november letter: on embracing embodied wisdom, slowing down, & rejecting the grind
how I'm moving from manic-planning-squirrel-energy to bear-like hibernation mode as I cozy into fall & prepare for labor
Dear Reader,
I’m writing this from my living room where I have Netflix’s “Fireplace 4K” streaming in the background, an occasional crackle of the digital birchwood pulling my attention away as I fantasize about living in a log cabin somewhere in the mountains while my husband chops wood outside. There’s a part of me that gets way too excited about fall and leans into all of its overdone themes of pumpkins and coziness and cocoa. I love the nostalgia of red leaves, foggy mornings, and wistful poetry that leaves me with longing. I love the rhythm of pulling a wool blanket over my legs in the morning, warming my car up before work, and layering ridiculously long scarves over a ridiculously poofy jacket as I brave the crisp air for my commute. These markers signal the arrival of a dark and silent season where I turn into thoughts, traditions, and words, tending the hearth of my internal world instead of trying to express or stimulate it in the expansive, light-saturated days of summer.
Fall is a writer’s retreat or a spiritual pilgrimage for me, a labyrinth of deepening and retrieving.
Yesterday, my midwife paid me my first home visit. She checked my blood pressure, listened to the baby’s heartbeat, and made recommendations regarding liquid iron (which I already take religiously), apple cider vinegar baths (again, on it), and slowing down (which clicked for me instantly). She recommended taking daily afternoon naps or rest periods and going on maternity leave sooner rather than later. I’m almost 33 weeks pregnant and was planning on pushing my official end date for work at the agency until the end of November. As an independent contractor, I have more flexibility with my decision to stop work, but as I don’t qualify for maternity leave, I also have more pressure to build up a financial nest egg for myself. My midwife reiterated “I wouldn’t give it more than two weeks of work. You’re huge,” as she rubbed my belly and eyed my belly button which pops out of my stomach like a tactless third party to our conversation.
As soon as she made that suggestion, I noticed all of my parts relax, including the squirrel-like planning part which has dominated my free time for the last month. Last week, I spent $350 at Costco purchasing back-stock items for our basement pantry and fridge, built three new Google Sheets relating to house projects and nursery needs, and organized our upstairs pantry into uniform glass jars with printed labels so that *everything* has a place, no excuses. I’ve been so busy preparing for the logistics of the baby that I haven’t been paying as much attention to the energetics of my body as I approach my due date, and the truth is that I am tired.
I am tired… really tired. I lose steam with practices that normally invigorate me, like my writing and yoga practice. I don’t want to casually “catch up” with anyone. My brain stops working past 1 p.m. I feel protective of my attention which diverts to my baby’s movements every few hours. My midwife’s recommendation has given me permission to claim this tiredness and tempered my insistence on checking boxes and securing plans.
Sometimes relationships can do that with parts – other people’s words give our parts more perspective, illuminating choices and paths to expression that they don’t always see when they’re in the driver’s seat.
My planning part is tired. My body doesn’t care about making more money for our savings account or meeting my boss’s expectations. My body wants rest. My body wants to slow down. My body wants to reject the grind.
Physiologically and psychologically, this is natural and what should be happening in the third trimester. I’m not supposed to be hustling or investing in practices and relationships that pull me away from my baby. I’m supposed to lose energy. I’m moving into hibernation mode, nesting and resting, and it feels spacious and simple and right where I am. Pregnancy is an invitation to deprioritize. I let my attachment to my body, my sleeping and eating habits, and my work fall away. Nothing else really matters right now beyond what my baby and my body need.
This makes me wonder:
How could a radical embrace of embodied wisdom inform our decisions and priorities?
How could embodied wisdom inspire our relationship with our parts?
How could embodied wisdom be a guiding principle in our lives rather than an afterthought or a distraction?
What does living in alignment with embodied wisdom look like when we’re not pregnant, when we’re solidly “healthy” and “capable”?
Why do we wait for a medically validated excuse to trust our limits and energy level?
What would trusting our bodies look like if we believed that they were the most important message in our lives, the most precious way of knowing?
As I finish writing this letter, a sunset collects across the road. Grey and pink light gently merge on the horizon as the wider sky grows darker and darker. A quiet has settled in the house and the neighborhood that nourishes me as I type. This willingness to accept rest is a remembering, a reminder to be held by the ground of myself. This ground is honest and forthright: it wants what it wants beyond the ego, needs what it needs as a plant takes its share of sunlight with fidelity each day.
This is what I’m dreaming of for November and after: a relationship with the body that is receptive. That listens. That allows. A space for the body to claim what’s most natural and true. To claim feeling without justification. To trust in rest as habit and practice. To trust in embodied knowing as a valid body of awareness, a domain that leads us back to ourselves.
Dream it with me, will you?
~S
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afterword
Welcome to Whole Self! Every Sunday, I send out an offering which expands upon a concept related to parts work, embodied poetics, or post-traumatic growth. This is free, so if you subscribe you will receive this.
A brief note on me: my name is Sarah Ann Saeger and I am a licensed IFS therapist, writer, and post-lineage yoga teacher. My mission is to help you embrace the embodied wisdom of your whole self. You can find me on Instagram where I share short-form musings & lessons related to parts work with over 100k followers!