Author Archives: Vania

The Paradox of More or Less: It’s Time to Let Hustle Culture Die

Posted on by

Recently, the American Surgeon General shared 2 different research findings that really got my attention. I might be Canadian, but i know our neighbours are not alone in this reality. The most recent one was about parental stress, and last year, research showed that the amount of people experiencing loneliness has reached epidemic proportions.

It’s hard to not notice how both of these very separate results can actually be linked.

I’m going to add a third reality: Internalized toxic productivity that is linked to patriarchy and capitalism. Many women today are their Father’s Daughter, a term coined by Marian Woodman. Not sure what this means? It’s when we internalize the belief that work defines your worth. We internalize the belief also that women are weak, and so we didn’t want to become our mothers. This is the ultimate lie that patriarchy wants us to believe. And guess what? There’s a name for that too: Patriarchy Stress Disorder.

I know i had subconsciously internalized this for years. Throughout my teens and twenties, i moved away from home because i held a belief that staying home meant i would catch the disease of domesticity and become a subservient woman. And then, luckily, in my thirties, i met my shadow and confronted that falsehood.

We need to evolve past the masculine-identified hyper independence of the Artemis archetype to instead embrace the knowing of Aphrodite – our pleasure is our birthright. They may be both maiden goddesses, and yet when we can catch this earlier in life, our spiral path will be greatly altered.

We need to attach our body back to our mind. We are not in fact, walking brains. We are a full human whose soul’s code has already pre-determined our life. Patriarchy and capitalism just wants us to forget this, so that we continue following a groundhog daily grind of life.

We need to trust that we are not a personal development project that always need to be worked on. We don’t need to go on that $2000 retreat to experience an awakening. Coming back to the landscape of our own body and soul’s calling can be the wake-up call. There is nothing to integrate or process.

“Where is your ecological niche? Where is the sore spot in your landscape that needs the shape of your body? The press of your tender foot? Where can you place yourself like an acupuncture needle in the mountain, the clear-cut forest, the web of relations that you, yourself, are woven from? Place me where i can melt into medicine. Place me on the tongue of the women who needs my taste.” Sophie Strand

As Sophie Strand so eloquently puts it, we need to look at our own bodies and reclaim it as a ‘ecodelic.’ It is not about all the supplements to take or the self-care practices to perform. Rather, what about placing your body somewhere on earth, in nature, and be present with your own self. We are our own medicine

We already have what we need.

Lisa Feldman Barrett has a great analogy on how to take care of our energy tanks. She uses the concept of listening to our own body’s message (called interoception) to help us attune to our body’s energy level. She calls this practice a Body Budget, a way to put a deposit in my body. This is a great reference to help us listen more actively to what our body is trying to tell us – remember it carries wisdom after all. We have learned to override this knowledge , at the expense (pun unintended) of fitting into capitalist culture.

This is a way to have a mind-body connection to allostasis, and to track our expenses (energy out) with our assets (ways to care for body) so that we have enough in the bank.

I know it’s a bit of a masculine way of tending to our energy levels, this talking like we are money. I see it as reclaiming our abundance, worth, and creating balance. I appreciate that there is a place for healthy masculine energy, and this is where being organized, tracking our energy, and using our cognitive strengths is helpful. Consider how you might put a deposit for your body.

Here are some of my deposits.

1) Take Time Alone
In her soul nourishing book, Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindburgh shares that “every person, especially every woman, should be alone sometime during the year, some part of each week and each day. How revolutionary this sounds, and how impossible of attainment. To many women such a program seems quite out of reach.”

“Woman need to be alone, to have solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves.” Here she continues to highlight that the stilling of the SOUL is what matters, not just the activities of the mind or body. It’s not enough to not do things and merely be, what is transformative is the nourishment the soul receives by this stillness.

Lindburgh wrote this book in the 1950s. This truth is no less necessary now.

Another important book that was transformative for me was Rest is Resistence by Tricia Hersey. In it, she encourages us to take time to pause, to dream and rest. This is on its own important. And yet, we underestimate its worth: This time of rest becomes a reset and allows for casting a vision of growth and new dreams, a way to evolve and not remain stuck. Sometimes the boundary we need to set is to say no to more (paid) work that becomes priroitized over the delicious dream seed planted like creative projects that align with your future.

How might you take time for yourself – to dream, to rest, to create, to be?

2) Embody your Experience
We need to recognize those early cues of being tired and fatigue. So many of us override these body messages.

There has been a lot of talk about ’embodiment.’ But what does it really mean? I love how Niva Piran put together these 5 principles, from her own work with body image and eating disorders. If you want to read further about them, here is a great article that unpacks them a bit more.

5 Principles of Experiencing Embodiment:
*Body Subjectivity and Resisting Objectification
*Attuned Self-Care
*Experience and Expression of Desire
*Bodily Agency and Functionality
*Body Comfort and Connection

“What are our bodies are saying about who we are and what we need changes hour to hour, day to day, season to season, life stage to life stage. Self-care is most empowering and effective when it matches our actual needs.” Dr. Hillary McBride

3) Get Lost in a Story
I had a realization recently about why I love reading so much: it is the antidote to my work. As a therapist, I’m also in the origin story or beginning chapters of someone’s life. It’s rare for me to get to the end of their story. It is also such a gift when I do. And, it is ultimately the time in solitude i get – even when escaping into the narrative of the characters or surrounded by people beside me as i read.

When i go on vacation, i read stories with a beginning, middle and end and my friend (who is an editor) shared that she needs quite the opposite – to not read or absorb any narratives. Both of us are practicing self-care, but in our own unique way. That’s why self-care can’t be prescribed. It needs to be embodied and a direct mirror to the need within us.

Books and narratives give me that balance. And that is what self-care and stress management is meant to do – give us balance. Athletes rest their bodies – I get to indulge in a full story, complete with an epilogue!

4) Practice Ritual
Earlier this year, i pulled the Empress card at a Tarot reading. She is the embodiment of rest and self-care. I have also been in communion with the goddess Aphrodite, who symbolizes pleasure and self-love. When i honour rituals that hold these reminders, i remember all over again that we are meant to love ourselves, and to receive care as much as give it to others.

One powerful way to do this is with ritual. Rituals help the soul catch up and integrate through the body the work or info we receive to master our inner knowing, to be closer to divine spirit and full being. It can be as simple as a sacred morning practice, or a ritual bath, or maybe a Sunday afternoon cup of tea and journal session.

Self-care has a role, but is not the answer. The degree it can help you is in the proportion to how much the need is to alleviate the hurt being done. Burnout comes from a push for perfectionism, toxic productivity and poor boundaries. Self-care that is prescriptive doesn’t heal the deeper wounds. This is why ritual is more than just a routine, but rather an attuned and intentional practice that calls for our presence.

We need to listen to the soft cries of our body when it knows we are running on empty.

5) Be in Relationship with Nature
I heard of a concept years ago that has stayed with me since. It goes something like this: Make sure you spend time with nature every day, give or take 20 minutes. When you are stressed or busy, make sure you spend at least an hour outside. I may not have the numbers right, but the point is to ensure you are in relationship with nature EVEN LONGER when life feels full and busy to no end. This is not to add more burden on you (even if it does). Rather, it’s to resource you and help you come back to your body, your breath, and your here and now experience.

We need to choose presence over productivity.

Not only does not help us regulate, by in fact co-regulating with us. It also reminds us that nature is moving forward in a spiral. It is not linear but it is inevitable. Winter still comes and the dark growth in soil happens regardless. Spring flowers still bloom again.

We are nature.

6) Find your Community
Let us embrace the great wisdom of mirror neurons. They show us that we are not only social creatures but also feel inspired and motivated by each other. When we start to practice life in a more sustainable, loving, and kind way, others will also mirror this back.

“The secret to avoiding burnout? Surround yourself with people who aren’t frightened, confused or threatened by your big dreams. Life is too short to talk about the weather, what sport we watched the night before and how work sucks. Have bigger, dreamier more expansive conversations that light you up. That bring out the child-like excitement and curiousity. I honestly think that’s one of the big secrets to avoiding burnout.” Erin Bowe

Let us be in right relationship with others, and embrace the soft strength of connection and attunement. When we add competition to the soup of productivity, it should surprise no one that we end up never satisfied.

7) Let Hustle Culture Die
It’s time to let hustle culture die away as a forgotten misstep. As we enter the dark months of this year, let us remember that this is the year of Soft Strength. As we start to turn towards the next year, what do you want to let die? What internlized hustle or work ethic has run its course?

If you need any more inspiration, let me be the first to tell you that next year is held by The Hermit in Tarot – the 9th card in the major arcana story urges us to become hermits, to turn inward and rest, to find our inner caves and just let the work fall away.

“But this hustle culture mindset fosters unhealthy perfectionism, overcommitting, insecurity, self-neglect, and isolation. Even our proudest achievements cease to have any meaning for us; they’re simply a row of checkmarks on a never-ending list, a line of stepping stones toward a destination we will never reach.” These reflections come from Israa Nasir, who wrote a new book called Toxic Productivity. She goes on to share that the antidote is not to be unproductive at all. Rather, it’s about ensuring that our goals are balanced and includes our personal growth instead of competing with others. The work becomes sustainable and has scaffolding that ensures we don’t forget our own values nor burn out.

8) Be Aligned with your Values
It’s time to reframe away from the story that our value is connected to production and more more more. We don’t in fact have to see more clients to be good at what we do. We don’t have to volunteer in any place, let alone 3 different charities that don’t appreciate our free labour. We don’t have to read all the books and work on social media (again for free) just to have a big following.

Our personal value has become measured not by what we’ve produced already, but by how today’s production can help us produce tomorrow. That keeps us doing doing doing, at our own expense (there’s that word sneaking in again). We are also judging our success by how tired we are – the more exhausted has become the goal.

Come back to what you value. What is it that lights your inner spark. It’s absolutely good to want to volunteer and be an active member of your community. What is also important is that you are not running yourself on empty to do so. What is your soul’s code and service to the world is important, and so is how you live your life. Does it include pleasure and rest, time for yourself and your loved ones?

9) Reframe How you Talk to Yourself
A pesky inner voice (my Bank Manager Part) urges me to hustle. “But as some of us reach adulthood, these lofty goals tend to boil down to a single, urgent imperative: in order to have value, we have to produce more value. Israa Nasir

When i take time to notice that is not only NOT my voice, it is a voice that forgets that my worth is inherent because i exist and rest is not just resistance but also a paramount need.

I already knew i was in mid-life, and now i know that i’m even closer to a more formal marker of it. I’ve reached my Fuck It Era – and it’s quite close friends with The Hermit.

“When a woman stops doing, she must learn how to simply be. Being is not a luxury; it is a discipline. The heroine must listen carefully to her true inner voice that means silencing other voices.” Maureen Murdock

The Closet of Unused Treasures

Posted on by

Grief is a shapeshifter.

The last time i saw my mother alive was two years ago on Mother’s Day. She died the next day and i think she waited to die so that i wouldn‘t have this connection to Mother’s Day. It was a shock and created a sea change in my life that has been both the worst experience of my life, and has led me into a new sense of self.

I was tasked with the onoging responsibility of going through my mother’s lifetime of belongings, where she left a collection of Ariel-like interesting objects (both well-used and unused) as well as finding secret notes.

Through the process of purging my mother’s belongings I gleaned more awareness and new clarity, a sense of self that needed to transition. It is through this intentional grief work that I have come to see a more full sense of self, and one that will also not continue how my mother martyred herself, and ultimately lost her Self to others. It was only through this loss that I have embraced parts of me that have been hidden, and sitting dormant.

Cleaning out her closets has been a journey to find my full self. In purging and organizing, i have been faced with so more truths and discoveries i didn’t bargain for. Here are some of my biggest treasures.

Don’t Wait For Joy
One of the things i found was a purse my mom bought that was a fraternal twin to my own. I think we bought them together, on purpose. We were cute like that sometimes. Or at least that’s how i’m holding the story now. The big difference is what we did with the things we bought after. My purse is long-gone now; well-used and loved but gone. My mom’s was still sitting in her walk-in closet with the tags on it. It has been sitting there for at least 25 years. I don’t know if it was an item of pride for her or regret for buying it in the first place. I now have this bag and plan to give it a new life, similar to Amelie’s travelling gnome in that incredible movie.

Going through her things, i fell upon an unopened and hidden away chocolate bar. It was hidden in a box at the back of her closet, sitting among her important papers like her marriage certificate, receipts, and other seemingly important but forgotten documents. Ironically, i remember her telling me that she would hide some things from her husband, so that he wouldn’t pounce on the best things and not share. Funnily, i guess no one got to share this.

Finding it brought the floodgates back to my eyes, which has happened many times in the last year.

And yet, it was this specific chocolate bar, a reminder of my childhood and Eastern European roots, that really shifted me. She was saving this treat for herself, for a time that she could enjoy it. That time never came, and not because she died, but because she never seemed to find herself worthy of it. See, this bar of chocolate expired in 2014, and she died years later.

She never found the right time for one of the simplest pleasures in life: To eat the Chocolate.

Martyrdom is Patriarchal Mothering
Another big learning i am gleaning from these years without a mom is a commitment to not martyr myself as my mom did. I know i was one of the beneficiaries of that martyrdom and Mother Victim mentality, and yet it also created a wedge between us that was never repaired.

My mom regretted not living her life fully, not not sharing her feelings – that I heard about only all too well.

I am encouraging myself now to not wait for my own pleasure, and it’s a way that I am embodying my own manifesto of life – to not become a version of myself that first offers the best to others.

As a mother myself, this was a jarring realization for me. It showed me just how much my mother martyred herself, and learned to internalize a patriarchal way of mothering – putting her own needs and joy at the bottom of the priority list. This is not the legacy I want to carry for her, because she was so much more than this, and yet it took her death for me to see that. In her death, I want to honour her full life, and not just from my viewpoint as her daughter.

My mom was the first to tell, on repeat, what she sacrificed in order for my sister and i to have a better life than her. As a parent myself now, i can look back at those years with reverence to her and also a commitment to not lose myself to my roles as a mother, therapist, and partner. I know see that the only person whose life i am beholden to is my own, and i don’t want to wait to have the chocolate, or use the fun purse.

I am Her Legacy
My mom intentionally left hidden treasures for my sister and i. She hid some cash in the pocket of a house coat, knowing full well her husband (my dad) would never look there, nor do the work to clear out her things. She knew it would us who found it, and maybe the only money we would get. The things she left behind is not her legacy. The cottage and her belongings are just mere artefacts of her life.

What is her legacy or teaching is to embrace life as she only dreamed of. To live a slow and beautiful life.

These days, I honour my Mom in ome of the practices i first learned from her, whether it’s being a Herb Witch or antiquing. In the words of Marissa Renee Lee in her beautiful book Grief is Love she shares that “in order for you to become someone’s legacy when they die, you are required to change. Your transformation is their legacy …. You are their legacy”… ”Legacy is based on the fact that there is someone you loved dearly and who loved you back, and that love now lives on through you. When we can bring their spirit, their essence, back to life we keep our people alive, letting them continue to live through us and those we love.”

Ancestral Roots
My mother immigrated to Canada in her 20’s, and she left behind her own mother and family. In fact, both of my parents had to establish themselves in a new country without roots of their own. As an immigrant whose country of origin was being torn apart, my mother struggled with finding her true sense of self – and this polarization impacted her ability to truly land in her body, life and own story. She faced her own rites of passage without an elder to guide her, and I now realize she did so alone. Through my own metamorphosis called perimenopause, i was met face to face with the revelation that i did not know my own mother’s experience with it. I am seeing in real time what it’s like to enter the rite of passage of perimenopause without my own mother as a guide in physical form.

As a teenager, one of the ways i rebelled against my parents was in the most child-of-immigrants way – i lost my Mother tongue language. Now, as an adult it is one of my deepest regrets. So when i found old traditional Serbian dancing shoes, dolls, and table clothes, i reclaimed them and brought them home. Recently, one of my commitments to my mom and heritage is to find my way back home to my ancestral language and lands.

Don’t Dance with Regret
Speaking of regrets, i do hold so much regret for the time that was taken from me. There is a difference between dwelling in feelings of regret versus acknowledging the regret so that it can be held, witnessed and then processed. I know i can’t get in a fancy DeLorean car and go back to the past so regret of what i know now but didn’t back then is not helpful. I am working on not letting the guilt creep in that reminds me i could have had more time with my mom when she was alive. The adult parts in me also grieve the relationship that couldn’t heal or evolve in time.

I often wonder where is the place for regret in the stages of grief? There is so much i regret with this loss:
*I regret not hugging her that last time
*The kids not getting that sleepover
*Not taking her shopping
*Not staying that last day
*Missing the chance to ask about the big stuff like perimenpause, her dreams
*Not getting the opportunity to tell her how much i loved her, my awe of what she could do for herself
*Village life and doing it all alone
*Learning too late about feminine archetypes and the gift of Elder Crone wisdom

Don’t Bypass the Grief Wave – Do the Grief Work
Becoming a mother we are surrounded by well-intentioned people trying to help. Losing your mother seems like a process we suffer through alone. Whatever our own relationship with our mothers, knowing this loss is different from other kinds means we need to have others resonate and connect with us. It is yet another club we join without ever wanting to, and at the same time it offers us more shared humanity than we ever thought we could.

Western society has become grief illiterate, as we become more individualistic and severed from our emotions and lineages. It was becoming a griever myself that showed me just how alone we are in this experience. I became my own companion when I realized that no one else could carry this pain for me, or with me. We all need to apprentice with Grief work means to find meaning in the loss – not of the loss of our beloved, but rather for what our life is now that they are gone. This is a task of mourning and we are not meant to do it alone, we in fact need community to witness it and hold us.

“Do not feel like you were betraying your person by experiencing joy” writes Marissa Renee Lee. Experiencing joy is one of the many ways you can continue to love them. Joy is a basic right. We grieve because the love isn’t what died.

Grief work is subversive cultural shadow work because it is committed to acknowledging death in an individual and collective way. Death is not the end. Rather, it serves as a powerful step for alchemical transformation. Perdita Finn explains this even more in her beautiful book, Take Back the Magic.

Nature shows us that life mirrors a spiral dance with the cycle of life from birth, death and a possible rebirth.

Share the Appreciation
It’s not lost on me that i found my parent’s marriage certificate months after my mom’s death. What was a surprise was what was in the random shoebox in the back of the closet with these important papers: 2 cards that i gave my mom when i was in my early 20’s. She kept them all this time, and kept them in this box. Why she did this will forever be a mystery for me. I like to think it’s because they were two rare cards of me telling her i was proud of her, and that i loved her, and that i was thankful of her.

This was a lesson in always taking time to show appreciate, gratitude and love towards the people who not only deserve it but also who you might take for granted. I know my mom loved me, and i accepted her love language. What i also know is that i learned too late in my own life to reciprocate it.

Rituals for Gates of Grief
The loss of an elder before she could be one and i could appreciate her is a Gate of Grief. Francis Weller talks about these gates in his transformative book The Wild Edge of Sorrow. It has taken me in my almost 50-year old experience to know that i don’t only want but i need an elder. It has been through my own experience with perimenopause that I am noticing how similar my life is to my mom’s and where I need to make sure my life is altogether my own. Further, as I become more versed and passionate about feminine archetypes, an additional sense of loss is not having a matriarch or crone in my life now, to be a guide and mentor. Right when i was realize that i not only wanted one, but needed a Wise Elder, my mom was taken from me.

This treasure chest of discoveries has been a rite of passage for me, as it provides support to this new sense of self. You could call it a ritual of sorts.

October is known as a grief month, where the veil is thin between our world and the departed. This is the time for ceremony and ritual that honours our dearly departed, both recently and not. Our overculture has forgotten the roots of Samhain (known now as Hallowe’en) and the sacredness of ritual that honours our dead ancestors. Of the the biggest treasures i have dug up with this loss is my devotion to sacred practices, soul retrieval work, and creating rituals in my everyday life.

Transformative is Not Inevitable
According to David Kessler, the stage of Finding Meaning after experiencing such an impactful loss offers healing benefits. That doesn’t mean this stage is automatic. My mom’s death became a catalyzing moment for me. Not just in the way you might think, but in a deeper sense of shaking my Self out of me. It allowed me to access a spiritual practice and my sense of Self came back to life. I took time to really think about how I wanted to honour her in her death. I packed a special kit of meaningful items for her to take with her on her next journey after life. This is something she did for me. And yet it was also a way for me to really Align with the witchy side of me. It also was the one way i could truly give back reciprocal care to her, and show her that her love language was heard. I think it was also a way for me to highlight that i understood something powerful – death is not the end.

I saw a quote by Kimberley Jones a few months ago. It inspired me to notice that my mom birthed me twice: on the day I was born from her body and the day she died, a new birth of Me happened. Her death lead to my own butterfly effect or catalyst to become more versed, literate and comfortable with death work.

It has been through this process of purging my mother’s belongings and embracing the loss of her that I was confronted by my own sense of self, and ultimately finding meaning in my own life. It has created a newfound commitment to not martyr herself as my mom did. It was only through the loss that I could embrace parts of me that have been hidden, and sitting dormant in my psyche for years. Finding these forgotten treasures served as a wake-up call – a pristine and never-used purse is a revealing awakening for me to not wait for life to happen, nor wait to enjoy life, but rather be present in it now.

Luckily, i found my mom’s treasures, similar to Ariel’s treasures in the Little Mermaid before i lost my own voice and Self.

Giving Birth to the Spiritual Seed Within

Posted on by

I didn’t grow up religious or with a spiritual practice of any kind. I was told as a child that was because even though my parents were quite religious, they couldn’t agree what church to raise my sister and I in. That served me for years, especially as a teen who rebelled against all things religious and patriarchal.

I maybe didn’t have an overtly religious childhood, but I had a childhood infused with nature, the outdoors, and honouring various religious days. What was laid out for me was to not take nature for granted, to create ceremony for our special meals, and to trust that herbal remedies my mom made were working their magic.

I recently discovered that my ancestors on my mother’s line were oppositional to the State and wanted to align with a more village-based, natural time. Her spiritual lineage was fundamental and also devoted to a way of life that was in defiance to the industrial and political powerhouses at the time. I knew some of this information before, but as a skeptic, and also rebellious teenager, I didn’t really want to listen to her history. And that’s how it remained for years.

Fast forward to my own entry into motherhood and I felt something was missing for me. As I started to come into my own as a mother, I realized I was starting to embrace my unique offering and power as a mother – one that was soul-led and deeper. While not intentional at the time, I was able to listen to the little seed inside me that called me to programs, books, and activities that aligned with a part of me that had been forgotten about, my soul.

When I discovered a local Waldorf parent-and-tot programs, something about its gentle approach and darling handmade toys really spoke to me. It wasn’t the pedagogy that I was drawn to, but its focus on seasonal celebrations and focus on early childhood imagination. Looking back at this time now, I realize how my then-new identity of “Mother” was being formed alongside the adorable handmade toys, candles and puppets. Our talks with the Waldorf teachers highlighted for me what was aligned in my core values as a new parent, and one of them was this intentional way of honouring the seasons with ritual and a spiritual framework. We sang, honoured the turning of the wheel, and it has a subtle hint of the European ancestry that was similar to my own. And yes, its gentle approach and handmade toys really spoke to me and it filled a spot in me that had been empty.

It helped me form roots.

I appreciate the gift it gave me: By shaping my early days as a mother; someone altogether new was born inside me, and my soul was awakened with my initiation into motherhood. We now see this adjustment period of new parenthood for the messy and hormonal, change it follows, adolescence. It has a name: Matrescence; a physical, mental, psychological, sociocultural, and spiritual metamorphosis new parents go through.

As my children grew and started to establish their own roots in the world, I was able to embrace my soul’s true calling. For instance, in my family we now honour the sacred sabbaths of the Wheel of the Year, 8 holy days that honour the seasons and ancient medicines of archetypal myths and nature-based stories. It is since becoming a mother and truly accepting this role that has led me to offer ritual, ceremony and sacred practice to my family and community. This is where I own my power and full expression of myself.

As a child, I felt lost and lacking community even when surrounded by peers, neighbours and classmates. While I understand my parents’ decision to let me find my own path, I also see that they gave up a part of themselves in order to avoid conflict. This sacrifice had an impact on us all. As I am healing some of my own childhood traumas, this reclamation of a spiritual identity is a way to move through the stages of post-traumatic growth. There is power in this healing, for myself, my children, my lineage, and our future ancestors.

Looking back at my life with more clarity and wisdom now, I see the Heroine’s Journey I have been on. I had previously shamed my own mother’s attempts to guide me, and now here I am with my soul starving for this knowledge.

Maureen Murdock’s Heroine’s Journey has been a support to me in these last few years. Namely, her model of how a woman moves through life has an intentional place for a spiritual self. There is power in realizing we are not just physical beings but also have a soul that feeds and nourishes us. This is how we can more fully live a life with meaning and purpose. The origin of the word ‘psyche’ from the Greek language, and actually means soul. Like many things, we have forgotten its original intent.

As Maureen puts it, we have a quest in this time in our life: “to fully embrace their feminine nature, learning how to value themselves as women and to heal the deep wound of the feminine. It is a very important inner journey toward being a fully integrated, balanced and whole human being.” Of course, the journey is not easy and oftentimes it is without a map.

Forest for the Trees

What it does not have to be is alone. Having a name for this sea change event helps. Knowing folks who walked their own path beforehand, helps. Our path is unique to our own blueprint, but it is walked alongside everyone before and since us. That is the universal human experience. When we accept this truth, our eyes are much more open and we can reach our truest potential. The quest is the sacrifice that needs to happen as a way to pay tribute to the transformation.

“The feminine soul is what grounds us; it loves and accepts us in our totality. Our challenge is to embody this.” Marion Woodman

Marion’s work was committed to finding a feminine voice to Jung’s message. Not necessarily a woman’s voice but one that ensures we appreciate that all humans have feminine and masculine qualities. We need to embrace this truth and not fight it. And, that means also accepting that this is done at a soul level.

Accepting our full experience as humans means we need to include our soul, and how we are connected to all beings, be it our ancestors, community, animal or plant kin. Since matrescence is not simply a stage of life in human development, it deserves a much deeper focus that includes soul work. It is only since becoming a mother that I have reclaimed an understanding of being a spiritual being, and listening to my soul’s calling is very much connected to how I mother my children, my community, therapy clients, and myself. There is power in that.

As if the entry into this new identity wasn’t foreign and life-altering enough, I also felt alone in becoming a mother as I didn’t have a community, shared worldview and guidance that is needed for any rite of passage.

Rites of passage should be a descent to the soul, and a reemergence. Dr. Aurélie Athan shares that matrescence can be a time of awakening that comes with spiritual growth as motherhood is a rebirth of your soul, a portal to come home to your Self. It is a re-awakening and remembering. It is a re-wilding and reclaiming.

Having access to other’s values and perspectives helped shape my own, and eventually get a clear understanding of how I was meant to mother. This is how I integrated my new role into the rest of me.

In my commitment as a student of feminine spirituality, I am remembering that i was born witchy. My first oracle cards called to me as a 20-year old, and that came after learning about herbal medicine and being obsessed with fairy tales, myths and teen witch stories. Ironically, i’ve become more spiritual than i ever imagined – i made a rosary out of roses after all! I know that in various human development stages, our mid-forties is meant to be a soul retrieval, a coming back home to a Soul-led life: This is our Soul’s Code.

This was all meant to be, drawn from my own seed when I was born. I am meant to be Wild and Witchy, I am becoming more spiritual, and I’m including my family and friends in these rituals and ceremonies. I am wanting to create a path for our future descendants, so I can create a legacy that is the story i want to be shared about me.

I can thank my journey as a mother for this. It has been an ongoing self-discovery, and i’ve learned that our life is a living altar. Having an intentional soul-based practice brings meaning and connection to my life. I’m so ready to embrace this more fully now that my children are older and I have more freedom and spaciousness to come back to my Self.

A big part of my own journey has been to land with both feet at this moment in time: I am responsible for birthing not only my own children, but also the version of me now that has been a dream seed for decades. I am midwifing my own spiritual seed into being.

“A feminine spiritual path is in the body. It’s immanent rather than transcendent.” Kimberly Ann Johnson

For instance, this past weekend, i held the first in a series of seasonal self-discovery circles for women, non-binary and femme folks that are also on a soul path. It was a delicious initiation into my deepest calling, and I’m so ready to embrace this more actively. I realized that when we make a point to commit ourselves to soul work, we are also tending to our mind and body. In fact, research shows us that when we cultivate a spiritual practice, it can significantly decrease depression and at the same time offer a deeper meaning into our lives.

It also gives us the gift of soul siblings; others who are walking an aligned path to mine. This has been what i was starving for and didn’t know how to be fed. And then, i took a leap into the unknown last year and started to attend circles and retreats. And i spoke to friends who i already know, who also were deepening into their own lives.

Since matrescence is not simply a stage of life and human development, it deserves a much deeper understanding that includes soul work. It is only since becoming a mother that I have reclaimed an understanding of being a spiritual being, and listening to my soul’s calling is very much connected to how I mother my children, my community, clients as a therapist, and myself.

Self-Care is Honouring my Truest Self

Posted on by

At a special Tarot reading to start the year, I pulled the Empress card. This card is all about self-care, and as this year is about Soft Strength, i felt this call to care for myself really spoke to me. It is when we deem we are worthy of care that transforms us from a capitalist model to a de-conolozied way of embracing rest as our birthright.

I know that self-care has been given such a negative wrap and yet I think it’s also because it’s misunderstood. As a life-long fan of it, i want to write this article in its defence.

Like many of us, I’ve come to the realization that self-care isn’t bubble baths and pedicures just for the sake of them. Self-care is a way to enhance our life and ensure that we’re living with our own needs and love in mind. It’s also a way for us to get more Self energy in our body. When we’re working with an internal systems framework in mind, when our Parts are activated, they take us away from Self, so giving ourselves Self-care is actually a way to get a more felt sense of compassion, calm, connectedness, courage, creativity, curiosity in our bodies; thus Self energy. So self-care is about helping us stay in Self and not get pulled into old defaults or systems that no longer serve.

Does this sound like a bunch of crap to you? I get that, as i’m noticing that i’m speaking in therapy speak here. So let me back up and explain it with some context.
First of all, self-care isn’t about self-regulating or soothing ourselves. It’s actually about enhancing our life by giving ourselves the same care we give others. And I think it can be especially hard for those socialized as women or carers of others.

Self-care helps us stay in what we call Self energy in IFS therapy. It’s about tending to our inner system so we stay present with what is right here right now. In order for this to happen, we might need to learn new activities, exercises, practises or resources to help us do just that.

So think about what books, people or practices help you stay connected with yourself. What manifests feeling compassion towards yourself, or gives you the felt sense of creativity or curiosity What activities help you feel confident with your Self or calm?

It’s when we do these practices that help us enhance our lives that we are also nourishing our soul.

For me, it’s getting time to myself on my SUP board. I don’t get to do this often, and it’s just the ticket for me. When i can’t always get on it, i use this practise of somatic mindfulness to get me to recall a time that i enjoyed a ride. It’s a short cut and works really well. If you want to know what it is, it’s the time i was on my board among dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico – pure bliss.

As folks who live in this time and place, we are conditioned to be busy, to do things, and to hustle hustle hustle. Patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism all urge us to be busy and productive. As women, we also face the added challenge to give of ourselves, from our own backs and bodies at times.

I read this great post recently by Rocio Rosales Meza, where she proclaimed: “You are not burnt-out, you are colonized.” It reminded me of the term Patriarchy Stress Disorder (PSD). Dr. Valerie Rein coined the term and describes it as “this trauma creates an invisible inner prison, that holds them back from stepping into the full power of their authentic presence, unbridled joy, outrageous success, freedom, and fulfillment. This is where women feel stuck in their lives, with this persistent inner voice that wants more out of life. They feel guilty for the life that they have and then numb the feeling with all the self-help things we are taught to do. You know what i’m talking about – yoga, therapy (i see the paradox here), exercise classes, books, retreats. They look for solutions to fix their life but they are looking in the wrong place – thinking it’s ourselves that we need to fix, not the ill-fated and misguided framework of patriarchy and culture at large.

Repeat after me: I am not a personal improvement project. I am also not the problem to be fixed.

Self-care is a bridge – a portal to living a life that is more aligned with your fullest self. That includes accessing a felt sense of joy, and being present with this moment right here right now. It is about shifting from one state to another one that is more ‘you.’

Your body mind soul need to be tended to, cared for. That means you need to listen to their needs. What is your body needing right now? What might be soul vitamins or a brain massage?

Self-care has a role, but is not the answer. The degree it can help you is in the proportion to how much the need is to alleviate the hurt being done. Burnout comes from a push for perfectionism, toxic productivity and poor boundaries. Ultimately, self-care is about taking the theme to access the things that make you feel like your truest Self. It is an intentional practice that enhances your life with meaning and pleasure, presence and love. It is what nourishes you as a whole being, not just the Parts of you.

What happens is we begin to experience a paradox: we not only over-give from ourselves but also under-receive. (Thank-you to Sarah Jenks for this insight.)

Let me explain this with a personal reflection that really took this home for me. I was lamenting to my partner about my workload, and struggling to take a longer vacation time off. I want to take a full month off in the Summer, but find it hard to navigate this with clients’ needs as well as my children’s. He listened to me and then stated that it’s good to be needed. It meant it as a compliment to me, a professional caregiver and mother. I told him I am needed too much and what I want is to not be needed for a break. What i would love is to be the receiver of such care.

I am more than the roles I play or the work I do.

Here is a helpful question to ponder: What makes you come alive?

Practising this helps me have space to do things i love, and not to accept things with compromising or giving up. This is especially true about my own happiness. It means also accepting what capacity i have in that moment so that i do push myself. This is a practice of Radical Acceptance of good enough.

“I will never have this version of me again. Let me slow down and be with her.” Rupi Kaur

This reframing, or rather reclamation of the concept of self-care is especially potent for mothers and folks who are actively parenting children. It is a necessary practice in early postpartum, so that we don’t get lost in parenthood. It is also true that it is not enough to ‘self-care’ the challenges away. This article by Motherly demonstrates this further. Thanks to the research of Stephanie Knaak, via Olivia Scobie’s book, Impossible Parenting, we know that there are key resilience factors to consider in postpartum that ensure a healthy matrescence. You can see from the list below that self-care is only one of the factors. I added a couple of factors that i have found incredibly important as well:
*Be baby ready
*Self-care routine
*Self-regulation of emotions and stress
*Helpful community and aligned vision
*Have realistic expectations for yourself and others*Know your core values
*Recognize your Motherline
*Have time to yourself and the other identities that fall outside of mothering
*Find moments of joy and gratitude
*Do not compare yourself to others or get stuck in comparative suffering

In case you need a bit more anecdotal evidence, i’m going to dare to take us back in time to April 2020, when we were all sheltering at home. I knew that i couldn’t just work from my bedroom and parent each day, day in day out without fail, without also tending to my own soul and care. So i created a recipe for daily self-care for my family: We had to laugh a little, move a little, cry and feel when called to do so, make time for connection with each other, and breathe and rest.

Looking back, i know i did this as a way to ensure i accessed Self energy, as that was tested a lot back then. I was pulled into a lot of Protective Parts activation and survival mode, and yet i knew i was safe in ways my younger Parts did not. That’s a key piece – i wasn’t laughing at myself, or spiritually bypassing what i was feeling. Rather, i was using what i knew were playful and persistent remedies to get into Self. When i was committed to it, it gave me perspective to catch when my Parts were online and wanting to take over. This made me feel more alive, versus the empty shell of me. This reframe was especially important because i was catching myself fall back into old trauma vortex tendencies, the trauma responses of my younger years.

Self-care is about updating your internal system to move you into your truest self. And with that in mind, i’m going to go indulge in decadent bubble bath now.

“Keep good company, read good books, love good things and cultivate soul and body as faithfully as you can.” Louise May Alcott

My Butterfly Effect: Transforming Birth Trauma into How I Work

Posted on by

My butterfly effect is turning into a birth story healer after my own traumatic birth.

I used to get this question all the time: “Why do you want to have such a niche? Isn’t it enough if the person who gave birth and the baby are okay?” It angers me to no end when folks say unintentionally hurtful things like “at least you are okay” when folks share that they had a traumatic birth. This minimizes the key role the transition into parenthood has on becoming parents. It’s one thing to be okay after such a transformative and life-changing event. I strive to be better than okay.

The week that falls around July 15 is dedicated to raising awareness about birth trauma and its effects on families. As a therapist who supports people with this type of trauma, initiatives that honour birth trauma are important to me. As a mother who had a traumatic first birth, this week is even more important – I feel validated and seen.
I am honoured to support new parents to heal from this form of trauma. And yes, not all people who give birth identify as mothers, and the non-birthing parent can experience trauma from the birth too. As a trauma therapist, trained in various ways to process trauma, i knew that this would be a way to offer support and be in the best service.

Let me backup a bit and share what trauma is, so that we are on the same page, literally and figuratively. Here is a shorter and more concise, if not a bit simple summative definition: Trauma is something that happens too fast, too much or is too big so it impacts a person‘s experience. It causes overwhelm and can have a lasting toll. It can also be something that takes too long, is experienced alone, and there is not enough information or support. It also shows up as not enough care, not enough time, or not enough support. It’s both extremes because it’s also about being left alone in our experience.

It is not just what happens but also the absence of what should have happened if trauma didn’t get in the way. This is why all trauma has a felt sense of grief. Further, someone can continue to have unresolved trauma because they didn’t have someone witness them in their experience, either immediately or soon after. In short, trauma happens when something is too overwhelming for someone, and they feel alone in the experience.
This is also why a birth that does not go according to plan, and in fact can be quite dysregulating, can also be seen as a trauma. It is the experience of something that’s overwhelming, as well as the absence of what you wanted to happen. It has emotional and psychological impacts because of the distressing childbirth experience. The emotional toll of birth trauma is vast, and can lead to a diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Birth Trauma is different from perinatal mood challenges, and yet the symptoms are similar. So, it needs to be given the same attention and care. Like all traumas, it is up to the person who experienced it, not professionals or anyone else – it is truly in the eye of the beholder (Thanks to Cheryl Beck for this reference.)

One in 3 birthers experience birth trauma and that number is even higher for racialized mothers, people with disabilities, queer and gender diverse parents. This number has also increased to closer to 45% of all births during the pandemic.

To paint this picture, i’m going to share some hard facts about the impact of birth trauma. You may want to be mindful of your needs as you read this.

It’s helpful to know there are more than 1 kind of traumatic birth, in fact there are several distinct types of Birth Trauma: 1) Objective Experiences like the death of the newborn or the birther or serious injury to birther or newborn; 2) Subjective Experiences like a fear of own life or of newborns; 3) Systemic Failure and Obstetric Violence that makes the birther feel not heard or supported; and 4) Previous trauma that causes re-traumatization. If you want to get a better since of how this impacts people, this article shares one person’s experience after her birth trauma.

This Birth Trauma Tree visual is a powerful depiction of what birth trauma looks like, and how it can impact new parents. Like any experience of trauma, it is up to the person who experienced it to name it as such. Well-intentioned but still hurtful comments may come from family and friends. It’s important to remember that our society has minimized rituals and rites of passage in general, and even more so for rites that are related to “mothering” and women’s labour – literally. It’s no wonder that the focus becomes just about the physical act and not the spiritual metamorphosis as well.

Long-Lasting Complexities of Birth Trauma Show Up:
When others minimize your birth story because ‘everyone is okay’
When your child triggers you now
When it’s not the day you wanted and were told to have
When you blame yourself for the way the birth happened
When your sexual intimacy and body image is impacted
When the birthday of your baby is hard to celebrate
When your plan for having more kids is impacted
When you don’t know that there is support to process it
When you feel like your birth story is not as significant as others who had it worse
Becoming a parent is a major Rite of Passage in someone’s life. It is a type of initiatory experience. When birth trauma impacts it, the transition is harder and Integration into this new stage of life as a parent can be made more challenging. All rites of passage take time, and are in stages – Separation (i.e. no longer a Maiden); Transition and then Integration of this new role into your full. If you want to listen to a fabulous podcast episode about this, Jessie Harrold interviews Lucy Jones and they talk all about it HERE.

If pregnancy is the cocoon stage of a person’s journey into becoming a parent, birth is seen as the Transition Stage of becoming a parent.The transition to parenthood, and especially motherhood, should be a celebratory and supported time for new parents. This messy transition is not different from any type of sacrifice that is connected to a heroine’s journey. This one is that of becoming something that we have never been before – a mother, a parent. We are entirely new: This is what Matrescence is, the complete physical and spiritual process of becoming someone new, and in this case, a newborn parent (however you birth this child into being). So when the path is altered due to birth trauma, we experience a possible ‘psychotic state’ because we had to do it alone and not be witnessed in it. That is why new parent groups and circles are important and processing birth trauma is key.

Healing can Happen
As i mentioned above, i know that healing can happen because the traumatic birth i experienced with my first-born child was my butterfly effect: it created a ripple effect that changed the trajectory of my life, especially my career. As my initiation into motherhood was rocky, i learned more about birth including it as a rite of passage, the identity crisis, the mood changes, and also that birth can be traumatic. I then made the leap to change the course of my work and specialize in supporting others who had traumatic births.

It was my sliding doors moment, a way to reclaim this transition stage and ultimately experience Post-Traumatic Growth. Trauma healing moves through a spiral-like process, in stages that are paced and intentional. If you are someone who experienced a traumatic birth, it is never too late to receive support and healing. There is a healing quality to being witnessed and having an alternate ending, no matter how long ago you experienced the wound. Here are just some of the resources that i have found helpful:

1) Birth Story Processing is one of several therapeutic resources that can help you heal from a traumatic birth. Since as a supportive, narrative re-telling of the story, it can be quite cathartic. I have been trained in Birth Story Medicine with Pam England and have found this process a foundational part of my own healing and how i hold space for others.

2) Kimberly Ann Johnson has a lovely free meditation you can access. It supports your healing and offers healing through self-compassion.

3) Grief Work – need to grieve the birth we wanted so that we can move on. As Francis Weller shares in his powerful book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, this can be a Gate into grief. It also is a testament of the Hero’s (or Heroine’s) journey. Grief needs to be witnessed and processed, just like birth stories.

4) As trauma is stored in the body, we need to heal the body first. It’s not enough to revisit the story of the birth. We need to reprocess the impact of it on our body. That’s why therapy modalities have incorporated somatic work as a main tenet of care. I have a process to help people unpack and transform their birth story. You can read more about it here. Other helpful resources are EMDR and Somatic Experiencing.

5) One of the Pillars of Post-traumatic Growth is Advocacy. While not a requirement to heal, when we turn what happened to us as a butterfly effect, or sliding doors moment, it is an opportunity for growth and contributing to our community. It helps us shift from our personal experience to a more global common humanity. If you want to read more about how birth trauma can lead to post-traumatic growth, this article (a PDF) does a great job outlining it. Teela has a very informative Instagram account called The Tea on Birth Trauma Here are just some organizations that do this work: Birthtalk and Birth Better.

Of course we want to not need the awareness campaigns and don’t want anyone to experience birth trauma in the first place. For now, we write articles like this and share resources to help you know that healing is possible. You are not alone. We deserve better.

We are not Maidens any longer.