ReMothering with Clara Belize Wisner

Clara Belize Wisner

ReMothering is a podcast dedicated to nourishing women at all points on the mother-continuum. clarabelize.substack.com

  1. JAN 29

    "The Personal is Political"

    I have been circling around, feeling into, digesting, metabolizing, holding in my prayers the events happening in Iran and Minnesota in my own way over the last few weeks. I do not consume news on a regular basis through any channels (other than reading my local newspaper weekly) because: 1. I have a very sensitive system and I know myself well. I’m not afraid of ‘dysregulation’ but I am solidly aware of how much I can actually hold within my body without going unconscious. I am in a season of life where I have young souls to shepard and my solid, stable presence is needed here, at home. As Mother Theresa said, “You want to change the world? Go home and love your family.” I take this very seriously. 2. My personal life, the way I live, how I spend my money, the work I do in the world, and the way I hold myself, is my activism. It is how I use my energy to create the world I would like to leave my children. I am very clear and very passionate about this. As I’ve heard credited to Marion Woodman (although I don’t think she originated the quote) “the personal is political.” I truly live by this concept in so many ways. My way of living and being is my rebellion. However, it can feel a little off in some way to be posting about my business and little memes about nourishment when it feels like the world is on fire. The Two Camps There is one camp that says, “Be professional.” This voice says, “You don’t need to weigh in on every political disruption.” “No one cares what you have to say about politics, just stay in your lane.” This voice is the voice of business as usual. This doesn’t feel attuned to the thread of Truth and authenticity I aspire to uphold. And yet, it is exhausting and not necessarily in service for me to add my voice to the cacophony of enraged and disembodied voices. There is another camp that seems to be more prevalent these days in the social media sphere: “Share every single thing you think.” It’s become fashionable and popular for anyone with a social media account to share their political views perpetually, at all hours, and without discernment or consideration. In fact, for some (and I’m so glad this is not my readership) not sharing your political views or stance is akin to sin. The threat of ‘silence is compliance.’ As always, the Truth is somewhere in the middle. It’s not ok to float right over all the atrocities and current events and act as if nothing is happening and just go on posting about my offerings. It’s also not ok for me to lose my s**t and report every single thing I think and feel when it isn’t related to what I’m in the public eye sharing about. Wide Open Heart, Big F*****g Fence Maybe surprisingly, I think of myself as a private person. I would not have social media at all if it weren’t in service to The Mother for me to do so. I don’t always want the attention on me. I can be comfortable in the confident leader role and I can also be comfortable as the quiet, back-of-the-room observer. I have a very big, robust, and strong fence around my heart because of how open, soft, and sensitive my heart is. As Danielle LaPorte says, “Wide open heart, big f*****g fence.” I keep my inner circle very small, on purpose. It’s taken me until my late 30s to get comfortable and clear with this. I share a good deal about my personal life, but anything I share is for the specific purpose of teaching on a larger theme. I am not just sharing my life to share my life. I am sharing my perspective/experience to illustrate a universal deeper meaning. That’s the way my writing and expression works. I show what I would like to teach with my beingness. I become the lesson. However, this doesn’t mean I share anywhere near the majority of my unique and personal process. I am also a messy, unsure, hurting-at-times human, after all. My messaging politically has been consistent throughout my whole tenure being in the somewhat public eye. I belong to neither side. I identify with neither side. On a personal level, I agree with one side on some things and I agree with the other on others. I am on the side of humanity, and that is a not a political party. Something I read today hit home: “Love your neighbors more than your government.” I am on the side of humanity, of love, of courage, of beauty, of the thread of organic Life. Always. Separation Has Always Been the True Enemy Separation has always been the true enemy in my eyes. Atrocities happen. They happen for no good reason. I would never try to explain away or gloss over pain, suffering, and real injustice. My spirituality doesn’t avoid the dirt. It is about brining the Soul into the dirt, the body, the matter. Not in a “lets make meaning out of this” way, but in a way that honors the organic and God. A long time teacher of mine, Coly Vulpiani wrote recently: “What if the quality of energy we are expressing in the name of justice is actually feeding the very atmosphere we are trying to change? Not because our concerns are wrong. But because of the quality of consciousness we bring to them matters…. In times like these what we are becoming matters as much as what we are resisting.” What we are becoming matters. This is the creator’s focus: in the face of atrocities, what and who am I becoming? What am I embodying with my actions, words, and thoughts? We are creators and artists. Each and every one of us in a co-creation with our reality and those around us. This isn’t woo woo mumbo jumbo. This is quantum entanglement. This is the field within which we all abide. How we show up matters. The “quality of consciousness” we bring to a situation matters. We cannot fight violence, disconnection and insanity with violence, disconnection and insanity. As Martin Luther King said: “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." We don’t have to go out and hold signs on the streets to be activists. We can if that feels right for us. We don’t have to call our senators. We definitely can and should if that’s what feels right for us. We don’t have to ‘be political’ in any way shape or form to be advocates for the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. We do need to love each other. Truly love. We need to become the people that can do conflict differently. We need to bring integrity and coherence into our work, our homes, our relationships, the places we spend our time, where we put our attention. We need to clean up where we’re sitting. The personal is political, after all. For me, this looks like a very deep and personal practice of prayer. I spend precious time each morning with my attention on all the pain and hope emanating from Iran. I send the freedom fighters my energetic support. I allow myself to reach into the hearts of the people in pain and offer them my love. I pray for the souls of the people in the regime causing the hurt to wake up to their own despair and feel it. I pray for Trump and ICE agents and the families being torn apart. Sometimes, I breathe in the agony and suffering into the alchemical energetic chamber of my heart and breathe out love. I do this over and over again. I use my attention and intention to bring coherence to the field within myself and the one we all inhabit. I am reminded of the poem, Call Me By My True Names by Tich Nhat Hanh. I remember that one being’s ache is my ache. Make Art with Our Pain We need to make art with and from our grief, our misery, our fear, and our suffering. People always lament, “What can I do!? I just wish I could do something!” This is what we “do.” I am not saying every person needs to become a painter or a sculptor, but in the broader sense of artist, as in making something that is uniquely yours and did not exist before you came to be on this planet. Maybe it’s taking a walk every morning and dancing with the sunrise. Maybe it’s the way you chat with a stranger at the grocery store. Maybe it’s baking biscuits for your new neighbor. Maybe it’s writing poetry or love letters. Maybe it is making an epic protest sign and holding it in the freezing cold. Maybe it is writing a post on social media. Make whatever it is with your whole heart, the grief, the rage, the hopelessness included. I believe this to be the greatest act of resistance. I can never pretend to understand why the atrocities happening in the world happen. I would never desecrate a mother’s or a father’s or a child’s or a friend’s pain by trying to explain it away. I do encourage all of us to express ourselves through art. To make our pain known through an act of creation. To let ourselves and our pain be seen, heard and felt through our unique extension of ourselves and our love out into the world. Please, let us know in the comments, what are you creating? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clarabelize.substack.com/subscribe

    13 min
  2. JAN 4

    Awakening is Painful

    “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” - Carl Jung I’m writing this in the first few days of 2026. It has not been an easy transition. I haven’t had anything drastic externally happen to me or my family, although I have had two very tragic events happen to people adjacent to me. My personal life has been nothing but really quiet, sweet and simple. And yet, so much inside me is moving. Like the tectonic plates within my reality are lifting, shuddering and re-jiggering. When an unconscious aspect of ourselves and our patterns comes into our conscious awareness, it can feel like it threatens the very fabric of our reality. I have felt this the last couple weeks. I can feel my reality changing, at its very core. We have a few options when we’re feeling like this: 1. We can deny it. Try to push the uneasy feelings underground. We all will do this for awhile. It’s human nature to deny change. I personally don’t know anyone who feels a whisper of change on the horizon and just willingly surrenders to it right away without any denial. But, the longer we shove it away, the more uncomfortable it gets. It’s like trying to hold a lid on boiling water, eventually it’s going to spill and get all over everything. We can find all sorts of ways to release a little steam here and there. so we can play dumb about the awakening for a long time. We can deny anything is off or needs adjustment. We can stick our fingers in our ears and say, “LALALALALA,” for quite a long while. We can get really distracted and pulled into all sorts of side quests that take us away from the actual realization our Soul is pointing us towards. Nothing is wrong with this. It’s all part of the process. It takes so much courage to be truly honest with ourselves. 2. We can fight with it. Then, eventually we are no longer able to deny it any long. We become aware something needs to change. And then we fight it. We resist it. We don’t believe it’s possible. We don’t see a way to make the change or integrate the realization. A friend of mine said when speaking about realizing what we must change, “Anything but that. I can do anything but that.” This is how awakening can feel, “I could literally do anything but that.” So we fight. We claw at the walls. We resist the sensations, feelings, despair, honesty, vulnerability, and weakness that comes with change. Most of the time, we have be beginners again. There is a way awakening will always bring you back to square one. Being a beginner isn’t fun for most people. This is also totally normal. We can’t stop fighting until we’re ready to stop fighting. It’s all part of the process. It takes real courage to lean into the despair and not fight with it. 3. We can surrender. We can have faith. We can move into the awakening willing to be carved, changed, and trusting that all it brings is for our and everyone else’s highest and best good. Any difficult experience we are having/have had is an opportunity for an awakening. The most truly faith-filled people I know are the people who have been through unthinkably difficult experiences and come out the other side with more grace, wisdom, and faith in some guiding force that is beyond our comprehension. This doesn’t have to be a religious faith. This isn’t always the same faith I have. However, I do not know a way to truly get through the arduous and stripping-away task of awakening without it. You need a tether into something bigger than you. Our small human minds cannot weather the immensity of our Soul’s tasks, desires and journeys without a tether to some meaning outside of our small selves. This is why throughout human history, you will always find faith, spirituality, and a relationship to something mysterious and unlimited at the center of the human condition. Faith doesn’t give you a reason for all the awful things that can happen in the world. Nothing can. Faith doesn’t tie our lives up in a pretty bow. Faith doesn’t mean there is a big daddy in the sky coming to save you. Faith means you can say yes to your Soul. It means you can take a leap into the unknown, knowing whatever happens, you’ll be caught. It takes a lot of courage to have faith. Faith doesn’t make awakening easier. Knowing that you’ll be caught doesn’t actually make the jumping into the abyss any more comfortable. There is still crippling fear. There are still nerves. There will be more despair just around the corner. There are still all the parts of you who don’t have faith or who need to “see it to believe it.” We are not all one way. “I am large. I contain multitudes,” as Walt Whitman said. The big misconception is that faith will somehow save us from pain. We think if we have faith, we’ll be able to just “give it all to God” or breeze through our challenges with a smile and a wink. This hasn’t been my experience of faith. I know for me, personally, I have a deep, deep practice of faith. Faith is the foundation upon which I live and know myself and I have never come to the precipice of a big change, transition or awakening in my life without feeling completely and totally terrified. Faith simply gives me something to practice while I’m in the midst of pain and unknown. Once I’ve stopped denying. Once I’ve stopped fighting, and trust me, I do plenty of those, I come back to this statement: “God/Source/Universe/Guiding Light, I don’t know what to do here. Help me. Show me.” And then I wait, open. A teacher of mine asked me recently, “Did God ask you to do this?” This could be one way to determine if we’re denying, fighting or surrendering. If God didn’t ask us to do what we’re doing, we’re probably not in a pose of surrender. I’ve been practicing. What is God asking me to do? Did God ask me to do this? We will each have our own unique ways of connecting with God/Source/Higher Self. For me, I have come to know when I drop down below the static layer of life and busyness and drama and my own patterns, I tap into a deeper knowing. This where God “speaks” to me. For me, this requires a quiet mind and somewhat settled body, which can be hard to come by, but is maybe the most important thing I can give myself, and ultimately it is a choice I make, to listen or not to listen. I know I need to have a sense of unattachment to the outcome or information I will receive. It’s like listening carefully to someone, but with your whole body instead of just your ears. Sometimes, in this space of listening, I get nothing. Sometimes I get something like “not yet” or “it’s unclear” or just “be still.” It’s not always a definitive, satisfying answer. For the past few weeks, the only thing God has been asking me to do is one thing: write. And it’s the last thing I want to do. When I sit down to write I am plagued with the idea I have nothing of value to say or that no one cares or that it’s too much to even try. My Soul doesn’t care about any of these excuses, but my human mind does. But, it’s the only thing that is clear: Write. Write. Write. Write and take care of myself. Write and take care of my children. Write and sleep. Write and eat. Write and read. Write and pray. And…I haven’t done it. That’s how this works. We can also know exactly what we need to do and not do it. It is no small thing to be honest with ourselves. We will avoid it in every way possible because “there is no coming to consciousness without pain.” There are many parts of ourselves (for good reason!) that want to avoid pain at all costs. Avoid the discomfort. Avoid the shake up. Avoid the unknown. Avoid the raging, the grief, the hurt, the things that we’ve been trying so hard to keep down under the surface. The amount of energy that it takes to keep things at bay is vast. It is big. And when we finally turn towards them (which is what writing does for me) it can feel like we are never going to be able to turn away. Here I am, finally, after months of denying and fighting, I am writing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clarabelize.substack.com/subscribe

    10 min
  3. 2025-10-10

    The Strength of Women

    My Recent Experience Over the weekend, I spent 4 nights in Mexico participating in Moondance with over 300 other women. Moondance is an indigenous ceremony where women opt to not sleep, fast, and dance and sing under the full moon for 4 nights. There are a lot of other aspects and details to it, but ultimately it is a prayer circle for the healing of the Feminine principle. For me it was a way to connect with a time before women we were thought of as the ‘weaker sex’, a time when women were respected for their spiritual connection to the power of creation and manifestation. A place where women’s strength is trusted, exalted, and fully experienced. We sacrifice our comfort to deepen our attention on our prayers and make them sacred. Prayers for ourselves and our families. Prayers for our relationships and relations. Prayers for our lands and Earth. Prayers for our ancestors and legacies. Prayers for conscious change and remembrance. Prayers for all creatures, plants and the elements. As I am taking space and integrating what was a deeply alchemizing and profound experience for me, I am seeing the power of women remembering their strength. Damsels There is a strong collective story so many women play into of the “damsel in distress.” On a symbolic level this story says that women are weak, powerless, and need a man or something to save them. This story says physical strength trumps spiritual strength. This story says logic trumps intuition. This story says mental academia trumps embodied experience. This story says winter is bad and summer is good. This story says death is scary and to deny/erase it. This story says faith is only for those who are impractical, dumb and delusional. This story says money is worth more than integrity. This story says our difficulties in life are victimization not initiation. The Feminine does not need saving. She is the creator and the destroyer. We, the beings that are the altar through which spirit comes into form, do not need saving. We, the beings that raise up the next generation of humanity in spite of wars, famines, unthinkable abuse, and dangers beyond comprehension, do not need saving. We, the beings that give of our bodies so that Life may continue forward, do not need saving. We, the beings that die and bleed only to be reborn, every single month, do not need saving. Women are strong. And yet, it is not a dominating kind of strong. It is the strength of the Earth, who will always hold you, no matter how high up in your tower or how deep in the ground you are. It is the strength of spirit, in form. We may not have the brute physical strength that men have, but, weaved into our very bodies, we have a strength that comes from our connection to nature, cycles, creation and destruction. So many of us have forgotten this strength. It’s like this strength has been put to sleep, lulled into a drowsy, comfortable, slumber, and we have forgotten who we are. I can’t help but think this is partly due to how few contained and guided initiations we have in modern life. Instead of owning our power, we waste our energy comparing ourselves to others. Instead of owning our power, we use up our energy tearing down other women. Instead of owning our power, we park our energy by agonizing and ruminating over our unworthiness. What if we remembered we are all the daughters of Creation, Herself? Sisters to each other? How do we remember this? Initiation We remember through initiation. We remember through seeing and watching ourselves approach, cross, and be transformed by thresholds. Facing our fears and experiencing our own strength, not with force and gritting our teeth, but through surrender. Initiation demands that we put our small minds to the side and walk, willingly, into the flames. So many of our built-in initiations in life have been corrupted and stalled. Menarche is shamed and rushed through unceremoniously for most young girls. Childbirth and pregnancy has been medicalized and pathologized. Menopause also pathologized, stalled and stopped completely if possible. Death is only spoken about in whispers and swept away as soon as possible. Even our monthly cycles and bleeds, which can be mini initiations, are expected to be hidden, kept under wraps, and largely experienced alone and ignored. If you feel shame or confusion about any of these initiations there is a great likelihood it has been stunted, stalled, or is incomplete. We can also have plenty initiations that are unique to us, through life events, painful experiences, and coming up against the dark, unknown and mysterious. Initiations shape us. They change us. They allow us to become. They allow us to experience Feminine strength which is directly connected to our embodied experience of Creation. Cultures that still have a connection to the natural world as sentient and alive in and of itself, revere the Feminine principle. They revere matter as holy, because they know all things are imbued with spirit. They would create containers and rituals that would complete the initiation of a woman into her power and connect her to all those before her through all time (like the 40 days sitting in practice post childbirth, for example). Tyson Yunkapora (aboriginal philosopher and writer) says, “You know a culture is really domesticated when the women are considered weaker.” Women’s strength has almost been forgotten in the Western world. We infantilize women and call it femininity. A woman is not meant to be held as trophy or an object of sexual satisfaction, this is perhaps the biggest travesty of our modern times. A woman has access to creation and destruction. She has access, through her very physical form, to the forces of nature. Her value is not in how small her waist is or how big her lips. Her value is in her beingness, the radiance of God that shines through her eyes. Her very aliveness and her ability to allow that aliveness to flow through her, unimpeded, is what feeds the world. Women do not need to be saved; from men, from the world, from corporations, or from the Patriarchy, women simply need to be fully and completely initiated, because then they save themselves and their families and the world. When a woman truly experiences her strength she will no longer feel the need to subvert her power through looking for saving, comparison, or validation. A woman’s strength does not come from gritting her teeth and getting it over with. It doesn’t come from what or how much she produces or how much she can ‘do’, it comes from her ability to sit in the dark, with herself and for herself. If you feel called to explore this concept of initiation I am going to be speaking at a 3 day online gathering called INITIATION next weekend October 19th at 1pm Mountain Time alongside some other incredible women who hold deep wisdom about this concept of initiation as well. You can get more information and register here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clarabelize.substack.com/subscribe

    8 min
  4. 2025-09-30

    The Things that Scare You

    I am about to embark on a great adventure. Eight nights away from my girls and husband. Traveling internationally alone. A ceremony that involves days and nights of not eating, not sleeping, and lots of sweating. As I sit here staring at my mostly packed suitcase full of camping paraphernalia and gear that I hope will bring me some semblance of comfort in the potentially blistering hot sun or freezing cold rain, I feel a familiar vulnerability. There is a voice in the back of head saying, “You know you don’t have to do this, right? You know you could just stay home, sleep in your beautiful organic bed and bedding, holding your little girls hot, curling, little hands? You could stay in close proximity to the safe, solid, refuge of your husband’s body? You could eat wholesome food and wake up rested, regulated, to the cacophony of the Sandhill Crane migration happening right outside your bedroom window? Life is so good here You could just not go. You know that, right?!” This is a voice of reason, it’s true. I am choosing to do this hard thing. I am choosing to fly thousands of miles away from my home, my land, my people, my comfort, to experience something that will most likely be quite rough, difficult, involve big physical challenges, and be wildly outside of my preferences. And the truth is, I don’t have to do it. I could simply stay home. I could stay comfortable. Life would probably stay pretty good. Since the moment I heard my Soul call to attend this ceremony, my personality has had all sorts of judgements and fears about it. For almost a year I have been having dreams revolving around this ceremony. Dreams filled with fear, anxiety, confusion, mystery, as well as expansion, newness, and potential transformation. I don’t have any expectations of this experience. I don’t have high hopes or any lofty ideals I’m hoping to bring to fruition. I don’t feel better than anyone who hasn’t/won’t do something like this. I am not one to fantasize much. I’m generally quite optimistic and always operate from a mindset of abundance, but I also really value boots-on-the-ground realism. I’m hesitant to jump into things because when I decide to do something, I generally do it well and do it fully committed; both feet first. I wish I could be more “type B” sometimes, but I would hate to be unprepared. So, here I am staring at my suitcase. I have and am prepared. I have agnoized over the packing list. I have contemplated a lot of possible scenarios. I have gone through all the things I need to do ad naseum. I have prepared my family, our home, and our village of helpers and supports for my time away. I have asked my community for prayers and well-wishes. I think about how many times in my life have I stared a suitcase with similar thoughts of “you don’t have to do this” swimming through my head. I felt simliarly when I went to South East Asia by myself when I was 20 years old, before readily available GPS, smartphones, airbnb or uber. I remember feeling deeply afraid, heartbroken, and alone. I was meant to go with a boyfriend who had broke up with me seemingly out of the blue before the trip. I ended up getting a tape worm and almost dying by myself in a hotel room, but alas, I prevailed. This trip built my confidence to navigate the world by myself on practica, l as well as spiritual levels. I remember the agongy of will I or won’t I go, before I travelled to Africa to live in Zambia for 2.5 years as a Peace Corps volunteer. I could write a whole memoir about that experience, but let’s just say it deeply shaped and softened me. It humbled me, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I remember a deep tension before leaving to Japan, again, by myself, the very start of over a year of living nomadically. Little did I know as I stared at my suitcase then, that I was mere months away from my entire world as I thought I knew it, crumbling. And yet, again, I survived, and I am so much richer in heart and Soul than before this experience. It’s sexy and flashy to say, “Do the things that scare you!” “Get out of your comfort zone!” But the things that scare you are scary for a reason. Simply doing the things that scare you does not guarantee you won’t find yourself hallucinating with fever in a hotel room, alone, in Thailand. It does not guarantee you won’t get your heart shattered. These voices that want you to stay home and stay safe, aren’t wrong. They are taking what has happened in the past and applying it to the future. What else can we be expected to do, really? How else would we learn? This morning the voices urging me toward comfort were loud. They had been arising before, but I had been shoving them down, sticking them in any nook and cranny so I could get on with my preparations. But this morning, I also remembered, these voices are here to protect me. These parts want to protect me from the shock, pain, sudden change, THE UNKNOWN, and that is ok. I am so grateful for these parts. Afterall, they have done a really good job. I am safe. Generally, I think people really need to get a lot more comforatble with the mundane. I think most people would benefit from just sitting their ass down, so to speak, and being still. I think the majority of women in a similar demographic as me, would actually benefit from a lot more simple, consistent, safe, and ‘boring’ living. Feeding themselves three nutrious meals a day, getting enough sleep, and focusing on what relaxes them and brings them pleasure. I believe this is what most of us need, most of the time. However, there is also Soul work and Soul nourishment to be done. There are times when we need to take a leap of faith. There are times when we need to throw ourselves into the black unknown. There are times when we need to shake our life up and put ourselves in the way of transformation. A little known piece here is we don’t need to go looking for it. Stay with the basics. Perpare yourself for the call. It will find you. It will be clear when it’s clear. It won’t be urgent or desperate. It won’t be an “I need that!!” of the small mind. It won’t be confusing. It will feel like bell is ringing your entire body. Resonance. When I feel that resonance, I have learned, you simply must say yes, you go no questions asked, you follow that thing. It doesn’t mean it isn’t going to take you to the brink of annihilation, it probably will, but what is available on the other side, is an entirely new way of being. What is on the other side, is something you cannot even fathom from this side and that’s precisely why it is so terrifying. And if you feel that resonance and you say no, the thing will keep knocking, it will get louder and louder and harder to ignore. You don’t need to worry or fret about missed opportunities. You will be presented with many. What do I do with these terrified, protector parts that keep applying the past to the future in the face of a resonant Soul call? When I remember to stop trying to make the voices go away or being completely identified with them, I go on a walk with them. I give them my full attention. I turn towards them instead of away. I allow them to tell me what they’re worried about. I ask them what they want me to know. I ask them where they came from. I take the time and space to really listen, just like I would listen to my daughter if she was scared about something. When they have told me everything, I tell them thank you. I tell them I appreciate you. I tell them, I see you and what you do for me. I tell them, I hear you and I really value your insights. I tell them, we are safe. I tell them, I know this is scary and we don’t know what is going to happen, and I have got this. This is what we’re doing. Soul leads my life. It’s ok for you to be scared. My Soul can take it from here. A Soul-led life most definitely requires we do the things that scare us, but it doesn’t mean we leave our scared and protector parts in the dust. We can still love them, appreciate them, and listen to them. We can still remember they are parts of us and deserve acknowledgement, hearing them out, and respect for their learned wisdom. In these moments I always think of the Rumi poem, The Guest House. This being human is a guest house.Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness,some momentary awareness comesas an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all!Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,who violently sweep your houseempty of its furniture,still, treat each guest honorably.He may be clearing you outfor some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice,meet them at the door laughing,and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes,because each has been sentas a guide from beyond. Doing the things that scare us does not mean we ignore the parts of us that are scared. It means we walk alongside our fear. We acknowledge and honor our fear, while courageously leading with the resonance of our Soul. What scares you? What are you resonant with, but the ‘voices of comfort’ are loudly discouraging you to do? Use this inquiry as a journal prompt, comment below, or hit reply. I would love to hear if you want to share. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clarabelize.substack.com/subscribe

    11 min
  5. 2025-08-22

    Introducing: ReMothering

    It is with great tenderness and genuine humility that I would like to introduce the new title and energy of this space: ReMothering. Up until now this publication has been called Matriarch, which is a powerful word and symbol. Matriarchal energy is compelling, intense, passionate, and refined. Matriarch has a true Queen current. I love it. Holding this formidable Mature Feminine energy in the world is definitely part of my unique medicine. However, this spring and summer have brought so much to the surface. This has been a time of reckoning and revelation for me, as for so many of you I am sure, because we are connected. I have softened in ways I didn’t expect. I have been humbled in ways that were ultimately quiet and gentle, yet profound. So much of my personal experience with awakening before these recent months has come through suffering. I have experienced awakening through big life experiences that were painful, shocking, and violent. I have experienced awakening through feeling so deeply uncomfortable in my body and life that if something didn’t change I would have had to end my life. I have experienced awakening through substance abuse and self harm. I have experienced awakening through fighting with myself so much that ultimately I had no other choice than to surrender. These were all experiences I am deeply grateful for as they led me to who and where I am today, but they were all severely excruciating processes. But the last few months have been the first time I have felt like I was simply blooming. No force. No excess pain (still plenty of pain, as “there is no coming to consciousness without pain,” Carl Jung), but no unnecessary suffering. It has been a gentle opening to something different and completely new. The Matriarch wasn’t the archetype that carried me through me this one, it was The Great Mother or the Collective Nurturer, as I have called her before. ReMothering isn’t a static word or concept. It’s a verb. It implies an ongoing process; maybe a process we can experience in our own individual ways as well as together. I know in my heart, womb, and Soul that the world needs more Mothered Mothers and Mothered Women. I call this the Mother-Continuum. Whether you’re a daughter, a daughter who wants to be a mother, a young mother, a seasoned mother, a grandmother, and beyond; you are on the Mother-Continuum. If you are not a mother yourself, you have come from a mother and that’s all that matters here. We are recognizing of the legacy of the Love of The Mother that sustains us all. We all deserve to feel the complete but unintimidating, huge but gentle, unshakable and unconditional love of The Mother. We can all remember how to access this simple and stable love within our own bodies, offer it to ourselves first and foremost, then offer it to our loved ones and eventually out into the world. This is my intention with ReMothering. Creating a space rich in the love of The Mother, so that it may nourish those that come into contact with it. This isn’t just all touchy-feely new-age gobbly gook, The Mother knows about practicality. She is a master of the systems and structures that hold us in the rhythms that nurture and feed us. So, this space will have some very clear deliverables. As a free subscriber you will receive these personal essays and recordings of me reading my personal essays. As a celebratory gift for the launch of the ReMothering, for the next month I am also offering all free subscribers my Deep Nutrition Framework, which is a prioritized list of what to focus on when it comes to building a diet and lifestyle that nourishes you and the people you love on all levels. As a paid subscriber for $7/month or $77/year you will receive my essays, Deep Nutrition Framework, as well as: * My newly updated Meal Planning Guide (with lots of easy, simple, deeply nourishing recipes for the whole family). * Monthly (at least) Nourishing Tips, Metabolically Supportive Recipes, Meal Plans, Rituals and Ways of Connecting to the Seasons, Nature, and Your Body. * ReMothering Village subscriber chat, where you can share pictures of the food you cook, recipes, parenting tips, gratitudes, personal shares and anything that you feel pertains to this ReMothering process. I am envisioning this being a place where we can crowd source ReMothering resources, practices, food info, parenting ideas, tools, and provide sacred witnessing, reflection and mirroring to each other. Thank you for being here. I am available for any questions or clarifications you might have. I appreciate your time and energy here, immensely. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clarabelize.substack.com/subscribe

    6 min
  6. 2025-08-03

    True Humility

    I have been contemplating the real meaning of humility. I see such a lack of genuine humility in the wellness/personal development spaces. As a provider in this space, especially on social media, there is an omnipresent drive to position yourself as the one who ‘knows.’ You need to have a hook— a way to grab peoples’ attention in the first few seconds as someone scrolls on by. A society of people who are searching for saving and sound-bite-solutions, produces a an assortment of vendors playing the role of savior and giving oversimplified answers. Where is the humility on either side of this equation? What is True Humility? I have come to believe that true humility has nothing to do with shirking praise. It is not feigning meekness or modesty at your achievements. It is not believing yourself too weak or incapable of impact. Humility is not saying “Oh jeez! Please, stop! You don’t have to do that!” (All the while loving every second of acclaim and compliments.) It is not pretending that you don’t need or like recognition or validation. Humility is as much not an inferiority complex as it is not a superiority complex. One of the spiritual texts I come back to again and again is the The Way of Mastery. Concerning humility it says: “Genuine humility flows from the deep-seated recognition that you cannot save yourself, that you are created and not Creator, that you are effect and not cause (in an absolute sense), that something called Life is not yours, that there is something beyond your capacity of containment and intellectual understanding. And if that something ever decided to give up loving you, you would cease to exist.” In other words, real, true humility is an in-the-body recognition that without Source Energy, God, Universal Intelligence, The Great Mystery you would do and be nothing. Really sit with this a moment. Let it wash over you and in you. No matter where you are or what you are doing, really allow this fact into your body: the thing responsible for your very existence is unfathomable to your mind. You cannot know it. How does that make you feel? When I feel into it, I feel a lot of things. I feel a deep relief and a great fear. I feel simultaneously like weeping with grief and cackling with ecstasy. I feel terrified and completely electrified, at the same time. I feel a deep, resonant, quaking Truth in my bones and through my center. This is true humility. The Power of Dreamwork I have been working intentionally with my dreams in the style of Marion Woodman and Carl Jung for about a year. Dreamwork has been an unending source of humility for me. I feel inexperienced with the language, while at the same time feeling highly attracted and resonant with it. I feel like a total rookie, but also clear that it is for me. As someone who has identified as an ‘experienced practitioner’, who has genuinely built my life and career around my own interests and spiritual seeking (hello 1/3 profile in Human Design), I may have gotten a bit stuck in a rut of feeling like I knew what I was doing and had done it all. I have done a lot. I have had more experiences in my 37 years than many people have had in lifetimes. And yet, as the saying goes, the more you know, the more you know you do not know. Stepping earnestly into the world of Jungian dream analysis has given me humbling experience after humbling experience with just how much I do not know. It has shown me how little attention I have give my Dream Maker, my Soul, the subconscious part of me. The part that is actually most connected to the Great Mystery. Every single night our dreams are filled with symbols, images, stories… subconscious material that we can choose to work with or not. I used to think dreams were just psychological castoffs; unimportant details being sifted and reorganized from our days. This is, on a small level, true. Our dreams can largely be our psyches trying to synthesize and rebalance all the information and experiences we’ve taken in throughout our waking life. Our dreams are not junk, however. They are not lifeless jibber jabber. They may be full of content we do not understand, but they are alive with metaphor; the language of the Soul. When we write our dreams off as nonsensical or just weird interpretations of what happened to us in our waking life, we lose out on the Wisdom staring back at us. One of my most spiritually fulfilling practices is to look out onto the natural world and feel how it is looking back at me. This is what I am doing with my dreamwork, acknowledging that there is some part of me, I like calling it my Dream Maker or my Soul, attempting to communicate with me. I am looking at my dreams and seeing and feeling them look back at me. Dreamwork is quiet work. It’s not work done out in the world. It’s done at home, in my journal, in silence, and within my very own psyche. There is zero flashiness to it. And it’s some of the most deeply rewarding work I’ve done with myself and ultimately it is for no one else, but me. Shamanism and Dreamwork When you choose to practice ‘dream weaving’ you start to see and feel patterns, insights, realizations, and assimilations within yourself. It’s like your own personal shamanic journey created by your own personal Shaman (your Soul) each and every night. As Marion Woodman said, “The more you work with your dreams and your unconscious, and honor it, the more you understand it and it understands you.” Shamanic journeys are simply connecting you to this dream world and dream state in a more conscious way. This is what we do by working with our dreams. We bring consciousness to the unconscious, within us. We see that there are different forms of consciousness all around us. We are expanding our consciousness. So much of shamanic journey work is simply allowing our imaginations to run and move without the narrowing influence of the programmed egoic mind. Imagination is how you access the shamanic realms (without drugs). Dreams are as well. Dreamwork has shown me a new level and depth of unconsciousness within myself. As I build a relationship with my own Dream Maker I cultivate a relationship with the magical, feeling, intuitive, mysterious aspects of myself through the guidance of the bigger, wider part of Myself that lives unconfined by our consensus reality. My mind doesn’t really get it. And that’s precisely how I know it’s the place I need to be in and explore. We ‘experienced practitioners’ think we are out here ‘working with our shadows,’ ‘figuring out our patterns,’ and making some headway on comprehending our deeper selves while filtering it all through our conscious understanding. We think we are moderately far up the mountain peak of enlightenment, that we have made some noticeable dent in the meal that is a Soul’s journey to consciousness, but what weaving with my dreams has shown me is that the sheer amount of unconscious material I have to work with is endless. It’s like an iceberg. What we are conciously aware of is the part of the iceberg on the surface of the water. The unconscious is not only the lower, massive, under water part of the iceberg, but the dark oceanic waters as well. Its vastness cannot be overstated. We could never fully understand our motives. We are never going to totally comprehend our unique path. We will never know all the pieces and parts that are driving our own becoming. We cannot see all the lenses we perceive reality through. We aren’t meant to. It’s not how human life works. It’s not the experience we came here to have. Maybe when our spirits leave our bodies we will be able to access a higher vantage point, but until then, here we are. While here in these human forms, the idea that we could somehow comprehensively figure ourselves out, with our small intellects, lacks genuine humility. Humility When Giving and Receiving Medicine The amount of information available to us nowadays is shock-inducing. We can find the answers to literally any query we may have in a matter of seconds. We can ask Chat to summarize the entire internet for us on any subject we find ourselves wondering about. It can be so hard to imagine how little we know, especially when we can know so much, so quickly. We are also inundated by all sorts of advertising, algorithms, sales tactics, and general lack of authenticity every minute we choose to engage with any source of media. This can leave us feeling inferior, superior, angry, confused, and just plain overwhelmed. All of these things play in to our subconscious states. Everything we engage with takes up psychic space. We are so wildly impressionable. This is another humbling realization, just how little awareness and control we have around what is influencing us at any moment. It can feel so good to feel like we have got it figured out. It can feel like the safety we have always longed for. On one level, isn’t that what we are hungrily searching for? The answers? The secrets? The keys to life? The ways we’ll be safe and protected and stable forever? What is that thing you find yourself endlessly pining for? Money? A partner? A career? Fame? Power? A home? To be truly seen or loved? We all have some weak spot, or many weak spots. We all have some tender, raw, trembling desire (probably coming from a wound) that we might do things we are not proud of to acquire. Humility is recognizing this about ourselves. It is understanding that we do not know all we think we know, that we could never know. Again, recognizing that we only exist because of a The Great Mystery. Even though we think we know what reality is, we could easily be tricked or persuaded or enchanted at the prospect of getting something our unintegrated wounded parts secretly yearn for or believe they need. Humility is to know and honor that these desperate parts exist within us and understand that we may not see them unti

    17 min
  7. 2025-07-29

    Instagram, Integrity, and Narcissism

    I have been taking a social media break over the summer. It’s been about 2 months I’ve intentionally not engaged with social media. I go on to check my messages and respond to things once in awhile, but other than that I am not on it. For someone who spent the last 10 years (with one 6 month break around when my second daughter was born) building a social media account and showing up there pretty much every day, this has made me feel a lot of things. I knew I had to take a break when I really saw and, more importantly, felt fully in my body, how being on instagram at the capacity I was, was undeniably going against my values of nourishment and presence. Integrity: Why I Chose to Take an Instagram Break I recently read this definition of integrity from Amy May: “Integrity is the alignment of what you think, what you say and what you do.” About six months ago, I saw, with full, blinding clarity, that the way I related with instagram was not nourishing me or my family. I felt myself constantly being pulled into the digital sharing of my life versus actually living my life. I found myself preferring the ‘social engagement’ I received on instagram over my real life community connections. I noticed that if something cool or exciting or novel happened in my actual life, my first response was to think about how I would share it on instagram, instead of actually being in the experience itself. I noticed how when I was sitting down to eat dinner or relax on the couch I was much more likely to grab my phone and start scrolling than I was to be with or connect with my kids and husband right in front of me. This narrative around social media use and its insidious, dehumanizing qualities is a well discussed phenomena, most of us here on the internet are abundantly, conciousnly aware of it. Those of us that use social media regularly have heard it and felt it all before. We’ve all probably felt guilty or shameful about the way we use instagram as a pacifier at times. It wasn’t the first time I had noticed myself being hijacked like this, but it was the first time I really connected the dots between my social media use and my own aligned integrity with the frequency of nourishment. There was also this new dissatisfaction I was feeling with my ‘real’ life. Some way that my actual life just wasn’t filling me up in the ways I knew it could. I was starting to notice more and more low level, almost subconscious, uneasiness and disquiet, a lack of contentment that followed me around like a piece of toilet paper stuck to my shoe. I know the signs of addiction. One of the ways I know addiction is running the show in my life, is an isolated dissatisfied jitteriness, a pining for the one thing and not being able to enjoy anything else fully. There is an always-on-my-mind rumination that starts to surface. It brings me into myself in a harmful way, in way that makes me feel separate, hollow, and desperate. It disconnects me from those around me. There was all the sudden no longer a doubt instagram had become an addiction. The Personal is Political Poised at precipice of needing something to change, I heard my ‘business owner voice’ loud and clear saying: “You can’t stop. This is how you generate an income for yourself. This is how you ‘find clients.’ You’ve spent so much energy, time, and attention on building this platform and audience, you can’t just let it go!” And yet… I could not unsee how much lifeforce I was giving to this entity that is soul-less. If I am to be the change I wish to see in the world and be in alignment and integrity with my teachings and messages, I could not continue. If I was going to be the mother, wife, daughter, friend, and person that I would like to be, I could not continue. If I believe that I serve the highest and best good in the Universe when I am full, nourished, juicy, and grounded, I could not continue. If I believe that nourishment is possible in this modern world, I could not continue. If I believe that integrity, alignment, and authenticity are the most powerful frequencies, I could not continue. This is so much more important than my business. This is so much more important than money. This is so much more important than anything else. These are places we have to hold our values so strongly if we really want to see a New Way and new paradigm emerge. If we want to see a paradigm that truly values integrity, beauty, authenticity, nourishment, and the power of Life itself, we need to value those things more than our own fear. This is where, as Marion Woodman says, “The personal is political.” Through our choices and what we choose to follow within our own lives, we choose what we take part in creating. We are culture creators with each of our very personal choices. I am not on a crusade of better-than. I do not judge you if you use instagram. In all likelihood, after this summer I will probably find a way to use it with more consciousness. I am on my path and you are on yours. I trust both of those paths, completely and infinitely. How could I ever know what is best for you? How I Feel Off of Instagram In the last two months since I got off instagram, I can feel my nervous system settling in a way it hasn’t in many, many years (maybe since I got on social media). I feel genuinely happier. I keep searching for more a more precise way to say that, but that’s really it. I just feel happier. I feel more content. I feel more excited about my real, in person life. I have more energy for depth and connection for those friends that don’t live close to me, but that I value deeply. I feel more bonded with my children and like I have more capacity to hold space for them in their hard and frustrating moments. I feel like I am more engaged and am leading my family with more clarity and precision, instead of just reacting to what is thrown at me. I have more space for my husband and find myself way more interested in intimacy. I find myself feeling more gratitude and heart opening for him and our life together. More genuine connection. What I think, what I say and what I do are endlessly more aligned. Performance and Narcissism Being off Instagram, I have been struck, like a clanging bell, by the amount of performance social media creates. As someone who had the conscious intention to be completely and totally ‘real’ on instagram, to not use filters and to not only show the highlight reel of my life but share some of the hard stuff too, I’ve realized how it’s actually impossible not to perform at least a little. When you are creating content for other people, you are always going to be orienting externally. No one would be on instagram if they weren’t interested in having other people see them. That could be for business purposes or creative goals, but it’s going to create this view where a person is constantly putting themselves as the object of other people’s gaze. This creates an energy of performance and breeds narcissism. Narcissist is a big buzz word these days and I’m not going to get deep into the pop psychology that surrounds it, but it comes from the Greek Mythology story of Narcissus, who becomes so enamored with his own reflection that he eventually dies from unrequited love. Think about instagram, YouTube, and reality TV personalities, they are entertaining. They create a caricature of a person, which doesn’t allow that person to be multifaceted and nuanced (like a true human). Instagram promotes characters, not people. It puts people into black and white, pro and anti. It doesn’t have space for the nuance that true connection and understanding requires. This doesn’t have to be wrong or bad, it’s just true. If I create a character for myself and I play that character for years and years for my audience, I eventually come to believe I am that character. This can create a numbness. A despondency that can make people depressed. It’s what I imagine happens to celebrities, on a smaller scale, but more prolifically, considering the way anyone can be an ‘influencer,’ these days. If you create content on social media you know how blatantly narcissistic it can be. Photographing or videoing yourself constantly. Looking through and editing photos and videos of yourself. Listening to yourself over and over again. Writing about your life, your thoughts. Again, always orienting to yourself as the center, the ‘main character’ energy. I don’t believe there is anything inherently wrong with promoting myself or creating content that centers me, but I think it is very important to be aware of the way it can plant seeds of narcissism. It creates a tendency to preform, center myself, and speak in aggrandizements and half truths. Even with the best of intentions, I would argue that social media will make anyone who uses it regularly more narcissistic. It’s not a reason not to use it, but it is a trade off to be wary of. The story of Narcissus, is the story of so many “influencers,” big and small. It is possible to get so obsessed with ourselves, that we start to miss our lives. We miss our families. We miss the very humble lessons being offered to us. We get so caught up in the self importance that we forget we are but a speck on a blade of glass, spinning through infinate space. We forget how to live be in community with other flawed and unimportant humans. We forget how to really live our lives from a place really rooted in reality. My Take I don’t have anything figured out here. I’m very much in process with this all. I do not judge anyone or myself for where we are on our paths. I love performance. I love the bigness it can bring. I love when people allow something energetically big and archetypal to roar through them and let the watchers experience something almost super natural and spiritual. I love people going big with their expression and thoughts. I a

    15 min
  8. 2025-07-20

    Apathy is the Refusal to Suffer

    I have been stalled in my formal writing. I write furiously in my journal. Producing pages of nonsensical dialogues with my many selves and internal voices. I write out my dreams in painstaking detail. Pouring over them, trying to unravel and unwind the messages my unconscious Soul is communicating with me. I write out conversations I wish I’d had or feel like I need to have, but also know to say the things I wish to say would not be kind or compassionate or true, in the long run. I write letters I’ll never send. I write poems no one will ever see. I write from altar egos trying on what it would feel like to be completely different than I am. I write statements in the margins of books I’m reading, on random scraps of paper I find around the house, in the notes app of my phone, of potential topics I would like to think and write about more deeply. I have a notes folder called “inspiration” with close to a thousand half-started articles and essays and incomplete thoughts. It’s all felt dense; heavy, lately. There is never a time when my mind is quiet enough to focus, always thinking of who needs a dentist appointment, what to cook for dinner and playing mental Tetris with my schedule so I can squeeze in a walk or workout. When I do get a moment to write with a seemingly solid a thread to follow, I only find another knot. Like a pile of tangled gold chain necklaces. It feels impossible. So all my writing has stayed spread out, like a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle. I’ll come back to it later. There are times in my life when writing has felt easy. I have so many things to say and I just have to let my fingers fly around the keys and something relatively cohesive spills out. Sometimes it feels like God is just whooshing through me and I just have to get out of the way. Those are the days for which the slogging becomes worthwhile. When I’m writing a lot, I am in the habit of translating my thoughts and feelings to words. Everything worth doing in this life, takes practice. Writing is no different. Expression is no different. We have to actually express imperfectly; messily, before we can express in a way that fully lands for ourselves and for others. I am not a great writer by any accounts. But, I have indeed put many, many hours into the practice. I have been writing here on Substack since 2021. And I started with a 100 days of writing practice, which I completed. I think there are over 200 articles on this account. I don’t write weekly, but I’ve written one or two articles a month since beginning, sometimes more. Before Substack, I wrote on Facebook, instagram, blogs, newsletters, for years. I have journaled since I was 10. As I think about the sheer amount of writing I’ve done, I’m realizing I should probably be a better writer than I am. Writing is medicine for me. When I first started this Substack it was called “Medicine Writing.” I was a brand new mother of two really needing a creative outlet. Those first 100 days of writing were me committing to a practice of spending time with myself each day. I will not forget the moment I sat down to write my first Substack article. It was early morning, the sun was rising, breaking through the mist that had settled around the river below my home. My babies and husband were still sleeping and I had a hot cup of cacao steaming next to me and my computer open to a blank page. I felt like I could take a deep breath for the first time in a long time. There is something very healing about allowing other people to see you in your process. The perceived accountability of other people watching you show up for what you’ve committed to can be the thing that keeps you going when you’d rather not push through the humps of resistance. I don’t feel any external pressure to write publicly at the moment. I am having a very family-oriented summer and enjoying the slower pace immensely. However, I am very familiar with the feeling of what I will call: expression-constipation. It feels a lot like a head too full of ideas. It feels like you’ve eaten too much dinner and it hasn’t quite started leaving your stomach. It’s uncomfortable. It makes you tired and complacent, sleepy and forgetful. It makes you apathetic and unenthusiastic. Sometimes you can feel very “busy,” but you just can’t seem to focus on one thing. When you do have something you want to say or express, this overfull fogginess makes the resistance to saying it have a little more weight and feel more tempting. Whereas, when you’re in the practice of expressing, that resistance will burn off quickly. There is so much of this apathy in the world. So much non-committal, draggy, tired, stuck energy towards our own inevitable and necessary regeneration. We are alchemical creatures. We are here to transform, shift, learn, grow, and flow, not stagnate and idle. I read a quote the other day from Joanna Macy, “Apathy is the refusal to suffer.” Reading this was like finding a key piece of the jigsaw puzzle under the coffee table. So much could finally fit together. This swelling discomfort I’ve been experiencing is the exact thing I need to move towards. As I refuse to feel it, experience it, allow it, I am ‘refusing to suffer’. I am refusing to allow the alchemical, creative process to happen. I am postponing the inevitable ever-changing reality of my humanity. This is not a small concept. Nor is it easy to embody or take in. But it is relatively simple. I am reminded of another anchoring statement I have used throughout the years, “Whatever is arising….love that.” Writing is one of the ways I turn towards my own suffering and feel it. It is the way I acknowledge and make sense of my own jumbled thoughts. It is the way I work out what is me and what isn’t me. Writing is one of the ways I stay fully alive, awake to the burning transmutation happening within me and without me at all times. It keeps me as conscious as I can be of the pain and joy of this Life. Thank you for being a witness to my process and writing. My prayer is that you find something in these writings that sparks this aliveness within you. May we all be a little more willing to feel what we have been refusing to, so that we may awaken from our slumber and turn our open heart towards the world again. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clarabelize.substack.com/subscribe

    7 min

About

ReMothering is a podcast dedicated to nourishing women at all points on the mother-continuum. clarabelize.substack.com