ReMothering with Clara Belize Wisner

This is a piece that has been asking to be written for a long time. I have been wrestling with a lot of feelings and judgments about the way I have chosen to approach sleep with my babies. I’ve alluded to my experience and shared snippets of my thoughts but in light of the co-sleeping vs “sleep training” debate going on I felt like it was time for me to come out on this subject.  I am laying it al...

The practice of writing and creating ‘content’ has become such an integral part of my practice.  For a decade and the better part of my adulthood I have been writing, sharing, and speaking publicly about my life. Writing about my struggles, my pain, my lessons, and my experience. I have written blogs, hosted podcasts, owned a bunch of social media accounts, and been a speaker at various events. I...

I have been dubbed the self care queen by a few friends on separate occasions. I am a classic Taurus sun. I love luxury and comfort. I love sensual experiences. Experiences that ask us to deepen into the senses and participate with and in the body.  The ultimate picture of my ideal experience is: eating a raspberry chocolate mousse in a beautiful California king bed, with high thread count Egyptia...

I have been exploring that all encompassing phenomenon called ‘mom-guilt’ lately. Maya, my youngest is growing up, seemingly overnight. I find our relationship shifting and morphing from the attached-at-the-boob togetherness of that first year of infancy to the less attached togetherness of that not-quite-a-baby, not-quite-a-toddler phase of massive exploration and growth. Instead of the peaceful...

**This is an adaption of a post I wrote in my teacher’s container, DEVOTION, digesting an assignment she had given me. It felt true to share it here too. My assignment was to stop stuffing my time. To do one thing a day. That’s it. Just one practice. Just one work item. If more was true, I could do it, but there was only one intention I brought to each day. When I got the assignment from my teache...

I had a full week last week. My 6 month group container FED began and is now fully underway. Our first group coaching call and first embodiment ceremony already done. I took on one more 1:1 client in a 12 month committed journey with me. These require a deep commitment on my part as the holder and on the part of the one who says yes to being held. I taught a webinar on making basic nutritional cha...

My life, of late, has felt like it’s asking me, again and again, to admit defeat. To sit down and say, finally , I can’t fix this. I can’t do this. I can’t change this. I can’t figure this out. I can’t make this happen. Motherhood is humbling me in ways I never thought I could or would be humbled. I had a lot of ideas about the kind of mother I would be. I had a lot of ideas about what was the wro...

A fully resourced woman is not a woman who is totally full, energetic, and balanced all the time. It is not a woman who is always a shining example of health or never snaps at her children. It is not a woman who always has dewy skin, sleeps like a rock, and always says the right thing at the right time. It is not a woman who doesn’t struggle with life, friendships and relationships. It is not a wo...

There are these moments in life when you get a flash of true clarity. Your life up to this point lays out before you like the perfectly paved yellow brick road and you see the divine perfection of each step you’ve taken. I had a moment like this yesterday I’ve been holding in my body since. A part of me is scared to write about it and share it because of how activating it might be. Joy can sometim...

Dear god, I am sorry for staying away so long. For thinking I had the answers and I didn’t need you. What kind of arrogance is this? To believe that this small human mind could see the best possible outcome, When it cannot see the perfection of the twists and turns? To walk between the chasms of victim and know it all, is the path to you. The middle way. The way that says: I am struggling. I am st...

I have been thinking a lot about creation, creativity, and how it relates to consumption lately. This substack is called Trust the Magic and it was born out of a creative practice of one hundred days of what I dubbed “medicine writing.” These writings came direct from the deepest threads of truth in my heart and were medicine for me to write and, hopefully, medicine for you to read. One thing I kn...

“Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer. Let the beauty of what we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kiss the ground.” -Rumi My insomnia came back to visit last week. After four months of throwing every integrative, natural, holistic, alternative remedy I could find at it with some min...

Your grief is holy, she said. Let it wash your heart clean. Let it take you Down Down Down To The zero point of existence. The emptiness that is pregnant with all potentials. The birth place of paradox Where everything is allowed and welcomed. Sit still Let your heart be broken Broken o p e n By the beauty of your tears The way they drip into the cracks And illuminate the Perfection of your each a...

Today, it has been a year since I pushed Maya out of my body and into the world. To be completely honest it’s been the hardest year of my life. I took a dive into the deep end of motherhood by having two babies in two years. It’s felt like I’ve mostly just been under water, only getting the most necessary gasps of air before I’m resubmerged in and under a new wave of new phases of development and...

My husband said something to me yesterday that has just been echoing around my mind since. He said, “We think we have to make moments and memories happen, plan them, create the perfect conditions for them, but really it’s the everyday moments where we’re just present that become the most precious memories.” Mic. Drop. It left my body feeling awash in sweetness and warmth. Like heated honey moving...

I see you. I am right here. Holding this spot open. Come in and rest, my love. The frustration. The aching. The longing. The spinning in circles around and around.. What could have been.. What should have been; different, better. There is room for it here. There is space for all of it here, my love. Come in and lay your head on my lap. Come in and warm your bones by the fire awhile. Give yourself...

There are facts about our lives and bodies that people like to pretend don’t exist or don’t fully grasp. We will all die. Yes, this is a fact. Death is the most patient player in this game and She will always win, no matter how long we hold out. Fact. To live in denial or avoidance of this fact actually robs us of life. Our bodies have needs. Animal needs. We need food, water, rest, sex, community...

Motherhood has helped me peek into my deepest and darkest corners. It has asked me to get down on my knees and then go down further, laying fully flat to the ground, listening, still. Some days all I can do to stay in my body is to repeat beloved Buddhist teacher, Tich Naht Hahn’s, “Breathing in. I am aware of my in breath. Breathing out. I am aware of my out breath,” over and over again as I brea...

Sometimes I feel like there is an attack on humanity happening. It can seem like there is a systematic separation of humans from their animal body and their connection to the deeper thing, unconditional love. As a society: We don’t trust healthy and robust women’s bodies to birth babies without treating them as if they are undergoing some life threatening procedure, when humans have been birthing...

Today sean and I had a little impromptu three hour date to a nearby hot springs without the girls. I was sharing about my recent experience at BURST and talking about how I’ve touched into this uncomfortable truth that I have a huge and soft heart. After I was finished sharing, Sean said, “When I think about when we first started dating, that is what I remember most about you; your big heart.” I f...

Mac and Cheese and The Morality of Food Mac and cheese from a box was something I used to deem “off limits.” For me, ‘off limits’ foods were foods I would gaslight myself into thinking that I didn’t want or enjoy. Or foods I believed I couldn’t be trusted around. Foods that would just turn me into some ravenous, mindless beast. I told myself (and anyone who would listen) that I didn’t “like” proce...

I express all the things, in all the ways I need to express them. I create my own world. A world where I am my own savior. My life is for me and not for anyone else. My life unplugged from the seduction of comparison and the lie of not-enoughness that keeps people sheep. I live in way that that lets me shine all the way on full blast. If the world isn’t going to serve me what I most deserve, why d...

Today I bought a bunch of new clothes because barely any of my clothes fit. I remember buying a whole wardrobe of new clothes when Alma was born and realizing I didn’t fit into the “normal” sizes anymore. I wore a size 16 pants and XXL top then. I’ve actually had 2 more big clothing overhauls since then. Now I am officially a size 20 in bottoms and 2X in tops. I don’t have a scale so I haven’t wei...

When I was pregnant with Maya I would get so incredibly exhausted by the middle of the day. Taking care of a baby while you’re gestating another baby is some of the most physically exhausting work I’ve ever done. And so, I would always try to sleep with Alma during her nap. Even with the exhaustion, these are some of my most precious memories of my pregnancy with Maya. Spooning myself around Alma...

A practice of mine right now is no force. Radical forcelessness, you could call it. I do not force myself to do anything. The energy of force gets zero space in my life. If I feel the energy of force in my system, I stop, fully and completely. Sometimes I just simply wait, doing nothing, until the energy of force dissipates. Sometimes I ask myself what I need to feel spacious and open again, and g...