ReMothering with Clara Belize Wisner

There are some everyday moments that will live in your memory forever.

I'm not sure why one moment gets cemented in and most others fly away, but as I've sat with why today, I think it’s something about how open and present you are to the sensations and the moment as a whole.

Some of these memorable moments tattooed in our minds are painful, others joyous, others seemingly random.

The difference about these memorable moments to other memories is how viscerally we recall the minute details.

The way the air smelled.

The way our shirt touched our skin.

The color of the shirt someone was wearing.

The exact facial expression of a loved one.

I had one of these moments the other day with Alma on the couch.

I was laying on the couch trying to horizontal parent, per usual.

She kept jumping on me and I would tickle and squeeze her until she rolled off me and would do it again.

There was a split second where my mind became totally quiet. I was fully present and with all the details of the situation. I felt this deep, deep connection to the perfection of the moment.

I felt the velvety soft skin of her belly under my lips as I blew a raspberry.

I felt the warm weight of her body on mine.

The smell of her. Like sunshine on flowers.

Squeals of glee vibrated through the air and all around me.

The way she is still little enough to just toss around, but big enough to run away.

And I felt this deep joy and deep melancholy at the same time.

The human condition.

I was hit with the fact that this moment will never come again.

I am not a nostalgic person.

I generally feel very good about my girls growing up.

I hope to be lucky enough to die long before them.

I think about the women they will become with curiosity and excitement.

I have had the great privilege of being with them pretty much every moment I have wanted to be for their entire lives.

But, I felt in this moment, how fleeting this time when Maya and Alma are little is.

I felt, all the way through, the heartbreak of watching your children grow up.

A mother and her baby is the most intimate relationship that exists.

Blood of my blood. Bones of Bones.

But this moment was perfection.

And I will cherish the little details forever.

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Today I spent the morning taking care of things that have been piling up. 

We had a big snow storm last week and with it came a big winter and hibernation mode activation. 

Sean and I both got sick.  

Our nanny wasn’t able to come a few days last week. 

We rescheduled and canceled things.

We stopped cleaning up as much as normal and just let stuff lie where it landed for a few days. 

Sometimes the bare minimum is just true. And the bare minimum with two toddlers is very, very little. Basically, just keep them and yourself alive. 

But, today, the sun is back out. 

The temperature is up a little bit.

I’m coughing less and less and my body feels less worn out. 

Our nanny is here watching the girls and taking care of the house and I was able to run into town to pick up our mail that has been undeliverable (because of the snow) and to fix a flat tire on our main car. 

Our small town has one tire shop. 

I rolled in feeling relaxed and open. 

I felt the annoyance of Tony (the tire shop owner) as he told me it was going to be two hours until he could get to my flat. 

I said I’d call Sean to come get me (yes, we are all on first name basis) and settled down in a black plastic chair in the dusty and cold waiting room that smelled of oil, gasoline, and automotive lubricant. 

I took out my phone and started answering emails. 

The door to the tire shop swung open with a whoosh of icy air as an old cowboy walked in. 

I live in rural Western Montana and this is one of the only places in the world where there are real life cowboys still. 

He had on a brown cowboy hat, a carhart insulated vest, jean jacket, wrangler jeans, and cowboy boots. His hands were in deer skin gloves. 

He looked at me and smiled, his weathered skin folding and crinkling in all the right places. 

His skin that reddish brown of someone who spends a lot of time outside in winter. 

His eyes had the twinkling of a soul that is alive and well.

He was probably around 70 and I’m sure in his day he had broken some hearts. 

I could feel the way my normal reaction would be to smile quickly back and then to look right back at my phone and pretend to be oh so busy and slightly miffed at having to be there at all. 

But the truth was, today, I wasn’t busy. I wasn’t really miffed.

I was actually enjoying myself. 

The rare alone time. 

The spaciousness of no where to go, no where to be. 

I was just taking care of things that needed to be taken care of. Simple and satisfying, but there was no urgency here. 

So I put my phone face down on the seat next to me and smiled and made eye contact with him a little longer than I was completely comfortable with. 

And, with that little invitation he struck up a conversation. 

What we talked about was nothing earth shattering. 

It wasn’t deep or philosophical. 

There wasn’t anything profound shared or imparted. 

And yet, the amount of nutrition I received from this exchange was massive. 

This man was such a representation of the place I live. The heartiness. The salt of the Earth. The no gimmicks, no tricks, no flashiness. The expansive openness of the grasses and sky, held by the steadiness of the mountains. 

My soul feels held here. I belong here; fully. 

My first mentor, Coly Vulpiani, used to talk about the feelings you have when you watch a beautiful sunset. You might get a sense of awe, beauty, connection, peace, etc, but it isn’t the sunset that actually gives you those feelings.

The sunset is the sufficient condition for these feelings to arise within you, but they are always there. 

That’s how this interaction with the cowboy felt. 

It felt like he was the sufficient condition for me to feel this connection to my place in the world.

He was the sufficient condition to allow in the nutrition of my place, the land, my community, and the nutrients of the day in, fully. 

But.. these nutrients are always available for me and are ultimately within me. 

It’s just; will I allow them to arise? 

I am feeling all of this as we lead up to the community call I’m holding for all of you reading/listening to this, this Sunday, November 20th at 1pm PST. 

This is a wide open invitation to come to my current students, my loved ones, my readers, my followers, anyone who would like to come and join me for an hour to connect, hear about my journey the last couple years, and ask me questions. 

This is my request to you, my community, to come and feel me in a new way. 

To be completely honest, I feel a little exposed and vulnerable, but also very excited for this call as I hope it will be the sufficient condition to connect you and I to some much needed nutritive connection. 

Sign up for the Community Call 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 have this anti-social cynic that lives in me.

She wants to point her finger down her throat and make gagging noises and roll her eyes when people talk about ‘sisterhood’ and ‘community.’ 

She’s all good. She’s totally fine. She doesn’t need a thing. 

She is self sufficient. She can hold herself in all situations. And if she does need something from someone, on the very rare occasion, it is going to be well compensated for. 

She is going to pay full price for those services. 

She is only going to receive exactly what she can give back and nothing more.

Tit for tat. Even Stephens. 

Because, God forbid, she be indebted to someone else. 

God forbid, she be held by someone else. 

God forbid, she allow herself to have something more than she could get herself.

This part of me holds people at an arm’s length. She doesn’t trust people to come in and get close. She feels a sense of vigilance and protection at all times. 

Always opting to do it herself over having help. 

She is the one who feels like friendship is actually competition. She is the one who feels like love is a game to play. 

This part of me only wants to participate in group dynamics if she is somehow the star, the leader, put on a pedestal above everyone else. 

She wants to be the leader, the best there is, or she wants to disappear into her cave, alone, and seemingly “safe.”

Invisible or one hundred percent visible and separate; nothing in between. 

And…

I can feel how this part of myself is one of the main pieces standing between me and what I desire most.

She is the part between me and true intimacy. 

She is the part between me and the love that wants to surround me, support me, and hold me. 

She is the part between me and you, my readers, followers, fans, friends and loved ones. 

And she is the part that has stood between me and some of my deepest wounding. 

The wounding around being different. The wounding around not belonging. 

All of us, every single one of us, want to be seen, felt, known and unconditionally loved. 

There have been many points in all our lives where we felt the opposite of these things. 

Points in our lives where we’ve felt judged, unseen, like an outsider, and unloved. 

And we’ve all come up with our own stories to explain these painful experiences. Stories that protected us and kept us safe at one point, but eventually have become barriers to the very experiences of connection we crave.

My story was that I was better off alone, that I had to be superior to everyone I came in contact with so that I can always keep myself separate.

And I am ready to be done with that story. I love this part for all the ways she has protected me up until this point. She is brutal, relentless, competent, efficient, and incredibly capable and I am sure I will need those qualities throughout my life and I will be so glad I built those skills. 

But I no longer need her to protect me. 

And I am ready to come out of my shell. 

As a commemoration to this shifting I have decided to do something wildly vulnerable for me and that is to hold a free call for my community, the people who are reading or listening to these words. 

No matter if this is the first thing of mine you’ve ever read or you’ve been following me since I first began writing online in 2014, you are welcome on this call. 

It is a way for me to reintroduce myself from this softer, more available, and open location and for us to get to know each other. 

In this call I imagine I will talk about my journey over the last few years; through motherhood, energetic mastery, the lineage I have proudly become a part of and what that means, and a bit about the work I do in the world. 

This is not a sales call. This is not a pitch call. There is nothing being offered here except a chance to connect with me heart to heart. 

I am requesting, vulnerably and honestly, some support from you, my community, in the final turning of the page into an entirely new chapter of my life. 

Come to meet me for the first time or the hundredth time.

Come to ask questions; questions about my work, questions about my life; questions about anything.

Come to see who else is there.

Come to feel how it feels to be with me.

Come because it makes you feel squirmy and uncomfortable. 

Come because you feel warmed and welcome.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20th at 1pm PST/2pm MST/4pm EST. 

If you’re ready, just sign up via the link below and you’ll get the zoom link delivered to your email. 

I hope to see you there.

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

Most days I am woken up by some sort of screaming or crying. 

Crying baby on the monitor. Crying toddler at my bedside. Baby crying in my bed. Screaming toddler on the monitor. 

Admittedly, there are plenty blissful and cute mornings where it’s all sweetness, snuggles and cuddles, as well.

And then there are the three or so times in the last 3 years I’ve actually woken up rested and felt like getting out of bed before the girls are awake. 

I have recently realized how much I wind myself up for the day; laying there in bed in the morning. 

I wake to the crying; heart racing; my mind coming in like a semi barreling down the interstate. Because of my insomnia this past year, my husband is the one that jumps out of bed, pulls on the shorts and t-shirt from the night before and stumbles over to the girls’ room to get them and starts making breakfast. 

I lay there. Not letting myself soak in the moments of alone time or go back to sleep, but instead starting this pep-talk around the imminent tasks of the day. 

It’s so effortful; this preparing myself for the “battle of the day.” 

There’s so much force in it, right from the first waking moment. 

Drag myself out of bed. Brush my teeth. Wash my face. Do my stretches. Go downstairs. Hold a crying baby and tip toe around an edgy toddler while trying to do things like make coffee and unload the dishwasher. 

The really sneaky part is, this has felt so normal. It is such an autopilot thing for me. 

It’s habitual. I do. I cook. I take care of my hygiene. I care for. I plan. I shop. I nurse. I pick up the baby. I carry. I shhh. I clean up. I wash dishes. I do laundry. I vacuum. I pick up toys. I schedule appointments. I go to appointments. I do what has to be done. I just do. I do the adult things. 

But what I’ve realized just recently is how rigid this is. How forceful. How energetically draining this systematic way of going about life can be. 

It’s coming at life like a battering ram. 

And I’ve been told on more than one occasion I can be like a bulldozer when it comes to getting stuff done. And in the past, I felt proud of this quality in myself.

But what I’ve found recently is.. yes, it’s nice to get stuff done, but then what are you left with? Stuff done. Great. But what about the energetic deficit you created to get that stuff done?

What about the Truth? 

There is no relationship to Life from that place. There is no room for space or flow. And ultimately there is no openness or reception for what life is offering you in the moment.

In trauma terms I am stuck in a fight response with life. 

Coming at life as if it’s something that needs to be controlled and managed is just fighting with what is.

I was talking to a friend who has the opposite side of a lot of my patterns and she was saying how she gets stuck in a freeze response to life; avoiding and letting things go undone for months. 

I’ve seen this pattern of mine to do, do, do, before. This is not the new part. My practice when I noticed myself moving too fast or believing my mind’s urgency about the tasks, was to just stop. Stop doing. Just be still and come into my body.

This practice of stopping the doing was super helpful on one level and I think it is what allowed me to deepen into this more recent truth I’ve found. 

Which is that these two responses are equally untrue: to do or not to do, is actually not the question.

What I’ve found as I’ve sat and observed myself in this pattern is that it’s not about doing. And it’s not about not doing, either.

What my body craves is being. 

This is very subtle and nuanced, but it’s creating an entirely new embodiment of the understanding of the doer/fixer pattern that so many of us have in a society that values doing much more than being.

Being is not doing nothing and it is not doing something, either. 

It is being with. It is presence. And you can have presence whether or not you are doing something. 

So, as I’ve played around with this new found knowing, I can feel how elevating being above doing or not doing allows me to be with my life in an entirely new way.

Constantly being in motion is a protective mechanism. And protective mechanisms, by definition, put up barriers around you.

They create a wall between you and your life.

Originally, that wall was there to protect you. It blocked you from some kind of pain.

But the thing about protective mechanisms is they will eventually solidify into a pattern and then they end up blocking joy and connection as well.

I have felt this in particular with my girls and with my husband.

My inability to slow down and be with them left me constantly feeling a little disconnected. Like I was holding them at an arm’s length. And then I would want to distract from this feeling of disconnection. More doing comes in handy there.

My true desire is to be totally present with my loved ones and my life. To really feel, receive, and have every little piece of joy, connection, nourishment and love I can with them.

And so this protective mechanism of always doing ended up blocking my ability to really allow in the beauty of each moment.

I would find myself planning what to make for dinner while Maya was taking her first steps.

I would find myself drawn to my phone messages when playing with Alma.

I would find myself rushing Alma at bedtime so I could get back to whatever it was I wanted to do.

I would find myself constantly scrolling social media while I nurse Maya.

As I stop this pattern of over-doing and move into more being, I am also going to have to feel the things that it was protecting me against; the pain.

But, I have had enough experience unwinding patterns, that I know feeling the pain and discomfort is well worth the amount of connection and joy I’ll experience on the other side.

The less walls we have between us and life the greater the spectrum of emotion we will need to feel. The higher the highs and the lower the lows. But it’s worth it.

Because the full spectrum of emotion and experience is where Life happens.

It is where true nourishment lies.

We are spiritual beings having a human experience. And what I’ve found is that the more humanity I can experience, the more fulfilled I become.

The love I have for my girls and my husband is the love that wakes me up to the truth that Life is waiting for me in the feelings.

I’m here for it.

Every.

Little.

Morsel.

These are pieces of the journey into deep feminine nourishment we explore in my group container FED.

I will begin the next round of FED in 2023. If you’re interested just send me a message and I’ll put you on the waitlist.

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 always eat breakfast within 30 minutes of waking and before I have any caffeine.

If, for some reason, I can’t get my full breakfast within 30 minutes of waking, I’ll eat some fruit while breakfast is cooking. Sometimes I’ll do a yolky milky drink (no caffeine) if it’s going to be closer to an hour after waking. 

Eating this close to waking up is imperative if you want to balance blood sugar, hormones, and give your nervous system the signal that it is safe first thing and start off the day running on real energy, not stress hormones.

Starting your day running on stress hormones is like running an energetic deficit. You’re using borrowed energy that you’ll have to pay back later.

A lot of people aren’t hungry in the morning and the idea of eating a big breakfast sounds unappetizing or even straight up nauseating. 

But the truth is, if you are not hungry after fasting for 8 or more hours over night, then you are for sure running on stress hormones and that will catch up with you, eventually. Most common ways running on an energy deficit will show up are thyroid issues, adrenal issues, cold hands and feet, fatigue, low libido, moodiness, and/or trouble sleeping through the night. 

Committing to eating within 30 minutes of waking is a practice that may require some discomfort initially, but once you do it for a few weeks I guarantee your hunger will come back and you’ll feel much better throughout the day. 

I have had many clients who did the one thing of eating a hearty breakfast within 30 minutes of waking and their mental thought processes change so drastically they cannot believe how much happier and more at peace they are. They’re getting themselves out of fight or flight in the morning which has positive repercussions for your whole day and ultimately, your life.

For our entire relationship I was always the first to get up but since having kiddos, my husband gets up with the girls and cooks breakfast for all of us each morning.

One thing that has changed wildly from before kids to after kids is how much help I am able to receive in my life.

I would never have wanted any one to cook me breakfast before kids because they wouldn’t have gotten it “right.” I was one of those ‘if you want it done right, do it yourself’ people. 

But when you’re sleep deprived, breastfeeding, and recovering from birth and pregnancy, there is just a limit on what and how much you can do. So my husband started cooking breakfast for me.

If there is something I would really rather have or some way I would prefer something, I am happy to give kind and clear adjustments. Eg, “I would like you to wait to toast my toast until I’m downstairs,” or “I really like fried eggs better than scrambled.”

But, most of the time now there is just gratitude for having a meal in front of me as soon as I come downstairs. And gratitude for the extra space in the morning to wake up on my own time, brush my teeth, wash my face, do some stretches, and get dressed for the day in peace. It makes me feel like I can handle the day. And I am so much more kind and open to my family if I just have this space of 30 minutes or so in the morning. 

I am sure my husband would love extra space in the morning too.. but it’s actually not as important to his opening as it is for mine right now.

He can get ready and brush his teeth in 5 minutes and that is satisfying for him. I think, most of the time, he enjoys his alone time with the girls in the morning since, a couple days a week he is leaving to go to work and is gone until the evening. 

I also think he honestly enjoys being able to give me space and time because he can feel the difference it makes for me. And this is the hardest part for me to accept: that someone would just want to do something for me for no other reason than it makes me happier and more joyful.

It’s such a tender spot. I can feel tears welling up just writing this out. The kind of tears with no story. Not happy or sad, just a tender spot where I have starved myself in the past. A spot where I haven’t allowed myself to let love in. And now that I do, it feels like parched earth receiving rain. 

It has been hard to receive. But I’m finally accepting that it’s what’s best for everyone; for mama to wake up and have some time alone in the morning. 

I know it will switch at some point as things always do. I’ll feel more and more rested and maybe Sean will go through a period of exhaustion or needing more space and time and I’ll take over the morning duties. And I will be happy to give him what he needs for no other reason than I love him and value his well being. 

But for now, my practice here is really letting myself have the time in the morning without guilt or shame or feeling like I’m getting away with something. I don’t need any grabbiness or entitlement, just open reception. Letting that parched earth part of me become fertile soil once again. Because fertile soil is where all life comes from. My fertile soil is what gives life to my family, and it must be tended well.

If you have a hard time eating soon after waking and you have a partner or room mate, why not ask them to cook for you? It’s a beautiful way to get in reception and allow yourself to be cared for by someone who loves you. 

Giving and receiving are both beautifully satisfying. To practice one or the other is a worthy task.

There are currently 3 Ways to Work with Me:

* HOME BODY sessions | one hour with me guiding you into your body as your home + 15 minutes of digestion $222 | Message me to book.

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* If you are interested in joining FED for the next round starting in 2023. Just hit reply and let me know and I’ll keep you on a list to be the first to know when applications are open again.

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This is a piece that has been asking to be written for a long time.

I have been wrestling with a lot of feelings and judgments about the way I have chosen to approach sleep with my babies. I’ve alluded to my experience and shared snippets of my thoughts but in light of the co-sleeping vs “sleep training” debate going on I felt like it was time for me to come out on this subject. 

I am laying it all out on the table at the very real risk of being judged harshly and inciting a lot of activation from other mothers on both sides of the debate because I do not fall into one category or the other. And trust me, no one could judge me more harshly than I have already judged myself at times. 

This is where I’ll begin: what has worked for my family’s sleep lies somewhere in the middle of co-sleeping and sleep training. 

I will say first that I am a proponent of doing whatever works to get a family’s basic needs for sleep met. So this is not some diatribe about what you “should” or “shouldn’t” do for yours or your baby’s sleep. 

I am simply sharing my experience and what has worked for our family. I am doing this because there are places I wish I had felt a little more softness and room for nuance in the collective for the incredibly painful spots I’ve been in as I’ve opened to concepts, I thought I never would, to get our family’s sleep needs met. 

And this is my first tenant I would like to share: sleep is a family wide need and should be considered as such. Every member of the family needs sleep. Mamas need sleep as much as babies need sleep. Papas need sleep as much as mamas. Babies and toddlers need sleep. Everyone needs to sleep to be healthy, grounded and sane. And everyone’s sleep should be valued. 

When Alma was born I was under the impression that babies would simply sleep when they are tired. I didn’t get all the stress about sleep. I was going to do it like our ancestors and just sleep when my baby slept and with her and it would be all be cozy and wonderful. 

This actually worked pretty well until about 6 months. At 6 months all of the sudden Alma was waking up 20 times a night to nurse and because nursing was how I got her to sleep I would be waking up and flipping her from side to side all night. long I wasn’t putting her down for intentional naps and I wasn’t asking for help.

I found out I was pregnant with Maya at this time. 

By the time Alma was 8 months old she had stopped napping during the day other than little 20 minute cat naps at the breast and continued to wake multiple times an hour at night. She was beyond over tired. I was bone deep exhausted and the prospect of having another newborn baby in 7 months made me feel like I might die.

So we made one of the best decisions of our parenthood journey and hired a sleep coach to work with us on Alma’s sleep.

Working with the gentle sleep coach meant we committed fully to a set nap schedule for Alma. 

This meant every day our top priority was getting Alma to sleep at certain times. My husband and I walked for hours and hours daily just to get Alma to sleep in the carrier or stroller because she would not sleep any other way for months.

We also started the process of night weaning and having my husband put her down for bedtime and being the one to comfort her when she woke up in the night. 

As her naps became more consistent and her system started to relax and she wasn’t so overtired, she started sleeping better during the night too. 

When Alma was around 12 months she was sleeping on her own in her room on a floor bed for 12 hours a night. We did zero “cry it out” and we never left her by herself while she was awake. We would lay with her until she fell asleep and then leave. We still do this. We sit in the room and sing until she falls asleep. If she does wake up in the night and starts crying, we go over to her room and comfort her until she goes back to sleep. She is 2.5 now. 

I’ve heard it said that sleep training is for the convenience of the parents, but that is in no way true for us. We did this gentle and committed form of sleep training for our family. When she was only napping for 20 minutes at a time and waking up 20 times a night, that wasn’t good for anyone in our family’s sleep. 

We committed to this gentle form of sleep training which was actually really creating a very clear rhythm for her days which allowed her nervous system to relax and unwind and let go into sleep. more and more easily. 

As much as our bodies and development are evolved to function best in a hunter gatherer like society; we do not live in one. We live in a world with constant nervous system stimulation from blue light to traffic to pesticides in our food.

Modern mamas and babies nervous systems are no where near as regulated as a mama and baby living off the land, rising and sleeping with the sun, spending most of their days in nature, and being surrounded by helpful tribe and family members. 

So this is my second tenant, it may be completely evolutionarily appropriate for babies to bed share, but if the mama’s nervous system is severely unregulated by modern life: blue light, stress of a job, taking responsibility for a disproportionate load of the child care duties, pesticide ridden food, nutrient poor food, etc and then you add lack of sleep on top of all that, it’s not going to go well for either mama or baby. 

Mama’s nervous system is what regulates baby’s nervous system and baby’s nervous system is very sensitive.

In the book Hunt, Gather, Parent the author talks about how she hears very little crying in Mayan community she is visiting, even though there are many, many babies around. She talks about how in an Inuit family she spends time with the only time she hears crying at night is when there has been a new baby born and the mom is weaning the toddler.

We do not live in hunter gatherer societies and to put pressure on ourselves to feel like we need to live and thrive in the same ways hunter gatherers did isn’t leaving room for where we are actually at. It doesn’t allow us to be fully honest with ourselves. 

If bed sharing and co-sleeping is working for you and your family’s sleeping needs are met, that is wonderful.

I can’t say how much I yearn for and deeply wish this had been the case for our family.

When Maya was born my eyes had been open to the importance of naps and sleep routines; so we let her sleep whenever and however for the first 3 months or so and then moved into the 3 naps a day routine. At night she slept in a bassinet next to me or right up against me in bed. 

This worked well until about that 6 month mark again, when she started waking up more and more frequently at night. Again we got to a point where she was waking up every hour and unlike Alma, she was not easy to nurse back to sleep. She would scream and cry and refuse the nipple and only fall back asleep in motion.

When Maya was around 8 months I night weaned her hoping that this would stop some of the constant night wakings and screaming. And also around this time was when my insomnia started flaring up. Any little noise would leave me awake for hours and hours. 

The screaming in the middle of the night left me raw and wired. And it was just a terrible feedback loop. The more fried I felt the more agitated Maya would get. 

My husband spent a lot of nights walking aimlessly around with Maya in the carrier in the wee hours of the morning or sitting up in the bed, half asleep rocking her, while I tried to sleep in the guest bedroom.

Alma would still wake up at least once each night at this point and had started roaming around the house or just coming over to our room. 

The days were spent putting the family’s sleep before everything else. Each day was just a moment by moment approach to getting by. The exhaustion for all of us left us feeling exposed and tight. 

My husband and I worked very little and rested during the day a lot. I had acupuncture, chiropractic, naturopathic medicine, and more appointments and started working on down regulating my nervous system as if it was my job. It was the most important thing to me. 

We tried bringing Alma back into our room. She would wiggle around the bed and wake up every 2 hours, waking my husband and I and Maya up.

We moved Alma back to her room as one wake up a night was much better than multiple wake ups.

We started gentle sleep training with Maya where we put her in the pack and play and sit next to her while she fell asleep.

The first few nights we did this she would scream and scream and it would feel like it was ripping my heart in two. I would lay next to her and pat her and sing and imagine our hearts connected together by a string. I would cry with her until she fell asleep. And the thing was, she started to stay asleep through the night. She would wake up and cry a little, but go right back to sleep with some pats. 

This was not in any way shape or form convenient for me, nor was it easy. It might be one of the most painful things I’ve ever done. If I could have slept with her next to me in my bed without being woken up 20 times (or even just being woken up 4 times) I would have. I want to sleep with her.

But it most definitely was better for her sleep and for my sleep and for our family’s sleep.

And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’ve made a terrible mistake. Maybe there was/is something else I should have tried. Maybe I haven’t read the right books. 

What I do know is that my girls are deeply loved and cared for. I do know that I would inconvenience myself to the max if it meant they would be better off. I do know that getting sleep is one of the most important ways for me the regulate my nervous system. I do know that having a mother with a regulated nervous system is what is in service to my entire family. 

I know that the health of my family is one of the most deeply held values I have. 

Now; the girls sleep in their own room together. Alma sleeps on the bottom bunk and Maya sleeps in her pack and play next to Alma. Bedtimes are easy and involve very few tears. Most nights they sleep through the night and sometimes my husband has to go into their room and sing one of them back to sleep. 

My sleep is regulating. I can sleep for 3-4 hours at a time normally and go back to sleep relatively easily after I’ve woken up. 

And it really is a chicken or egg conundrum: Am I sleeping better because the girls are sleeping better? Or are they sleeping better because I am? 

I think it’s probably somewhere in the middle. We are connected. And we always will be. And I’ll make mistakes; big ones and small ones. So will they. And I can’t think of any more important lesson I could impart to my girls than modeling how to love and not abandon yourself through the places that feel shakey and unsure. 

The older I get and the more experiences I have the more I really find there is never one right way.

As mothers, we need to give ourselves more grace to find the ways that work for us and our families. To find the ways that allow us to be all the things we desire to be.

To not get stuck in ruts and righteous crusades, but instead, to give each other the space and the trust to find our own way.

Valuing the mother isn’t about having every mother mother the same way in the future, it’s about trusting our inner mother to lead the way, right now.

There are currently 3 Ways to Work with Me:

* HOME BODY sessions | one hour with me guiding you into your body as your home + 15 minutes of digestion $222 | Message me to book.

* 1:1 Alchemical Journey | 12 months with with guiding you to connect to your most resourced self during big life transitions eg divorce, motherhood, death, etc. | Message me to book a free connection call about this.

* Trust the Magic Writing Workshop | A workshop leading you through my medicine writing process to allow digestion of life through writing. Read more here. | 10.1.22, 10-1pm MST | $111 | Reply to this email to sign up.

* If you are interested in joining FED for the next round starting in 2023. Just hit reply and let me know and I’ll keep you on a list to be the first to know when applications are open again.

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

The practice of writing and creating ‘content’ has become such an integral part of my practice. 

For a decade and the better part of my adulthood I have been writing, sharing, and speaking publicly about my life. Writing about my struggles, my pain, my lessons, and my experience.

I have written blogs, hosted podcasts, owned a bunch of social media accounts, and been a speaker at various events. I have taught hundreds of hours of workshops and classes in person and online about everything from cooking demos to yoga classes, essential oils workshops to guiding shamanic journeys. 

This is something about myself I’ve gotten in alignment with long ago: It can seem like I am all over the place with my work.

But in reality, I am always right on track.

Each and every step leads me to the next perfect step. I am in deep approval of the way I follow the breadcrumbs of my life. I find it incredibly exciting and fun to never know exactly where anything is leading me. 

I have been leaping from one rock to another through the misty landscape of my life forever, never needing to see where the trail of rocks may end. The idea of choosing a ‘niche’ or needing to do the same thing day after day does not and will never work for me.

I do, however, need to remember to stop, slow down, reflect and digest each step as I’m going or else living like this can feel disorienting. 

And this is what writing has always done for me. It is a way to reflect and digest. A way to move energy. A way to distill the experiences I’m having into the lessons they offer and, in doing so, properly assimilate them. 

When you live a life that can change and morph at any moment you need to know exactly where you are standing, now, so you’re centered enough to take the next leap.

Writing and creating has allowed me to digest as I go. To share what is happening inside of myself so that I may take it apart and study each part. To pull the threads and invite them to loosen so that I may see what is making up the knots. 

I do not share my life publicly to ‘get’ anything. I am sharing for me and my practice and to be of service. I am sharing to demonstrate with my life that which I endeavor and feel called, to teach.

This is embodied teaching. It is not teaching from or to the mind, but from and to the body.

There is a real lack of introspection in our world. A lack of appreciation for the process of digestion and assimilation and what it takes to integrate our life experiences. 

A lack of reverence for what happens underneath the surface and out of sight. 

And so I am offering my digestion and my introspection as a kind of invitation for you to do your own.

Digestion is the perfect way to think of it. 

Eating is the life experience. Putting external stimuli into the body. We take experiences in. And then, just like with food, we must digest them. We must take them apart into their constituents, reorder them, and make our own sense of them. Especially if experiences are painful or testing. 

To learn to unpack and unwind our reactions and responses is some of the most important work we can to do for ourselves. To appreciate the time it can take to process, ruminate and chew over something.

There is always so much happening underneath the surface. Can we allow ourselves space and time to move through it fully and completely?

To be in approval of our own process, can make all the difference in how we care for ourselves. 

I am offering a medicine writing workshop on Saturday October 1st from 10am-1pm MST. In this workshop I will be guiding you through my personal medicine writing practice.

To sign up just reply to this email. It’s $111.

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 have been dubbed the self care queen by a few friends on separate occasions.

I am a classic Taurus sun. I love luxury and comfort. I love sensual experiences. Experiences that ask us to deepen into the senses and participate with and in the body. 

The ultimate picture of my ideal experience is: eating a raspberry chocolate mousse in a beautiful California king bed, with high thread count Egyptian cotton sheets while wearing a plush organic robe, after having a long hot bath followed by mind blowing sex. 

I want it all. 

Good food.

Massages.

Dancing.

Facials.

Deeply satisfying and pleasurable sex.

Long hot showers and baths. 

Essential oils.

Flowers.

Multiple step skin care routines.

And, on one level, who doesn’t want this?

But the difference between me and the person who says, “well yeah! That sounds nice, but when does that happen in real life?” is that I actually make sure these experiences happen for myself regularly because I deeply value them.

I spend a large portion of my days lathering my physical self with care. It is a priority. And I expend the energy and time learning, gathering information, and studying my options for products, caregivers, practitioners, and modalities.

I value these experiences. I value my body. I cherish Her. I participate deeply in her well being. 

From the food that I eat and how it’s procured, stored, cooked, presented and eaten.

The clothes that I wear. They must be soft, stretchy and comfortable. I love jewelry and adornment. 

From the supplements I take to the facial moisturizer I use. It’s all intentional and high quality.

My daily practices are all about making myself feel luxuriated upon, even if it’s just the simple two min gua sha facial massage routine I do before bed. 

I, admittedly, have inborn gifts around this ability to self care and a deep desire to participate in my well being. And still, most of my life I was made to think these gifts were just “expensive” tastes and that I was extravagant, selfish and over-the-top.

And there is a way that without truly being aligned with the deep value and rightness of these self care practices, they may tip into hedonism or entitled pleasure-chasing.

There is a way we must be willing to participate in the self care that allows it to be more than just over indulging.

I’ll give you a recent example.

About a month ago I got the intuitive to nudge to go “no poo” with my hair. No poo meaning I stop using any shampoo, conditioner, or conventional hair products and instead use a combination of apple cider vinegar, water, rhassoul clay, herbal infusions, herb based hydrasols, scalp massage and brushing for my hair cleansing and care needs.

I was honestly kind of annoyed by the nudge. I was like, “Ugh! Seriously, universe?! That’s so random. And it sounds like a ton of work and time I don’t have.” 

But I started looking for resources and I found @airellemartinez and her no poo guide. I begrudgingly started the process of going no poo. Quickly, I started to see how the process is actually quite delightful and exactly the type of luxury I find most fulfilling.

Going no poo creates more ritual in the care of my hair. It requires a little bit more participation than just washing my hair with shampoo and conditioner I bought at a store. I know and buy all the ingredients for no poo separately. They are simple, whole food ingredients, no big chemical sounding words made in a factory by strangers in a foreign land. 

Going no poo allows me to really understand all the ingredients I’m putting on my body and hair and have a relationship with them.

Going no poo requires 2-3 months of transition, so that the natural oils can work their way down the entire hair strand and your scalp pH can regulate after the years of detergent based cleansers. Right now, my hair looks and feels pretty gross. And so, there is a commitment to the process involved, just like every other type of true self care.

There needs to be some erectness, some willingness to create a new habit, try a new thing, make mistakes, maybe look stupid. Commitment and surrender are involved in consistent participation in your well being. 

And this is where hedonism and the type of prioritized self care I practice become very, very different.

Unbridled pleasure-seeking doesn’t require any true commitment. It’s just doing whatever feels good. It’s eating the whole chocolate cake. It’s consumption focused. Where as prioritizing well-being is participation focused. There is a give and a take.

People tend to associate luxury with a big price tag. But in my experience, and I’ve had high price tag luxury experiences, it’s actually about how we participate and how deeply we let ourselves enjoy the experience that creates an experience of true luxury.

I’ve had the some of the most luxurious experiences in my own home. Giving myself and my body space, time and intention. Sometimes, making an appointment, driving to the spa, paying for the spa, and parking at the spa etc is actually more stressful than just creating a home made self care experience.

Dry brushing my skin. Giving myself a massage with jojoba oil. Soaking in a long salt bath. Lounging in bed. Napping in the middle of day with full permission.

As much as people talk about how important self care is; most are unwilling to truly give themself the experience of letting their physical body be worshipped by themselves.

This is how I have started to relate to the type of self care I do: as body worship. 

It is all fueled by a deep reverence for my being; an honoring of myself.

I worship this magical bunch cells, muscle, tissue, bone and blood that carries me throughout the world. I give them space. And when they speak to me through symptoms, I do not get victimized or repress them, I listen and act accordingly.

I will not override my needs or desires. I will spend time, energy, effort and financial resources on myself and my family’s health. I will not outsource my healing or health. Because it is my most imperative resource.

It is a revolutionary act to care for ourselves this deeply and with such devotion.

To be in awe of what our bodies give back to us on a daily basis.

In my work, I serve the divine union between the feminine and masculine. But the truth is the feminine is what needs exalting in a most cases.

Our physical body is Feminine. She is our mother earth. The pus, guts, bodily fluids, pee and excrement and the beauty of the swivel of hips or curve of a breast. Symptoms are the way the feminine communicates with us, the aches, pain, nausea, and symptoms.

One place where we can bring balance into our own lives is to start to honor our physical form. To allow our form to guide and direct us through its communications of feelings, pings, intuition, and symptoms. To give ourselves space to properly feel these things without filtering them through the mind.

This is the work I do and part of the medicine I bring to all of my containers.

There are currently 3 Ways to Work with Me:

* HOME BODY sessions | one hour with me guiding you into your body as your home + 15 minutes of digestion $222 | Message me to book.

* 1:1 Alchemical Journey | 12 months with with guiding you to connect to your most resourced self during big life transitions eg divorce, motherhood, death, etc. | Message me to book a free connection call about this.

* 1:1 Nourishment Deep Dive | a 90-min 1:1 session with me where we will go over your health history, current eating habits, symptoms, and health goals and I will come up with a personalized plan for you to implement. You have to be ready to really make some changes to your diet and lifestyle. | $444, Message me to apply. | There will be an option for one or two follow up sessions to tweak things or answer questions, after this as needed.

* If you are interested in joining FED for the next round starting in 2023. Just hit reply and let me know and I’ll keep you on a list to be the first to know when applications are open again.

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 have been exploring that all encompassing phenomenon called ‘mom-guilt’ lately.

Maya, my youngest is growing up, seemingly overnight. I find our relationship shifting and morphing from the attached-at-the-boob togetherness of that first year of infancy to the less attached togetherness of that not-quite-a-baby, not-quite-a-toddler phase of massive exploration and growth.

Instead of the peaceful couch-and-bed-bound moments together staring into each other eyes, there is more of an active watching from the sidelines feel to mothering. This is the phase where I say a lot of, “Does that feel safe?” or “I won’t let you do that,” instead of just having her be passively another bodily appendage.

I have been feeling a deep heart ache nostalgia for the fleeting stillness of the infant stage.

I ask myself, “Did I relish the weight of those little bodies pressing against mine enough?"

I have this incessant fear coming back around and around that I am going to regret something I’m doing now. There is this ever present worry that I’m missing something or that I’ve already missed something. I’m not sure what, but when I find out, I’m sure I’ll be kicking myself for a lifetime.

We go anywhere in public with my two daughters and total strangers come up to my husband and I, “Enjoy it! It goes so fast!” they say with a desperation I recognize. There is a part of me that is trying so hard to heed this advice. I feel frenzied by the prospect that I might not be soaking it all in enough.

It is no secret that I am tired.

Some days I just want to lay on the ground and say, “I give up!” and stop trying so hard to saturate myself in this phase of parenting.

I find myself dreaming of when I won’t have to do everything one handed with a 30 pound baby on my hip and when my children can actually tell me what they want.

Maya growing up and giving me more space means that I have gotten to start having more alone time with Alma, my oldest, again.

I’m flooded with memories of when it was just Alma and I. The sweetness of playing together. The amount of attention Alma got as a baby is something that Maya will never know.

I find myself feeling guilty for how little time I’ve spent with Alma one on one in the year since Maya’s birth.

The second Maya was born I felt the shift. How everything changed. I knew that me as the mother of one child, would never be again, and, from that moment on, I would always be the mother of two children.

Being a mother to one child is radically different than being a mother to two children. Being a family of four is radically different than being a family of three. And I’m sure it continues on this way the more children you have.

Each new birth of a family member an entire rearrangement of the mother’s insides, brain, and spirit.

There is an innocence to being a first time mother. I had this bravado about it and this audacious certainty of the way I was going to do things being the right and best way.

I took on first time motherhood like a young knight going into his first battle. And through the many battles of sleep deprivation, learning to breastfeed, constantly being slapped in the face by all the ways my expectations did not meet up with the reality I was experiencing, I was carved into a wiser mother warrior by my second time around.

There’s a smile-and-shake-my-head quality of love for myself as a first time mom, as I look back on it. That first year with Alma was so entirely earth shattering for me. We learned so many lessons the hard way.

And yet, Alma’s medicine for me, from what I learned throughout my pregnancy with her to the lessons she is currently teaching me as a toddler, is always about lightness, enjoying life, and being present with what is.

Maya came into our world and turned it all upside down again. But I came into being her mother with less expectations, less hard-held beliefs, and more flexibility.

Maya’s lessons for me have been harsher and more challenging in a lot of ways. She’s required a deeper maturity. Her medicine is more confronting and so potent. She has taught me about anchoring into myself and my needs. She has taught me to put down ideas about right and wrong and instead to actually move with what feels True for me and for her. She teaches me to love the parts of myself I want to avoid the most.

She has made me a wiser warrior. And with this type of wisdom comes more softness, paradoxically. I have so much more understanding for all the ways in which a woman might mother. I am less judgemental and more accepting; seeing each woman’s path to motherhood as her own.

And yet, I feel guilt around it all. I feel guilt for the ways I mother. I feel guilt for the ways I don’t mother. I feel guilt for the ways I spend time with my girls and for the ways I don’t spend time with my girls.

If I’m not careful, this motherhood thing, can turn into merri-go-round of ways to feel remorseful.

And from my conversations with other mothers, this is pretty typical.

We seem to be swimming in a sea of mom guilt.

Mom guilt is very compelling and I’m not going to say I don’t get swept up and taken out into the sea of mom guilt quite often. But what I also know for sure is mom guilt does not come from my Wise Woman Mother self.

It comes from a more reptilian part of myself. A more survival based part.

Mom guilt comes from a deep primal love and desire to do right by our children. And that is beautiful.

But being taken out by mom guilt isn’t actually in service to our children.

And letting the mom guilt take us out over and over again actually makes us less present and takes away from the expansiveness that motherhood offers a woman.

Mom guilt is not the Truth.

It keeps us small and fumbling around in the dark, when the Truth is we Know.

The Truth is our children chose us.

The Truth is, each and every child has a journey to walk for themselves, that won’t always be pretty and easy.

The Truth is, I have role to play in their growth and it won’t always be the role of fairy godmother. It may be the evil queen at times.

The Truth is, we can trust our children. We can trust their souls.

The Truth is, we know exactly how to mother our babies.

When I tap into my Wise Woman Mother, she says, these two girls have absolutely everything they need. She says that I am doing my best.

She says that motherhood does not have to be about martyrdom or a sacrifice, but an opportunity for expansion of my experience as a human. It offers a type of expansion that no other experience can. As long as I keep that at the top of my mind, I can’t make a wrong move.

She says that motherhood is growth for the mother, her children, and the community in which they all grow.

And so the sea of mom guilt is a place where I will no doubt find myself from time to time.

And that is OK.

It is part of the transition from maiden to mother, instead of thinking only about myself, “Am I safe?” to expand that into “Are we safe?” and beyond.

Motherhood is an experience of interdependence.

And to see that gift for what it is and start to use the wisdom and insights this perspective bestows upon us is some of the medicine the world needs most.

There are currently 3 Ways to Work with Me:

* HOME BODY sessions | one hour with me guiding you into your body as your home + 15 minutes of digestion $222 | Message me to book.

* 1:1 Alchemical Journey | 12 months with with guiding you to connect to your most resourced self during big life transitions eg divorce, motherhood, death, etc. | Message me to book a free connection call about this.

* 1:1 Nourishment Deep Dive | a 90-min 1:1 session with me where we will go over your health history, current eating habits, symptoms, and health goals and I will come up with a personalized plan for you to implement. You have to be ready to really make some changes to your diet and lifestyle. | $444, Message me to apply. | There will be an option for one or two follow up sessions to tweak things or answer questions, after this as needed.

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

**This is an adaption of a post I wrote in my teacher’s container, DEVOTION, digesting an assignment she had given me. It felt true to share it here too.

My assignment was to stop stuffing my time.

To do one thing a day. That’s it.

Just one practice. Just one work item. If more was true, I could do it, but there was only one intention I brought to each day.

When I got the assignment from my teacher Perri, I shuddered. I wondered if it was out of range. I had a lot of thoughts about how it was impossible. I am a mother of two small babies I have to make the absolute most of every single minute of my time. Pack it all in. Stuff every last moment.

When I got the assignment I also knew it was exactly what I needed.

After working 3 years with Perri I still feel astounded by the precision of her strokes sometimes. It’s like I say 3 sentences and she’s got the whole context, story, and down to the deepest thing and the adjustment into alignment comes sharp and quick and more masterfully than there are words for. This is not ungrounded praise and “fan-girling”, it’s just truly my experience time and time again. Every stroke; a stroke of absolute Truth.

I saw how this stuffing of my time was just like over eating. When you take too much in, you cannot digest it. No matter how good quality the cake ingredients, if you eat a whole cake in one sitting you’re going to feel unwell and not be able to assimilate the nutrients.

Same with my practices.

If I try to stuff sxbmb, journaling, breath work, writing, meditation, sun bathing, reading, watching calls, and on and on, every day I will not be actually receiving any of the nourishment of these things.

And so the first piece I saw is that stuffing is unreceptive. I want to pack it all in so I don’t actually have to receive any of it. It’s a great way to “look” like you’re doing the work, without actually opening to the work.

The second piece that’s come up is how much this made room for punishing and self flagellation. Being hard on myself is my favorite. I didn’t fit it all in today? What the f**k is wrong with you? Focus. Work, you b***h. You’re not committed enough. That’s why you aren’t changing. You can’t do anything right.

This is Extraction of the feminine. A Pimp/Ho dynamic. Mean masculine. I didn’t have this voice directed externally at me in childhood, but I can see now how both my parents have inner punisher voices similar to this. And I recognize, now, how this voice of mine came from their inner voices.

The first week of the practice, l realized that this was not another “practice” I could muscle my way through, because of the two pieces I outlined above.

So I simply held the intention to do only one thing a day, but very loosely. I made space for getting caught up and stuffing on accident.

I made space for there being facts in my life that required me to do more than one thing.

I made space for not doing the practice.

I used zero force. I just kept coming back to the intention and holding it loosely.

My mind actually hasn’t really thought that much about the practice, but what I’m coming around to realizing after these last two months of holding it loosely, is that this what open reception feels like.

This practice actually gave me an embodied experience of opening to a practice without force.

And because of that I’ve been able to titrate from this place and bring more reception into my other practices, my work, and my relationships.

I am in this place of remembering who I am, on the deepest level, and I am someone who has a very equal masculine and feminine system. I am very, very capable. I can do and stuff and do and stuff, all day, every day.

But it doesn’t make me happy. It doesn’t make me joyful.

And I am learning to value my own aliveness more than my capability.

My capability is amazing, but my life force comes first.

And openness feels alive.

I am open to nourishment here. I am open to assimilation. I am open to integration.

I am open to the way the energy wants to move and I’m not fighting with it anymore.

I am ready. Here we go.

* HOME BODY sessions | one hour with me guiding you into your body as your home + 15 minutes of digestion $222 | Message me to book.

* 1:1 Alchemical Journey | 12 months with with guiding you to connect to your most resourced self during big life transitions eg divorce, motherhood, death, etc. | Message me to book a free connection call about this.

* 1:1 Nourishment Deep Dive | a 90-min 1:1 session with me where we will go over your health history, current eating habits, symptoms, and health goals and I will come up with a personalized plan for you to implement. You have to be ready to really make some changes to your diet and lifestyle. | $444, Message me to apply. | There will be an option for one or two follow up sessions to tweak things or answer questions, after this as needed.

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