Late summer is easily my least favorite season. Except that late summer brings us the transition into fall. So this morning, when I looked out my window and saw that very specific fall glow, I felt a wave of calm wash over me.

Just like that, on this one magical morning, the light has shifted and it’s 15 degrees cooler. Thank you — finally.

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Here in Georgia, we’ve got at least another month or two before the oppressive heat lets up. But feeling the shift in the air is enough to tide me over for now.

September is almost here. Change, release, shifting emotional and physical states. After what feels like the most alchemical summer of my life. This season composted so many old identities I was grasping onto. Now here I sit at the tail end of it, hoping September will bring a respite and a long, slow exhale.

Last week, I wrote what felt like a very boring, obvious-to-everyone list detailing all the ways I was consciously trying to slow my body down. This week I’ve been living it.

Letting go is deeply uncomfortable. Letting go of control, believing in the magic of the universe, and really trusting it to take you where you’re meant to go — all of this sounds lovely and romantic, but lately it feels more like getting swept up into a tornado. Not my favorite feeling.

So much of my focus this summer has been learning how to keep my balance, to implement new systems, and simply hold steady. And a lot of this work has been actually fulfilling - I’ve really enjoyed getting to know this new version of myself. So of course, in a moment of feeling destabilized, it brings up all the scared parts of me. Fear and freeze start running the show.

I do think I was meant to live a slow life - a life in harmony with the seasons - both internal and external. But because of this, I often find myself neglecting my inner fire. Even something exciting and expansive can feel like I’m being rushed. My system can detect good, necessary change and expansion as too much, too fast.

A Path of Exploration

A few years ago, I decided to step into the world of coaching. And yeah, I hate that word as much as you do. I hate marketing myself, or promoting my ‘services’ as if I know you better than you do.

To put it plainly, I know and (now) trust the gifts that come naturally to me. Listening, observing, holding, and seeing clear through-lines. That being said, I have also put in the work to balance, strengthen and hone those skills. Through both intellectual pursuit and several years of self-study and applied practice.

However, I never imagined I could fit those into a career. And truthfully, there is PLENTY that does not come naturally to me in “coaching” someone. I’m not here to tell anyone what to do, I can only offer a different perspective based on all the information I’ve gathered.

I felt like I needed to wrap up my knowledge, perspective, life experience, and all the work I’ve done into a neat package labeled: My Career. I felt like I needed to prove that label to everyone, including myself.

Over the last several months, I’ve been slowly letting go of what a ‘career’ means to me. The concept of one career, one single focus, one path forever, is not for me.

I don’t believe it’s for anyone, honestly. Anyone who yearns to live a full life. Obviously, we all contain multitudes.

I still love sharing what I’m learning, and supporting people in my own way. But I’m accepting that as I change/grow/expand, the work will evolve with me. That means it will probably look much different five years from now, and the work I’m doing today is a whole lot different from what I envisioned five years ago.

Liminal Seasons

We are finally out of the eclipse portal. I have a clear recollection of past eclipse seasons, where all the astrologers caution us about the tidal wave and chaos that it brings.

Don’t make any big decisions, don’t manifest anything specific during this time. Just wait it out, ride the waves, and hold yourself as best you can til we make it to the other side.

But I have no memory of such intense feelings of liminality during past eclipses quite like this season has brought. Almost everything I expected to be doing, feeling, or wanting has shifted. The target disappeared.

This one felt like being on a solo trek through the woods, and suddenly realizing you’re lost. While a thunderstorm is rolling in. You can either panic- find your way out, or take shelter, sit down and wait. I chose - though it didn’t feel like much of a choice at the time - the sit down and wait option.

I was longing to write but couldn’t find the words. I was longing to act but had no clear direction. I was stuck inside the swirl.

It also didn’t take long to realize this was the right call. That storm was clearing away and closing any alternate paths that were no longer for me. This felt unsettling at first, and honestly still doesn’t make much sense. But now the sun is peeking out again, and I’m left with a profound sense of gratitude and curiosity for the path that lies ahead.

Summer Yields to Fall

Maybe this change of seasons will clarify and refine my path even more. Maybe I’m in a phase of exploring and living my stories instead of holding others’. Maybe I will find new ways to serve and support and tend that have not yet been revealed.

For now, I’m letting go of the notion that there is one clear path. I’m holding steady to the things that bring me joy and fulfillment.

I’m still watching and listening, but I’m also ready to start walking again. And so it goes, the spiral continues. I’m choosing the path that lights me up, taking steps in that direction, while I hold the bigger vision and ideally stay open to the reroutes.

Sometimes you have to observe before you can be discerning. And sometimes you just know. It is a frustratingly fine line.

It is equally liberating and a relief to say no to what no longer serves. To make room for new sources of creativity. Here I am again, in the middle, choosing to step into the glow and sparkle of a brand new season.

Thank you so much for reading and supporting my writing. I’m really happy to be here with you. I’d love to hear what’s moving and unfolding for you in this shifting season 🍁

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Xo,

Missy

Being in process with something feels awkward and uncomfortable. But aren’t we all in process all the time?

My latest intrigue has been finding the magic in the process. Not needing to understand it, or figure it out, but embracing the messy magic of the process itself.

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Last week, I told my therapist I was feeling eclipsed. Lost, redirected, unsure of w…

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With eclipse season on the way, starting a new job, and applying for school, this week has felt like a time warp, completely disorienting.

But by the grace of God, a sweet friend of mine recently taught me her magical ways for The Sunday Meal Prep. This new ritual has swiftly changed my life.

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I have historically been somewhat anti- meal prep. “Too much work, not enough play.” And, historically, terrible with budgeting for a week of meals.

The cycle of enthusiasm, lack of thorough planning, and multiple trips to the store throughout the week ultimately leads to exhaustion, burnout, and well, hunger which turns into a cascade of other issues.

In the past, the idea of prepping all my food for the week ahead felt like way too much effort and rigidity, leaving no room for freedom and pleasure.

Get in girl, let me teach you a thing or two about structure and self-tending.

How am I supposed to show up for myself, or literally anyone else, if I’m under-resourced? I had to give myself a heavy dose of tough love, lower the stakes, and just start taking better care of myself.

Turns out, taking care of myself via meal prep creates a cascade of wonderful side effects. Better sleep, higher energy, more creative fuel, and a desire to really show up and participate in my own life.

Nourishing my body gives me more clarity, confidence, and allows me to nourish my loved ones, too.

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The Spectrum of Too Much - Not Enough

I was on a walk the other day, listening to a guided meditation through my headphones, and it occurred to me: I am both Too Much and Not Enough.

And maybe that’s how everyone feels.

For the majority of my life thus far, I have been well acquainted with the not enough end of the spectrum. I have hidden my fear of being Too Much behind pathologizing, playing small, and saying “I don’t know” when I Know Damn Well.

Fitting in became a whole lot more important than authenticity.

There is a perceived and familiar safety in playing small and shrinking back. There is an even deeper contortion here, where hiding or avoiding makes you feel like The Chill Girl, so mysterious ~

Somewhere along the way, we learn that contortion is the key to our freedom. Shrinking becomes the program.

This is an impossible standard of perfection that our society is built on. The fear of being too much or not enough is a very human feeling, but the systems in place only amplify it.

It rears its ugly head in relationships, but we can choose to opt out of the internal narrative.

When other women would tell me their experience of feeling like Too Much, I immediately flagged this in my brain’s Can’t Relate folder. I heard them, and I could empathize, but it sounded like the polar opposite of my experience. I took it at face value, and at the time it sounded like confidence. Here I was trying to appear cool, calm and collected on the outside, while screaming on the inside. (hint: there is a Too Much in there somewhere)

Perhaps I even felt a twinge of envy. What must that be like, to feel something more than Small? To be overflowing with substance and Being-ness, so much so that it intimidates other people?

It took me a while to connect the dots. We’re all afraid of being seen as Too Much, so we disguise it as anything else. Confidence, arrogance, anger, anxiety, shrinking. Or some fun combination of these.

Whether you lean into it, play it up, or shut down and shrink, there is a part of you feeling the grief about not being accepted or celebrated for your Too Much.

Reclaiming Your Too Much

Hiding behind any of these identities is tricky territory. For me, this hiding has led to a lack of self-trust, lack of boundaries, and feelings of numbness.

There comes a time when you suppress your clarity, or inner knowing, so much that it goes dormant for a while. However, it is my personal belief that dormancy is part of the process. We follow the seasons, and we are nature after all.

Eventually, your clarity will sprout upward again. Clarity can feel terrifying. It may feel like Too Much to ask for, to hope for, to dream about. It is very important that you listen closely, hold that knowing, and learn to trust in the unfolding mystery.

You cannot control or manage this process. That’s the scary part. The vision is not actually under your control. But you can work towards building trust in yourself, in your relationships, and trust in the vision itself. More than likely, it will continue to reveal itself over time. A long time.

Reclaiming your Too Much takes time. It is a tender journey, to be seen trying, failing, dreaming, learning. You will often feel lost, but don’t confuse that with being small or not enough.

Right now, embracing my Too Much looks like taking exceptional care of myself. Devotion to my rhythms, to moving and resting and nourishing this physical vessel. Devotion to my creative channel.

This is laying the foundation to take up more space. This is a practice in trust and learning to nurture.

Thank you for being here. I will continue to document this process of leaning into my Too Much as it unravels (me). I hope you’ll try it with me.

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Xo,

Missy

A couple of weeks ago, I went to see Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. And then I went back the very next day.

His adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey sparked something in me, and the collective, to take stock of what we believe in, and what fantasies we’re all chasing. The film is deeply moving, but this is not a review of how beautiful and impressive I found it.

The story of The Odyssey asks us to take a good long look in the mirror, to reflect on our own journey, what we honor and hold sacred, and the ways that we get in our own way. These questions only lead to more questions, all part of the journey to get back home.

For the purpose of this essay, I want to focus on one particular message that I can’t stop thinking about (kudos to you, Christopher Nolan). One of the most intense, thought-provoking scenes that will stay with me forever was The Song of the Sirens.

History & Lore Surrounding the Sirens

I am heartbroken to admit that I never took a Greek mythology class in college.

And, sheepishly confessing my lack of attention when we read The Odyssey in high school. So, I dove in head first to learn about the lore of the Sirens. How could I resist.

In Ancient Greek myth and art, Sirens were depicted with the face of a woman, and the body and wings of a bird. Not mermaids at all. Classic mix-up.

These creatures were wise messengers from the spirit realm, previously handmaidens that were transformed into birds by Demeter to search for her daughter Persephone, after her “abduction” by Hades (we’ll get into that in a future article).

Eventually, the Sirens gave up their search for Persephone and made their home on the flowery island of Anthemoessa, surrounded and protected by the sharp, rocky cliffs.

Today, Anthemoessa is associated with a group of islands in the Tyrrhenian (Mediterranean) Sea, most notably the volcanic island Ischia and Capri, off the western coast of Italy

In Ancient Greece, Sirens symbolized death, all-knowing wisdom, and temptation, without the sexual allure. Though I find this last part hard to believe.

But during the medieval era, Christian artists used the image of the Siren to represent the female embodiment and shadow of sensuality, lust, power, and manipulation.

Over time, Christian medieval artists transformed the Sirens’ wings into a fishtail, because it better supported their story about the sensual, dangerous women of the sea, luring men to their death. And, historically, mermaids are deeply tied to female shame.

Classic.

The Power of the Voice

Sirens understood the power of the voice, and that the subconscious lives within the physical body, in our sensory experience.

In almost every spiritual tradition, the voice is sacred. Our sound is a central chord connecting us not only to the body and the earth below, but also to the unseen, spirit realms. Whether in prayer, song, or something in between, our voice connects us to life itself.

The first way we instinctually self-soothe and express is through the voice. A newborn baby’s cry marks the grief of separation from the mother’s womb and entry into this world.

There is a literal descent, through screams, cries, and contractions of the body. Moving from one realm to another.

Anne Karpf, in her book The Human Voice: How This Extraordinary Instrument Reveals Essential Clues About Who We Are, discusses philosopher Hegel’s view that “the first cry reflected the ‘horror of the spirit, at its subjection to nature’.”

The voice and the body are a medium for the soul’s Descent. Into the underworld, into wisdom, and true gnosis. Our sound, and the words we do or do not utter, bond us to each other, to something greater than us, and create our reality.

We can either live with the demons of our subconscious by repressing/not voicing them, or we can allow the shadows to move through us, through claiming our voice and our needs. The voice transmutes those feelings of fear and pain into something else, something like Love.

In moments of fear, confusion, or total darkness, you need those instinctual, bodily responses to keep you alive, placing one foot in front of the other.

In The Odyssey, Eurylochus asks Odysseus what it was like to hear the song of the Sirens. Odysseus responds with,

“All the things you wanted to be and then all the things you wished you never wished for. It was a delicious itch you want to scratch, but you find it under the skin and can't reach it. So the delicious itch becomes unbearable. It told you what you most want is what you most can't have, and that the most you can't have is what you already had and lost. It was a song of all the promises I failed to keep.”

No Man Has Ever Heard It and Lived

I keep thinking about the comparison of the Siren song to a delicious, unbearable addiction, and “the most you can’t have is what you already had and lost,” because we all have that fear. We all carry that grief.

As I was watching this scene, I was trying to capture every moment in slow motion. To hold it in my memory, until I’d gotten everything I possibly could from it. Like sucking the marrow from a bone. How did I suddenly feel the addiction creeping up and taking over me?

Was it the Sirens, or was it just a really good movie?

Temptation or desire is the initiatory step into the descent journey. What are you tempted by, and why are we so drawn to that thing we most can’t have?

Whether or not you follow the temptation matters less than what happens internally when you’re feeling that desire.

Maybe desire feels like a death sentence because once you have a fantasy about something, you can’t stop chasing it. Or, you do eventually give up on the fantasy, and a part of you dies. Then, you meet the reality of what’s right in front of you. Fantasy is an escape - designed purely to keep you in the seeking.

If you can be so detached, so accepting of your reality (with the desire), you might find you actually can receive some of the beauty and magic that lives right here in the present moment.

The song of the Sirens promises wisdom through the descent. Whether you plug your ears, or jump overboard, the descent finds us all.

And here comes the part about death that deserves its own post entirely. Why do we think of death as so final? The last step, the ultimate end. Full stop.

There is always death in the descent, in the experience of getting to know yourself, in chasing the temptation and finding wisdom in the mystery instead.

The part of you that thought you had it all figured out, that was seeking the unknowable, the part of you that wants life to be black and white. Somewhere along the way, those pieces of the ego have to die.

Those deaths may look like getting sober, changing jobs, leaving friendships and relationships, or laying awake at night trying to make sense of it all. Death might look like, tenderly and with reverence, facing your reality.

It could also be literal, physical, a completion of this human life. Something has to be let go, and something new will break through. Trouble is, we can never be certain what the new will be like. The only thing we can trust is that it will be exactly what we need.

To be continued in part two.

Thank you so much for reading and for being here.

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Xo,

Missy

I told myself a couple months ago that I would start posting essays, ramblings, short stories, whatever semblance of a thought I had cooking up in my notes app, every Sunday of every week. Just write. Unblock the river.

I’ve wavered in that promise to myself on more than one occasion, and that’s perfectly fine, I have compassion for the too-tired, too-much-pressure part of me. But today, I’ve decided to embrace my Saturnian inner monologue, and stick to my goddamn deadline. Why does goddamn feel like such an abrasive swear? I was not religious growing up, but my relationship with God has evolved immensely over the last 10 years. I’ve been fixated on asking people their favorite cuss words lately. Mine is motherfucker. It has a much more comforting ring to it.

I had an intense breakdown this week in therapy. It was mostly centered around some unprocessed anger I was feeling, plus the fear of being alone. Quite a juicy combination. IYKYK.

The fire of Summer can often bring overwhelm. There’s a lot of noise, a lot of socializing, a lot of planning, obligations, and for me, I’m just realizing in this moment, the heat of summer brings me face to face with my own maturation process. Where do I want to go? Who am I becoming? Am I setting myself up, with all the mundane action steps necessary, to have the future that I want? It feels like being forged in the fire.

There is also the youthful, abundance-focused vibe of: have the most fun! play! create! live your life to the fullest! And not to be even more dramatic, but living in Georgia in the summer means literally moving through dense, humid, disgustingly-hot air all day long. If you’re not close to a body of water during this time, it can all feel supremely exhausting.

Looking back, I remember summers during my teenage years spent in my room, alone, binge watching my favorite movies or tv shows. Probably a lot of time on Tumblr. Obviously. I was not a teenager accustomed to sleep-away camps, or a lot of vacations outside of Georgia. This rest period became my summer ritual.

Although I’ve come a long way since 14, and I also have a deep love for the summer time, too much fire is overwhelming.

When the physical environment feels so thick and stagnant, and your mind is a fireworks show of ideas for you to try, it creates a mismatch. A trap, of sorts. I’ll just lay down and rest in the shade a while.

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Creating Systems for Inner Resourcing

Saturn wins again. It’s time to build in some systems. Structure, rhythm, practices, daily devotions. What are those tiny, aligned action steps I can take every day to tend to myself? For example, making my tea first thing, writing my morning pages, taking the dog for a walk (no phone allowed), and finding my way back to my altar.

I’m still working on that last one. Even if it’s just lighting incense, taking a few breaths, stretching, maybe pulling a card, I’m honoring myself and setting an intention for the day. At some point, I’ll go deeper into the tea on being pissed off at my altar. It wouldn’t be a spiritual practice if you didn’t, at some point, resent it and let go of it completely.

Cooking thoughtful meals for myself, moving my body everyday, and reading/writing before bed are some of the other small but mighty ways I’m taking care of myself. These acts of devotion, delicately placed throughout my day, are building the foundation of trust and inner resourcing that I hope to carry with me into my next big leap. How can we expect to show up for ourselves in times of fear and difficulty, if we don’t build that trust now?

Honoring the Process Without Chasing the High

Some days, I do just need to lay in the shade for a while. Rest, integrate, let it all run in the background. Let it go, take a nap. No matter what Instagram gurus tell you, you actually can just allow the process to run its course.

Cathartic practices can be beautiful and powerful for unblocking, but they can also be incredibly intense and ungrounding. I want to show myself that I can also hold intensity without having to do anything with it. This is not about suppression, it’s actually about feeling and accepting all the parts of you.

I have to remind myself that part of building trust is to actually sit in the boredom, or discomfort without rushing to fill it with something more cathartic or numbing. Maybe I don’t need to scream-rage-punch-a-pillow, or go straight to my phone. I need to show my body that I can just be with this uncomfortable feeling and still feel safe in my own presence.

You’d be surprised how much expression and creativity comes to the surface when you just allow yourself to be in whatever state you’re in. Without fighting to change it.

Instead of making meaning about your anger or numbness or grief, watch how it moves. Watch what words, images, memories, or feelings come to you. If you can, write those down. Draw them out. Honor the feeling and how it continues to shift and change with your attention on it.

I’m still learning the difference between what’s mine and what’s just noise, when to dive into catharsis and when to let things be, when to speak up and when to listen. How to be creative and stick to a routine. The flow needs the riverbank, after all.

Even when it feels like I’ve been here so many times before, I know I’m further along on the spiral. Learning, practicing, and finding my way back again.

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Xo,

Missy

When I was 5 years old, I knew I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up.

My first kindergarten teacher went on maternity leave, and the woman who took over for her, Miss Amy, was my inspiration. She was beautiful, and she had this sparkle in her eye that you just couldn’t resist. I was drawn to her instantly. It was a kind of magnetism that I recognized.

My best friend and I would practice at home, writing on white boards with Expo markers, teaching the class (her brother, our parents, stuffed animals, any students we could get.) Pretending to be Miss Amy. But more than idolizing her, it just felt good to use my voice in that way, to command the attention of a room, albeit imaginary attention.

I wanted that sparkle. Whatever it was that I saw in her eyes, in her presence, it ignited something in me that I would continue to search for. Her kindness, receptivity to a bunch of kindergarteners, her gentle but discerning spirit, I wanted desperately to have that kind of presence.

25 years later, I’m still learning how to be that kind of friend, partner, teacher, and listener. How to be that kind of nurturing, strong presence, for myself and others. Ultimately, isn’t that what we all want? To be able to hold ourselves and others in the same way that soothes and makes us feel special. The way we felt held when we were 5, brand new to this world.

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The Pivot that Wasn’t Really a Pivot

A few weeks ago, I started a part-time job as a preschool teacher. I watch and play with one year olds all day long. It’s completely fascinating, exhausting, boring at times, and so fulfilling.

This was an impulsive (though clearly not random) pivot to work with kids. It started as an idea to explore my feelings about motherhood. But it has quickly become a study for me. Up until this point, I have been working with women, some of them biological mothers, to support and reclaim the wisdom of their body and nervous system. Now I’m asking a new question: How can I support children to do the same?

And, where do I land in this transitional period of my life, before stepping into the archetypal mother phase?

This has been a voice in the back of my head for a while. That I want to teach, model, and support young girls to learn the language of their body, and unwind (perhaps prevent) the shame we’re all expected to carry. I don’t have a solution or a plan, but I’m curious. How can I offer that same kind of presence that I once felt, and a home-base of compassion, for these little beings who are brand new to the world?

Creation, Connection, & the Womb

I’ve always loved babies. Nothing really compares to the feeling of a kid reaching for your hand, or falling asleep on your chest. Except, maybe, you falling asleep on someone you love and trust’s chest, or taking their hand in a difficult moment.

These two loves are worlds apart in many ways, but they are rooted in the same source. Woven into the thread that drives everything we do.

It all starts in the womb. We create physical life in the womb (astonishing), but we also create art, pleasure, self-expression, and love from this center of our being. I am inseparable from this life force that grounds me back to the Earth.

Our grief, creativity, anger, longing, intuition, and capacity to nurture all flow from this source. Our relationship to our womb (and the moon) influences us every single day, for the entirety of our lives. This is not by accident. Receptivity and discernment, and that sparkle, starts in the womb. In the physical body.

That pull, calling, intuitive urge you feel to express something in the world that is uniquely yours, is coming from your body. When she speaks, you’ll know.

Quieting the Mind (Losing It)

So maybe you have to lose your mind for a while to really listen. Speaking for myself, in case that wasn’t obvious. Maybe you have to sit in the too-tight-too-dark-cocoon for a bit. There isn’t much to think about, or figure out, only the barely-there whisper from your body. Let that be enough for now.

Time will likely do the rest of the work, as long as you stay with the feeling. The ache. The sparkle. The unravelling. Something is pulling you towards it, even if it makes no rational sense to you right now.

My mind really wants to make sense of everything, understand, piece together, find meaning in the chaos. Find meaning in my own process. I have to swiftly, gently remind it that that’s no use. Overthinking, over planning, overcorrecting ourselves only leads to drowning out that distant whisper.

Have you ever taken a long walk in the woods, and suddenly you stop and look out at the trees or the horizon, and your vision does that dizzying close/far away warp? Like you’re watching the trees breathing. And suddenly you feel scared and calm at the same time? (This is a sensory adaptation literally called the “motion rebound” effect.)

I think this also happens when we shift out of the mind, down into the body. Down, down, down, into our grief. Into the subconscious of our body. It has that same dizzying, calming effect. Probably because it’s been waiting a while.

I don’t know what comes next, but I am learning to trust this feeling. I’m learning how much trust can be built through the body. Something that never ceases to amaze me.

Reporting to you live from my cocoon, pivot, soul-searching summer. I hope you’re basking in yours, too.

xo,

Missy

I have been a student in the feminine embodiment space for the last four years. I have recently noticed a shift in orientation toward performance over authentic, honest expression.

Maybe I finally took off my rose-colored glasses, or maybe this is what happens when power and authority win out over the slow and uncomfortable truth.

Embodiment does not equal Performative Femininity, Sexuality, or Openness.

Becoming more connected, attuned to, and present with your body and your emotional landscape requires a lot of time and space. It requires a lot of sitting in discomfort. It requires feeling, and expressing, your squirmy, ugly, angry, animal nature.

Stop Contorting Yourself for Someone Else’s Pleasure

This encouragement of performing sensuality or femininity, from teachers, communities, and social media feels problematic at best, toxic and harmful at worst.

Our culture does not need more performance and spiritual bypassing, leading to manipulative and people-pleasing behaviors.

We do need, however, spaces and teachers that encourage honesty, discernment, and creative expression.

When you’re standing in front of your partner, or a workshop full of people, and you’re acting out a fantasy or expectation you think they have about what it means to ‘be feminine’, while internally you’re shutting down, this creates a contortion in your system. Effectively silencing and shaming your inner voice to cater to someone else’s preferences.

This becomes much more insidious when teachers and space-holders encourage and even praise that kind of contortion act. The teacher holds the power position, and I believe they are responsible for setting a safe container.

Our culture needs compassion and acceptance and reclamation of the body’s innate wisdom. Not more denial of it.

What Feminine Embodiment Means to Me

To me, the word ‘feminine’ is interchangeable with Energy or Experience.

And yet, the feminine is incredibly discerning, and has a vast capacity to hold. Nature is a beautiful mirror for interdependence.

Masculine and feminine polarity exist within all of us. We are all living on a spectrum of Energy and Form, and our position on that spectrum is constantly shifting.

To be embodied simply means connecting to your internal experience (what is true and alive for you), and sharing that through your voice, your movements, your breath, your facial expressions.

Yes, this will often feel uncomfortable. To move at the pace of your nervous system, not anyone else’s. Not what your partner needs or prefers, not what your friends/parents/community prefers, but the truth of what’s really present for you. It might be much slower than even you prefer.

This is the process of unwinding shame. Of letting all your scary, angry, weird, protective parts be seen. First, allowing yourself to see them and meet them. Then, allowing your loved ones the opportunity to see and meet them. (They’re going to meet them anyway)

This allows you to feel and express what it is you’re actually needing. What is it you REALLY want? Sometimes that might be stillness and quiet, other times it will be excited, aggressive, wild textures. Can you offer yourself, or your loved ones, the opportunity to actually meet or gift that kind of presence?

Going at Your Own Pace

Moving slow will often feel like moving through mud. Squirmy, sticky, wishing it was over. All you want is to push through and fight against it.

But showing your body and your nervous system that it actually CAN move slowly, it can even rest, while you’re doing the scary thing and feeling your uncomfortable feelings, is what really builds your strength.

What would happen if you made friends with the mud? If you really allowed your experience to be true, to possess wisdom.

The Process is the Whole Point

Imagine this: it’s your first day ever lifting weights. You start with the 2lb dumbbells in the corner, you know the purple ones the gym-bros set off to the side — that’s a whole other conversation. But here you are holding an extra 4lbs in your hands. You start pressing them over your head, but you’re concentrating on form, structural integrity, how your ribcage moves with each breath as you lift your arms up, feeling the resistance, even exaggerating it for a few counts. This connection is powerful. Even though the weight is light, you can feel the energy circulating through your body.

What happens if you go straight for the 50lb dumbbells on the other side of the room? You have to push past every red alert signal in your body telling you it’s too much, too fast. You’re no longer aware of your body in space, or how you’re straining your neck to get through this. You’re probably not breathing. Your only focus is lifting the weight over your head, showing off how strong you are.

Now imagine, after months of devoted time & attention, you are ready to lift those 50lb dumbbells. You can still feel the integrity of your spine, your ribcage, and your shoulders all moving in harmony to press the weight over your head. There’s more connection now, and you’re really present with the full range of motion — it’s no longer about the weight. The movement, the breath, the posture, it’s all alive and dynamic within your body.

Maybe running would’ve been a better analogy. But I hope you get the picture.

Rushing past your body’s protective signals just to be impressive or desirable (even to yourself) is not doing you any good. In fact, it’s training your body to stay in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Maybe a combination of them. And it’s training everyone around you to expect that too.

Teaching your body that it’s safe and okay to move at your own pace is serious fuckin business. That doesn’t mean it won’t be enjoyable too. You might find it’s even more enjoyable this way. Especially when you start to feel empowered and confident in what you are willing, or not willing, to offer.

Here’s one more try at the movement analogy — I once had a yoga teacher ask us, during our final downward dog of the 60-minute class, to notice how this down dog felt different than the very first one of class.

That always stuck with me. It wasn’t about the posture, it was about the intentional connection to my body, my heart pumping, my breath circulating, gravity working with and against me.

It brought me back to deep gratitude and respect for my body. It was about the process of building that strength and connection. In learning to trust yourself, the process really matters.

Discernment

Yes, it is also important to stretch ourselves in relationship and community. To offer and give what is deeply needed. Care, nourishment, honesty.

This is all part of embodying your aliveness. If part of you is bursting at the seams with love and gratitude, but you’re afraid it won’t be reciprocated, show it anyway. Show your desire, your craving for connection.

But this also means: if part of you is hurt, numb, angry, confused, show that too. Show them your humanity.

You have to come to this place of discernment within yourself. It will look different for everyone.

When are you available to stretch past your fear-edges, and when is it important to honor and listen to your protective parts?

This process takes time, and we’re all figuring it out as we go. Trust the slow truth of your body. Let it take you down meandering streams and teach you all the medicine it has to offer.

Thank you for being here.

I work with women in 1:1 containers, virtual and in-person in Athens, GA. Please reach out if you are desiring support in working with your cycle and reclaiming your body’s innate wisdom. I would love to meet you!

xo,

Missy

I’ve been struggling to write lately. There is no lack of inspiration or ideas, but I get stuck on the “how,” and the words catch in my throat.

Wading through feelings of overwhelm and grief, my writing practice is reflecting all of it back to me.

On the other hand, there has been an incredible surge of momentum and clarity regarding my “work” in the world. I feel the call so strongly, and my system is stretching to accept that my dreams could become reality.

I am a writer and somatic practitioner, and I support women to really embody and open to the power of their menstrual cycle. I am always learning and unearthing ways to be in deeper conversation with my cycle, and I’ve been studying this process for years. This is what lights me up, this is what brings me into a state of presence and radiance, when I allow myself to actually live my cycle.

Going Analog

A couple of years ago, I quit all the menstrual cycle apps. I stopped using my phone or any technology to track my cycle.

I wanted to reclaim some agency around my body and its natural rhythms. (And I didn’t want anyone else watching this process.)

I was tired and quite honestly, bored with the design and interface of cycle tracking apps. My cycle belonged to me, and the moon, and I was craving a deeper connection with it.

Combining my two loves seemed like an easy-enough solution: writing (pen to paper style) and honoring my cycle.

I had this idea a few years prior, when I went searching for an actual, tangible cycle journal. I found several online and even some in-person at Barnes & Noble, but none of them felt like me. I wanted the one I had crafted in my head, with some very specific elements that I will detail below.

My First Cycle Journal

At first, I started tracking my cycle in a blank Moleskine journal alongside the apps. I wanted to feel as safe and comfortable as possible making the transition to a purely handwritten, analog format.

I was still taking my BBT every morning, and I used the app mainly for recording these numbers. After a month or so of double-tracking, I felt ready to fully take the reins.

Disclaimer: I am not currently trying to get pregnant. If I were actively trying to conceive, or avoiding it, I would additionally be using the Fertility Awareness Method and charting my BBT every day.

I started by listing out the date, my cycle day (day 1 being the first day of your bleed), and any pertinent physical & emotional indicators — sleep, digestion, movement, mood, libido, etc. of my current state. And, if I’m bleeding, I record anything related to the quality, color, and any pain/sensation I experience.

I have continued this process every single day for the last ~three years, and I can confidently say it’s one of my favorite, non-negotiable rituals.

My current setup:

Combining Cycle Tracking + my Morning Pages

If you don’t know me and I haven’t talked your ear off about it already, I’m nearing the end of my second round of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. Eventually I’ll write an entire post on this book, but for now I’ll leave it at this — if intentionally followed, The Artist’s Way is life changing. IYKYK.

Morning pages are now a part of my non-negotiable list. In the last year or so, I have been experimenting with a new rhythm. I start my morning pages with the date, my cycle day, and 1-2 sentences at the very top of the page describing how this cycle day feels energetically or emotionally.

For example, May 30 - Day 26. I feel exhausted, quiet, retreating inwards. No one bother me today.

And if you’re feeling spicy, it’s fun to attach an archetype to the day. Ex - I am the crone, the hermit, and I must be left alone. I am the Goddess of the Cave today.

An example from a recent crossover day:

Power through the Seasons

My favorite part about tracking it this way is seeing the patterns emerge, leading to deeper presence and intimacy within yourself.

You could go back and compare day 26 from two months ago, or two years ago. Notice how you’ve shifted, or not, over time.

Notice how your cycle changes depending on the elements, the external seasons, and track the waves of energy/power/creativity through your inner seasons.

Do you notice any connection to your prominent emotional/physical sensations during the summer months? What is your relationship to your inner summer? Is there anything your body would like more - or less - of during this time?

Being aware of these patterns and signatures throughout my cycle gives me containment, depth, and powerful potential for expansion. Through listening to it, I’m able to give my body the support and nourishment it needs.

This process is beautiful because it takes time. Watching, offering, waiting, testing and experimenting over several months and even years to cultivate your unique knowing. But the body responds, often quicker than we expect, to that kind of devotion.

Your body is always changing with the seasons. Your landscape is always evolving. This process is about surrendering to that evolution. In service to deepening connection with yourself and the world around you.

Thank you so much for reading. I would love to hear if something resonated with you from this post, and what you’ve found to be supportive in your cycle-tracking journey 🌗

I work with women in 1:1 containers, virtual and in-person in Athens, GA. Please reach out if you are desiring support in working with your cycle and reclaiming your body’s innate wisdom. I would love to meet you!

xo,

Missy

Your moon, your bleed, “that time of the month,” and a million other shorthand terms referring to your cycle. This phenomenon fascinates me to no end.

I’ve been tracking my own cycle patterns closely for the last two years. A few years before that, I was just starting to learn the language. And before that, I longed for a deeper connection to my cycle, but my perspective was hyper-fixated on “symptoms”.

The Beginning — Menarche

No one rolled out the red carpet ;) or ushered me into a ceremony or really even a second thought when I first got my period. I'm not lamenting this lack of celebration; there was wisdom in that too. It was more of a casual, energetic “now here you are” sort of initiation. But maybe that’s how initiation always goes.

I had been desperately awaiting its arrival, and I understood immediately. This is what women do.

Something about the nonchalant way my sisters, my mother, my peers regarded their bleed felt powerful to me. In their own way, they taught me about protection, containment, how to conceal my inner world. They taught me how to keep something Sacred, something that was just for me.

Even then, I wanted to understand my cycle, to talk to it, to know how to care for and tend to my changing body.

I distinctly remember a sleepover at a friend’s house when I was 15, where I was dancing around the room and had this infinite, vibrant energy. One of the other girls asked me why I was so hyper, and I told her simply, “I always get like this right before my period.”

That’s the kind of luteal phase you never hear about. I felt good, powerful, leaning towards ecstatic. No one told me I should feel otherwise.

Birth Control Changes Everything

At 17, I wanted to have sex with my first boyfriend. Yes, I also had painful cramps, so I borrowed that excuse to ask my parents if I could go on the pill. They knew what I was asking for, and after some uncomfortable conversation, they agreed to take me to the doctor.

I tried several different generic brands of birth control pills to find one that “worked” for me. One that didn’t make me feel like an emotional rollercoaster.

After one particularly rough go with the pill that causes you to skip your bleed completely, I went back to the doctor with some confusing and alarming concerns. Her response? Maybe you should try antidepressants.

The sad truth is, no one is shocked to hear that story. I was 17 years old, in my first serious relationship AND sexual relationship, with hormones coursing through my veins. Not to mention, there was absolutely zero attention to the nervous system in any of the spheres I inhabited.

Being a teenager is an absolutely insane time.

I did not go on antidepressants. But I did keep trying different birth control options. The pill stopped my cramps, but the emotional pendulum swing felt completely out of my control.

This phase lasted until I was 24, along with a slew of other uncomfortable physical symptoms. Pretty early on, I adopted the idea that this was just Real Life.

Cycle Tracking & Fertility Awareness

I started tracking my cycle through an app while I was still on the pill. Then, after a year or so of deeper research, I decided to stop taking birth control altogether and find out what my cycle was really like.

For years, I had been trying to ‘heal my gut’ through every other nutrition and lifestyle change I could make. I felt pretty confident about taking this final leap to really understand my body.

In the beginning, not much shifted. The cramps came back subtly at first, then with a vengeance. Then, in the middle of a breakup and big life changes, I started bleeding every 2-3 weeks for months in a row. This forced me to dive deeper into my daily rhythms. As above, so below.

I started tracking more subtle patterns in my cycle. My energy levels, workouts, how much sleep I got, my libido, digestion, and emotional changes.

Though I still couldn’t remember which phase was which, or what each one even meant. I was mostly blindly following the app’s guidance. “Advil and sunglasses are your best friends today. Welcome, day 21.” Thinking about seeing those notifications pop up on my phone now makes me irrationally angry. Can’t a girl have any fucking agency?

With consistent sleep, emotional support, taking my herbs, and getting acupuncture, my cycle finally found a baseline.

Like many things, learning to listen to my body was like learning to play an instrument. First, get the basics. Learn the scales. Now practice the scales over and over and over and over.

Once you refine the scales, you can start to improvise. Now you can respond, you’re in a flow and conversation with something Greater. Something Wiser.

Tracking my cycle fluctuations through an app was part of my scales work. Then came the discipline, the gathering of information, learning about the anatomy and physiology of what’s changing every week, every day.

Then I found new teachers, like Veronica Rottman, who teaches somatics for the female nervous system, and the authors of Wild Power, Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer.

I quit the apps. I started tracking it my own way — in a Moleskine blank notebook, listing the date, the cycle day, with any and all relevant symptoms.

I started paying attention to the physical & energetic shifts in my cycle, I was watching the patterns emerge, but more importantly, I just listened. I listened with my awareness, with my movement and how I nourished myself, and I listened with my touch.

The Inner Seasons

I learned an unquantifiable amount from the book Wild Power: Discover the Magic of Your Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power.

Something that Alexandra and Sjanie refer to often in this book and on their podcast is the concept of Inner Seasons. Each phase of your cycle correlates to a season in the natural world.

Menstrual phase = inner winter. Follicular = inner spring. Ovulation = summer. Luteal = autumn.

I love this connection because it automatically evokes a response. Humans have had a deep relationship with the seasons and the cycles of the moon since the very beginning. There was no survival without this connection.

What is my relationship to each season, externally and internally? How can I best support myself during each, and how can I slow down during the transitions between them?

The more I practice Menstrual Cycle Awareness, the more I attune to my seasons, the clearer and more connected I feel. I may not love or even prefer some seasons, or the in-between times, but with deepening awareness, I know this will evolve.

I’m learning how to express myself more through this practice, how to stay with myself, how to really be in touch with the magic of my menstrual cycle.

Energetic Archetypes through Your Cycle

I was listening to an episode of The Menstruality Podcast last week, and the host Sophie Jane Hardy said something so potent that I can’t get out of my head, “I am 28 different women throughout the month”.

Over time, through practicing MCA, I have developed so much more compassion for this truth. I am, at least, 28 different women. My physical state, emotions, creativity, desire, it’s all changing every day.

Not just once a week, or a few times a month, but every single day. What could be more magical than that?

As menstruating humans, we GET to shapeshift. If we can be in relationship with our ever-changing nature, maybe we can stop being so afraid of our own power. Maybe we can even let our loved ones in on this too.

Some months my cramps are LOUD, sometimes my grief or the feeling of letting go and surrendering to my bleed is louder. Sometimes it’s even pleasurable. Deep bows to the oxytocin wash.

I look at all of these signals like connecting points on a map, like high or low tides of the ocean. Each of them is the pure expression of my body’s (physical, emotional, spiritual) state that month.

I might compare the patterns to the months before, but primarily, I’m asking my body what it needs me to know. I’m showing up at the altar of my womb, and devoting my attention back to Her.

Practicing menstrual cycle awareness allows you to slow down, and flow with the shifting nature of your body. You begin to notice even the subtlest of signs, and you learn how to best support yourself through the rising and dropping tides.

Some days I might feel motivated and invincible, and I can harness that energy into a creative project or my work. Other days I’m going to feel tender and sleepy, and it’s important not to value one expression over the other. You need the exhale just as much as the inhale.

My sensitivity is speaking to me with a different set of needs, and a different kind of clarity. There is incredible power in embodying the state you’re in.

I’m writing this on day 15. I feel inspired, motivated, and like I’d rather be dancing than anything else. But I still feel the call to share my voice, and I have to honor that. Dance breaks are welcome here, obviously.

I hope you’ll share your own cycle thoughts in the comments, if you feel compelled. As always, thank you for being here ❤️🌚

xo,

Missy

Did you know you don’t actually have to “fit in”? No one even knows what that means. But they definitely know what it doesn’t mean.

You’ll know from the looks, the questions, or the silence. Don’t mistake someone’s shadow curiosity for any indication of where you are on the path. It’s yours for a reason.

I’ve really only made this discovery in the last few months. Well, let me rephrase that. I’ve only admitted this to myself in the last few months. It’s been an absolutely terrifying revelation. The idea that freedom could actually exist inside your real life is enough to send most of us spiralling. Try it — imagine what freedom would feel like for you.

There is no Rulebook you have to follow.

The suggested timeline ends after: graduate, get the job, get the promotion, get married, buy a house, have kids. Presumably by that point, you’d be raising and providing for a family. Not enough people talk about the nuance and complexity in between. Whether you do or don’t follow this timeline, no one tells you how to embrace living instead of just surviving.

This internal rulebook and uncertainty about the future have consumed me to the point of exhaustion at different times in my life. Mostly because I did not follow the instruction manual after completing Step 1: graduate.

I did not get the job, or get married, I don’t own my home, and I don’t have kids. Some of these may change, some may not. Yes, it does often feel like a record scratching in my brain. You’re not following the Rules?! I still want to puke every time I hear someone mention a “Five-Year Plan”.

Of course I have desires and goals for my future, but as a good friend once told me, “You can’t really plan any of that shit out.” Meaning, The Big Stuff, like marriage and kids and divorce and true love. Meaning, even when things go to plan, they are likely a whole lot different than how you imagined.

I have more space and time than I ever have, but sometimes it still feels like freedom exists somewhere outside of me. There is still loneliness, boredom, confusion, just like I know there is for someone who followed the prescribed path. We’ve all been through different initiations, and I’m starting to understand how that’s actually the point.

The Unfolding

I mentioned going to journalism school in my last essay. In my final year of college, I found myself completely immersed in other interests — meditation, herbalism, cycle & fertility awareness, and Traditional Chinese Medicine. The Rulebook from college had quietly and deliberately been tossed out the window. I wasn’t brave enough to admit that yet.

My long-term relationship was breaking down. I could no longer picture my life continuing in the direction it had been. This was a world-dissolving moment, and I found myself deep in the void.

Uncomfortable as hell, this moment generated a bit of shock in my system. Not knowing which choices to make, I didn’t make any. That was exactly what I needed at the time. I felt acutely aware of my own shadows, fears, and limitations. Enter: fully formed Prefrontal Cortex. Also enter: embodiment practices, cycle tracking, and a new-to-me path of ancient feminine wisdom.

Around this time, many of my childhood friends were making major changes in their lives. Moving away, getting married, getting a master’s degree, starting families of their own. I was achingly happy for them, and I plunged deeper into my own underworld. I had no reference for where to go from here. Whatever plan I expected to have laid out for me was like disappearing ink in front of my eyes.

This began a years-long journey in seeking answers from external sources, from friends, mentors, tarot decks, and constantly updating the astrology forecast. I was desperate for answers or a how-to manual, and I distinctly remember feeling like Goldilocks. No one else’s answers were just right.

Dear God, it’s me Missy. What the fuck?

I moved into a house by myself. My first time living alone. A new romantic relationship was blossoming. I found a teacher and mentor I deeply admired and related to. I completed my first year of graduate school for Chinese Medicine, and then I realized I wanted something different for myself. Something bigger was working on me.

I was practicing, studying, and learning every day. I was studying my own patterns, studying love and intentional relationship, the power of the menstrual cycle, somatic practices, and how I wanted to support women in unwinding their shame.

How can we find our true joy, pleasure, or empowerment, if we think we have to follow someone else’s rules?

Even from my vantage point now, this time period feels slightly foggy to look back on. It was a special moment, one that is ongoing, and just the beginning of so many life milestones. But it was also heavy, confusing, and deeply uncomfortable. What I can say with full confidence is that I am forever grateful for what was unearthed and reclaimed in that void space. I expect many more of these phases to come.

Your Dream Life doesn’t exist in the Rulebook

From my perspective, the true gift of your individual life is this: Whatever you are truly craving will never exist until you yourself try to make it. Nothing else will feel just right.

Try is the keyword here. It’s in the trying and the making and the process that we find our deepest fulfillment. Attainment is beautiful, but it doesn’t last. Peak experiences are never really the point. Tell me about how you got there.

There is an abundance of things we are always chasing. New car, bigger house, more money, vacation home, designer clothes, you get the point. The Rulebook says you must keep up, AND you will never keep up.

So to my earlier point, even those who followed the Rulebook perfectly will, at some point, find themselves completely lost and in the dark. Thank God. The soil is where new life begins. It’s where we connect and understand each other.

Finding Freedom in Your Real Life

If it’s not a material thing you’re chasing, it’s an escape. Counting down the days until your next vacation, the moment you can hit ‘place order’ on your shopping cart, or falling into bed at night so you can finally watch your show. Clearly, I understand all of these. We’re only human after all. But how much emphasis are you placing on that escape over your actual life?

My friend Grace and I are about halfway through with The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. This is round two for us. I love it and I fucking hate it. Julia always puts me in my place, and sometimes I find it absolutely dreadful to surrender to my inner artist’s needs and desires. She never lets up, she’s never satisfied with numbing out. Somewhere around the 4 or 5 week mark, I find myself either obsessed with filling my days with tiny, creative projects, or I’m resisting it completely and can’t get off the couch. The shame spiral begins.

Recently I saw a quote on Instagram that said,

“You don’t need an artist’s residency, you just need 15 minutes.”

Unfortunately, I can’t find who said this now, but it reminded me of a similar line in The Artist’s Way.

“Creative living requires the luxury of time, which we carve out for ourselves — even if it’s fifteen minutes for quick morning pages and a ten-minute minibath after work.” - Julia Cameron

Seeing these two oddly similar quotes in quick succession brought up the question: How am I resisting the freedom and beauty that exists within my life by thinking I can only achieve it by escaping?

Where in your life are you living just for your next escape?

I lovingly refer to this image quite often when thinking about this freedom vs escape phenomenon. You feel like you’re trapped, when your cage is in fact wide open. It’s all available to you and for you.

Presence through Tiny, Creative Acts

These sentiments also raise the bigger question: What does ‘success’ mean to you? Is it comparing your life to someone else’s, or how well you’re following the rules? Or is it in these tiny, beautiful, creative moments where you connect more deeply to yourself and your community?

My mom always said she hated arts and crafts. But that never stopped her from spending weekends in the garden, making our yard and home more beautiful. Or getting all of us to dress up for Halloween using the ‘costume box’ AKA the bin of random pieces of clothing and jewelry she saved, or trying new recipes for a family of five, after work when she was already exhausted. Or hosting craft-themed birthday parties for me where we’d make necklaces and bracelets for hours.

She devoted her free time to all sorts of creative projects — sewing, quilting, cooking, baking bread, rearranging furniture, gardening, journaling. I won’t speak for her, but all these different phases showed me what it means to carve out time for a creative, fulfilling life.

The Rulebook is Yours to Create

I don’t have any answers for how to escape the desire to escape. I’m sure it will always be there in some way. Noticing is the first step. Then I look for what my desire is trying to show me.

Where am I holding back from creating what my soul is here to create and share, simply because I’m scared?

There are a million obstacles to get past, and it’s starting to look like at least half of those obstacles are me and my ego. The fear, self-doubt, and inner critic are all trying to keep you safe and comfortable to stay “on track” for someone else’s timeline. Because there is more freedom, more feeling, more embodied experience in making your own rules.

There is no right or wrong path, and there will be challenges no matter what. You will have to face yourself many times along the way. But how would you move differently if you believed you could handle a little bit more freedom?

The freedom to fuck up, be wrong, messy, lost and confused, is the same freedom to feel joy, pleasure, intuition, and find the flow in your life again.

Thank you so much for reading. I would love to hear your thoughts on freedom, escape, ‘following the rules’, or anything else that moves you in the comments. It’s an absolute pleasure to be here.

Xo,

Missy

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As a child, I was energetic and silly. I remember dancing on tables in pre-school (you read that right), teaching the other kids the Britney Spears choreography that my older sisters taught me. I was assertive and bossy, telling the other kids where to stand and what to do. I loved my teachers, and I decided in kindergarten that’s what I wanted to be when I grew up. After school and on the weekends, I would find a little hideout in the woods behind our house and fill page after page of my journal with fantasy stories and poetry.

I could feel and see and hear the tension between my parents, even if I couldn’t name it then. I just wanted someone to play with, and writing quickly became my playmate when my parents were working or too tired. I love them both, and I know how much they love me. I understand now how hard it must have been to provide for and raise a family, especially when you’re still learning what ‘growing up’ even means, without the support you really need. Having gone through many evolutions with my parents (that will certainly continue), I have deep deep gratitude for the way they raised me and the love and respect they’ve always given me.

My sisters are 9 and 10 years older me, so I will again highlight my desire and ache for a peer in those early years. I’m the baby of the family, and I desperately wanted to be older and cooler and wiser. From my vantage point, I was already acting the part, but I needed something to really prove it.

When I was 14, I couldn’t wait to get my period. I was the last of all my friends, and it felt like this next step and initiation that I needed to go through before starting high school.

I remember the day it happened. I could tell something was different, and my stomach hurt in a way I’d never noticed before. It was the middle of summer, and we were watching a family movie in the living room - The Runaways, if memory serves me correctly.

The opening scene showed Cherie Currie, played by Dakota Fanning, getting her period while walking down the street and having to run into a bathroom to wipe the blood from dripping down her leg. At the time, Dakota Fanning was my favorite actress. I’m not sure if I requested this movie or if my parents picked it. Regardless, I thought her portrayal of a feisty blonde rockstar starting her period in the middle of downtown LA was the coolest thing I’d ever seen.

Somewhere in the middle of the movie, I got up to go to the bathroom. I didn’t speak a word to anyone about pausing the movie, much less letting on about how I was feeling. When I sat down to pee, I looked down to see the faintest drop of blood in my underwear. I was so excited I could cry. Instead, I did exactly what Dakota Fanning had just shown me - I rolled up a few pieces of toilet paper and put them in my underwear. Finally, it was here. My initiation into womanhood, or so I thought. It would take me another 10 years to feel this kind of reverence for my bleed again.

When I was 16, my mom took me to an herbal medicine store in town called Remedy. I needed something to help with the intense cramps I was feeling every month. My mom always told me exercise would help, but all I wanted to do was collapse. The absolute agony of being a teenage girl.

The woman working behind the counter asked me a few seemingly unrelated questions about my body, and she swiftly connected all the dots. She knew exactly what I was feeling from two or three simple questions. I couldn’t believe it. How did she go from A → Z just like that? She was a wizard and a witch, and I was in awe of her. She gave me an herbal tincture to take every month that was supposed to help with the pain. This might’ve been the second coolest thing I had ever seen, right after Dakota Fanning playing Cherie Currie. I was still skeptical, but this moment would become one of the first permission slips for me to really lean in and honor my cycle. A catalyst on my path into Womanhood.

A few months ago, I realized I had (most likely) already experienced over half of all the periods I’ll ever have. This realization hit me like a punch to the gut — I had barely paid any attention to my cycle from ages 15-22, and more than that, I felt burdened by it. Like most women, I made it my enemy for many years - ignoring it, numbing it, and shutting it down with birth control and Advil.

Around age 20, I started to reclaim some interest in how my body was speaking to me. It was finally clicking that my gut health, skin, pelvic pain, headaches, and pendulum-esque emotional states were all interconnected.

One summer in our early 20s, my friends and I passed around Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ book Women Who Run with the Wolves. I don’t think I was really able to digest her words yet, but it sparked something in me that had been dormant for so many years. My body was aching for some acknowledgment, boundaries, and connection. I was slowly building a relationship of trust with my body and cultivating new ways of being that felt more like me, instead of whatever I thought was palatable for the rest of the world. I cannot stress enough my emphasis here on the words ‘slowly building’. It would take several more years, relationships, life experience, and passes through Ms. Estés’ book for me to dive deeper into the practice of listening to and honoring my body.

When I went searching for a quote from her book as research for this essay, I flipped to a “random” page. It happened to be in the chapter titled Clear Water: Nourishing the Creative Life. I found a quote I had underlined a few years ago,

“And so here is the hard part: We have to go into the sludge and look for the precious gifts that lie under it all. Like La Llorona, we have to drag the river for our soul-life, for our creative lives.” -Clarissa Pinkola Estés

From this perspective, and in my personal experience, what you initially thought was the sludge is actually the sacred gift. Whatever your shame, your wounding, your resistance, therein lies the key. I always thought the sludge was something that needed to be “worked through”, healed from, or released forever. Our unfortunate Puritanical roots run deep. It has taken me nearly 29 years, with lots of support and encouragement, to understand that my sensitivity IS my power. The sludge is useful — dare I say, the sludge is magical. If only I could learn to use it and speak its language. Over the last few years, I’ve been exploring how I relate to the sludge itself, and that process is life-changing.

During those years of attempting to numb and ignore my cycle, I had also shut out my writing practice. I still have the scarce journals from those years, a page or two on relationship complaints, or monthly updates on my new restaurant job, who I was dating, and of course the annual ‘intention setting’ list for the year ahead. The vulnerability and tenderness of that little girl who used to write stories and poetry had temporarily gone missing.

I never quit writing completely - I don’t think I could if I tried - but there have been long periods that I’ve avoided it and denied its gifts. I’d set it aside, not make time for it, and I wasn’t listening when ideas arose. I was allowing the sludge and the shame and the dormancy to build up. This only amplified my emotional, internal hellscape, my relationships suffered, and the intensity I was experiencing in my cycle got louder.

I can see now how deeply interwoven my relationship to my womb, creative practice, and emotional landscape has always been. Pain in any of these areas is going to be reflected back in one or likely all of the others. Feeling disconnected from my body, numbing my emotions, and avoiding honesty in my writing is inevitably going to influence my physical and spiritual life. And vice versa, dragging the river in my emotional or physical body eventually leads to a cracking open in my creative life.

Now that I’m reflecting on it, I would say most of my life after childhood has been a lesson in pushing away my creative writing practice. Naturally, I chose to pursue journalism in college. This career choice would make more money than trying to be an artist or a writer, and it was the rational thing to do.

If you didn’t go to journalism school, I’ll let you in on a secret — they train you to edit out any “unnecessary fluff” to appeal to the widest possible audience. This makes good sense for increasing accessibility, but it created more fear and apprehension in my system when it came to writing of any kind. This was the perfect recipe for my disconnected, people-pleasing, and frozen state.

I loved editing, and I was good at it. Refine, perfect, delete, do better. Suppress, numb, only report the facts, and limit your natural expression. Easy peasy. I’d like to note — I know this isn’t everyone’s experience in journalistic writing, and it can be beautiful and full of personal creative flair. For me, it fanned the flames of my conditioned tendencies in such a way that was both spiritually deadening and taught me an immense amount. C'est la vie.

There were bigger strings at work in my life. Honoring my cycle, my voice, my boundaries has all been part of a wider arc in unwinding years of shame and emotional neglect — towards myself and from others. Or maybe that’s my Chiron in Libra teaching me a lifelong lesson. You are never alone if you are creating.

I have started and stopped countless writing projects over the last five years, gradually melting the ice floes over my creative instincts. I had to come back to the physical body first, starting to really attune to and track my cycle more closely about 5 years ago, and majorly shifting the way I relate to food, exercise, and my community in the last 3. I am only just beginning to see the impacts of these foundational changes, though I know better than to think of this as the “start”. I know how much work, consistency over time, and devotion I’ve put into trusting myself and my instincts, creative and otherwise.

For the first time in my life, I’m slowly and gingerly finding my way to a consistent writing practice. And I can confidently say, it’s the most me I’ve ever felt. This practice is teaching me to speak more freely, strengthen my discernment and intuition, push my edges AND clarify my boundaries.

Writing has given me ultimate freedom, space, wonder, and magic I was always searching for outside of myself. Each phase of my cycle has become heightened and expansive, speaking to me with a depth of trust and clarity because I’m finally here, committed to listening to it.

I’m of the mind that true ‘balance’ is an illusion. We are always seeking and rebalancing where one part of our life has been neglected. But I am so grateful, and feel really lucky, to be in a phase of my life where these foundational parts of me are resurfacing. I’m grateful that I left it for a while and found my own way back. I’m surrendered to this creative practice and the connection to my body. And I know there will be phases when I can’t, not as deeply. I have seen the arc of this life/death/life cycle many times, in many different arenas. I have plunged into it, wanting guidance and wisdom from its depths. My writing will continue to evolve, alongside my moon cycle, alongside me. These are just some of the elemental forces that shape me.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading and spending your time with me. I appreciate you. I hope to see you back here again real soon.

XO, Missy

Every year I rediscover what feeling ‘lost’ means to me, in this moment, in this season.

This year, it means surrendering. Surrendering to the ever-unfolding mystery. It means being in the same house I was in two years ago, and feeling like a completely different person. A woman in the midst of a journey, a major shift in focus and direction. Being lost means taking stock of everything I know now, and allowing the warmth of this home, this environment I grew up in, to hold me as I reacclimate and start over. 

As I’m writing this, it’s one week from my 28th birthday, and I feel excited again. Hopeful for what’s to come. Every year on my birthday, I write a list of important, memorable moments — new things I experienced, places I traveled, lessons I’m learning. This year, I’m adjusting that list based on the woman I am becoming. The woman traveling somewhere between maiden and mother. How can I become more of her every day? How does she connect and move through the world? Living in a moment-to-moment experience, while she remains rooted and in her center.

Through the sticky, tangled web of resistance that discipline creates, I keep returning. Coming home to myself, and the woman I’m meeting even deeper, over and over again. How does she shift back and forth so effortlessly? From fear and discomfort, to open-hearted, radiant love, to this fiery powerful force. The practice of shifting seems to be the entire point.

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Returning to routine and structure has allowed me the space to soften. To slow down, and allow the dust to settle. Through this process of returning, I am becoming my own fierce inner mother. She feels the resistance and refuses to collapse beneath the weight. She is discerning with her time and energy. She knows when to push through, and when to rest and let go. She calls me forward, deeper, and expands my capacity. I trust her wisdom, and I trust her ability to hold more than it feels like I can. She understands the importance of holding yourself to the fire, she bows to the cycles of death and rebirth.

The process feels excruciatingly slow. Leaning into these internal and external structures is frustrating and mundane, checking things off my chore list. And then, for a fleeting moment, the discipline does exactly what it’s designed to, and I feel invigorated, connected, tuned in. Those are the moments I keep trusting.

For all the times I feel exhausted, overwhelmed, and frustrated with the uncertainty, this powerful wisdom settles in, nurturing me and making it clear there is so much more. More to learn, more to give, more to create and experience. This stagnation, this avoidance, this discomfort is not a crushing weight to succumb to. The fear is an opportunity to dig deeper and break down limiting patterns, old postures that are no longer serving me. Postures keeping me small and safe and isolated. I have so much gratitude for the ability to see that, to track those edges and moments of constriction, and slowly wiggle out of them. To shapeshift, to return, to Become. I keep returning to this place to find out what ‘so much more’ really means.

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I want this to be a space for connection and feeling and liberation – embracing the whole process. A place to express honestly and from an open heart. I want it to feel alive here. I hope this outlet provides some cathartic release for me as my own learning and unraveling continues to evolve. I hope to hold myself accountable, just as I am in the mundane and routine moments of my life. To provide a structure for myself - through which I hope to find and romance my own voice. I want this to feel intimate, a dynamic I’m always seeking. A cozy seat by the fire for vulnerable and powerful sharing. 

These are my lightly edited diary entries, dreams, reflections, or stories completely made up. The ramblings on my way home.  Because I value beautiful words strung together to try and reflect a moment, a wave, a cycle. And, ultimately, because I’m leaning into the spiral.

Thanks for riding with me here. So much more coming soon.

xo,

Missy

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