You Are Worth All of It: Grief, Boundaries & Reclaiming Yourself After Loss
with special guest Melissa Crook of Embracing Layers, this is from an episode of the Pregnancy Loss and Motherhood Podcast, written in blog form! Please enjoy.
Hey, mama 💛
This week on the Pregnancy Loss and Motherhood Podcast, we’re having a real, raw, and beautifully honest conversation with Melissa Crook, host of the Feel Podcast and founder of Embracing Layers. She’s a mom of three, a coach, a woman who has lived through deep emotional trauma, and someone who, like so many of us, realized she had spent most of her life prioritizing everyone else… at the cost of herself.
Together, we went deep into everything from childhood trauma and emotional codependency to miscarriage grief, people-pleasing, and the radical act of coming back home to yourself.
“I Never Grieved That Baby.”
Melissa shared a story many of us know too well. Years ago, she experienced a miscarriage, the kind that was unexpected, never fully processed, and tucked away behind phrases like “I’m lucky I have three healthy kids” and “I shouldn’t complain.”
It wasn’t until decades later that she realized:
🌱 She had never truly grieved.
🌱 She carried shame and self-blame for the loss.
🌱 She told herself the pregnancy ended because she wasn’t “grateful enough.”
Let that sink in.
Even years later, she still remembers the physical moment of loss. She had a dream that made it all real. She minimized it. She moved on. She didn’t feel like there was space to mourn because she already “had so much.”
But loss is loss.
And grief is valid, no matter how long ago, no matter how short the pregnancy, no matter how much you “already have.”
Abandoning Ourselves in the Name of Doing It All
Melissa’s story, like yours, like mine, is layered. She grew up in a volatile household where she was taught to manage everyone’s emotions. Be small. Be quiet. Be helpful. And never, ever be a burden.
Sound familiar?
She became the overachiever, the helper, the people-pleaser. But eventually it all caught up. Her body broke down. Her soul cried out. Her nervous system finally whispered:
“It’s time to stop abandoning yourself.”
Together, we talked about the quiet, everyday ways women abandon themselves without even realizing it:
Staying up late to fold everyone else’s laundry
Skipping meals or workouts to do “just one more thing”
Saying yes to everything without checking your own capacity
Running your kids’ forgotten homework up to school (again)
Sacrificing peace to avoid disappointing others
And most of all…
That constant inner voice telling you: “I shouldn’t need this.”
You Are Worth All of It
Melissa’s entire framework and heart-led work comes back to three truths she lives by, and I’m sharing them here because YOU, my love, need to hear them too:
🌿 You are worth all of it.
All the love. All the rest. All the care. All the time.
🌿 You are valuable because of who you are.
Not what you do. Not your titles. Not your role. Just… you.
🌿 You get to choose alignment over approval.
You get to choose truth over expectation.
You get to choose you.
Start Small: The Self-Worth Check-In
Melissa also gave us a super practical tool you can try today (and we’ll drop her full worksheet below
📝 Ask yourself:
What are 5 activities that nourish me?
What are 5 words that describe how I want to feel in the next 6 months?
What are 5 character traits that define who I am (not what I do)?
Then check your calendar, your habits, your relationships:
Is anything aligned?
Is anything out of alignment?
If it doesn’t nourish, fulfill, or respect who you are—it might be time to make space for what does.
Gentle Reminder: You Don’t Have to Stay Small
Grief is messy. Healing is not linear. Trauma can live in our bones, our breath, our bloodline.
But you don’t have to stay stuck.
You don’t have to abandon yourself.
You are not an inconvenience.
You are worthy of being well-loved, seen, and held by others, and by yourself.
💬 Listen to the Full Episode
You can tune in to this powerful, heartfelt episode on The Pregnancy Loss and Motherhood Podcast wherever you listen.
🎧 We talk about:
Reclaiming your self-worth after emotional trauma
Grieving a miscarriage, you never felt “allowed” to mourn
Reparenting yourself and breaking old patterns
How to say NO without guilt (and mean it)
Why “curiosity over judgment” is your best self-healing tool
📥 Grab Melissa’s Free Resource
Melissa has created a beautiful self-worth reset worksheet you can download and use right now.
We’ll link it in the show notes or you can visit embracinglayers.com to grab it.
❤️ One Last Thing
Be so gentle with yourself this week.
If you need rest, take it.
If you need to cry, let it come.
And if today feels heavy, let that be okay too.
You are still growing.
And you don’t have to do it alone.
