Hello! Oh how I’ve missed you. I took August off from posting (except for some breathwork recordings that you can check out here). It was glorious. It was hard at times. It was slow. It went fast. It was needed.
I’m so happy to be back in your inbox with weekly-ish musings on life, the human experience, and healing. Big changes are afoot both personally and within the All Parts community. As someone who loves change and newness this feels beyond exciting. For those of you who don’t have the same affinity for change, I hope you’ll follow along and embrace it right alongside with me anyway, perhaps through the upcoming 15 day practice?
The next 15 day practice begins September 18th. We’ll be honoring the emergence of Fall with a daily live (& recorded) 30-minute kundalini breathwork practice to support you in shedding, letting go, and welcoming the change of seasons. I’ll be providing holistic and integrative resources to support your mind, body, and soul with this transition. To join us you must be a paid subscriber:
Forever grateful for the time, energy, and support you give here.
As always, I’ll meet you in the comments section,
Xx Eliza
We’re moving to the country.
We’re done with city living. My husband and I. We’re done.
I thought we’d make it to at least 40. The arbitrary timeline in my head was always to raise kids in a city while they’re young. Move to the suburbs when we could afford a house near a major city. When the kids were out of the house we’d move to the country, where we would grow gardens and hike and read books and join the local community planning board until we died. A good life. A respectful life. One that many dream of living.
The problem, of course, is that that dream is not ours.
Since entering into adulthood, my mind has been busy checking off boxes of what it means to be a successful millennial in today’s world, while my body’s been quietly yet persistently writing a drastically different story. One without traffic and loud cars, cheaper coffee and pastries (a priority for this Taurus), land to roam, gardening during a break between clients, connection to the land as not just a choice but a necessity. A slower pace. More time. More integration of what is. Less forcing. More flow.
Spending 8 months in Austin was so fun. I will forever hold a special place in my heart for that city. It allowed me to explore parts of myself that I felt I unceremoniously disregarded when I moved to Vancouver in 2017. The part that likes the hustle and bustle of a busy American city. The part that is super social and loves having different plans with different people every day of the week. The part that loves novelty. The part that is super ambitious and driven to succeed in today’s world. The part who feels loved when she’s invited to a weekend away with a big group of people she doesn’t really know. The part who waits until reservations open at 12:01am one month in advance to the latest and trendiest restaurant in town. The part who is fulfilling her dutiful role as a privileged millennial in today’s world.
While these parts all had their fun in Austin, my body was whispering signs of misalignment. After years of stability, three months into my time in Austin my thyroid started acting up again. Constant bloat. Mood imbalances. That subtle yet unmistakable hum of nervous system dysregulation just under the surface.
The problem with doing the inner work is that sometimes the messages we receive from our bodies are not the ones our minds want to hear. My intention for doing my own healing work has always been to live alive. To stop sleepwalking through life. To engage more fully and wholly with the world around me. To trust the wisdom of my own body. Oftentimes this means reaching into the depths of my own shadows and pulling out the things I fear the most. Oftentimes this means trusting in the death-rebirth cycle that is my body’s natural way, even when it feels excruciating. Oftentimes this means welcoming in and feeling immense grief and sadness, even when there’s nothing externally “wrong.”
Grief is a funny thing when it arises out of seemingly nowhere. No one died. There was nothing externally to mourn. No funerals to attend. No flowers to send.
And yet still there was a deep grief that arose within me that said, “you are no longer this person. You said goodbye to this life and this lifestyle long ago. It’s time to honor who you are.”
I had been avoiding my grief out of fear of narrowing my options before I was ready. Francis Weller says that “when our grief cannot be spoken, it falls into the shadow and re-arises in us as symptoms.” I had been too afraid to act out loud the things that have been brewing in my body for a long time. The symptoms that arose in my body and mind spoke more truth than I was willing to admit: that these old parts of myself that I was trying to return to had been dead for a long time, and in their absence my authentic Self had been able to unfold before me. The authentic Self who lets me know, this heart needs space to breathe. This mind needs room to wander. My avoidance of this particular truth felt necessary for a time, but it doesn’t anymore.
So here we are yet again, in the midst of another move. This time to the rolling hills of New England; back to the land that raised me.
To be moving home after years away feels beautifully boring and unsurprising. There’s less of that buzzy excitement of unrealistic expectations, and more a sturdy assuredness that this is the right next step. It feels grounding and calming. This, I’ve come to learn, is the nervous system signifying regulation.
I remember reading once that “no one warns you about the amount of mourning in growth.” The polarity of stepping more fully into your authentic Self and the inevitable grief that comes along with it can often feel like some karmic joke that only you are destined to experience. This is a sign that I should just go back into the cave; back onto the default path laid out before me by society.
What I’ve learned is that by actually embracing grief - by seeing it as a necessary part of living alive - I’ve been able to step more fully into myself in a way that would not be possible otherwise. It’s grief that has led me and my husband to enter into our next phase in life, one that feels more aligned than any of the other versions we’ve tried on in our 11 years together.
And for that, I am forever indebted to the wisdom that grief has given me.
In a couple of weeks my husband and I move into my parents home in New Hampshire while we wait to see what the real estate market does in Vermont; the state where we first met and ultimately want to settle. I haven’t lived with my parents for any extended period of time since I was 18. I haven’t lived on the east coast for over 10 years.
I suspect there will be no shortage of things to feel and write about.
FAQ: What does this move mean for 1:1 clients and for the All Parts Community?
If you are a 1:1 client of mine, not much will change (except for the few who I was seeing in-person and have already spoken to about this change). For my Canadian clients this means you’ll still be able to use your insurance to cover the cost of sessions, just like you’ve always been able to. For my non-Canadian clients this means that I’ll still be working as a therapeutic coach while I pursue licensing, just like before.
For all Paid Subscribers to the All Parts Community: You’ve already been made aware of the big (and IMO super exciting!) changes I’ll be making over the next month. I’m so thrilled to be in deeper connection with you through more breath classes, more intentional ways to connect, and other helpful resources for integration. For the rest of you, I’ll be making a more formal announcement soon :)
Random things I’ve enjoyed recently:
I’ve been following
for a while, and love the way she writes so much. I’ve invested in her upcoming program, The School, and am terrified and thrilled. Here’s her latest, “Your Silence Will Not Protect You.”- and her latest “A Remedy for the Headfuckery of Inadequacy”
I’m not afraid to admit it. I’m on the Glen Powell train. If you aren’t yet,
makes a convincing argument as to why you should get on it in her piece “A Unified Theory of Glen Powell”This song (warning: it might make you cry…or at least feel something):
Yes I often laugh and say, well be careful what you wish for!
I love your comment about unspoken grief arising as symptoms. This feels deeply accurate.