Practicing Devotion To Find Peace with Mirella Stoyanova
Theresa Hubbard and Walker Bird
"When we slow down enough to listen, we often realize the truth we’ve been searching for was already inside us.”
In this conversation, Theresa and Walker are joined by therapist and writer Mirella Stoyanova to explore what it means to reconnect with your inner knowing — especially after experiences that ask you to fragment, mask, or move through the world in ways that aren’t fully your own.
Mirella shares pieces of her story as an international adoptee, the early losses that shaped her inner world, and the long path of learning to trust herself again. She reflects on trauma, belonging, intuition, identity, and what it means to find self-connection after surviving circumstances that demanded adaptation over authenticity.
They talk about practicing presence, noticing the body, honoring nuance, and allowing everyday life — even folding the laundry — to become a place of devotion, grounding, and remembering. This episode offers a gentle, steady invitation to slow down, feel what’s truly there, and choose how you want to show up for yourself with more clarity and compassion.
What you’ll learn
→ Why slowing down opens space for inner knowing to surface
→ How trauma shapes identity and the stories we tell about ourselves
→ Why nuance is essential for emotional maturity and deeper relationships
→ How everyday rituals can become practices of devotion and grounding
→ The difference between surviving your past and learning to truly live
About Mirella Stoyanova
Mirella Stoyanova is a therapist, writer, and international adoptee from Bulgaria of both Bulgarian and Iraqi origin. Her writing has appeared in HuffPost Personal, Business Insider, and Write Or Die Magazine, among other places. She is currently revising a memoir exploring how trauma fractures identity, the lifelong effects of unresolved grief, and the possibilities and limits of self-healing.
Connect with her on Instagram @mirellastoyanova or visit mirellastoyanova.com.
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Episode Links & Resources
Watch the episode on YouTube
My Inner Knowing Full episode link
📘 Jack Kornfield — The Wise Heart
📘 Miriam Greenspan — Healing Through the Dark Emotions
📘 Pete Walker — Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving
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Episode Chapters
00:00 Welcome + meeting Mirella
02:00 Identity, upbringing, and early losses
09:00 Trauma, intuition, and the beginning of inner knowing
15:00 Music, nature, and the practices that reconnect us
20:00 Slowing down + listening to discomfort
26:00 Nuance, boundaries, and emotional honesty
33:00 Adoption, belonging, and cognitive dissonance
44:00 Grace, growth, and choosing how we show up
55:00 Writing, memoir, and the courage to be seen
59:00 Closing reflections + what devotion looks like
Topics we explore in this episode include:
inner knowing, trauma and identity, emotional nuance, self-awareness, belonging, adoption and loss, nervous system awareness, devotion in everyday life, slowing down, personal growth, resilience, grounding practices