I wrote a Substack post about what nourishment really takes and then I made a little video over on instagram showing what I do to nourish myself in a day.

I received a lot of really good questions and comments about what came up for people seeing the practical ways I center nourishment in my life. I also got a lot of comments to the tune of “this seems so hard!” or “I could never do that!” or “That’s not realistic for my life.”

In this piece, I am attempting to really parse apart some the intricate reasons for the resistance people have towards whole body nourishment.

Nourishment Doesn’t Have to be Your Medicine

I have no agenda other than to hold the frequency of nourishment and transmit it.

I do not, in any way shape or form, believe that all humans need to value nourishment above all else.

We all have our unique paths, journeys, lessons we are here to learn, and work we have to do in the world. Sometimes nourishment isn’t part of your journey. That is totally ok with me.

It just so happens that nourishment is one of my highest held values for myself and my family. It is the thing I attune people to in my work in the world. It’s literally and figuratively, what I eat, sleep and breathe.

It is important to point out that nourishment has been my teacher for my whole life.

My early years, I was extraordinarily undernourished and completely unaware of my body and its needs. I have now made nourishment the center of my world. Initially because of necessity and now out of pure love and desire to love myself as deeply as I can.

It really is, in my case, the adage of my biggest wounds being the place of my greatest medicine.

Nourishment, as a frequency, continues to teach me more than any other energy I have come into contact with. So, I continue to be immersed in the refinement of this medicine and healing the places where I am still not really in full alignment with it.

Other people have other subjects of deep pain and healing in their lives.

We all have the seeds within our greatest pain for our greatest potential.

And I don’t mean potential in some sort of grand materialistic, conventionally ‘successful’ way, but maybe a quiet beautiful way that is all your own and never “amounts to anything” outside of the way it changes you.

Food based nourishment might not be your thing. That is totally ok. Many people live beautiful and fulfilling lives without addressing their physical nourishment on any level.

Nourishment, Values, and Discernment

I value food-based nourishment. So I spend my resources (time, money, energy) on food. It makes sense for me because I value it.

There are plenty of things that I value less or don’t value and don’t mind cutting corners on, that other people might be really appalled at.

I don’t wear make up and therefore, never spend time or money on it. I do value skincare and spend time and money doing that. There are probably all sorts of things I don’t value that you really do.

It can be so key to know what you value. Know your values. Know your standards. Know where it’s worth it to you to spend your resources.

That is part of nourishment, being discerning (see: Adult Discernment) with what you spend your resources on.

In the 3D world, there are finite amounts of time, energy, and money. There just are. We can talk about the quantum level and I love to live there sometimes and dream there.

But when you live a full life here in the 3D there are realities that you cannot deny and are important to come to terms with. When you have a baby to take care of, for example, there can be no doubt in your mind, that your resources are finite.

We cannot do it all. We simply cannot. I am a very functional, capable, and efficient person. I can get a lot done. But one of the lessons I’ve learned in the hardest of ways is this: that my energy and my resources are, on one level, are very exhaustible.

Being connected to what I value and making discerning decisions about how I spend my time, money, and energy is necessary for me to feel fulfilled, nourished and in alignment.

We cannot be nourished if we are leaking our energy, time, and money in all directions.

We need clear delineations of what we would like to spend our resources on to live in such a way that feels good, aligned, and like it’s moving us towards what we desire.

Nourishment, Embodiment and Reception

Because I value nourishment, I attempt to only move at the pace of my embodiment.

If I have to force and push myself beyond my capacity to stay with myself just to make dinner because I’m so exhausted, that might be a time when it’s more in service to my nourishment to order a pizza or grab a rotisserie chicken on my way home or hopefully, I stashed away some hot dish casseroles in the freezer, one of my fav ways my past self takes care of my current self).

If you can’t cook a meal and clean up the kitchen in an embodied, present way, but you have to force and push, it probably won’t be a nourishing experience because you won’t be able to receive it. You’ll be leaving some part of yourself behind.

Am I saying I never push myself to clean up the kitchen at the end of the night? No. I do quite often, but I am gauging myself and if it really was going to bring me far outside myself I might definitely leave it or I would power through and then do something really sweet and nourishing for myself after, like a hot bath with candles or reading while putting my legs up the wall and breathing deeply into my back body.

I have to be attuned to myself (see: Self Attunement is the Key to Everything) to know what I need in these moments and not easily collapse into scrolling on my phone or watching TV I don’t even enjoy.

A Matriarch is highly attuned to her own needs AND the needs of the others she cares about, at the same time. This doesn’t mean she always puts others’ needs before her own, it just means she is aware of them and takes them in consideration.

This is where I think a poor model of mature feminine affects so many women in the realm of nourishment.

If we didn’t have a model of what it means to be a woman committed to her nourishment then it doesn’t feel safe and we feel unsafe claiming it for ourselves. Safety is such a big part of being able to receive. You’re not going to truly receive something if you feel unsafe or there are a lot of unknowns involved, because you can’t open.

Imagine a closed fist and an open hand. Which one is going to be able to receive something offered to it?

There is a finite amount of time. You have a finite amount of energy. This is just a 3D fact. So we do have to be really attuned to ourselves (See: Self Attunement is the Key to Everything article) and the values we want to choose to uphold and be willing to make trades and swaps for the things we don’t value as much.

This is where efficiency does matter and commitment to our values does take effort (See: Nourishment Takes Effort).

Nourishment and The Mother

If you are here, I am willing to be there is something within you that yearns for a life that is more nourishing on some level.

Maybe you wish you enjoyed cooking more.

Maybe you wish you knew what to feed your kids so that they grew up robust and strong.

Maybe you just have a feeling that you are in some way under nourished and you’re exploring what would remedy that.

Maybe you are really well physically nourished but you still feel the ache of hunger for something more in your soul.

All nourishment, no matter physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual comes from The Mother. The Mother is where all nourishment is originally derived.

When you think of the word nourishment, what picture comes up for you?

A table full of scrumptious food? A warm cozy couch full of blankets and a fire cracking in the background? A well used kitchen? Maybe a maternal figure of some sort? A soft and curvy woman? A warm embrace? Something else?

I’m willing to bet that whatever it is, it has a feminine feel to it.

We are profoundly lacking in the mature feminine principle in this day and age. It is rare to have a maternal model of a nourished and embodied older woman. It is rare to find a real world example of a wise old crone. And because of this, I believe we are severely undernourished as a society.

I draw a very strong connection between the lack of modeling of mature feminine energy in the world and the collective experience of the lack of true nourishment.

Why Don’t We Allow Nourishment?

Generally, people know how to nourish themselves if they just slow down and listen.

Everyone knows they should spend less time on screens, less time comparing themselves to others, eat more whole foods, and prioritize their sleep.

Everyone knows that nature is healing and that they would be happier if they spent less time being concerned about material gain and more time truly receiving what they already have. We know this.

But, why don’t we make these things part of our everyday reality? What is it that keeps us so stuck in the habits and patterns of excess stress and deficiency of that warm and subtle thing that I call nourishment?

It is easy to say, “My job keeps me in the stress!” “If only I had more time, then I would nourish myself more!” “It’s everyday modern life that has me so stressed out!” “It’s the way I was raised, I was taught that my worth was dictated by how much I could preform!” “It’s my mother. She didn’t nourish me, so I don’t have a blueprint for nourishment!” “My mind is always spinning! It feels like I can’t catch a break and just be!”

These could all be totally true. I don’t doubt your high stress job, feeling super overbooked, modern life, and the way and culture in which you were raised all contribute to your habit of choosing stimulation over rest, even when rest is what you need. I know. I am right there with you.

Have your feelings. Be victimized. Acknowledge the ways you are programmed away from nourishment. This is part of it.

And then, once you’ve felt that, my question is: ‘So what do we do from here?’

So you’re tired, overwhelmed, overbooked, patterned from birth, traumatized, and burnt out; are you still able to meet yourself where you are and ask yourself, in each moment that you can remember: “What would nourish me here?”

Are you willing to ask the deepest parts of yourself that question?

Not what does Clara say I should do in this moment. Not what would X influencer do in this moment? Not what would someone else do to nourish themselves.

What do YOU need in this moment?

Because here’s the thing: nourishment is for you. It has to be. It comes through you.

It has to be something that takes all the uniqueness that makes you, you into consideration.

You can constantly be looking to someone else to tell you the answers, give you the next diet, the next study, the next supplement, but if you don’t ask yourself, “What would nourish me here?” then you’re just putting your work on someone or something else. And you’ll never be truly satisfied. Because the answer to what would nourish you has to come from you.

When we remember that our nourishment is for us and it comes through us, we don’t feel the pressure of the shoulds. I ‘should’ eat more whole foods. I ‘should’ not watch so much tv. I should lift weights, walk more, etc.

These shoulds are inherently not nourishing. You can go through the movements of doing the “shoulds” and be doing all the things, but are you really receiving them?

Because that is difference between being truly nourished and just ticking boxes. So many women (myself included sometimes) are just going through the motions of nourishment, not actually receiving the nourishment of their lives.

When we don’t really receive nourishment, or receive our lives, the idea of nourishment can feel heavy, overwhelming. It creates pressure. It creates a squeeze.

Nourishment takes up space. It’s stretches out. It widens us.

One of the most common questions I got around nourishment was around how hard it feels. Women tell me it feels like work. It feels like too much of a mental load to meal plan. It feels like too much work to clean up the kitchen after cooking. It feels never ending to have to always have food ready for meals. It feels overwhelming to keep track of “all the things I’m supposed to do.”

I really get this feeling. I do. I’ve spent many years of my life being overwhelmed and feeling like I didn’t have enough time. I’ve spent many years of my life finding all the things I should be doing and doing them without any question and feeling fried afterwards when I thought I was supposed to feel good.

What Do We Do?

The answer is not to force yourself to be nourished or grind your way to nourishment. That will never work. Because it is the opposite of nourishment.

Nourishment is never about doing more, it’s about receiving more and then of course, we can overflow and give from a place of overflow and joy.

We make dinner with a sense of purpose and alignment.

We meal plan because it aligns with our value of having food that is home cooked and nourishing for our family and our selves.

We grocery shop and have food available because it’s what works best for us.

Softening into a deeper relationship with nourishment is receiving more than you are giving out.

Having more while doing less.

It has to be. Especially if we have been in a place of depletion.

This is hard for people to wrap their heads about because nourishment has become just another thing we have to “do.” No wonder we feel exhausted and pressured by it.

Now, you might look at all the things I “do” to support my nourishment and think you need to do more. But this is comparison, this is ‘should’ thinking, this is the idea that you need to do what I’m doing for you to be nourished. That is not the case and it’s not how nourishment works on a broader level .

I meal plan. I am pretty much always cooking to some degree and cleaning up the kitchen when I’m at home. I am always thinking about food, where we will get it, what we will have, what we need, how we will build our days around our meals and snacks. I have built so many skills in the kitchen over lots of time.

Food has become the scaffolding upon which the fabric of lives lays. That is not work. That is just how my life works. And I love it.

I don’t love or enjoy every single moment of it, but overall I love the way eat, the way we procure most of our food from our own land and our community, and the way we really attune to the earth and her cycles through what we eat.

AND sometimes I just order a f*****g pizza because I also really value freedom.. which is one of my highest values actually, so I can see why I can’t quite give myself the full “I will never order take out” standard.

Nourishment requires effort. It requires resources. It should. It’s worth it.

I don’t actually think the majority of modern day people are too lazy or undisciplined to eat in a nourished way, I think most Americans are burnt out.

Some sources say 80% of American adults show significant signs of burnout. We need nourishment. And we are exhausted and it takes effort. It is quite a conundrum.

What do we do then?

We do what we can, where we are.

And we keep asking ourselves: “What would nourish me in this moment?” If you don’t know, then this is an even more important inquiry to be with.

We need to know our needs and know ourselves before we can really deeply nourish ourselves.

This is the kind of work we do in my program FERTILE. I will be opening the doors again at some point. You can get on the waitlist here or book a call with me to get more information on how to work with me here.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clarabelize.substack.com/subscribe

I am not ‘the best’ at anything.

To say that isn’t a very smart ‘marketing strategy’ on my end.

We are supposed to claim our expertise.

To exude authority.

To share things with the certainty of a herd of elephants.

To lay out a program with the exact 5 step approach to save your life.

There are so many voices out there, so many smart, convicted, and confident voices.

And they all have valuable things to say.

We love certainty. We love authority. It makes us feel safe. It makes us feel like if we mess up, then it will be someone else’s fault and we won’t have to hold the pain of it.

But pain is a teacher.

We love the idea of a big Daddy in the sky that’s going to save us from all our indecision, failures, and mistakes.

Every time we give up our own responsibility to an authority figure and/or we rely on someone else’s certainty to guide us, we get a little dose of Daddy, and that can feel great, until that Daddy turns out to be another flawed human being, and we are left back where we started, unsure and wavering.

The truth is narcissists exist. So do humans with ill-intent, people who are unstable, humans who have been hurt deeply and are playing that out by hurting others.

There are people who have hidden their soft vulnerabilities so deep down, behind so many layers of armor, they don’t even know or have access to those parts of themselves anymore.

There are people who will take advantage of you and people who you should not and cannot trust.

There are plenty of people who put material gain far above their alignment with Life. There are plenty of people who most of us wouldn’t blame one bit for doing this.

I would never want to send my daughters out into this world without a healthy dose of skepticism, critical thinking skills, and much encouragement to trust their hearts and guts when it comes to if a person is safe and trustworthy or not.

Our world rewards people for being heartless robots. The tougher, the better. The less sleep you can get, the more you can get done. The less needs you have, the stronger you are. The less empathy you have, the higher you climb.

The more you can play into and identify other people’s wounds and not be affected by it, the more money you can make.

On one level, our modern world breeds insanity.

Why do you think we are getting sicker and more mentally unwell every year?

When our world is filled with so much darkness, unthinkable cruelty, and torture, how can we be soft and sensitive? How can we have faith?

When we need to work 40+ hours a week just to keep our homes and put food on the table, how are we supposed to feel the backlog of grief building up or not be tempted by people selling different ways of being?

I believe the only sane response to this, however, is to double down on our humanity. This is why softness is so courageous.

Our humanity does not need more certainty, but more curiosity.

Our humanity doesn’t need more authorities pontificating from podiums telling the peasants how it is, but more true listening.

We need more humility and willingness to do things differently than we ever have.

We need more discernment about where we place our attention and who we give our attention to. And recognize that this is where our power lies. The power doesn’t come from the people out there hellbent on doing harm, it lies within us.

We need to recognize all the places we have misplaced our power, placed it in authorities, gurus, collective societal programming, and take it back into our own human hearts.

We have to stop making material wealth the measure of our success, but instead, make success about how willing we are to meet life with an open heart.

Even writing that feels a little cliche, but it’s actually one of the most important ways to bring sanity back into an insane world.

Can I soften in the face of this?

Can I allow Life to teach me here?

Can I allow this thing to touch me?

Can I feel it, all the way?

Can I let myself be led by something much bigger than myself?

Can I let myself open… even here?

Can I stay in the tension of opposites, indecision, wavering and not knowing?

Can I stay in and with the uncertainty I feel, even if a knight in shining armor offers me clear path forward, so that I may find my own way forward?

Can I resist other peoples’ certainty and wait for the click of my own certainty to lead?

Can I receive my Life as it is?

I am not the best at anything, because ‘the best’ is subjective.

‘The best’ for you, depends on you.

The best diet.

The best supplement.

The best practice.

The best teacher.

The best advice.

It all depends on you and where you are at on your journey.

Your journey is yours and no one else’s. It cannot be compared to mine or your friend’s or that-girl-on-instagram’s. Your circumstances are yours and yours alone. For better and for worse.

We cannot know another person’s journey. It is theirs. And to pretend that we know is actually quite insulting and what I see as quite broken in the wellness industry.

So many people espousing solutions and no one willing to sit in the tension of the symptoms and what they are teaching the individual, on their individual journey.

I will not tell you the ways you are broken so as to tee you up for the ways I can fix you.

I will not align with systems that suggest anything other than each human being as a child of god, because, to me at my point on my journey, this is what sustains humanity.

I will not sacrifice my peace, wellbeing, physiology, my children and therefore my future children’s well being or physiology, for material gain. This is what is being asked of me at this moment.

And, I am deeply flawed and 100% human. I am learning, growing, expanding, and changing always. I do not have anything fully figured out.

One thing I choose to settle into is that Life is sacred.

If nothing else, I make it sacred. I make the not knowing sacred.

I build my life and my choices on faith in this Life and in humanity. Not in a bypass-y way that makes my eyes sprout hearts for every single person that comes across my path or blinds me to the atrocities of the world. (Although, on a good day, one of my practices is to see all humans through the eyes of God.)

It doesn’t mean I don’t doubt. It doesn’t mean I know what you should do. It doesn’t mean I have answers. It simply means I choose to make what happens to me in my life, sacred. I choose to give my life meaning beyond my small self.

Not because it has to mean something, but because devotion anchors my nervous system. It is functional.

Faith quite literally gives us a capacity for wholeness when without we feel broken, fractured, and torn apart.

I don’t know anyone who has gone through something truly heartbreaking and come out the other side ok who didn’t lean on faith and the idea that something mysterious and bigger than them is going on.

Faith and devotion allow me to keep my attention on love, sacredness, joy, and belonging in the midst of the suffering around me.

As a song I love to sing to my girls as they’re falling asleep goes:“I am grateful to be. Breathing, heart beating, joyous and free. Even though hard times are all around me, I am still grateful to be.”

It doesn’t mean we bypass the hard times or we pretend they aren’t happening. For me, devotion literally gives me nourishment as I feel the darkest corners of my psyche and experience.

Devotion fortifies me, so that I may face the world with an open heart and feel what is there for me. Faith connects me to something bigger than myself so that I can withstand and alchemize more than I could on my own.

We all need a little extra space in this crazy world. Devotion gives me that space. And it is a choice I make every day and every moment.

I do my best everyday to BE the thing that I am teaching and transmitting. This is what I am committed to.

That means my “business” and money isn’t the most important thing and it never will be.

Service to Life, even when that looks like making less money or having less “followers/engagement”, is.

And it starts at home with me, always.

It isn’t important for me to look extra special, I am special to my family and my children and that is enough.

We are all standing on the shoulders of giants after all. There really aren’t any new “teachings” or “codes” at this point that you can’t access by getting quiet and listening to the whispers of your very bones and sitting underneath a tree and opening your senses and listening.

I will point you back there, to your bones, to your ancestors, to the trees, to your pain and your wounds and the lessons they are teaching you.

I will point you back to your symptoms, to curiosity, and to your own wisdom.

I will share my experiences and stories of my life. I will reflect back what I see when it is appropriate.

I will share the things I have studied, researched, the patterns in the collective I see and that I have contemplated.

Maybe these will ping something for you to search out and experiment with.

If we work together or have any sort of relationship, I am sure you will teach me and I will teach you.

“We are all just walking each other home,” as Ram Dass said.

Stop and really be with and listen to the people around you tomorrow, you’ll see that the world is filled with teachers and wisdom keepers and they come in all shapes, sizes and the most surprising packages.

God is coming through each experience, person, tree, mountain, animal you interact with, you just have be open to receive it. You don’t have to trust them. You don’t have to agree with them. You don’t even have to like them.

The Buddha said the next Buddha will be the sangha (community).

This isn’t some special community or commune, but literally the people around you, right now.

Listen, open, be receptive, and be discerning at the same time. It’s not about the personality in front of you, it’s about seeing the child god within them and within you.

The Matriarch understands that different situations require different handling. She knows her worth and her power doesn’t come from someone else or fitting in, but in her devotion.

May we see each other in our power.

May we remember our own.

As an offering related to what I’ve been writing about here I want to highlight a special totally free 3 day event held by Siri Birk, called EARTH BODY, over the eclipse portal, March 13-15. There will be embodiment practice led by Siri each evening and a guest speaker each morning. I will be speaking on March, 14th at 10am PST.

You can sign up here: https://www.siribirk.com/earthbody

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clarabelize.substack.com/subscribe

I don’t know what to call the journey I am on. I’ve been writing about it for years at this point.

Is it a spiritual awakening journey? Is it a personal development journey? Is it the journey into motherhood? Is it a body or healing journey? Is it my online journal?

At this moment I’m inclined to say it is simply: my life journey.

It is the journey of living a life with more and more conscious awareness.

It is my singular and simple expression of an internal searching and finding process.

After many years of big explosions, realizations, changes, transformations and alchemizations, I have reached a Still Point.

The image that comes to mind is me, as a surfer, having paddled through and traversed the intensity of the breakers, sitting on my surfboard, water still and clear as glass around me. Being able to see far into the horizon in all directions.

I can see from a more steady place what I have been through, where I have been, and ultimately what I have created for myself.

No one else created this for me.

I did.

I did the work.

I used my arms, my legs, my sheer force of will, my devotion to something bigger than me, to get myself here.

And now, I need and get to really take it all in.

From this location I am at now, I really have the blessing of being able to see everything from a new vantage point.

There are times in our life we get to really appreciate what we’ve built and what we’ve created; the good, the bad and the ugly, and I have reached one of these points on my life journey.

I’ve been inquiring into the deepest reaches of my heart and soul why it is that I share and what it is that I’m sharing.

There is so much noise in our world.

So many inputs coming from all sides.

There is a cacophony of voices with strong opinions and activating ideas. And there are plenty of platforms for these voices to be projected and spewed out upon the world.

There are a select few voices saying things I feel deeply need to be said and heard. These voices seed more love, more authenticity, and more realization that we are, in fact, all walking each other home.

There are far more voices out there that just love to hear themselves talk and are using their words to prop up their small-s-self aggrandizement. Or feeling like, if they aren’t heard, they don’t exist.

The amount of voices overwhelms me, as I’m sure it does you. We are all so desensitized to this constant inflow of other people’s expression that we can’t really be discerning, let alone really process what we consume.

We are all walking around absolutely stuffed to brim of other peoples’ ideas, tips and tricks, little quotes, funny video clips, pings from messages bombarding us every few minutes, and sound bites.

Without a still point, a serious pause to digest, a chance to look up from the waves of life that have been crashing over our heads, it’s hard to really understand where we are in time and space.

I have been feeling that my spiritual body has been quite far ahead of my physical form for sometime now. I believe this to be a puzzle piece in the mosaic of the contributors to my health crash 3 years ago and part of my continued health issues. I said to a friend the other day that it’s like my spiritual body clock is at 10pm and my physical body clock is at 4pm.

I don’t necessarily think it is true for our spiritual and physical bodies to be perfectly synced, but there is a point at which we have to take some space to really allow our vessels to catch up.

It is clear to me this is where I have landed.

Doubling down on the explosive spiritual awakenings at this point in my journey would be like trying to escape the season of winter.

All things in nature go through cycles and part of these cycles are always a period of rest and release. The trees drop their leaves. The energy is drawn in toward center. The grass up top dies. The uterine lining sheds. There is a pause, a darkness. A re-gathering of strength for next rebirth cycle.

When we override this truth in micro or macro ways there will always be consequences.

On a macro level we see this with our collective societies’ obsession with always being up-and-to-the-right! More money! Bigger companies! Greater “influence”! More likes! More “engagement”!

On a micro level it’s our obsession with coffee and stimulants and the idea that we can’t trust our bodies and their needs for rest, space, nature, food, breaks and screen free down time.

“It must be something else making fatigued and exhausted! It must be an infection or complicated hormonal issue! It couldn’t possibly that my physical body’s basic needs aren’t met with the processed food, 10 hours of screen time a day, and 6 hours of sleep I give it each night!”

Stimulants actually only feel good to people who have low energy, because it gives you a short term expensive boost to where you actually would always be if you had sufficient energy. If you have adequate, organic energy, stimulants make you feel jittery, shaky, uneasy, and paranoid and you would avoid them.

[Read more about this idea of burnout here]

I believe part of the reason “uppers” are so addictive is because of how collectively burnt out we are. People do cocaine and for the first time they have a plethora of energy. It’s not organic energy but it’s something more than burnt out.

When we are burnt out we will consciously and unconsciously seek out things that will stimulate energy production in our bodies.

We will reach for caffeine, sugar, simple carbohydrates, drama, chaos, and situations that activate a sympathetic nervous system response. Because these things gives us false energy.

Burn out is different from simply being tired or fatigued. It is beyond fatigue. The body is really in a place where it has no charge, no juice. This is the potential place we end up in when we don’t listen to the whispers and knocks from the fatigue our body is showing us.

And so I am in this place of listening. I have been listening. But there is a new intensity with which I am listening to the body. I am listening on even a subtler level.

I can feel how I am actually on the precipice of a totally new imprint here with my body.

I have been in and out of burnout since adolescence. I believe this was one of the reasons I started abusing substances at the age of 13.

I have an imprint of going hard, pushing myself, partially because of how exhausted I always was. I had to create extra pressure so that my body could rev up enough to have any energy at all. And this carried on into my spiritual work as an adult. I used the activation of spiritual work as the spark to rev up my engine.

I’m not mad about this. I don’t think I made any mistakes. I have grown and expanded so much.

It’s all perfect here. It can be true to push. It is true to expand. It is true to dig up old ways of being and do the work to integrate them. It is true to really transform myself again and again and be reborn. There is a time in life when it’s appropriate to rev the engine and go!

However, more activation would actually be the easier and more comfortable thing for me to choose at this moment.

My mind wants the stimulation of it all.

On the surface my body craves the action, so that I may avoid the stillness, which within it may have fatigue, exhaustion, but what will also have space, peace, and gathering of information.

How much do we crave spaciousness only to fill every inch of it with scrolling and spending?

How much do we ask for more time only to schedule every inch full when we get some?

How uncomfortable is true peace for most of us because it is simply so unfamiliar?

These are the inquiries I’m interested in right now as I sit in this Still Point on life’s journey.

I will choose peace this time.

I will choose spaciousness.

I will choose to allow my body’s its exhaustion and its gathering of strength for what is to come.

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Modern life tends to make people soft in the places we should be tough and tough in the places we should be soft.

We have endless OTC drugs to make simple illnesses like the flu more bearable. And trust me, after being fully incapacitated for 3 days with the flu, it is not pleasant in anyway shape or form.

I didn’t enjoy it.

I didn’t love it.

I’m still pretty physically miserable, to be honest.

Taking ibuprofen or any other OTC drugs that are simply meant to keep us comfortable, slow down the natural healing process. And, I believe, they create a numb divide between the communication of our bodies and our consciousness.

I did take one capsule the second night just so I could sleep, so I am not militant, but that is the first ibuprofen I have taken since tearing during childbirth, so I take it VERY rarely and only when very necessary.

I was so hesitant to take that one ibuprofen because I knew it would lower my fever and a fever is what you want when you have the flu. We are programmed to be afraid of the ways our bodies heal themselves because sometimes they are quite uncomfortable.

I am a woman who leans in to the communications of the body.

There is value in the pain. There is wisdom in the experience of something hard. There is insight to be had when we are brought to the edges of our sanity with discomfort.

Now, does this mean we should unnecessarily make things hard for ourselves? Does this mean we should be gluttons for punishment? I also know all about this, because I am someone who has had, in the past, a very strong internal punisher. The story you have got to earn it was very much part of my programming.

So I’ve sat with my hesitancy to take OTC drugs or go to a doctor and I’ve asked myself, “Are you punishing yourself here?”

And the answer is truly, for me, no.

I believe ibuprofen disconnects me from myself and my own felt sense. Call it a sort of extreme sobriety, but I feel it when I take it. It’s super subtle but it allows me to override parts of myself that I wouldn’t be able to override if I didn’t take it.

The answer is that I believe these physical health challenges are shamanic initiations of sorts. I believe they leave us better than they found us, maybe not physically initially, but mentally or spiritually. To disconnect from myself while in that experience doesn’t feel aligned for me and in integrity with who I am and what I teach and model.

(As far as going to a doctor, my observation is the closer you get to conventional medicine the sicker you become and the more interventions you get.)

As I was in the deepest dark of my recent flu journey, one of the stories that really got kicked up is how I’m going to lose what I’ve created in business, and in life. Like I have this idea that my family will fall apart, my house will fall apart, my business will fall apart, if I’m not capable of holding it all together. Because the fear is always that I will always feel this way (sick).

These stories are not logical or based in reality, they are the illogical fear stories that just play on a loop when you’re in a vulnerable, painful, uncontrollable, uncomfortable place. It’s not actually about the stories. It’s kind of like the Bogart in Harry Potter, the stories just show you what you are most afraid of. This takes A LOT to be with and not want to run to something to take it away.

There is the physical discomfort and that is painful, but it’s the stories that arise from that discomfort and the idea that it may never go away that really gets you desperate.

I am not saying that everyone should see every headache as a mini shamanic initiation. This is my practice. My path is of listening to the body and trusting the communications of the body, and that needs to come with the fun and pleasurable, as well as the pain.

This is a spot where I do feel like people have gotten a little too soft in a place where it would serve us to be a bit tougher. Not in a “tough it out” kind of way, but in the way that we see physical processes as an opportunity to learn deep truths about ourselves. If we stay deep in the cavernous blackness that opens up to us when we are in pain, sick, or grieving, there is a massive opportunity for growth and expansion.

In this particular flu, for me, there was a big healing around my younger self who was sick a lot and always felt like she needed to get better quick. That being sick wasn’t ok and it needed to end as soon as possible. I got to revisit this wound during this illness and rewrite it for that internal little one. I got to love her and let her know, no, it is ok. You can be sick. You can rest. You can be warm and cozy and do nothing.

One of the messages that came through was: This sickness doesn’t mean “you’re falling behind”, it’s actually propelling you forward in ways you can’t see right now.

What if that was true? Our minds think we need to keep all our appointments and can’t handle the inconvenience that illness brings with it, but what if the illness was actually preparing us for something? What if this pause right now is exactly what we need? What if this is the “fastest” track to our own awakening?

What if illness was always an upgrade?

I see this in childbirth. Childbirth is an initiation. It is not meant to be easy or breezy. I do not think it is meant to be “orgasmic.” I think it’s possible for it to be orgasmic, but most of the time it is f*****g intense. As it should be.

We deny our strength when we try to rescue women from this fact or offer epidurals or planned c sections to anyone and everyone. I am speaking on a collective level. I, obviously, believe each woman has complete bodily sovereignty over her choice of how to birth, but if this narrative was shared more, and we practiced being uncomfortable more via going through things like headaches without ibuprofen, maybe women would be more willing to surrender to the birth process as the intense initiation and rebirth of a mother that it is. Which is intense, painful, and, ultimately, always leaves you a better woman than you were before, when it’s integrated.

Postpartum feels so long and “unproductive” and I understand how isolating it can be for women, but postpartum is also thought of as the “golden opportunity” in Chinese medicine. It is a time in a woman’s life when she can miraculously heal old illnesses and diseases, complete cycles, change relationships, and massively blossom into who she is becoming.

It’s all about how we frame it.

What if we met these naturally occurring initiations in our lives with courage and strength and a resolve to learn what there is to learn from the communications our bodies are giving us?

What if we softened into the ways these initiations want to shape us?

(Ok. I want to be really clear here. There are a lot of things in this that could ruffle feathers and poke at some tender spots. I want to say, I am speaking on a collective level. If you decided to have a planned c section, I do not judge you. If you take nyquil to go to sleep every night, I do not judge you. If you go to the doctor all the time, I do not judge you. We all have our own stories and our own histories that shaped us into who we are and got us to where we are today. Your journey is yours, mine is mine. We all have to live our lives in this day and age. There is no judgment on how you decide to go about healing your own body).

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The end of 2024 for me has brought with it many endings and therefore new beginnings.

A big overarching theme is a deep reckoning with how available I have been.

I wrote more about this here.

On a macro level I can see how I have associated my deservingness of love and my availability.

The more available I am, the more I give of myself; the more love I can get, right?

Or, maybe more accurately; no one would love me for just being me; I must prove my worth by being useful, capable, and available.

I must earn the love I am given. I must make sacrifices and work hard.

If I have something people want; I should give it away, right?

The answer is probably yes, but there is a subtle line between being generous because you can be and giving more than you actually have to give in hopes that someone else will see you and replenish you.

Where does that line live? Who determines where it lives?

I have been operating as if my business gets to decides where that line lives. Or that the collective society gets to determine where that line lives. Or that other people’s expectations get to decide where that line lives. [I loved this piece on this subject].

But what about me? What if I got to decide where the line lives?

So much of my work, personally and professionally, revolves around nourishment.

But being nourished can be quite relative and subjective.

One one level; I am very nourished. I have impeccable boundaries. I have more than enough and more than I need in so many ways. I am very well resourced.

On the relative scale of nourishment; I would say, my current life is probably quite a bit more nourishing than the average person’s life.

This is not about comparison and it is not about better or worse.

The frequency of nourishment and Mother are my teacher. This is my path.

The levels of which I have been undernourished in my lifetime are also quite extreme relative to most.

The pits of despair and pain we crawl out of happen to be the places our medicine gets the strongest.

Wisdom is built in our experiences of alchemy. This is the way of the medicine woman. We know the medicine is in the poison.

And so.. l am being invited forward.

I am being called into even more integrity with nourishment.

I am being called through the spiral 🌀, and into the more integrated, mature, and powerful woman I am becoming (as we all are by our current circumstances whatever they may be).

I am seeing how starved I am of certain necessary nutrients of wellbeing: spaciousness and self preservation being major themes.

I have given so much away before I have really digested and received the nourishment of it.

I have rushed toward a perceived reward that as I slow down and give myself more space, I’m not actually sure I want.

I notice that the more I integrate and heal and nourish myself, the less ambitious I become.

I start to see what so much of my ambition around having a ‘thriving business’ and proving myself as a ‘respected authority’ on certain subjects, was just about wanting to be loved and feel safe in my place in the world.

As I see and feel in my body more and more that I am perfectly safe and will always be loved, by g-d and myself, there is no need to hustle. There is no need to grind. There is no need to override my precious physiology.

I don’t need to spend hours a day on platforms I know to be wildly depleting and in direct opposition to the juicy and cozy frequency I call nourishment.

I don’t need to respond to every DM or give people endless hours of my time just so they will spend money on my offerings.

I don’t need to deliver my message in a way that feels for good to anyone but me.

I don’t need to sacrifice my physiology or the physiology of my children or the entire energy system of my family as a whole, to make sales.

I don’t need to make people like me. I don’t need to make offers that are more accessible.

I don’t have to have a clean kitchen or more new or trendier stuff.

I don’t have anything to prove.

I need no external validation when my internally sourced worthiness is stable and abundant.

And my internally sourced worthiness and abundance comes from me protecting it, cultivating it, and listening to it, like it is The Most Important Thing In the World.

Internally sourced worthiness comes from being unendingly devoted to my inner well spring of energy. And this is ultimately what I teach and guide other women to do.

Obviously, there is nothing wrong with being kind, generous and loving. I am actually naturally such a generous soul. I love nothing more than to nurture, give to, and feed people.

But the way these qualities get twisted up with self-sacrificing, ‘being nice’, and likable more often than not, has made me really question all the places in my life I am giving others the benefit of the doubt or explaining away bad behavior, at the detriment to myself.

My inquiry this year is really around: what if I really honored my own energy system FIRST?

What if nothing came before it? What if I really asked myself; what do you want? What are you hungry for? What do you think? Is this serving your well being and your nourishment?

Because I’ll tell you what: being constantly on social media; feeling like I have to respond to every message I get across all platforms and apps; feeling beholden to make my offerings accessible to all, constantly having my attention pulled between different apps on my phone and my family; and using my life to create content instead of living my life, doesn’t actually serve my nourishment one bit.

Consistent creative expression does serve my nourishment.

Working with women committed to their own long term nourishment, nourishes me.

Spending time being a main feature in and holder of my girls’ daily lives, nourishes me.

Having the space to dive deeply into topics that interest me for no reason other than I’m interested in them, nourishes me.

Having the space and time to create and cook my own food, nourishes me.

What nourishes you?

Because I am so deeply devoted to The Mother (where all nourishment is derived), I am heeding the invitation here because I can’t unsee how the level of unbridled availability expected in this day and age is actually in direct opposition to what I so vehemently believe the world needs.

Which is more reverence; a deeper sense of sacredness and respect for the sanctity of human life and life force, eg more of a connection to what nourishes us.

Quite honestly, I feel very alone in my sober realization here. I feel like most of the world can’t feel what is at stake at the tenor at which I feel it.

I respect peoples’ choices and their sovereign paths. I actually really do trust humanity. I would never assume I know what is best for anyone but myself and my children, because only you can know what is best for you.

However, I can no longer bare the dichotomousness of teaching about nourishment from the compulsion and addiction that is wrapped around social media and the constant consumption and creation of ‘content’ and ‘having a growing and successful business.’

It’s not it and it feels like the elephant in the room.

The wellness industry is indeed an industry and it’s one that 99% of the time isn’t actually promoting anything even close to true wellness or relaying accurately what it actually means to nourish ourselves.

The wellness industry is promoting fear driven quick fixes and sparkly silver bullets to overstimulated, depleted people who simply need to put their phones down, eat enough whole foods to properly fuel their bodies, go outside and drop to their knees at their connection to something larger than themselves.

We all need the long game work of real and true nourishment. Which requires a slowing down. A tapping in. A willingness to do the mundane and unexciting work of being where we are.

As Sarah Blondin said; “Sometimes it’s not about blazing a new path, but rather kneeling down on the one you’re on and asking if there is anything you have been denying.”

I spent the last 2 weeks off of social media and deep in quiet contemplation of where my work is headed. I slowed all the way down to the speed of my embodiment and what I’ve been feeling at this spot actually surprised me.

When I slow all the way down and ask what I really want without the compulsion and addiction to results driven thinking; it is that I want to spend more time with my family and with my girls on a daily basis.

Who is this Clara that pines for more time spent coloring with my girls? Who is this powerful woman who feels her path bringing her right back to what we, as a collective, are told is the lamest location of all, barefoot in the kitchen?

What if the window into my desire was wiped clean of all shoulds and have tos and potential sparkly accolades and what I see so clearly is the truth that I want to be a mother who doesn’t outsource her mothering?

I want to be a mother who understands what a privilege it is to be able to spend this short season of my children’s childhood being a mother before anything else.

To quote Sarah Blondin’s most recent essay again, “Everyday is new, wild, and whispering in your ear, and courage sometimes involves letting go of who you thought was you, and embracing someone else underneath. It is okay for life to be lonely and raw, unfamiliar and newly discovered. Neither is it predictable nor is it even definable. You are free to explore an entirely new, unformed version of yourself and tell no one about it.”

Who am I without work? Who am I without the incessant pull of the inbox? Who am I without this ambitious drive toward making something of myself?

Who am I when I’m less available to you and more available to me?

This is the new version of me I am being called to explore. Lonely and raw, I am sure it will be.

But embracing the woman underneath, the woman I am becoming, is where my nourishment lies.

It’s the long game step by step my soul is hungry for.

My work and offerings are going to change drastically in 2025. I am going to be far less available, which is actually very in service to the potency of my work.

The only way to work with me directly in 2025 will be through, joining FERTILE.

We already have a beautiful group of women fully committed to their long term nourishment and exploration of their creative power ready to begin later this month.

FERTILE is going to be such a gentle and spacious journey with me. It is the truest offering I’ve ever put out in that, it’s so deeply in service to this long term flavor of nourishment.

It is the offering I’ve been too afraid to put out there because it’s felt like such a big thing to ask women to commit to 2 years of work with me.

But I realize that when I commit to myself and what I know to be true, like the fact that you can’t actually work on true nourishment without a bigger and longer commitment, I call the women in who are also ready to take responsibility and play the long game with nourishment. Here we go.

If you feel called you can find the basic details here and send me a message to book a call or message me more about it. We being mid January, so be sure to message me soon as I’m only doing calls next week.

I’m still not clear what I will be doing with the FED newsletter. I’m thinking I’m going to adjust it to a monthly vs weekly offering, but stay tuned.

I am offering some in-person experiences around Bozeman in 2025. A one day VILLAGE retreat in February 2025 (date TBD) and a 3 day family VILLAGE retreat in August (save the date 8/22-8/24) for sure.

I will still post to Instagram and Substack as I’m called but I will only be answering DMs and comments one day a week. The best way to get a hold of me will be old fashioned email: [email protected].

Happy new years to you and yours! Here’s to us all finding the nutrients we are missing and giving ourselves exactly that.

As always I hope this little peek into my process gives you some inspiration or permission to give yourself the new beginning you need.

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As I’ve been watching and experiencing the fall out and division surrounding the results of the United States election I have had this resounding truth about myself settle in: I trust humanity.

In a world where the places we are different are constantly being highlighted, we have to remember to come back to the places where we are actually the same.

In a world where the fear mongering is so constant and the assault on our nervous systems is so pervasive (in the sense that we are living in environments that are so far from the natural environments we evolved in) we have to remember that we are not our highest selves when we are triggered.

In a world where it is profitable for us to feel powerless and like we need fixing, we have to remember that we are whole and holy as we are.

I see this really disappointing and inhumane response of, “Anyone who voted for Trump is a bigot and an idiot.” As if anyone who doesn’t think like a liberal is simply stupid and awful.

How much of an ignorant oversimplification is it to assume because someone came to the conclusion that voting for Trump was in their best interest, they are a “bad” or “stupid” person?

(and this goes for the judgment of people who voted for Kamala being brainwashed or somehow less intelligent.)

Humanity is so much more complicated and nuanced than that.

Humans are multifaceted, multi-layered, beautiful, terrible, awful, manifestations of Universal Intelligence.

All of us have done and said things we regret. All of us have hurt others. All of us have aspects of ourselves that we are not proud of and are working with and on in our own ways. We are all hurt and, therefore, project that hurt out onto the world and those around us.

This is what it means to be human. We are inherently flawed. Each and every single one of us.

Anytime we start to get high and mighty, righteous (not to be confused with rightness) or so egoically convinced that our way is the only way, we are not in our right minds.

We are all getting played in some way. We are all glaringly misinformed in some way. We are all convinced of at least a few things, that, in reality, aren’t at all true.

If more people were able to remember compassion is not condoning, that our own personal healing is the greatest form of activism, and that it is completely possible to have connected conversations with people who don’t agree with us, we would not be in the situation we are in.

However, because we are in this situation, let us not use it to seed more division, but instead seed more unity.

This is a choice. A choice we have to make of our own volition, every moment of every day.

We can choose unity or division by how we speak to our partners.

We can choose unity or division by how we treat a stranger in the coffee line.

We can choose unity or division by how we treat our own bodies.

We can choose unity or division by how we choose to see people who don’t fit our definitions of “good.”

We can choose unity or division by how we talk to our opponents.

We can choose. And with our choices we create.

We forget that we are not each other’s enemies. We are each other saviors.

We are the friendly souls that came to play out roles and parts for eachother to learn our life lessons through.

I understand that what I’m saying can get dangerously close to going over the edge into “spiritual bypassing” territory.

You may say, “Ok, well if we’re all just friendly souls walking each other home, what are we going to do about our DEMOCRACY?!” right?

I hear you. But if you actually attempt to listen to what each side is saying, both are actually afraid of losing our democracy. Both are positioning themselves as the prevailing party over the evils of some dystopian future.

The left thinks Trump is such a lunatic and misogynist that he doesn’t and won’t respect the traditions and precedents set up in our country. They believe women will lose all their rights and we will fall into international chaos because of the policies he is going to back and put into place.

The right thinks Kamala and her backers are threatening fundamental constitutional rights like free speech and the right to bear arms. They believe she is a pawn of the shadowy deep state agenda and a threat to the United States. They believed choosing her was a vote for the globalist World Economic Forum’s 2030 agenda and the statement “you will own nothing and you will like it.”

If you zoom out, both sides are actually concerned about the same thing: the collapse of our freedoms and values.

We can double down on our divisions and differences OR we could see that we actually both really value our country, our traditions, and what they represent to us.

If we can stop making snap judgments and sweeping generalizations and letting our systems to be dragged into fear mongering, we can come back to ourselves and remember that we are all human and we all, for the most part, want the same things.

We all want life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

We can agree that we all feel the severe need for something to change. It is so clear our country is not ok and that our systems are broken.

That’s why the tensions are so high, because, collectively there is a very clear feeling that something cannot go on as is.

I feel this too. I want change. I want big change.

And, I know the only change that is going to be worthwhile is going to achieved through further unity, not more division.

Separation is actually the enemy here, my loves.

When we band together, we move mountains and create worlds. This is the space of miracles.

There is a potential here that people who are still focused on the “win” or the “loss” are not seeing and that is the potential for True change and True shifts.

The amount of potential energy here in this moment is massive.

Because of my own personal practice of body based energetic alchemy, I have an embodied understanding of how when we can be with a “negative” emotion or sensation, no matter how powerful or overwhleming it may feel or seem, if we can actually be with it and welcome it and invite it in deeper instead of push it away, it transforms.

True energetic masters understand that everything is energy.

There is no negative and there is no positive. It all just is. The greatest pain can be transformed into the most orgasmic pleasure when we are fully present with it. (orgasmic childbirth anyone!?)

Humans are alchemical beings.

We are the conscious connection between the physical and the energetic. We have a massive capacity to transmute energy on the very basic level of how we turn food, light and electrons from the Earth into energy in our bodies and on the more spiritual level of how we are spiritual beings having a manifested physical experience.

In many spirtual traditions we see this theme of humans being the bridge between heaven and earth.

Human beings are quantum, a particle and a wave, energy, light and matter all at once.

When I hold my attention on humanity’s power, I see what is possible for us.

When I hold my attention on individual human’s power, I see them as their highest version.

I choose to see each human as a sacred amalgamation and expression of God, not because I am some love and light chump, but because it is the best use of my creative power and energy to do so.

I choose to see Trump and Kamala as two souls who are deeply in service to our alchemical potetional for change on this Earth. Souls willing to play roles for us cultivate our own power within oursleves. (And souls who wanted to have a wild ride this time around.)

When I make the choice of unity, in all the miniscule ways of my day to day life, I am choosing to see humaity in its power.

That power can be used to create all sorts of things, terrible and beautiful, and has been. But I am ready for it be a conscious choice.

I trust humanity. I trust peoples’ choices.

Because the moment we start question our neighbor’s humanity, is the moment we lose sight of what it is we are here doing. It is the moment we start to let separation win. And this is what creates the future world that I wouldn’t want my children to grow up to inherit.

I trust in humanity because I am a mother.

I trust in humanity because I am a creator.

Come be with yourself and listen. Next Live Practice: Saturday, 11/23/24, 9-10:30am. $33. Register and more info here.

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This piece has been percolating for a long while.

This is an invitation into a new or deeper experience of what I am calling; Divine Union, or the aligned relationship between the Feminine and Masculine energies within us and outside of us.

As I repeat again and again, I am in service to The Mother, the mature feminine frequency that lives within our physiology. I have also called this energy ‘the collective nurturer’, because the mother is the source of all nourishment.

Something that has become clear more recently is that because I am in service to The Mother, I am also in service to the Family, or, in other words, the legacy of humanity.

When we think about the family we are not only talking about The Mother, but also The Father and the legacy that is begotten from the two coming together, the child/ren and the family as it’s own creational force.

When you start to study things like masculine and feminine energy, you can go down all sorts of rabbit holes. There are infinite teachings about these two energies, because they are ultimately what our world (and maybe everything in existence?) is made up of. They are are the balanced (ideally) and opposing forces. The yin and yang.

The two aspects I’m going to use as a way to demonstrate my translation of the integral relationship of Masculine and Feminine forces are modern relationship polarity teachings and feminism.

I have written a lot about these two aspects before so you can check the archives of the Matriarch substack and find all sorts of articles on the Feminine, Masculine and co-creation. The two articles that feel the most applicable to this piece are The Mature Feminine the World Needs and Mature Feminine Responsibility Just Is.

Polarity

On the most basic level, the word polarity means the separation, alignment, or orientation of something in two opposing poles. That is a very mental way of saying; duality. Duality exists. In the reality that we live in on earth, duality exists. There are all sorts of spiritual teachings suggesting there is no duality and that we are all one.

This is a big YES AND, we also live in a world of opposites.

We see this in the charged particles of atoms and we see this in night and day; the micro and the macro.

Relationship polarity teachings suggest that a “polarized” relationship is preferable to an unpolarized relationship because it creates an enlivening, sexual tension within the relationship.

Polarity teachers and coaches suggest that the more the poles, Feminine and Masculine, are embodied and enacted (very important word choice here I’ll come back to later) the more aliveness and spark there will be in a relationship.

This basic concept, I don’t really disagree with. It seems to be as factual as the basic definition of polarity. We select partners that generally create some sort of tension in us and have some unique magnetism that pulls us in. It could be their appearance but I would argue it’s really more their energy, something about what embody pulls us towards them.

However, polarity teachings lose me when they suggest that we should role play the epitome of Feminine and Masculine characters so that we can somehow create polarization in our relationship.

My very clear embodied knowing is that when I pretend to be something that I am not; it is never good for me or, ultimately, my relationships.

If you have to pretend to be something you are not to be friends with someone, are they really your friend?

If you have to pretend to be the perfection of feminine softness and receptivity to turn your husband on, are you really connected?

I do believe that we can have fun and alchemize a lot of frustration and disagreement through role playing with our partners. Sexual role playing can obviously be very hot. There is something super sexy about inhabiting that demure feminine and being ravaged by your masculine man in his beast. I’m not in denial or delusion about any of this.

However, if these types of interactions with your chosen partner aren’t done with a lot of intention and a set container, then it’s just fantasy and boundaries get foggy.

It starts to get dangerous when we’re not sure where the role playing stops and the reality begins. And this is what I have heard from women who have gone deep into polarity teachings as a lifestyle; that they started to lose themselves and disown parts of themselves that weren’t part of the polarized Feminine menu. [This is a good post by Madelyn Moon on her experience.

Teachers espousing that we should live our entire lives within the confines of some polarized definition of feminine and masculine as women and men are not in any way shape or form leaving room for the subtle and intricate dance of these two energies within ourselves and the way we express each aspect uniquely.

I’ve noticed that zero of these polarity teachers have children, because you simply cannot maintain these rigid poles and fantasy in a relationship when you have to keep baby alive too.

Polarity is true. It just is. There is a lot to learn about yourself as you play with these aspects in yourself. Your partner and you have it, or else you wouldn’t have been drawn together. It can be fun to embody in an intentional way, but when it comes to Divine Union, creation, family, and legacy, polarity just is not a huge part of it.

Feminism

In a world where feminism is basically just the masculinization of women (wrote more about this here) polarity teachings can feel like a relief to women who have been trying so hard to basically do everything men do.

Paradoxically, feminism also has this kind of “girl power,” vibe that feels deeply off and immature.

In the world of feminism women can do it all! They can have a career. They can have drink, smoke, and f**k just like the men do. And then when they turn 30, they feel their biological clock ticking, they can also have a baby, while they still do all those other things.

And f**k their lazy, silly, stupid man-child husbands who are good for nothing but drinking beer and, at best, playing with the kids on the weekends.

Of course I believe women should have the freedom to work and own businesses and property (and I’m very grateful to those women that fought for me to have those freedoms), but saying women can do everything men can do is not actually revering the Feminine.

The man hating I see in the feminist spaces stems from this over masculinized woman. She’s bitter. When women aren’t allowed to be fully expressed versions of themselves, then men aren’t either, and both sides of the whole, suffer.

Women’s bodies are made differently. We are on a 28 cycle vs the simple 24 hour cycle of men, so working the same way everyday doesn’t really work for our physiology, just as an example.

Our bodies (until menopause) are always prioritizing the ability to build a baby on a biological level. We need more sleep than men. We need food on a more consistent basis than men. Why do you think things like thyroid issues and autoimmune disorders so disproportionally affect women?

Revering the Feminine would be valuing the Feminine, not just more valuation of the masculine through women, which is making women sicker, victimized and more burned out than they ever have been.

This is why so many women are attracted to this polarity idea of “just let me be in my feminine and the man can tell me where to go for dinner so I don’t have to!” It feels like a relief to a body that is tired of trying to be something it is not. And it’s a radical thing to attempt to be completely devoted to a man when you’ve seethed about his ineptitude. It’s a pendulum swing over to the other side.

In both of these examples there is a compartmentalization happening. In the polarity examples there is an idea that women should only be a certain kind extreme feminine; soft, demure, gentle, open, devotional. In the feminism example, it’s women being over masculinized and denouncing their softness, openness, and devotional nature.

The Mature Feminine Loves the Masculine

As I have found with most truth, I find it in the gray, in the subtitles and in the twists and turns. I find it in the paradox.

Feminism is not true and these polarity relationship teachings are not true.

The Truth is the mature Feminine loves the Masculine. She loves Him because the desecration of Him would be the desecration of Her, because they are two parts of the same whole. Which I will call the Third Thing.

The integral relationship between the exalted, mature Feminine and the exalted, mature Masculine is that they understand they are creating something together. The two parts come together and create something that is more than them individually: the Creation, the Child/ren, the Family.

Polarity teachings say the masculine must always lead and feminism eg ‘the future is female’ concept says the feminine leads.

The Truth is, the Third Thing must lead. God must lead. Creation must lead. Union must lead.

The Feminine has more access to raw creational life force. She feeds life force to whatever she backs. Therefore, she must also have discernment. She must also be able to say, “No.”

I am reminded here of the hormones estrogen and progesterone. The old idea was that estrogen was the feminine hormone. However, estrogen is the hormone of growth and proliferation. We need it. It is important. However, when we have too much of it or it is unchecked, it will tell cells to grow and grow and grow.

Endometriosis is connected to too much estrogen in the system and results in the overgrowth of the uterine lining. Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) characterized by cysts on the ovaries is also due to too much estrogen in the system. Same with fibroids. Too much estrogen equals too much unchecked and undirected growth.

Progesterone is actually the solution to this because it tells the cells where to grow, how to differentiate, and when to stop. This is discernment. Progesterone is actually far more important for feminine fertility in a lot of ways than estrogen in our modern world. Just as discernment is actually the quality our world needs so badly.

In a world where it is unclear what is real, where we have AI writing poetry and books, and there are discussions of growing human embryos in artificial wombs, we need the power of discernment more than ever.

One of the most valuable qualities a person could have is to be able to determine what is True and what is not True; eg discernment.

I’ve been working in the field of women’s fertility for over a decade and I have seen, on a hormonal level, progesterone being the biggest player in women’s fertility. I have also seen again and again, that as women improve their progesterone to estrogen balance, their discernment increases.

Pregnancy is the state of our bodies where we have the highest levels of progesterone. You have either felt yourself or seen for yourself how much more a woman Knows when she is pregnant. She knows what she likes to eat. She knows who she wants to be around. She knows when she’s tired.

I believe, progesterone is actually the Feminine hormone. The more progesterone you have, the less estrogen. They are in a direct inverse relationship with each other. It’s actually a big piece of the puzzle when it comes to how much estrogen dominance symptoms (ovarian and breast cancers, PCOS, endo, hot flashes, difficult menopause, etc) we see in the collective. Generally, if you increase progesterone naturally you will see women having less symptoms.

The idea that estrogen is the feminine hormone is about as off as the idea that the feminine should only be soft spoken, demure, and open. The Feminine is both sides; soft, open and powerful and chaotic. She is both devotional and quick to slay that which is not true. She is discerning. She knows how to say No.

These are aspects of the Feminine that need to be exalted in the collective. In fact, I would argue, just as most women need more progesterone these days because of our wildly estrogenic culture, most women need to invite in more Feminine discernment. Not man-hating, girl power rhetoric, but discernment, eg “This is enough.” “It’s time to rest now.” “It’s time to stop this.” “I am a No here and a Yes there.” Not closed or tight, but open and fully extended.

The Mature Feminine is not just devotional and open to anyone. She understands that her devotion is power itself. This is not a “soft feminine” quality. This is a Kali, sword, cut your head off, Feminine quality, and with great power comes great responsibility. She is responsible for her power and opening.

The Mature Feminine understands that her opening is sacred and loves the Masculine deeply. She wishes to create with Him. She calls him forward into His best and highest self through her openness, devotion, AND her clarity, her discernment and ability to say No. She doesn’t hold back any part of herself and the Mature Masculine isn’t afraid of any part of Her.

The Mature Masculine serves her opening because He knows that She feeds him. They become a regenerative cycle this way. They come into alignment and integrity with the The Third thing this way, and then Creation in alignment with Life moves through them.

The Mature Feminine loves the Masculine enough to tell him the Truth. Not “her truth”, no, this is most likely egoic, but The Truth. She is willing to say what she feels, what she sees, and what she Knows.

This requires that she cultivate a trust of her knowing within herself, first. This requires that she trust the Mature Feminine within herself, first. This requires that she have a deep faith in herself and Life, because her man may not be able to hold the truth yet, but she must say it anyway, fully open and fully extended.

This is where the Mature Masculine must be willing to have his ego shattered. He must be willing to drop down below his mind and into his heart and body. He must be willing to feel instead of think, similar to Her. He must be willing to serve, similar to Her.

This is where they meet, in service, and create the Third Thing. Bowing down to each other and God.

This is not an easy path for a human man and a human woman to walk. We all have wounding. We all have hurt parts and places where we can’t see ourselves clearly. We all have patterns and flaws. We all have needy and selfish parts. We all need to fall apart sometimes. We will hurt the ones we love most and they will hurt us.

We are all scared of obliteration.

But when I see these deeper Truths and I embody my powers of discernment, No AND openness and devotion, while at the same time seeing the places I am an imperfect human, I can see my partner with a wider lens too. I can see all the ways He serves my opening, holds me, and is completely and totally different than me. And I can see his humanity and all the ways he isn’t perfect, and I can love him nonetheless, just as he loves me.

The Mature Feminine and Mature Masculine love each other enough to bow down to each other’s humanity, give each other grace, AND consistently be willing to call forth the highest version of the other.

David Whyte defines maturity as the ability to hold to two opposing poles at once. That is exactly why I chose the word mature. Because when these two energies mature, they can start to invite a little of the other within themselves. They can start to hold both; which is ultimately, Divine Union. (think the yin yang with a little dot of the other in each side).

Divine Union is the is-ness that surround us. As we let go of the compartmentalizations of ourselves and the ideas that we have to be a certain way, and allow ourselves to be fully seen, felt and loved, as we are, creation itself aligns with us.

We can see the wholeness within ourselves and outside of ourselves reflected in our relationships, in the world, and in the cosmos.

This is the ultimate healing. The integration of two halves into a whole.

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There is a punishing harshness I want to unpack in the health and wellness world. 

I see so many female influencers in this space peddling punishment as virtue and unnecessary harshness as ‘facts.’ I see ‘get-your-s**t-together-you-lazy-f**k’ energy being sold as radical responsibility. 

Just to be abundantly clear: This is not what we need to heal. 

We do not need more punishment, more harshness, more authoritative, hierarchal, disciplinary energy to make ourselves healthy. 

If you are overweight, ill, unmotivated, exhausted, acting in ways you are not proud of; more punishment of yourself will never equal real transformation. 

It may create a lot of change. You may lose weight through punishment of your body. You may run a marathon by telling yourself harsh words to push through the pain. You may make millions or billions of dollars through a deep hatred of yourself and a desire to make yourself feel worthy. 

Punishment can be an entirely effective mechanism for certain action; until it’s not. 

Or until it’s just you and your mind on your deathbed and you hate yourself. 

Radical responsibility is not dominating your tender, wild, broken, hurting, tired parts into submission. Radical responsibility is being willing to look at those parts. It’s being willing to see them and take stock of where you truly are with neutrality and sobriety. 

In my personal life and in my work, I live by the statement: “You cannot transcend what you do not first accept.”

Acceptance is massively misunderstood. For some reason people think acceptance equals saying the thing in question is good and right. That’s not it. 

Acceptance is saying what is, IS. That’s it. It’s not a value judgment. It’s neutral.

We are terrible at this as a collective. Before we can make any attempt to truly “solve” a problem, we have to first look at the problem soberly. 

We have to see where we actually are and accept it. Only then, can we really move forward in a way that takes the reality into account. This is a big reason why we haven’t actually made any big changes in regards to climate disaster. We can’t actually get in alignment (another way of saying “accept”) with where we are and feel it.

When we get in alignment with where we are and accept what is true about ourselves and our patterns, we can access the despair, the grief, the loss that comes with it. 

This is why everyone wants to avoid this step because if we opened and softened to what is truly here, we might actually have to feel pain. 

Even the people pedaling punishment, harshness, and judgment of self are using those tactics to avoid the grief and the despair that comes with actually acknowledging where we are. It’s like they believe if they force the pain; then they won’t have to actually feel the pain and fall apart. If they force the pain; they can get ahead of it and still be in control. 

We are all avoiding the coming undone; which is inherently feminine. All of this harshness and punishment is rooted in hatred of the feminine; eg misogyny. It’s rooted in not understanding the death and life cycles and how to ride them while staying awake and aware. It’s all rooted in actually wanting to avoid transformation and becoming.

We all say we want transformation, but most people aren’t actually willing to die well. 

You may read all this and think I must be for coddling people. For allowing them all their emotional turmoil and victimization. That I somehow think we all just need to fall apart and lay on the ground and give up. That if I’m not for harshness and punishment; then I must be for permissiveness. 

This is where the nuance that doesn’t get translated enough comes in. This is where we get lost if we don’t have the maturity and flexibility in our systems to hold paradox.

Radical responsibility is not harshness and it’s not punishment. It is a noticing. It is a being with facts and realities that may be hard to sit with. We are so quick to jump into punishment once we see these facts, and that is the place where we need to cultivate softness if we want to experience true transformation. 

Let’s say you decide you want to work out three times a week. And for a few weeks you do. Then one week gets busy and you miss your workouts and before you know it a month has passed and you haven’t worked out once. 

What do you do when you notice this? Do you berate yourself? Do you feel ashamed? Do you tell yourself how bad and broken you are? Do you try to avoid thinking about it? Do you kind of go blank? Do you tell yourself you’re a piece of s**t and go to the gym and work out harder than you really had the energy for? 

No matter the outcome of any of these options they are all based in harshness and punishment. 

What I’ve found is most people don’t know how to go about change without punishment. 

Isn’t this the way we were raised? We colored on the walls and then we got punished by having to be in time out so that we didn’t do it again, right? 

We screamed too loud and then our mothers turned away and ignored us (withdrawing love is most certainly punishment for a child) hoping it would make us be quiet. 

We parent ourselves the same way we were parented. Our parents’ voices becoming our internal dialogue. 

How is this working for us? 

There are wildly alarming, unprecedented negative statistics pertaining to the average person’s physical, mental and emotional well-being. 

As a collective, we are not ok. This is a fact we all need to look at, soberly. 

We can look at this and say most people are fat, stupid, ignorant, and lazy, and we all just need to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps and get it together. 

We could disguise this attitude by saying people don’t “respect” or “love” themselves enough to make good choices, but that’s still using shame and self flagellation (I’m such a loser! Why can’t I just love myself more!) to get to our goal. 

You can’t hate yourself into loving yourself and if you don’t love yourself now, as you are; you’re not going to love yourself as a rich woman or a skinny woman. That’s not how self love works.

What we are seeing in the collective today is actually a result of punishing culture, generations deep and well worn. 

Eventually, punishing wears us down and ultimately disconnects us from Life. 

You can see it in the way we believe how separate we all are. “I’m not one of those stupid people because I wear linen clothing and eat organic food and workout!” 

Life, creator, God, Truth, whatever you want to call it, connects us. It reminds us that we are all part of something much bigger. It tells us: “you are not a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in a single drop.” 

However, we don’t get to collapse in that either. We don’t get to just lay down and do nothing. 

Life will humble you. Life will show you where you think you are in control and blast it apart. Life will continually with a whisper at first, a brick next, and a Mack truck last, guide you, lead you, and point you in the direction you’re meant to move. 

So instead of operating as if everyone is an idiot that just needs to get their s**t together; you could decide to actually be with what is true here.

The truth is; humans are good. They are flawed. They are hurting. They are traumatized. They are being poisoned by processed food and chemicals. And we are always more alike than we are different. Underneath all the noise; we want the same things: health and happiness for ourselves and our loved ones. 

This is where the massive power of softness comes in. 

When we treat ourselves with softness; we don’t give up responsibility. We simply choose to no longer punish ourselves or others.

When we treat ourselves with softness; we will treat others with softness and the world becomes a softer place. A place where people can stop being so deeply afraid of their feelings. A place where people aren’t afraid to look at the facts; because they know; no matter what they will not turn on themselves. 

You don’t know your power until you know what it’s like to be a woman who refuses to turn on herself. 

This is the kind of power that creates worlds. This is the power of God’s Love. 

When we no longer turn on ourselves; we are not afraid to speak out. We are not afraid to stand firmly in the world we would like our children to grow up in and wave people toward us. 

When we no longer turn on ourselves; we can lead from a fully integrated place.

Softness is not weakness. 

Softness is power.

When you embody and hold this kind of softness, you aren’t afraid of the facts or the reality because you can accept anything because you aren’t going dread living in your own mind if you f**k up. 

When you embody and hold this kind of softness, you can let Life lead you because you trust yourself to not beat yourself up no matter what happens. 

When you embody and hold this kind of softness; paradoxically, you are precise in a way overarching harshness could never be; because you can feel all the little caveats and deep pockets. 

When you embody and hold this kind of softness; you can take full and total responsibility because there is no punishment on the other side of it. 

This is radical. This is not the paradigm any of us were raised in; but it is the paradigm we are shifting in to. 

Some people (my past self included) think of softness as disgusting. They find it repulsive. They find themselves avoiding it at all costs. 

Disgust is not neutral. It’s a very charged feeling. It’s visceral. When we have a deep, real need for something and we are again and again denied that need, one way we make the pain of that missing need feel a little less brutal is to be disgusted by the need itself. 

This has been shown again and again in attachment research. Babies and children require this kind of softness I am talking about; this unconditional love. 

If you were not given this softness enough as a baby and child; you may feel disgusted by it because disgust is a more powerful position than need. 

We reject what we need most to make that need less painful. 

I find the harshest people are most disgusted by softness, and this points to their deep and primal need for it. 

We don’t need another kick in the ass. We don’t need another reason to punish ourselves. We don’t need to avoid the truth because of the fear of what acknowledging the truth might mean for our internal dialogue. 

We need acceptance. We need precision. We need to bring the light of unconditional love down into our bodies.

We need to own the power of our softness. 

“EvenAfterAll this timeThe Sun never says to the Earth,"You owe me."LookWhat happensWith a love like that,It lights the whole sky.”

- Hafiz 

Come see my interview with Siri Birk during the Soft Revolution free summit next Friday October 11th at 10am PST where we’ll be discussing this new paradigm of softness. 

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Last night, I saw a male spiritual teacher’s post that stated: “fat people are untrustworthy.”

He went on to claim that because excess weight is a result of “unmetabolized trauma” and “emotional numbing” fat people are avoiding “a necessary transformational crucible” (that would result in weight loss; I am assuming). 

On one hand; I partially agree. Not that fat people are untrustworthy, but what he’s saying about unmetabolized trauma, emotional numbing, and the need for a transformational crucible leading to weight gain. 

These things are absolutely a part of weight gain and excess weight, as it’s part of, I believe, all health dis-ease and disease. Any symptoms we experience are our bodies trying to communicate something to us, on multiple dimensions. Weight gain isn’t some sort of special shadowy case of this. 

I actually taught a class called the Wisdom of Weight about this specific thing. You can purchase the recording here if you’d like. 

The most important thing to me regarding trustworthiness is; anyone who has claimed to have metabolized all their trauma, to never take part in emotional numbing, and to not need a transformational crucible or five in their lifetime; is definitely NOT trustworthy.

We are all humans. 

Flawed, scarred, and hurting. 

It is what makes us human. 

Even humans considered enlightened; Tich Nhat Hanh or Ekhart Tolle. for example, talk about their painful human experience and struggle. 

The wound is where the light enters you, after all. 

Now, as an obviously overweight person who teaches and guides other people; in the field of nutrition, no less *gasp* (see my article, The Fat Nutritionist); being lumped into the category of untrustworthy doesn’t trigger me exactly, but it does make me want to set some truths about weight gain/loss and who we should or shouldn’t trust, straight. 

First off, I don’t take commentary on my body from anyone and I don’t advise anyone else to either. You get to be the arbiter of your own experience in your own body. The only advice about my health I take is from experts I’ve vetted and who I can feel trust my body’s process and it’s deep wisdom as much as I do, or have a very particular expertise that I am looking for in an acute, specific way. 

I don’t take advice about my body from men, ever, that’s one of my very clear boundaries. I would never go to a male doctor, a male OB (or let’s be honest for me, any OB), a male nutritionist, a male gynecologist (or any gynecologist). I will, in special instances, work with male body workers, therapists, or spiritual teachers, but for the most part anyone on my body care team is a woman. That’s just what makes my system feel smooth and feels true to me. 

Men and women have very different physiology, life experiences, and spiritual relationship to creation. Therefore, I generally don’t think men have a clear embodied understanding of what a woman’s body might need from a physiological perspective. 

My body and my own intuition are the ultimate litmus test that everything runs through, be it health decisions or how to handle symptoms. A huge piece of my work with clients is giving them information from my professional training and my embodied experience, and then pointing them to feel into their own Knowing about what to do with that information.

I am always pointing my clients back to themselves as the leader of their own health journey. 

The other piece of this is that weight gain/loss is so much more than discipline and calories in/out. I’m honestly so tired of even refuting these ideas. The confusing thing about this post I’m talking about is that this guy is basically saying: “don’t trust fat people because they have so much shadow, they can’t even discipline themselves into looking better.” 

Wow. Just wow. There are so many things wrong with this I could write a book on it. (maybe I will). 

The obvious first issue is the value placement on physical appearances. The idea that if you aren’t some vague and subjective ideal body size then you must be hiding something sinister and therefore unworthy of trust is so blatantly misogynistic and comes from a worldview that is obsessed with optics being what matters most. This is not the world I want to live in. It is not the world I am creating with my energy and my intention. 

On the other hand, of course, looks do matter. They can tell us a lot about a person’s habits, lifestyle, values, and health. I love to do visual diagnosis in my practice, looking at things like the whites of the eyes, the tongue, health of the hair, skin and nails. 

However, if we stop there, if we choose something as subjective as “being overweight” as a decider for whether a person is trustworthy there is no wisdom there, there is just surface-level preferences. One person could look overweight but be quite vital, radiant, and embodied and the other could be really toned, thin, and conventionally the “right size” but could have really low energy, a dullness behind their eyes, and be disassociated. Is their weight really what you want to judge your deeming of trustworthiness on? 

The other piece is that weight gain is not about eating too much or exercising too little. It is an energy management issue. Most of the women who are overweight I see in my practice are eating far too little nutrient dense food. A big reason they aren’t eating enough is because of sentiments like this post shared. Because there is this collective program that says “fat people are lazy pieces of s**t who stuff their faces all day,” so, as a collective, we have stopped eating, to the detriment of our own vitality, lest we become one of those fat lazy people. 

We are not fat because we eat too much and lack discipline, we are fat because most of the food easily available to us is toxic and we are burnt out. Our energy management systems cannot regulate our energy levels because of toxins in our food and environment, shortage of connection to nature, lack of nutrient dense food, and our sedentary lifestyles (this doesn’t mean we need more intense exercise).

I am not blaming the government or big food or big pharma, we are responsible for ourselves always, but we do have to actually understand where these issues originated if we have any hope of reversing them. 

As a woman, to lose weight in a sustainable way that works with your wise and beautiful body, you need to be eating enough nutrient dense food on a consistent basis, moving your body in a way that feels good on a consistent basis, and spending lots of time in nature. I truly believe given enough time (this may be years) ninety percent of weight issues would regulate.

You do not need to go on a diet or deprive yourself or force yourself into some sort of box that doesn’t fit. This is just the same old same old. It may work in the short term but it will never works in the long term. The only way out is through. The only true way to work with the body is the long game. 

Which brings me to the next thing; weight gain can may be the needed crucible, in itself. For me, having lived in a body that was conventionally attractive and the “right” size for most of my adult life which required a lot of force, manipulation, and discipline in the forms of dieting (basically starving myself) and intense exercise, to let my body gain weight, take up space, and fill out was actually the transformational crucible I needed and am still undergoing.

As I released my punishing tendencies, allowed myself to see the grip with which I was living my life, the way I wanted to temper the energy of Life itself from flowing through me through controlling my food intake and movement and let go; I have gained weight. A lot of weight. I know it’s my body telling me something.

I know I will not be this weight forever. I know I take impeccable care of my body. I feed her with nutrient dense food, consistently. I move throughout the day and build muscle in a way that allows for my body to feel juicy and strong. I prioritize rest and working with my hormonal cycles. I focus on my felt sense of radiance and vitality.

And, other than my weight, I can say, after years of working towards this, I am incredibly healthy. My skin is plump and radiant. My hair is long and strong. My cycles are painless and consistent. I sleep deeply and well. I have good energy levels throughout the day.

And all this was achieved gently and without any force over the last three years.  I am still trusting this process. I am still committed to the long game. I am listening deeply to myself and willing to hold myself with such gentle care and trust of the ancient wisdom of healing that lives in every single one of my cells.

Since the majority of my weight gain about 3 years ago, I have lost 20 lbs. This seems to be the rate at which my body can lose weight in a sustainable, non forceful way. Everyone wants to lose 20 lbs a month, but this is stressful on the body. It takes energy to burn fat and process what is stored in that fat (toxins, estrogen, etc). And if you don’t have that energy or you get it from an unsustainable source, it will almost a hundred percent of the time, come back.

In the process I have learned what it’s like to live in a body that isn’t the ideal. I have softened and learned about my own judgments of myself and where I placed my value of self in my appearance. I have learned to love myself deeper than I ever could have if I had not gained this weight. 

Through the process of weight gain, I have learned to trust myself most of all. And it continues to be an invitation into more trust, more gentleness, and a radical choice of letting my body go through her process while just holding the position of: you deserve to eat, you deserve to rest, you deserve to open, you deserve to be trusted. 

I am not suggesting that gaining weight is something every woman should do. It is just my ongoing journey of trusting myself.

If there is anyone we can trust across the board, it is people who trust themselves, not their minds, but their inner Knowing. As my teacher Perri Chase just said in her writing on this same subject, “trust is an inside job.”

There are no clear delineations based on appearance that could direct us to who to trust and who not to trust; there is only that quiet whisper than lives within our bones and tissues, that Gnows. 

When we trust our inner gnowing, we will always know what to say, who to connect with, and where to go. And we get to know that through brining our Soul deeper into our physical form, which could come through physical illness, weight gain/loss, and any other experience that asks us to trust in the face of our mind’s doubt. 

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It’s really interesting that as I prepare to hold a retreat experience called VILLAGE, I am being called deep into my wound of aloneness.

From the outside, I’m not sure I look like someone who has a core wound of aloneness. 

I have community, family, friends and, for the most part, function quite well socially. 

However, for some of us who have the wound of aloneness being socially adept has been a developed coping mechanism.

I believe some of the most charming, magnetic, and likeable people probably have a significant “I am alone” wound.

Developing the skills of charm, magnetism, and having people feel comfortable in your presence is a beautiful survival skill. You could think of it as “fawning.” 

Personally, I am not a fawner exactly, but I do know that because of my core wound of “I am alone” developed social skills so that people couldn’t see just how alone I felt and experienced life to be. 

The “I am alone” wound is one of, “No one has got me, so I’ve got to get myself.” “No one has my back.” “No one can really be trusted.”

When you have this programming, you compensate a need for connection by not needing people. You may become very self sufficient and very capable. It’s not a “bad” thing; although it is a disconnecting thing. 

Our core wounds tend to be pre-verbal. They were inflicted before we could speak or had language, so there really isn’t a story when we experience the wound arising in the current day. 

Typically, a pre verbal core wound would feel like unexplainable terror around something that doesn’t seem like it should be that terrifying. 

It could be that you were ripped away from your mother’s body at birth. It could be that you were left alone for what was deemed too long by your primal body as an infant.

It could be a lot of things, subtle to completely unthinkable and awful, and it doesn’t really matter exactly what it was. It just matters that the wound probably started there, at the primal layer of your animal body.

Just because we can’t cognitively remember the experience doesn’t mean it didn’t create a program that continues to run in us far into adulthood. 

As you grow, you have experiences that highlight this wound. Until you are willing to feel the pain that lives in that original wound in a way that integrates it into your being, it will continue to resurface in all different locations and situations.

Maybe your caregivers were aloof and self obsessed and you were alone a lot. Maybe you were treated like an adult far before you were, or expected to do adult tasks. Maybe you experienced bullying or rejection in adolescence. Maybe you experienced heart break or professional rejection or isolation. Maybe you’ve had far more serious and terrible things happen to you. Again, it could be a lot things that highlight and reopen this wound of aloneness for you again and again. 

It isn’t really the details or the story that matters, because the only way you overcome a wound like this is to feel the pain of it from an integrated conscious place. Eg, you allow yourself to feel what you were incapable of feeling when the wound happened and process the pain.

I feel this wound of aloneness right in the center of my sternum. It’s a tender, shaky, wobbly spot that is activated anytime I have a perception of: ‘I am alone. I can’t trust people. I’m on my own in this life. I have to figure life out all by myself.’

If I scan back through my life; there are many experiences that brought up this sensation/wound, this feeling of deep isolation, being misunderstood or unseen, feeling rejected for the way I exist.

And the skills I developed to cope with this pain (notice: I’m not saying feel this pain. I’m saying cope with this pain. Those are very different things) are:

1) To put a wall up around my heart and internal world. A protective barrier. 

2) Understand social games. It’s not in my make up to be a people pleaser in the traditional sense, but I did learn how to “play the social game,” in a way that made people comfortable at the expense of my true expression. The goal of this was to  make me “popular”, cool and superior (a safer position). 

The problem with both of these skills is that they completely cut me off from the nutrients of true human connection.

We all need to be witnessed and seen. We all need to feel heard and cared for. We all need to feel like we can let all of ourselves out and we will still be loved. We all need to feel connected to other humans without feeling like we have to change who we are. 

As I said in another article, we need each other. 

When we put protective barriers that have zero permeability all around us we get into a place where we don’t actually have access to the nutrients of true connection. 

A barrier may be protective on one level, and was quite possibly a necessary survival strategy at one point in our lives, but it’s also extremely isolating and can end up feeling like we’ve put ourselves into a prison of aloneness. 

Having social skills isn’t a bad thing, but when we lose the ability to actually share openly about the truth of our lives or how we feel from an authentic place; it’s all just being fake and superficial and we feel that. It’s like junk food connection. It might feel good to gossip or collude with our friends, but it isn’t actually what we are starving for.

Fake, superficial, gossipy, victmized, complain-y conversations with people we are close to, will always leave us hungry for the real thing in the long run.

We may even be so convinced we could never be our true selves around others or share our most vulnerable stories; that we don’t even try to anymore and keep it all inside. Where it pressurizes and festers; making it seem even more inane and toxic in our minds. 

A snowballing of all the reasons you’re too different, too stupid, too bad or too crazy to be considered a good person worthy of sharing their feelings or desires. 

I have been working on revealing myself more to those I love and love me for many years now. I have long ago given up the compulsion toward overly superfulous social niceties or the urge to gossip and opted for honest relating. This is not always comfortable, easy or fun. But it is wildly more nourishing. 

I don’t lie. I don’t have secrets or things about myself I’m trying to keep hidden. I don’t spend energy trying to be someone I’m not. Can you see how much less energy social interaction takes when you relate like this?

When there is real conflict I address it in a way that’s honest and willing and I have the energy for it because I’m not wasting my energy on lots of inauthentic pseudo-connections. When I hang out with people I am just me, not some version of me that I have keep up the facade of or remember. 

Getting the shadows out of the closet and into the light is something that is terrifying but ultimately always feels like the best kind of relief and release.

As Gabor Maté says, “Safety is not the absence of threat, it is the presence of connection.” 

I have deconstructed the barriers and implemented boundaries, which are loving layers of protection that do not block all flow but simply set up gates and specific channels where connective nutrients can be offered and received between myself and other humans. 

I feel deeply devoted to being a fully expressed Clara in the world. Nothing to hide. Nothing to keep hidden. All parts of myself integrated and integral and in integrity is the ultimate intention. 

And yet, in the past 3 weeks I have been so hit by this I am alone wound. 

In the process of promoting and transmitting VILLAGE, a family embodiment retreat, I am feeling the everyday rejection that comes with “selling” things on the internet, as if it were a dagger to my personal heart.

I am seeing all the places I still use things like “likes” and numbers to validate myself and the worth of my work. I am seeing all the ways I still operate with the idea that creations are only worthwhile if other people like them too.

The dark side of community is indeed rejection and betrayal. This is one of the reasons why we don’t cultivate the community we say we want; we are afraid they will reject us and we will end up feeling alone and bad, once again.

The obvious downside of opening our hearts is if we do open them they could very well be shattered. 

I am seeing all the places these fears still have a hold on me. Better to be alone. Better to self isolate and disengage. Better to just do what I can alone and not invite people to join me. 

I am seeing where my instinct is to wall up and disconnect. I see where I have a sneaky voice that runs in my head always keeping score of who is “worse” and who is “better” than me so as to not be blindsided by rejection or judgment. 

I am seeing all the places I still believe I am alone and that I can’t have the connection I want or need. 

I am seeing all the ways that when I believe I can’t have the connection I want or need; I don’t get it. I am seeing all the ways I am the creator of my own experience with this wound.

When I expect people to be untrustworthy; they are. When I expect people to not be able to hold me, they can’t. When I expect people to not get me, they don’t. 

The wound of “I am alone” is self perpetuating. 

We unconsciously create from our wounds until we are willing to feel the pain in them from a conscious and integrated place. 

The only way I have found to start to dissolve this wound is to start to lean into the ways I am not actually alone and open my heart. And a big part of this is actually feeling the pain of rejection.

It’s feeling the pain of the aloneness I’ve experienced in my life and also the greif of how I’ve subjected myself to a lot of it in the interest of safety.

It’s feeling the pain of being laughed at, ridiculed, bullied, misunderstood, betrayed, and left behind and then choosing to open my heart again.

If I’m going to receive the nourishment of true community; I have to open my heart and to open my heart I have to feel all the times my heart has been broken, from a conscious place. I have to hold myself as I lean deeper into that shaky, wobbly, raw place in my solar plexus and feel it. This has been the deepest lesson the frequency of VILLAGE has taught me so far.

Community brings up these spots and wounds in us. It reflects back to us all the places we don’t trust ourselves or don’t have firm boundaries (not barriers), or don’t feel worthy of attention, expression, or connection.

True community requires us to open and receive and reception is inherently defenseless. 

But the thing is, the more I have opened and felt the pain of my wounds from an integrated conscious place, the more I notice opportunities for genuine connection all around me. 

When I don’t have to believe the lie that I am alone, I can receive my life and the people who love me and see me and want the best for me that are actually all around me. 

When I trust myself I can appreciate the ways people are available to me and not need them to available in ways they are not. When I trust my own discernment I don’t need people to always agree with me or eat the same way I do or wear the same type of clothes to connect with them.

When I am connected to my humanity I am more connected to other peoples’ humanity and there is beauty all around me.

As Michael Singer says, “Nothing is worth closing your heart over.” And I am truly a believer in this. Open heart and open pussy, connected, this is where true nourishment comes from.

What I’ve found as I’ve leaned into holding a retreat in service to connection, nourishment, and community is that community is actually everywhere, all the time, we just have to be willing to feel it, open to it, and receive it. 

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