One Year of ELLIE•FLOW

On Saturday, EllieFlow officially turned one! 

I’ll never forget sending the emails to reveal the (re)new(ed) platform for my work last year. It was a sunny Friday afternoon, and I sat at the table in our back yard. I hadn’t expected to be at home that day – we had a wedding to attend out of town but a few days earlier my husband wasn’t feeling well and we opted not to make the trip.  In the liberated and unexpected space that became available, I felt the call, “It’s time, she’s ready, they’re ready, you’re ready.”

EllieFlow had first dropped in a year earlier, during a time when I could hardly move most days, so stricken with shock and grief, feeling quite empty and disconnected as everything I had placed value on previously didn’t seem relevant anymore. I had fully released my previous businesses a month or so earlier, and embarked on sabbatical as I grappled with what would come of me, of my life, of my marriage, of my home, of my family, of my future, and more.  

As I recall this, I am flooded with tearful remembrance of the simultaneous lost-ness and the unexpected peace that graced the suspended time where release of the past met the blank page of the future.  
 

There is something about those early days and months post-loss that is incomparable to anything else I’ve lived - it offered crystal clarity about what was important to me, what felt right and what didn’t, while also gently commanding daily surrender to the unknown because there was absolutely no other way of living within my reach.  At first, there was nothing to know, so everything that required knowing, I would dismiss or place on hold. As the weeks and months passed, that became more difficult, and I would try to fight the not knowing.  My top notch intellect jumped at the task of figuring “it” out or making a plan.  Maybe it would work for a day or two, but then I’d be kicked out of the illusion and sent right back to my on-going soul work of accepting exactly where I was and the fact that I had absolutely no idea what would come. 
 

Amidst a moment of complete acceptance while sitting on my couch in June 2021, fully tapped into the moment, the EllieFlow name and vision arrived.  I wrote it down, along with my interpretation and meaning of the fountain, but had little energy to do much more.  

So I let it go with a prayer “If this is what’s next, it will come when it’s ready, when I’m ready.” 

A month later, a friend and colleague referred someone to me for coaching. At the time, my old website had one phrase next to my picture and a ‘contact me’ section. Yet, this person felt the resonance and a week later we had an exploratory call (for which I was 40-minutes late because I lost track of time painting with my beloved friend Anna) while I sat on the floor of my soon-to-be-office in the house we were moving into. The walls were still a robin’s egg blue that felt so far from the vibe I hoped to create, and I worried she would hear the echo of the empty space as we spoke on the phone.  I was very transparent with her that I was amidst a season of immense grief and recalibration, but when she asked, I shared what I had lived in my own journey of transformation so far and what I offered to my clients. 

She felt the EllieFlow energy before it was anything tangible and we began working together.  

In the months that followed, my shock dissolved more and without its gentle and constant cushioning from the reality of life without my mom, I entered the darkest mind-body-soul grief void I have lived. Beyond the sessions with my new client (which I loved, cherished, and felt so alive in), I had little capacity to do anything with the idea after idea that popped into my head – all I dreamed of creating through EllieFlow.  I bounced between the bliss of the creative energy arising in moments, and the fear and doubt that it would never become anything or that I would be stuck in the void forever.

The first days of 2022 felt especially bleak, but I felt called to update my resume for the first time since I started Deeply Nourished for Life in 2017.  What began as a mundane process became a magical journey of remembering what a fucking badass I am. As I read through everything I had led, supported, and co-created through Deeply Nourished For Life & The Well Together Collective, all amidst an international move, relocating to a new city, my mom’s multi-year journey with cancer, treatment, then death, and my own multi-dimensional healing journey, I saw myself and my life with renewed hope.

The process liberated and updated my energy, and shortly afterward, I could feel EllieFlow ready to take visible form. 

I played for hours with the colors, logo and heart-filled words that would represent this soul mission; 90% of the new platform for my offerings was created in 3 days in mid-January.

As you know, there were still multiple months of life and process I needed to live before I was ready to unveil her, but when I did finally share EllieFlow with you all last June, nothing felt more right. And yet again, I had no idea what would come next. 
 

If you’ve been following along since then, you know this year has been about stepping out of my grief cocoon and into the amplified capacity and vision my becoming has led me to so far. It has been about being consciously willing and open to take the inner and outer steps as they have presented themselves, to share what I offer and who I am with those that are ready, while simultaneously allowing myself to be seen and known in my imperfect process.

EllieFlow is the keeper of my soul work - inward and outward. 

This year has been a maturation from inner toddlerhood into rooted womanhood, trusting and allowing myself to fill the space I effortlessly command with softness, openness, love, vitality, passion and reverence for the depths that are often painful to journey into.

This year has been a year of getting to know the fullness of EllieFlow, and spending time with the sacred land of rejuvenation and restoration that I am here to steward.

Every step of the way she has required that I let go of what I think she needs to be and the timeline of where I think I need to be.  She has required vulnerability and openness, a willingness to meet the moment fully with deep trust that all is being nurtured and nourished to support growth and the greater mission in perfect timing. She has required that I be brave enough to embrace the often not-so-glamourusseeming missions I am here to support and carry out. 
 

Every time I sit with her, she is more full, luscious, and ample than I previously realized.  She is wise and patient, never in a rush, enjoying what is already flourishing amidst her forests, prairies, ponds, shores, around her benches.  And of course receiving what is flowing in her majestic fountain. She invites me to sit in the center and delight in her exactly as she is right now, especially when I am feeling impatient or discouraged. 

This year of playing in EllieFlow land has been a gift.

Every client session reveled in. Every writing vortex entered. Every newsletter breathed in. Every healing space held.

Every challenging moment I have met within myself or my life. Every moment of awe and richness felt in the simple beauty of being alive.

Every minute spent on a walk with my dog, talking out loud to myself and the trees or convening with the birds.

Every yoga class.

Every opportunity to share and teach I have been invited into. 

Every time I have sobbed alone, or to my husband, my friends, my Dad, my sister, my mentor, and to God in grief, fear, doubt or disappointment. 

Every moment of belief in what is to come.

Every moment of celebration for what is unfolding.

Every month I could feel the momentum building underground. Every month something new sprouted. Every month when it seemed like nothing was happening.

Every time I asked for a sign. Every time I received one.

Every word spoken to my mom. Every minute listening for her.

Every kitchen dance party. Every nap needed. Every pottery piece crafted.

Every cuddle and Saturday morning breakfast with my husband.

Every moment of acceptance of who I am and the fullness that is alive within, right here, right now.

Every offering. Every surrender.
 

All of it, and sharing it with you, a gift. 

Here’s to the vibrant year of flourishing flow ahead. While I feel the arrival of many blossoming creations, I won’t dare say that I know all it will hold.

But I trust the connection, wisdom, liberated energy and expression, healing, and beauty that is already supported here will only deepen. 

I invite you in.

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My journey from Broken-open to More Myself

This morning I cried so. many. tears. Through the phone, my dad read me pieces of his journal from the weeks leading up to my mom’s death 2 years ago (almost to the date).  He beautifully recorded things I said, things Mom said, etc.  Then, I sent him photos I have of her from 6 days before she departed.

They are painful to look at, odd yet potent memories, and looking at them now I can see things I couldn't then - I can see she was so much further ‘advanced’ in her process at that point than I remember.   

What we couldn’t see or know then, for our own protection so we could stay hopeful and present, always amazes me.  There are so many deeply private and indescribable pieces of being with someone as they die, and in beginning the journey into a life without them. There is no way to prepare. Those weeks broke me open beyond words and understanding. I have been forever changed and carved by the past 2+ years.

One year ago I still felt like I was drowning in the dark many days - wondering who I was, what life would be - without vision for the future, and it scared the hell out of me.  At the same time I could also feel a very faint call to life that I was willing to keep holding on to as I surrendered to the void of grief.

I didn't know how to talk about it, nothing I could say felt profound enough to match everything I was feeling inside.   

The day before the 1st anniversary date last February, I was sitting in my sister's apartment in silence, taking a moment to reset after a particularly hard few days, and I felt a nudge that said “Stay present to the breaking open.”

I didn't quite understand it but I could feel the importance of once again inviting compassion into the heartbreak that was so palpable in and around me. I could feel the importance of allowing myself to be as I was, painfully blown open by love and loss, without needing to be glued back together again.

Last March, I felt like a baby being born, slowly exiting my grief cocoon with tiny (or not so tiny) steps I could commit to one-by-one; first a trip to Chile to be with our family.  While we were there, I was able to see myself from a new light as I realized that I had more energy and capacity than my fears and inner-protections had allowed me to see.  When we returned from our trip, I felt called to go back to yoga, and from there the next tiny steps unfolded. 

Each month of 2022 built on the previous, guiding me into deeper trust, surrender, and belief that while I would carry and honor my story and my mom very closely forever, through this experience new ways of being and living were available to me. And actually, most felt more alive and true to my being than life before (tangible) loss.

Today I am in awe of this on-going journey as I continue to hold space for the pain,  AND I feel free and open in my expressions of joy, creativity, curiosity, uncertainty and grief.  This is particularly beautiful, as I remember the 30+ years of my life when this wasn’t the case- when I was exhaustingly holding it all in, just trying to manage life and “keep it together”.

There are of course still moments when I feel the inner ‘crunchiness’ (contraction) of my system trying to suppress or numb, but after many years of practice and cultivation, I now know how to work with myself in every moment.  

I openly listen inward for the voice that is crying out in pain, despair, anger, or fear.  I welcome presence into those places because I trust myself with myself. 

I lead myself through the overwhelm and moments that make me want to harden, and follow my breath and pulse to guide me back my soft, open, Ellie Flow state. 

And when I get to parts I don’t know what to do with, I allow them be and invite Divine love to pour into those corners of myself.

I am imperfectly free to feel, and through the feeling the power of my energy-in-motion (emotion) releases.  As it does, space is liberated for a deeper connection with mySelf and Life, for more wholeness that is SO ALIVE I can feel it vibrating in my body, for More of Myself.

I’m so proud of the foundation I have cultivated.  With each day of the past many years, a new brick has been laid, and the More Myself experience was silently being created.  

It is such an honor to stand on solid ground today,  forever still ‘in process,’  and offer this container so that you can be held and guided in your broken-openness as you open to the faint call of life again.  I know there is so much available to you through what you have lived – pieces of yourself to release, and pieces of yourself to welcome in. 

I know that the foundation for your next steps forward, no matter how large or small, can be created with love and gentle intention, making space for all of you, at a pace that is born from your heart and body.

This is a sacred journey, one that probably feels scary (better read: TERRIFYING) to say yes to.  What if on the the other side of this terrifying step there was….

+ Safety to feel yourself and your experience fully.

+ Trust that you can learn to be with all of yourself - your pain, your joy, your dreams, your fears…all of it.

+ So much space and energy liberated in your body and being because you allowed yourself to release what you’ve been holding.

+ Belief that others in your life can meet you in your pain and in your joy.

+ Love and compassion for your past versions of self and who you are today.

+ Liberation in not needing to compartmentalize your life anymore because it can all flow together.

+ Creativity and (re)new(ed) vision (with time).

+ Confidence that you can move at your attuned pace, without pushing or force, and you will be in lock step with your soul.

While I can’t tell you exactly what awaits you (because only through your openness, capacity, and readiness will that be revealed), I believe you will be met, held, and guided exactly where you need to be. I believe you will be invited in to awe of yourSelf and process, and all that is possible.  

You are invited into a path of healing and freedom, and you will be supported and equipped every step of the way.

If you’re ready to say yes to the call into More of  Yourself, join me here.

~ 6 weekly calls starting Tuesday, including intimate guidance and tending, expansive teachings and coaching that will help you cultivate your new foundation for Life

~ $999 pay in full or 2 payments of $511

~ Hit reply for any questions.

Also, I recorded a great Instagram live yesterday with teachings and explorations of two foundational areas we will sink into during the first weeks of the program.  No matter where you find yourself today, I believe it will support and enlighten you in your process. 

You can watch the replay (even if you don't have social media) or listen to it in podcast form here!

Releasing Survival Mode & Coming into Authenticity {Audio only}

Releasing Survival Mode & Coming into Authenticity {Audio Newsletter + Transcript}

Last week I sat down and recorded an audio newsletter (think 30min podcast sans the fancy intro, etc.), which had been swirling for about a month. It felt so fun to explore topics and themes the end of 2022 brought up for me out loud - it all flowed out beautifully and I’m excited to share it with you! 

Listen here or scroll down to read the transcript:

In this audio newsletter, I explore: 

• Being in commitment to creating and sharing from authenticity;

• Pausing, releasing more layers of long-engrained survival modes, and readjusting in order to do so;

• The journey from drained to stable energy;

• Theme “Allow yourself to be here fully, now” from my last newsletter and how it carried out for me in December;

• Getting in touch with our ‘Gumby’ Selves;

• Beginning to more fully own my journey with grief and loss as part of the work I share with clients and the world.

Transcript:

"Hi everybody. Happy New Year. I have been wanting to record this audio newsletter style thing for quite some time. I am an old podcast and am a podcast lover, and I'm always toying with the idea of bringing something like that back. But for right now, I just wanted to share some thoughts and some explorations from the end of the year with you in an audible form. 

And if you prefer to read this instead of listen, I will include a transcript and you can do that, whatever works best for you. I personally am an extremely audible learner and processor and I really appreciate having a variety of ways of engaging. 

So let's see how this goes. Let me know if you like it. And I've had a lot on my mind recently that I've been wanting to share and it feels really good to speak these things out loud for a long time. Writing felt better and more complete, and I think I'm finding a time of my life where both speaking and writing feel really good, and I feel called to them for different reasons. 

I'm just going to take a breath. I invite you to join me in that breath if you need that right now. And I wanted to share that the last time I sent a newsletter was at the end of November and I sent it with this really powerful message that had come through. It was in a long meditation at the end of a yoga class and it just kind of became so clear. The words were really clear in my body and as I shared them at the time because always what's for me seems like it's for others too. Not for everybody, of course, but for many. And I'd like to make it available. 

And as I sat with it and shared it, I was very encouraged by the message and I'll read it to you. It said, everything you desire stems from fully and lovingly being who, where and how you are right now. Letting yourself fully be here, fully owning being in this body, in this moment, feeling how you feel, loving what you love, breathing, fully feeling yourself here. I love being here. All that you desire will not change who you are. It will only add to your life and the beingness as you are now. So how fully can you be here right now? How fully can you be you right now? What needs to be set down so you can fully be here? What needs to be embraced to fully be here? What needs to be seen and acknowledged to fully be here? What is here to be embodied? What ownership can you bring to this moment? How fully can you sink into this day? How fully can you trust who you are and all that you have cultivated? I invite you here. Be here with me. Be here. 

It was a really powerful message for me to receive and at the moment that it came in. I didn't necessarily know the bigness of what it would mean for me in the month of December. I didn't know with clarity how important my willingness to be exactly where I was, because I tend to be somebody who wants to be a couple of steps ahead of where I am or thinks I should be a couple of steps ahead. And that's constant sole curriculum for me - to release into the trust and acceptance of being where I am. And that's something I wholly incorporate into my work with clients as well. 

And yet, here I was again, being called to simply let go of the moments in front of me and to be and in the being, not just resting, but allowing myself to deeply feel the depths of what I was feeling. And as the days went on, after this message came through, it all started to become clear. There were some really, really big shifts happening in the internal landscape of myself that I've been working with for many years now. And after a very important family therapy session that I had with my dad and my sister, there was an awareness of kind of the crux of some of my things. Let's just say that some of my defense mechanisms, some of my survival mode activating moments. 

None of these things were new to me. But the way it was processed and talked about that day really opened something up. And more than ever before, I really, really needed to be exactly where I was feeling myself. So I kept asking, how fully can I feel this right now? How fully can I feel it? And I'd be on walks, and there would be moments of deep grief and moments of liberation and moments of exhaustion, because where we tapped into also required a lot of energy to be processed.

It felt kind of like we hit the core of my Earth and let out just this incredible amount of beautiful energy. But also, holy moly, getting to the core of that place again and letting that happen required a lot of rest. And it's a really powerful feeling that's happened to me many times. But this one was even potentially more powerful. So when the exhaustion would come, how can I release all the resistance to this exhaustion and just let myself feel the tiredness? And when the moments of overwhelm or fear would come, how can I let myself feel the fear and release the resistance towards this fear, really sink into it? Can I trust myself to be here fully with it? And even though it was not always perfectly smooth, I always was able to. Thankfully, that is something that I have cultivated.

And as I sat with all that was happening, part of what I needed to be willing to do was sit with the trust that my tune in and connect calls, which were something I was so excited about beginning and still am excited about needed to be put on hold for the month. They needed to be potentially revisited in a new way. I always am asking myself my why. Why am I doing this? Not my why in the way of what is your why? The way that kind of the self development world tells you you have to have a why for your life. But like really making sure that I am doing things from a clear place within myself because one of my biggest commitments is to never as long as I can consciously and I'd say never doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

It means consciously I do not want to act out of survival mode or inauthenticity. And the journey of living and doing business this way for me started a couple of years ago and it is pretty raw because it means that in different moments I learn new things about myself and I can see things that I couldn't see two weeks ago or two months ago. And I realized that there were places of inauthenticity. Of course my human imperfections and my desires to fulfill my own needs for things sometimes coming out in offerings and most of what I could feel from the tune in and connect calls was just really beautiful connection and offering a home for that and offering a space for people to come into that within themselves. 

And the one that I hosted, that was attended by a friend, she said to me, "you've never quite held space for me in that way. And it was really powerful for me", and it was a really natural session, but it really left a mark on her. And she came back multiple times to tell me how powerful that had been, even though it had just been the two of us. And I held that close because I knew that there was a lot of beauty and power in these calls and yet there was still some of the bumps and some of the inauthenticity of offering them that I needed to work through in myself, and a lot of that and the releasing of that survival place even more. That's one of, I think one of my biggest life missions is to unravel years and years and years of living in survival unconsciously which so much of the world is doing. And now that I don't live in that place constantly, I see it so much. And this season of my life is really about continuing to let that dissolve and continuing to trust into and to grow into and to expand into a grounded, calm, collected, connected nervous system capacity and way of living that I can thrive in on all levels. 

I could go on and on about how living in survival mode -there's a lot that can be said but it taxed me, and oftentimes we don't have a choice. I wasn't choosing to live that way. I wasn't even aware that I was living that way so fully until about nine months ago when I started to feel my energy come back. And I had been taken a year of sabbatical pretty much since my mom had passed. And a lot of the time, for the first six months, there was a lot of activity happening some days, and some days I could hardly move. 

But about six months in, the shock of the loss started to wear off, and I started to settle, and I couldn't do anything. And it was very obvious that my body had harbored so much adrenaline and so much survival mode that, yeah, I just was so drained. And I had been for a really long time, but I hit the bottom of the drain, of the well. And so as I committed to not doing anything except for rest, because I literally could not do that, and committed to that over and over again, even though I'd be pulled different ways in different moments and different months, about six to nine months later, I started to feel, oh, I'm feeling some natural energy come back. 

I think this is maybe what it feels like to not be in constant survival and drained mode. And I guess 2022, for me would be a year of rejuvenation slowly, very slow, slow and steady rejuvenation with lots of peaks and valleys and oh, my goodness, lots of still months of needing to go so slowly and tend so slowly and remind myself it was okay to be where I was. And so as we're closing out the year, and I'm in this place of connecting again with, why am I doing this? Is this coming from a place of proving or needing to be something? Is it coming from a place of authentic heart and guided power? Is it coming from somebody else's expectations? Where is it coming from? That was really what I was sitting with in December. Where was the desire for the tune in and connect calls coming from? Where was the basis of my business at the time coming from? Where was EllieFlow being created from and being poured into from? 

And while most of that was purely authentic, there's, of course, lots of little places that weren't, and there will continue to be. That is a lifelong journey. I'm not ever planning on getting to 100% authenticity, because what would be the point of that? But it was a new place. A new place from which I could evaluate and see how much is ready to be birthed and shared, how much is ready to be owned, how much is ready to be an invitation for myself and others. And in order to see all of that, I needed to sit exactly where I was, let myself be here as the message came through, fully owning where I was, fully owning the places where, yeah, it's okay. 

I created something from a place that wasn't quite right. So let's just sit with it. Its essence is still beautiful. It's just like us humans, like the creations, like a tune in and connect call. The essence is incredibly beautiful. The essence and the reason that it's here and the reason that it came through is incredibly powerful. And there's layers to strip away, to get down to or as close as we can to that core. And you could call that ironic because that's exactly how I explain my one on one work with people is imagining themselves wearing millions and millions of layers of clothing, and they can't even see themselves or feel themselves underneath it anymore. They might have so many clothes on they could hardly move, but they don't know how to take them off. Or they try to take them off and they just come back. And in the container of my one on one work, we invite and make the space for the exploration of allowing them, each layer, to just fall away naturally, allowing each piece of clothing to dissolve off, to be stripped off, to be ripped off. However, it needs to come off. And over time, we touch into the crux of who we are. That rock or gumby inner middle part of us. I call that our gumby self, sometimes just to give a visual.

And then when we hit the gumby self, we often need to sit with our gumby self. And the rawness and the whoa. I've never lived like this before. I've never felt myself here before. Let me breathe here.  I'm scared to be seen here. And also it feels really good. So we dance with that. 

And I felt like, once again, I connected with my gumby self in a different way, on a new layer, on a new level in December. So as we walk into the beginning of the year, it's become really fun. After having sat in the silence and just letting myself be kind of in the undoneness of also so much grief, the holiday season, this surprised me once again with how grief filled it was and also being in that really called me to owning it more fully. And I've been doing this for quite a few months. But it hit in a different way, really owning fully how much my work in EllieFlow is here to intertwine with the process of moving through loss and being changed by loss and being changed by the things that we have to walk through that we did not choose. And allowing this to be a conscious process that brings deeper connection to ourselves and deeper connection to our life as we move through it. And it can feel like this huge internal and often external mess, in my experience. And everything in your life and everything in mine is touched by loss when it comes. And no matter how close the loss was to you, everything is touched by it. And so much of what's been shown to me in the past year is working with my clients, is the ways that grief is presenting itself and asking to be seen and held and acknowledged and allowed to transform, given. Space to transform given space to sit in the undoneness that it creates. To sit in the places of mess and then to compost what's ready to be composted and then to nourish what's ready to be sprouted from that place. And this is a process that can't be rushed. 

And when I first started, I mean, it wasn't really a start, I guess when my mom died, I said to my coach, I don't want to work with grief ever. I don't want anything to have to do with grief. This is not I don't want it to inform my work. I don't want it to inform my clients. I don't want anything to do with it. And we laughed about that a couple of months ago because it was kind of grief was knocking on my door of "hey, when are you finally going to let me in? To be part of what you're doing, to be part of what you came here to share, to teach and to guide?" And I obviously am doing that from a place of someone that is in commitment, walking with my grief forward even though I don't like it sometimes. And what I realized when I really sat with it over the end of the summer and into the fall and now even more in December, is, yeah, I wanted nothing to do with grief in my work, but my greatest kind of superpowers and commitments are working with life. And nothing says working with life more than working with grief. And as we open to grief, we open to life. 

And I recently found this beautiful, beautiful poem that I wrote and the last line says, "but do not push the grief away, for it is a sign of life." And so rounding this out and coming back to the reflection of this message that I received and shared and then sat with very fully and very potently in December of allowing ourselves to be here, breathing, fully feeling yourself here, fully owning, being in this body, in this moment, exactly how you feel, loving what you love, not loving what you don't love.

This is the underlying invitation to so much that will be shared through EllieFlow in 2023, beginning with some refined and updated tune in and connect sessions, one of which will be themed, and we'll see if the other one is too. I'm not quite sure yet.

And for all those that are ready to step into an exploration of their "gumby" self, of their rawness, of their aliveness without the clothes on, even though it's scary and takes time and takes patience and attention and grace and we will just be with each of the layers until it's ready to go. You are so welcome in here. So I'll leave this here. I will leave information about joining those next tune in and connect sessions. Leave information about working with me one on one this quarter or this semester.

And I'm so happy to be walking into a new year with Rejuvenation. And I will continue to nurture that rejuvenation and I hope to continue to nurture it in everybody that I interact with through Ellie flow and in my life, truly. 

In the fall, Ellie Flow really showed me this beautiful imagery and showed me the words sanctuary and oasis. And underneath that I could feel just like this deep restoration of our beings that can happen as we move with her and dance with her. And I am so honored and excited to invite all that desire to come in, that feel ready for this space, in. 

So I am wishing you space to be, to fully be as you enter the new year, to check in with your mode of being in terms of survival versus thriving drained or energized where you're needing rejuvenation and what you're ready for. 

As you walk forward, may the rhythm and the pace be perfectly attuned to your heart and where you are in your life and what you're needing. And if that is somewhere that you would like to meet, I would be honored to do so. All the blessings as we begin January, and if you like the audio newsletters, podcast things, let me know. Thanks so much. Take care. All my love, be well."

there is Grief in every Layer of healing

Written originally on August 5th, this is a stream of consciousness writing that came out of me in a moment of deep realization. It is meant to witness, open, and offer compassion to any and all that are moving through the softer, less traumatic moments of a loss and grief yet still feeling the pain. I do still have a powerful relationship and connection to my mom, when I speak of her absence in this writing, I am referencing her physical presence and life.

Today I tapped into the grief of this week. It is a gentle sadness, ever existing with this state of calm and peace I have arrived to as I sink into the expansion this summer has opened me to.
It is a low grade sadness, there but not bubbling to the surface with a vengeance.

I can feel it put it isn’t sharp like it sometimes is.

A few times this week I noticed myself thinking about how I was getting used to daily wife with out Mom alive, and in a lot of ways I’m so grateful to have arrive here - to a place I feel free to look forward with excitement and potential - and this place also comes with a new layer of deep sadness, sadness that I am used to life without her, sadness that starting to dream forward means I’m more ready to imagine a full life without her.

In my journal I wrote about it being like a timeline jump that is both extremely relieving, expansive, and natural, while simultaneously devastating.

I have arrived to the state I wasn’t sure I’d ever arrive to - a state of deeper integration of acceptance that allows space for the new, the possible, hope and excitement. And also there is grief that I have arrived to this moment of peace and acceptance, where every step and dream forward naturally exists without my Mom in it, where I know that every step forward means a step further from the reality when we had her with us.

This is a new kind of heartbreak.

A portal of rebirth: a One year reflection

Looking back to one year ago

August has been all about reflecting, resetting, and grounding into the places I have expanded into this summer (you can watch an instagram live I did about this here).

This week I felt deeply emotional multiple days thinking back to a year ago and how much has shifted since then. Late August through early October last year I hit some of my lowest grief moments. The shock of my mom’s death started wearing off more (I have learned to not underestimate shock in the grief & loss process - it lasts much much longer than we realize), we had just moved into our first 100yr old home that we were pouring love and energy into to make it our own, a place where my mom would never visit (physically), and a lot of other details of life were stirring the anxiety pot like never before. It was combination of deep joy, gratitude, pain and grief.

It took all of my energy to move through the day in as grounded of a way as I could without collapsing, which inevitably happened often too.

It wasn’t my last rock bottom grief moment, but it was yet again a point of surrender, or a million points of surrender of control, of my fears that that’s how it’d be forever, surrender of fears that I’d never have energy again or mental clarity or creativity again even though I new there was so much to experience and offer in life still. Surrender of all relationships, plans and hopes and dreams, because I only had capacity to move at an hour-by-hour pace. Surrender to the reactions my body was having to the level of stress hormones that had likely been circulating for so long.

I was still learning how to find the words to even talk to loved ones about what it felt like. I’m so grateful for the people that sat with me on the phone or in person while I spoke, or cried, or just sat in silence on numb days.

There were many more moments, easier and hard lived, before a bigger shift was ready to unfold and a lot more support along the way, but it’s pretty amazing to be here today feeling ALIVE, with a deep desire for life, inspired to share, create, and carry out pieces of the mission I came to offer, grounded into myself in a renewed and calm way, open to grief and also open to life. Surrender is still a daily piece of the puzzle, and I’ve leaned that there is grief in every layer of healing (which likely isn’t concluding anytime soon).

And this home has held us through so much, with so much love, light, coziness and expansiveness all at once. Supporting us with trees in every direction, a lush and breathtaking park just a few blocks away for daily conversations, tears or dance parties with the trees, birds, and flowers. It’s almost like this house’s soul smiled at us and opened its arms for a welcoming embrace, saying “it you love me and all of my quirks, I will abundantly love you and hold you in all of your moments”, and it has.

It has offered space for our Chileans to come for months at a time, enough stability for my nervous system and enough project opportunities for my visionary husband, space to rest, play, read in the hammock, introduce many new plant friends, our first holiday season without Mom, and so much more.

The unraveling is deeply painful, and learning to be with myself in love through it has been one of my biggest challenges to date, AND the magical portal of transformation and rebirth it offers never ceases to amaze and humble me.

Now to look forward to one year from now, knowing I could never even grasp the possibilities of all that may unfold, but I can look forward with love, excitement, openness, surrender, and freedom to trust I will be held and can hold myself and others beautifully through it all.

If you take a moment and a breath, what has this last year been like for you? How have life’s wild unfoldings transformed your being?

The juicy process of Transformation (brought to you by my daily walk through the park)

For the past 6 weeks, I have been contemplating the threshold of winter and spring on my daily walks through the park near our house. There have been days sprinkled with sunlight, days when I can feel spring rising up so powerfully inside and out, and there have been days blanketed with snow or gloom. While the snow holds its own beauty, at this time of year it continuously draws me to the frozenness that hasn’t fully thawed yet - a reminder that winter is still present even though I hear the hunger for spring renewal rumbling deep within.

I have watched the dead of winter slowly transition into spring, starting at the ground level. Each day there is a touch of new green, or a new flower or bud sprouting at the base of the Earth. But the moment I raise my eyes again, everything still looks dead - appearing to still be fully devoted to hibernation and restoration, where energy is still being gathered for the coming season.

On every walk I feel the unpredictable pace, wisdom, and shifting of my inner seasons reflected back to me. The sprinkles of green on the forest floor, amidst bare trunks and branches, remind me of the transitional phases between different states of being or seasons of life - the moments when the anticipated signs of the future are peeking through, yet we continue to live a known/old reality. I am reminded that only when we make space for and cultivate trust in the whole, full process of growth, can holding what is still dying or dead while simultaneously embracing the hope for life that is to come feel like a joyful, awe-inspired daily adventure.

the threshold of the inner seasons

Exploring and embracing our current inner seasons, and releasing any conditioned expectations to be somewhere we are not, is an extremely liberating and poetic journey I lead my clients through and have walked through many times. On my personal path, the past few years have included drawn out periods of inner fall’s shedding, followed by prolonged periods of cocooning and restoring through long inner winter(s). For a few years, this inward flow felt much more familiar than the bouncy, outer energy of spring or summer.

However this year I have experienced inner spring fiercely bubbling - finally feeling the steady energy I craved for months, potentially years. Much has been invisibly building and I can finally feel the sprouts about to break through the surface.

And yet, many of those sprouts have still not made themselves outwardly visible, but my daily walks through the park have once again reminded me of the beauty, worthiness, and power of holding the pieces of our inner terrain that still feel barren or frozen with honor, awe, gratitude, and even delight. Even if spring is all I want to focus on, the lingering winter reminds me the there is still more sacred tending to hold space for - and to trust that doing so will only cultivate the energy of my inner spring even more.

I am reminded that I mustn’t fear the daily reminders of winter, and that transformation doesn’t blossom from one day to the next; the threshold of winter and spring is like my walks - a treasure hunt for new beauty, new life, colors and plants I haven’t seen before.

If I allow it, it brings awe, reminding me to slow down, to take in every moment of sacred presence that I can. To fully BE with the process of shedding (fall), entering a hibernation or void space (winter), and from the darkness witnessing the light and life that starts to break through when it is time (spring), and the ferociously flourish (summer).

The process is potent and sacred. The seasons are working together, in natural progression, and I can choose to respect, honor, and be in flow with their rhythm, with my rhythm. And when I am, I will be carried into my next season in perfect timing, with all of the tools and wisdom I need.

The juicy process of Transformation

Over the years I have fallen deeply in love with the process of transformation, which perfectly mirrors this threshold and progression of the seasons reflected in the park: the beauty and magic of allowing one’s Self the space to unravel and shed what isn’t truly theirs to be or hold, creating and allowing a held emptiness and willingness to just BE, trusting that in perfect time, new energy, vibrancy and states of being will take root and sprout.

We often want to jump from the shedding to the budding, but if we can slow down enough to sit in the emptiness space that is created between each season, we being to hear and feel our soul and essence humming, expanding, playing, coming forth more palpably. In this open field, not yet identified understood perhaps, our Divinity vibrates, and there is space for a relationship with our deeper, vaster, loving being(ness) to take root. We can listen and receive, and being to see and feel what energetically is moving its way into being.

This process happens on a micro level in single coaching sessions, and on a macro level in longer containers. No matter how it unfolds, holding space for what wants to emerge with and for my clients, and in my own life, is one of the greatest gifts of my work and life. It is JUICY AS ALL GET OUT!

It is a journey filled with tears and laughter, often in the same session or moment, and while it isn’t magic, it feel magical, liberating, grounding and empowering all at once, reminding us of who we are, the possibility of our being, and the intersection of what it is to embody our Divine-Humanness.

If this resonated with you and feel called to more, you can explore my coaching offerings here.