“There’s room in your heart and in your memory for more than one person,” Vassos recalls a mental health professional telling her.

Joan Vassos opens up about understanding her grief over the loss of her late husband, John.

The inaugural golden bachelor61, spoke to PEOPLE about dealing with unresolved feelings of grief after John’s death while looking for love on the ABC dating show.

“I struggled with it in the middle of the season,” she says. “licensee it gives you access to psychiatrists who are actually in the mansion with you on the show and that’s how we did that. I actually had a meeting with them and talked about what was going to be, why it was so hard for me to move on in this journey, and that I felt like I was still in love with John and that I would never be in love with l. And they say, “Well, that’s all right.”

“They said, ‘Imagine as if you had a balloon in each hand. One is John and one is this other person that you have feelings for and you don’t have to give that up to have that one,’” she continues. “There is room in your heart and in your memory for more than one person.” And I just needed to hear that it was okay. I wasn’t supposed to stop loving John and I didn’t know it.”

With the help of mental health professionals and the fast pace of the show, Vassos says she was able to overcome the hurdle of opening her heart to someone else.

“I’ve evolved a lot over the season,” she explains. “I went in there thinking I was so ready to find love and then I realized it was a much different journey than I thought it would be. But I feel like I’ve grown and I don’t think I’d ever be where I am today if I hadn’t done that because it kind of gave me the motivation to get over some of those emotions quickly because I wanted to finish. up with someone.”

Vassos adds that he feels he is now “exactly where I should be”.

Related: The Golden Bachelor Eliminations: Who’s Still Fighting for Joan Vassos’ Heart and Who Didn’t Get a Rose?

When she first came on the show, Vassos says she didn’t know how the journey would play out — and reveals she was also skeptical about falling in love with multiple people.

“I thought it would be impossible, that I would never, ever, ever have feelings for more than one person,” she says. “He looked very different from me and I was really wrong. I ended up having feelings for more than one person, and that was surprising.”

Vassos, who was in season 1 of The Golden Bachelor, he was sent home in the third week to focus on family matters. Because she didn’t have much time on the show, she said that returning as the Golden Bachelorette was a particularly new experience for her.

“I really hadn’t spent that much time in the mansion,” she recalls. “And the rigors and how exhausting it all is, and it’s such an exhausting emotional journey – it’s a lot of hours every day. So it was very surprising, very much. At midseason he said, “It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

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The Golden Bachelor airs Wednesdays at 8pm ET on ABC.