostly remotely, yes. And that’s the beauty of, I guess, technology that it’s open globally. It is not restricted to in-person. It also works these days remotely. Yes, all my sessions are remote. My first session is always complimentary, where it’s more of just understanding what the client really wants, like even opening up. Sometimes even that session is a clarity session, like, “I just need one hour of space where I can vent out. This session is always complimentary to decide if you want to take the next steps and process your emotions.
I’ve developed a three-ACE framework, which I use with my clients, which is called Acknowledge, Allow, and Align. I think this framework has worked in my case when I have tried to break down how I’ve processed my grief because for me, acknowledging, I meant was there, but allowing, looking took the longest time. Alignment is where I honored my grief. It’s a beautiful framework to just process your grief. That’s why I help my clients just create that space, a non-judgmental space where you can just say anything and have these strategies and tools in place to process your grief and healthily handle your emotions.
It sounds like through all of this, you’re handling your emotions much better than you did in your early years. Having a lot of people around you as your role model, approaching things differently. They become a little, have they transitioned a little bit, also yielded transition in certain ways? Are you inspiring and motivating them?
I get so many things, even from some of my uncles and aunts back home in India. I create social media content, so they watch my content. I am like, “I did not even know you watched my reels,” because it just makes me so happy that I do simple affirmations or gratitude videos, or some are just explaining about my own experiences and just giving a small tip on what not to say to believe or things like that. It’s really helped. Of course, my network here is they’re always supporting me, and they’re like, “You’re doing wonderful work, and it’s much needed.” I am super pumped to continue to do this, even though owning a business from a regular 9:00 to 5:00 job can be overwhelming.
I can relate to that, too.
It just keeps me going, and I’m just like, this is what I want to do. I am so blessed to be a part of this community that is so supportive. That just keeps me going. I am really blessed with a wonderful network of friends who push me, as you can do it, and it will happen, and you’re creating this amazing community for women, which is very much needed.
It’s very much so. Let me ask you, when you look back, what has made the biggest difference in your own healing therapy, faith, or something entirely different? What would you say has been the root of your healing?
For me, it’s truly therapy because I myself never believed in therapy. I will be very honest. Growing up, there was so much stigma around mental health. Physical health, in general, we are very comfortable saying, “I have a fever, I have diabetes.” You’re never shy away, or I have a surgery to go for. When it comes to mental health, that is like, “Should I say or should I have myself done that?” I have myself come up with excuses.
There is such a stigma. It’s just like physical health. If someone’s got something going on emotionally or mentally, you can fix that, too.
For me, it’s truly been therapy. When I was doing those exercises and assessments for myself, I was blessed to have a wonderful therapist whom I booked my therapy sessions with without any reason, just to talk to her. My session this week, and she’s like, “What would you like to talk about? I’m like, I do not know. I just feel like venting out because that is one space where I get to just, like, no filter needed. I can just talk, and she’s like this AI tool where she organizes my thoughts, and she’ll give me some wonderful advice or some tips and tricks, even related to business, and she’s like, “I feel so blessed.” I love talking to her. I know some of my friends have had not-so-good experiences with therapy, but I feel totally blessed that I have this therapist, and she’s wonderful.
Finding the Right Support: Therapy and Healing Strategies
It really helped you. I tell people who are on the cusp when they’re going to different therapists, and they’re not that pleased. It’s like finding a doctor. Interview someone else. You can think about, do you want a man or do you want a woman? Where are your problems? You can get recommendations and make it a discovery call. See how you feel that you relate to them, and if they can help you, and how you feel about that. If they get you, and if they do all the talking. There are a lot of different things that go into that. You can find a different therapist. You do not have to be married to the first one who comes along.
You make a great point here. We do that with our own doctors, right? When we go, we do not like a particular, either a physician.
You get a second opinion.
Get another one. He’s stopping you from that. With therapy, you do need to get along with your therapist.
It’s a synergy. You really need someone who gets you, and you can hear what they have to say, and does not get you all defensive and all that. I often tell people, go to three or four people and choose the person who’s going to help you. I would like to ask you, what would you say to someone tuning in who is in tremendous pain and they’re grieving, and they feel like they will never feel happy again? Do you have something that you could talk about to advise them?
A couple of things for that. My own transformation, I can definitely say that grief and joy can coexist. We always think like it’s either one of them. For the person who is really grieving, what we usually do is avoid it because as soon as we feel like doing something, we avoid it. The first step is to just allow yourself to feel that and talk to somebody. If you do not want to, feel comfortable with the therapist, it might be even talking to a friend, a close buddy, and, sometimes, even doing a data dump. Just get it out of the system. That’s the first step.
Choose your buddy well, because some buddies are going to reject what you have to say and not be supportive. You have to make sure that it’s a positive space.
That one, buddy, you just need one. You do not need many of those close buddies. You just need that one buddy.
Who loves you and understands.
Who is the listener, who does not interfere or who does not just advise, who is just there to listen? It’s just like ranting and ranting, and you’re like, “I am done now. I am done talking.” You need that one space, and sometimes you do not get that space. There are alternative options, like even writing down on a piece of paper if you cannot get that space. That’s where I am trying to create this space as well. I would love to hear from you. I would love to have a conversation, and I know this space does not exist as much as we want to.
I would love to create that completely non-judgmental, filter-free space where you can just vent out whatever you’re feeling because it’s absolutely necessary to get it out of the system. Our mental cleansing is absolutely important, just like we brush our teeth and do our physical cleansing. Mental cleansing is important, and we often forget to do that. We love to store everything inside. If we do not brush our teeth for one or two days, what will happen? It will start stinking. With mental thoughts, we love to store them. We love to just swallow it back. That’s where the toxicity kicks in. You’re unable to handle it. Sometimes it’s like frustration in the family for no reason or having a mental illness.
Mental cleansing is absolutely important, just like brushing our teeth and doing our physical cleansing. Share on X
Embracing Grief as a Relationship and Reclaiming Joy
It gets this place right onto everybody else. That’s absolutely true. I appreciate that you say that healing is not a destination. It’s a relationship we build with our pain. Why is it important not to rush the healing process? How can honoring our emotions create space for growth and light? We’re alluding to that, but you want to talk a little more about that?
With healing, it will never go away. I always tell people who tell me that therapy will not erase the pain. You will always get like me, when I am up in the month of May and June towards the memorial. The weekend is when my twins were diagnosed with TTTS. That month was tough for me. It will always be. What is different, the previous version of Shruti, who was completely clueless and did not know how to handle words like this, is that if I have to even cry, even as this session is going on, there are a lot of emotions coming inside of me, and I am feeling sometimes a rush of emotions.
Allow myself to cry, be vulnerable, give that space, and be kind to myself, and not like, “I need to go and cook, or I need to just do something else to keep busy.” Healing, it will always happen. If you have a strategy or a healthy way to handle your emotions, that’s where it makes it very special. It will still appear every year. It will never go away. Even I realized medically, the cells of all my babies will still be inside of me. Physically, I am attached to them in some form.
Healing does not mean you’re done. When it comes to physical health, “I have a headache, I pop in time, and my headache goes away.” That’s not how it works in the mental health space. You heal, it’s like a wave of emotions, pregnancy announcements for me. The word twins, twin movies, triggers, but now have a different way of handling those emotions. I think that’s what makes it beautiful that I do not have to run away from them. It’s going to be forever.
Healing does not mean you're done. Share on X
That’s beautiful. With people as enlightened as you and how you now know how to help people to heal, do you have a special offer for our audience that can get everyone having a discovery call with you or something to check out what you can accomplish together?
As I said, my discovery and calls are always complimentary. I can share the details with you so that they can just book some time with me, get on a call with me. I’ve also created a Facebook community for Believer Mums and the supporters, where I post some tools and resources, and I also ask intriguing questions that you can just answer on that particular day. It’s like how heavy your heart is on a scale of 1 to 10. In that moment, whatever you feel, you can write down. I wanted to create that community where I believe moms can be vulnerable and just process. The supporters can also understand what a belief mom goes through and support them in a good way. These are the two things. I am happy to share the details with you.
Shruti, we need to put links. Make sure you send that to us, the link to the discovery, and whatever else you would like to connect people to. I would like to ask you, you made the comment that joy and grief can exist at the same time, but what have you got to tell people about joy? How did you reconnect with joy for yourself in your everyday life once you began to evolve and become more enlightened about this? Because you probably did not experience any joy in those years you were grieving, and you were so heavy?
Reconnecting with Joy and the Power of Self-Care
I will say my favorite phrase in the last couple of years that I’ve learned is self-care is not being selfish. For the longest time, I had ignored myself, be it professionally, be it in any other form, and yes, grief, and then these pregnancy losses had ignored my own self, like all my emotions and everything. In general, we women also put ourselves last on the list or not on the list at all. Since I have started taking care of myself, I’ve experienced how much better of a mom, a spouse, and a person I am to others. That’s where the joy is, like inner peace and joy really, where I’m so motivated in doing something. That’s the true life I feel like.
Self-care is not being selfish. Share on X
It’s not black and white, right?
Yeah.
You can be healing through your grief, but something beautiful happens over here does not mean you cannot have joy.
As in my case, my eldest daughter’s birthday is also the death day of my twins. I celebrate three birthdays. I celebrate, and my daughter recently initiated the names of my twins on her cake last year. She is a part of it now. It is beautiful that she’s also taking it. Initially, I know that when she got to know what she was like, she thought she had blamed herself for doing something on that day. I had to have that conversation with her that you did nothing on your birthday. It just happened. We did everything to protect them. It was a different learning experience for us as well, where we had to be very careful in explaining to her what really happened that day. Definitely, it’s always that gray area. It’s never like being happy and never like black and white, as you said.
Never. Shruti, losing your babies marked the beginning of your own rebirth, a path that has led you into mental and emotional health advocacy, holistic healing, and a mission to remind others that even after the deepest heartbreak, we can rebuild, renew, and find our way back to joy. From my heart, I want to thank you for teaching us that healing is not a place we reach. It’s a relationship we nurture with our pain. When we honor it, we make room for light and joy to return to our lives. I wish you and yours abundant blessings always. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Irene. It really means a lot. I feel so blessed to share my story on your platform. My goal is that I can share the story with as many people as I can.
Yes, and I think it will help many people. I’m going to send us to the cloud and hold on. Thank you.
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About Shruti Trivedi
Shruti Trivedi is a certified Life Coach, speaker, and founder of TulsiHeals, a holistic coaching practice that helps individuals heal, grow, and rediscover themselves after loss and life transitions.
Her personal journey through two devastating pregnancy losses: one at 9 weeks and other at 23 weeks led her to turn pain into purpose. Today, she helps others embrace healing with compassion, courage, and self-love.
