Negative Income, Positive Trauma: (Anything Is Not Better Than Nothing)

People keep telling me, “Anything is better than nothing,” which is a cute idea until you open a calculator and realize that going back to work actually puts you in the red. That’s not something. That’s negative. That’s me paying money to have a job like it’s a reverse subscription service to burnout.

In this episode, I’m back in 2026 (late, obviously), talking about what it’s like to try to re enter the workforce after your nine year old dies and your entire personality gets put through a woodchipper. I spent nearly a decade as my son Kingston’s full time caregiver, then 18 months in grief free fall, and now I’m being told to “just go back to normal” like the last ten years were a weird gap year.

We get into:

• How caregiving, grief, and spiritual weirdness translate to exactly nothing on a résumé

• Why “just take anything” is financial gaslighting when childcare and lowball salaries equal negative income

• What boundaries actually are (hint: not you being a bitch) and why people react like you slapped their dad when you start using them

• Why the people closest to you fight your boundaries the hardest, and how to say no without writing a 12 page apology email

• How honoring your energy, your nervous system, and your connection to your dead child becomes non negotiable after your life detonates

This is not a soft, tea light grief podcast. There are no angel wing platitudes, no five step formulas, and definitely no “and then I magically healed” ending. Just one grieving mother telling the truth about trauma, identity, money, boundaries, and the deeply fucked math of trying to be “productive” when your nervous system is already doing advanced parkour.

If your current life motto is “Honestly, I’m fine” but what you really mean is “I’m not fine at all, but I’m still here,” this one is for you.

Links & Things I Mentioned:

Picture Book – Zuma’s Magical Balloon
A children’s book with a suspicious history of making grown men cry in airports and parked cars.
https://payhip.com/TheAfterWords

Grief & Signs Journal – You’re Not Crazy, You’re Connected
For anyone who keeps seeing signs, then immediately gaslighting themselves about it.
https://payhip.com/TheAfterWords

Start Here (Everything in One Place):
https://linktr.ee/Haute.Mess

Listen to the Podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/show/3KMvsMYt9F1e10sKhzehU2
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/honestly-im-fine/id1788589795
https://youtube.com/@honestlyimfine

Connect with Me (Maile Navarro):
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/honestly__im_fine
https://www.instagram.com/hautemess_la

TikTok
https://www.tiktok.com/@haute__mess

This episode is exactly what it sounds like and somehow also not.

I’m sitting down with my ex-husband, Michael, the father of our two kids, Kingston and Zuma, to talk about grief, parenting, loss, and what it looks like when two people survive the same earthquake and end up standing on completely different fault lines.

We lost the same child.
We did not grieve the same way.

And no, this is not a debate or a reconciliation special.

This is a conversation about public grief vs private grief, why one parent talks and the other disappears, and how neither approach fixes anything, but both are human.

We talk about signs, silence, anger, awkward moments, and the unspoken pressure to perform pain correctly so other people feel comfortable.

There is no moral of the story.
There is no healing arc tied up with a bow.

There is humor, honesty, a few derailments, and exactly zero instructions on how you should be doing grief.

If you’re grieving a person, a version of your life, a marriage, or just your tolerance for bullshit, you’re welcome here.

We’re fine.
Don’t make it weird.

🎧 Links, books, and the things I keep referencing mid-sentence:

You're Not Crazy, You're Connected: Grief Journal
https://payhip.com/b/q2fPt

Zuma's Magical Balloon with Audio
https://payhip.com/b/A58gO

Follow me everywhere!
👉 https://linktr.ee/Haute.Mess

This episode is what happens when a grieving mom, a medium-in-training, and a woman with the bladder of a Victorian ghost all live in the same body.

I watched Oprah talk to Laura Lynn Jackson about signs from the other side, and instead of feeling comforted like a normal person, I got fired up like a feral televangelist because every time I say the exact same stuff, people look at me like I’m about to start a cult in my laundry room. Yet Oprah nods once and suddenly America believes in intuition again.

So naturally I took this emotional instability to Six Flags on Thanksgiving, because nothing says spiritual awakening like pissing your pants on a roller coaster and losing a shoe while your dead kid photobombs the ride camera as a literal glowing orb.

Yes. An orb. A crisp “you can’t deny me” orb sitting in the exact seat Kingston would have occupied. Plus a whale. Plus a choreographed dolphin pod. Plus me ugly-crying in public like mascara was a suggestion.

You’ll hear the whole thing. The signs. The quantum entanglement lecture my ex did NOT ask for. The missing shoe. The cosmic comedy routine my kid apparently wrote from the afterlife.

If you’ve ever wondered whether signs from the other side are real, or if you’re just spiritually constipated, this episode is your permission slip to stop doubting what you already know.

And if your friends step back like you're cursing them? Congratulations. You’re waking up. They’ll catch up or they won’t. Either way, you’re fine.

Download the You’re Not Crazy, You’re Connected Grief Journal.
Build your sign language with the other side. Practice it. Own it. Let it save you the way it saved me.

Follow me on all platforms and check out my children’s books on Amazon, follow me on all platforms (especially TikTok because we need to monetize this circus), and keep Kingston’s legacy loud.

Connection doesn’t die. And neither do we.

New episodes weekly unless the universe throws me onto another roller coaster.

Welcome to part two which means we survived part one without me blacking out mid-sentence or Tanisha calling for backup. She’s here again doing what she does best which is keeping me from free-falling into twelve unrelated stories while the audience wonders if they accidentally clicked on a documentary about reincarnation and bad life choices.

This episode picks up where we left off. Kingston. Signs. The balloon. The strange moments you can’t shrug off no matter how hard you try. The things nobody prepares you for when your life cracks open and the universe starts dropping hints like it thinks you’re finally paying attention.

We talk grief that doesn’t behave grief that rewires you grief that teaches you more in a year than school managed in twelve. We talk kids who see more than adults pretend to. We talk spiritual wake-ups that feel less like enlightenment and more like getting shoved through a cosmic revolving door without warning. And yes we talk about the red balloon again because apparently I’m contractually obligated by the afterlife.

Tanisha keeps me on track. I try to behave. Neither of us succeeds. It’s fine.

If you want the rest of my projects books grief support links and whatever side quest I’m pretending to manage this week you can find everything here:
https://linktr.ee/Haute.Mess

Follow. Subscribe. Share. Leave a review that makes me sound employable. Send it to someone with disposable income. Let’s keep this circus moving.

Hi, I’m Maile. And I’m fine. Totally fine. The kind of fine where your toddler dumps glitter in the dog’s water bowl and everything you love sparkles with chaos.

This episode starts with jokes about tuna fish sandwiches and ends with the kind of truth that breaks you open in the best, ugliest way. My friend Tanisha ( @dropitlikeitshaute ) sits with me as I talk about Kingston—my miracle baby, the boy who wasn’t supposed to be here, and the one who taught me how to fight for light in the dark.

It’s messy, real, raw, and weirdly funny in all the places grief shouldn’t be. We talk colic, intuition, hospital hell, mother’s instinct, and the moment everything changed.

Because “fine” doesn’t mean healed—it means surviving long enough to tell the story.

🎧 Listen if you’ve ever loved someone so much that the loss rewired your soul.

Follow my chaos: Instagram @hautemess_la, @honestly__im_fine, @livelikekingston | TikTok @hautemess.la

This one starts exactly the way you’d expect two grown women who have been friends since Wet Seal and jelly sandals to reconnect on a podcast: a frozen screen, a dying phone, and me broadcasting from the back of my 2013 Ford Explorer next to barbed wire like I’m calling in from county lockup.

Tanisha and I have known each other for almost 30 years. She remembers me as the tiny “pretty preppy girl” from Southcenter Mall. I remind her I was a broke kid who hid peanut butter sandwiches in my pocket and got my hair butchered by a guy who learned to cut hair in prison.

We talk about growing up broke, getting our asses kicked in middle school, threatening parents at our kids’ school, stripping at Hooters out of pure spite, throwing our lives away on men we couldn’t quit, racking up DUIs, and raising kids while drowning in grief, debt, and toll lane violations.

And somewhere in all of that, we talk about Kingston. What it feels like to lose a child. What it feels like to stay in a city because your daughter deserves to keep the only place that remembers her brother lived. Why people think they’re being helpful when they tell grieving parents to “just move home.” Why survival looks ridiculous, embarrassing, ugly, resourceful, angry, and holy at the same time.

This episode is messy. It’s raw. It’s funny. It’s exactly what real life looks like when you stop trying to pretend you’re fine.

If you’ve ever felt alone, ashamed, overwhelmed, or convinced everyone else was doing better than you: buckle up. We are all disasters in different outfits.

Follow, stalk, or harass me on social:
Instagram: @HauteMess_LA
TikTok: @HauteMess.LA

Listen, rate, review, and share with someone who needs a reminder that their story isn’t the only wreck in town.

Welcome to Honestly, I’m Fine — the chaotic, raw, spiritually confused, dark-funny memoir-podcast of a woman who will absolutely say “I’m fine” while ugly crying in her car and eating carbs like communion.

In this first episode, I take you back to the exact moment my nervous system said, “Nope, we’re done here.”

I was eight.

My mom told me the man I called Dad… wasn’t.
And then suddenly I’m at McDonald’s with a stranger feeding me soft serve like a sad Hallmark special nobody greenlit.

We unpack:
• What happens when your DNA ghosts you
• How trauma chooses your future boyfriends
• Why emotionally unavailable men feel “like home”
• And how I still, somehow, believe in love anyway

It’s raw. It’s ridiculous. It’s cheaper than therapy.
If you’ve ever been abandoned, ignored, rejected, or accidentally married your trauma — welcome home.

Follow, share, rate, review, send to your group chat of emotionally unstable friends.

Let’s monetize the misery together.

SOCIALS + LINKS

Watch on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YbsH963JSY

Follow on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/hautemess_la/

Kickstarter – The AfterWords Project
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theafterwords/the-afterwords-project-a-true-story-of-grief-and-rebuilding-0?ref=project_build&fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaf9wjEx9POelTg9xtKmVUTRKRduRqEpag47bkIn4JVkX2coT2RZneUxBIBU8Q_aem_j-V-KCBfHIYR7_opv8Cl5g

GoFundMe – Help Maile & Zuma
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-maile-and-zuma-rebuild-after-tragedy?attribution_id=sl:06115cc4-9608-47db-9ec4-ca9f7cadfce3&utm_campaign=natman_sharesheet_dash&utm_content=amp13_c-amp14_t1&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=copy_link

This episode is about learning to recognize when Spirit is speaking and what it really means to ask for confirmation. I talk about how I’ve been experimenting with channeling, the signs that have shown up when I least expected them, and the moments that made me question whether I was making it all up or actually tuning in.

It’s a look at what happens when faith meets curiosity. I share how I’ve asked for proof, how it feels to receive it, and what it’s teaching me about trust, timing, and surrender.

If you’ve ever wondered how to tell the difference between coincidence and communication, or whether your loved ones still find ways to reach you, this episode will feel like sitting in that question together.

#TheAfterWords #SpiritualAwakening #ChannelingSpirit #SignsFromHeaven #Mediumship #GriefSupport #HealingJourney #LoveNeverDies #Intuition #TrustTheSigns #EnergyWork #FaithInAction #SoulConnection