The past six months have been among the wildest, most destabilizing and disorienting of my life. Helene was a giant, life changing part of that, but becoming an empty nester? That’s been a hurricane on the inside.

Trees down (not a single daughter left standing in my home), grief and bewilderment flooding my senses, uncertainty and heartbreak everywhere I turn, and the sudden need to reassess my resources and find new sources of (emotional) safety.

Hurricanes inside and out. Yes, that about sums up these past few months.

Enough dust has settled now that I’m just starting to be able to make out the edges of what seems like my path forward. But before I take too many more steps in that direction, I thought I’d share a tender, essential part of my grief tending process with you.

In short, in January—the same month my youngest daughter graduated from high school—I closed the chapter on the most transformative decade of my life to date, moved out of the home I finished raising my girls in, and moved into a new home (on a beautiful piece of land, surrounded by community) with my wonderful partner, Jeremy.

Sensing that this was a moment in time worth naming, honoring, and celebrating, I decided to have a Turning the Page party to mark this chapter’s ending with my closest local friends and family.

I wrote an ode to my beloved home and read it to my loved ones, crying and being witnessed by dozens of teary eyes. That witnessing was really important to me. I needed to be seen and held as I crossed through this portal. I’m so grateful I followed that instinct, as it’s allowed me to move into this new home and chapter with wholeheartedness, tender as my heart may be.

I’m sharing my ode with you because in this grief illiterate culture, it feels essential that we’re open with one another about the ways we move through life’s most sacred and heart breaking seasons. 

To Be Well Held by a Good House

Nine years in this home.

One of those, married,

Eight, divorced.

The only place I lived longer was 1026 Wisconsin St.

In Oshkosh, when I was a girl.

This caring old lady of a house,

(She is 97, after all),

Knows me, I think, better than any human.

With quiet eyes and steadfast care,

She has borne witness to the

Rearing of my teens (¾ of them, anyway)

To the building of my business

To the teaching and mentoring of hundreds of women

(How weird and wonderful is Zoom),

And to the revitalization of my life.

Witnessed by this good house

I breathed life into parts of me

Long buried, atrophied, and begging to be fed;

To be healed, to be known.

This house was my primary witness, in fact,

As I grew into my wholeness.

*****

There are so many ways I could talk about

The life lived in this house.

Do I share what it was like during the weeks with my girls?

The cartwheel practice in the kitchen,

Boyfriends with their baby faces and stinky cologne

Breakups and tear streaked cheeks

Dinners on the porch at sunset

Cuddles with Maya and Goose

So many hugs, so much listening,

Walks through this sweet neighborhood,

And walking the tightrope,

Always teetering between trying to keep them safe

But wanting them to experience the world

While they’re still around for me to help them source safety again

Once they’ve experienced the world.

Or do I share what it was like during the weeks without my girls:

Writing, so much writing

And reading, almost as much.

Teaching,

Coaching,

Trying to be a CEO,

Even though the role doesn’t

actually suit me.

Hammock naps,

Dating apps.

Giving my inner 17-year old permission to play.

And keeping her safe, unlike when I was actually 17.

Young lovers, old lovers

(Both have their advantages),

And one bucket list Latino lover,

A little toxic the whole damn year,

But in Spanish.

Kitchen floor yoga,

Kitchen floor grief rituals

Kitchen floor contact improv.

Spaciousness, finally.

*****

I kept the two worlds separate,

Almost entirely,

Which, I think, was healthier for everyone.

Though now that my girls are grown, or nearly so,

It feels important that they know,

That you know, my beautiful babies,

That I also lived a very full and wonderful life in this house

When you weren’t here.

Now that you’re grown, or nearly so,

It feels important that you begin to know me

Not just as your mama,

But as a whole ass woman in her power,

Whose life is full of joy and pleasure.

*****

I don’t think we’re meant to know the secrets of the universe

Or why bad things happen to good people,

Or even how birds know when and where to migrate.

But I do think we’re meant to live intimately

(Intimacy as in “Into me, see”)

With the homes we’re given,

for however short or long a while

We’re meant to live in them.

A good house

Gives us the opportunity

To open

To explore within

To learn to love what we find inside

A good house

Lets us practice

At being more authentic

And more honest.

*****

I live with a wide open heart.

I learned that I could live that way

And still be okay,

In the last good house I lived in.

But it was in this house, that I got to practice

Loving and living beyond the confines

of a too-small-for-me relationship.

Here’s the thing about living with an open heart,

Or at least once you’ve learned the art of self-protection:

You start drawing your people toward you.

Maybe the same goes for good houses.

Maybe they, too, have wide open hearts.

Maybe the old, wise ones draw good people to them

With more ease

Just as we humans do.

*****

As I was waking up this morning,

Around 5:00, as usual,

I heard her talking to me

Through the rain falling from her gutters

Gentle and steady and kind.

And it occurred to me

That good houses and good mothers

Have a lot in common.

Firstly, it’s easy to take us for granted.

Because we want nothing more than to be

Well-used, utilized, leaned into for comfort and coziness.

We want nothing more than for you to feel

And heal from the love we offer.

Another thing we have in common?

Society acts like we’re invisible.

Rarely do you hear acknowledgment

Of the part a good house or a good mother,

Played in the life of main characters

Also, you’ll notice,

The main characters are rarely houses or mothers.

*****

Some might hear about my love for this old house

And fear I’m being foolish in moving.

But here’s the thing about that:

We sometimes outgrow even good houses.

We say goodbye to things we love

Because the world is vast and full of good things

To be experienced.

And sometimes you get really lucky

And you do your work

And you outgrow enough of your maladaptive coping strategies

And you find healthy, easy, beautifully supportive love

That makes you want to give up your hard-won independence,

And, of all things, cohabitate with a man again.

But not just any man.

It’s important that you know

Just how much I’ve loved single life

How much I’ve enjoyed solo parenting

How deeply I adore my house staying tidy

And not having to wait on consensus before making decisions.

You need to know these things

In order to understand

How beautiful the love I share with this man is.

I’m giving up a lot by letting go of this house, this independence,

But what I’m saying yes to

Is being well held by a good man and good land in a good house.

*****

To my daughters who grew up here:

This is a big moment for you, too.

You were 9 and 11 when we moved in.

And living here with you

Will forever be among my sweetest,

Most cherished memories.

Doing life with you through your teen years

Holding you through heartbreaks,

Packing your lunches

Even though you were plenty old enough

To pack them for yourselves.

Standing at the window

Watching you drive away

Over and over again

And praying that you’d be kept safe

And come home soon.

I will miss having to hug you from behind

when you leave for school

So as not to have to smell like your perfume all day,

I will miss braiding your hair

And bringing you tiny plates of breakfast

Just enough that you might actually eat something.

I will miss cuddling on the couch

And hearing about your day

And just please come home often.

*****

I told my ex-husband I was done with his shenanigans

Right there on her kitchen floor.

This house watched me get free.

I broke up a dog fight with my arm

And passed out from the pain on that couch.

This house has held me through many a hard lesson learned.

I opened the front door to

The sweetest, healthiest,

Most life-giving love I’ve ever known,

During that first summer of Covid lockdown.

I’m pretty sure I heard this old house sigh with relief.

“He’s a good one”

She whispered,

Just as I noticed too.

*****

If we’re lucky enough to be well-held

By a house, or a lover, or a friend;

If we’re healed enough to say yes to the right folks

And no to those we’ve outgrown,

Then, eventually, we will be faced with loss

Of the most profound sort.

Life’s crazy like that.

Deep love inevitably ends in deep loss.

But it’s through those rivers of grief

Carved first into the wilds our inner landscape,

And then gradually into our aging faces,

That we soften enough

To know a good house when we see one,

To fill good houses with good people,

And to allow ourselves to be well held

By a good house, a good man, or a good mom.

May we all cultivate the kind of community and courage needed to allow ourselves to be held through life’s most brutiful moments,

The post My nest is now empty: a glimpse into my grief process appeared first on .

Modern motherhood is mind-meltingly paradoxical, no matter the ages of your kids or the season you’re navigating.

One of the places I see this paradox playing out in super confusing ways for parents is at the intersection of letting them see our humanity but not so much that we stress them out, parentify them, or cause them to feel unsafe.

The place I’ve landed with this is that for most kids (hell, for most humans), if we aren’t being honest about our experiences and telling them what’s going on with us (within reason and age appropriately, of course), they’re left to make meaning from their level of maturity.

For example, if I’ve had a shit day and I’m short with my kids without any explanation of why, they’re left to make meaning on their own. And while in the moment they might not be conscious of it, over time that meaning making can end up getting embedded in them as stories not about us but about themselves like, “I’m too much,” “I’m a bad kid,” or “Mom is happier when I keep quiet.”

Same goes for raising teens. If I’m in a funky place and I deny it (“I’m fine!”) for fear of stressing them out or worrying them, I’m not only not being authentic, but I’m likely causing them to question their intuition (“but she doesn’t seem okay”), and reinforcing the cultural narrative that moms are somehow superhuman and without needs, desires, or bad days.

It’s a fine line to walk, but I do think we can tell our stories in age appropriate ways and depersonalize things a bit so they know it’s not just us, it’s everyone. This might sound like:

For young kids:

“I’m feeling sleepy and grouchy right now. You remember the other day how you were crying a lot and didn’t want to go to school? That’s kind of how I feel today, but I’m going to take a nap later and that should help me feel better. I’m sorry for yelling earlier. You weren’t doing anything wrong, I just sometimes feel impatient when I’m tired.”

For older kids:

“You’re right, I don’t feel great today. It’s been a tough stretch for me lately between financial stressors, hormones, and so many life changes all at once, but I’m getting support from my therapist and talking to my girlfriends in perimenopause, and I really appreciate that you noticed and asked. I’ll try to let you know what I’m needing on days like this so you don’t have to guess.”

In my experience, this approach builds emotional safety, models self-awareness and needs attunement, and gives our kids permission to be fully, messily human, themselves.

Was this done for you when you were young? If not, what stories did you make up about your parent or yourself with no one there to help you make meaning?

Cyclebreaking one connected, honest, vulnerable interaction at a time,

The post Be transparent with your kids so they don’t have to make up stories appeared first on .

When I first got divorced (after 18 years of marriage), and I felt disoriented and unmoored like never before, I suddenly started making rules for myself. The one I remember most clearly was:

“I won’t even think about dating for at least nine months and until I’ve finished writing my book.”

My reasoning was that I was going to need at least six months to honor the grieving process (so to play it safe, I should probably make it nine), and dating sounded like way more fun than finishing the book I’d felt stuck around for years, so I should definitely get that hard work out of the way before I allowed myself the fun of new exploration.

Thankfully, over time, I was able to see my arbitrary rule making as a protection strategy.

The vulnerability I felt during those early months was off the charts. The first time I went contra dancing by myself, I lasted all of 20 minutes before I left crying from the sheer overwhelm of being out in the world without my wedding ring on.

The first time I took myself out to dinner, I felt like I was transparent and that everyone around me could see through my clothes and skin, right into my tender broken heart.

Especially given that I suddenly had days at a time when I wasn’t with my kids (which was a huge deviation from the norm for me), I felt like I needed some kind of container or hiding place or trusted authority telling me what to do in order to feel safe.

Like a lobster that’s recently shed its shell, I was too soft and vulnerable to be unguarded before I’d grown into my new skin.

What I learned during that time, though, is that rather that making rules, I could simply do what I needed to do that day to take care of myself and remind myself that my future self would be even wiser than I was, so I could trust her to take care of my future needs.

I didn’t need to anticipate my future. Trust was actually a healthier strategy, and one that allowed me to lean on my intuition day to day, listening, adjusting, and dancing with life rather than trying to control it.

I’m now a big fan of feeling into what I’m needing today, and trusting my future self to handle my tomorrows.

More present and at peace this way,

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I struggled with perfectionism in a pretty big way for the first thirty years of my life.

It wasn’t the kind of perfectionism rooted in looking perfect or coming across as flawless or super put-together. It was about getting things “right” so as not to cause harm to people or the planet.

I figured the more educated, dedicated, and disciplined I was, the less likely I was to say or do something hurtful, offensive, or destructive.

So, when I was thinking about pursuing coaching as a career, the advice I hated most was…

“Start before you’re ready.”

I’d already done a lot of work around my perfectionism at that point, but somehow this felt different.

Wouldn’t it be irresponsible to start before I was ready?

Looking back, I feel so grateful to the experienced entrepreneurs, practitioners, and coaches who gave me that advice. Because the truth I can now see, is that we’re rarely 100% ready for anything.

There is never a perfect time to become a parent.

There’s never a perfect time to quit your job, to start therapy, or to move across the country.

And there’s never a perfect time to explore a new calling that feels so right, yet stirs up all your self-doubt and insecurities.

The thing that moved me through those doubts, fears, and limiting beliefs was DOING the thing. Marie Forleo offers another way to think about this:

“Clarity comes from engagement, not thought.”

There’s certainly value in taking time to think through your next steps, prepare yourself, and get still in order to be able to access your deeper truths.

But there also comes a time when we’ve done enough thinking and planning and feeling to be ready to move into the strategic action phase of actualizing our dreams and callings.

If you have a burning desire within you to play bigger or pursue new passions, it’s now my turn to say it..start before you’re ready.

And if you’re a seasoned mother who longs to live a richer, more aligned life but you don’t know where to start in making changes, stay tuned for a brand new offering I created just for you!

Whatever it is that you’re feeling almost ready for, I invite you to soak in the wisdom of Clarissa Pinkola Estés (or Mama Clarissa, as some of us adoringly call her):

“We all begin the process before we are ready, before we are strong enough, before we know enough; we begin a dialogue with thoughts and feelings that both tickle and thunder within us. We respond before we know how to speak the language, before we know all the answers, and before we know exactly to whom we are speaking.

All the ‘not readies,’ all the ‘ need time,’ are understandable, but only for a short while.

As with any descent to the unconscious, there comes a time when one simply hopes for the best, pinches one’s nose, and jumps into the abyss. If this were not so, we would not have needed to create the words heroine, hero, or courage.”

Big fan of “ready enough,”

The post I Used To Hate This Advice appeared first on .

For the most part, I’m an intrinsically motivated kinda gal. But I’ve come to realize that this is only true up to a point.

It’s taken me a while to understand it, but I now see that my energy for self-motivation in any given day (or season of my life) is finite, and that it’s much harder to access around new and scary things, especially when I’m already needing to be self-motivated around many other things in my day-to-day life.

Here’s an example:

Currently, I have a well established habit life around…

• Healthy eating
• Going to the gym
• Doing yoga
• Hiking
• Good sleep hygiene
• Writing these emails and social media posts each month
• Fueling my soulfire through regular singing, dancing, and ceremony
• Keeping my home and home office tidy
• Practicing Spanish
• Reading books + listening to podcasts
• Time-blocked deep work (for long-form writing + visioning)
• Checking in with my grown and mostly-grown kids
• Napping

That’s a lot of things that require intrinsic motivation! (Keep in mind that my kids are almost all grown.)

So, when I began experiencing gut stuff this past year (fun!) and it became clear that I was going to have to start an elimination diet to discover the source of my symptoms, I knew I was going to need some support.

Elimination diets are hard, and given everything else I was motivating myself to do every day, I didn’t have any motivational energy left to figure it out on my own.

So I hired a nutritionist (shout out to Lauren at Planting Roots Nutrition!) and six months later I’m feeling sooo much better.

Also this year, it became clear to me that I’d reached a business plateau. My team and I had exhausted our internal resources (and drive) for figuring out how to reach our next goals.

So I joined a kickass business coaching program specifically designed for people whose businesses are in a similar stage of growth to mine. Holy shit, I’m three months into this 15-month program and it’s transformed me as an entrepreneur already (huge thanks to Eleanor Beaton and the entire team at Safi Media)!

Time and time again throughout my life, when I’ve let go of the idea that I have to figure it all out myself and found or invested in the right support, my growth, healing, wellness, or business’s wellness have been taken to the next level.

There’s just only so much energy any of us have on any given day to motivate ourselves, and accountability is queen when it comes to doing new or extra hard things that we feel resistance around.

Can you relate? What is it that you could use support and accountability around at this point in your journey?

So done with hyper-individualism,

The post I’m Self-Motivated, But Only Up To This Point appeared first on .

The issue of school choice comes up all the time in MotherWorthy and in my conversations with clients, so I thought I’d share a bit of my experience here, too!

All told, my four daughters (three of whom are grown and one of whom is a junior in high school), attended a total of 26 different schools as they were growing up (shocking, I know).

Here’s that breakdown, including locations for kicks:

5 public elementary schools (Fredericksburg, TX, Austin, TX, Asheville, NC)

2 Waldorf schools (Taos, NM, Austin, TX)

1 Montessori initiative (San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico)

1 college prep IB international school (Puerto Aventuras, Mexico)

1 passion and inquiry based international school (Tulum, Mexico)

1 public middle school (Asheville, NC)

3 public high schools (Austin, TX, State College, PA, Asheville, NC)

1 charter elementary/middle school (Asheville, NC)

3 charter high schools (Wimberly, TX, State College, PA, Asheville, NC)

1 homeschool co-op (Austin, TX)

1 church preschool (Abilene, Texas)

1 arts-inspired preschool (Dripping Springs, TX)

1 parent-led preschool co-op (Austin, TX)

4 years of homeschooling (Austin and Tulum, Mexico)

This list is so lengthy for several reasons:

1. My idealism used to run the show. For years I felt it my responsibility to provide the “best possible” educational experience to my girls whatever the cost (we paid in cash, volunteer hours, highway miles, and marital stress, to name a few methods).
   
   
2. For years, my ex-husband and I were more passion than practicality driven, and we spent our 18 years together pursuing those passions. This meant many moves (chasing dream jobs, discovering dream locations, and attempting to create dream lifestyles) and, consequently, many schools.
   
   
3. I was highly attuned to my kids’ needs and sensitivities, and constantly trying to figure out ways to meet those needs and honor those sensitivities in the most supportive and least (potentially) harmful ways possible.
   

Whether your first reaction to this admission of excessive school hopping has you thinking, “This woman is nuts. Her poor children,” or “What a life of adventure and diversity of experiences!,” the fact is that there is no way to know how our choices will effect our kids in the long run, every decision we make comes with consequences, and my now-grown kids would tell you that they were both bettered and stressed by our choices.

Moving to Mexico, for example, was both an incredible gift of perspective, language acquisition, and slow living and it meant leaving an already-established community, lots of resistance from some of our kids, and battling intestinal parasites for years.

Likewise, volunteering myself to the edge of insanity in order to keep my kids in alternative schools afforded us many beautiful experiences and connections, and I depleted myself quite completely in the process, limiting my ability to find joy in the rich and nourishing life I was working so hard to curate.

I obviously can’t claim to know what’s best for your family, but I can offer some hard-earned perspective I gleaned throughout our educational journey:

1. Intuition is absolutely worth paying attention to. It is also worth distinguishing from any underlying fears that may be causing us to hold on with a death grip to choices that are creating stress in other areas of our lives.
   
   
2. Cutting my idealism in half and doubling my trust ultimately proved healthier for everyone, my children included.
   
   
3. The notion of an “ideal school” is of limited use, as it fails to account for equally-important factors such as drive time, jobs we love vs. those that pay the best, and the ability to afford other things that matter to us and contribute to a high quality of life.
   
   
4. It’s natural for your desire and energy level to shift and evolve over time. While I was inspired to participate in initiatives, co-operatives, homeschool collectives and other such alternatives when my children were younger, once they got older, building my career became a stronger priority and I was super grateful to have them in schools that required less of my time and energy. You get to reassess and reprioritize. You get to change your mind.
   
   
5. Because their journeys are uniquely their own, even the purest of intentions and greatest of sacrifices on our part will only go so far toward shaping our kids’ lives. Even if and when we manage to give them “the very best,” what they do with the gifts we give them and which of those gifts they’ll actually count as gifts is entirely beyond our control.
   
   
6. The fact that one way is working beautifully for another family doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right choice for yours. Recognizing the presence of fear and anxiety when speaking with other parents about their school choices will help you to make wiser, more empowered decisions in your family’s best interest.
   
   
7. A creative learning environment does not necessarily make for a “creative child.” Likewise, a highly academic learning environment does not necessarily make for an academically gifted child. School environments that draw out children’s innate gifts and strengths come in many shapes and sizes.
   
   
8. Our children are not necessarily better off when we make life all about them. It’s important for them to realize that their needs are lovingly considered, but that there are many things to take into account when it comes to raising healthy, thriving families (including and especially our own well-being as parents).
   
   
9. Hard times and disappointments are inevitable and important for children to experience to some degree. Not only do challenges grow them, but they provide opportunities for us to demonstrate healthy responses, offer empathy, model problem solving skills, and help them build grit and resiliency.
   
   
10. That said, some children absolutely learn better under certain circumstances. Smaller class sizes and plenty of physical activity, for example, can mean the difference between surviving and thriving for some kids.
    
    
11. Protecting your children is one thing. Protecting yourself from the inevitable pain of watching your children struggle is another thing altogether. Developing self-awareness is key to better understanding our reactions to our kids and their challenges.
    
    
12. Middle school is rough, no matter where you send them.
    
    
13. Connection matters more than curriculum.
    
    
14. These days, regular nature connection (whether through school or not), time for free play, and time away from screens are some of the most valuable gifts we can give them.
    
    
15. Showing your kids that you have faith in them no matter the circumstances goes a long way toward shaping their confidence and self-efficacy.
    
    
16. The love and support you give them at home will have a greater impact on their well-being than any school you choose.
    
    
17. Good teachers are golden. There’s also often a life lesson to be learned from a bad teacher. Also, my favorite teachers and schools have not always been my children’s favorites.
    
    
18. Community matters, no matter the ages of your children. Investing in building your local community will pay off just as much as—if not more than–investing in their education.
    
    
19. The needs of your family as a whole are as worthy of consideration as the needs of its individual members.
    
    
20. Once they’re grown, your kids will likely thank you for some experiences they once complained incessantly about and share that they were traumatized by experiences you thought were healthy and wonderful. Go figure.
    

The way I see it, there is no “right way” and there is no winning. There is only doing the best we can with what we currently have and know, self-reflecting and owning our shit, growing and healing, doing better as we know better, and creating emotional safety in our relationships with our kids so that authenticity, honesty, repair, vulnerability, mutual respect, and intimate connection become possible (and much more likely) long after they leave home.

As for what I would do differently if I had it to do over again? I’d create more opportunities for them to play in nature with other kids for long stretches (annual camping or beach trips with other families and summer camp, for example), I would majorly incentivize reading, and I would better meet my own needs so that I could more easily stay present and access joy and lightness.

Honestly, I could name for you half a dozen other things I might do differently, and none of them have to do with school choice. Many, however, have to do with better tending to my own needs.

Wishing you loads of community support, frequent breaks, and deep self-compassion,

The post Lessons I Learned By Sending My Kids to 26 Different Schools appeared first on .

In last week’s love note, I talked about my new mantra:

“It’s okay to move the cat.”

In short, I was exploring the tendency many of us have to let our inner mother/nurturer run the show pretty much all the time, even when it means we’re depleting and compromising our minds, bodies, and soulfire.

This week I want to expand on that a bit and explore another reason so many mothers rarely feel empowered:

We aren’t allowing our inner mother to mature.

Just as beauty standards in our culture are incredibly narrow, unrealistic, and unattainable, so are the ways we’re taught to think about the ideal mother:

She is organized, self-sacrificial, and hardworking. She is fit, ambitious, and composed no matter her circumstances. She’s figured out all the right routines, hacks, and skincare products to be able to thrive (and maintain aforementioned impossible beauty standards) despite the demands, narratives, stressors and oppressors coming from patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy. Oh, and she never burdens anyone with her needs. In fact, she hardly seems to have any because she’s basically superhuman.

Even when we’ve evolved our ideas of what it is to be a mother and we reject this dehumanizing version, we often stay stuck in a stage that doesn’t feel quite right for us. This is because we’re taught to fear aging, society doesn’t show us versions of healthy mature mothers, many of our own mothers don’t fit that description, and the older we get, the more invisible women become.

It can feel like our sense of belonging, our attractiveness and lovability, and our value to society depend on us NOT maturing.

But the truth is that everything that actually matters and leads to fulfillment and cultural healing requires that maturation process.

To let the mother within us mature is…

…to match our nurturance with rage and fury over harm and injustice.

…to be increasingly discerning about what is and isn’t for us.

…to strip away and heal from conditioning that keeps us overfunctioning and tolerating mistreatment.

…to admit our limitations and learn to be vulnerable.

…to affirm and trust her even when the world doesn’t.

…to protect her from people and situations that aren’t good for her, just as we do for our kids.

…to say no to many, many things and honor only the most important yes’s.

…to swim upstream and find others who are also working against the status quo.

…to feel in our bodies when it’s time to fight the good fight and when it’s time to rest.

The truth is that society needs our maturation. It desperately needs more mature, self-aware, lit-up mothers in their power, fiercely protecting their hearts, time, and resources, and clear on the unique medicine they bring.

Better with age,

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As some of you know, I got a kitten this year. As others of you know, given my extreme cat allergies throughout my life, this is not something I saw coming.

Goose is pure, playful, sweet, hypoallergenic medicine for my nest-almost-empty mama heart. I was never a cat person and now I’m 1000% a cat person. You just never know what curveball is coming next, but thankfully some of them are soft and fill our days with joy.

Anyway, Goose loves to be wherever I am, and often, as close to me (and especially to my head) as possible. While I’m working, this looks like him wedging himself between my back and the backrest of my office chair. This was lovely and cozy when he was little bitty, but it now means that my (medium-large) booty is scooted all the way to the edge.

The solution seems easy, right (especially to those of you who aren’t lap pet people)?

Just move the stinkin’ cat.

But here’s the thing: the mama in me is BIG. She’s one of the most developed, most confident, and most deeply caring of all the parts that live within me.

So what was happening was that I was going for a long time, sometimes over an hour, before even realizing I was sitting in a compromised position.

Apparently, despite how good I’ve gotten at boundary setting in general, get me around a wee one again and their needs come first. Their comfort, their coziness, their felt sense of safety and security.

So, as I often to do when I can feel that I’m in the presence of an overactive part, I’ve come up with a simple, gentle reminder from my crone mama self to that younger self that just wants to nurse the whole world back to health:

“It’s okay to move the cat.”

Other variations on this theme?

It’s okay to let others–even those you love–feel disappointed.

It’s okay to say no, even to sweet invitations.

It’s okay to choose comfort in your body over others’ desire for you to comfort them.

I think what this statement is ultimately saying is that my mother part is only one of a whole community of worthy parts within me, and I care enough about those other parts to keep my inner mother in check.

Another way to think about this is that it’s essential that we let our inner mother mature. More on this idea next week!

Booty taking up the whole damn seat,

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One of the most consistent challenges I’ve faced on my growth and healing journey is that the more authentically and self-lovingly I show up, the more frequently I disappoint people.

Also, the more visible I become in my work, the more people there are to disappoint.

This reality is inevitable, and we never know when another disappointment bomb will land in our life. Even the most fawny people pleasers in the world occasionally disappoint people, and there are a LOT of fawny people pleasers in the world establishing this coping strategy as the norm.

So the more daring we become in our authentic expression, need honoring, and boundary setting, the more we tend to stand out from the crowd.

For difficult realities like this that we can’t avoid, it feels important to have a practice in place; something we establish in a regulated, grounded moment, that we can pull out of our toolkit when we’re triggered and deep in our feelings.

My own practice looks something like this:

1. Someone expresses their disappointment with me, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, and sometimes passive aggressively. Though it seems counterintuitive, it’s often the kindly, respectfully expressed disappointment that I feel the most acutely, likely because maturely delivered messages are usually coming from people I respect.
   
2. I acknowledge the “bomb,” then make space for and name the feelings that are coming up in me. Slowing down for this step is key, so that I can catch any stories I’m making up in an effort to self-protect. I do my best to stay embodied through this experience through movement. Otherwise the intensity of the sensation can cause me to freeze and/or ruminate, which only adds to my burden and prolongs the process.
   
3. I self-mother. I tune into the parts of me that are feeling shame, resentment, anger, fear, or self-disappointment. I care for myself as I would an upset child. I rock, I hold my heart, I let the tears fall. I hold space for myself and my process with tenderness and empathy. I sometimes reach out to my partner or another trusted friend/space holder during this step, especially if I’m having a hard time seeing things clearly.
   
4. I assess for integrity and alignment. Once I’ve moved through the initial intense feelings and I’m in a more regulated place (this often takes a full day or two, and a good night of sleep really helps), I examine the situation and decide whether I feel I was out of alignment or integrity. If I determine that I was in alignment, I remind myself that people are allowed to disagree with my decisions, people are entitled to their feelings, and that it’s not my job to protect folks from their emotions. If I recognize that I have something to own or if I was in the wrong, I make sure I’m in a grounded, self-compassionate place before reaching out to the other person and requesting a conversation.
   
5. I try to recognize any lessons or growth opportunities being offered to me through the experience. Journaling helps me through this process. What is my strong reaction pointing toward? What’s unresolved in me? What needs tending or healing?

The older I get, the clearer I am that the willingness to disappoint people in order to stay true to ourselves is a necessary part of the maturation process. For me, it’s also a sign that I’m no longer exiling parts of myself, that I’ve built the capacity to be with the full range of human emotions (including shame, which is often the one we’re avoiding when we’re trying to keep everyone happy), and that codependency is no longer ruling my life (hallelujah).

I once read this somewhere:

“I only lied so I didn’t have to see the tears of disappointment in your eyes.”

This same sentiment applies to times when we’re not outright lying, but pretending to agree or owning something isn’t actually ours to own.

And you? Are you disappointing more people as you grow and heal? If so, how are you handling it and what have been the rewards of staying true to yourself?

Navigating all the feels right alongside you,

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Last week I shared that I recently closed my online membership. In short, my team and I have been spread way too thin, and that way of working and serving felt out of alignment.

Here’s a fuller version of the story for anyone who’d like a glimpse behind the scenes of a small, passion-driven, single-mother owned and exclusively mother-run business:

A few weeks ago I was talking with my therapist (who knows me very well given our decade of working together) about how I love my work but that it feels increasingly draining. I briefly described some of the factors contributing to my exhaustion and overwhelm, to which she responded:

“I’m not surprised.”

I was all ears. Jennifer is one of the sharpest elder-peers I know, and when she drops truth bombs, it’s always with radical discernment and masterful skill. Paraphrasing, she said:

“For nearly 20 years, you were in a super chaotic marriage. On top of that you had four kids and barely enough money to pay your bills while raising those kids through crises and relentless overstimulation. Chaos is familiar to you. It’s normal. You know exactly who to be in a chaotic environment. So it’s not surprising to me–now that you’ve cleaned up the chaos in your personal life–that it’s snuck into your professional life without you even realizing what was happening.”

Eureka. Mind blown.

I still wasn’t clear on where the chaos was leaking in, exactly, but her words felt unequivocally true.

Then, about a week later during a team meeting, Brandy listed for us the 80 gazillion tasks that would need our attention before the holiday break given the total remodel of our membership we were planning for the first of the year.

Boom, immediate overwhelm and exhaustion.

I responded with something like, “Okay, wow, soooo, let’s make an agreement to get really honest with ourselves this time next year about whether or not this is working for us, because we’re pouring a LOT of time, energy, and resources into this thing for the financial return.

And suddenly, the question was right there in front of us, messy and promising and impossible to ignore:

Do we WANT to pour another whole year’s worth of resources into this thing? Would that even be wise?

And just like that, the doors swung open and truth started pouring out:

The truth about how many times over the past year we’ve joked as a team (during extra stressful, impossible-feeling moments) that we should have gotten into the business of selling aquarium supplies or become mail carriers.

The truth that for over a year, I was waking up at night with a vague sense that I was neglecting my community no matter how hard I’d been working.

The truth that the Virtual Village was born of our observation of endless unmet needs, and the more threads we pulled, the more unmet needs were revealed.

The truth that our resources are limited here at RFH and that while our desire to be of service is endless, our capacity is not.

The truth that adding more support groups, more calls, more grief vigils, guest speakers and the many things we were planning to roll out in 2024 feels eerily familiar: with my children nearly grown, my codependency (“I’ll be okay when everyone else is okay”) sneakily found a new endless source of unmet needs to satisfy its compulsion to be of constant service.

It feels important to share this story for several reasons:

1. I value transparency and I never want to be put on a pedestal. Just like any other person or business, we try new things and only some of them end up working out. No matter how your favorite coach/educator presents online, I guarantee you, some of their ideas pan out beautifully and others get composted. That’s life for all of us.
   
2. Some of you are (or aspire to be) community builders, entrepreneurs, or healing-arts based service providers, and most of you have big, open hearts. It feels important to share that, even with the most loving intentions, it’s possible to create something that’s in service to others but ultimately not healthy or sustainable for you.
   
3. Codependency is a shapeshifter. Like it or not, it’ll keep showing up throughout our lifetime—in all shapes and sizes—and is often hiding right there in front of us. For this reason, rather than simply knowing what to look for, we need to develop the skill of feeling its presence in our bodies.

The relief I feel having made this decision is immense and was immediate. (That’s not always the case, btw, but it sure is a nice bonus when it happens that way.)

And you? Where have you noticed codependency changing form and sneaking back into your life?

Heart wide open and well protected,

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