Pressing Pause, Not Eject: My Horse Died, and it Broke Me

In this deeply personal episode, Ms. Michaela Mae shares an update she didn’t plan to make — but felt called to record.After the loss of her childhood horse, Capone, Michaela reflects on grief, acceptance, and a realization that arrived in one of the hardest moments of her life: she’s still been trying to control how she’s perceived instead of allowing herself to be seen in her full truth.This episode explores what happens when we live fragmented — sharing certain parts of ourselves in certain spaces, filtering who we are to feel safe, and trying to manage perception instead of embodying wholeness. Michaela opens up about how Capone’s greatest lesson to her was acceptance — and why that lesson is now asking her to turn inward.As a result, Michaela shares her decision to press pause on The Ms. Michaela Mae Show — not as an ending, but as an act of integrity and self-trust. She explains why she’s choosing to pour her energy back into The Western Hippie, and why pausing something meaningful doesn’t mean failure — it means listening.In this episode, Michaela talks about:Grieving an animal who shaped her lifeAcceptance as a healing forceLiving split lives and filtering identityCreativity as a grief-processing toolWhy pausing can be healthier than pushingTrusting intuition even when it doesn’t make logical senseGiving yourself permission to stop — without quittingThis episode is both a reflection and a permission slip.You don’t need to announce every move. You don’t need to justify your pauses. And sometimes, the most aligned choice is simply pressing pause — not eject.Listen to The Western HippieBrowse the full catalog of episodes here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1968454Keywords / Tagsgrief and acceptance, pressing pause, personal growth podcast, identity and authenticity, grieving a horse, animal loss grief, intuition and trust, creative healing, ms michaela mae show