What Endures: Parts Work For Life's Seasonal Shifts

March Letter & Mood Board On Flowing & Creating Gently

“Take refuge in your senses, open up to all the small miracles you rushed through.” -John O’Donohue

Dear Reader,

I'm writing this on the sofa where I do my best work while my son dozes on my chest and a pork shoulder roasts in the oven. Today was one of the first warm days in a while, a day of embodying flow and maintaining an easeful rhythm between housework, creative work, and tending my newborn. Flow is one of my favorite words. It's a good day when I can find it and seamlessly transition between the habits and practices that are important to me.

Writing a letter, baking banana muffins, getting some fresh air, cuddling my son... this is a full day and meaningful life to me.

While new motherhood has its challenges, I'm also surprised at how creative this period feels. Being with my baby grounds and softens me. On our better days, it's like a yoga practice or a meditation of presence. I enjoy the flow (there it is again) that we settle into and I love learning him. On our harder days, caretaking my son brings up all my stuff, long lost stuff I thought I dealt with that has morphed into a different presentation in new motherhood. Stuff like guilt around not being able to do it all in any one day. Stuff like terror that he exists outside of my body and he's so vulnerable and the world can be a dark and ugly place. Stuff like grief around my loss of independence and unlimited time to dream and create and flow.

Of this, I am certain: motherhood shows you yourself, ready or not, and forces you to make contact with your parts. This can be a creative, introspective process when we lean into it and trust it, or it can be a devastating, exhausting process when we fight it or pretend we are the same as before.

In this season of life, I'm leaning in. I'm choosing to notice it all, metabolize it all, and work with it all. I love that IFS has given me a model that allows for this kind of living, where I can grow my embodied, heart-centered presence as I give grace to all my parts. My IFS mentor always says that parts work can be gentle. It doesn't have to catapult us out of our comfort zones or ask us to bypass our defenses. We can take our time and make contact w our experiences softly and spaciously.

As I grow into the identity of mother, I find this new awareness of gentleness so integral to relationship. I must be gentle with myself as I adopt this role that carries so much responsibility. I must be gentle with my son as he makes contact with so many fresh sensations and experiences. I must be gentle with the world, for aren't we always new and and vulnerable with the changes we experience?

I want to live creatively and gently. I want work that nurtures others and nourishes my family. I want to pour into my son and say yes to a motherhood that is integrated and grounded. I want to write, teach, hold, witness, gather, express, and flow.

This season of life is softening me and simultaneously making me courageous. It’s asking me to get really honest about the work that my soul craves as my hands are busy with the habits of nurture. Identity shifts and life transitions can be tremendous clarifiers in this way. They help us shed our expectations and attachments so that what remains is most essential and enduring.

What endures during this chapter of your life? What parts of yourself are constant amidst what’s in flux? What is asking for gentle contact and creative reclamation?

May you have wisdom and grace in how you hold yourself during this season.

~S

p.s Keep scrolling for March’s Mood Board listed below.

MARCH MOOD BOARD

What I’m Reading:

Guilty catharsis. Fantasy horror. Feral and real. I can’t say enough about this book. The writing is superb and the story is hauntingly spellbinding. I related in a way that I didn’t want to on my mothering journey, but oh is it necessary. Every mom will hate and love to find herself in this book.

Dense and clinical for the layreader but details so many important concepts such as maladaptive guilt and guilt-based trauma bonds as they relate to the inner world. I plan to write about guilt-based trauma bonds next week because oof you will relate if you were parentified.

Substack Posts I’m Savoring

Of Love and Longing:

Gems to Tend

lexyflorentina

A post shared by @lexyflorentina

sustenancewritingcommunity

A post shared by @sustenancewritingcommunity

I love this poem by Annie Ridout.

What I’m Listening To

Things I’m Making

Spinach Dal Soup - This knock-off Whole Foods spinach dal soup. I’ve made it two weeks in a row. It freezes great and is hearty and tangy. Pro tip: use an extra lime and some Celtic salt and ghee, unless you want it to be vegan.

The IFS Workbook for CPTSD: Skills and Practices from Parts Work For Healing Complex Trauma - This book will be released next year with New Harbinger, stay tuned for updates on how to order ahead!

Community Offerings and Mentorship Opportunities - Stay tuned for how these will shake out. I’m accepting applications soon <3