The valley ripens, one fruit at a time.

First come the strawberries.

Tiny. Sweet. Fleeting.

Then cherries, arriving in the peak of summer’s sweetness, staining fingers and kitchen towels.

Peaches arrive next, warm from the August sun, so juicy that you have to eat them over the sink.

Then apples.

Then pears.

Each one arrives exactly when it’s meant to.

And no one expects to enjoy them all at once.

No one sits under a peach tree in June wondering why the peaches aren’t ready.

No one shakes an apple tree in July, hoping to hurry it along.

We simply enjoy what’s ripe.

This week, my eight year old daughter and I spent the summer solstice camping by the lake.

We swam.

We roasted marshmallows.

We ate angel food cake with whipped cream and strawberries.

We played Uno inside our tent.

At bedtime, she tucked herself against me on the big air mattress I’m almost certain has a slow leak instead of her small single. By morning we’d both rolled into the middle, tangled in sleeping bags and cuddles, smiling before either of us had fully opened our eyes. How lucky am I that my daughter is still little enough to be here next to me and want to have sleepovers every night.

I savour it.

I realized that my matcha tastes better on a cool morning overlooking the lake at sunrise. A small miracle of warmth and comfort.

I savour it.

I felt the quiet comfort of being up early in a campground that hasn’t quite woken up yet, except for the birds and us Taylor girls. Looking out at the lake with the whole summer still ahead of us.

I savour it.

And in that savouring… I noticed something.

For these rare moments, I wasn’t somewhere else.

I wasn’t mentally writing next week’s essay.

I wasn’t planning my next workshop.

I wasn’t worrying about my business.

I wasn’t wondering how everything was going to work out.

I was simply enjoying the crackling of a morning fire beside the lake with my daughter.

For most of my life, I’ve treated the present moment like a waiting room: a place to pass through on my way to something better.

The next adventure.

The next chapter.

The next relationship.

The next version of myself.

The next thing that will finally convince me I’ve arrived.

But when I look at the orchards through the summer, I realize that blooming doesn’t happen that way.

The strawberries don’t rush because cherries are coming.

The arrival of peaches doesn’t make the memory of the strawberries any less sweet.

The trees simply offer each fruit in its own season.

Fully.

Generously.

Cyclically.

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It makes me wonder how often I do this with my own life.

How often I rush myself toward a season that isn’t here yet.

How often I miss the sweetness of what’s already ripe in front of me because I’m too busy imagining what comes next.

Especially as a mother.

There will come a day when Sky won’t want to squeeze onto an air mattress beside me.

There will be summers filled with friends instead of family camping trips.

Uno will give way to late-night conversations I’ll probably know very little about.

She will grow exactly as she’s meant to.

Just as strawberries give way to cherries, and cherries to peaches.

The fruit reminds us that we can’t cling to the season we’re in.

We can simply enjoy it.

To let ourselves fully taste it.

For me lately, in a season where I am consciously creating my next chapter post-seperation, I’ve redefined what success means to me. It’s less about achievement and more like being intentional with my attention.

Because I’ve had so many moments lately that, while I’m still inside the moment, I can recognize that this is the life you’ll someday remember.

This is the season you’ll one day ache for.

The sweetest season you’ll want to have savoured fully.

Not because it was perfect.

But because it was yours.

We don’t expect peaches in June.

We don’t resent strawberries for not lasting longer.

Actually I’d argue that their sweetness comes, in part, because we know it won’t last.

Maybe our lives are the same.

Maybe the invitation isn’t to hurry toward whatever season comes next.

Maybe it’s to notice what’s ripe today.

To taste it slowly.

To let it stain your fingers.

To recognize, while the strawberries are still sweet, that this ordinary Tuesday morning beside a lake, with your daughter curled beside you and an entire summer stretching out ahead, is already a kind of wealth.

And perhaps the richest life isn’t the one that has the most.

It’s the one that knows how to savour what’s already here.

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I was fifteen years old, and philosophical wisdom was definitely not on my wishlist.

As he always did with books, inside the front cover he wrote me a note. Today, part of that note is tattooed on my wrist.

At the time, I couldn’t have told you what the book meant. The language felt ancient and mysterious. I would occasionally open it, read a passage, and close it again, convinced I was missing something important.

Then life happened.

School.

Work.

Love.

Loss.

Adventure.

Thousands of ordinary days.

And then, seven years after he gave me that book, my dad died.

Suddenly, this old stocking stuffer became one of my most treasured possessions. Not because I understood the words inside it, but his handwriting on the first page. A tangible reminder that he had once held this book in his hands, thought of his daughter, and wanted to help her make sense of the world.

For years, I carried it with me on adventures around the world. As its pages grew more tattered and fragile, its found a sacred place within every home I’ve ever lived in.

Every now and then, I would pull it out and read a passage, hoping it would finally make sense. Usually it didn’t. Not really.

The wisdom felt beautiful, but distant.

Then one day I had an idea. Could I use artificial intelligence to access this ancient wisdom in a way that helped me connect with it?

So I started a new ritual: one I lean into when things feel wobbly, uncertain, or when I am really missing my dad.

I open to a random page of the Tao and plug it into ChatGPT.

Then I ask:

“What insight does Dad have for me today?”

And somehow, these ancient words are translated into the context of my life in a way that lands.

Sometimes, in those responses, I find words that feel remarkably like his.

Recently, in the midst of uncertainty, I landed on a passage about harmony, cleverness, and returning to oneself.

Years ago, I would have read it, half-grasped a few words, and moved on.

This time, a metaphor emerged that stopped me in my tracks:

Stay in the current of your own life.

Immediately, I pictured a river.

A river doesn’t waste its energy wondering whether it should be a mountain trail, a prairie field, or the ocean.

It doesn’t compare its pace to the river beside it.

It doesn’t spend its days trying to control its banks.

It doesn’t demand to know which streams will merge with it along the way.

It doesn’t insist on seeing the entire route before taking the next turn.

It simply flows.

The river doesn’t know where it will widen.

It doesn’t know where it will narrow.

It doesn’t know what storms are coming.

It doesn’t know where it will eventually empty.

And yet, somehow, it moves.

Its work is not to manage the landscape.

Its work is to flow.

When I first read those words, I thought about my business.

My daughter.

Love.

And I realized how much of my life has been spent trying to manage the banks.

Trying to control outcomes.

Trying to predict timelines.

Trying to force certainty where none exists.

But the past year, one of enormous transition, has reminded me again and again of this truth.

Because ending a 12 year relationship, stepping into single motherhood, returning to school, and rebuilding a business has required me to learn how to trust the flow of life, and myself within it, in entirely new ways.

There are days when all I want is a map.

Proof that everything is going to work out.

A guarantee that the choices I’m making today will lead where I hope they will.

But rivers don’t move by finding certainty.

They move by staying in their current.

So who am I within the current of my own life, I wondered?

I am a mother.

I am a writer.

I am a teacher.

I am a space holder.

I am studying trauma, attachment, and healing.

I am building a practice focused on helping people move from reactivity to regulation.

This is my river.

For so long, I thought my work was to figure everything out.

To seek and find certainty.

Lately, I’m beginning to wonder if my work is simply to participate.

To write the essay.

To go for the walk.

To show up for the client.

To make a nourishing meal.

To build the business in front of me instead of fantasizing about the one that exists only in my imagination.

The insight I received that day was felt like a relief. Because I realized I don’t need to spend energy trying to control the banks.

I don’t need to know which opportunities will arrive.

I don’t need to know who will walk beside me.

I don’t need to know exactly how the story ends.

I just need to stay in relationship with the current.

With that which feels alive and flowing in my life.

Maybe that’s what my father was giving me all those years ago.

Not answers.

Not certainty.

Not a map.

Just a way of returning to myself.

The book sat on my shelf for nearly thirty years, waiting patiently.

“Seems to change each time you read it,” he said.

And I realized the words never changed.

I did.

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One of my teachers often refers to the yoga mat as a metaphor for life.

And over my decades of practice, I’ve found that to be true.

Within the four corners of my yoga mat, I’ve met myself over and over again.

I’ve discovered my tendency to rush.

My tendency to strive.

The stories I tell myself when things get hard.

The ways I abandon myself.

And the paths I can take to come back again: compassion, grace, regulation, restoration.

But perhaps the greatest gift yoga has given me is a deeper connection to my breath, and through that, a portal to the rhythms and metaphors woven throughout the natural world.

Because within this very breath lies a mirror of the cycles of the sun, the moon, and even of life itself.

Take a moment to notice.

Your inhale.

The pause.

Your exhale.

The pause.

Within your breath there are four distinct phases.

The inhale, like spring: a new beginning coming alive.

The pause at the top, like summer: energetic, expansive, and full of life.

The exhale, like autumn: a release, a letting go, a return to the earth.

The pause at the bottom, like winter: the quiet, regenerative end of the cycle that creates space for the next.

A complete cycle.

Once I started noticing this rhythm in my breath, I began seeing it everywhere.

In the moon.

In the changing seasons.

In our bodies.

In the rise and fall of a single day.

And perhaps most poignantly, in the arc of a human life.

Because if breath has a cycle...

And seasons have a cycle...

And the moon has a cycle...

And our bodies move in cycles...

Then perhaps life does too.

Perhaps we aren’t meant to bloom forever.

Perhaps we aren’t meant to produce forever.

Perhaps we aren't meant to live at the peak forever.

Nature doesn’t promise ease. Nature promises seasons.

*

Truthfully, this essay has been sitting unfinished for weeks.

Between motherhood, graduate school, teaching, building a business, and navigating one of the biggest transitions of my life, I’ve found myself living the very thing I’m trying to write about.

The fullness of summer.

The peak season of midlife.

A season of mortgages and permission slips.

Of businesses and budgets.

Of grief and possibility somehow existing side by side.

Of closing one chapter while trying to imagine the shape of the next.

A season where everything seems to need something from you all at once.

And if I’m being honest, I think part of my struggle has been that I know how fleeting it all is.

I watch my daughter growing taller.

I notice another grey hair.

I feel the seasons changing faster than they once did.

And sometimes, like summer itself, I want to hold on so tightly that I miss the very thing I’m trying to savour.

It’s like eating a perfectly sweet cherry.

Instead of tasting its sweetness, I’m already grieving the fact that cherry season won’t last forever.

The awareness of its impermanence makes it harder to fully taste what’s right in front of me.

But maybe that is part of the lesson too.

The cherry isn’t meant to last forever.

It’s meant to be tasted.

Summer isn’t meant to be held onto.

It’s meant to be lived.

Try holding onto your breath.

Sooner or later, you’re going to have to let it go.

The inhale becomes the exhale.

The cherry is eaten.

The child grows.

The load lightens.

The season changes.

Not because anything has gone wrong.

Because that is the rhythm of being alive.

And maybe this season of life is asking the same thing of me.

*

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what this means for those of us standing in the middle years of life.

The season where careers, children, relationships, businesses, aging parents, dreams, grief, joy, responsibility, and possibility all seem to arrive at once.

A season that often feels remarkably similar to standing near the top of a bell curve.

Not the statistics class version.

The human version.

The bell curve of life.

If we’re lucky enough to grow old, most of us will travel through a natural arc.

We begin in spring.

The season of becoming.

Of scraped knees and first loves and figuring out who we are.

Then comes summer.

The season of building.

Careers.

Children.

Relationships.

Businesses.

Homes.

Responsibilities.

Dreams.

The season where life feels gloriously full.

And if I’m honest?

Sometimes overwhelmingly full.

I’m 42.

Many of my friends are somewhere in the middle years too.

And when I look around, I see women carrying extraordinary loads.

They’re raising children.

Navigating divorce.

Supporting aging parents.

Building businesses.

Healing old wounds.

Trying to remember themselves somewhere in the midst of it all.

No wonder we’re tired.

No wonder we occasionally fantasize about disappearing into a cabin in the woods with no cell service.

Summer is beautiful.

But summer is also a lot.

The garden is producing.

Everything needs watering.

Everything seems alive at once.

For a long time, I thought the overwhelm meant I was doing something wrong.

That if I could just become more organized, more productive, more disciplined, I’d finally arrive at some magical state of ease.

But nature doesn’t promise ease. Nature promises seasons.

And summer was never meant to feel like winter.

Its job isn’t rest.

Its job is abundance.

And abundance has weight.

Eventually, though, the curve begins to soften.

Autumn arrives.

The season of harvest.

Of discernment.

Of asking what is truly worth carrying forward.

And eventually, winter.

Not as an ending.

As a return.

A season of wisdom.

Reflection.

Storytelling.

The kind of knowing that can only come from living.

What comforts me about the bell curve is that it reminds me that every season belongs.

The uncertainty of spring.

The fullness of summer.

The letting go of autumn.

The stillness of winter.

None of it is permanent.

None of it is wrong.

It’s simply the rhythm of being human.

And when I find myself overwhelmed by the responsibilities of this season—motherhood, business, teaching, studying, caring, creating—I return to the metaphor.

I picture myself somewhere near the top of the curve—the peak of midlife.

And I see that there’s no need to rush toward the next season.

That I can simply pause.

To take a breath.

To lift my head.

To look around.

And to savour the sweetness of this season while it is here.

When you leave the relationship.
Move cities.
Start over.
Go back to school.
Choose yourself.

The leap is visible.
The leap is brave.
The leap gets applause.

But no one prepares you for the landing.

While you’re so focused on courageously making the big move, no one tells you that the real shift happens after you leap.

The moment you land—both feet in this new version of your life—and realize:

Here I am.
Now what?

—

After ending my 12-year relationship last year, I landed in 2026 on a completely new timeline.

A new apartment in the city.
A Masters degree in motion.
A path toward becoming a somatic therapist.
A new co-parenting rhythm.

Waking up on Thursday mornings in an empty house.
Sunday night assignments waiting for me at the kitchen table.
Family dinners in the house I designed & decorated but I don’t live in anymore.
Late-night readings with no one there to watch me chase this dream.

And that’s when it hit me.

Holy fuck, here I am.

—

The leap is empowering: the landing is disorienting.

It requires your body and nervous system to catch up with your brave decision and with that comes a radical acceptance of responsibility: you are the author of your life. The only one who will take you where you want to go—and determine who you will be when you get there.

You’ve made the leap. You’ve landed.

Now there’s no momentum carrying you forward.

There is just your body in a new reality.

So what do you do?

As someone who has made big moves, taken bold leaps, and rebuilt more than once, let me hold your hand when I tell you this: it’s simple.

Not easy. But simple.

Right.
Left.
Right.
Left.

One step at a time.

Because when you zoom out too far, it’s overwhelming.

What will my life look like in five years?
Did I make the right decision?
Who will walk with me?
How will I build something beautiful from here?

The mind wants the whole map.

But you don’t need the whole map. You need the next step.

The landing isn’t about dramatic reinvention.
It’s about integration.

It’s about waking up in the quiet and choosing yourself again.
About regulating your breath when doubt creeps in.
About letting your nervous system slowly realize:

We’re safe here.
We chose this.
I trust we can build from here.

The leap changes your circumstances.

The landing changes your capacity.

And capacity is built slowly—in ordinary mornings, in steady routines, in the right-left rhythm of showing up. Again and again and again.

No applause.
No soundtrack.

Just your body learning how to live inside the life you asked for.

So if you’ve made the brave decision and are wondering why it still feels wobbly… it doesn’t mean you’ve made the wrong decision.

You’re integrating.

You’re expanding.

You’re becoming someone who can hold what you asked for.

Your body is catching up.

And that takes time.

Right.
Left.
Right.
Left.

Keep going.

I’ve got you.

More importantly —

You’ve got you.

xo

Rachelle

P.S. If you’re in a season of transition and your nervous system feels like it’s still catching up, I created a free 22-day email series called Steady Your Self. It’s small, daily practices to help you move from triggered to regulated—one step at a time. You can join here.

If you’re feeling a strange mix of heaviness and hope right now—like something is ending and something else is trying to begin, but you can’t quite tell what either of them are yet… you are attuned to the energies around you and are absolutely not alone.

This weekend we welcome the darkest of nights, with a new moon, the final one of 2025, and the winter solstice colliding.

In numerology, 2025 is a nine year—a year that’s not about starting fresh, but about completions and finishing honestly. Nine years ask us to let things that have run their course be done.

So if you feel tired in a way rest hasn’t fixed, or reflective in a way you can’t rush through, that makes sense. Something has been completing, even if you don’t have language for it yet.

This darkness isn’t empty. It’s protective.

We often think of darkness as something to move through as quickly as possible.

But this isn’t the dark of fear or confusion. It’s the dark of the earth.

The kind of dark where seeds are kept safe.
Where roots grow without witnesses.
Where nothing asks to be seen yet.

Winter doesn’t demand growth. It offers permission to rest.

Just like the ground knows when it’s time to rest, so do you.
That’s what winter is all about.

The same truth keeps appearing, no matter how you look at it

In Chinese astrology, this is the Year of the Snake, a year associated with shedding what’s no longer true.

Not dramatic change.
Not reinvention.

Just the quiet realization that you can’t keep wearing an old skin, no matter how familiar it once felt.

This year hasn’t been asking you to become more.
It’s been asking you to be more honest.

And still—there is something new here

This final new moon falls in Sagittarius, the sign of meaning and horizon.

So yes, there is forward motion here.
There is curiosity.
There is a sense that something is beginning.

But it isn’t loud.

One thing I often say in my breathwork classes is that new moons—like winter, like the end of a year, like a nine year—remind us that the end of one cycle is always the beginning of the next.

This New Moon isn’t asking you to leap toward the light.
It’s asking you to dance with possibility while you rest in the dark.

If you don’t know what comes next, that’s okay

Beginnings that arrive inside endings are delicate.

They don’t come with plans or timelines.
They come as a shift in what you can tolerate.
A clearer no.
A quieter yes.

If you’re waiting for clarity before you allow yourself to slow down, consider this:

You might just need to stop pushing something that’s already tired.

That isn’t quitting.
That’s listening.

Something you can take with you

Here’s a small practice to help you stay connected to yourself through the weekend.

Ask yourself this one question:

What has fallen away this year that feels untrue, and what is it clearing space for?

You don’t have to answer it fully.
Just notice what shifts in your body when you ask.

Dancing in the dark

Dancing in the dark doesn’t mean pretending everything is okay.

It means staying with yourself while things rearrange. Finding the beauty and sacred rhythms within the endings.

It’s holding hope in the depths of the dark, that the light will return, in it’s own time. And bring with it, beauty and blooms you can’t imagine yet.

But for now, something is composting.
And something else is quietly learning how to grow.

I’m glad you’re here.

With you,
Rachelle

For Paid Subscribers: The Twelve Flames Ritual

A practice for closing one cycle and consciously carrying the next

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There’s a part of transformation no one prepares you for.
Not the aligned part.
Not the confident part.
The in-between.

The part where everything you used to be is melting away,
and nothing new has fully taken shape yet.
It’s disorienting, tender, messy… and somehow holy.

Last week I left yoga with tears drying on my cheeks,
realizing I’m deeper in this season than I knew.

I’ve always believed metaphors are medicine—
little truths wrapped in imagery from the natural world
that help us understand our own human experience.

And the caterpillar is one of the most honest metaphors we have.

They don’t tell you this,
but a caterpillar doesn’t become a butterfly in a neat, linear way.

She turns into goo.
Literal goo.
If you opened the cocoon halfway through the caterpillar’s transformation,
you wouldn’t see a butterfly-in-progress —
you’d see a formless, unrecognizable mush.

But here’s the part that undoes me every time:

She dissolves inside the cocoon she built herself.
A sacred little space she crafted
from instinct and inner knowing
long before she had any proof
that she’d ever grow wings.

She didn’t hustle her transformation.
She didn’t check if she was “doing it right.”
She didn’t search for signs every five minutes.

She trusted the intelligence that told her:
build the cocoon,
go inside,
surrender.

Something about that feels so familiar.
So deeply human.

I’m in my own goo era.
Maybe you are too.

Life is shifting faster than my clarity.
Old versions of me are slipping away,
but the new one hasn’t landed yet.

Some days I feel steady.
Some days resistance wraps around my ribs
and I have to breathe myself back into my own body.

Most days, I’m practicing becoming
the safe place I can land inside of
while everything in me rearranges.

Because that’s the real work, isn’t it?
Not becoming the butterfly—
but becoming the one inside the cocoon
who trusts the process
even when nothing makes sense yet.

Becoming the woman who can say:
“I built this space for myself.
I chose this.
Something in me knew.
And I’ll remain here, tender and trusting,
until the next version of me unfolds.”

If you’re in that place—half dissolving, half forming—
you’re not late.
You’re not lost.
You’re not failing.

You’re mid-metamorphosis.
And goo, inconvenient as it is,
is sacred.

If you’re in your own metamorphosis right now, the next part is where the real medicine live—the practices I use with clients to help them stay steady when life rearranges them.

P.S. My annual December offering, Home (to Yourself) for the Holidays, begins December 1. A soft place to land during a season that asks so much of your nervous system—with my only special pricing of the year.

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To remember that healing isn’t always found in motion — sometimes it’s in the stillness, the softness, the simple act of being here.

This lunation, a supermoon in Taurus with the sun opposite it in Scorpio, meets us in the body.

Together, under these cosmic forces, there’s a kind of alchemy—the grounded, earthy steadiness of Taurus meets the deep, transformational undercurrents of Scorpio.

You’re invited not only to release what no longer serves (Scorpio) but to build quietly and steadily from the place you already are (Taurus).

When we stop rushing toward who we think we should be, we can finally hear the steady rhythm of who we already are.

✨ Three Ways to Work with This Full Moon Energy

1. Ground & Root
Find a few moments to connect with the earth—step outside barefoot, or simply place a hand over your heart and breathe deeply.

With each exhale, imagine releasing tension or old stories that no longer fit.
With each inhale, feel the steadiness of the ground supporting you.
Let your breath remind you: you are safe to be here.

2. Savour your Senses
Taurus teaches us that pleasure can be sacred. Make yourself a warm drink, light a candle, or move slowly through something you love.

Let this be a ritual of being present—noticing the taste, texture, and warmth of the moment. These small moments of earthly pleasure—that slow sip of tea, the warmth of sunlight on your skin, the luxurious feel of your favorite skin cream—are all ways the earth reminds you that the earth is supporting and nourishing you, always and in all ways.

3. Guided Full Moon Meditation
For paid subscribers, I’ve recorded a new full moon meditation designed to help you feel grounded and supported as you release what’s run its course.
This practice blends breath, body awareness, and gentle reflection — a chance to exhale, soften, and remember that you are already enough.
If your nervous system has been craving rest and renewal, this one’s for you.

Read more

Especially after that one year, in my twenties, when on October 31 I found myself abroad on a solo trip in Central America. My accommodation was across the street from a cemetery, and I just happened to stumble into a Día de los Muertos celebration walking home from sunset in a small Nicaraguan surf town.

Families filled the night with candles, flowers, and laughter—decorating graves with marigolds and painted skulls, the air rich with incense and ocean breeze. It was the first time I saw people seeing death not as an ending, but as a continuation—a celebration of love that transcends form, which felt true for me.

Since that day, I’ve never looked back. Día de los Muertos—the Day of the Dead—will be what I’m celebrating each October 31 for the rest of my life (and beyond, hopefully):
this time when the veil between the living and the lost grows thin.

I see it as a way to honour love that’s shifted shape but never truly left us.

Maybe that’s why my daughter’s question landed the way it did.

We started the morning like every other—with cuddles and me whispering,
“I love you always, forever, no matter what.”

But a few minutes later, as I was making her banana pancakes, she looked up and asked me,

“Will you still love me when you die, Mom?”

She said it so simply, like she was asking for more maple syrup. It’s not the kind of question you expect before 8 a.m., but I love how honest kids have the capacity to be, when I haven’t even had my matcha yet.

And maybe it seems unusual for a seven-year-old to think about death—but it’s part of our world. She has a dead grandpa (my dad), a dead grandma (her dad’s mom), and a dead uncle (my brother). And just last year, both her best friend and her cousin lost their dads.

Sometimes I joke that we’re a little like the Addams Family—but being surrounded by the reality of death makes us more comfortable with conversations most people avoid.

So we talk about death a lot in our home—not in a morbid way, but in a real, sacred, this-is-a-part-of-life-and-that’s-why-we’re-grateful-for-today kind of way.

“Yes, sweetheart. Of course I’ll still love you.”

“But how?”

For a moment, I stood there with the flipper in my hand, my heart aching and full all at once. And the first thing that came to mind was my dad—the man who also promised me he’d love me always, forever, no matter what.

He’s been gone almost twenty years now. And yet, I still feel his fierce love for me come through. It happens almost daily, honestly.

“But how?” I hear my curious cub want to know.

In the intuitive downloads I receive that gives me the radical truth, just as he did.
In the sunset messages he sends on tough days, reminding me of the light and beauty that are still possible as darkness looms.
In the eagle sighting he sends me when I need the reminder to zoom out and see the big picture.

I believe that love never leaves.
That it just changes form.

Maybe it becomes wind and light and the quiet sense that we’re held—even when we can’t see who’s holding us.

And as I watched her sitting there, legs dangling from the kitchen stool, I thought about how much I love her—my living, breathing miracle—and how in the afterlife I know I’d do anything and everything possible to ensure she could still feel that love earthside.

So I told her,

“I’ll love you through sunsets and moonshows when you need to remember the magic that exists in everyday life.
I’ll send you a gentle breeze when you need a hug,
and hummingbirds when your heart feels heavy.”

She replied, “Okay, good. Because I’m not going to stop loving you either.”

And just like that, my dad’s love made it’s way through to me today, a reminder that love always finds a way to reach us.

For anyone missing someone today, this is an invitation to stay open to receiving their love—in big ways, small ways, and the ordinary moments in between.

I never ended up finding much peace that way.
Because, as Winston Churchill famously said,
“Life is just one damn thing after another.”

What did come was the realization that stress was never the problem.
It was how I related to it—how I resisted it, feared it, or tried to fix it.

Because stress isn’t the villain.
Like everything in our human experience, it isn’t inherently good or bad.
It just is.

And the truth is, we need stress.
It’s the force that builds strong bodies, strong roots, and strong boundaries.

When you lift weights, your muscles tear just enough to rebuild stronger.
When you plant a seed, the tension between soil and sprout is what teaches the roots to dig deeper.
Even in our careers or relationships, it’s often the pressure that pushes us to grow into our next version.

There’s a study that perfectly illustrates this:
Scientists created a “perfect environment” — a biosphere complete with trees, sunlight, and controlled weather. But something strange happened. The trees grew tall… and then fell over.

Why?

Because there was no wind.
No resistance.
No stress to strengthen their fibers or deepen their roots.

Without it, they collapsed under their own growth.

Stress isn’t the enemy—
it’s the wind that helps you grow steady and strong.
The storm that shapes you into someone more skilled, wiser, and more grounded in your own truth.

The key is not to eliminate stress,
but to change your relationship with it.

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This week, I’ve been solo-parenting my fiery seven-year-old.
I’m in a launch week, doing my best to get my signature program into the hands of those who need it.
My dog just had surgery, and between meds, walks, and school drop-offs, showing up and getting my message out… My life is stress-full right now.

But it’s the kind of stretch that’s shaping me into the woman I want to be—
the one living the legacy I want to leave behind.

So, we’re five minutes from heading out the door for school when—
I trip and spill my matcha. It’s a projectile explosion that leaves splashes of green elixir everywhere: on the cupboards, the fridge, the floor.

A complete mess.

In another chapter of my life, that would’ve been the final straw.
I would’ve let the chaos around me become chaos inside of me—
and then, up and out (as a Type Seven tends to do),
that energy would have spilled over.

It might’ve harmed someone I love—not intentionally,
but in that sharp, reactive way that happens when our nervous systems are overloaded.
It would’ve brought a frantic energy into the morning,
one that didn’t match how I want to move through these precious moments and years with my daughter.

But this time, I didn’t.
I took a deep breath.
Assessed the situation.
Even laughed a little.

And then I just… cleaned it up.
Neutral energy. No story. And we were still out the door on time.
My neutrality held space for me see that the chaos was totally figure-out-able.

That’s the thing about building capacity in your nervous system—
you don’t stop feeling stress.
You just stop becoming it.

When your body knows how to hold more—
more emotion, more uncertainty, more life—
you stop breaking every time a storm blows through.

You start trusting yourself in the midst of chaos.
You breathe deeper when things feel hard.
You stop taking every spike of stress as proof that something is wrong with you,
and start seeing it as an invitation to expand.

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That’s what we practice inside The Embodiment Project.

It’s a four-week journey into how your body holds stress—
and how to meet it with steadiness, compassion, and truth.

We get under the hood of your stress response—
the stories, type patterns, and protective strategies that send you into overdrive or shutdown when life feels stormy.

You’ll learn to notice when you’re overextending your precious life force energy (pushing, performing, people-pleasing),
when you’re running on low (numb, checked out, disconnected),
and how to find the sweet spot where aliveness lives.

If you’ve been craving a different way to meet life—
one that feels lighter, steadier, and more alive—
this is your invitation.

Join The Embodiment Project — and learn how to meet the storms of life without losing your light.

Because the storm was never here to break you—
it was here to prepare you for your next chapter.
And you don’t have to navigate it alone.
it just stops being heavy.

Join The Embodiment Project — where we rewire your relationship to stress, reconnect you to your body, and teach you how to live from the inside out.

That blah feeling. Not burned out exactly, just… dull. Disconnected. Like you’re watching your own life in soft focus.

When that energy sets in, it’s easy to zoom out—to look at the big picture of your life, of where you are and where you aren’t, and ask:
What’s wrong with my job? My relationship? My purpose? My plan?

And too often, we get stuck there—fixated on what’s wrong with the big picture, scrolling through everyone else’s highlight reel, trying to hack our way to a better version of life. But if you actually want to change the big picture, and this is the advice I give my clients and students again and again, you have to do the opposite.

You have to go small. To zoom in. To focus relentlessly on the micro—the small, embodied choices that you’re making everyday that quietly compound into the life you are living.

Let’s rewind 22 years

These days, I hold space for curious humans navigating challenging seasons of life — but 22 years ago, I was an economics major. Which, looking at how far I ended up from my initial plan, still makes me smile.

Back then, I was following the path in front of me: the steady career, the safe choices, the familiar map my dad—who worked in global financial markets—had walked before me.

And yet, in hindsight, those three years of economics taught me more about life and healing than I ever could’ve imagined at the time.

In Econ 101, I learned the difference between macro and micro thinking.
Macro looks at the big picture: GDPs, systems, sweeping trends.
Micro looks at the individual: the small, everyday decisions made by consumers.

I was so curious to learn about how the two influence each other I decided to make it my major—but what struck me most was how the micro everyday choices that individuals make create the macro picture of the whole.

At the time, it was just a concept on a page. But years later, I would learn how true it is—not just in economics, but in healing, in growth, and in life.

In September of the final year of my economics degree, my dad was diagnosed with cancer and died shortly after, and everything I thought I knew about what it meant to live a “successful life” unraveled. I dropped out of university and started charting my own authentic path—one that had less to do with profit and more to do with presence.

But I carried that lesson with me, and it has guided my approach to healing, life—and yes, finances—ever since.

Coming back to today

I see it every day in my clients—the impulse to fix the whole story before tending to the moment right in front of them.

They want to change their lives, but what actually moves the needle is something much smaller: in learning to breathe deeper, to forgive and repair, to choose gentleness over judgment, and remembering to pause before reacting.

Because what actually changes the big picture of your life is how you show up today.

• How you meet yourself in tough moments: when your nervous system stresses, when a wave of grief hits, when you meet obstacles and self-doubt creeps in.

• How you pay attention to what’s in front of you: the conversation you’re in, the taste of your matcha, the warmth of the sun on your skin.

• How you appreciate to what you already have: the body that carries you, the breath that grounds you, the people and places that make you feel like yourself.

Over time, those small deposits of awareness and care—like the steady bi-weekly investments I’ve made my whole adult life—start to compound.

Your nervous system becomes more flexible.
Your days start to flow differently.
And slowly, life begins to feel like yours again.

Not because everything around you changed, but because you did.

Where we go from here

Having tools to meet with moment with presence and awareness is the heart of my work—and it’s the foundation of my live group program, The Embodiment Project.

This is time and space to practice what truly transforms us: presence, compassion, and the sacred simplicity of showing up for your real life regulated and resourced.

Together, we’ll explore the small, sustainable rituals that build steadiness from the inside out—and remind you that transformation isn’t found in the grand gestures, but in the gentle, consistent ones.

Doors open Monday, but if you’d like to sneak a peek, you can learn more about this relaunch of my signature program here.

With love,
Rachelle 🌿

It may sound dramatic, but four decades into this thing called life, I finally understand why our ancestors made gratitude an annual ritual—why they paused to give thanks for the food, for the land, for the sun, for this very breath. They knew something we’ve forgotten: that gratitude isn’t just a feeling, it’s a way of being in relationship with life itself.

Again and again, I’ve seen how this simple, everyday practice can soften what feels stuck, calm an anxious heart, and make what’s there… enough.

And it made me wonder: Why is this so powerful?

When I traced it back, I realized it connects to something I learned early in my healing journey—from a book that cracked me wide open, gifted to me by a dear friend when I first began my path as a space holder and teacher.

A Course in Miracles—a dense, mystical text about returning the mind to love — became a compass for my inner work. Its core teaching is simple but life-changing: every thought, word, and action is rooted in one of two energies—love or fear.

For a long time, I understood that in theory. But embodiment is another story.
It wasn’t until I began healing my own scarcity patterns—the constant striving, the gripping, the quiet fear of not having, doing, or being enough—that I really felt what the text was pointing to.

Like everything on my healing journey, I had to live it to learn it.

In 2023, I made gratitude my New Year’s resolution—to write down at least three things I was grateful for every single day in a Note on my phone titled “Gratitude List 2023”. The practice was so powerful that I’ve kept up keeping annual gratitude journals. I come back to them often. And somewhere along the way, I realized something simple but profound: gratitude feels a lot like love, and scarcity feels a lot like fear.

Over time, I started to see just how much those two frequencies shape the way we move through the world—and how differently life feels depending on which one we’re tuned into.

Scarcity is the frequency of fear. Gratitude is the frequency of love.

The Scarcity Frequency

For a long time, I didn’t realize how deeply scarcity was running the show in my life.
It was in how I ran my business, how I showed up in relationships, and how I constantly pushed myself to do more, be more, achieve more.

On the surface, it looked like ambition.
But underneath? It was fear.

When I finally traced it back to the root, I found heaps of unhealed trauma—moments when I didn’t feel safe or supported, times when my body learned that safety wasn’t guaranteed. Scarcity, I realized, wasn’t just a mindset problem; it was my nervous system trying to protect me.

It’s wild how fear can dress itself up as responsibility or discipline. But once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.

No matter how much I had, it never felt like enough.
Because safety doesn’t come from circumstances—it comes from connection.
From the body remembering it’s safe to receive.

The Frequency of Love

That’s where gratitude changed everything for me.

Not the performative kind. But real, felt gratitude. The kind that softens your shoulders, slows your breath, and sparks the warms and fuzzies in your heartspace. The kind that anchors you back into the truth that love is here, right now.

Gratitude doesn’t bridge the gap between fear and love—it is love in action.
It’s what happens when you remember that life is still beautiful, even when it’s imperfect.

Gratitude has the incredible capacity to make what you have, enough.

It’s the embodied recognition that there’s more right with your life than wrong.
It turns ordinary moments into scared ones.

A Living Practice

Every morning, I say three things I’m grateful for. At night, I write three things that happened that day that I am grateful for.

Sometimes it’s big: healing moments, wins in my businesses, the people who make me feel safe and loved and supported.
Sometimes it’s small: a warm cup of my tea, something someone said that warmed my heart, my daughter’s laugh echoing through the house.

But every time, I can feel it—my body shifts from fear to love, from protection to presence.

A (Canadian Thanksgiving) Invitation

As the days shorten and the air turns crisp, this is your reminder to pause.
To notice what’s already here.
To feel the abundance that’s been quietly holding you all along.

Because gratitude isn’t something you practice to become more loving—it is love in motion.
A frequency that you can tune into, and it when you do… it ripples outward and changes everything it touches.

✨ What are you grateful for in this season of harvest?
Whisper it. Write it. Feel it in your bones.
Carry the frequency with you.

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This week is my birthday, and it feels like a big one. A chapter of youth is firmly closing, and another season of life is beginning.

Every birthday takes me back to the hardest one I ever had—20 years ago, when I turned 22. Just weeks before, my dad had been given months to live. He was my only secure attachment, and I was about to lose him. That loss cracked me open and sent me into a decades-long journey of healing—one I’m still walking today.

If I could sit across from that younger version of me, these are the 42 things I’d tell he—before everything changed. Wisdom earned through grief, growth, and showing up for life again and again. Maybe some of them will land for you, too.

42 Things I’d Tell My 22-Year-Old Self

1. You are not too much. The right people will be able to hold your light.

2. Your words are spells. Speak to yourself like it’s all working out.

3. Rest when your body whispers, not only when it screams. Even the smallest pause is medicine.

4. Stop living like everything is scarce. Life holds more than you think when you build the capacity to hold it.

5. Mistakes don’t make you bad. Learning to say, “I was wrong, and I care enough to make it right” deepens every relationship.

6. Learn to regulate your nervous system. Your body is bracing more often than you realize.

7. Busy doesn’t equal meaningful. Protect your time like it’s sacred.

8. Strength builds freedom in your body.

9. Aging is a privilege. Not everyone gets the chance.

10. Forgiveness will free you. Resentment only weighs you down.

11. Don’t say “should.” It rarely tells the truth.

12. Pay yourself first. Automate your savings.

13. Finding small joys in the everyday is how you survive massive loss.

14. Play is sacred.

15. Choose the path that feels both scary and exciting. That flutter in your belly is a compass.

16. Unclench your jaw. Drop your shoulders. Feel your feet. Your body is asking for presence.

17. Put your phone down and look at the sky. Awe is medicine for your nervous system.

18. You don’t only live once. You only die once. Make today count.

19. Invest in yourself. Short-term gains only matter if they serve the long game.

20. Permission isn’t coming. Start anyway.

21. Hard things will shape you. Let them.

22. Keep following the cues from the universe. The signs are real if you’re paying attention.

23. Become the woman you needed in your girlhood. She’s still waiting for you.

24. When you feel lost, look to the compass within. No one else has your map.

25. Treat every child with kindness and love. You’ll never regret being someone’s safe place.

    ✨ The next 17 are the ones I had to live to learn — the stories of grief, loss, and becoming. You can unlock them by becoming a paid subscriber.

    ✨ Subscribe ✨

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The yogic concept of lila—divine play—will always be a thread in my inner work. But when it comes to what I share with you here, it all comes back to this: I want to help you live a life that feels like it’s truly yours. One where you feel authentic, alive, and fully expressed.

✨ Subscribe Now ✨

What I’ve learned: Intuition = Truth, Embodied

I’ve been on a healing path for almost 20 years—ever since my dad died and I discovered yoga, which opened the door to spiritual practice and a deeper relationship with my body, breath, and inner wisdom.

Over the decades, I’ve come to learn that when an inner knowing—your embodied truth—rises, it isn’t always pretty. Sometimes it shakes you, rearranges your whole world, and asks more of you than you thought you could give.

Maybe you call this inner knowing your intuition. I call it your embodied truth—a felt sense of what is a yes and what is a no.

Once you’ve created the space within to hear this inner guidance. The work of Living True is learning to trust your inner knowings and to take action that aligns with them. In little ways and big ways. Everyday.

My life’s work as a Space Holder

I believe that to hold space means I create a container where truth can rise and it can be felt in your body, witnessed without judgment, and slowly integrated into your life.

For over a decade, I’ve been a space holder—in yoga classes, retreats, circles, and in my one-on-one work as a somatic healing practitioner and enneagram coach.

I’ve had the honour of witnessing hundreds, maybe thousands, of people choose themselves in small ways and big ways over the last 12 years. And every time, I’ve seen how those choices ripple outward: into families, workplaces, friendships, and communities.

I once had a coach, after pouring through my offers and programs, tell me that my gift is truth: seeing it, telling it and holding space for it.

And I think she’s right. I’ve always been the friend who will give it to you straight—not with judgment, but with love. As a coach, I have a way of cutting through the noise and naming what’s real. And in my work, I hold space for the truth to rise in your body—sometimes gently, sometimes like a lightning strike—so you can feel it, trust it, and live from it.

And that brings us Here, now.

I started on this healing path because I lost my father too soon. When it became clear to him he wouldn’t survive his cancer diagnosis, his wish for me was simple: live true. Don’t sell out. Believe in your gifts enough to share them—shamelessly, authentically, consistently—and you can make them your life’s work.

That is what this space is for me: practices for living true, sharing my gifts with the world and (hopefully) inspiring you to do the same.

As Marianne Williamson reminds us: “As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”

Here you’ll find:
🌙 stories & metaphors as medicine
🌙 moon rituals & seasonal practices
🌙 reminders from my two greatest teachers: Mother Earth & my daughter, Sky
🌙 tools of movement, breath, and stillness to bring you back home to yourself

My hope is that this space feels like a mirror—reflecting back the most true version of you.

My birthday = A Gift for You

✨ Subscribe to Living True for just $7/month ✨

To mark this new chapter (that coincides with a new season and my birthday week) I’m offering a special: Save 36% off Living True until October 1 🎂

Subscribe Now for for $7 (CAD) / month

When you subscribe, you’re not only supporting this mama’s authentic’s expression—you’re also giving yourself access to:

• A growing library of meditations and practices to regulate your nervous system and return to your truth

• Insider-only moon rituals, stories, and reflections

• Exclusive podcast-style audio drops just for subscribers

Whether you’re able to jump in as a paid subscriber or not today, I’m so grateful you’re here.

And in case you needed the reminder: the world doesn’t need more embodiments of perfection. It needs more of us, living true.

You are on your path.
Slowly.
Surely.
Becoming. ✨

Xo

Rachelle

The cracks of division that first began to show a few years ago now feel raw and fully exposed.
And if you’re anything like me, you’ve probably felt it in your nervous system—tightness, fatigue, even a quiet grief for the blissful “precedented times” we once knew.

And it’s all got me thinking about a moment, must have been ten years ago, when my spouse and I were fighting at an airport. Because what I learned then is exactly what I think we all need now.

I was in a big international hub, waiting for a delayed afternoon flight. Somewhere between hunger and exhaustion, my partner and I’s simmering frustrations boiled over.

Finally, I stormed off, fuming, and wandered straight into the most comforting place an airport has: the Relay bookstore.

That’s when I saw it.
A slim paperback with bold letters: How to Be Compassionate by the Dalai Lama.

Perfect, I thought. He needs this book.

So with righteous indignation, I marched to the counter to buy it for him. At last, proof in paperback.

But as I spent $22.95 on my sweet vindication, I felt a pang of intuition: You need to read this first.

I devoured it on the flight. And it turned out—I did need that book.

👉 Here’s the book that I can’t stop thinking about 10 years later.

The Dalai Lama’s message was simple but profound:

• To find compassion for another, you must see your shared humanity.

• Instead of focusing on what divides us, look for where you can agree.

• And when no agreement can be found—compassion is still possible. Because even then, we share this: we both want happiness, and we both want freedom from suffering.

That little paperback softened my anger on that flight, and it continues to guide me now.

Just last week, after teaching yoga, I found myself in a polite but real debate with a student whose political beliefs sit on the opposite end of the spectrum from mine.

In fact, in the small mountain city where I live, I often end up in rooms where my views aren’t the majority. At first, I thought this meant I didn’t belong here—that maybe I should find a community that thinks more like me.

But I’ve come to see it differently. The universe is always conspiring in my favor.
And right now, that means I’m exactly where I need to be—because there’s no better place to practice empathy than across difference.

How to be Compassionate

The Dalai Lama teaches that compassion isn’t weakness—it’s courage.
It asks us to:

• Listen deeply: not to argue, but to understand.

• Find common ground: even if it’s something as simple as, we both want our children to be safe.

• Remember our shared humanity: when no agreement can be found, compassion remains because we are bound by the same truth—we all want happiness, and we all wish to avoid suffering.

• Train compassion like a muscle: it isn’t a feeling you’re born with or not; it’s a practice, strengthened one conversation, one breath at a time.

Here are a few practices I return to when I’m face-to-face with someone whose worldview feels foreign—or even threatening:

1. Pause the reaction
   Notice your body first: breath, shoulders, jaw. Regulate yourself before you respond.

2. Ask, not assume
   Try: “Tell me more about why you see it that way.” Curiosity opens dialogue.

3. Seek the “yes”
   Instead of circling the disagreement, name what you can agree on: “We both care about our community.”

4. If no agreement is possible, hold compassion anyway
   Even then, you share humanity—the longing for happiness and the desire to be free from suffering.

5. Choose compassion over victory
   You don’t have to win the argument. You can choose to walk away with your humanity intact.

Here’s the thing I know to be true:
We are not going to solve these complex problems by becoming more divided.

That means we can’t retreat further into our stances or labels.
It’s time to soften into our shared humanity and get really clear about the kind of world we want to live in.

Do you want to live in a world where communities support each other?
Then start close in. Help your neighbour. Regardless of their skin colour, who they love, or who they voted for.

Because compassion isn’t soft.

It’s the radical courage to remember that we belong to each other—
a truth I first learned, clutching that little paperback in an airport, not knowing it would still be guiding me more than a decade later.

I’m curious… was this the reminder you needed now?

Until next time,

Rachelle

The light softens, the mornings grow crisp, and the leaves begin their slow shift. It’s the season of transition — harvesting what’s ripe, noticing what’s ready to change, and allowing what no longer serves to fall away. Nature reminds us: transformation can be both beautiful and necessary.

For me, September will always be tied to Prairie Love Festival — my first business baby. For five years, Prairie Love was where I poured my whole heart. Born from my passion for creating spaces of sacred teaching, ritual, and community, it was a place for people to navigate life’s hardest seasons through beauty, gathering, and embodied practice.

In 2018, that meant hosting a 1,000-person festival with a six-week-old baby in my arms. I thought I could do it all — be the devoted new mom and the tireless entrepreneur building a dream.

In the final class of that festival, my favorite teacher led a workshop on intuition — how to sense a true yes and no in your body. Lying in savasana, I heard it loud and clear: this is a no.

But I didn’t listen.

Because just minutes later, a woman came up to me with tears in her eyes. She told me how these festivals had changed her life, how they were an integral part of how she became a better mother.

And something in me clung to those words, louder than the quiet truth I’d heard just minutes before.

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With hindsight, it’s clear: I was already burnt out. Caught in the classic Enneagram Seven pattern of overcommitting, convinced I had endless energy and infinite options. When the reality was, I was a brand-new mom and my energy was limited.

But instead, I told myself I was needed by the community. I can see now how unwilling I was to let go of the identity I had built—the woman who could hold space for everyone else’s healing, even at the expense of her own.

So I powered through. I doubled down, even.

I told myself we didn’t need to close — we needed to rebrand and think bigger. So I planned our most epic, vision-come-true events for 2020.

(The classic Seven trap of chasing more—when the deeper medicine was to ground into the wisdom my intuition had already offered me.)

And honestly? 2019 was a struggle. Juggling babysitters. Trying to squeeze work into nap times. Snapping at the people I loved most. Being inconsistent with my daughter during crucial attachment years. I kept pushing, even as the cost grew heavier.

And then the world shut down. The daycares closed. Suddenly I was at home making banana bread, doing crafts, and going for long walks with my daughter. And in this my pangs of intuition were once again loud and clear.

I had been pushing because I thought I was needed by the community—that my role was to hold space for their growth. But in those slow, ordinary moments with my cub, it was unmistakable: this is where I’m needed most right now. She needed me more. She needed me to pour my whole heart into her.

By the time we filed the articles of dissolution—officially closing the doors on my first business baby—my very first thought was this:
I knew this was a no two years ago. Why did I push so hard against it?

In the time and space that followed Prairie Love’s wake, I made a choice. Instead of rushing into the next big thing, I decided to dig deep into why I was doing that—and to learn how to come back to my body, to start living in alignment with my intuition.

This is where I discovered the power of what I now call the trinity of healing that the Enneagram offers: self-awareness, soul work, and somatics.

• Self-awareness: understanding your type patterns with compassion, not shame. Seeing clearly the ways you overextend, overprotect, or overperform—and catching yourself before burnout hits.

• Soul work: rituals and practices that tether you to something larger than yourself, creating spaciousness in your body and mind.

• Somatics: nervous system rewiring that allows you to embody new ways of being, not just think about them.

The Enneagram doesn’t just give us insight into who we are—it offers a compassionate pathway to heal that is tailored to you.

But knowing your type patterns alone isn’t enough—and this is where most curious humans get stuck. You need awareness, ritual, and embodiment working together to create lasting transformation.

✨ If you don’t yet know your Enneagram type (or you’d like to explore it more deeply), you can start with my Unique Healing Code Quiz. It’s a gentle entry point — a way to uncover the patterns that shape your energy, and how you can begin shifting them.

And if you’re ready to take this work further and create real shift in your life… for you I created The Embodiment Project.

This 4-week program with daily touchpoints and support makes healing the burnout of your specific type pattern simple and sustainable. It’s something you can weave into your days with ease—and you’ll want to because you’ll feel the difference in your relationships, your energy, and your ability to show up fully as yourself.

Here’s what life looks like on the other side:

• My actions align with my intuition.

• I have daily practices that create spaciousness in my body and help me move through big energy when it arises.

• I’ve designed my life around being the kind of mom I want to be, with a secure and connected relationship with my daughter.

• I’ve watched over a hundred students go through this program, and the impacts in their lives have been profound.

If you’re ready to stop overriding your body’s wisdom and start living in deeper alignment, I’d love to invite you into The Embodiment Project. You can join the waitlist for the October 2025 cohort here 👇

Join the Waitlist

With love,
Rachelle x

Tonight’s blood moon eclipse in Pisces is a turning point. The moon glows red as shadow passes over it—a reminder that even when light is obscured, it never disappears.

Pisces energy invites us to feel what we’ve been avoiding.
To let emotions rise instead of holding them down.
To trust that release makes space for renewal.

Eclipses can stir up our nervous systems—just like the tides respond to the moon, our inner waters get pulled too. That unsettled feeling you might notice isn’t something to fight. With breath and presence, you can ride the wave and come back to yourself.

Reflection Prompts 🌕

✨ What am I ready to release under this eclipse?
✨ What am I willing to welcome in its place?

Paid Subscribers 🌙

I’ve recorded a Blood Moon Eclipse Meditation to guide you through:

• Breathwork to steady your system

• A release ritual for what’s dissolving

• A grounding practice to root your intentions

Unlock the meditation here

Why Subscribe?

Paid subscribers get monthly meditations and rituals to move through these cosmic thresholds with support. If you’ve been reading and feeling the pull, this eclipse is your invitation to join.

Subscribe now

With love,
Rachelle 🌿

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Walking Myself Home: A Love Story

As September arrives, I can feel it in my bones. The light shifts. The evenings cool. The air carries that unmistakable mix of invitation and reckoning — a threshold into the final stretch of the year.

This is the time when I naturally pause and check in. Where am I at with the intentions I set back in January? What am I carrying forward? What have I quietly let go?

Since 2023, I’ve carried the same goal into each year: to walk. More specifically, to average 10,000 steps a day for a full year.

And both times, I fell short. Last year I ended at 7,300 steps a day.

This year is different. The third time is looking more charmed than my last attempts. As of August 31st, I’m averaging 9,970 steps per day. So close. Close enough that I can almost feel it in my body, like a promise within reach. But also far enough away that I know the hardest part is still ahead: the next four months, when the days grow shorter, the trails get icy, and the invitation to curl inward will compete with the intention to keep moving forward.

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Why 10,000 steps?

The 10,000-step benchmark was born out of a Japanese marketing campaign in the 1960s, not a medical journal. And yet over time, science has affirmed what many of us already feel: it’s a threshold that matters.

Research now shows that walking between 8,000 and 12,000 steps a day is linked to lower rates of cardiovascular disease, reduced stress, and longer life. And even more compelling — walking itself, especially outside, regulates the nervous system.

Rhythmic bilateral movement (left-right stepping) calms the amygdala and helps lower anxiety. Time in nature reduces cortisol, restores attention, and improves mood. Forward movement tells the body: we’re safe enough to explore. The nervous system exhales.

And I know this not just from the studies, but from my own lived experience. When I hit 10,000 steps, I feel better. Every time.

I’ve been outside.
I’ve moved my energy.
I’ve let my thoughts unravel and re-weave themselves to the rhythm of my steps.
I sleep better, without any supplements.

Walking myself home

This year, walking has become more than a metric. It has become a metaphor. A practice. Even a love story.

Walking is how I regulate my nervous system.
Walking is how I soften into my body.
Walking is how I take time for myself when life feels too fast, too heavy, too much.

And so, I’m setting myself a challenge: to finish these last 122 days of the year with 10,000 steps a day. Not for the number itself, but for what it represents. Intention. Presence. Keep daily promises to myself. A nervous system that can steady itself. A body that remembers how to carry me home.

Because the truth is, beginnings are easy for me as an Enneagram 7, I love the rush of new ideas and fresh energy. But finishing? That’s where my real work lies. This challenge is my way of practicing the art of finishing strong — of walking myself home, step by step, through weather and season, shadow and light.

Maybe you feel it too — the shift of September. The sense of being called to check in, to re-commit, to remember that the year is not over yet. There’s still time.

Maybe for you it’s not 10,000 steps, but something else that steadies you, calls you back, slows your pace enough to remember what matters.

Whatever it is, September is your invitation

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With love,
Rachelle

P.S. If you’re craving a steadier path into the months ahead, I have space for a handful of 1:1 sessions this fall. In them, we uncover your Unique Healing Code and I’ll offer you personalized somatic practices to carry into your daily life. Click here to book. 🌿

Psychologists call this the “fresh start effect” — the way moments like Mondays, birthdays, or the beginning of a school year give us a clean slate. September is full of this energy. It whispers: What’s possible for me now?

But instead of stepping into possibility, many of us feel stuck.
Stuck in fear, shame, or overthinking.
Stuck in old habits we can’t shake.
Stuck between who we’ve been and who we want to become.

The good news? Being stuck doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means your nervous system is holding tightly to what feels safe — even if it isn’t serving you anymore.

The opposite of stuck isn’t “fixed.” It’s flow.

Here are 7 ways to begin moving toward it this week:

1. Name the loop you’re in.

Fear. Shame. Anger. Overthinking.

When you name it, you create distance from it. It’s no longer who you are — it’s just a pattern you’re noticing. Neuroscience calls this affect labeling: naming an emotion quiets the brain’s fear center and activates regulation.

This is exactly what the Enneagram does. Your type is a kind of affect labeling — it names the unconscious narrative you’ve been living in. It’s not you. It’s just your sevenness, fiveness, or twoness. And once you see it, you can choose differently.

2. Protect your mornings.

Put your phone on Do Not Disturb overnight. Don’t turn it back on until your workday begins.

The first 30 minutes of your day set the tone for your nervous system. Studies show that checking your phone first thing spikes cortisol, keeping you in stress mode for hours.

When you begin with presence — breath, light, water, stillness — you signal safety to your body. You set the tone for flow, not frenzy.

3. Do one tiny thing you’ve been avoiding.

Not the whole project. Not the ten emails. Just one small thing.

Unfinished tasks create a mental drag (known as the Zeigarnik effect). Even one small completion frees up energy and rewards your brain with dopamine.

Momentum doesn’t come from waiting for motivation. It comes from action — especially small, imperfect action.

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4. Get out of your head + into your body.

Stretch. Shake. Breathe. Dance it out.

When you’re stuck, energy stagnates. It settles in your tissues and fascia, shaping how you move and how you breathe. And the way you breathe sets the tone for your nervous system.

Tight fascia restricts breath and movement, signaling stress. Gentle movement hydrates fascia, opens breath, and resets the nervous system. Slow, deeper breathing activates the vagus nerve, shifting you out of fight-or-flight and into regulation.

Movement isn’t just exercise. It’s nervous system medicine.
The opposite of stuck is flow. And flow begins in your body.

5. Get outside.

Nature has a way of moving what your mind can’t.

Research shows just 20 minutes in nature lowers cortisol. The Japanese practice of Shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) reduces blood pressure, strengthens immunity, and restores balance.

Bare feet on the ground. Wind on your face. Looking up at the sky. Nature is a mirror for flow, reminding you that life is always moving forward.

6. Celebrate one small win.

Don’t rush past it.

Our brains are wired with a negativity bias — more likely to notice what’s wrong than what’s working. But pausing to celebrate even tiny progress rewires your reward system. It teaches your nervous system: it’s safe to grow, it’s safe to change.

Tiny celebrations build momentum. They remind you that you’re already shifting.

7. Ask yourself: What’s the shift I need most right now?

And listen.

Your body knows. Research on interoception (sensing internal states) shows that tuning into breath, heartbeat, and posture improves emotional clarity and decision-making.

Sometimes the shift is outward — making the call, saying the truth, taking the leap. Other times it’s inward — resting, softening, forgiving.

When you ask honestly, your nervous system will give you clues. Make space to hear them.

Here’s the truth.

Real change doesn’t come from doing more.
It comes from knowing the one shift that matters most for you — and then using momentum to take small, imperfect action.

That’s exactly what we uncover in a 1:1 Typing Session:
→ Clarity on your unique inner narrative — and how it keeps you stuck
→ Awareness of the patterns your nervous system clings to under stress — and how to shift them
→ A clear next step to break free of the loop you’re in

⚡️ The Overview & The Deep Dive are on sale until August 31.

Book Your 1:1

Imagine walking into September — your fresh start, your “new year” — with radical clarity on your patterns and the confidence to make the shift that matters most.

P.S.

Not ready for a 1:1 session yet? Start with my free quiz: [Discover Your Unique Healing Code]. It will help you uncover the narrative that shapes your patterns and give you a glimpse of what’s possible wh

en you begin to shift.

We live in a world overflowing with wellness advice — from “10 hacks to optimize your morning” to endless reels of green juices and cold plunges. And yet, so much of it leaves us feeling performative, like healing is another performance to master.

True healing asks for something deeper.

It requires us to make space for all parts of ourselves — the radiant and the shadowed, the soft and the fierce. It requires moving from the unconscious patterning of our mind and nervous system (which are designed to keep us safe, not to help us self-actualize), into a conscious way of living that is aligned with our authentic self.

The work of healing isn’t chiseling yourself into a new shape. It’s letting the light and water reach the roots, so what’s been hidden can grow.
Not perfection, but presence.
Not performance, but embodiment.

The Enneagram as a Bridge

For over 20 years, I’ve been working with the Enneagram as a tool to help people hold language and context for loving all parts of themselves. It offers a mirror: helping us see our gifts clearly, honor our blindspots with compassion, and — most importantly — remember the authentic self that exists beneath layers of energetic patterns and conditioning.

As a classic Type Seven, I’ve always loved finding patterns and weaving connections. Recently, I found myself wondering: how might the wisdom of our Enneagram type connect with the wisdom of the natural world? Could nature’s archetypes help us not just understand our patterns, but embody new ways of being?

So — as you do in 2025 — I asked ChatGPT to help me brainstorm archetypes for each Enneagram type, and then I layered in my own reflections. The result felt surprisingly true, and beautifully resonant.

Here are the nine archetypes — and how you might use them as metaphors for your own healing path.

Unsure of which type is truest for you ↓

Discover Your Unique Healing Code Here

❤️ Heart Types (Enneagram 2, 3, 4)

Heart types filter the world through feelings. They’re connection-focused, aware of how they are seen, and often measure their worth in relationship to others.

Type 2 – The Deer
Like the doe who learns to stand and walk within minutes of birth, Twos often learn early to suppress their own needs, believing love must be earned through giving. The deer carries both tenderness and vigilance — reminding you that true belonging doesn’t come from overextending, but from knowing when to soften into receiving and when to stand alert, guarding your heart’s reserves.
Medicine of the Deer: Worthy of both care and protection.

Type 3 – The Sunflower
Sunflowers rise tall, turning toward the light, just as Threes strive toward achievement and admiration. But the sunflower doesn’t force itself to grow — it simply follows the sun. Threes are invited to remember that their brilliance shines brightest when it’s rooted in authenticity, not performance.
Medicine of the Sunflower: Growth through authenticity, not striving.

Type 4 – The Weeping Willow
The willow bends gracefully toward the waters, its beauty marked by depth and sensitivity. Like the willow, Fours feel deeply, often longing to be seen as unique. Yet the willow’s strength is not just in its beauty, but in its resilience — bending without breaking. Fours are invited to honor their emotions as currents that connect them, not isolate them.
Medicine of the Willow: Resilient beauty through emotional flow.

🌀 Mind Types (Enneagram 5, 6, 7)

Mind types filter the world through thinking and information. They look for certainty and safety in ideas, analysis, and possibility, and their path is to move from overthinking into trust and embodied presence.

• Type 5 – The Owl
  The owl retreats into stillness, seeing what others miss in the dark. Like the owl, Fives value their inner world, often withdrawing to conserve energy and knowledge. But the owl’s wisdom is meant to be shared, not hoarded. For Fives, healing means trusting that your insights are enough — and that sharing them connects rather than depletes you.
  Medicine of the Owl: Wisdom grows when it is given away.

• Type 6 – The Wolf
  The wolf thrives in community, where loyalty ensures survival. Like wolves, Sixes are vigilant, scanning for danger, often struggling with trust. Yet the wolf knows strength is not in constant watchfulness but in the pack itself. For Sixes, healing comes from resting into trust — in yourself, in others, in something larger than fear.
  Medicine of the Wolf: Safety through trust and interdependence.

• Type 7 – The Hummingbird
  The hummingbird darts joyfully in all directions, sipping nectar from many flowers. Like Sevens, they embody curiosity and delight, but risk scattering their energy in pursuit of endless possibilities. Yet the hummingbird knows how to pause, hovering in stillness as it drinks deeply. For Sevens, healing lies in savoring the sweetness of this moment, not the next.
  Medicine of the Hummingbird: Joy through presence, not escape.

🌳 Body Types (Enneagram 8, 9, 1)

Body types filter the world through instinct and action. They feel life in their gut, often responding first with reactivity or resistance. Their path is to ground in presence, soften control, and move into right action.

Type 8 — The Bear
The bear is fierce and protective, yet deeply nurturing of its own. Like the bear, Eights bring intensity and power, often guarding against vulnerability. But true strength is found in balance — in being both fierce and tender. For Eights, healing is letting softness and love coexist with their natural authority.
Medicine of the Bear: Power softened by tenderness.

Type 9 – The Stream
The stream flows with ease, finding the path of least resistance, just as Nines avoid conflict and seek harmony. But the stream is not stagnant — it moves, shapes, and nourishes everything in its path. For Nines, healing means allowing your current to flow with purpose, remembering that your presence carries power.
Medicine of the Stream: Harmony through movement, not withdrawal.

Type 1 – The Mountain Pine
The pine stands tall, rooted and upright, embodying discipline and integrity. Like the pine, Ones value order and correctness, sometimes becoming rigid under the weight of perfectionism. Yet the pine also sways with the wind, showing that flexibility strengthens, not weakens. For Ones, healing is found in releasing rigidity and rooting into grace.
Medicine of the Pine: Integrity that bends, not breaks.

Type Nine — The Stream
Flowing, connected, choosing the path of least resistance. The stream nourishes everything it touches, yet can lose itself if it spreads too thin. Nines, too, risk dissolving their own boundaries for peace. The stream reminds you to stay connected to your source — peace is found when you honor your own flow.

Type One — The Mountain Pine
Rooted, steady, resilient. Pines cling to rocky slopes, standing tall through storms. Like Ones, they embody strength and integrity, but can become rigid. The pine reminds you that flexibility is not weakness — it’s what allows you to withstand the winds of change.

🌙 The Invitation

Seeing ourselves in nature offers more than metaphor. Archetypes make inner work more palatable — they give us language that softens shame. Instead of berating ourselves for “sabotaging,” we can see our struggles as invitations:

• The willow bending is not breaking.

• The hummingbird pausing is not failing.

• The pine softening is not losing its strength.

When we let nature speak, it becomes both mirror and medicine.

✨ If you haven’t yet, you can take the Healing Code Quiz to discover your archetype and begin exploring your own medicine.

And if you’re ready to go deeper — to explore how the Enneagram can be a true map for your nervous system, relationships, and soul — I’d love to walk alongside you. I’m offering 1:1 sessions at a discounted rate through August 31st.

Book a 1:1 with Me

This week, the Lions Gate peaks on Friday, and the full moon rises behind it—lighting up what’s ready to be seen, released, and reclaimed.

You are not on your way to the portal.
You are inside it.

So take a breath.
A real one.
Not the kind that brushes your lungs on the way to your next obligation—
But the kind that reminds your body it is safe to so…

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