Empathy, Healing, and the Journey Ahead

In this final episode of The Hello Frequency, Season 2, I reflect on a year shaped by empathy, losses, connections, healing, and profound transformations. Recorded from an empty home at the close of 2025 on the International Human Rights Day, this episode revisits the transformative conversations that defined this season, including from grief to belonging, care, solidarity, and the politics of empathy. With tenderness, honesty, trust, and hope, I share what this journey has meant, how it supported me through personal challenges, and what lies ahead for Season 3. A grounding, intimate closing to a season filled with courage, vulnerability, wisdom, and hope. My deepest gratitude to my guests, listeners, those who have shared insights, and promoted my podcast. Thank you for tuning in. 

Remember, in a world where discord echoes loudly, let empathy be our pluriversal language!

Transcript

The Hello Frequency Podcast acknowledges the Tainui people of the Waikato region, where it was recorded. Respects to elders past, present, and emerging. 

Welcome to the final episode of Season 2 of the Hello Frequency – a lifestyle podcast. I’m your host Caya.  
 As I sit here recording this closing reflection of 2025 from an empty house. My friends/housemates and I parting ways. I’m filled with a deep mixture of gratitude, tenderness, and wonder. I had a good cry yesterday when the entire household was packed up, not because of the material things, but because something in me surrendered again to the uncertainties of life, even now, in my late forties. 

As with The Hello Frequency, it has been a meaningful season. One that unfolded with more complexity, honesty, and humanity than I could have imagined when we began this journey together.

Season 2 has been about empathy, yes, but it has also been about everything that empathy requires: courage, vulnerability, listening, discomfort, learning, unlearning, and the willingness to be changed by what we hear. 

Looking back, each conversation in Season 2 became its own frequency, resonating with the softness and the strength that empathy invites.

In one of our earlier episodes, “Jenny Janif: Sprinkling Empathy”, Jenny shared her insights on humility, migration, collective histories, and identity. Together, we explored the difference between sympathy and empathy: how sympathy keeps distance, while empathy steps into someone else’s lived experience. 

Many of my guests this season reminded us that empathy is not just an emotional reaction; it is a relational practice, an act of building a bridge between lived, perceived, and other forms of realities.

There was the moment when life itself paused the season.
 In “Caring, Grief & Gathering My Strength”, I opened up about my mum’s passing, sharing the rawness of loss, the exhaustion of caregiving, and the emptiness that followed. That episode was not planned. It was not polished. It was real. And it taught me something profound, which is that empathy is not just something we talk about here. It is something I had to lean into, live through, and hold onto during one of the hardest periods of my life.

As the season continued, the tone began to shift. Not away from empathy, but deeper into it as I navigated a few more losses. Life just keeps on giving. 

I imagine many of you can relate, especially given how tumultuous things feel these days, except for a tiny percentage of billionaires. The richest 1 % now own nearly half of global wealth (source: https://inequality.org/facts/global-inequality/?utm_source) .  
 It feels like it’s them versus the rest of us, the overwhelming majority of the world. I sincerely hope we can come together across our differences; that the 99 % share something more than just hardship. To me, they are solidarity and hope against the outsized influence of a few whose wealth and power continue to shape our lives for the worse. We must unite.

I digress.

This reminds me of “The Politics of Empathy: Beyond Feel-Good Morality”, where we explored empathy not only as a moral good but as a political force, one tied to systems, power, and justice. We questioned whether empathy alone is enough, and what it looks like when empathy demands accountability, action, and honesty.

Later, in “Holding Space, Sharing Mana”, we returned to the roots of empathy as presence, what it means to hold space for someone without trying to fix, judge, or change them. To simply be with someone, in their story, in their truth.

And in “Navigating Connections in a Complex World”, we examined how empathy operates in a world shaped by complexity, difference, inequity, and rapid change. That episode reminded me how essential empathy is. Not because it makes things easier, but because it helps us stay connected when things are hard and overwhelming. 

Across all these conversations, something consistent emerged, which is that Empathy is not soft or on display all the time. Empathy is a conscious choice and practice. It is active, relational, political, and profoundly transformational.  

I want to share something from my heart.

Season 2 has been healing for me.

Hosting this podcast, especially during a year marked by many personal losses, gave me a space where I could stay connected to humanity, to community, and to compassion. These conversations were often grounding for me. They reminded me that even in grief, there is solace. Even in uncertainty, there is wisdom. Even in silence, there is connection. All of these supported in my healing journey this year. 

My guests this season were incredibly generous.
 They brought their stories. They brought warmth. They brought courage. They brought poise. And through their voices, I felt my own understanding of empathy deepen and expand.  

To every guest – who are dear friends or comrades - thank you for trusting me and for trusting my visions for this platform. I’m forever grateful for your presence and co-creating with me on this platform.  
 To every listener, thank you for being here. 

My deepest gratitude to those who have shared messages of encouragement, how certain episodes have supported some, and even for expressing interest in joining the podcast next year. This kind of connection keeps this work alive. Strengthens our collective hope for the better.  

I’m truly, deeply grateful.

If I were to gather the essence of this season, I would say; 

-Empathy is both soft and strong. It comforts, and it challenges. It asks us to look inward and outward at the same time.
 - Empathy requires vulnerability. Real connection happens when we dare to share our stories, our grief, our fears, our uncertainties, and our hopes.
  - Empathy can be political. It asks us to confront systems, histories, and power dynamics. Not just emotions. 
  - Empathy is relational. It lives in the space between us; in listening, in holding space, in witnessing each other’s humanity.
  - Empathy is transformative. It changes us. It softens us. It strengthens us. It brings us closer to ourselves and to each other. 

Now, looking ahead…

I’m delighted to share that Season 3 is in the works. 
 Yes, I have created the spreadsheet. And names and schedules are slowly filling up the list. Listeners, guests, and friends have reached out with a desire to join next year. I feel humbled by this enthusiasm, and excited for the stories and conversations that will unfold on this platform. 

Season 3 will continue our exploration of empathy, but perhaps with renewed courage and expansiveness. 

I truly cannot wait to step into this next chapter with all of you.

As 2025 comes to a close, I want to extend a wish to you, all: 
 May the end of this year be peaceful, and may the beginning of 2026 be grounding, humble, filled with empathetic connections, and deeper awareness. 
 May you find rest, ample moments of connection of all sorts, and spaces where empathy nurtures you from the inside out. 

Thank you for tuning in.

Thank you for resonating with the parts of me I’ve shared here. 

Thank you for being part of the Hello Frequency podcast. 

See you in Season 3.

With my deepest gratitude, this is Caya, singing off from the Hello Frequency