On January 6, 2021, my book Discovering the Inner Mother was published, which was the same day that the violent insurrection was unfolding at the U.S. Capitol.

Publishing a book was a long-held dream of mine but it happened in the shadow of a lot of personal and collective tension. COVID restrictions were in full force. No in-person events for the book were possible. The country and the world were in upheaval and breakdown.

My relationship with my partner had just ended several months earlier. Almost immediately after I submitted my final manuscript, our relationship began to transform and dissolve.

After the book was published I experienced a lot of grief and confusion. A long-held dream came true, so why was I feeling so sad, deflated and heavy? It felt as though a huge, unexpected contraction was taking place.

At this point I had spent years teaching how the Mother Wound exists on four levels — personal, cultural, spiritual, and planetary. What I didn’t know at the time was that I was about to heal my way through the third level of Mother Wound, the spiritual— the one that goes all the way down to the bone: a wound with life itself.

Stumbling upon a Mother Chapel

 

Months after the book came out I wanted to find a new apartment that was less expensive. Due to a shortage of housing in my area, I found the only viable apartment in the region was actually inside of my own building where I was already living, a historic building made into condos.

The apartment was unique as it was an historically registered, renovated chapel turned into a studio apartment, which I didn’t even know had existed inside the building. It was a very simple, large, open room with wood paneled walls and historic details. It was modernized only by a big white cube in the middle of the large room that had the kitchen facing out from it, and bathroom and closets within it. The chapel had an entire wall of windows looking out to the Holyoke Range in Northampton, Massachusetts, facing the sunrise every morning over Mount Skinner. The sleeping area was on the raised altar platform.

The day I got the keys and moved in I experienced an unexpected shock.

Continue reading on Substack →

This essay was originally published on my Substack publication, Living Undaunted — a space for women navigating the integration phase after deep healing work.

For a limited time, become a free subscriber to Living Undaunted and receive a welcome gift of my workbook Money, Work and the Mother Wound.