✨ Join the Ecstatic Life Academy ✨ If you're ready to heal your nervous system, reconnect with yourself, and create a life that feels deeply aligned, I'd love to invite you into the Ecstatic Life Academy (ELA). Inside ELA, I guide women through weekly live ecstatic dances, embodiment practices, guided meditations, and meaningful conversations designed to help you regulate your nervous system, reconnect with your true essence, and build a life you genuinely love. Healing is so much easier when you don't have to do it alone. Monthly Q&A: Healing the Mother Wound While Becoming a Mother I'm so excited to introduce something new to the podcast—my monthly Q&A series! Each month, I'll be answering questions submitted by this incredible community, diving into the topics that matter most to you. This month's question is one that touched me deeply: "How do you deal with a severed relationship with your own mother while trying to navigate motherhood? I'm adopted, so there are many layers of feeling abandoned." To explore this tender topic, I'm joined once again by my dear friend, Cassandra "Cris" Stephens. We discuss why this kind of pain isn't something you simply "get over," but something you learn to grieve with compassion. We explore the difference between healing and spiritual bypassing, why forgiveness should never be forced, and how giving yourself permission to fully feel your grief is often the beginning of true healing. We also dive into what re-parenting really means. For me, it's less about becoming your own parent and more about rebuilding trust with yourself—learning to meet your own needs with kindness, consistency, and compassion. We explore how unresolved trauma can keep us stuck looking outside ourselves for answers, and how reclaiming our personal power allows us to begin creating a different story for ourselves and for our children. Of course, we also share practical tools that have been transformational in our own healing journeys. From EFT tapping and breathwork to yoga, Internal Family Systems (IFS), family constellations, grounding practices, mindfulness, and ecstatic dance, we talk about how somatic healing helps us increase our capacity to be with difficult emotions instead of running from them. Whether your relationship with your mother is strained, complicated, nonexistent, or simply not what you wish it had been, I hope this conversation reminds you that your grief is valid, your healing is possible, and you are not alone. In this episode, we discuss: Why motherhood often reopens childhood wounds. The unique grief that can accompany abandonment and mother wounds. Giving yourself permission to grieve instead of trying to "move on." The difference between healing and spiritual bypassing. Why forgiveness cannot be forced. Re-parenting as rebuilding trust with yourself. Moving from externalization to empowerment. Somatic practices for processing grief and trauma. How nervous system regulation supports emotional healing. The healing power of community and chosen family. Resources Mentioned Calling Home by Whitney Goodman The Family Cyclebreakers Club EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) Internal Family Systems (IFS) Family Constellations and the Ecstatic Life Academy 💛 I'd love to answer your question next! If there's something you're navigating—whether it's motherhood, marriage, nervous system healing, feminine embodiment, relationships, boundaries, or anything else—send me a message on Instagram/Facebook at @nicoledesireegoff, or join us inside the Ecstatic Life Academy, where members can submit questions directly for future Q&A episodes. Your question might be exactly what another woman needs to hear.
