the necessity of release
mothering yourself after the storm
Today’s newsletter marks the 11th week in a row that I have sat down to write to you about my reflections around my intention for the week. The idea for the new weekly newsletter came at the turn of 2024 as a way to build more accountability for myself around the Dear Self With Love Planner I created and sold for the second year in a row.
The first year, I didn’t use the planner as much as I would have liked, despite being the creator. This year, I made the goal to sit with it at a minimum at least once a week, making baby steps towards daily use and executive functioning support. Avoiding big demands or expectations around being the perfect planner user has helped me show up to it more this year for sure.
One of the prompts on the weekly spread is “Intention Of The Week”. I latched onto that as my anchor point and sent out my first IOTW Newsletter late January. That first one was all about zooming out and seeing the bigger picture. I sent it on a Sunday morning, not knowing that 24 hours later I would be rushing my partner to the emergency room.
Turns out, I was setting future me up with the reminder to try to see the big picture during a life-changing 32 days living in a hospital, bedside to the love of my life. I didn’t publish anything while in the hospital but I kept up my weekly commitment of sitting down with my planner to decide a new intention. It helped. A lot. Giving each week themes to ground into when it felt like everything was moving so fast.
Continuing the practice of setting an intention at the beginning of every week has been crucial to me on the other side of that experience. Being able to also turn it into something I can write about has allowed me to build an archive for a chapter of my life I never want to forget.
I am not the same person that I was at the beginning of this year. I feel myself shaping and molding into an entirely new version of self with each passing week and I continue to surprise myself in the ways that I consistently show up for myself, despite the challenging nature of everything that has unfolded.
Lately, my intentions have been less about doing and/or accomplishing anything and more about being. I began this week with the simple intention of releasing and ease by doing hip opening exercises every day. That’s it. That’s all. Come what may.
Although things continue to improve, I am certain of the stored emotions and trauma my body is holding onto from this past season of life. Sometimes I catch myself holding my breath, subconsciously bracing myself for impact. Other times I get cortisol-induced stomach aches, where I swear I can feel the acidic stress bubbling through me. There have been days where I have headaches and neck pain that won’t go away from clenching so hard. And days when my Fit Bit clocks active minutes (elevated heart rate from exercise) during periods of time that I was not exercising at all…I was just…anxious.
I have had friends who have sworn by somatic hip opening exercises. Specifically 30 day courses that allow you to release trauma and stuck emotions. They shared how much crying happened. How much lighter they felt.
I’ve kept it filed away in the back of my mind, but never felt truly inspired to give it a try — thinking I was working with my body enough by practicing my go-to release technique, Emotional Freedom Techniques. Despite tapping regularly, it’s been obvious that I needed something more. Recently all social media and YouTube algorithms pointed to somatic exercises. I saw them everywhere.
I finally clicked through some YouTube somatic exercises and found this incredible trauma-informed hip opening yoga video with Caitlin K’eil. During that 20 minutes I had some powerful realizations surface that felt like they were coming out of nowhere? I was piecing certain timelines together that I had never seen before — despite my 3 or 4 years of Neuro-Linguistic Programming experiences and self-work. The body just knows.
On days I can’t make the 20 minutes happen I’ve taken 5-10 minutes to do this shorter exercise. I’m on Day 7 today, and no crying has happened yet but I have experienced a lot of shaking. Followed by a lot of calm and deep sleeping at night. Immediately after my body feels at peace, similar to the tranquility you can feel in the air after a huge storm has passed. When the smell of rain brings possibility. When there is a crispness of clarity in the air. When a rainbow appears.
If this is what I feel like on Day 7, I’m definitely motivated to keep going and am even considering a 30 day course to take a deeper dive. I’m grateful to be listening to my body in a new way and love the feeling I get when I lay down on my yoga mat. It feels as if I am holding myself, like a baby, whispering “I got you and we’re going to get through this” through every motion.
Today, I am wishing the same ease for you. I am imaging a world where we can all create safe containers for release in our lives. Where we can learn to parent ourself. Where we can not only make it through the storms — but stay outdoors long enough to witness the rainbow appear.
The phenomenon that is only possible because of the storm.
With Love,
Jenna
Take some time to free write about a metaphorical rainbow that came after a storm in your life. How did the beauty of the rainbow reach you on the other side of a difficult or challenging time/situation?
How does your body talk to you? How do you know when you are stressed or anxious? Where does it show up, what does it feel like? How do you know you are relaxed and calm? Where does ease and calm surface in the body?
Make two lists side by side. On the left, list of all the ways that you already parent and take care of yourself. On the right, brainstorm new ideas for how you can expand the way you parent yourself.
I love this share so much, Jenna! Especially your willingness to try somatic movement even though you had lots of other tools to help you! Sometimes we just need a little shift in perspective or experience to release some heavy emotions or at least get the wheels greased. It seems like collectively, many us are going through transformations and I think we're all trying to find more ease in the process of the unfolding. I appreciate you for sharing your experience!
P.S. Rainbows have been following me everywhere since starting my journey on Substack and after publishing today's post in The Middle Space, I saw your reflection about rainbows after the storm in this post. How serendipitous!
P.S. 20 minutes after I read this comment Taj screamed from the living room “there is a rainbow out here!” 🥹🌈😭 can’t make this up!!