Category Archives: Family

How Do You Define Home?

Each year we go to Old Pool Farm and settle in for a week of gathering with an extended family filled with love.

We laugh. We cry. We stay up late and make s’mores by the campfire. We help each other with the kids so we can all enjoy the time.

Our campsite is right by one of the bridges people traverse when they come in from the parking lot concert side. Hanging on one of our canopies is a sign, freshly made this year with help from the kids:

Home. What is this idea of home? What does it mean?

Does it simply mean the place where you live most of the time? Sure, that can be one definition.

As we were packing up our site today, I said to a friend that it seems so odd that we leave home for almost a full year.

To many this might seem like a strange way to talk about a vacation. To us, our time at Fest is not just a vacation. It is a coming home.

We come home to a place where we can fully be ourselves – our peaks and our valleys.

We come home to a place where no one judges us for what we wear or how we look. And without mirrors, we can drop the self judgement too.

We come home to a place where we can settle in with friends we have not seen in a year and pick up the conversation right where we left off.

We come home to a place that feeds our soul.

We come home to a place that will always feel like home, even if we are only there for a few days out of the year.

With Love and Gratitude for Fest and my Fest Family,

Letting Go of the Balloon

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The door opened and the wind swept in, lifting the balloon out of my sweet girl’s gentle grasp and up up and away before she could even comprehend what was happening.

Sometimes we hold onto things for fear of losing them, and in a moment of distraction, we let go and they are gone.

The tears come, we find ourselves in sorrow, and we might even convince ourselves that things will never be the same.

It’s true, they won’t be, and that’s often such a gift when we can be open to receiving it.

When an outside force plays a part in leading you to let go, it can be a relief. You didn’t have to choose. You didn’t have to think and think and over think. You didn’t have to be attached to your decision.

Sometimes we let go of a dream because we’re tired, or we’ve grown into something new, or because someone has taken it from us. No matter what has led to the letting go, it is in letting go that you get to plant new seeds and grow.

That can be crazy exciting. And terrifying.

It requires a strength and sense of self-trust that I believe we all have. You might not be consciously aware of it in the moments when you feel terrified, but I promise that you’ve got it in you.

My hope is to help coax that spirit of yours to life so that you can create all that you dream and desire. When you do, you’ll start to see the letting go as beautiful as a balloon floating through the sky.

Peace, Love, and Wellness,

The Gift of Sharing Ritual

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We walked from the funeral home to the church, and that’s when the tears finally started to fall. “I knew they would come at some point,” I said to my mom and my husband. I felt like we were leading a parade which felt strange, but the walk outside was nice. Fresh air always comforts me.

After the funeral mass (not one of my rituals, but one that was no doubt sacred for my grandmother), we traveled to the cemetery. My grandfather was buried here too and it is one of the most beautiful and peaceful cemeteries I’ve been to. Nestled in the mountains, the stone markers are flat and you feel like you’re in a park. The tent was set up and we made our way to the open grave.

Here comes the part where my mother introduced a tradition that she has come to hold sacred to her family, many of whom had never known of it or experienced it before this day.

I’m paraphrasing her beautiful words, but it went something like this…

“We’re going to borrow from a Jewish tradition and cover mom with earth, in a blanket of love. This is seen as one of the highest gifts that you can give to a person because it cannot be repaid. In truth, I think mom prepaid us in so many ways. If you would like to stay and help us with this, know that it will take some time for them to take the tent down, bring the earth over and be ready for us to begin.”

And, in what felt like magic, almost everyone stayed to help. We waited amidst a sea of gnats, swatting them away, taking walks, finding the graves of other relatives who will always be missed and loved, having healing conversations, and then we gathered again.

We covered my grandmother in a blanket of love, all of us taking turns with the shovels, watching the casket disappearing into the earth, and then I heard my mom’s family members come up to her and share their reactions.

“Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.”
“I had seen this before but never participated, thank you.”

I remember when my paternal grandmother died. I was 14 and heartbroken and could not pick the shovel up, even though a cousin of mine told me it would be healing. I could not take on that ritual at the time, but I have since been guided back to it, and found much healing and comfort in it.

One way Sacred Ritual showed up for my grandma was in tending to her roses.

Sharing our sacred rituals can be scary. It is an act of vulnerability. But what a gift when we share something new that changes how someone sees and experiences the world.

There are rituals around birth and death, but there are rituals that fall between, during day-to-day life, and those have been the ones that I’ve found to be most sacred because they are daily touchstones to help ground, center, and bring me into the present moment.

My heart is full when I think of what Sacred Ritual Everyday has become, sharing of not only some of my favorite rituals, but a look into what sacred ritual means to some incredible women who I am excited to share with you.

If you are curious about expanding your definition of sacred ritual into something that feels authentically you, Sacred Ritual Everyday may be calling you in….

Peace, Love, and Wellness,

On Finding Strength in Times of Loss

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I have been singing this song all week. Each time I stop, I catch myself singing it again moments later. It is, to me, about balancing strength and surrender. I have found comfort in the melody, the words, and the meaning I create for myself as I experience the loss of a dear friend, guide, inspiration and mother figure to so many.

When we lose the ability to connect with a loved one on a worldly level, it is easy to feel regret. This week, I have found myself feeling like I wasted the gift of having her presence in my life by not spending more time with her, not soaking up more of her wisdom. I know she would not want me to feel regret, so instead I focus on the gratitude for what she did teach me, and for what she continues to teach me through the lives of others who she touched.

Miki, in your life and in the death of your physical body, here are a few things I’ve learned…

Raise your voice and let it be heard

Live every moment fully and with passion

Trust yourself

Surround yourself by friends in good times and bad

Listen to the Universe

Find the sacred everywhere

Know what you want, and be clear about it

Infuse life with humor

Be grateful

Know that all there is, is love

As I have been blessed to spend the last week among so many others who have learned from you Miki, I know that your lessons will continue to unfold as each day passes. I feel your energy around me, in the most miraculous ways.

May we all continue to be lifted and held by each other, and may we recognize the universal thread that binds us all together.

In loving memory and forever in gratitude,

Growing Every Day by Pushing Your Edges

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I held her in my arms and she felt safe. As I slowly lowered her into the water, I could feel her excitement and trepidation build.

“This is funny but I don’t like it,” she said through nervous laughter, and I picked her up again.

“This is funny but I still don’t like it,” she said when we tried again.

“I can do it!” she said with excitement, and by the next day, she was walking around the pool without even holding my hand. “I just learned how to do this yesterday!” she exclaimed with pride.

New things, especially when they involve water up to your chin, feel scary at first. It is the trust and pushing through the fear, which allows you to experience the empowered excitement of accomplishment.

You grow when you push your edges. You stay the same, and sometimes even wither, when you stay in the safety of the arms you have always known. I wrote about this last year and it’s a lesson that I try to teach my clients and myself all the time.

This can be a hard lesson when it feels like the ground is shifting underneath you and everything feels like it is somehow outside of your comfort zone. It can feel easy to run back to the things that give you comfort – old patterns, safety nets that you know are holding you back, and decisions that seem okay in the moment but that you end up regretting.

So what can you do to keep stretching yourself without feeling like you are about to drown? You reach out for someone’s hand, hold on just as long as you need to, and then let go so you can experience your own freedom.

Peace, Love, and Wellness,

When Adventure Leads You to Unexpected Journeys

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Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” – Lewis Carroll

The day starts quite normally::

Waking up, rubbing slumber from my eyes, rolling over, out of bed and into morning pages

Lines follows lines of thoughts and dreams and to-dos and ideas

Breakfast is made (smoothie for me, waffle with just jelly for her)

As she’s off on an as-yet-unknown adventure, I sit down to begin mine

And later there’s the phone call::

“Mama, I fed a HIPPO!!!”

And she did, she fed a hippo apples, thrown right into the mouth big enough to fit her

And she turned to her Za (short for Zabazabadoo, nickname for Zayda, Yiddish for grandfather)

She said to him, “I want to work here when I grow up.”

So I learned::

Adventures are rarely expected as we are rubbing the slumber from our eyes

Each moment opens the path to a new journey waiting for us

We know so much when we are young

We forget so much as we grow

I want to share with you::

Write your morning pages

Take yourself on adventures big and small

Let your heart guide your journey

Be open to the impossible feeling possible
Peace, Love, and Wellness,

P.S. Looking for a new adventure? Join us for the Creating Fertile Ground Circle

The $368 Lesson that Will Guide You to Empowered Conception, Pregnancy, and Motherhood

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May Day collage wtww This weekend was going to be about leading a visioning workshop, spending time in the woods eating healthy food, practicing yoga and mediation, and connecting with a group of women. Instead, it ended up being about trusting my intuition, practicing intimacy, growing connection, creating space, middle of the night epiphanies and spending time outside but at home instead of in the woods.

In the end, it was a soul-filled weekend, but it was a long road to get there and the path looked completely different than my calendar told me it would.

It all started a month or two ago, and it was felt full-force last week through a series of panic attacks that served to bring me back to center in what felt like a painful, confusing, and roundabout way.

This lesson had a $368 price tag that I agonized over, but in the end, what I learned was priceless and it’s important for you to understand on your journey, wherever you are as you travel closer to your dreams.

Here’s what $368 got me in the end:

A reminder that it’s sometimes important to say no

When my friend asked if I’d be interested in leading a visioning workshop to kick off her yoga retreat, I thought it sounded like an incredible opportunity, and while I thought about it a little bit before saying yes, I now realize, I didn’t spend enough time listening to myself while I was trying to make my decision.

A visioning workshop is a big and heartfelt yes for me. A retreat in the middle of the woods with mostly women I don’t know is a big and heartfelt no. As I came to realize during last week’s panic attacks, there were many possible reasons that I was feeling anxiety, but the bottom line was that the event itself wasn’t lighting me up inside.

I love the yoga teachers who ran the retreat, they are two of my favorites, but the atmosphere was not conducive to me being me.

If it doesn’t light you up from head to toe, it’s okay, and probably best, to say no. Tweet This.

The realization that it’s always important to trust your intuition

As the first wave of panic came over me last Monday, I just felt a big no in my body. Has that ever happened to you? Even if you don’t know why, you can feel that something is off. For me, it felt heavy and restricting, and as the panic attacks kept recurring throughout the week, I kept trying to figure out why.

As one of my coaches reminded me recently, I tend to over think things, and this was a perfect example of that over thinking in action.

What I eventually realized as I rationalized my fears away one by one was that the why didn’t matter. What mattered that there was something within me saying no. Once I listened to that inner voice and surrendered to its message, the panic attacks ended and peace and calm returned.

Sometimes you just need to create space

The decision to stay home this weekend, despite already having paid for the non-refundable retreat created space in a variety of ways that would not have happened if I had been away for the weekend.

I created space for open communication and flow with my husband as I gave up my “me time” for the weekend to allow him to accept a great opportunity, and in return, I got that much needed time for myself and my creativity rescheduled in a way that feels much more authentic to what I need right now.

I created space within my home as my daughter played a new game, “From Wall to Window” in which we completely cleaned part of our living space and created an environment that truly feels like home, and that gives us space to be present with one another in ways that we couldn’t have been previously.

I created space in myself by getting to practice trusting my intuition and to honor and care for myself even when I was coming up against feelings of shame, embarrassment and confusion. I also created the opportunity to realize that my needs are valued at much more than $368. That is no easy lesson.

So what does this have to do with your journey through conception, pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood? Everything.

It comes back to the idea of trusting yourself, your intuition, your body. When you learn to use your body as a tool to deeper understanding of yourself, you can release a lot of unnecessary anxiety, but you have to be aware of it.

I had to go through it to be reminded of that lesson this week, and I hope that in sharing this part of my journey with you, when you notice your body saying yes or no, you will be able to honor that, release the why, and let it guide you.

Peace, Love, and Wellness,

What’s Holding You Back from Your Dreams?

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As I write this, I’m looking out my window onto a beautifully sunny day – no clouds, and the trees are beginning to bloom. We live on the 6^th floor of a building, and I often joke about how this is the closest I will ever be to living in a tree house. Although there are times when I long to feel more grounded and connected to the earth than I do from the 6^th floor, I am grateful for the vantage point that I have from here as well. It’s a reminder that while staying grounded is important, so is soaring towards our dreams.

In our lives, it’s really important to remember that we have the ability to view our current situation from various vantage points, and we can learn lessons from all of them.

Have you ever noticed that your energy feels different in these situations…

At night versus in the morning?

After a yoga or exercise class versus after you’ve been sitting on your couch all day?

After eating a nourishing meal versus a big bowl of ice cream?

These are all different vantage points, and they can tell you about the situation you are facing, as well as what is most supportive to you as you navigate what’s coming your way.

Recognizing how a situation looks from various vantage points is only part of the journey though – the next step is figuring out from which place inside, from which version of yourself, you want to respond.

Will it serve you to respond from a place of anger? Probably not.

Will it serve you to respond from a place of resentment? That’s not likely the best choice either.

Will it serve you to respond from a place of empathy? Possibly, but you have to be mindful of your own boundaries.

Will it serve you to respond from a place of compassion? Absolutely, especially if the compassion is for yourself.

Here’s the thing – if you’re anything like me (and most people I know), you make most of your decisions based on what others think – or might think, even if this is happening subconsciously. Sometimes this works out okay, but most of the time it leads to hurt, frustration, and a lot of negativity.

Especially when you are preparing yourself for conceiving a baby (but also when you’re conceiving anything in your life, even if it’s just your plan for tomorrow), it is so important to surround yourself and engage with positive energy. This is the energy of growth and creativity. When you focus on the negative, or you allow the negativity to seep into your life, it can stifle you. It can actually keep your dreams from growing.

When you begin to make decisions from a place of compassion and positivity, those feelings expand, and you will find yourself manifesting what you’ve most desired.

Here’s my challenge to you – find one place in your life where you know negativity is seeping in, and fill that space with something positive instead. Be part of the community by sharing an area where you are ready to release the negativity in the comments below.

Peace, Love, and Wellness,

Releasing Expectations So You Can Flow Instead of Struggle

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Expectations. We all have them, for ourselves and for others. Mostly, they lead to frustration, disappointment, anger and miscommunication.

When you are thinking about starting a family (or you are just dreaming of it for some time in your future), these expectations can be painful.

You have expectations about what needs to be in place, how long it will take you to get pregnant, what pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood will look like for you.

At each point on this journey, there are numerous opportunities for not meeting these expectations, these high ideals that you have come to believe must be true.

What if you could flip this? What if you could shift your expectations so you are open and receiving instead of closed off and fighting?

Shifting expectations continues to come up in my life, so I know that it is a lesson I have not yet fully learned. As I have been hit on the head with this lesson a lot this week, I realized something – it’s not about my expectations of others but of myself.

As I have worked on shifting my expectations, this has meant accepting that I need support to make my dreams, passions, and desires flourish. I reached out for this support, invested in myself, and I can feel the shift.

It has taken some of the pressure off of me and helped me create space to put my focus to where it needs to be. I am able to focus on what flows naturally, while getting support with the pieces that feel more difficult and tend to cause a lot of frustration and stress. This is invaluable!

Are you ready? Release those expectations so you can flourish and grow.

Peace, Love, and Wellness,

When It’s Not What We Think It Is

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It started on Chloe’s birthday after spending 3 hours in a park. The itchy throat, the stuffy nose, and it came on fast. Knowing my history with allergies, even though the past few years have been better (thank you raw local honey and clean healthy eating!), I made the obvious assumption that allergies were to blame, and I locked myself inside for the next few days as I battled to breath with just one nostril.

My suspicions were confirmed when I went out for an hour 4 days later, and I started to feel worse again. This time, more than my nose, my throat was the victim. By the next morning, I had virtually no voice. The weather was gorgeous and I stayed inside, wishing I could open the windows and let the air filter my home (just like Sara Snow talked about in our recent interview).

A week had passed, and despite beginning to feel better thanks to Melanie St. Ours and her wonderful herbal wisdom, I questioned whether enjoying the 70 degree weather was a smart choice, but I needed to get out, so off we went.

“So far so good,” I said to my mom as we walked from the car towards the season’s first Clover Market, an outdoor market of area artisans including our friend Hillary from Isabella Sparrow and a woman I went to school with, Jenny Staple with her beautiful jewelry.

As the hours passed and I still felt pretty good (just tired out by the 4 year old!), I began to realize something really exciting – I had been sick!! I have rarely been so excited about being sick, but this meant that perhaps the windows could be opened and I could enjoy the fresh air of spring.

It is easy to jump to conclusions in our lives – whether it comes to relationships, to our health, or even to what path to choose. When we can stay open to all possibilities, we might find ourselves pleasantly surprised.

I remain cautiously optimistic and now feel prepared to try opening the windows and letting the breeze into my home. If you’re a fellow allergy sufferer, here are a few things I’m adding to my routine this season just in case.

My daily dose of raw local honey
Sabidil (a homeopathic allergy remedy)
My nose irrigator (I just tried it but so far I find it easier than my neti pot, same concept)
Lots and lots of water
Being mindful of high pollen days so I can keep track of how I feel and if it’s related (nothing beats self awareness!)

I’d love to know about a time when what you thought to be true turned out to be something else and what that taught you. Leave a comment below!

Peace, Love, and Wellness,