thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! sending this out for those who missed it.
in this week’s live session, i open with something i’ve been sitting with what it actually looks like to re-enter dating after profound loss, four years after my husband and soulmate finn died of cancer. but i don’t start with romance. i start with the root.
i trace the through-line between early childhood wounding, insecure attachment, and the way we unconsciously seek out what’s familiar rather than what’s good for us, what i’m calling the broken compass, pointing not toward our north star but toward more of the same. the hurt child at the wheel. the subconscious driving the bus.
from there, i weave together threads from my own life: my recent essay on self-love, the dream of the iron rod and conformity, my art therapy practice, my experience at rhythmia (a licensed plant medicine retreat center in costa rica i’m preparing to return to), and the way ayahuasca opened buried memories and reconnected me to my body. i talk candidly about the difference between mindfulness as performance and the deeper, messier work of actually feeling what’s underneath, healing in the body, not just the mind.
the conversation turns honest about my recent forays into dating: a 22-year-old, a love-bombing stranger who turned frightening, the pattern of hearing words but not believing my own nervous system. i keep coming back to one phrase — danger equals intimacy — and how the body’s signals, when we’ve been conditioned to ignore them, become the very information we need most.
i close with what i’ve learned: that healing isn’t linear, it isn’t tidy, and it doesn’t require getting it right. it requires showing up, in the mess, in the recapitulation, in the micro-moments where you choose differently. you can be messy and healing at the same time. that’s the work. that’s the point.
i am a writer, speaker, and musician devoted to healing and embodiment. i share essays, poetry, and original music through venus consciousness. i’d love to walk this path with you. 💞
