A Little More You

Grief after any loss: divorce, job loss, a diagnosis, infertility, death The 2 family vacations after my daughter's stillbirth and the mom I grieved on them Why the event is only part of what dies Possible selves: the psychology behind the future you carry in your head (Markus and Nurius, 1986) Sobbing on my living room stairs in my 20s and what I was grieving Disenfranchised grief: Kenneth Doka's...

Episode Notes What we talk about: The sleepwalking feeling after loss, and why looking fine and being fine aren't the same thing How years of living by other people's expectations can leave a quiet exhaustion in your body My reckoning on a rock overlooking Lake Tahoe, 4 months after losing Adeline and my dad Robert Neimeyer's meaning reconstruction model, and how loss can shake up your beliefs and...

In This Episode: [0:00] Intro: How much time are you spending in the present moment? [1:05] The story of my daughter's stillbirth and family vacation [3:22] Why grief lives in the present moment [4:13] The two exit strategies our culture teaches us [4:40] The vision board story (4 months after loss) [6:27] Why we haven't been taught to feel our feelings [10:26] My five-year fertility journey and t...

Topics covered: Relief vs. real change: the crucial difference The survival mode cycle and escape containers Why vacations and wellness retreats feel good but don't create lasting transformation What integration actually means Small intentional actions vs. big dramatic life changes Real-life story: Bali, forgiveness, and aligned action Real-life story: Intentional changes and the unexpected layoff...

Topics Covered: The cultural myth of resilience (and why it's actually suppression) How our workplace and social systems are designed to keep us in toxic resilience The real cost of pushing emotions down (it lives in your body) The difference between toxic resilience and genuine resilience How grief reveals what actually matters to you The 3-step framework: Feel it → Understand it → Act on it Kend...

The cultural messages we received about emotions (and why they're wrong). Emotions as information: what your brain is actually doing when you feel something. The difference between a feeling being valid and being true. Why suppressed emotions become stored energy in your body. The chronic fatigue connection: unprocessed emotions and exhaustion. Therapy vs. feeling: Why talking about emotions isn't...

Grief has a way of stripping every expectation off your life until only the truth remains. In this episode, Kendra shares the season of loss that changed her, and what she found once the noise was gone. In this episode: [00:29] What grief strips away, and what it leaves behind [01:22] Kendra's story: the losses that shaped a decade of her life [02:41] The one loss that changed everything [03:22] T...

Episode 1: 12 Years After Losing My Daughter, My Body Was Still Holding Grief In the first episode of Truth After Loss, Kendra Merrill sets the stage for the podcast and shares three cultural messages about grief that she's learned aren't true. What we cover: Why "getting over" grief isn't the goal, and what to aim for instead How grief stays with you for life, even as its intensity changes Why un...

Trailer for Truth After Loss Podcast.

In this episode: Why "just shift your mindset" stopped being enough for so many women What science actually says about somatic intelligence and where it falls short How school, religion, corporate culture, and even the self-help industry trained us to override our inner knowing Why the rise of AI makes reclaiming this capacity more urgent than ever Three practices to start expanding your capacity...

In this episode, Kendra gets personal about something most of us haven't connected yet — how a nervous system running in chronic survival mode quietly shapes every relationship in your life. She shares her own story, the patterns she's recognized in herself and the women she works with, and what becomes possible when you start to heal. Not perfect relationships. Real ones.

What if the story you've been telling yourself about who you are… was never really yours? In this episode, we're getting into something I believe is the most foundational work a woman can do — understanding her core beliefs. Not in a therapy-speak, clinical kind of way. In a real, this-is-running-your-whole-life kind of way. We cover: What core beliefs actually are (and why they're not facts) How...

In this episode we cover: [00:00] Introduction — Why this conversation matters right now [01:00] What are we actually chasing? [03:00] The pursuit of happiness — traced back to 1776 and the Declaration of Independence [05:00] How cultural norms shape what we believe will make us happy [07:00] Why we exhaust ourselves chasing everyone else's version of happiness [08:00] Kendra's personal story — th...

In this episode, Kendra explores the cultural pressure to find and chase a life purpose — and why that pressure left her feeling more shame than inspiration for most of her life. She shares four truths about meaning that changed her perspective: meaning is felt not figured out, presence reveals what's meaningful, how you show up matters more than what you accomplish, and service emerges naturally...

In this episode of A Little More You , we explore what happens when we set goals and make decisions without first checking in with ourselves. So many women are busy, capable, and doing what they were taught to do, yet still feel exhausted or disconnected. Often, it isn’t because they’re doing too little, but because their direction was shaped by pressure, expectation, or external voices rather tha...

In this episode, we explore how to make life decisions that feel aligned with your true self instead of driven by pressure, expectations, or fear. You will learn: Why so many of us were taught to ignore our inner knowing. How to recognize the difference between fear and intuition. The physical and emotional signs of soul aligned guidance. How to rebuild trust with yourself through small, gentle ch...

Why Change Feels Hard and How to Soften Into It Change often feels harder than we expect, even when it’s something we truly want. In this episode, we explore why resistance shows up and why it isn’t a personal flaw or lack of willpower. It’s a natural response shaped by how our brains are wired and the world we’re living in. In this episode, we look at: Why resistance to change is a protective bra...

So many women are doing everything they’re supposed to do and still feel drained, burnt out, and unfulfilled. This video breaks down the deeper cause of that exhaustion and the simple shifts that help you reconnect with your true self.