AVON LAKE — It’s the little things in life that make Emily Capuria the happiest, like playing outside with her son Mac, 5, and supportive husband, Mark. 

“It’s like a free happy, nothing else matters,” said Capuria. “I'm so grateful for how things have come together.”

What You Need To Know

  • A northeast Ohio woman took the pain from her miscarriage and turned it into a purpose

  • A miscarriage is when an embryo or fetus dies before the 20th week of pregnancy

  • While it is relatively common, it can be emotionally difficult

But the journey to her life today was anything but easy. Capuria struggled with unexplained infertility for years and had a miscarriage in 2009. 

“I had seen the heartbeat of my baby just a few weeks before and then for that to go in and find out that heartbeat stopped, like, I felt like mine did too, you know? I don't know how else to say other than completely broken,” said Capuria. 

Instead of hiding from that pain, she turned it into a purpose. She launched a coaching business in 2012 called Balance and Thrive where she helps women going through hardships find good in the bad. 

“Whatever the struggle is, and I want to normalize the conversations, I want people to know that they're not alone, I want people to know that you can do this hard thing, you already are doing the hard thing, right, and that you can find your way through,” said Capuria. “You can be dealing with a hard thing and build your life around the good, it doesn't negate the pain, it doesn't take that away. It doesn't mean that you're going to candy coat or sugarcoat or pretend that, like, put a positive spin on that hard thing. It's not about that at all right? It's about making room for both so that you can breathe and find your purpose and your happiness and your joy in your day to day.”

 

Capuria knows what it's like to feel alone and broken, but she also knows what it’s like to find new purpose and meaning and to be able to find happiness again. She uses her experiences to give women the tools to create the life they want because she knows firsthand life can be messy, but it can also be beautiful.  

“There's 5 million things, marriage can be stressful sometimes, having a business,” said Capuria. “And so instead of trying to make that look perfect, or keeping that together, just being able to say, this is what it is. And that doesn't have to be the dominant force in my life, right? It doesn't have to hijack my happiness, or define who I am. It can just be one aspect of what's going on right now.”

Capuria is also the author of Happiness Happens, which she wrote to help people figure out who they are and what they want after a forced point of change. The book outlines five steps, and is a process of self-discovery, to help women decide what they want and who they want to be going forward. She teaches a lot of what is written in the book in her coaching through Balance and Thrive. 

“We're very goal-oriented in coaching, very action-oriented. So if somebody comes to me, in a coaching dynamic, we identify like, what is that vision? What are you trying to create right off the top right? And we start to define those action steps, what you need to get there and we dive right into that process. We're not doing a lot of emotional processing. I don't diagnose anybody in coaching,” said Capuria.  

Capuria wears a lot of hats. She’s a certified therapist, an author, a life coach and a speaker. But her most important title is mom. Mac was a miracle baby in 2015. Although it took years for her to become a mom, she found joy through the pain, and is helping others do the same.

“Life is like one big mashup of the good, the bad and everything in between,” said Capuria. “You can’t always predict how things are going to go or what things are gonna look like. And we have to lean into that because it's just the way it goes.” 

For more information on Balance and Thrive and the services Capuria offers visit here.