In this deeply intimate and soul-opening episode, we explore grief, self-trust, journaling, and the quiet courage it takes to return to yourself after unimaginable loss.

In this profoundly moving conversation, Kelly sits down with Marie Cruz, a coach, speaker, and retreat facilitator whose life has been shaped by resilience, reinvention, and radical self-honesty. Marie's story is not one of bypassing pain, but of learning how to sit with it, listen to it, and allow it to transform her from the inside out.

Raised in poverty in rural Louisiana, Marie became a young single mother and later built a successful corporate career. But her life shifted forever after the sudden loss of her mother, followed by the devastating loss of her son just two years later. What followed was not a search for answers outside herself, but a return inward.

Through years of journaling, spiritual inquiry, and deep emotional work, Marie developed what would become her signature process, The Nautilus Way, a guided journaling and self-inquiry method that helps women uncover truth, heal trauma, and reconnect with their essence.

In this episode of Broken Beautiful Me, Marie and Kelly speak openly about grief that rearranges everything, the loneliness of loss, and the power of creating spaces where women no longer have to protect others from their pain.

In this episode, Marie shares:

• 🌿 How grief reshapes identity and simplifies what truly matters

• 💔 Why losing a child changes the nervous system, the soul, and the way we see the world

• 📖 How journaling became a sacred portal for healing and self-connection

• 🌀 The four stages of her journaling process: reveal, review, rewrite, and rewire

• 🤍 Why women struggle to love themselves and how self-abandonment is learned early

• ✨ How intuition and inner guidance emerge when we stop silencing ourselves

• 🕊️ Why healing is layered and why we never "arrive" at the end

• 🌊 The power of women-only spaces, especially for bereaved mothers, to exhale fully

Marie also speaks candidly about her women's retreats, her work with grieving mothers, and why holding space without fixing is often the most powerful form of healing. She reflects on the courage it takes to trust inner wisdom, to stop editing ourselves, and to choose self-love even when it feels unfamiliar.

This is not a conversation about getting over grief.

It is about learning how to live alongside it with grace, truth, and presence.

A compassionate, grounding, and deeply human episode about loss, journaling, intuition, and the beauty that can emerge when we honor the cracks instead of hiding them.

Follow Marie Cruz

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/marieeurecrews

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/mariecrewsempowers

TikTok:

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

Book – Even When She Rose (Amazon):

https://a.co/d/dayGabK