When Grief Reshapes Who You Are

These past few weeks have changed me in ways I’m still trying to understand. Miscarriage isn’t only a physical experience; it also transforms your identity, routines, energy, and relationship with yourself. It’s like watching pieces of your life slip through your fingers while you’re doing everything you can to breathe.

My laundry baskets are overflowing.
The house feels heavy.
I haven’t journaled.
I haven’t moved my body.
I haven’t created.
I haven’t been myself.

It’s wild how grief shows up in the smallest places; the undone tasks, the routines you used to love, the things that once grounded you. It’s not that I don’t want to do them… It’s that my mind and body don’t feel like my own right now.

Miscarriage shifts you. It takes the version of you that existed before and pauses her. Instead, you meet a new version: quiet, overwhelmed, raw, tender, and navigating emotions you’ve never had to hold before.

Miscarriage reshapes you physically, emotionally, and spiritually. You’re still you… but also not you. You’re grieving someone you never got to meet while trying to rebuild the woman you were before.

This has been one of the heaviest and most transformative moments of my life. And through it, I’m learning to hold myself with softness. To accept support without guilt, to honor the ways my body is protecting me, and to trust that healing isn’t linear. It happens moment by moment, breath by breath.

And then there’s the question that keeps echoing in my chest:

Who am I going to be after this?

It’s a question I never thought I’d have to ask myself, not in this way, not for this reason. But miscarriage doesn’t just take something from you… It changes you.

It pauses the version of you who existed before and introduces you to a version you’ve never met.

• A version who is softer in some places and stronger in others.

• A version who feels everything more intensely.

• A version who is learning how to mother herself through the ache.

And I know I won’t be the same woman I was before this. Maybe I’m not meant to be.

This experience is shaping me; not in the way I would have chosen, not in a way I understand yet, but in a way that is asking for depth, for reflection, for rebirth.

There’s a version of me being formed in the stillness, in the tears, in the incomplete tasks, in the quiet moments where my heart feels too heavy to carry. She’s not here yet, but I feel her coming.

A woman who knows her capacity.

Who honors her body.

Who lets herself feel instead of pushing through.

Who moves with deeper intention.

Who speaks her needs with softness and strength.

Who trusts her intuition fiercely.

Who doesn’t rush her healing.

Who rises slowly, beautifully, intentionally; not back into who she was, but forward into who she’s becoming.

So when I ask, “Who am I going to be after this?” The honest answer is:

Someone new. Someone softened. Someone strengthened. Someone reborn.

Healing from miscarriage isn’t just recovery, it’s transformation.

And I’m learning to trust that the version of me on the other side will carry wisdom, compassion, and depth that only this season could have carved into me.

If you’re asking yourself the same question, if you’re wondering who you’ll be after your world has shifted, please know this:

You are becoming someone you’ve never met, and she will be whole. She will be powerful. She will be tender. She will be you… just a new chapter of you.

And there’s something else I’ve been sitting with…

I’ve always seen myself as a resilient, strong woman. Someone who has faced challenge after challenge and found a way through. Someone who can take pain, turn it into fuel, stare my demons in the face, and rebuild myself from the ashes.
I’ve always been good at rising.
I’ve always been good at fighting through the dark.
I’ve always been good at turning pain into purpose.

But this… this is different.

This isn’t a challenge I can “power through.” This isn’t something I can grit my way out of or outwork or outthink. This isn’t the kind of pain that becomes fuel overnight.
This is a softness.
A surrender.
A heartbreak that requires a different kind of strength; the kind that doesn’t roar, but whispers. The kind that doesn’t push, but leans. The kind that doesn’t fight, but feels.

This version of me isn’t the warrior woman charging forward. She’s the woman learning how to breathe again. How to sit inside her own heart without collapsing. How to let grief move through her instead of trying to conquer it.

And maybe that’s the lesson. Maybe this is shaping me into a stronger version of strength, one that isn’t based on fighting but on allowing. One that doesn’t require armor but asks for openness. One that doesn’t demand action but invites healing.

So when I wonder, “Who am I going to be after this?”

I think the answer is:

A woman who has learned a new kind of strength, the strength of feeling, the strength of slowing down, the strength of being human.

And if I’m being completely honest…

There are moments when I look at myself in the mirror and it feels like I’m staring death in the face.
Not in a dramatic way, in a truthful way.
My skin looks different. My eyes look tired. My energy feels muted. There was even a moment where I swore my skin looked pale, almost greenish, like my body was trying to hold on to something it shouldn’t have to carry.

And it hits me all over again: I am still carrying a baby who didn’t make it. My child is gone, and yet still inside me. There is a quiet grief in that, a grief I don’t think anything could have prepared me for.

It’s a strange and painful reality to live in: to walk around with life inside you that’s no longer alive.

To feel physically changed while emotionally breaking open. To smile at someone in public while holding a secret heartbreak in your womb.

Sometimes I stand there in the mirror and think: How is this real life? How is my body still holding something my heart has already said goodbye to?

Nobody talks about this part; the in-between, the waiting, the staring at yourself and not recognizing the woman you’re looking at, the feeling of being suspended between life and loss. It’s a grief that doesn’t sit on the surface: it sits in the body. In the skin. In the eyes. In the breath. In the places nobody can see. And yet… here I am. Still breathing. Still standing. Still slowly finding my way through this unfamiliar version of myself.

The Healer Being Held

One of the most unexpected parts of this journey has been what it revealed about my role as a coach, a guide, a healer.

For so long, I’ve been the one holding others: holding space, holding emotions, holding breakthroughs, holding transformation, holding my clients’ hearts as they rise into their next chapter.

LIMITLYSS has always been my sanctuary of strength. The place where I show up grounded, open, aligned, and ready to pour love, clarity, and guidance into the women who trust me.

But this experience… this loss… this identity shift… It showed me something I never truly allowed myself to feel before:

The healer can be held, too.
The guide can collapse for a moment.
The strong one can soften.
The one who pours can receive.
The one who supports others can be supported.
And she’s still worthy.
She’s still powerful.
She’s still her.

Through this pain, I’ve been met with so much love; women reaching out, checking in, sending prayers, sending softness, sending reminders that I don’t have to carry everything alone.

I’ve always been the holder, and now I’m learning how to be held. And that, in itself, is healing.

I am so grateful for every message, every prayer, every “thinking of you,” every moment of gentleness from the LIMITLYSS women and from the people who feel my heart even when I’m quiet.

In the middle of one of the darkest seasons of my life, I have never felt more loved.

This experience is teaching me something new: that strength isn’t only in what you carry. It’s also in what you allow yourself to receive.

Grief Wears Many Faces

If there’s one thing this season has taught me, it’s that grief isn’t limited to loss of life; grief shows up in so many different forms.

Grief can be: the end of a relationship, the loss of a job, a move to a new city, a friendship fading, a version of yourself you outgrew, a dream you had to let go of, a chapter you didn’t want to close, or the quiet heartbreak of change you never asked for.

Grief isn’t always loud. It’s not always tears. It’s not always obvious.

Sometimes grief looks like: laundry piling up, unread messages, no energy to cook, silence instead of conversation, unfinished tasks, a messy home, a body that feels heavy, a spirit that feels muted. And sometimes the people experiencing it have no words left to explain. So if you’re supporting someone who’s grieving, no matter what they’re grieving, remember this:

Support isn’t always about fixing.
It’s about feeling.
It’s about noticing.
It’s about presence.

Support can sound like:

• “I’m coming over to sit with you.”

• “Let’s do one small thing together.”

• “I’ll walk with you.”

• “You don’t have to talk. I’m just here.”

• “Let’s open the blinds.”

• “Let’s breathe outside for a minute.”

• “I see you.”

• “You’re not alone.”

People don’t always need answers. They need companionship. They need someone who steps in softly. They need to be held, not managed.

No matter what your grief looks like right now, whether it’s miscarriage, heartbreak, identity shift, burnout, or the quiet loss of a life you thought you were building, I want you to know this: Your grief is valid. Your heaviness is not a flaw. And you deserve people who can meet you where you are.

Grief changes us. But it also grows us. Slowly, gently, we become someone deeper, wiser, softer, and more aligned with ourselves than we’ve ever been.

You will find your way back.
Piece by piece.
Breath by breath.
Day by day.

And you don’t have to walk it alone.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for holding this space with me.

Thank you for seeing me in a chapter that has felt heavy, confusing, and transforming all at once.

Grief has a way of reshaping us from the inside out.
It slows us down. It humbles us. It strips away the noise.
And it invites us into a deeper version of ourselves, even if we didn’t ask for it.

There is no right timeline for healing. No perfect way to move through heartbreak. No “before” you need to rush back to.

Just breathe. Just softness. Just one small moment at a time.

And when you’re ready, you will rise again, not as who you were, but as the woman this season has quietly, sacredly shaped you to become.

I’m walking this path in real time with an open heart, deep gratitude, and so much love for anyone who is navigating their own version of grief.

We are not alone in this. We are becoming, together.

With Love & Light,

Coach Lyss xo