“When she designs, and then lives, her own destiny, a woman naturally sets right everything wrong in our world.”
― Regena Thomashauer
The Dark Mother
Harnessing The Shadow Side of Motherhood as a Healing, Creative Force
A three month container of three one-on-ones and one group session per month for moms to move through rage and shame toward joy and ease.
Are you feeling this?
You’re not willing to choose between your calling and your mothering, but it kinda feels like you have to.
If your kids don’t let you poop alone today you might just lose it.
You sometimes feel like a monster in your mom's group.
You know, on some level, it doesn’t have to feel like this, but the pace of life makes it seem impossible to get off the hamster wheel.
You think it might be time to not just know that you’re under-resourced and that culture is failing mothers, but to gather some tools and learn how to make lasting changes.
I know that inviting shame and rage closer sounds scary, but…
If we don't reach out and hold the dark and twisty bits, they will continue to slither deeper and twist tighter
Pushing them away, or worse, calling them close with the intention of extinguishing them also makes them darker and twistier.
Shadow gives us perspective, and it's a perspective we as Mothers can't afford to bypass.
The shadow is our depth, and a Mother with depth has a resounding voice, a voice of truth and trustworthiness that her children won't ever forget. This voice connects her to the bone-deep wisdom, to the eternal wisdom, and to the earth wisdom we are starving for.
So let’s create a new path forward…
What is The Dark Mother?
Three 1:1 sessions with me each month for three months (nine sessions total)
Three group coaching sessions with other moms who have also wondered if they are monsters and who are no longer willing to swallow the shame and keep quiet about this.
A library of movement and meditation practices to nurture all the parts of you that thought they didn’t deserve to feel good.
One half-day virtual retreat to celebrate US - this amazing community of women changing storylines, family history, and culture.
Eight women.
Three months.
$4000.
“Being shut down from our grief and rage deprives us of living our emotional and creative power.”
How it works.
I guide clients using a combination of Somatic Experiencing, Ayurveda, and Depth Psychology. We work with the nervous system to identify incomplete, unfulfilled, and unspoken parts of you that are screaming to be heard.
Ayurveda is brought in in support of the nervous system, to support your physical body to rest and digest the best it can. We may create a sweet little lifestyle daily or weekly ritual together to deepen even further.
Depth Psychology is the element of imagination, Archetypes, and creative process. These tools help us see the art and mythology in our respective realities. You will literally put the pen back in your own hand and re-write the narrative of what you need to thrive as a Mother.
Braid all this work together and you will find pearls hidden in the darkness.
About Me
Even though I worked for many years as a birth and postpartum doula and I had educated numerous women and families about the significance of resting and tending to one’s spirit after birth, even though I had already done all that with my first baby,
the arrival of my second child blew my world up.
My husband started a new job and was gone all day just two weeks after our daughter was born. I found myself alone at home with a newborn and an eighteen month old. I cried every time my husband left the house, and I was more anxious and depressed than I had ever been. I peed my pants every time I sneezed. By the time we started having sex (months and months after my daughter’s birth,) it was super painful and a little scary.
No amount of sleep or supplements could lift the heaviness I felt each morning. I was regularly losing my shit on my (then eighteen month old) son and would often fly into a rage at my husband.
I felt ashamed of myself and everyday I was desperate for it - all of it - to
be over.
I didn’t know what I needed, and no one had anything to offer except the suggestion of meds, so I agreed to see a psychiatric Nurse Practitioner. I cried as I filled out the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale and I was deemed a good candidate for Zoloft. The NP gave me a prescription, a smile, and sent me home. Time stood still as I waited in line at the Walgreen’s drive-through. I sat in my car looking at this bottle of medication, and a tidal wave of anger washed over me. I kept thinking about the questions on that form. Nowhere on there did they think to ask, “Do you feel supported by your community? Has anyone honored you with a grief ceremony? Do you feel held and understood at this time?” And I said to myself, “No. Fuck this. This is not it.” I let it wash over me and a voice inside said, “you are not the problem.”
This was the start of my transformation through the shadow side of motherhood.
Over the course of two years I committed myself to turning toward these complex emotions and behaviors and facing them head on. I had to tell the truth. “I am not ok and I need more help.” It wasn’t about getting rid of the thoughts and feelings - that didn’t work. I needed to understand why they were here. And guess what? They’re still here. I’m still learning from them, but I no longer feel like I’m being periodically possessed.
The Dark Mother process provides tools to help you identify patterns of overriding your needs and limits while also supporting you to digest the stress and trauma to your body and mind of having done that overriding for years and years. You will discover all of the ways that your body has done its job of keeping you safe through these patterns, and all of the ways that you get to renegotiate those patterns to bring you back into connection with your vitality. I bring my training in Ayurveda, Somatic Experiencing, a Masters in Psychology, and my lived experience as a woman utterly rocked by Motherhood to each moment of this process.
I believe your healing will change the course of your life, your children’s lives, your partner’s life, and life on this planet. I do, truly, believe that we are that powerful.
In this container, the point is depth and transformation.
For three out of four weeks each month, you and I will have one on one Somatic Experiencing sessions. We are going to love on your nervous system and discover what it needs in order to start moving away from bouts of mom rage and towards better boundaries, compassion, and crystal clear communication with yourself and your people. Through our ongoing one on one work and our intimate group sessions, you will come to know the wisdom in your bones and trust the guidance from your deepest places.
Group sessions will be the opportunity to be together with an ever deepening sense of OURSELVES. Have you ever wanted to know what it feels like to just BE in a group of women, without expectation, defensiveness, or withholding? Yes, of course you have! Because you know, this is how we dismantle shame and disarm the rage. This is how we end the lie that Motherhood is a place where women lose their power.
I welcome you to the place where it’s safe enough to set down the mantle for a while and recognize the true power of your vulnerability and deep knowing.
***I want to be clear that this course takes no stance on psychotropic meds. That is not a part of this program. Meds were not the right path for me, and what is significant about that in my story is that my pain and symptoms lifted when I began unraveling the pattern of silencing myself in order to make it easier for others.
It took rage for me to discover this capacity in myself to have agency.
Rage is a function of the nervous system when it is no longer able to hold back the needs of the body anymore.
Rage is the result of years and years of saying ‘yes’ when we meant ‘no.’
Rage shows up in motherhood because Mothering often means overriding many of our needs for the sake of our children.
When that pattern of override has been conditioned over a lifetime through diets, being the good girl, taking birth control and suppressing ovulation, going ahead with what everybody expects from us, motherhood can feel like the straw the breaks the camel’s back.
This rage is not a sign that anything is wrong, or that YOU are wrong. It is not a sign that Motherhood is not for you. It is a sign that what “worked” for you in the past does not work for you anymore. It is a sign that there is grief that remains ungrieved. It is a sign that your body, mind, and spirit aren’t going to do that shit anymore. It’s a sign that you are evolving toward your wholeness.
Welcome to your community, and to your rite of passage.
The Dark Mother beckons.
Who is this exactly for?
Moms who recognize that there is no such thing as the perfect mom, but also feel like no matter what they do it’s not enough.
Women who are a little too capable, who have a tendency to push through when life gets tough and who are frankly a little terrified of what might happen if they slow down.
Women who don’t like what Motherhood feels like sometimes, but also don’t like the narrative that Motherhood is the problem.
Moms struggling to feel in sync with their sexuality and sex life after kids.
Moms who want to know what it’s like to feel in tune with emotions like rage and grief and use that power to heal.
Moms who know that their purpose includes Motherhood, but is also bigger than that.
How do I take the next step?
Schedule a phone call so we can get to know each other better and start the process of transforming shame and rage into power and long-term healing.