Write Your Way Free: Healing Grief, Trauma, and Limiting Beliefs Through Journaling with Marie Crews

In this deeply moving and empowering episode, I sit down with Marie Crews, a coach, grief guide, retreat facilitator, and best-selling author, to explore how journaling can become a powerful pathway to healing, clarity, and self-trust.

Marie shares her extraordinary journey of resilience — from growing up in poverty in rural Louisiana, becoming a young single mother, and leaving corporate America to follow her calling, to navigating unimaginable loss after the sudden death of her son and her mother within two years of each other.

Through her signature process, The Nautilus Way: Write Your Way Free, Marie explains how intentional journal writing helps women:

• Integrate grief without being defined by it
• Release trauma stored in the body and subconscious
• Rewire limiting beliefs around worth, safety, and identity
• Reconnect with inner wisdom, confidence, and clarity
• Navigate life transitions with strength and intention

We also talk about why journaling is one of the most accessible yet underestimated healing tools, how it reveals hidden emotional patterns, and how women can use writing to reclaim their voice, self-trust, and sense of peace.

This episode is especially powerful for women who are grieving, rebuilding their lives, or feeling called to heal deeply and live with greater intention.

🎧 Listen in and remember: healing doesn’t require fixing yourself — it begins by listening to yourself.

Find Marie and all her offerings below: 

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https://www.facebook.com/marieeurecrews - this is my business & personal page

https://www.tiktok.com/@empowermentandgriefguide

https://www.instagram.com/mariecrewsempowers

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Transcript

 Welcome back to Worthy and Abundant. Today's guest is Marie Cruz. She's a life coach, speaker, retreat, facilitator, and bestselling author who's helped women step into their power for over 15 years. Through her signature journaling process, the Nautilus Way, she helps women rewire beliefs, integrate life's challenges, and build clarity and confidence.

Raised in rural Louisiana and driven by a desire to create a better life. Marie turned personal adversity, including the loss of her son, into a path of resilience now hosting transformational retreats at her Gulf front home. She empowers women to embrace their worth and step into abundant, intentional lives.

Marie empowers women to embrace their worth and live lives driven with. With and from Passion and intentions. She's also a certified health and wellness coach and the bestselling author of Even When She Rose. Welcome Marie to the show. I'm so glad you're here. You are the perfect guest for our show.

Worthy and Abundant. Thank you so much for inviting me for. Providing this space for us to share our stories so we can inspire whoever's meant for it. Absolutely. Thank you. So Marie, your work centers on journaling as a pathway to healing and your story carries so much depth and lived wisdom.

I'm really honored to have you here. My first question is, you've shared that journaling was the practice that anchored your healing over decades of personal transformation. What was it about writing versus other tools that felt so powerful and sustaining for you? I, for me, writing had always come natural.

I wrote a lot as a child, if you think about diaries, and then I kept journals and I wanted to write a fiction novel. When I was young. I, just learned that I was good at it. And so for me it, it was an easy flow. I like to tell people you don't have to be a good writer to be a journaler or to use journaling for self-healing, but for me it came pretty natural.

Nice. So I think the answer is that I, journaling didn't have a an a boundary like you can use a journal in the morning at night. I didn't have to wait for the therapist. And I'm a, an oral processor, but an outward processor and journaling allowed me to pull what was in me out onto the paper anytime.

And I didn't have to wait for an appointment or a friend to be available or whatever. So that is, I think what started it for me was like, oh, as these emotions are coming, as this pain is showing itself, whatever it happened to be at the time, I could just purge it right now and look and see what was there and what needed tending to.

That's very powerful. And I have a girlfriend coach, she's another coach and she uses it all the time and it's really interesting. Are you able to share what happened with your son and how old he was? Absolutely. So it's been about eight years. My son was 22. He committed suicide. I know some people are adverse to that terminology.

He chose to leave, he, whatever we wanna call it. It wasn't an accident per se, so yeah, he was 22. I was 44 at the time. I had him when I was 21. And it was no signs. No, no hint. No. Matter of fact, I've learned that's often the case. I didn't realize, you don't know that much about suicide until you live through it.

Very close to you. And my child by fire was my child, so I didn't know there were no signs. We spent the day together, he seemed. Very well. He had a hard life, so this wasn't I've watched and read stories about people who showed no signs, and they were very well adjusted to the world.

He wasn't, he had he was on the spectrum, just barely, but still some maladjustment, social, all these things. And his life was fairly traumatic. He was bullied. I could go through the story of his life, but there wasn't. Presenting signs at the time? No. There, there never had been. He had dealt a little bit or now that I know and I've run into friends and co, co people that knew him.

He had dealt with suicidal. Ideation, but I didn't know that. There had been a couple of scenarios that conversations, but not many, and nothing to indicate this was imminent. The signs you learn. Did he have drug did he have any issues with drugs or alcohol? No. No. Only that.

He was recreational. Okay. With a lot of it. As was I back in the day, no, his dad was an addict and I believe he was just super afraid of becoming an addict. So no, that did not come into play in this scenario that I know of. I'm very sorry. And the talks, reports would suggest that is accurate yeah.

I had even said two weeks before this to a friend who also had a daughter who was struggling, who had struggled a long time. I said, I feel like I can breathe, like he's gonna be okay. And what I meant by that had nothing to do with suicide. It had everything to do with just his instability. He, he had gotten his.

Feet under him, per se. He was in massage therapy school and he was excited and he even did a practice massage with me that day. And we talked about my husband and I being able to help him start a, his own practice and I'm, very forward thinking. But there were other things going on in the background and, we were close, but he.

I was a mama bear. And he probably withheld some of his struggle from me so that I didn't get into care mode or, I don't know. He didn't even know. I believe it was impulsive, but yeah it's awful. I'm sorry to hear this and I. I know that you have a daughter that's pregnant right now and I'm glad that you have a beautiful daughter that's gonna bring you a grandbaby and you were sharing before we hit record.

It doesn't make it any better. But my son had two friends that took their lives right around the exact age of your son and within a year of each other. One was a senior at Dartmouth and it's devastating and I really have a deep passion for. Young people and I wanna teach it. I started a nonprofit.

I started taking actions towards creating a nonprofit. But anyway, this keeps coming to me and it's, there's a reason. Back to the journaling, and thank you for sharing that vulnerable story and I'm grateful for you to share that with us and. The Nautilus way, write your way free. For someone hearing about this for the first time, what makes this approach different from traditional journaling or stream of conscious writing?

Interesting. It starts with stream of consciousness writing just as an opening to the inner soul. What makes it different is that I even had an niece who I had her go through an anise who's in her early mid twenties, had her go through the online course and gimme her opinion, and her comment said explain a little of this.

She said, I would journal, but I always felt like, what did that do? It didn't feel like a completion of anything to her, and it gave me some verbiage to explain what my processes, why it's different, why I believe it brings you closer to the healing. So I believe that journaling, if that's, if all you will do is get the emotions and the thoughts and the beliefs and things out of your body.

So healing because whatever, as events happen, we energy is created and when it's negative energy, often we ignore it and it gets stored. There's a really brilliant book called The Body Keeps the Score, and if we don't allow the emotions and the all of it to move through. Then it stores in the body and it causes disease and sickness.

There's evidence and scientific research on this, right? Absolutely. So what my process does is it starts with stream of consciousness, but then we have three more steps and the, so the first step is reveal, which is the stream of consciousness. What is going on inside of you and often like the moms or women in general?

I do retreats for just for moms who've lost a child and then I have all the rest of everybody dealing with grief or anything, divorce, anything. So what happens is often they say, I didn't even know that was there. I say that stream of consciousness journaling is an opening to the portal, to the, to what's hidden in the background of your mind that you're not even conscious of.

So that's the first step. It's called the reveal, and then we have the review. So we're gonna look at the stream of consciousness writing, and we're going to examine what pieces, parts of it in a very clear way process. We're gonna examine what, where are the pain points, what needs attention, what. Is happening.

That needs resolution, that needs to be heard and felt and seen. And then, so that's the review piece. And then we're going to do a rewrite, which is you're going to write to those pain points. You're going to find your truth. You're going to, is this the rewiring, like the rewiring part where you're actually, that's the rewrite.

Okay. So we're going to rewrite the story. To more truth. And there's a specific, nuance to that. What it really does is bring you back to I'd say the word could be calibration, but brings you back to alignment. Your center. Yes. To the problem though therein is, most of us don't know how to do that.

Because it, it requires self-compassion and self recognition. We have done. Because all we ever focus on is how we screwed up, especially as mothers, especially as wives, as daughters, as employees. I'm like, whatever. Our focus as humans is generally on what we have not done well or Right, or what we've ed up.

We're our worst critics. Yeah. So the medicine, if you will, is to get in touch with. The compassion that we all deserve, the credit that we all deserve, the recognition for our efforts and our healing and our tenacity and whatever else we are at our core to that is the me that's the missing piece. And often, or almost always, we believe that those things need to come from outside of us, right?

We're waiting for the world to give us permission that we're enough when the medicine is us learning to give ourselves permission for all of it. That's not to negate what I didn't get right, but it's to bring the full story to the table. And when we do that's where the healing's at. So the third step is the rewrite.

So we're gonna rewrite back to the full truth, not, oh, you didn't mess anything up to Yes. You messed some things up and you also got a lot of shit, right? Like that is the healing is the full picture. And then the rewire. Is the repetition and the practice of all of it. The rewire you set it into your, you healed your identity, how you see yourself, how you approach yourself, how you love yourself, and give yourself compassion by repeating the rewrites, by repeating.

And that's how we rewire the neuropathways. I love that. And then we learn. This new relationship with ourselves, but it's more true than the one that we had for most of our lives. The re So that's what makes it different. Yeah. I love that. The rewrite, is that something that, so you coach on where you are choosing the new beliefs and affirming the new beliefs.

From, yeah, so that, so because we don't know how to do that naturally, I embedded a workaround that we can, it's almost like borrowing a higher self until we can believe it. Until we can merge into it. It's yeah it's it. And that just happened organically because I was running women's retreats and I was trying to give them this journal practice that had quite literally saved me when I lost my mother in 2016 and then my son less than two years later.

This process that I was doing that I didn't even know it was a process had saved me. And and as it was saving me, I was also integrating. My identity at the same I didn't even understand what was happening other than there was something in me that really wanted to give it, I wanted them to get it.

Yo, this is so powerful. But I didn't know how to teach it. And all I knew was stream of consciousness. Like I, I didn't under, I didn't have a method. I was doing a method that I didn't understand. And so my. Inclination was to teach it. And I had, in order to teach it, I had to break it down. And I didn't even do that on purpose.

It just happened one one day with a group of ladies and it, I remember thinking, oh, I just created a process and then I've just honed it since, and now it's just solidified and beautiful, been truly effective. Oh, that's amazing. So my next question would be, what's a moment when you witnessed journaling unlock something for a client that they didn't even realize was there?

So probably the one that sticks out the most was. This lady, I did a workshop and I taught the stream of consciousness. We did a couple activities. I only had 30 minutes and she connected with me and I had a retreat coming up. So she said she wanted to come to the retreat. She comes to the retreat and she believes that she's coming to the retreat for X, Y, Z.

Like she's coming for this issue that she wants to resolve, and she does the writing and a different issue comes up. And she got angry, very, and I could tell 'cause she was ignoring me. And so that night I checked in and I said, Hey, are you okay now this retreat probably had, I don't know, 15 women. And she said, no, I think I'm gonna go home.

And I was like, okay. But I had done enough of my own work that. I had to just let her take care of herself, right? And I was like, I think that if you stay, you'll get what you came here for. It's probably not gonna look like what you came here for, what you think you came here for, but I think you'll get it.

And I said, but if you need to go that's okay too. She stayed. And what I learned from that is the thing you need next. To address the thing you think you need to address first is gonna show up if you just keep, if you keep showing up to you. 'cause really the journal is you showing up to you, to your inner workings, to your higher self, to whatever that is for you.

And so by Saturday, this was Thursday night. By Saturday, she said, I got more out of this and this journal process than I have gotten outta 10 years of therapy now. Having attended therapy most of my life, I understand that the work she's done for 10 years set her up to receive this. I'm not at all saying she got it just then.

She just was ready enough right at the retreat she had. She's gone on to go ahead. Oh, I was just saying she's, she had done some work and healed to a place where this showed up and that's great. And she has gone on to attend more retreats and to become a personal client of mine and I'm helping her actually write a book.

And and so that is probably the most impactful story. Maybe a close second is. A mom that didn't come to a retreat. She just found me online and we started working together. And after the very first session with me, which is her watching the online program, doing her first writing, and then us having a session, we go through it.

Then, so the first full session where she does her full writing, she comes to me, we work with it, she said, and now she is a mother who lost her child probably three years ago and also to suicide, and she said. I said, what? What did you feel like you got most out of this first thing, session or first go round of a full writing?

And she said, I realized how much of the way I see myself and my own healing or lack thereof is affecting my grief about my daughter. And it really has nothing to do with her. And that was like, like it, it really, wait, can you say it again? I'm sorry. So she realized that what did she realize? I'm trying, so she realized that her own, like her own unhealed wounds, how much they were playing a part of her grief that had nothing to do with the loss of her child.

Okay. And so therein. Started to really, it started to really coalesce that, is that the right word? Start to, I dunno. I'm in very menopause. It started to come together, I think that's the right word. But anyway, it starts to just gel that the way we grieve is largely hindered or helped by the, our ability.

In the distance we've come in our own healing, our own awakening, our own the way we see ourselves, and I give this example, if I view myself as the mother who didn't do enough for my son, who let him down, who ed it up, you know who. Didn't heal quick enough. If that is who I see myself to be, my grief is going to be substantially worse, harder, deeper, more impactful.

Like it's just going to make it more profound. Not that it's not because it's literally everybody's nightmare. But we can increase our suffering or we can decrease it. And I have gone to find that. Is very dependent on our identity, on how we see ourselves and how much truth we can bring to that.

So it's been interesting and truly healing to work directly with moms who've also lost a child, because I'm learning a lot about myself and about the stories I've created and where my pain points are and what still needs healing. Yeah, because we're never done right. Never done. I agree. So a lot of women say they want to journal, but they don't know.

They don't know what to write. What do you say to someone who feels blocked, intimidated, or disconnected from their inner voice? I just did a TikTok on this morning. I would, there's a few things. The first thing is you have to decide that the pain of going through it. Is going to be less than the pain of living in it forever, because if you don't go through it, you either hide from it or you marinate in it.

Those are the options, in my opinion. The next place, the next thing I would say is just look up stream of consciousness. Start somewhere. Just start. You're going to find yourself on the page, but. Hiding from her is way worse. Again I can't say that enough. Yeah, like the art, yeah. The artist's way. I was just telling a client today about the morning pages that the artist's way author suggests every morning for three pages.

That's what was my next, literally coming outta my mouth next, because that's what I said in my TikTok, because that's where I started with journaling. Really making it a habit a daily. I call this like taking a bath. It's an emotional bath. It's an emotional releasing daily. And and that doesn't mean crying every morning.

After I lost my son, it was that, but. When I was just like getting my feet wet, which was several years before I lost him, but the artist's way is what I started with. So I always tell people, go get the book. Some people are not readers, they're not gonna follow it, they're not gonna do it, but if they will, that is truly, and now I believe in a bigger, broader picture way that my daughter.

That was literally a gift from the universe. It prepared me in a way that nothing else could have to be able to move through this grief, and it prepared me for this work I'm doing now because she doesn't teach a system. She just teaches open. The portal. I don't know if she uses that word. If she did, I probably kicked it out back then 'cause it sounded woowoo and now I'm just like, I don't know.

I don't even have a better word. But the next thing I would say is get the book. Yeah. Read if you're interested in looking inward without going to therapy, get that book because it could open something in you without. Scaring you too much, yeah. I think there's many different things, but I told the girl today, even in the book, she'll say, if you have nothing to write, you write, I have nothing to write.

You just start writing. I have nothing to write. I'm supposed to write three pages, and then stuff just comes out. That's in your mind, oh, I'm thinking about this, or I'm, and it just pours out. And then you, yeah, it's powerful too. It's creative. It's, there's so many things about it, but, yep that's what I done on my TikTok. I was like, and in my retreats when they're sitting there and I say, okay, we're gonna do a five minute writing, and here's the only rule. The pencil doesn't quit moving for five minutes. Say, I hate this. This woman is nuts. I don't wanna be here. Whatever you are thinking, put it out on the paper and five minutes will go by.

And then we just get to build. Efficacy, like you just get to do the pushups and get stronger and more comfortable, and then you'll see. Then we just build on that, but yes. Yeah, exactly that. And that's what I did, and it all turned into all of this. Yeah. It's amazing. On this podcast, we talk about worthiness and abundance, not just financially, but emotionally and spiritually.

How much, how does journaling help women move from survival into a more abundant, intentional life? I think I said it already, but it. Bears saying again that when we move from our image of ourself being the woman who's not gotten it right, who is never can keep up, or who isn't doing enough or, we look at ourselves as failure when this journal process moves you to seeing.

Did I drop the ball with my son sometimes? Of course I did because every mom does. I was broken in the middle of raising children in my twenties. Of course, I screwed it up, but I got a lot of things right. I showed up. I went to therapy. I healed while I was raising them. I gave them a voice. They both became human rights.

People like, not for me, you love. I'm sure you get showed and gave them love, but I didn't give myself the credit because all I could see was where I had failed, and that is the answer. When you move into your identity, becomes your truth. You messed up and you got a lot of things right. You messed up and you loved your kids fiercely, and you protected them to the best of your ability.

You messed up a lot. Yes. You lost your temper. Yes. You yelled at them. Yes, you did whatever you did and you loved them with every fiber in your being and the and is where the medicine is because we are taught not to do that and. Rewiring involves the whole truth. And one of the things that I came to before I lost my mother, thank God, is because is that I realized that yes, I was mad at my mom for all the things she didn't do, but I wasn't giving her credit for all the things she did do.

And when I gave her the credit for all the things she did do, my compassion level rose. I learned to do that for her before I learned to do it for myself, and that is what will bring a sense of worthiness back. To anyone who feels unworthy. Whether it's because somebody told them, or usually it's because we told ourselves so many times, hundreds of times.

We learned from a young age, from the, programming and society and our parent caregivers, whoever, not intentionally, but we got messages when we were in theta state when we were zero to seven. We got messages that we weren't good enough and it sticks with you. Yeah, I clearly, we teach what we need.

So I also teach worthiness and yeah, and I started going to shul like a few months back, like weekly. And I learned so much straight from, rabbi and his wife. And we are all inherently worthy. Whether you make a mistake or not, whether you look a certain way or not, it doesn't matter.

Just for breathing, just for being alive, you're worthy. So you know you're a child of God, so we're all worthy, even if you made, bad choices or whatever. So I love that. Message and we're good enough and, it's just it's all very interesting, this whole journey.

But I do have a friend who lost her son to suicide as well. She's also a podcaster and I will likely connect you two. And. For a woman listening today wanting to begin a journaling for healing gently and safely, what's one simple way she can start? Today or tonight? I would say start a timer, even if it's for three minutes, and start writing and put your pen on the paper.

And even if you have to say, I have no idea if this is gonna work or not, but I'm willing to show up for me. And I know that if I show up for me, something's gonna come out of it and set a timer for three minutes. And if it goes off and you wanna keep going. Just don't think the trick is to get out of the brain and into the heart and the heart's gonna flow through the pencil.

And probably one of my favorite things I ever heard. You will find yourself on the pages of the paper. And it was I thought it was corny until I found the other parts of myself that I had denied, and that's when I started to really heal. Can you share, unpack that a little bit about the different parts?

Yeah. So for, probably the first year of my journaling, I would just journal all about everything I messed up. That's all I did for a while until one of the exercises in the artist's way. She just having you to go look for not the stream of consciousness journaling. An activity she gave was to go look for the person who was most critical in your life.

We're looking for a person. And then my discovery was, it was me. So we were, I think that's. Many women, but I was a latchkey kid. My mom raised four kids on her own, no child support. We were poor. And she was depressed because of her own issues, her own right. She felt traumas. And so we raised ourselves well.

My voice in my head was brutal. And so what I found, who I found on the paper was not her. I knew her well, who I found on the paper was. The Marie, who was also big hearted and generous and kind when she wasn't sassy and protecting herself, and the Marie who adored her kids and made them costumes and went to Barnes and Noble at night for Harry Potter release, and I wasn't, none of those things were ever in play in my mind.

It was always the negative. The committee was critical. It was bad. It was, why can't you save your husband? Why can't you go to therapy enough? Why this isn't working? He's not getting better. Like I was owning all of that. And so I found myself on the paper and what I found was a version of myself that was there all along that wasn't getting seen and admired and given compassion.

And in that way, I saved myself. I. The one who I, Byron Katie says this, she's my favorite. Oh yeah. I'm the one I was always waiting for and I thought it was going to be my new husband or my children. God bless. You ain't getting much from them until they're older. So yeah, that's. I would say if you're looking to start, just start.

Just start. That's amazing. Yeah. I was gonna bring up Byron Katie, because the work, like she always says, is it true? Is it really true? And then she puts the eye in front like and it's so powerful because in what you just said, like when you were doing the journaling and you. You discovered your high, like your higher self or your loving compassionate self, and like it was, that's so beautiful.

Oh my goodness. So I didn't even know I was looking for her and I did. Byron Katie's the work. Prior to the artist's way, so I already had the questioning ability, but her, I found Byron Katie's work for me at the time too. Too convoluted or not convoluted. Her work is brilliant. I found it. Too, maybe too much of a mirror for me at the time, but like the stream of consciousness, just let it come in pieces.

I don't know how to explain why that didn't work for me, I am a fan of questioning. I'm a fan of bringing the rest of it in and looking at what else could be true. What are the other things besides the only thing your brain is coming up with, so I, Byron Katie is probably I, matter of fact, after I lost my son when I was ready, I went and looked up a video of the work that she did with a mom on like, how could I reframe this?

And that was brutal. But it was possible. And she's the one who helped me reframe his life into perfection. He came and he left on time. I'm not condoning it. I'm not saying I'm glad. I'm saying it is what it is. And for me, that belief, I had to stop fighting what is, which is Byron Katie's work. So that I could get to a place of.

Some semblance of joy again, like because if I just fought it. And so anyway, I returned to her work in my, some of my darkest hours when I was ready for some relief and some reframing. Amazing. Thank you for sharing everything so beautifully. You're welcome. And for all the people you're helping where can listeners connect with you and learn about your retreats and or experience the Nautilus Way?

So all of that is on my website, marie cruz.com. It's spelled, I'm guessing you're gonna link it at C-R-E-W-S. There's a link at the top for retreats. I have two. To, the defying the gravity of grief for moms who've lost a child. And then I have relax and renew, which is every other category for women.

And some moms come to those. But we only, the other ones are exclusive. And then under work with me, you can do a free consultation also. The Nautilus way, the journal writing online series is on under work with me. And then you can just, yeah, read more about my story and the things, but I've covered most of it, but everything's on there.

And also my social links. Facebook is my main platform. I'm just really starting to expand on TikTok. All of that is also linked. My website just is the easiest place to find all the avenues to me. Nice. One last question. Everything. After everything you've lived and guided others through, what do you now believe about the healing power already inside women?

Oh, that's my favorite. We, nobody has your answers, but you they're in there. They're just in there in you. I like to think about this, and this will sound maybe too spiritual. I don't know, but like our spirit self, right? Our nonphysical Marie comes into my body. She's there in me, ready to give me the answers I'm looking for, but I have to open the door.

I have to look. And look, but my answers are in me. And as facilitators, as coaches, all we are doing as therapists, all any of us are doing is helping guiding all of us in inside to find the, just Go within and I uniquely believe, whether you use my process or just journal, that you will find.

What you're looking for if you just don't quit. And if you just don't give up. Absolutely. You just keep going within, so yeah, I, that's. A lot of times people, they want you to give 'em an answer and I'm like, I don't have the answer. I don't have your answer. Yeah. I think Gabby Bernstein says, we are our own GU guru.

You are your own guru. And I totally agree. It just takes time for clarity and sometimes it takes being quiet or journaling to. Hear the answers because when you're in the chaos and the noise and like never having a moment to yourself, it's hard to hear that, inner guide. Of course. Yeah. I think the greatest gift that we can give ourselves is the gift of understanding and learning to trust my own ability to solve everything.

That is the greatest gift you can have because once I trust me to find the answer, whether I can write it, whether I can call somebody, whether I can have a session, whether I watch a movie or I read a book. When I trust that I can find the answer some kind of way then that is literally the key to all of it.

It, it sums it up. You're not lacking knowledge, you're lacking self-trust. 'cause when you have that, you can surmount anything. And I say that a lot about if I can get where I'm at, I after what I've been through, then it's just proof that anybody can. Overcome and rise above wherever they find themselves.

No matter what. No matter what. And I happened to have known some of that before I lost my son. Yeah. Yeah. How long after were you able to, how long after losing him were you able to find some peace or joy like. During the work and the journaling

wow, I don't, it wasn't too long after that I went back to my journal. I took a break 'cause I knew I would need her there and I didn't want to see it. I was living it. I was trying to breathe. But then when I went back in. I was able to give myself, some grace on the pages. I was able to hear from him because I had already honed that skill.

Oh, nice. But it took a while. I continued to move in my life. I have a husband who I adore and a life that I really enjoyed, and a daughter who deserved. For me not to drown in grief. And so I forced myself to do some things, not all, and I'm not suggesting that there were things that I said, no, I'm not going.

I can't handle it. I can't emotionally, I don't have the bandwidth for it. But there were things that I just. Brought myself too. And it was hard. And it was heavy, those first few times I laughed or smiled even, I remember guilt, washing in because like, how can you be okay? If your kid's dead?

Like it was such a, it just so much hard for my brain to absorb. But it probably wasn't too long, but. I'm just tenacious too. That's, and I was like yeah. So just, and you refused to let grief define you. I decided somebody said that at his service, don't let it define you. And I was pissed.

I was like that's easy because it's not your kid. But at some point there is a decision. There is a decision. Yeah. And I think all too often we believe. Because society says this, that, or we feel it too, right? Because at first you're so tied to the grief like the mourning in your chest the heaviness the weight is, so it's how you feel them.

It's what you think you're feeling is them. But there's a place, I just did this on TikTok this morning too, like there's a place that of healing you can get to where. Yeah, you feel 'em in the heaviness and sadness, but you feel them, you connect with them again in the memories. And I can talk about what a little shit my son was and I can, I can talk about how he messed with me and how we fought and like I can bring the full story without the tears and I believe that's available to everyone.

But they have to be willing and they have to even have hope that's there. And then they have to. Keep going. Yeah. They have to keep healing and keep looking and deciding I don't want deciding. Let it define me. Deciding. You're not gonna dwell in the sadness and dwell in the grief because you're here to, you're still here.

So it's, you've gotta enjoy what you know, it's loft is, it's hard. Yes, and I would say to the moms. Or the parents out there who are in fresh brand new grief, that's not the moments that the decision needs to happen. Yeah. We wanna honor where we're at. Feel it. There will be a breath that you will take at one point and it'll be get clear.

Like you'll know okay, not that I've grieved enough, 'cause I'm still grieving, I still was doing my video this morning and I started crying. That there will be a moment where there's a breath of desire to feel something besides this. And when that happens, I would recommend that you just walk outside, that you touch a flower that you ground your body and yourself in, the now.

You allow it to be Okay. And that process is long and hard. One of the things I instinctively did was I just kept whispering to myself, as I'm crying, literally crying, going through his stuff or crying 'cause I see his picture or just crying, I would say, you're okay. You're okay. This is sad, it's heavy.

I was acknowledging, but I was, you were reparenting yourself. You're okay. You were being your own parent and saying, you're saying that's exactly what I was doing. And. That is what got me through, and that was just instinct. I just, nobody said, tell yourself that. I just literally said it again and again and again, and some days I would say I'm not okay.

I don't think I'm okay. And then I would say, but I'm gonna be I'm gonna be, I'm gonna figure this out. I'm gonna, I'm gonna get there. I love that. Yeah. And it still helps me, in a crunch. It still is something that I go to when, started this menopause thing and felt like I was losing my brain.

I also used the same technique, which was like, I don't know what's going on with me, but I'm gonna figure it out. I'm gonna be okay. Yeah, I was crying all the time recently, and then I found a product called, it has Dim in it, DIM. Yeah, I'm on that. Yeah. And oh my God, it's like night and day. 'cause I was like emotional.

So emotional. Yes. Like embarrassingly emotional and now it's like complete opposite. Yeah. So yes, I keep telling everybody about it. 'cause I wanna, we're all one anyway. We're all one. You're me. I'm you. Yes. So yes. Yeah. This has been amazing though. Thank you for sharing everything. I know we could go on and on and I probably will continue talking to you after we stop recording, but I just wanna say thank you for all the work you're doing in the world to help these women and for sharing your story and your journey.

And I know there's so much more, but people will direct them to your website and Sure. Anything that you wanna share? No I just wanna thank you again for those of you who are putting the effort and the work in to provide the space because the more of us who can share the more. And heal.

It's all gonna come across and we're gonna help heal more and more women or whoever happen to hear it. And, but it takes those who are, providing the space. I plan to start a podcast, but yeah, it's a lot. Yeah. It'll be just for moms who've lost a child, okay. Yeah. I've got a couple people to connect you with.

We'll talk again soon. Thank you for sharing. And, it's been amazing. Thank you, Linda.