Today I want to share a story with you. It’s the story of a woman I’ve had the deep honor of guiding for many years – through seasons of unraveling, shedding, remembering, and emergence. When we recently spoke, and she shared where she is now, I felt tears rise. I looked at her through our zoom screen and said, “This… this is something I want other women to hear.” Because as women we need to speak. We need to share our stories of healing for women. This story is hers AND…It’s all of ours, in some way.
It’s the story of waking up to our truth, even after years of living by someone else’s version of who we should be. And I believe we need more of this. More women sharing the fullness of their journey – the deaths, the messy middles, the rise. The fears they carried. The parts they let go of. The courage it took to choose differently. And the deep knowing that this path of healing for women is not one we walk just once, but many times – each return taking us deeper into ourselves.
So with her blessing, I’m sharing her words with you. Let them move you. Let them mirror something true inside you. Let them remind you that you’re not alone.
This is Lauren’s story…..
Living ‘Stuck’ in the Fear
For many years, I lived with a lot of fear. Fear that I wasn’t living up to my ‘full potential’, of the dark, of being with the wrong person, of disappointing others, of not doing enough, of not being enough. I linked my self-worth to productivity and other people’s opinions of me. If I didn’t do ‘enough’ – raising my hand at work, hosting dinner parties, showing up at every event, remembering everyone’s birthdays – I was not valuable. I had to produce to be loved. Doing all those things was proof that I was enough. And it was after years of this, that I started to live in the fear.
She Remembered How to Feel Again
Over the past few years, as I walked this journey with Melanie’s guidance, I began to uncover my innate power. By being, rather than doing all the time, I could be seen and loved for exactly who I am. AND, that being loved and being valued were NOT the same thing.
After really taking the space to invest in myself, for many years now, in the past six months, I feel a new version of myself emerging.
I find myself moved by people and things around me, constantly.
I’m moved by the perfect, buttery, flaky croissant at 9am on a Sunday.
By the love I have for my partner.
Moved by the famine, the war, and the hate.
I sat in a sound bath for two hours and cried after hearing the group harmonizing together – by the beauty of our voices together, and of my own voice.
Learning a New Way to Live
In the year of the snake, I find myself shedding. I find myself so raw with emotion, and at a pivotal moment – between feeling for so long I had to move the world, and now feeling so moved by the world.
For me, being moved by the world around me is to choose a life outside of fear.
To notice the fear, and make a new choice towards my aliveness anyway.
To create a life I want to live – not one dictated by society, my family, or what others think I should want.
To take three days off for my birthday and float on the river.
To send loving voice memos to friends (perhaps 3–5 days after receipt!).
It all feels indulgent… AND it’s the closest I’ve ever been to reaching in and touching the truest, rawest part of myself.
I want to be moved, because for so long I worked to move and manage everything around me.
For me, to be moved is about trusting and loving myself in such a way that I am more open to the world around me -because at the end of all this, I have me.
And knowing that… I can share the truest version of myself with the rest of the world.
The Power of Somatic Healing for Women
Lauren’s story is incredibly powerful. It is a testament to the brave path she walked to shed and transform. She’s living in a new way, a way that is more innate and natural to her beingness. Not because someone told her to or because she followed a formula. But because she remembered herself.
Because she allowed herself to shed the versions of herself that managed, that performed, that kept it all together – and chose to let herself be moved (by life, by her spirit, by something greater, by the currents of life).
This is the part that really brought me to tears and gave me full-body chills:
“I find myself at a pivotal moment between feeling for so long I had to move the world… and now feeling so moved by the world.”
That shift changes everything. She has released so much grasping, control, overmanaging herself and others (and this isn’t bad… it’s a survival mechanism that we’ve learned, and are learning how to unwind)
She no longer rushes to prove.
Instead, she listens. She feels. Trusts. Softens.
She’s grounded, open, choosing her own time, her own life.
This is what’s possible when we stop running and begin remembering. And it is the deepest level of healing for women.
When we no longer try to manage everything around us, but instead let life touch us. Shape us. Move us. When we begin to remember who we really are outside all those expectations.
That even when we do get scared, or go through life’s inevitable peaks and valleys, we have a whole new orientation to how we hold ourselves through it.
Mentorship for Awakening Women
If something inside you is stirring, being moved by hearing her story…If you’re feeling the nudge to shed old layers – stories, roles, expectations that no longer feel like yours. You’re longing to feel an embodied sense of softening, freedom, aliveness… to let yourself be moved by your own spirit and life…
I want you to know there’s space for that. For you. In the full range of your expression.
For the version of you that doesn’t need to perform or prove, yet simply gets to be – real, raw, soul-full, and whole.
That’s the heart of the somatic healing for women we do in my One-on-one Emergence Mentorship.
It’s tender. It’s powerful. And it’s held with deep care.
You don’t have to have it all figured out.
You just have to be willing to begin.
If you feel called, I’d love to talk with you.
No pressure, just a real conversation to feel into what’s possible.
And if now’s not the time, that’s okay too.
Let this story be a reminder: change is possible.
You’re not too late. Not too much.
You are already worthy.
With love,
Melanie
