Hello everyone! I'm completely thrilled to bring you this month's episode of The Becoming Podcast with Dr. Hillary McBride, my colleague and co-author of a chapter about the development of spirituality in matrescence in the recent book I've edited, Mother Becoming: Reflections and Scholarship on Matrescence.

Let me tell you a little bit about Hillary:

Dr. Hillary McBride is a Registered Psychologist, host of the award winning CBC podcast Other People's Problems, and author of 5 books, including the Bestseller The Wisdom of Your Body and her most recent book released last year: Holy Hurt: Understanding spiritual trauma and the process of healing. She has been recognized by the American Psychological Association and Canadian Psychologist Association for her research and clinical work, and was awarded the prestigious International Young Investigators Award for her research contributions on women's sexuality. When she is not with patients or students, researching embodiment, or writing her next book, she loves to be near the ocean, or dancing with her daughter.

Here's some of what Hillary and I dive into in our conversation together:

• The way that women's rites of passage, particularly matrescence and menopause, have been pathologized, overmedicalized and seen through a lens of deficiency...and how they are also, often, times of great potential and possibility in women's lives.
• How women's processes of growing up are often framed as a loss within misogynistic, patriarchal culture.
• Hillary's research on what happens during these developmental transitions when things go well...including that many women feel more connected to themselves and more embodied as they transform, but also afraid to talk about it because our culture so often supports and prefers a narrative of struggle during these times.
• We geek out on how you know a rite of passage is over, and some of the most important supports that can help us to integrate and metabolize transformative times in our lives.
• The spiritual growth that often occurs for women during the rites of passage they experience in their lives, including the chapter Hillary co-authored with our mutual colleague Dr. Larissa Rossen for the Mother Becomingbook on mothering as a spiritual technology.

And so much more! I loved this conversation with Hillary – I found it both tremendously affirming and deeply galvanizing as we look toward the power and potential that exists when women's rites of passage are well supported. I hope you enjoy it too!

Hillary's website

Hillary's instagram

Hillary's CBC Podcast, "Other People's Problems"

Hillary's books

Mother Becoming: Reflections and Scholarship on Matrescence

Also, while you're at it, if you enjoy the Becoming Podcast, I would be so grateful if you would rate, review and even subscribe to it wherever you get your podcasts. That goes a long way to helping more and more people find and benefit from hearing these interviews. Thank you so much!

Hello beautiful ones!

I'm really thrilled to share this interview with my friend and colleague Kate Robson with you today.

Kate and I got the opportunity to meet this Spring at a workshop I facilitated in her home city of Toronto – but, as it turns out, we have a web of connections both personal and professional that go way back! It has been really cool to get to know Kate and her work this year, and I'm so thrilled to be able to uplift and support her excellent new book, Something to Hold Onto.

First, though, let me tell you a little bit more about Kate:

Kate Robson is a registered psychotherapist in Toronto, Ontario. Inspired by her own experiences with her children in a neonatal intensive care unit, she worked with babies, parents, and families for more than twelve years as a NICU family support specialist. She's travelled all over the world educating parents and clinicians about family-centred care and trauma informed care practices. Her workshops focus on cultivating attachment in relationships and creating emotion-friendly homes and workplaces. In her private practice she supports individuals and couples experiencing infertility, high risk pregnancies, NICU hospitalizations, major life transitions, and bereavement. She has degrees from McGill University and OISE/UT, completed her psychotherapy training at the Toronto Institute for Relational Psychotherapy, and has also studied modalities such as ACT, the Internal Family Systems Model, EMDR, PACT, and Somatic Embodiment. Her first book, Something to Hold Onto, is a collection of the most inspiring images and experiences from her time in the NICU and in private practice.

Here's some of what we talk about in this episode:

✔️ How a mother's matrescence experience is impacted by a NICU stay, including the challenges of holding both joy and fear at the same time, and how it can take time to recalibrate and find your own path upon returning home.

✔️ How Kate's new book, Something to Hold Onto, uses metaphor and imagery to help us with some of our most common human struggles – and in a way that doesn't require mental gymnastics, memorizing affirmations, or changing everything about our lives

✔️ Two of the metaphors in Kate's book that I think will resonate with you, dear listener, most deeply: the ladder and the scaffolding. Tune in to find out how these metaphors can support you, especially when you're experiencing a transition that's happening to you, or if you're overwhelmed right now with everything that is changing.

✔️ The metaphor that Kate is working with right now. This was such a great example of how powerful this practice of working with metaphor and imagery can provide really tangible support – in other words, something to hold on to.

Kate's Website

Kate's Instagram

Kate's new book, Something to Hold On To

Mothermorphosis Retreat at Kripalu

Hey friends! I'm so delighted to be back with another episode of the podcast, this time with a very longtime friend of mine: Dr. Jenn Salib Huber.

Dr. Jenn is a Canadian Registered Dietitian, Naturopathic Doctor and Intuitive Eating Counselor on a mission to help women manage menopause without diets and food rules. She supports women through the physical and emotional shifts of perimenopause and menopause using a Health at Every Size approach, intuitive eating, and practical nutrition. Jenn hosts The Midlife Feast podcast and community, and is the author of the upcoming book Eat to Thrive During Menopause, out October 21, 2025.

I first met Jenn over a decade ago, when she supported me and my family with some really scary food allergies that my kiddos were having. Our paths crossed again as I began writing Project Body Love, exploring my relationship with my body and, specifically, intuitive eating and the concept of health at every size. In more recent years, Jenn has supported me as I've been transitioning through perimenopause. I couldn't be happier to be sharing Jenn's wisdom with you today!

Here's some of what we talk about:

> We both share our somewhat hilarious stories of how we each realized we were in perimenopause – and then of course what happened for each of us afterward.

> Why we know so little about the complex process of peri/menopause, why so many of us are surprised by our symptoms, and how Gen X and Millenial women are doing things differently, redefining the experience and demanding more information and better care.

> The symptoms of perimenopause that no one expects, and that seemingly have nothing to do with perimenopause at all! Jenn explains the "hormone soup" that exists in our body during this time, and how it has far-reaching impacts well beyond hot flashes and crime scene periods.

> How our relationships with our bodies change during this transformational time in our lives – how many of us are confronted with the body and health changes associated with aging and the reality that we can't always control what happens to our health.

> The potential that peri/menopause has to catalyze us to break up with Diet Culture for good and find joy and pleasure in food and movement. We talk about the power and possibility that can reveal itself to us when we see this time as a rite of passage in our lives. Jenn leaves us with the question: how can midlife be a feast?

I hope you love this interview as much as I did!

Jenn's book, Eat to Thrive During Menopause, comes out October 21st

Pre-order the book and get some sweet bonus recipes!

Jenn's website

The Midlife Feast community - highly recommend!

Jenn's amazing instagram page – seriously, it's such a wealth of tangible, shareable knowledge here!

The Midlife Feast podcast

The episode of the Midlife Feast that Jenn and I did together, on when the rite of passage into motherhood overlaps with the rite of passage into perimenopause

The Project Body Love book

Welcome back to another episode of The Becoming Podcast, all!

I'm delighted to bring you my conversation with writer Cindy DiTiberio today. I've been following Cindy's work on her Substack, The Mother Lode, for quite a while now, and I know you're going to love our conversation. So many of my clients and the women I connect with are experiencing – or thinking about – the end of their intimate partnerships, and I think Cindy's wisdom will really resonate with you. This episode is especially for you if it's your transition into motherhood that has instigated a reckoning in your relationship.

Here's some of what we talked about in our conversation:

> How MDMA therapy helped Cindy know that she needed to leave her marriage.

> What so often happens to relationships when a couple has a baby. We talk about everything from sex to paternity leave to caregiving and the mental load.

> The feeling of being trapped by oppressive systems of capitalism and patriarchy and how heterosexual couples often end up in traditional, gendered roles without ever intending to. We talk about the role of internalized patriarchy, the devaluing of women's time, and how both Cindy and I (and so many other mothers we know) ended up squeezing our full time work into part time hours so we could also be primary caregivers.

> How personal growth journeys – whether that's into deeper spiritual paths or into a feminist awakening – can cause couples to drift apart.

> How the pandemic awakened our culture to the many ways modern hetero partnership has failed women and mothers.

I think you're going to love my conversation with Cindy. I think it's so relatable for so many of us who are mothering and perhaps grappling with how to navigate our relationships, whether they're ending or evolving.

Welcome all!

I'm really excited to introduce you to Enfys J. Book on the Becoming podcast today. I came across Enfys' new book Queer Rites: A Magickal Grimoire to Honor Your Milestones with Pride in a random search for other folks who were just as nerdy about rites of passage as I am. I really loved getting to know them and the conversation we had was just so rich.

In this episode, Enfys and I touch on:

> The lack of rites of passage for queer folk, and how deeply gendered so many of our "traditional" rites of passage are

> How rites of passage are like "anchors to the self." I love the way Enfys described this

> The name change ritual that inspired Enfys to write Queer Rites

> The pros and cons of labeling our identities, and how we can get more comfortable with the ways in which our identities evolve and change as we do

> What makes a ritual "work" and be effective

> How queer rites of passage are an act of resistance

Hello beautiful ones, and welcome back to The Becoming Podcast.

Today on the show I am thrilled to introduce you to Ruth Allen. I have been following (and loving) Ruth's work for a number of years, and I've absolutely loved her two books, Grounded and Weathering. Her work and her writing has deeply shaped the way I think about the natural world and the way I move my body through it.

Let me formally introduce Ruth:

Ruth is a writer, embodied psychotherapist and facilitator working primarily outdoors in landscape, and online. Combining her background in geology, with innovative body-based and creative techniques drawing on a multitude of teachings and influences, she offers therapy, mentoring, workshops, classes and adventure retreats - all practical, slow magic - designed to help others connect with their bodies and the rest of nature through depth-full enquiry and practices that deepen our capacity to listen, for the greater whole-health of planet and people.

Some of the things Ruth and I talk about on the show are:

> The resourcing we can access through witnessing the natural cycles and seasons of the natural world – and also how that is being impacted by climate change.

> How to be in relationship with the earth as both a benevolent and even maternal entity – as well as one with the potential for destruction. We talk about the parallels between the concepts of the "ever-giving mother" and the "ever-giving planet," and how both ideologies seem to make those who nurture us vulnerable to exploitation.

> What we can learn from rocks as allies in times of change in our lives and in the collective. Ruth talks about the concept of weathering and erosion as being inevitable parts of the process of growth and rising, both for ourselves and our rock kin.

> The challenge of extending our ideas about animacy to the seemingly inanimate: rocks. Ruth beautifully hypothesizes that if we can see rock as kin and choose to be in a caring relationship with them, then we can see anyone as kin and care for them just the same.

> How Ruth engages in reciprocity with the natural world.

And truly, truly so much more! If you're curious about how you might be in deeper connection with the living world and perhaps how that connection might support you through times of weathering in your life, this episode is for you.

Hello beautiful ones!

The Becoming Podcast is returning after a somewhat unplanned hiatus, brought to you by Getting Pneumonia A Week After Launching My Book!

But here we are again, and I couldn't be more delighted to be welcoming Carmen Spagnola as my first guest of 2025. Carmen has been a friend, colleague and teacher of mine for many years now, and she has just released her latest book, Spells for the Apocalypse: Practical Magic for Turbulent Times, and, given the events of the past few weeks in our world, the timing of this important work couldn't be more auspicious.

Before I dive in, let me tell you a little bit about Carmen:

Carmen teaches about animism, folk magic, witchcraft, ritual and ancestral knowledge related to land and seasons. She cross-pollinates somatics, attachment, collapse awareness, intersectional feminism, and kinship with the More Than Human in her work as a trauma resolution practitioner. Carmen is the author of The Spirited Kitchen: Recipes and Rituals for the Wheel of the Year, which teaches folklore and spellcraft for the solstices, equinoxes, and half-way points between, based on her training in culinary arts at Le Cordon Bleu Paris. Carmen's professional study includes extensive training in hypnotherapy, interpersonal neurobiology, somatic psychology, mood and personality disorder support, and client-centred assistance for neurodivergent adults, youth, and their caregivers. She is constantly researching current promising practices to provide psychoemotional care and nervous system reconditioning support for people with chronic or episodic disability, with special attention to autoimmunity, dysautonomia, and long COVID. She holds provider certifications for Dynamic Attachment Re-Patterning, The Safe and Sound Protocol, Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercise, The Resilience Toolkit, and Clinical Hypnotherapy. Her spiritual healing repertoire includes numerous certificates spanning a twenty-five year exploration of trance work, regression therapy, energy work, shamanistic practices, systemic constellations, divination, herbalism, kitchen witchery, cultural conservation and ancestral veneration practices, and wilderness quest.

Here's some of what we talk about in this episode:

What is collapse – both personal and collective. Carmen beautifully names the thing that we all know, now, in our bones, to be true.

The power of ritual to soothe, mobilize and transform us when there's nothing else you can *do* in the face of predicament and chaos

How Carmen's new book, Spells for the Apocalypse, supports us to feel more skillful, resourced and resilient in times of personal and collective collapse

The "gift and the task" of Carmen's personal Quest experience – aka, the promise it would kill her to break

How Carmen is coping with grief and rage these days. This is the question Carmen asks everyone on her podcast, the Numinous Podcast, and I was really keen to turn her own question back to her. As she always does, even in the deeply challenging times she's experiencing right now, Carmen models how we might work with grief and rage in meaningful and supportive ways.

Carmen and I talk about so, so much more, including our shared experiences of going on Quest, the rituals I did during my own personal time of collapse, what happens when an animist moves to a different ecosystem, and more.

I hope you love listening to this episode with Carmen as much as I loved recording it with her!

Hello beautiful ones!

I've somehow taken a bit of an unexpected hiatus from the podcast lately, but I'm really, really delighted to share a new episode with you today. It's a super fun and beautiful conversation between three friends – myself, Mara Glatzel and Becca Piastrelli. In this episode, we're turning the tables and Mara and Becca are interviewing ME about the launch of my upcoming book, Mothershift: Reclaiming Motherhood as a Rite of Passage.

If you aren't familiar with Mara and Becca, let me tell you a little bit about them first!

Mara Glatzel is a coach, podcast host and author of the book Needy: How to advocate for your needs and claim your sovereignty and Becca Piastrelli is a community gatherer and women's circle facilitator, podcast host and author of the book Root and Ritual: Timeless ways to connect with land, lineage, community and the self. These two are friends with each other and they've been my friends for quite a number of years now, and they have been *tireless* champions for Mothershift and my work. Becca is also an alumni of my MotherSHIFT program. They both played a key role in my ability to get a book deal for Mothershift, and for that I will be endlessly grateful.

In this episode, Mara and Becca and I talk about:

> Why I wrote Mothershift and why this book is so important right now. You'll hear me talk about how I feel like I'm this book's doula, and how easy it's been to share the messages that it holds.

> Why "the mothers aren't all right," including my perspective on the US Surgeon General's advisory on the mental health of parents. We talk about the modern conditions that are particularly challenging for mothers as well as parts of the rite of passage into motherhood that have been difficult – but also filled with potential – since time immemorial.

> Our relationship with social media, about how it has become a surrogate for the witnessing we need as we step into motherhood, and whether or not we're actually ever seeing the *real* truth about anyone's experience of mothering.

> Is postpartum forever? We speculate how many years it takes to feel fully embodied in your experience of motherhood.

> The role of ritual in supporting and uplifting our matrescence experiences.

I do hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we loved recording it, and that it gives you a special sneak peek into the writing of Mothershift.

My friends! I'm really excited to share this interview with the amazing Asha Frost. We had such a beautiful conversation, and Asha has so much wisdom to share, and does so eloquently.

Here's some of what Asha and I talk about in this episode:

> How Asha's Lupus diagnosis was a threshold moment in her life that made it impossible to keep up with the demands of our modern, capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacist culture – and how she continues to practice slowing down.

> The relationship between worthiness and productivity, and the paradox that creativity and "success" often flourish after periods of meaningful rest. As Asha so beautifully phrases, "miracles are born from rest."

> Asha shares some of her experiences of her matrescence – her rite of passage into motherhood.

> The potential that transformative times in our lives offer to invite us to divest from and disrupt dominant culture.

> Elderhood and the elder medicine that lives in all of us, including our non-human kin. Asha and I share our love of herons as elders, and gush over the beauty of her new Animal Elder deck.

> Cultural appropriation in the rites of passage space – and how, while it's unacceptable, it comes from our collective desire for meaningful ritual and ceremony to mark these transformative times in our lives.