When Life Breaks You Open: How Deep Loss, Identity Reconstruction, and Nervous System Healing Can Become Your Greatest Rebirth

What if the hardest chapter of your life is actually the beginning of your liberation?

In this powerful and deeply moving episode of Magics in the Mess, Danielle sits down with Annamarie Green — therapist, certified nervous system educator, speaker, and the creator of Love or Lose, the emotional regulation framework transforming the way women navigate conflict, triggers, and communication in relationships.

After losing her husband suddenly, Annamarie’s entire world shattered. What followed was not just grief — but a complete dismantling of identity, safety, and everything she thought she knew about herself. Instead of collapsing into the pain, she began studying healing at the root: the nervous system, survival responses, and the emotional patterns that silently run our lives.

This conversation is raw, grounded, and packed with the kind of truth that makes you exhale in relief. Together, Danielle and Annamarie explore the exact moment everything changed, how she rebuilt herself from the ground up, and the surprising ways trauma rewires your sense of worth, safety, and connection.

If you have ever lost someone, lost yourself, or found yourself in a season where your entire life feels unfamiliar… this episode will meet you exactly where you are.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

• Why the body responds to grief the same way it responds to threat
• The “Identity Freefall” that happens after deep loss, and why no one talks about it
• The truth about fawning, emotional shutdown, and why “being the strong one” becomes a survival strategy
• How nervous system dysregulation disguises itself as relationship problems
• The 5 types of anxiety (that are NOT what you think) and how to tell which one you have
• Why women struggle to communicate needs and how to break the cycle
• The exact moment Annamarie realized she had abandoned herself — and the step that began her healing
• The path to rebuilding self-trust, emotional safety, and identity after trauma

If you are ready to understand yourself more deeply, communicate with more power, and finally break the patterns that keep you stuck, this episode will change the way you move through your relationships — including the one you have with yourself.

CONNECT WITH ANNAMARIE:

Instagram: @annamariefgreen
Website: annamariegreen.com
Book her Love or Lose Workshop:
https://annamariegreenschedule.as.me/schedule/9b9d4d5b

CONNECT WITH DANIELLE:

Instagram: @_lifebydanielle
Website: www.daniellemckinley.com