That is not always the case. And more often than not, quite the opposite happens. For the sake of a lesson I hope at least one of you learns and never has to experience for yourself, I’m about to spill some of my own home-brewed intergenerationally inherited tea. Not to be seen as some kind of victim, but to free myself and maybe you from the silencing that happens when we experience the great shame of not doing better when we knew better.

I’m ‘a lot’ ashamed to admit that for the last three years I’ve been doing my best to hope, pray and “good girl” my way out of a situation I had no business finding myself in to begin with.

For years I’ve amassed the reputation of being the friend that gives health and relationship advice to all my good girlfriends (and a few homeboys); holding space for big decisions, tears, new life strategies and reminding them of how much more they deserve.

They always took my advice.

But when the time came to listen to my own discernment, I let my wounds, insecurities, and the projections of my mother and grandmother hurl me toward the absolutely wrong choice for a life partner.

And to be clear, what was absolutely wrong for me (or you) could be perfect for someone else.

A lie that I used to tell myself was that I was too smart to be taken advantage of and too confident to let someone else convince me I was of little value. The truth was that, like so many of us with abandonment wounds, I just wanted to be wanted. I had believed that “doing unto others as you would have them do unto you” was a promise of reciprocal kindness.

It was not.

At the moment of writing this I feel overwhelmingly grateful to my ex in a way I had never imagined I could reach (and not for the reasons you may think). To be honest I thought my anger and heartbreak from the mishandling of my heart would give way to pure all consuming hatred.

And I don’t believe in hating anyone.

It’s too expensive to the one who holds it and I’ve seen firsthand the havoc it can wreak on a body and a mind. No thank you.

I feel grateful, strangely enough, that he has been consistently unkind in a way that continues to sit in stark contrast to the relationships I value most. It helps me see that choosing him nearly 15 years ago, and holding on for so long to someone who couldn’t give me what I needed, wasn’t about him at all.

It was about … me.

I needed to learn to define what loving myself really meant, how to identify what my values truly are, and how far I’d be willing to go before I lost my way (and that I’d always come back). My perspective on love, relationships, self-worth, and expression had to grow up. I had to meet the versions of myself I had been told to keep quiet and behave. I had to learn the difference between being “nice” and “kind.”

I had the privilege of meeting the TaKisha who could feel deep sadness, blinding anger, fierce protectiveness, and could hold her peace in the midst of the most chaotic energy I’d ever encountered. I learned what it felt like to feel everything. Sometimes all at once.

I now know my boundaries intimately. No suppressing or masking. And I didn’t die. Only someone without the eyes to truly see me could have taught me that. And even then, it didn’t cost me the best parts of myself.

“But it’s not fair” I’d cry to God. I was good, and loving, and kind. I’m a great mother, lover and friend. I did everything that was asked of me and more than what was expected. And yet there is a man walking this earth with the story that I wasn’t…pretty enough, wealthy enough, attentive enough, domestic enough, and on and on and on.

That used to bother me.

Sometimes it still does. That people would believe his stories, and that no matter what his or anyone else’s imagination could come up with, no one would be curious enough to seek out the truth.

And why would they?

We belong to a culture that likes to be entertained. Drama and chaos performs better for any social algorithm than truth. The truth is often boring and demands a maturity that many folks don’t have the capacity to hold just yet. No matter the age.

And while I could copy and paste the long list of grievances I compiled that made the final straw three years ago feel the exact right amount of heavy to make me release my hold on the future I wanted with him at the time, that would also be boring. Because we’ve all heard those stories. There are entire television networks, autobiographies and fiction book sub-genres dedicated to what I experienced. Unfortunately, I am not special in that regard.

But that’s not even where my shame exists. I was proud of myself for trying. I wanted our son to have the experience of having his mother and father in the same home long enough for him to have the memory of it. It’s something neither I nor his father had, and wanted to give him. Mission accomplished.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been the kind of person who has a vision for what I want, and without fully knowing how to execute, I make it happen. My path is never conventional and often the opposite of what anyone else would have told me to do. Which is why I tend not to solicit opinions from many people. However, my ex had front row access to my rhythm, my habits, my process, and even my insecurities.

As a note, I’d like for you to consider the inner chambers of your life, thoughts and body to be so sacred that every single person must be intricately vetted and cleared as if being sworn into a blood pact punishable by termination if ever violated. You are that important.

I didn’t do that. I messed up. God knew I would. I’ve chosen better since.

The longer I live in this body and on this planet the more I realize how every single person and experience is a teacher.

And while blaming a man, that man, could make so much sense and even make us feel better in the moment. The truth is that we belong to ourselves before we belong to anyone else, and choosing to hold ourselves accountable for the choices we make is often the key that unlocks the chamber we’ve found ourselves in.

It is really hard to move toward freedom when we’re centering someone else as the cause for our captivity.

And so I began asking myself some hard questions. The “why” of it all. But more importantly, what part of my history or perceived truth did I think choosing him would erase or rewrite?

When we state the facts and tell ourselves the truth about how we landed in the sticky situations in our lives, we give ourselves the opportunity to slow down long enough to figure out how to untangle the kink in the chain of our journey.

Accountability is hard. Especially when we have to own the realities of our own circumstances and pay the high tax that comes from rerouting our path publicly.

But you are strong. I am strong. We are made of cells so determined to actualize into human form that they executed a complex, failure-prone biological process correctly under real-time pressure, on the very first try. You were built to not only survive from the very start, but to thrive.

Our existence isn’t luck. It is divine.

So if that is the first truth (and it is) of our innate character before we even emerged from our mother’s body, it is also true that no other circumstance should have more power over our appointed purpose than we are willing to surrender. And should we choose to surrender our power for any period of time, we still have the authority to call it back home to ourselves.

So…

What fragments of your own divinity have you left along the trail of your life? Who have you entrusted with your sacred self? They are not to blame. You have the authority to right your wrongs and call your power back. It belongs to you.

Do it now.

And decenter the people who don’t even realize the value of what they held of yours to begin with.

You deserve to be free.

In love,
TaKisha

On August 26th I’ll begin another trip around the sun and I’ve decided to arrive more on purpose than I have in many years past. For years I’ve told people that I don’t “celebrate” my birthday for fear I’d be disappointed or ashamed of how far from whatever self-imposed mark I was by then.

So here’s my idea…

For the next forty days, I’m practicing one small act of self preservation a day. Nothing dramatic. No thirty day cleanse, no five a.m. club, no total life overhaul that collapses by week two. Just one honest choice, every day, that moves me closer to the woman I’ve been waiting for.

What I continue to learn and relearn is that she’s not coming from somewhere else. There is no finished version of me sitting in a waiting room, ready to take over once I’ve lost the weight, made the money, healed the thing, or figured it all out. There’s just me, today, choosing.

So I’m calling this 44 in 40. Forty days of becoming, on my way to turning forty four.

I’ve spent over a decade helping mothers come home to their bodies, so I know what the return looks like from the outside. I know the language, the frameworks, the breath work, all of it.

And I also know how easy it is to become fluent in self care while quietly abandoning yourself. To teach rest and not take it. To hold space for everyone’s homecoming but your own.

This season of my life has asked a lot of me. Some of you know pieces of the story. New work, calling in a new vision for my future, mothering a pre-teen, caring for family, rebuilding my capacity to give and receive loving support. My life feels full, often. And full lives are exactly where women go missing.

So the becoming I’m after isn’t a glow up. It’s smaller and harder than that, and it looks like better boundaries, tending to the needs of my body before it’s necessary, resting to nourish myself and not because I feel like I’ve “earned” it, and being willing to leave some things unfinished; because not everything has to be resolved by bedtime, and neither do I.

One small act. Every day. Forty times.

So why am I doing this in public?

I’ll be honest, this part scares me a little.

I’ve been quiet here. Inconsistent, if we’re being generous. And part of me wanted to wait until I had a perfect content calendar and a polished plan before showing back up.

But that’s the exact pattern I’m walking away from, waiting to be finished before I let myself be seen.

So I’m sharing this journey as it happens. The messy Tuesdays, and not just the glowy Sundays. Partly for accountability. Mostly because I don’t think I’m the only one who has ever looked up from a full life and wondered where she went.

If that’s you, this is your invitation. You don’t have to be turning 44. You don’t have to do all 40 days. You can borrow one small act, any day, and call yourself in.

Over the next forty days, I’ll be posting daily on Instagram and writing here weekly with what the practice is actually teaching me. Not the highlight reel. The real notes from the proverbial road of my experience.

Day one began yesterday with announcing my intention on Instagram as an act of visibility and naming my desire to come home to my body, my voice, and my own divine timing. And you can’t return to something you won’t name.

So what would you name, if you let yourself?

I’m excited to see what happens. One day at one time.

In love,
TaKisha

There is a kind of hunger that has nothing to do with food.

It lives somewhere deep in the chest, and it pulses with a very specific longing.

See me.
Choose me.
Stay.

It is the hunger of a child who learned early that the love she needed existed somewhere just beyond her reach. Close enough to believe in. Far enough to ache for.

I know that hunger well. I grew up inside of it. And, if I’m honest, some days I still do.

I was born to a young mother, a teenage girl who was still in the process of becoming herself when I arrived. We grew up together in a way. More like sisters than mother and daughter, often moving through the world side by side, but never quite in the formation my little body was desperate for.

I adored her the way children adore their mothers: completely, and with every cell I my little body held.

I watched her. I wanted to be near her. I looked for her eyes in the same way I notice my son looking for mine. And I spent many years quietly, persistently reaching toward a connection that, for reasons rooted entirely in her own story, she did not have the capacity to give.

She is not a villain. She is a human being carrying her own wounds, her own gaps, and her own unmet needs. I say that not to soften the truth, but because the truth is important in considering what I’ll say next.

The wound is very real even when the person who caused it was doing their best.

You can hold both of those things at the same time. You can honor someone’s humanity and still grieve what their limitations cost you. You can love someone and also name the places where their absence left a mark.

This holding of multiple truths is a part of the healing process.

And healing the mother wound begins with being honest about what it actually is. It is the gap between the love you needed and the love you received. It is the part of you that kept reaching, auditioning, and believing that if you were just a little more, a little better, a little easier to love, the connection you craved would finally come.

It is one of the most common and least talked about sources of pain in women’s lives. And it shows up everywhere, including and especially in the body.

How the mother wound affects pregnancy, labor, and postpartum

For more than a decade, I have held space for pregnant and postpartum bodies. I have sat with women in some of the most wide-open, vulnerable seasons of their lives. And what I witness over and over again is that the body never lies.

A woman who has spent years reaching for love that was withheld will often enter pregnancy carrying an anxiety she cannot name. She will labor in a body that is inexplicably tense and on guard. She will move through the postpartum season feeling hollow in ways that confuse her, despite everything she has to be grateful for.

When we sit together and trace where that tightness originates, we find our way back to the same place almost every time.

Her mother. Or more precisely, the wound where her mother’s presence and attunement should have been.

This is not about blame. Mothers who wound their daughters were often wounded themselves. Generational patterns of emotional unavailability, perfectionism, abuse, enmeshment, and unspoken grief move through family lines until someone decides to stop the cycle. But understanding why the wound exists does not make it hurt less. And it doesn’t close the gap between what you needed and what you got.

A mother’s happiness is the most powerful thing in a child’s world

Here is something researchers have confirmed what many of us have known in our bodies for a long time.

In a landmark study out of The Ohio State University, economist Dimitrios Nikolaou set out to answer a question that sounds simple but runs very deep: does a mother’s happiness actually change her child’s outcomes? What he found was striking. Using data from over 14,000 children, he discovered that a 10% increase in maternal happiness predicted an increase in a child’s social skills equivalent to adding more than $66,000 in annual household income to the family. Not the father’s happiness. The mother’s.

And it was not cognitive test scores that shifted. It was the deeper, more durable skills like emotional regulation, the ability to self-soothe, social connection, and independence. The qualities that determine not just how a child performs in school, but how they move through the world. How they love. How they recover. And how they show up for themselves and others.

The research also showed that these effects were most pronounced in the earliest years of a child’s life, around age three, when the mother-child attachment is at its most formative. Which means the healing you do now is not just personal. It is generational, scientific, and extremely urgent.

I think about that every time I sit with a pregnant woman who is carrying her mother’s wound into her own body. Science is now confirming that a mother’s wholeness is not a luxury. It is the environment her child develops inside of.

Nikolaou, D. (2012). “Happy Mothers, Successful Children: Effects of Maternal Life Satisfaction on Child Outcomes.” Job Market Paper, Department of Economics, The Ohio State University.

How to begin healing the mother wound

So now here is the invitation that I’m offering to you, just as I have the women I’ve worked with, and the same one I keep accepting for myself.

You do not have to keep seeking from the wound.

You can choose to become the love you were always looking for. I know…easier said than done. But hear me out.

This is not a performance of healing. It is not pretending the wound does not exist or deciding that it did not matter. It is not rushing into forgiveness before you are ready, or constructing a peace you do not actually feel in your body.

It is a decision made in the body AND the mind, that you will stop organizing your life around a gap. That you will stop auditioning for love you already deserve. That you will turn toward yourself, toward your own life, your own children, your own unfolding, and call your power back to your very bones.

Healing the mother wound looks like learning to give yourself what you once begged for from someone who could not provide it. It looks like witnessing your own experiences without minimizing them. Celebrating yourself without waiting for permission. And holding your inner child with the kind of care you always hoped someone else would offer first.

It is slow, sacred work. And it is absolutely available to you.

Breaking the generational cycle

The other day I came across a photo of myself at around, maybe, two or three years old where I am surrounded by my dolls, smiling straight at the camera with my big bright eyes.

I sat with that photo for a long time.

That little girl didn’t know yet what she was reaching for. She had already seen and heard more than she should, but still loved freely, the way children do before the world teaches them to ration it. And something in me made a decision to place that photo on my desk, where I can see her every day. She now sits there and reminds me of who I am healing for. Who I am choosing, every single day, when I do this work.

She deserved a mother who had chosen herself. And so do you.

I am making that decision. Not all at once. And certainly not perfectly. But I am making it, in pieces, on ordinary days, and oftentimes in the middle of some really hard ones.

And what I keep finding on the other side of each choice is not what I expected. There is no dramatic release. No single moment where everything clicks into place. It’s so much more subtle than that. It is the feeling of arriving somewhere I have been circling my whole life, and then arriving there again the next day when I choose it again.

When I choose myself, I become a different kind of mother. A different kind of practitioner. I stop bringing hunger into spaces where it does not belong. And I begin showing up with a fullness I am actively building, and not from obligation or shame.

The generational cycle does not have to continue. You are allowed to be the one who changes everything. Not by erasing your history or rejecting where you came from, but by choosing, again and again, to parent yourself and the people in your care from wholeness rather than from the wound.

That is the work. Some days it’s hard. And some days it feels like the most natural thing in the world. Either way, I keep choosing it.

If you are reading this and recognize a bit of your own inner world within these words, I want you to know that you are not too much. You never were.

The longing you carried was not a character flaw. It was evidence of your enormous capacity for a love so big and so determined that it survived years without a proper home.

You get to give it one now.

You get to be the one who changes everything.

Healing the mother wound is one of the deepest threads running through the work I do with women in The Mothering Body community. If this piece resonated with you, share it with a woman who needs to read it today. And if you are ready to go deeper, you know where to find me.

Take very good care of yourself.

in love,
TaKisha

My body often wakes itself up without an alarm. In fact, I find traditional alarms disruptive to my personal cadence and only set them when absolutely necessary. It’s a privilege I’ve leaned on heavily as someone who’s worked from home and for herself for over a decade.

There are rhythms I’ve grown accustomed to that shape how my days, weeks, and months unfold: The sounds my dog makes at the same time each morning when she needs to go outside. My son’s footsteps when his own bladder wakes him up to recalibrate after many vivid dreams (a gift from me, I’m sure). The mourning dove that perches just outside my window at the same time each morning to invite me to prayer. The number of times my ex hits snooze from down the hall before beginning his routine. There’s even a noticeable difference in the weight of a school morning versus that of a summer one.

When I allow myself to notice the flow of energy around me, I become part of a beautiful dance that keeps me steady, present, and even early for all of my real-life obligations. Likewise, when I lose pace or fall out of step, it’s an invitation to examine where I may be pushing, forcing, or ignoring the flow.

I received one such invitation recently.

After a full morning of work calls — with more to come — I finally got a moment to grab a quick bite and tend to my biology. That’s when I discovered my cycle had caught me off guard. I had bled through my favorite jeans.

This is not a thing that happens to me. In over 20 years, I have never been unprepared for my own internal flow’s arrival. I immediately recognized how out of sync I’d allowed myself to get over the last couple of weeks — and understandably so. I’d put in my notice to release a client, prepared to re-enter a more traditional workforce, navigated a new wave of chaos at home, and hadn’t moved my body in ways that remind me I’m alive in days.

No wonder.

Immediate reset.

The gift of a period is that it reminds me to feel — to slow down, to rest my external awareness and go inward again. What does that look like?

It’s making a cup of tea to sip during afternoon meetings. It’s cracking the windows in my office so I can hear nature happening beyond the sheetrock of my home. It’s smiling when I hear my dog snoring from her bed beneath my desk. It’s allowing myself to breathe deeply and fully as I write my notes. Analog. Pretty colored ink.

When I notice a disconnect between myself and my being, I must choose to reclaim play and presence wherever I can. And when my very long day finally ends, I turn on my diffuser, massage my feet with oils, slip on cozy socks, open a book while tucked into bed, and bid the day good night — no phone, no TV.

Just me.

Feeling the texture of my socks over slippery toes. Smelling the essential oils I only diffuse at night. Tasting my blue lotus tea. Listening to the deep, sleepy breath of my boy from next door. Seeing words on a page in a lamp-lit room, swirling across the paper until my eyes close.

Using all five senses to fully lean into presence.

It can feel impossible to believe that the flow of your day can be reclaimed — especially when you are everything to so many other bodies. But you must reclaim it. Not only for your own health and sanity, but for the very same people, places, and things you feel inclined to run yourself ragged for.

Respecting your own rhythm might just save your life.

I know it saves mine. Every time.

If learning to listen to your body and uncovering your own rhythm feels challenging, know that you are not alone. It takes time to untangle the many learned patterns that ask us to ignore what is and strive for an imaginary something else.

And if you want to learn how to do this in community, I invite you to join us for the next round of The Art of Self Preservation. The waitlist is open, and I hope to see you there.

At the beginning of each new year, I take time to reflect on the habits, phrases, and stories I’ve been telling myself—and how they’ve shaped my body, my choices, and my sense of possibility. One phrase, in particular, kept showing up like a quiet confession: “I used to.”

I would go on and on with friends about how I used to be a successful yoga teacher.

How I used to be pretty.

How I used to be skinny.

How I used to be motivated.

How I used to be good at this, or great at that.

When I reflect on the root of those I used to statements, I see that they’re laden with grief, sadness, and regret.

I’ve always been someone who appreciated not having many regrets—but there’s something about arriving at the end of an unhealthy relationship that will have you feeling shame, sadness, anger, and yes… regret.

It makes me angry to know that of all the regrets I’ve had in life, the one relationship that took up the most time and energy over the last 15 years is just about the only one that truly lingers.

Of course, the greatest and brightest silver lining in all of this is the birth of my beautiful boy, who has become my favorite person on the planet. But woven between the moments of loving, becoming, and being a mother are the memories I clearly recognize now as the moments when I abandoned myself.

I abandoned myself in favor of the voices of other people.

I allowed myself to be led by other people’s fears, other people’s insecurities, and other people’s demons.

So much so that I completely lost track of who I was.

As a result, I used to began to grow.

And with it, more regrets grew from those seeded words.

So here’s what I’ve decided for 2026…

While I’m not someone who likes to put a lot of pressure on a calendar year, I do have clear intentions—and some beautiful curiosities—that I’m keeping private for now.

But I will share that I am committed to shifting the words I use.

Because words are spells.

So, instead of saying, “I used to…” I will now—quietly or out loud—say, “I am becoming…”

If we spend more of our time and attention focusing on where we want to go, we increase the possibility of getting there. We teach our brains and our bodies the posture required to sustain the life we desire.

That’s a principle I learned and practiced as a yogi since 2003. Somewhere along the way, I forgot it.

What we focus on grows.

Where your eyes go, your body will follow.

What you think about expands possibility in your own body.

I started to feel hopeless. I forgot a sense of purpose that I wasn’t even fully living yet—but once felt excited to show up for every single day.

And while I still don’t know exactly where the path of my life is going, I am becoming someone I can trust again.

Have you ever reflected on your prior years?

Have you ever set intentions for the year to come?

Here’s a prompt that I invite you to journal on briefly. Don’t overthink it:

What energy are you walking into—or wanting to step into—for 2026 that honors your heart, and not the agenda of the culture around you?

If being a birth professional all these years has taught me anything, it’s this: anything worth having requires a process. It requires phases. And no matter how long it takes, the phases are the same for almost everyone.

Each and every one of us has cells in our body that remember being born. And, because of that, we carry the capacity to move through life with rebirthing energy—honoring contractions, honoring the push, honoring transitions, and honoring those intense moments that make you feel like you can’t go on another second.

Those moments are often a clear indication that you are standing at the edge of the end of one journey—and the beginning of an even greater one.

So if you feel like you’re being squeezed…

If your life feels so overwhelming you want to burn it all down…

You might just be in transition.

And when you’re in transition, the birthing of the thing you’ve been carrying for so long may be only minutes away.

Keep going.

Keep breathing.

Keep trusting the holder of your heart and your life.

And remember—you are not alone on this journey we call life.

Take good care.

They were little. Silly, small ones. Strategic omissions. Altered stories. Which was a complete reversal of my lifelong over-sharing nature where I’d tell perfect strangers my life story if it felt right in the moment.

I didn’t realize how unsafe my nervous system felt at the time, but would tell my “safe” people that ‘something didn’t feel right’ in my blossoming relationship.

I let them convince me otherwise.

And as someone who prided myself on being a vault for other people’s stories both professionally and personally, I knew my instinct to withhold information, breadcrumb unimportant details, or protect my truth wasn’t coincidental.

This is what hypervigilance looks like when your nervous system decides the truth is too dangerous to tell.

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of being in an emotionally or verbally abusive relationship, you already know this pattern. But if you work with pregnant or postpartum bodies—especially bodies that might be carrying this exact survival response—you need to understand what’s happening beneath the surface.

The manipulation is like being a frog in hot water. You don’t realize how far gone you are until you’re already cooked.

It starts with what feels like genuine interest. Then the character defaming slowly creeps in. Accusations of things you never did with people you barely knew. A different kind of character assassination that makes you scramble to prove untruths.

I left many times. I distanced myself after the screaming. I broke things off after witnessing how he treated his female family members, and after repeated accusations about friendships that had always been just friendships.

But exaggerated efforts to win you back—showing up at your home, throwing pebbles at your window, calling 37 times in a row (no, forreal)—really knock at your worthiness wound in a weird twisted way when you’re someone who was abandoned by parents who promised to show up, but rarely did.

Add in the people closest to you convincing you that you’re the problem, that “this is just how men are” but you “let people go too soon to find that out.”

So I did the mental gymnastics. Told myself I’d studied enough psychology to manage someone with so much...”bigness.” Plus, he wouldn’t hit me or kill me, so how bad could it get?

Right?

RIGHT?

He was just really loud. And rude. And mean. And would turn my own words against me.

That’s when the little lies started.

The Somatic Reality of Strategic Withholding

I don’t know how long it takes the average person to decide that no truth is worth telling if it can be used as an energetic dagger later. For me, it was not long after I found out I was pregnant… and keeping it.

I never knew his angle or what he could possibly use my words for, but as a person who appreciates my privacy and having a sacred insider container with a partner, I knew I couldn’t trust him no matter how much I thought I loved him.

Kind of like the time I miscarried and my trauma became a conversation between him and his colleague whose wife was having a similar experience (bless her) and he called me to coach him through it as if my devastation wasn’t still new. Or the time I had thrush as a new breastfeeding mama and he talked about my breasts to his coworkers, making me feel like I was doing something wrong. (And if you’ve ever breastfed a newborn for the first time, you know it’s already a massive mindfuck that can destroy your confidence without the right support.)

Your body learns. It catalogs. It recognizes patterns faster than your conscious mind can process them. And it adjusts your behavior to keep you safe—even when that adjustment looks like becoming someone you don’t recognize.

What This Means for Maternal Bodies

If you teach yoga or Pilates to pregnant and postpartum people, understand this: the body in front of you may be running this exact operating system.

Hypervigilance doesn’t just live in the mind. It lives in:

• Shallow breathing patterns

• Chronic shoulder and jaw tension

• Pelvic floor dysregulation

• Inability to rest during savasana

• Constant scanning of the room

• Difficulty receiving touch or adjustment

A postpartum body recovering from an abusive relationship isn’t just healing from birth. It’s rewiring an entire threat detection system that learned to treat truth-telling as dangerous.

The fawn response—appeasing, accommodating, shape-shifting to avoid conflict—becomes so automatic that she may not even realize she’s doing it. In your class, this might look like:

• Always saying she’s “fine” when you check in

• Pushing through pain without speaking up

• Difficulty stating preferences or boundaries

• Over-explaining simple needs

This is nervous system survival, not personality.

The Path Back to Safety

I can say with certainty that healthy, loving, emotionally safe partnerships exist. Yes, even when you have children. I’ve experienced them before this relationship and I see others experiencing them now.

But getting there requires deliberate nervous system recalibration. The hypervigilance that kept you safe in crisis will wreak havoc on your mental health over time and interfere with your ability to trust or be open with a worthy partner in the future.

As someone trained in Ayurveda, yoga, and somatic work, here’s what I know about supporting this healing:

The body needs to relearn safety before the mind can trust again.

This means:

• Practices that support ventral vagal regulation (the rest-and-connect state)

• Somatic tools that help distinguish between past threat and present safety

• Permission to move slowly and feel what’s actually happening

• Spaces where “I don’t know” and “I need to stop” are celebrated, not questioned

If you’re teaching pregnant or postpartum bodies, you’re likely already holding space for people navigating this exact recovery. Your role isn’t to be their therapist—it’s to create an environment where their nervous system can practice a different response.

Where truth-telling is safe.
Where boundaries are honored.
Where rest is protected.
Where their body’s wisdom is trusted.

I’m sure I’m the liar in all the stories my ex tells to justify years of toxic cycles and love bombing. But you know what? I’ll be whoever I need to be to provide a peaceful and joyful life for my boy and I as we move forward one day at a time toward emotional freedom.

And if this has ever been your experience—lying to survive an abusive or controlling partner—please prioritize your own healing as much as you possibly can. Your nervous system kept you alive. Now, in 2026, it’s time to teach it how to live and return to the truth…unapologetically.

Be well.

❤️

TaKisha August is a maternal wellness strategist, yoga teacher (1000+ hrs), Ayurveda practitioner (600+ hrs), and birth doula who has supported hundreds of families. She specializes in nervous system healing for maternal bodies and teaches providers how to hold space for postpartum recovery that honors the whole story.

The days of my cycle are winding down and with them my fertility.

No one ever truly prepares us for the season when the light in our wombs slowly begins to dim.

Then darken for good.

In the hustle and survival that has been life, work and relationship my inner clock continued to tick.

My boy is now 12.

He is my only. I had hoped for more.

I used to say that I was good for two pregnancies and three babies—hoping for the set of twins I was once told I’d have given my genetics.

But life (and God?) had other plans.

So now what?

How do we plan for a new internal future when mothering and partnering plans take a turn?

We could argue that we are far more than our ability to bear and birth children. And it’s true.

But what of our fertility?

What else can be done with the sacred second chakra of creativity and abundance once the baby making is over?

And what if fertility was never only about babies?

In yogic and Ayurvedic wisdom, the second chakra (Svadhisthana in Sanskrit) lives in the low belly, the bowl of the pelvis. It governs creation, pleasure, intimacy, emotion, and flow. It is the seat of life force itself. Not just the making of children, but the making of meaning.

We are taught to think of this center as useful only when it produces something tangible: a pregnancy, a birth, a lineage we can point to. But the womb (be it physical, energetic, or symbolic) has always been a gestational space, not a single-use organ.

It’s a cauldron of sorts.
An alchemical chamber.
A place where ideas, identities, desires, grief, visions, and futures are quietly assembled in the dark.

When menstruation shortens.

When cycles change.

When the possibility of another baby fades or disappears entirely, the work of the second chakra does not end. It changes assignments.

This is the season no one explains to us. The one where our bodies start demanding more from us with the kind of assertion we were never comfortable with ourselves, and asks ‘What will you create now?’

For many of us, especially mothers, so much of our creative and sensual energy has been siphoned outward. Many of us take large swaths of time to shift our attention from long sought after ambitions toward caretaking, survival, partnership, and productivity.

We have been emptied again and again without being taught how to refill from the source. And when the childbearing chapter closes, we can feel floppy, unsure where to place the power that once had a clear biological destination.

But the womb does not grieve the end of pregnancy. It’s the unused potential that creates the ache of more. She longs to hold something new and carry it to term. Those dreams that were postponed for “later.” The pleasure that was sidestepped and the life only half-lived; replaced with regrets and secondary joy from building someone else’s dreams instead.

Insert midlife, when the second chakra often speaks loudest. It’s a season where an internal changing of the guards creates just enough silence for the body to remember why it was built to begin with; and what it still wonders about.

It’s a season that holds the possibility to gestate something more robust than what was possible before.

With it comes fortified discernment, the scar tissue from self-abandonment, and boundaries that are only birthed from being broken or forgotten one too many times.

At any stage of fertility—whether you are cycling, perimenopausal, postmenopausal, partnered, single, mothering toddlers or sending children into adulthood—your womb energy remains potent.

It’s fertile in a new more certain way, like the soil after an extremely harsh winter. And it doesn’t just want to create, it wants more than anything to see you follow through and bring what’s gestating in the dark into the light of visibility.

The price? Consistency.

There comes a time when you just know that you can have [almost] anything. However, you’ll also need to be more honest with yourself than ever before. Do you really want it? Are you willing to release the stories that have become security blankets for why you can’t be bigger, richer, happier, or more fulfilled?

The privilege of being human is that we were all either born, birthed another human, or both. Your cells know what it feels like to go through the sacred dance of birth and that very magical moment that 100% of my own mama clients experience where the realization of what’s coming feels too big for their bodies to handle. But just as I tell them, I’ll tell you: “you were made to birth what’s in you, and you have everything you need to bring it earthside.”

What are you pregnant with?

A body of work?
A way of living?
A new relationship to pleasure or time?
A reclamation of your voice or orientation?
A version of yourself that was never allowed room before?

When we learn to honor the second chakra beyond reproduction, we stop mourning what we didn’t get and begin midwifing what has been waiting for us all along.

And what I’ve learned after years of my own longing, is that the womb doesn’t go dark. She goes deep.

And in that depth, something new is already stirring.

And yet, every time I sit with a mother who’s freshly postpartum, ten years in, or still mothering herself through a hard season, the truth is undeniable in every interaction:

Our bodies, in all their inherited wisdom, whisper clear warnings long before we ever feel “burnt out.”

And not in a way that feels like shame or failure. Not at first. It begins in a more intuitive voice that is recognizable. Kind even. Hoping to get our attention and guide us back to our baseline.

It’s important to recognize that the mothering body doesn’t run on willpower.
She runs on rhythm. And most of us live in a world with no rhythm at all.

So if you’re exhausted, overstimulated, resentful, overwhelmed, tender, numb, anxious, or just plain tired of carrying everything…there’s nothing wrong with you. Contrary to your inner mean girl you’re not even broken. Your body is simply asking for what she’s always needed.

But what if you don’t know what that is? What if you’ve gone so long ignoring yourself, that you draw a complete blank when it comes to tending to your own needs? Here is a menu of options to support you in learning to language of your body and cultivate a relationship with her that guides you back home to yourself a little more every day.

1. She needs slowness.

Not slow life.
Slow moments.

The slowness of five deep breaths.
The pause before your sip of tea.
The seconds you linger in the warmth of your blanket.

Slowness as a nervous system language.
Slowness as a portal back into your skin.

2. She needs warmth.

Warm food.
Warm hands.
Warm rooms.
Warm words.

Ayurveda always returns to warmth because the mothering body — especially after pregnancy (even years later) — holds cold in a particular way.

Warmth has a particularly beautiful way of bringing the body back to center after experiencing the cold that comes from depletion, from rushing, and the cold that results from not being held herself.

3. She needs nourishment.

This is not about restriction or patriarchal views or how a woman should eat. There’s nothing to be “fixed” or a new protocol to be adhered to.

I mean real nourishment:
• soups, stews, oils
• broths and spices
• touch and friendship
• rituals and stories
• softness and permission

Nourishment is a way of saying:
“You deserve to be fed.”
Physically AND spiritually.

4. She needs rhythm.

Not productivity.
Not rigid consistency.
Not routines that feel like a chore.

Rhythm is the root of a woman’s wellbeing.
The rising + the resting.
The blooming + the fading.
The seasonal pulse that manifests from her very womb.

When women return to rhythm, everything shifts:
digestion, anxiety, overstimulation, cravings, sleep, and even identity.

Ayurveda is the first system that says,
“Your cycles matter.”

5. She needs space.

Space to breathe…and to feel…and to hear herself again.

And no worries—you don’t need an empty house for this.
Sometimes it’s in that sacred car sit that happens when you pull up to your home from running errands. Or is that just me?
Space can be found in a few rows of knitting.
A bedtime that comes earlier.
A moment of honesty in a journal.

Tiny spaces for more of you are the micro joys that reshape us.

6. She needs to be mothered, too.

Every mother I meet is also a woman learning to mother herself.

The parts that never got rest…
or got permission to be soft…
never got protection…or help.

And the beautiful thing?
You don’t have to “heal your whole life” for things to get better.

You just have to stop abandoning yourself and start listening to what your body already knows:

That you are worthy of care, even now. Especially now.

If you’re here on Mothering Body, you’re choosing a new rhythm — one that honors your energy, your nervous system, your lineage, your identity, and the woman you’re becoming.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll explore:

✨ simple Ayurveda for exhausted women
✨ grounding yoga + somatic rituals
✨ seasonal nourishment
✨ postpartum healing (at every age)
✨ identity repair for women in transition
✨ beauty + aging rituals for mothers 35+
✨ cozy creative rituals (knitting, journaling, cooking)

You don’t have to do this alone.
You don’t have to earn your way back to yourself. You just have to start honoring what you already know:

That your mothering body deserves all the love and care that you so readily extend to everyone else in your life.

— TaKisha

And even if you haven’t had the space to fully hear her, she’s still there… pulsing under the surface, carrying the blueprint of the life you’re meant to be living.

This New Moon in Scorpio is an invitation to go and meet her.

Not on the surface. Or in the tidy parts of yourself.
She’s waiting in the places where you store truth, longing, and the little sparks of desire you haven’t given yourself permission to touch.

The moon slips into her darkest phase tonight at 10:47 pm PT / 1:47 am ET—right in that liminal hour where everything feels more honest than usual. New Moon energy is always inward, always intimate, but Scorpio intensifies the pull. This isn’t a gentle drift inward, but more of a deliberate descent.

Think of it like stepping into a warm, obsidian pool, letting your body acclimate as you sink deeper into what you’ve been avoiding, craving, or quietly preparing for.

This is a good time to ask yourself:
What truth am I finally ready to turn toward?
What desire am I done pretending I don’t feel?
Where has my body been trying to lead me while my mind keeps negotiating with fear?

Scorpio is laser-focused, intentional, and unapologetically transformative. But know that intensity without grounding can twist into obsession, tunnel vision, or self-isolation. Don’t go so deep into your becoming that you forget your mirrors—the people who reflect you back to yourself when your vision gets blurry.

You do not have to mother your evolution alone.
You don’t have to do the heavy lifting without support.
You don’t have to be the whole village and the one in need of a village at the same time.

This moon wants you resourced in real life and in ongoing practice.
Not merely in theory.

Let the hands that want to help, help.
Let the offerings that want to hold you, hold you.
Let the support you’ve longed for actually reach you this time.

As always, I like to anchor these moon phases with a ritual; something that returns me to my body and reminds me that I’m allowed to feel good, even in the middle of rebuilding myself.

Here’s how I’m grounding the energy of this Scorpio moon:

My New Moon Rituals

➤ A cleansing shower with eucalyptus and warm oils
Let the steam soften the armor. Let the water carry away the residue of whatever isn’t mine to hold anymore.

➤ Shadow journaling
Not the scary kind—just honesty on paper. What have I been suppressing? What am I craving? What would feel like a sacred “yes” to the woman I’m becoming?

➤ Pulling a card from one of my decks
I’ll probably reach for something ancestral tonight. Scorpio always pulls the old stories up from the roots.

➤ Giving myself permission for deep rest
A slow body. A long exhale. Letting my nervous system know that transformation doesn’t always require force—sometimes it just needs space.

New Moons are for beginnings, but Scorpio teaches us that beginnings often emerge from the depths. From the parts of ourselves that have been waiting patiently for us to be brave enough to listen.

So let this be the night you listen.
Let this be the night you return to the version of you who still believes in her own becoming.

Do you have any New Moon rituals that anchor you each month? Or are you stepping into something new tonight? Whatever you choose, let it feel sacred, sensual, and entirely yours.

Happy New Moon.

The careful placement of each foot. The gentle closing of doors. The way breath suspends when passing the baby's room – not always from care, but sometimes from fear. Fear that one wrong move might disturb a precarious peace that took hours to establish.

Perhaps you know this quiet too. This walking on eggshells in your own home. This careful choreography of existence designed to avoid triggering another's storm – whether it's your partner's frustration, your baby's fragile sleep cycle, or that overwhelm that lives at the edge of your consciousness, waiting for the smallest invitation to take over.

In the sacred texts of motherhood that we pass from generation to generation, this chapter often remains unwritten. Yet so many of us walk this path, our bodies carrying the weight of constant vigilance, our nervous systems perpetually braced for impact.

When we live in environments where unpredictable responses govern our movements, our bodies adapt. The nervous system, designed to protect us, remains in a state of high alert. What looks like adaptation on the surface reveals itself as trauma in the tissues.

The shoulders that never fully relax. The shallow breath that never reaches the belly. The startle response to ordinary sounds. The constant scanning for emotional weather changes.

This isn't weakness, sis. This is your body's ancient wisdom attempting to keep you safe in a space that feels unpredictable.

But safety achieved through constant vigilance extracts a profound cost:

• The disconnection from your own needs

• The muting of your voice

• The shrinking of your presence

• The loss of your spontaneity

And perhaps most devastating – the modeling of this dance for our children, who learn through our bodies how to inhabit their own. Wild times.

"But this is just motherhood," you might think. "This is just what happens when you share space with a newborn, a toddler, a partner who doesn't understand the transmutational experience I'm going through."

Let me speak the truth your body already knows:

Nah. This is not just motherhood. This is not just a relationship. This is not just family.

When your home environment requires hypervigilance rather than presence, something essential has been disturbed. When your movements are governed by fear rather than freedom, something sacred has been compromised.

You instinctively know the difference between respectful quiet and fearful silence. Between mindful consideration and anxious anticipation. Between loving accommodation and self-erasure.

Your body knows. And it has been trying to tell you.

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So what if this is your truth? Then what? The layered intricacies of life, family, work and relationships often makes it so that leaving every unsettling place or cutting off everything that doesn’t “serve you” overnight isn’t realistic. The focus then becomes capacity expansion. Here are five simple practices you can implement to keep you from checking out of your life or your mothering body.

1. Mirror Work

Begin with the most radical act: seeing yourself. Stand before a mirror. Place one hand on your heart, one on your belly. Meet your own gaze and simply whisper: "I see you." "I feel you." "I hear you."

Do this daily, even for just 30 seconds. Let your body remember what it feels like to be witnessed rather than just observed.

2. Boundaried Breath

When you feel yourself contracting, becoming small: Inhale fully, allowing your ribs to expand in all directions. As you exhale, imagine your energetic boundary expanding beyond your skin. Whisper: "I have the right to take up space." Repeat three times. Like a baddie.

3. Grounding Touch

If and when anxiety rises: Press your feet firmly into the ground. Feel the earth's support beneath you. Gently squeeze your shoulders, arms, legs – reminding your body of its own edges. Say: "My body is my home." And really mean that shit.

4. Reclaiming Your Voice

Begin in private if needed: Find a space where you can make sound without fear. Start with sighs, then hums, then open vowels. Gradually increase volume. Let your voice remember its own power.

5. Movement Medicine

Your body holds the story of your constriction. It also holds the key to your liberation. Move in ways that feel expansive. Stretch your arms wide. Take up space. Let your movements be awkward, messy, unpredictable. This is not about grace but about freedom.

While these bodily practices can begin the healing, they are not the complete solution. The feeling of walking on eggshells is often a response to relational dynamics that require deeper attention.

You may want to consider:

• Professional support through therapy, particularly approaches that understand trauma (somatic experiencing, EMDR, internal family systems)

• Clear, non-violent communication about your experience when safe to do so

• Building a support network that validates your reality

• Creating safety plans if the situation involves abuse

Remember: Your children are not only watching how you treat them; they're watching how you allow yourself to be treated. They're learning from your body what to expect from the world.

The journey from tip-toeing to sovereign movement isn't completed in a day. It happens through thousands of small moments of returning– to your body, to your voice, and to your right to exist fully.

This is not selfish in the least. It’s self preservation, and it’s essential to mothering well. And I’ll beat that drum until the end of my days.

There’s a truth our mothers may not have been able to tell us for their own layered reasons, and it’s this: A mother who cannot take up space cannot fully show her children how to occupy their own; a mother who silences herself cannot authentically teach the power of voice; and a mother who abandons her boundaries cannot effectively help establish theirs.

Your body already knows this truth and remembers what freedom feels like. The map back home already exists within the intricacy of your cells.

And, should you want some company on your path, I'll be here, walking alongside you, as you find your way. Because in case no one ever told you, you are perfect just the way you are and you can reach levels of joy, peace, pleasure and confidence greater than you ever imagined. Let yourself believe that, and even if you don't, move like it's already here. That, in and of itself, is a powerful practice.

If you want to explore more personalized support from me in navigating your unique season in a mothering body, snag some time on my calendar for a FREE consultation.

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But what if, instead of trying to pretend everything is fine or completely shut down, we allow ourselves to be in the practice of holding multiple truths? I had a teacher whose circle I was part of for several years that continuously guided our group in the practice of strengthening and expanding our capacities to hold more than one reality at a time. What does this even look like?

Well, I’ll use myself and the realities that are closest to me as an example. I am an American citizen who also happens to be a black woman, entrepreneur and mother who voted differently than the outcome of our last presidential election. Disappointing and devastating. I am now that same person witnessing the early stages of a new administration and observing the feelings within myself and the reactions of those in my community. I can notice my own anxiety, my own feelings of impending doom, and also not make that my entire personality for the foreseeable future.

I can recognize what I need to preserve myself and my son, and also show up with my own gifts and abilities to my community while doing a great job with the work I’m doing for my clients and alongside my peers. I can notice the need for boundaries in conversations with some, and be strategic about ways I should consider moving forward in the future. I can even hold the joy and excitement of new opportunities for friends, my child and my family members while also setting aside time for a good cry, therapeutic workout, or whatever I need to do to honor the fact that I am a human being.

And so are you.

Regardless of what is happening around us, every event is part of a larger landscape and story that is our lives, the legacies we were brought into and the ones we will leave behind. The risk of falling into a state of functional freeze is at an all time high, so self preservation is key.

Know that for as long as you have breath, you have options. Choose wisely from a place of truly understanding and honoring who YOU are. As a wellness educator I know that bioindividuality is key–what works for you may not work for me. There are some folks that can stay plugged into the news cycle and social media nonstop for days on end and still perform at work. I cannot.

We as a collective are holding a lot, and if you are here reading this then know you are doing a good job. It’s okay to lower the bar for yourself in some area where, perhaps, that bar was set too high by someone else to begin with. While we are all different in what works for us and what doesn’t, the thing that is similar is that all of us function better when we are rested, nourished and well hydrated. And most of us thrive in communities where we can be witnessed, held, celebrated, and that can hold all the nuances of life without obligation.

So what am I doing to keep myself going, present and loving? I’m leaning into community (and creating new ones). I’m opening my group chats before social media and reaching for my crafts before letting chaos touch my energy field. I’m filling my body with the healthiest foods I have access to while still making space for some sweetness on my tastebuds. And I’m doing what I can to support a restful night's sleep.

I know that, for now, those are privileges that I have that maybe someone else does not. But this is why acknowledging that we are all part of a web of support is vital. It does not serve the whole of us if I denied myself the tools I have access to because someone else may not have that access. No. When we allow ourselves to be filled up in the ways we can, then we also allow ourselves to amass the capacity and focus we need to care for those of us that are in the middle of a storm that threatens their existence. Especially when those storms are made by man. It takes real physical strength and emotional fortitude to pull a human body out of a torrential current.

This is why self preservation is an act of community care. If we all lay down our lives at the same time, who among us will care for the wounded? Who among us will usher the new lives into the world that will make their way no matter what? Who among us will have the capacity to hold our elders and honor them when they take their last breaths?

In the midst of every storm that will inevitably blow through our lives, there must be a remnant among us that can resist, celebrate, heal the broken, pray for the anxious, feed the warriors, care for the children, bring the joy through art, tell the stories with written words, and resurrect laughter from the bowels of despair.

So in whatever ways you are maintaining the essence of who YOU are in the ways you were designed to exist by the same hand that formed the stars in the sky, know that you’re doing a good job and that you’re needed.

Whether you’re directly impacted or supporting someone who is, the weight of these moments can feel unbearable and leave a permanent stamp on your nervous system. And while words alone offer very little solace in times of crisis, I want to offer a reminder: you are allowed to care for yourself in any way you can, even as you care for others.

Mothering your nervous system during traumatic moments can be more accessible than you realize and is hardly a luxury. It can be as simple as taking full deep breaths, praying, humming, or embracing someone you love. If you’re also in the thick of tending to or keeping others safe, it’s even more important to remember that, as a vital component for the safety and care of others, it’s a must to hold space for yourself as well. But safety is the key.

Once you are physically safe and out of harms way, here are some options and invitations to lean on to support your emotional and mental health:

1. Acknowledge the Impact

Trauma doesn’t only live in the events we witness or endure—it settles in our bodies. The racing heart, shallow breath, or even numbness are signs that your nervous system is under strain. Simply naming what’s happening—"This is hard, and I am feeling overwhelmed"—can begin to soften the intensity of the moment.

2. Anchor in the Present Moment

When life feels out of control, grounding techniques can bring you back to safety, even if just for a moment:

• Breathing Practice: Take five deep breaths, inhaling for a count of four, holding for two, and exhaling for six. Let your exhale be longer than your inhale to signal calm to your nervous system.

• Sensory Check-In: Name five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. This gentle exercise pulls you back into the here and now.

3. Create Small Moments of Care

When the demands on your time and energy are constant, self-care doesn’t need to be elaborate. It can look like:

• Sipping a warm cup of tea or water.

• Putting a hand on your heart and taking a few deep breaths.

• Sitting still for two minutes to feel the ground beneath your feet.

4. Communicate Your Needs

If you’re supporting family or loved ones, remember that even in times of crisis, you’re allowed to set boundaries. Ask for help, delegate tasks, or let someone know that you need a moment to collect yourself. Modeling self-care teaches those around you to honor their needs, too.

5. Incorporate Rest Where You Can

It’s tempting to run on adrenaline when others are relying on you, but exhaustion will only deepen the strain. Short naps, quiet moments with your eyes closed, or even lying down for a few minutes can help restore your energy reserves.

6. Connect with Support

Trauma often isolates us, but healing happens in community. Share your feelings with someone you trust—a friend, a family member, or a professional. If you can, find resources that offer support for those impacted by the fires.

7. Practice Compassion for Yourself

There is no right way to navigate trauma. You’re allowed to feel grief, fear, or helplessness while also finding moments of strength and joy. Mothering your nervous system is an act of radical compassion, not only for yourself but for everyone you support.

As you read this, my hope is that you feel even a sliver of steadiness return to you. In these dark times, know that you are not alone. Your capacity to hold space for yourself and your loved ones is incredible, but so is your right to ask for and receive care.

For those directly affected by the fires, my thoughts are with you. If you need specific resources or support, here is a site with links to organizations offering aid and assistance.

With love and resilience,
TaKisha

P.S. This particular meditation from The Art of Ease might support you in finding any amount of rest during this time when feeling safe and grounded might be elusive.

For instance, when standing in my personal power was a growth edge for me I meditated, journaled and did yoga postures to specifically strengthen my third chakra.

Likewise, this crown chakra meditation is one that I may continue to listen to as part of my morning prayer and meditation time. And if you do a practice such as Morning Pages, pairing it with a rest practice before you write may be a beautiful way to open up your connection to the divine source of your understanding.

When I struggle to hear God’s voice for myself or feel myself resisting the work they desire to do through me, I move my body, then I get still, press play on a rest practice, journal about what comes through immediately upon waking and read back what I’ve written aloud.

As you continue to work with this practice for yourself you’ll begin to notice what works for you and feels like the key to self preservation in your own life. Because if you prioritize our wellness and regulation and honor that self preservation is the first step to community care, everything around us will be all the better for it.

May you be well, loved and joyful.

Take good care,
TaKisha

I’m of the mind that our intuition is the voice of God. It’s that innate sense of the path your soul is supposed to follow. What gets us thrown off is second guessing our own connection to source, or listening to the unfounded opinions of others.

As you listen to this meditation, notice if any seemingly unrelated “aha’s” come to mind during or shortly after. Consider what challenges or crossroads you’ve faced recently and know that if you truly want the answer or some clarification, get still, listen, and know that you can trust yourself.

In love,
TaKisha

It’s one of the agreements I bring with me everyday as part of my own spiritual practice. And remember what I said about the Sacral and Throat Chakra being inextricably linked? Well here’s where you get to ask yourself the question: “how often do I say what I mean, mean what I say, and let the chips fall where they may?” I don’t think many of us feel super comfortable with this (at least before the age of 40), especially if you’ve been socialized as female your entire life.

What would saying what you mean look like? At work? At home? In your relationships? How does the idea of being "impeccable" with your words feel in your body. When you really start paying attention to your own physiological responses to energetic scenarios related to your words, notice also when and where your body tenses. Because of the anatomical similarities between the throat and the female reproductive region (housed in your Sacral Chakra), trapping our words or feeling suppressed by people or circumstances around us can also mean a tensing or “locking” of that region as well.

And, of course, we are not all safe enough in our environment to speak openly to others. However, we can always be impeccable about what we say to ourselves. Can you begin speaking to yourself and of yourself with the highest regard and integrity? Can you begin considering that your words are like spells and what you say impacts your physical body, the condition of your heart, and your connection with your wholeness?

If you begin considering what you say before you say it and how you may have been programmed to believe some really untrue things about yourself from others, play around with the notion of speaking life to yourself and your circumstances. Not in a gaslight-y or bypass-y way. But in a way where you can tell the truth, state the facts and do so with respect to who you are choosing to be in the world. Everything that comes out of your mouth gets heard by you first. And because you love yourself so much (remember?) you can choose what you say and how you say it, and do so loudly and clearly. You deserve to be impeccable with your words.

In love,

TaKisha

When I heard that quote some years ago it made me cry. And not like a graceful, romantic comedy-esque dramatic stream of a solitary tear–I boo-hood atop my meditation cushion and turned my camera off. The virtual workshop I had attended had been part of a longer experience I’d had with several women for a few years at the time and I was 100% in my feels.

The survival mode era of our collective pandemic reality “back in the day” (like how has it been five years already) proved to be the emotional wrecking ball I didn’t know would break open and expose me so severely. And while I wouldn’t want to do that little social experiment ever again, I learned how to hold the “both, and” in a far more intentional way.

How often have you withheld feelings of joy or satisfaction with where you are because of a heartbreak, disappointment, or loss of any kind? How many times have you said “I'll be happy when…” as if there is some magical algorithm to acquiring happiness, only to realize later that there is no such thing as a perfect scenario?

The heart chakra is the gateway to giving and receiving love and compassion, but as you may have suspected by now, can be hard to access if the energy held in your first three chakras are blocked or suppressed.

As you spend time moving through this meditation, notice the desires that arise afterwards? Do they require using your hands to make, create, or connect with another person? Our arms and hands are an extension of our heart energetically, and therefore healing the heartspace becomes more accessible when we allow the urges of our hands to be acknowledged.

Did someone say inner child work?

Working with the heart in any capacity might just bring up the triggers, traumas, hurts, and old scenarios you may have worked hard to suppress. However, it’s really hard to heal what we refuse to feel.

May this meditation support you in dropping into your heart in beautiful ways, and may you always remember that you’ve got you, and you are worthy of any support or space holding you need along your journey. And don’t forget to add yourself to that list of things you love most.

In love,
TaKisha

Better question…would you know if you were operating in your full power or not? Do you know, or remember, how that feels?

There’s something about knowing you’re operating in your power that makes the landscape all around you far more clear. Standing in your truth, owning your space, and demanding only the best from your reality is a game changer for boundary setting. And being in your power is one of the easiest things you can do to clear the space for joy.

Here’s to rekindling your inner fire, owning who you are, and doing all you desire with the power that standing in your confidence brings.

In love,

TaKisha

There’s an interesting thing that happens when we invite ourselves to take a seat, pull out the creative medium of our choosing, and allow our inner child to play.

And it feels like no coincidence that the second chakra, the Sacral, is where literal creation occurs. It is held in the region of our womb space and connects us to our pleasure center, creativity, emotions, abundance, and intimacy. All areas that often feel scarce in the early years of motherhood.

As you listen to this meditation dedicated to the energetic container of your most connected, creative and abundant self, be gentle with yourself. Allowing ourselves to feel is both simple yet challenging if you’ve spent a large amount of time tending to the emotions and desires of others at the expense of your own. So patience is key. This particular chakra (and its sister the throat chakra), go hand in hand in the deep work of honoring and claiming true authenticity, joy, and unapologetic ease.

In love,

TaKisha

Then, on a crisp autumn Saturday morning in the second floor studio of Mind the Mat in Del Ray, I laid on my mat, closed my eyes at the prompting of my teacher, Deb, and began a journey I had zero expectations about. My attention journeyed through my body according to her prompts and before long I had drifted off into a timeless dream-like state. I hadn’t felt that relaxed in months, and suddenly I was all but melting into the hardwood flooring.

I could hear her voice, see the colors and shapes she called out, but simultaneously I saw my own visions like my dream world and waking meditation world were walking side by side. When she called us back into our bodies and into the present moment I opened my eyes to complete darkness. The sun had set and 45 minutes had passed. It felt like it had been 10, but my body felt like I had the best three-hour nap of my life.

I was hooked.

As a mom of a toddler at the time, the idea of this guided rest giving me the results of real sleep in a fraction of the time felt like the motherhood survival hack I needed, and I wanted everyone to know about it.

Once I graduated from my training and began teaching my own classes, Yoga Nidra was one of two sessions I sold out every time. And almost every student was a mom.

They’d eventually start showing up with their own blankets, fuzzy socks and eye pillows; filling the Teal Center’s workshop room from end to end.

In less than an hour's time they would emerge looking refreshed, full of gratitude, and off to re-enter the realm of mothering with more energy than before. I loved holding that space for them.

The best part? At one of my last events before the world and everything in it closed down for the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, one of my students stopped me after class and said “thank you for reminding me that I could feel safe in my own body.” Real root chakra, safety and belonging, trauma resolution, mother wound healing level work. She trusted the practice, and was shown that she could trust herself.

And that, my friends, is what a Yoga Nidra practice can do. And this is why NOW felt like the best time to share this with you. Beginning with the Root Chakra.

May the practice support you, give you rest, activate your inner compass, and allow you to feel truly safe in your own body, too.

In love,
TaKisha

The clock just struck midnight here on the east coast and while spring time feels way more fitting to celebrate anything “new” I can’t help but appreciate the energy of “Happy New Year” that resounds just at the stroke of midnight.

So here’s a quick note to say thank you for being here, for being you, and may this year bring you the ease, joy, love and abundance you deserve. Likewise, may all people, places and things that mean to cause you harm be exterminated post haste.

Oh, and may we all get a new season of Bridgerton expeditiously. Please and thank you.

Looking forward to connecting with you more this year and beyond. Oh, and don’t forget to invite your mama friends to join you for The Art of Ease by subscribing to this substack space for themselves.

So much love to you and all you love and care for everyday.

-TaKisha (and Dr. J)