ReMothering with Clara Belize Wisner

I had a full week last week.

My 6 month group container FED began and is now fully underway. Our first group coaching call and first embodiment ceremony already done.

I took on one more 1:1 client in a 12 month committed journey with me. These require a deep commitment on my part as the holder and on the part of the one who says yes to being held.

I taught a webinar on making basic nutritional changes for nervous system regulation for Perri Chase’s and Angel Grant’s HEARTH container.

Then in my personal life there was a lot of social activities.

The yearly bocce ball tournament. 

A dear friend came to stay with us for 4 days.

We hosted a dinner party. 

Maya is transitioning to a new phase. 

Alma skipping naps and roaming around the house in the middle of the night.  

I had 3 profound healing sessions with Angle Grant, Rae Dwyer and Dr. Danielle Nicole, all in the course of a couple weeks. 

A lot of internal shifting and making room for new ways of being and new levels of self approval and gentleness. 

A week in my life can feel like a lifetime. 

Because I am (mostly) really here for it.

Really present. Really conscious. Centered in myself. 

But I was feeling the pressure starting to build with all the activity. 

There was not enough space. 

Everything started to feel a little squeezed. 

And yesterday, I felt the very familiar feeling of: too full.

This feels like my insides are a pot starting to boil over. 

There is a low level agitation around everything.

Everything feels crunchy and hard; like I’m wearing pants that are too tight.

I find myself wanting to snap at Alma and Maya more easily.

I caught myself wanting to pick a fight with my husband in bed last night I didn’t. I told him, “I feel so full. I feel like I want to start a fight with you, but I’m not going to.” 

Orienting toward connection and giving up my game with him is my forever practice. 

And it’s ugly, messy and painful to stay with yourself when you’re super full.

You have to look directly at all the ways you abandon yourself and turn into someone who does things you aren’t proud of.

I found my mind wanting to spin into stories of resentment and blame.

Instead of staying with myself and seeing where I am responsible for how I feel, I would much rather throw it all on someone else.

I want to keep moving, keep doing, keep pushing through, so I don’t have to slow down and be with what the truth is.

I want to add more on and in to try to busy myself away from the uncomfortable sensation of pressure.

There used to be a self flagellating quality to it.

“Buck up, you little b*tch. Your needs aren’t important. Just keep giving and doing and eventually someone will come and save you.”

But now, I save myself.

I am gentle with myself.

I forgive myself.

I make space.

Instead of picking the fight, I let the sensation I was avoiding open.

Tears came.

I cuddled into my husband and regulated my breath with his.

Instead of letting my little ones lead, my wise adult Woman comes in and says, “Yes, you want to keep moving. I see you. I hear you. But we’re going to slow down. We’re going to take some space. We’re not going to keep pushing here.”

Just like I would say to Alma when she’s melting down that she wants to keep playing at the playground when it’s obviously nap time.

“I hear you my little sweetie. You want to keep playing. But I’m the adult and it’s my responsibility to keep you healthy, so we’re going to go take a rest now.”

I took the day today and gave myself all the space to feel what was there.

I walked aimlessly for an hour.

I fed myself well.

I went to yoga and just laid on the mat breathing the whole hour and didn’t do a single pose. 

I got a massage with a sauna and cold plunge.

The things I did aren’t actually that important.

I am grateful I have the resources to give myself this level of self care.

But what really made the difference is that I truly let myself have the space.

If my mind started guilt tripping me or pulling me into the story, I just made space for that too. 

Like I just expanded around it and let it be there and then focused on the space and stillness and being.

I’m reminded of yin and yang, here.

Yang energy is hot and masculine and doing-oriented.

Yin energy is cool and feminine and being-oriented. 

When we get in a yang phase, there is a lot of momentum and we just want to add more and more of it. We keep putting logs on the fire to keep it going.

But what we really need is yin to balance it out.

Only the wise adult Woman can sense this need for balance, though. 

So she needs to be the one who comes in and corrects.

She comes in and says, “Let’s cool down here. Let’s orient towards being. Let’s balance out all this doing-activity with some wide open space. Let’s go take a nap.”

And it doesn’t take much. 

Just a 4 or so hours of alone time and space gave me exactly what I needed to feel full for my family again. 

I came home and felt really good and spacious. 

It’s not about always feeling good and spacious.

It’s about learning to ride the waves. 

It’s about learning to go up and then come down, and to hold yourself and be in approval of all of it.

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

My life, of late, has felt like it’s asking me, again and again, to admit defeat.

To sit down and say, finally, I can’t fix this. I can’t do this. I can’t change this. I can’t figure this out. I can’t make this happen.

Motherhood is humbling me in ways I never thought I could or would be humbled.

I had a lot of ideas about the kind of mother I would be. I had a lot of ideas about what was the wrong kind of mothering and what was the right kind of mothering and millions of little judgements in between.

I had ideas about how my children would look and how they would be. But these are just ideas and not, in the slightest, my reality now.

What being a mother has taught me is that mothering is a minute by minute experience. It’s not something you can do with ideas. It’s something you do on the ground, on your knees, baby step by baby step.

It’s felt like I am fully tapped out of all the ways I used to force and push and fix my life along. I just can’t do it anymore.

The “fixer” in me is truly dying.

The word defeat came up strongly in a session I had this morning.

“What does defeat mean to you?” she asked me.

On the surface, I could feel my whole body want to push it away but deeper down I felt myself open and melt.

From my hard, stony exterior, I wanted to say something like, “I will not be defeated! I cannot be defeated!”

A competitive side of me swooped in. The part of me that thinks life is a tug of war, some sort of game that I need to win.

This part of me thinks mothering is as aspect of the chess-game-of-life and my children are the pawns.

But the interior, deeper thing in me is getting more powerful as the shell drops away.

The need to play the game of life this way at all, is falling away.

The need to compare where I am in my life to where others are in their lives.

The need for my mental ideas about how my life should be, to be true.

The idea that the way my children are means something about me.

Feeling these beliefs loosing their foothold in my system feels like more pure energy just got injected into me.

The Truth is, defeat can be sweet.

And right on cue, this Rumi quote came to me: “You have been stony for too many years. Try something different. Surrender.”

Surrender is admitting the defeat of the ego.

Surrender is not a passive pose.

Surrendering is not laying back and letting the world pass by you.

Surrender is choosing to actively participate without being attached to the outcome.

Yes, I will mother my children as best I can, moment by moment.

And, I will not attempt to mold their behavior to be more convenient for me.

Yes, I will work and serve my medicine in the world.

And, I will not hold tightly to what I think that means about me.

Yes, I will participate in life.

And, I will not demand life bend to my egoic wants.

Yes, I will play the game.

And, allow myself to be defeated when it’s true.

FED is closed, but I have added another offering just for my substack subscribers. I won’t be offering these on social media for a little bit and I will only be doing 5 of these on a first come, first serve basis initially. These are the 3 ways to work with me right now.

* 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

A fully resourced woman is not a woman who is totally full, energetic, and balanced all the time.

It is not a woman who is always a shining example of health or never snaps at her children.

It is not a woman who always has dewy skin, sleeps like a rock, and always says the right thing at the right time.

It is not a woman who doesn’t struggle with life, friendships and relationships.

It is not a woman who doesn’t experience guilt or shame or judgement.

A woman like that does not exist. At least not in this dimension.

I have not been feeling fully resourced for the better part of the year since Maya has been born and yet, I know that I am a fully resourced woman.

I have been sitting with this paradox as I approach the opening of FED, my new 6 month container; a journey into deep feminine nourishment, opening on August 14th.

I’ve had this voice that’s been saying, “How can you teach and embody FED when you’re struggling to feel the full juice of life?” This voice would have me believe that I can’t teach anything until I’m fully through the portal. This voice would have me believe that I must be perfect to be worthy of imparting any wisdom at all.

But that voice is the voice of the perfectionist who would rather I do nothing than do it wrong or be messy while doing it. This perfectionist can’t see how much wisdom the mess actually holds.

And the truth is, I have so much to share about this spot because I have been so underfed in my life.

I have starved myself intentionally and unintentionally.

I have abused my body with exercise and activity.

I pushed and forced and made myself do things beyond my capacity for years of my life.

I have lived from the idea that not needing anyone else was a good thing. I’ll do it myself!

I know, intimately, what it’s like to be operating from a deficit.

I know what it’s like to be squeezed dry of all my energy and lifeforce and keep going anyway, and thinking that that was something I should be proud of.

But I don’t do these things anymore. And that is what makes me a fully resourced woman.

I may be deeply tired, feel achey and sore in my body most of the time. I may not have much capacity for social engagements or travel or activities, but I do know how to ask for help. I do know how to take responsibility (which is really just the ability to respond) for my well being on a deep and un-punishing level.

A fully resourced woman has approval for her process and can feel when she is under resourced and take measures to fill herself up.

A fully resourced woman understands that she needs other people to help her and knows how to ask for it directly, with clarity and without any manipulation.

A fully resourced woman receives that help without feeling guilty or unworthy, but can see how being able to offer help and being able to receive help, are both gifts for everyone involved.

A fully resourced woman understands that her life-force is the most valuable treasure and she values it above validation from others, productivity, social contracts, and her external appearance

A fully resourced woman isn’t a victim to her circumstances, but understands she is a powerful creator.

A fully resourced woman may fall down. She may experience exhaustion and forget who she is for a moment, but she always comes back to her internal rightness as her anchor and compass.

A fully resourced woman understands that she will not always be full and she rides the ups and downs of life with self-compassion and gentle approval.

A fully resourced woman has the erectness to implement necessary changes when it’s time and leads with her Knowing.

Becoming and doing the work required to be a fully resourced woman is the work of a lifetime. It isn’t something that comes easily or without very intentional shifting of our beliefs, patterns, and trauma responses.

And becoming this self responsible is the way we change the world. It all starts right here, with the work we do to hold ourselves.

This is the work we will doing in FED. The doors are closing this Friday. We begin August 14th. If you’re feeling called, this is the time to reach out to me.

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

There are these moments in life when you get a flash of true clarity.

Your life up to this point lays out before you like the perfectly paved yellow brick road and you see the divine perfection of each step you’ve taken.

I had a moment like this yesterday I’ve been holding in my body since.

A part of me is scared to write about it and share it because of how activating it might be.

Joy can sometimes be the most activating thing.

A part of me thinks someone will accuse me of being white, privileged and insensitive.

A part of me thinks I’ll look like a full-of-herself-a*****e and no one will take me seriously.

A part of me thinks that my happiness and clarity are not something that other people care at all about.

A part of me thinks you’ll not really feel the true transmission of what I have to share because you’re too wrapped up in your own stories about what is and isn’t possible for you.

But those parts of me don’t drive my life. And the truth is, a lot of those worries about your reactions are actually none of my business at all.

It is my business to share my gifts. To offer outward, what I have unwound inward.

To shine my light so that those who are for me can find me and be with me.

To claim what is mine, not because it makes me better than someone else. Truth is not about comparisons, but about what simply is.

The truth is, I have co-created a life for myself that I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams.

When I look back on my life from this zoomed out and clear perspective, there has never been a point in which I was not participating full out.

I’ve never done soul sucking work.

I’ve never lived anywhere I didn’t wholeheartedly want to live.

I’ve never taken the safe route.

I’ve always trusted the deeper thing. Always choosing to follow the depth of the current of Truth rather than the linear, logical path.

I’ve followed the thread of desire down each and every messy back alley I felt called toward.

My capacity for life experience is enormous. I’ve tasted so much in my 34 years of life.

The phrase, “she marches to the beat of her own drum” keeps coming in.

I have marched, out into the world, to my own rhythm, making beautiful music that is my very own.

I have been in a period of deconstruction the last couple years and it’s felt like I’ve been lost in the wilderness.

But the Truth is, I’ve always known exactly who I was and that this exactly my path.

I am not afraid to get dirty.

I am a seeker in the deepest sense.

And I will never not be seeking.

It is in my bone marrow and blood.

My life as it is, is a direct product of this primordial imperative to seek, to trust the unseen guidance, and to always go deeper.

And my life is so much sweeter than anything I could have ever imagined with my mind.

I wake up without an alarm clock every day, unless you count babies as alarm clocks.

I eat a breakfast of home grown and local food outside, in the sunshine, with my precious babies sitting next to me or on me.

I walk around our garden and marvel at all the food my husband has growing for us and our family.

I take a walk on land that we steward and own in the legal sense, but I see it more that we are in a committed and intimate relationship with it.

I dip my toes in the river and say hello to the plants and animals that also live on the land.

I do work where I get to simply share my gifts and wisdom with people who get it. I get to see women wake up the truth of their power and worth.

I have a partner who turns me on in this deep lava heat type of way and who meets me for every single level up.

I have beautiful people in my life and friends who see me and hold me and connect with me.

I eat cherries off of our cherry tree.

I treat my body well and have so much time to be with myself and my needs.

I spend evenings with my family watching the trees blow in the wind and the sun go down over the river.

My life is full of nature and natural rhythms and nourishment.

My body is healing. Recuperating. Rebuilding itself.

My life is spacious. It is not rushed in any sense of the word.

I say no to most activities and gatherings and people, happily and clearly.

There may be a time in my life when I say yes to more; when my girls are more independent and learning to say their own yeses and no’s.

But for now, my life is simple.

This life did not just fall into my lap.

It was not something that just happened to me.

It would be so easy to say; “ahhh.. I’m just so lucky.”

But that actually doesn’t do the beauty of my life full justice.

Being “just lucky” doesn’t encompass the wideness of participation that has actually created this life of mine. It downplays the beauty.

It minimizes the tender heartedness that is true here.

There are plenty of places where my life could have collapsed into something that wasn’t resonant with the core of my being.

But, I have owned my choices, every single step of the way. I have owned my ability to create and taken each stroke life has given me as an opportunity to choose something new and to learn and grow.

I have chosen the less safe path.

The less conventional way.

The road less traveled.

The left hand path.

The choices that felt so new and scary and outside my capacity, I trusted and made them anyway.

I wasn’t making choices based in an egoic sense of “manifesting” my dream life. My ego could have never dreamed of this life I live now.

I was simply making choices based in my own deep knowing.

I said yes to the deeper thing.

Again and again.

A lot of the time I didn’t even consciously know I was following the deeper thing.

It was just a feeling. Just an intuitive ping. One by one.

Bread crumbs.

In fact, that is the flash of clarity I was given yesterday, how deeply committed I am to following the thing without even consciously knowing I am following the thing.

After all, committing to the Truth is not a mental thing you can understand with your reasoning.

It’s a body-led thing. It’s a heart-led thing. It’s a pussy-led thing.

My mind doesn’t have to understand any of it.

Because look at this life it has created for me.

Every single step has been absolute perfection.

If you feel called to any of this.. this is my medicine and my work may be for you.

There are 3 ways to work with me right now:

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

* FED | 6 month container where we will have a feast for the mind, body and soul and explore deep feminine nourishment. We being August 14th. | Message me to book a free connection call about this.

* 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.

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

Dear god,

I am sorry for staying away so long.

For thinking I had the answers and I didn’t need you.

What kind of arrogance is this?

To believe that this small human mind could see the best possible outcome,

When it cannot see the perfection of the twists and turns?

To walk between the chasms of victim and know it all, is the path to you.

The middle way.

The way that says: I am struggling. I am struggling to remember who I am. Can you help me?

After all, the past three years I have lost my selves a million times.

I have let myself go, over and over.

I have tried on every nook and cranny of myself, and left most of it behind.

Making me feel lost.

And, at the same time, found.

Lost and Found in the vastness of my existence.

I have wondered and wandered and find myself coming back to you on my knees.

This time knowing this was always a journey right back to where I am.

But now that I’ve take it all off.

Now that there is less between me and you, I can see that there is nothing else to do but listen.

To be exactly who I am, in this moment.

And then be exactly who I am in the next moment.

I am willing to be led.

I am willing to be guided.

I am willing to lay my masks and costumes down and say:

“What will you have me do?”

“Where will you have me go?”

Because I could never know the answers to these questions.

Only you do.

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 thinking a lot about creation, creativity, and how it relates to consumption lately.

This substack is called Trust the Magic and it was born out of a creative practice of one hundred days of what I dubbed “medicine writing.” These writings came direct from the deepest threads of truth in my heart and were medicine for me to write and, hopefully, medicine for you to read.

One thing I know for sure about true creation is that it’s like that; medicine for all it touches.

I had just given birth to Maya and was feeling social media pulling on me in many ways I did not enjoy or want to participate in, so I decided to take a hiatus from it and just focus on medicine writing and my family.

This felt scary and naive on one level. I am a woman with an online business. How could I get off social media as it was the main way I attracted business? But I trusted the nudge and the process and did it anyway.

And hence, the name from the Meister Eckhart quote: “And suddenly you know, it’s time to start something new and trust the magic of new beginnings.”

I was off social media completely for about 6 months. Initially, it felt like the space in my life increased by a hundred fold. I was amazed at how much more time I seemed to have. But pretty quickly that time was swallowed up by other things. When you spend a lot of time on social media it can feel like you are letting go of a good friend and like you’re going to miss it. But honestly, after the initial shock of all the time I had, I kind of forgot that social media existed.

The one thing I did miss was seeing the people I only interact with on social media and colleagues and friends of mine I know only through the online space.

About 3 months ago it felt true to return to social media. I felt ready to start working a little more and I wanted to participate in 100 days of visibility, which is a practice of going live on social media every day for one hundred days without any plan or promoting anything and just letting people see you exactly as you are.

I just did my Day 95 video earlier this morning so that practice is coming to an end soon as well.

It has felt like these past 3 months back on social media have been a period of consumption. Social media after all is designed to be easily consumed. Reel after reel after reel. Instagram story after instagram story. Scrolling. The content never seems to stop. It’s always there and there is always something new, no matter how many times you open the little app in a day. Constant entertainment. And for someone like me who is a content creator, constant inspiration as well.

I’ve also been in this process of re-feeding myself. Eating a lot and frequently. Eating in a surplus if you will, because my body needed it to feel safe.

I’ve been noticing how I’ve been trying to stuff my time full. Trying to do twelve self care practices in one afternoon instead of just doing the one that is true to do. Constantly trying pack more “self care” in.

But I can feel a shift beginning to take place. I am beginning to move from consumption to digestion and assimilation and from digestion comes creation. I’ve been feeling frustrated, agitated and tight and I notice that when I feel this way it’s because as my friend, Rebecca Kate Freeman says, it’s like I’ve grown out of my proverbial jeans, my life doesn’t quite fit me anymore.

The tightness and agitation are the communications from my body I need to actually let myself listen to. These are the signs that it’s time to slow down. Time to stop all over consumption and start to digest and assimilate. Time to let what has been consumed settle and rest and start to break down.

If I don’t stay aware of my body’s communications to me, instead of slowing down when there is tightness and agitation, I will speed up. I will try to avoid the uncomfortable sensations of the too tight jeans by distracting myself with shiny object after shiny object. I’ll scroll. I’ll eat mindlessly. I’ll pack the next day full of activities that are supposed to be soothing but really just leave me moving a hundred miles a minute, checking things off an imaginary list.

Frustration and tightness and agitation are messengers. They are the results of over consumption. They are the symptoms of needing assimilation and integration.

Assimilation, digestion, and integration are those mysterious things that happen in the background and out of sight. They don’t require any conscious “doing.” And that’s why we are quick to undermine and ignore or distrust them.

It’s like how when we are sleeping, eg “doing nothing”, our bodies and brains are actually doing more to repair and prepare themselves for the next day, than they have done or will do during our all waking hours.

To create something there is always a period of consumption and then rest and digestion before the creation itself is born. And this cycles happens within itself as well. Periods of consumption and periods of digestion and periods of creation, all happening at once, all the time.

Another way I’ve been thinking about it is like being pregnant. There is a gestation period where, from the outside it doesn’t seem like much is happening, and then, BOOM, you have a whole new human.

And the creation coming through right now is my new container FED.

I’ve been consuming and taking in information and experiences for this container for my whole adult life. It’s truly a culmination of my work thus far.

It would be really easy to try to force something right now. To try to push something out before it’s ready because it would distract me from this tight agitation.

But the true thing is to let it finish brewing completely. To build trust into every little step.

It is time to open and not close. Time to be still and listen. Time to allow all that I have been consuming to be broken down, digested and assimilated through my particular lens, energy, and frequency.

Time to stop consuming and let the creation that is mine and mine alone come through.

If you’ve ever had a baby, you know how through all the intensity and pain, after it is over, you’ve never felt more satisfied in your entire life.

Creation is like that, the most satisfying work I’ve ever done.

And so this is it. It’s time to reach out if you’re called to FED. The doors will be closing soon, as the creation is almost fully out the gate. Just a week or so more of brewing and she will be here.

I can’t wait to share this work with those of you that feel the call.

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

“Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer. Let the beauty of what we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kiss the ground.”

-Rumi

My insomnia came back to visit last week.

After four months of throwing every integrative, natural, holistic, alternative remedy I could find at it with some minor overall improvements and some sporadic deep sleeps, it came back full force, leaving me lying awake while my two small babies slept soundly, wondering if I am broken forever.

I lay there while my mind morphs into a torture chamber of what ifs and deep rabbit holes of all my failures and ways, I’m doing and have done, it wrong.

I start to find myself pleading with this thing that keeps me awake. Pleading for it to take it easy on me, just for tonight, maybe it could just let me get 3 or 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep, then maybe I would feel ok.

It’s this cave in the center of my chest. Like a weight crushing my heart. A deep ache. All the unfelt and unprocessed heartbreaks of my life rushing the to surface of my body and mind each time I lie down in my bed.

I start to drift off into the relief of the dark space between days but the faintest creaking of the floor boards or my husband moving next to me jolts my body awake with the electricity of vigilance and I am back, mind spinning.

Because I have cultivated for over a decade now, a deep ability to watch my mind and observe my thoughts, even in the darkest moments there is always a part of me that is watching, without getting caught in the momentum of the story.

Even my insomnia has become something for me to practice with. I am grateful for it as it has invited me into a new level of awareness around my thoughts and my mind. As well as given me a deep empathy I didn’t have before for people who struggle with insomnia, anxiety, depression, and incessant mental chatter. Which, let’s be totally honest, is all humans.

And so, I lean in.

I lean in to the crushing cave in my heart. A lot of nights I just lie there awake and crying, until I finally fall into a fitful sleep around 4am.

Sometimes it’s a silent, big-rolling-hot-tears-running-down-the-face cry. Sometimes it’s a breathless sob. Sometimes it’s a cry that starts and stops. But there’s no story, most of the time, just old heartbreaks being felt.

I eat my mid-night snack I have religiously set on my bedside table night after night in hopes that my insomnia is blood sugar related. I take my Chinese herbs from my acupuncturist. I have CBD. I have my magnesium powder. I have my mushroom tinctures and valerian root. I have my cortisol manager supplement. I prioritize napping during the day to practice winding down. I avoid anything that sends my nervous system into fight or flight. I don’t use blue light an hour before bed and wear my blue blockers if I do. I take a hot salt bath. I got to my appointments with incredible healers and practitioners that genuinely care about me. I eat well and often throughout the day. I spend time in the sunshine and outside first thing in the morning and throughout the day. I do slow strength training and gentle walking.

And all of these things are good for me, no doubt about it. But I am realizing; my insomnia is not something to be solved or fixed. It is not something to battle against and declare war on.

When we fight against something we give it more energy. If you push against something it will push back. It’s an energetic law that seems conceptually easy to understand but practically almost impossible in our world where “fighting for what we believe in” is praised, taught and modeled.

So the only thing that actually helps me get to sleep is opening to the pain I feel in the middle of the night. It’s crying. I read somewhere that crying is actually a really good way to release cortisol, so man oh man, am I releasing some cortisol.

It’s the going into the crushing cave in my heart and saying: “I see you. I’m here with you. I’ve got you. You do whatever you need to do. I won’t leave you.”

And I can feel how the insomnia came to teach how me to do this, as well as to bring to my attention these unhealed heartbreaks I have been walking around with.

I almost bypassed them again with all the “solutions” and “fixing” I have been focused on, but the Truth is the weight in my chest is ready to be released. And this is simply what it takes to release it. Real healing is painful because you are feeling all the places you have skirted around the Truth.

The truth of all the times I’ve abandoned myself in hopes of attention or love or connection. All the times I was hurt but didn’t show it or allow it. All the times I needed someone to say, “I’ve got you. I’m right here,” but I was alone. All the times my heart has been broken by teasing or miscommunication or misunderstanding. This is what is asking to be healed and felt and processed.

Rumi says: Today like every day we wake up empty and frightened. This morning I wake up empty and frightened. I get out of bed to Maya crying. I move slowly. The light of the morning always, thank God, making the night’s darkness seem a little less intense.

Rumi says: Don’t open the door to the study and start reading. Take down the dulcimer. I am learning that the last thing I need to do after a night spent frightened and being emptied out, is to start ‘doing’ and ‘working’. This is Rumi’s prescription for dropping all the complicated burdens we haul around and the despair we often feel.

Being as close as I can to the dirt is the way I take down the dulcimer. My way of plucking out a tune on a simple stringed instrument is to get my bare feet on the grass or sit beneath a tree and scratch the matted leaves with a stick, uncovering the miraculous process of dying life turning into living earth.

Preferably I get naked outside and pee onto the earth, watching my body’s water flow down in rivulets and sinking in to the soil.

I go slow. Much slower and duller than my mind would prefer or is convinced is prudent with all the stuff I should be doing. With all the responsibilities I have.

I lie still on the ground, feeling perfectly planted there, and look up at the sky and remember how blessed and perfect this path of life is. I am both animal and divine, after all. Animals need sleep and dirt under their feet. Divinity sees divine perfection and holiness in it all.

Rumi says: Let the beauty of what you love, be what you do. There are hundreds ways to kiss the ground.

I stay in my center. I love my children. I love myself and my inner child that is so scared of living sometimes she must keep me awake with her vigilance and fear. I hold myself and hold those I love. I lean towards the pain instead of away from it and say thank you to it all, kissing the ground with each step.

There are three ways to work with me right now:

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

* FED | 6 month container where we will have a feast for the mind, body and soul and explore deep feminine nourishment. | Message me to book a free connection call about this.

* 1:1 Alchemical Journey | 12 months with me connecting to your most resourced self during times of navigating big transitions. | Message me to book a free connection call about this.

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

Your grief is holy, she said.

Let it wash your heart clean.

Let it take you

Down

Down

Down

To

The zero point of existence.

The emptiness that is

pregnant with all potentials.

The birth place of paradox

Where everything is allowed and welcomed.

Sit still

Let your heart be broken

Broken o p e n

By the beauty of your tears

The way they drip into the cracks

And illuminate the

Perfection of your each and every flaw

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

Today, it has been a year since I pushed Maya out of my body and into the world.

To be completely honest it’s been the hardest year of my life.

I took a dive into the deep end of motherhood by having two babies in two years.

It’s felt like I’ve mostly just been under water, only getting the most necessary gasps of air before I’m resubmerged in and under a new wave of new phases of development and new things to learn.

Motherhood is on the job training at its most intense.

I’m not sure there is anything that could have prepared me for this last year.

Motherhood is one of those things you just jump in to and learn as you go. Thank God that’s how I prefer to do things.

It has been and is messy.

It has been and is painful.

It has been and is the most exhausting thing I have ever done.

It has been and is relentless.

And yet, even in the darkest moments I always cling to this anchor that I feel in the deepest marrow of my bones: I was made for this.

I am proud to say that I believe that being a mother is one of my highest human purposes in life.

Not my only purpose, by any means, but one of the most important acts of service I will preform.

To shepard these precious souls into the world is the highest order of work.

Mothering matters to me and being a mother, with all its hardship and sacrifice, is the most enormous honor of my life.

And so, this has also been one of the most satisfying and fulfilling years of my life.

I’m not sure there is anything like motherhood to make you aware of what really matters and the truth that to touch the highs we must experience the lows.

We do not get the good without the bad. In fact, maybe the bad is actually part of the good and vice versa.

The times when it gets the most difficult are the times our potential for opening expands.

Becoming a mother means your heart expands to touch some of the most tender and unselfish aspects of yourself.

Motherhood shows you the pure nobility as well as the darkest shadows of your true character.

We require a certain kind of breaking open to touch the softest spots within us. And only the softest spots are the spots that can actually experience the level of sweetness we feel for our babies.

We need to be broken. In fact, the breaking is what allows us to be rearranged in such a way that our children fit in our lives.

And motherhood can be the source of so much breaking and so much softening if we allow it shape us and move through us. It is our opportunity to transform ourselves. It is our opportunity let ourselves be broken open into more love.

Motherhood is one of the hottest fires I will walk through in this life time and I’m sure it will continue to burn away pieces of myself the deeper and farther I go in it.

I pray it does.

I pray I let it.

I pray these little humans I get to spend so much time with continue to teach me and show me what it means to love unconditionally and stretch me in every way they possibly can.

If I accept the challenge, I know motherhood can be a perpetual process of change and transformation—a dynamic experience of being broken open by love.

There are three ways to work with me right now:

* HOME BODY sessions | one hour with me guiding you into your body as your home. 2 more at $111, then they go up to $222. Message to book.

* FED | 6 month container where we will have a feast for the mind, body and soul and explore deep nourishment. | Message me to book a free connection call about this.

* 1:1 Alchemical Journey | 12 months with me connecting to your most resourced self during times of navigating big transitions. | Message me to book a free connection call about this.

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

My husband said something to me yesterday that has just been echoing around my mind since.

He said, “We think we have to make moments and memories happen, plan them, create the perfect conditions for them, but really it’s the everyday moments where we’re just present that become the most precious memories.”

Mic. Drop.

It left my body feeling awash in sweetness and warmth. Like heated honey moving down my throat to warm my belly. The animal of my body just settling down into the Truth of this.

And I noticed that my system feels different; softer, more pliable, less rigid.

I have always had moments of relaxation and calm, sure.

I meditate.

I get massages and body work.

I sit on my deck and enjoy the view.

I laugh with my girls and deeply enjoy their company.

But there has always been something just on the periphery creating an itchiness and eventually I always have to go scratch it.

There is always something to do.

Always something that requires me to leave the moment.

Always something pulling at my attention.

Always a low level vigilance I feel.

But I’ve been noticing this last month more and more places of true smoothness; where the ever present itch of productivity is just simply not there.

Where I am truly just humbled and immersed in the present moment.

My system feels more relaxed and more allowed to be exactly as and where it is.

And so what changed? What has actually shifted for me to be experiencing more and more of the precious moments in life?

As with all true change it is multifaceted and can’t be pinpointed to one thing, but what it really comes down to is this:

For the last year; I have been feeding myself.

Physically feeding myself enough food, enough calories and consistently.

I have been feeding myself nutrient dense foods on a regular schedule. Every three hours when I’m awake; I have protein, carbs and fat.

I eat a protein, carb and fat within 30 minutes of waking up and within 30 minutes of going to sleep.

I have been intentionally and lovingly telling my body through sustenance, for a year, that I will feed it, that there is enough food, that I am thinking about and caring for its energetic needs.

I am telling my body, there is abundance here, you are safe.

It’s been at the very least 20 years since my body has been trusted and listened to on this nonjudgmental of a level.

I have spent the last 20 years distrustful of my bodies cues, thinking I just needed more self control and that my hunger and my cravings were something broken about me.

I have spent the last 20 years trying to manipulate and manage my body and her desires.

And because of this (and yes, also because of a culture that teaches productivity equals worth and distrust of the feminine) my body and nervous became chronically activated.

My body felt like it was constantly under attack, constantly in a state of triaging what survival mechanisms should utilize the precious limited amount of energy available to it.

And now after a year of consistent nourishment my body is starting to let her guard down and I can feel it everywhere.

The moments are sweeter.

The memories are richer.

Life feels less like survival and more like really living.

My system can be in rest and digest more often. I am not running off of stress hormones or constantly feeling the pull of basic subsistence and for the normal everyday moments, this makes all the difference.

Our “new age” is obsessed with mindfulness and self care, and there is nothing wrong with that, but feed yourself enough and meet your basic needs on a consistent basis, and see how much easier it becomes to enjoy the moments right in front of you.

You don’t need to practice so much “presence” when your system isn’t constantly under the impression its threatened.

This is what it means to be fully FED.

FED is my 6 month container where we will be going deep into how to deeply nourish ourselves so that our systems can rest in the beauty of our everyday moments.

Message me if you feel called to this.

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