Birth360

Wayyyyy back in 2020 virtual school hell, my daughter typed into the classroom chat “when is brak?” cause like all of us she was desperate to know when this fresh hell was ending 🤪😂

Anywho, this cup was hiding in the back of my cabinet and I’m so glad I found it. Another reminder that rest is productive and we all deserve a fu***ng break.

Big thanks to for crafting this cup for me 💖 Also, I guess this is a wine cup, but I promise it had coffee in it this morning 😅

Welp, I’m doing a thing. But first a little backstory…

In May I was part of a workforce reduction from a tech health company and I was shook. It wasn’t my dream job, but I got comfortable with the ease and flexibility my role provided. I wasn’t working as a clinician and I enjoyed supporting families in finding the support they needed without having to assess, diagnose, or treat. I just got to meet folx human to human and achieve more work/life balance.

Don’t get me wrong, the corporate world is toxic AF and the social worker in me struggled being a part of a company that put profit over people. There were times it felt like I was being used and abused and the longer I stayed away from private practice, the more irrelevant I felt as a clinician.

*insert career life crisis*

I knew deep down I would eventually be grateful for the gift of pause. But wtf was I gonna do next? I honestly felt very frozen and spent a good couple weeks wrapped in my sons burrito blanket watching Queen Charlotte and eating lots bread 🥖

Eventually I eased into contemplation and with the help of a career coach was able to answer a few key questions.

Did I want to return to private practice? *insert hives*

Did I want to pivot entirely from clinical work? No.

Did I want to be a SAHM?
*insert maniacal laughter*

Did I need to figure out something fast or risk financial doom? Yes.

The truth is what I want is a fu***ng unicorn. I want FT pay with full benefits seeing 10-15 clients a week 🦄

My career coach was like rock on sister create the unicorn, but I’m also fu***ng tired of hustling. Our culture wants us to think our value is in the grind and I’ve just done too much unlearning to go back to that bu****it.

So here I am probably making a poor decision and joining another startup 😂 They require an absurd caseload but per my career session, sometimes it’s ok to make a financial decision for now. It’s ok to do one thing while you dream about what’s next. So right now you can find me returning to 1:1 therapeutic support (most def wrapped in this cozy sweater) and that feels a little exciting…assuming I even remember how to therapy 🤷‍♀️

*opens why therapy works*

New headshot, who dis 😅

Today I got to learn and experiment with sandtray. Sandtray is an expressive therapy. A way to process trauma and the unconscious. It is nonverbal, grounding, and another way clients can create containment when processing pain.

Naturally, it fits my desire to rebel against our professions need to “fix”. Our prescriptive mode of pushing solutions and seeking compliance. Often at a speed that only ends up causing more harm. Trauma recovery needs patience. Creativity. Collaboration. Not 8-10 sessions of a workbook 🤪

I loved that invited our group to spend time in the sand processing our own reproductive histories. The stories our bodies hold around this work.

One of the beautiful things about sandtray is it evokes the unexpected. Those deep and tangled emotions that are hard to reach. This was my experience today in the sand. I scoured the shelves of miniatures looking for a village. Something to represent the community I ache to make more accessible and normal in our culture.

Well somewhere along the way I found myself drawn to these stairs to nowhere. It stirred in me some grief I hadn’t yet named. This part of me that fought madly and deeply to find and nurture my own village and the excruciating disappointment I’ve felt each time that has failed. Each journey included an exhausting race up the mountain to find my wolf pack. Doing the things, making the plans, fighting to be seen, only to have some event or unexpected twist of life send me tumbling back down to the ground. Alone. Or in the case of my third and final race, literal isolation during a global pandemic 🦠

As I thought about this, my eyes fell on this elephant. Elephants gestate for 3+ years. Wow, I’m an elephant I thought. I’m a bone fu***ng tired, wtf even is time anymore elephant. That’s what this experience has felt like. Time standing still. Constant and evolving incubation.

I layered in the labyrinth. A reminder of the healing I have somehow discovered in the midst of unrelenting f**kery. A meandering but purposely journey. A journey I’m still on. I’m in that messy middle finding my way back out. Slowly, and with grace for the all wild edges of my sorrow.

I guess this page has turned into I post a picture of my baby quarterly 🤷🏼‍♀️ He’s ohhh TWOodles 💕