The Death That Nearly Killed My Future
Grief seeped into my money, my choices, my work—until I learned how to see what life was giving me instead.
Death.
What’s death got to do with money? With your business? With your job? With how you show up in your career, your relationships, your ability to lead or grow or make clear decisions?
More than most people realise.
Yesterday I dropped my best friend off at the airport. He’d just had one of those phone calls that stops time—his mum had suffered a heart attack. He looked frozen. Like everything inside him had shut down. “All I can think about is death,” he said. “Everything feels black.” He couldn’t focus on anything else. Couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t see past the fear.
I know that place all too well.
I know that state.
I’ve lived inside it.
The confusion. The helplessness. The body trying to hold itself together while your mind collapses into panic and silence.
I held space for him, and quietly remembered the version of me that went through the same.
When my husband died, we had just moved to the UK. One-year-old baby. No papers. No right to work. No family. We were supposed to be starting a life together—and just like that, it was over.
When he died, I didn’t just lose my husband. I lost the future. The partnership. The version of myself that only made sense because he was there to share the weight of it all.
We were living in shared accommodation. Every night I’d lie awake terrified that I wouldn’t be able to keep a roof over our heads.
If I stayed home to care for my daughter, we had no money. If I worked, childcare would swallow whatever little I could earn. Although I had a degree in Economics, the only job I could do was cleaning houses—just to buy time, food, and a moment to breathe.
When he died, I believed I’d lost everything. But that was only half the story. Because life doesn’t leave a gap. It reorganises. That’s what I slowly began to see. While I was busy grieving the person I thought I couldn’t live without, other people quietly started stepping into my life. Strangers helped me with paperwork. People I shared the house with brought food. Someone offered to watch my daughter for silly money so I could work. I wasn’t alone. The form of support had changed, but the function remained. And the more I opened my eyes to it, the more I saw it: nothing had been taken from me—everything had simply transformed.
I began to ask myself questions that shifted how I related to grief, to money, to life itself.
What exactly am I grieving?
What did he provide—emotionally, financially, practically?
What support, qualities, actions or structure had I lost when he passed?
Where—right here, right now—were those same things showing up again in different forms?
Who had emerged to provide the same or more of the things I thought only he could give me?
The moment I opened my eyes, I saw it.
He was no longer here—but life hadn’t abandoned me.
It had simply rearranged the support.
These weren’t just comforting thoughts—they were survival tools. Because the moment you stop focusing only on what’s gone and start noticing what’s already arrived, you start leading your life again. You stop shrinking. You start creating.
But if you stay stuck in that story—if you stay emotionally loyal to the moment everything fell apart—you begin making decisions from that place. And that shows up everywhere.
It shows up in how you undercharge wiyhiut knowing why, even though you’re overqualified.
It shows up in how you say yes when you want to say no, or stay small because you don’t want to risk more loss.
It shows up in how you overdeliver just to prove you’re “worth it”, overgive, overthink.
It shows up when:
You burn out in silence
You stop taking risks
You avoid looking at your bank account
You tell yourself to “just push through,” while part of you is still emotionally paused in a version of life that no longer exists
And in business, that has a cost. It bleeds into your energy, your clarity, your ability to lead with confidence.
That’s why I created the Money M.O.T.
It’s a 90-minute 1:1 session designed for professionals and business owners who are functioning—but not free, who feel stuck, blocked or emotionally off-track when it comes to money, work or self-worth.
I help you clear the emotional weight behind your financial decisions and shift into a more aligned, empowered way of leading your life and business.
We explore:
What you believe you’ve lost, and where it’s already reappearing in other forms
Where your emotional patterns are silently shaping your pricing, your stress, and your self-worth
And how to rebuild your financial structure not from survival—but from clarity and truth
This isn’t therapy.
It’s not another productivity tool.
It’s deep work—emotionally precise and practically useful.
If this post stirred something in you—if you’ve ever felt like you're doing well on paper but silently stuck inside— send me a message or an email at coaching@mintfulmindbymonica.com
Because in business, in your job, in your relationships, in your parenting, in your social life, etc—when grief takes over your mental space, when everything feels black—you can’t think clearly.
You can’t dream.
You can’t receive.
You’re frozen. Just like my friend was yesterday. Just like I was for a long time.
But you don’t have to stay there.
Loss doesn’t mean your life is over.
It means it’s changing form.
And when you can see that—everything changes with it.
With lots of inspired love,
Monica