We Begin Again

The Hello Frequency returns for Season 3 with a new logo, music, and a reflective and intimate opening episode from me, your host Caya.   

In this tender introduction, I honour the journey of the podcast so far - from the courage and curiosity of Season 1, to the grief, loss, and deep transformation that shaped Season 2. Season 3 begins on the 1st of May with a dedication to comradeship, solidarity, collective care, and the quiet ways we walk alongside one another through life. 

I reflect on grief, activism, embodiment, exhaustion, healing, and the costs of always showing up for others while sometimes abandoning the self. Drawing from memories of growing up in Northern Sri Lanka during war, community care, and nearly four decades of activism and responsibility, I ask: how do we keep caring without disappearing from ourselves? 

This season invites conversations on healing, embodiment, belonging, grief, pleasure, justice, spirituality, creativity, and what it means to stay human in complicated times.

A gentle beginning. 
A return.
A recommitment to empathy - not as performance, but as practice, responsibility, and embodying care. 

The Hello Frequency begins again.  

Email: fromwoundingtohealingandtransforming@outlook.com 

Citation: Divakalala, C. (2026). We Begin Again. The Hello Frequency, A Lifestyle Podcast. 

Music: Free music for podcasts from Transistor FM 

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

Transcript

The Hello Frequency podcast acknowledges Taranaki Whānui ki te Upoko o te Ika and Ngāti Toa Rangatira as mana whenua where it was recorded. We pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging. 

Hello, my dear listeners.

Welcome back.

This is your host, Caya.

Did you miss me? 

I hope at least some of you did. 

I really missed being here. I missed creating this space with you, and for you.

As we begin Season 3 of The Hello Frequency, I have been thinking a lot about why I started this podcast in the first place. 

At the beginning, I described this as a space for honest conversations about human experiences. A space for meaning, connection, empathy, and care.

And that is still true. 

But I also knew that this podcast has always been about something even deeper for me. 

It has been about how we live with pain.

How we move through it.

How we transform it, when we can.

And how we heal, not alone, but with others.

I am living proof of that.

And I know many of you are too.

This season begins on the 1st of May, a day that carries deep meaning for many people across the world. 

So I want to dedicate this season, and the conversations we will have here, to comradeship in all its forms. 

To solidarity.

To collective care. 

To courage. 

To the quiet and powerful ways we walk alongside one another through life. 

And yes, I think of you, my dear listeners, as comrades too.

Before we step into this new chapter, I want to honour the journey of this podcast itself.

In Season 1, I was still learning how to do this. 

So I committed to releasing a new episode every Friday between May and November 2024.

And somehow, week after week, I showed up.

With curiosity.

With courage. 

With my wonderful guests. 

And with a microphone. 

I learned so much during that first season. I learned about storytelling, sound, rhythm, vulnerability, consistency, and what it means to create content in this medium and offer it to the world. 

And honestly, I am still learning.

Still refining.

Still listening.

Still asking myself: how do I make each episode meaningful? 

How do I make it useful, enjoyable, relatable, and easy on your ears?

Because I never want this podcast to become noise for the sake of noise.

I want it to feel like nourishment. 

Like reflection.

Like companionship.

Or even just a little pause in your day.

My hopes for Season 2 were similar. 

But life does not always move according to our plans, does it?

While I was moving through grief, loss, and other personal and collective challenges, the rhythm of the podcast changed.

And I learned something important.

Consistency does not always mean constant output. 

Sometimes consistency means pausing. 

Sometimes it means slowing down.

Sometimes it means returning when you are ready enough.  

Season 2 became tied to some of the deepest losses and changes in my life. 

After my mum passed away, I paused. 

I gathered whatever strength I had.

And slowly, slowly, I found myself and my way back. 

When I returned, I understood empathy in a more personal way.

Not just as something we talk about. 

But as something we need when life empties us. 

When life changes, the ground beneath our feet.

When life asks us, once again, to begin again. 

And now, this year, I am still grieving.

I am also trying to listen more carefully to my body, mind, and spirit. 

In simpler words, I am trying to take better care of my whole self. 

I am learning that care has to include the self, too.

It has to include rest.

It has to include honesty.

It has to include asking: what do I actually have capacity for?

So for Season 3, in 2026, I hope to bring you one new episode each month, hopefully on the first Friday of every month.  

I love the feeling of that rhythm. 

A new conversation at the beginning of a new month. 

A way of gently setting the tone.

A way of asking: what kind of care, empathy, and connection do we want to carry with us now? 

Because I do believe we are deeply connected.

Connected to one another.

Connected to land. 

Connected to memory, ancestors, histories, ecosystems, energies, silence, and all the seen and unseen forces that shape our lives. 

We are never as separate as we are taught to believe. 

Over the last two seasons, so many generous guests have helped shape this space.

Together, we have explored empathy through land, aroha, love, art, business, activism, migration, memory, friendship, restoration, leadership, belonging, care, collective consciousness, and solidarity.

We have also spoken about the harder truths.

That empathy is not just a nice word.

It is not a performance of goodness.

And it is not always enough on its own.

Again and again, these conversations reminded me that empathy asks something of us.

It asks for humility.

Courage.

Boundaries.

Discomfort.

Deep listening.

Reflection.

And sometimes, a willingness to be changed.

My own ways of connecting are changing too.

As my body changes, I am learning new ways of relating to people, community, and all that is seen and unseen.  

Sometimes virtually.

Sometimes spiritually.

Sometimes quietly.

And I want to be honest about that.

Not all connections are deep connections.

Not all solidarity can stay online or symbolic. 

But I am still learning how to show up in ways that are true to where I am now. 

For much of my life, my physical body was part of activism and community work.

I showed up in person.

I stood with others.

I carried things.

I listened.

I organised.

I spoke.

I witnessed.

I refused to look away.

And when I say “for much of my life,” I mean this began very early.

I was a teenager in Northern Sri Lanka in the 1990s, during heavy shelling, bombing, displacement, and civil war.

In the little ways I could, I helped my community.

Alongside the adults around me, I helped collect dry clothes, food, and basic supplies and distribute them in refugee camps where people had barely made it out alive. 

Care and justice were not abstract ideas then. 

They were very real.

They were about hunger.

Fear.

Grief. 

Exhaustion. 

Survival.

People helped each other with whatever they had: food, shelter, bunker, information, transport, creative outlets, medicine, labour, care and humour. 

In that context, community was not a romantic idea. 

It was necessary.

It was how people stayed alive.

But of course, the issues were not only about escaping war.

Even while bombs were falling, the inequalities within our own communities did not disappear.

Caste, class, religion, gender, and other differences still shaped people’s lives.

They shaped who was seen. 

Who was helped.

Who was protected. 

Who was proritised. 

Who was believed.

Who was expected to serve.

Who was allowed to grieve. 

Who was remembered. 

Who was memorialised. 

So my understanding of activism was shaped by war, yes. 

But it was also shaped by another painful truth: sometimes violence lives inside the very communities we are trying to belong to, live in, and protect.

For nearly four decades, in different ways, I have been putting my body out there.

Being strong.

Being useful. 

Being responsible.

Showing up. 

Holding space.

And now, I feel a deep tiredness in my body.

Not just ordinary tiredness. 

Something deeper.

I think I ignored the needs of my body, mind, and spirit for a very long time.

I did not really permit myself to pause. 

Or to collapse.

Or to grieve.

Or to be held.

Or to say: this has affected me too. 

And the cost of that has been high.

Not only financially.

Emotionally.

Physically. 

Spiritually.

Relationally.

It has lived in my nervous system. 

In my sleep.

In my breath.

In the parts of me that kept going because I thought I had to.

I also carried, for a very long time, a huge responsibility to be there for others.

And I still value that.

I still believe in care.

I still believe in community.

I still believe in solidarity. 

But I can see now that sometimes, while being there for others, I abandoned myself.

And I want to be very clear. 

This is not a hero story.

I am not saying, “Look how much I have done.”

I am sharing this because I know some of you may recognise yourselves here. 

Maybe you also had to become useful very early.

Maybe you learned how to respond to crisis before you learned how to play, how to enjoy music, how to listen to your own body, or be in touch with your feelings.  

Maybe people praised you for being strong, while you quietly lost touch with your softness, your tiredness, your needs and desires.  

So I am sharing this in the hope that it meets someone where they are now, or reaches the younger self in them that still needs care. 

And maybe it helps more of us speak honestly about what we have carried. 

Not with shame.

Not with self-glorification. 

Just with honesty.

To say: yes, we showed up.

Yes, we cared.

Yes, we survived.

And yes, there were costs.

Maybe now we can ask different questions.

How might we do things better in the future? 

How do we keep caring without disappearing from ourselves?

How do we build communities where our bodies, minds, and spirits are not endlessly sacrificed in the name of survival or collective care? 

This season begins from there. 

From a body that has carried too much. 

From a spirit that is asking to be listened to. 

From the possibility that care, activism, and community can be reimagined. 

Not away from responsibility.

But toward something more honest. 

More sustainable.

More tender. 

Just the other day, before sitting down to rework this introduction, I was listening to an episode of Talk Tracks, from the creators of The Telepathy Tapes, which I have mentioned here before. 

They were talking about intuition, consciousness, intention, and the edges of what we call reality. 

And I had so many aha moments.

You know those moments when something does not just give you information, but opens something in you? 

It made me think: we need more conversations that are grounded, but also open. 

Conversations that are thoughtful, but not closed off. 

Conversations that stretch what we think is possible.

Because maybe reality is more layered, more mysterious, more relational, and more alive than many of us have been taught to imagine. 

And maybe we need to reimagine that together.  

My own consciousness has changed so much over time.

I first learned to understand the world through class, race, caste, and gender. Over time, feminist, queer, subaltern, and decolonial ways of thinking helped me keep learning, unlearning, relearning, and growing with others. 

I want to say that in simple terms, too. 

Over time, I learned to see power in different places. 

I learned to recognise the power I hold, and to use it with care, alongside others, and in ways that make a real difference. 

I learned to ask different questions.

I learned from people and movements that helped me understand the world and myself, with more care and more honesty. 

And through all of this, I have learned something precious.

Even when I feel alone, I am never truly alone. 

Others have faced similar struggles. 

Their wisdom, courage, and imagination travel with me.

That truth has carried me through many difficult phases of my life.

Maybe one day I will speak more deeply about those journeys here.

For now, I have been sharing glimpses. 

Little by little. As you could tell. 

Everything I create is shaped by a consciousness that is still evolving.

Still connecting.

Disconnecting.

And reconnecting.

With people, places, ideas, histories, and ways of being.

That is why I still choose this medium. 

There is something powerful about voice. 

Something about listening. 

So much ancient and indigenous history, memory, and knowledge have been carried through oral traditions.  

Something about the quiet companionship of a podcast, in these contemporary times. 

It lets honesty breathe.

This space has allowed me to be vulnerable and curious. 

Excited and terrified.

And it has reminded me again of the power of collective sharing, care, love, joy, creation, and solidarity. 

If the earlier seasons were about discovering and deepening empathy, perhaps this season is about living it more fully – or as my first guest of this season, Naveena, beautifully puts it, embodying empathy.  

With all its beauty. 

Its limits.

Its complexity. 

And its responsibility.

This season, you can expect conversations on healing, embodiment, belonging, grief, pleasure, justice, spirituality, creativity, and the many ways we try to stay human in complicated times. Times that make us question humanity, hope, and what it means to keep going. 

You may also hear a slightly different me this season. 

Softer in some places.

Sharper in others.

Slower. 

And more willing to trust silence. 

I imagine some of you listening while walking. 

Or resting.

Or cooking.

Or commuting.

Or grieving.

Or dreaming.

Or rebuilding.

However you arrive here, you are very welcome. 

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for listening, reflecting, and staying with me. 

And thank you for the 5-star ratings. They truly mean a lot. 

If you have not rated the show yet, please consider giving us 5 stars so more people can discover this space. 

And if this podcast speaks to you, please share it with your loved ones, your communities, or anyone who might need these conversations. 

I would also love to hear your thoughts, reflections, and feedforward. I will share my email in the description below. 

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

This is Caya, tuning out for now from The Hello Frequency. 

Until next time, keep tuning toward what connects us.