The Mother Well: Stirring the Inner Waters
from burned out and scattered to nourished and alive
Mothers are heroic. Our work is catastrophically undervalued, even though we do about 2/3s of the world’s work. Much of this work is invisible to those around us— unpaid and unending. Mothers as a population hold very little monetary wealth for our efforts. Mothers are constantly holding, tending, planning, worrying, and looking forward and backward at the same time— time-bending, juggling, expanding, and contracting to meet the needs of those around us, especially our children.
This leads to burnout. And—we hold the ancestral burnout of our mothers and grandmothers in our DNA, in our bodies.
This Spring I am gathering a group of burned-out mothers who are ready to change — and working with these mothers to create a vastly different experience of what it means to be a mother and a sovereign human being at the same time.
The outcome is straightforward and also profound: the reclamation of self within the role of mothering.
To reclaim the center of joy that has been muddled through the beautiful, painful, crushing, expansive, and uniquely taxing role of mothering, we will engage with these three big challenges:
1. Loss of self
2. Guilt
3. Deep and persistent exhaustion
Ready to chat with me about this offering?
You can get in touch with me at heartmarrowhealing@gmail.com
Or, you can set up a FREE DISCOVERY SESSION with me below:
The first problem we will explore is loss of self.
What if you could know yourself anew? What if you could know yourself as well as you know your children?
Mothering is all-consuming. When we enter this role, we have expectations that are at times unmet, or deeply disturbed by the realities of mothering. Mothers spend all of their time keeping their infants and toddlers alive, and this is quite literal, immediate, and interruptive. Even if we have very supportive partners, it is ingrained in us to be the one who is thinking ahead and performing immense amounts of emotional labor. As one mother said, “It is in the water.”
All of this creates a remarkable lack of space and time for mothers to know and develop themselves. We lose track of our souls and our essence. We lose track of what makes us unique, even if we simultaneously experience incredible amounts of joy and love in our roles as mothers.
The first step in regaining a lost self is regaining self-validation, which happens when you spend time getting to know yourself.
To address this problem you will:
· discover how nature mirrors you to yourself. You’ll call on water in particular to purify and wash away all that you no longer need and that keeps you from knowing who you are and what you need.
· engage your astrological chart to discover your original blueprint (who you are at your core) as well as relocate you within a larger sense of purpose and spirituality.
· be guided through a self-portrait process that will help you to see and feel yourself in new ways.
Through these approaches, you will remember your own true nature, leading to a growing insistence on self-love and self-knowledge.
The second problem we will explore is guilt.
What if your time was truly your time? What if you could loosen the chains of perfectionism?
The second problem we will explore is guilt. We feel guilty when we take time for ourselves as mothers; not because it misaligns with our values, but because we have been told, repeatedly in a multitude of ways, that we need to be everything to everyone.
Realigning with our values and exploring these through symbology and expression will help you to uncover how you feel, and what you want, helping you move through moments of guilt and shame with the foundation of self-knowledge and self-love.
To confront guilt you will:
· return to your astrological chart to locate your true values and to understand how societal expectations of perfectionism invoke guilt and interrupt your original map.
· enter into a dialogue with guilt allowing guilt to speak to you and through you.
· create a ritual based on the personal values uncovered in your chart to resolve the patterns of perfectionism underlying the guilt.
Completing these steps will result in a clearer understanding of your values. You will be able to wisely confront guilt when you encounter it, knowing who you are and what you value, which will lead to more joy in doing what you want to do. And we all know how love and joy spread into our families and communities.
Last but not least, we will tenderly and lovingly approach the persistent and deep exhaustion mothers experience.
What if you could feel like there is plenty to go around? What if you could rediscover where you begin and end?
Our exhaustion is linked to our lack of boundaries… the feeling of floating and not knowing who you are as you drift through your day… self-splitting and diffuse awareness.
It is as if you do not even exist apart from your children. It is exhausting to not be a person, to have boundaries that are so diffuse that we do not know where we begin or end.
It is exhausting to be constantly involved with someone else’s needs, day upon week, upon month, upon year. It is exhausting to be the one who holds, who plans, who attends, and who intuits. It is exhausting to be the one who creates and maintains a community.
To alleviate the deep and persistent exhaustion you will:
· experience, create, and learn to fluidly maintain your personal boundaries using movement, art, and writing.
· learn how to refer back to your astrological chart to understand your own needs and to practice creative and rejuvenating self-care.
· receive two custom-designed essences made with various trees and flowers, to aid emotional shifting from old and persistent wounding and messages.
Through these practices, exhaustion will be alchemized into focus, energy, and creative flow. Perhaps you will be asking yourself at the end of this program— what do I want, right now? You might offer yourself a bit more permission to take that nap, join that group, or write that story, and revel in the time and space to do so.
You love your children. I know you do. You know you do. They know you do. They do!
Now it is time to learn to love yourself again, with all of the tools, gifts, and lessons you have learned from loving them.
This offering is a gift from my re-gathered soul to the mothering community. It is a heart-offering to those who are doing the profoundly challenging work of mothering, in this world, at this time. I humbly invite you to dip your toes into the Mother Well and replenish your body, mind, emotions, and spirit with the waters of self-knowledge.
Ready to sign up or looking for a one-on-one chat?
You can get in touch with me at heartmarrowhealing@gmail.com
Or, you can set up a FREE DISCOVERY SESSION with me below:
Here are the logistics:
Orientation: Preparing to Visit the Well
Once you decide to work with me at the Mother Well, we will have a logistics call where we set up a personalized timeline for the steps below for the next 3-5 months. You have some agency about how fast or slow you want to proceed.
Step One: Walk with Water— Approaching the Well / One Hour
We start with a walk together through the woods, either physically together if you live in the Portland area, or on our phones as we walk and notice what is around us. What wants to be seen inside of you? What have you been missing? What are the emotions that are missing in your life? What wants to be expressed?
Step Two: Initiation, Peering Into the Well of the Wheel / Two Hours
Together online, we dip our toes into the well and the wheel, into the sky of your astrological natal chart. We sit together for two hours to imagine your inner self and to light up areas that may have been deadened or numbed by all of the trials of mothering, joyful as it may be at times.
Step Three: Flower Essence #1, Emotional Support from the More-Than-Human / Daily Dose
I create a potion for you to ingest over the following month. These plants help you to de-ice and thaw your emotional waters.
Step Four: The Mother Well, Stirring the Inner Waters / Ten One-Hour Sessions
Ten one-on-one sessions with me online. We work with what was uncovered during our walk in the woods and in your natal chart— with attention to the work of reviving the self, exposing and relinquishing guilt, and gaining access to a creative energy source. We use movement, drawing, writing, and other creative improvisational processes to identify and confront loss of self, guilt, and exhaustion, release them to change, and grow something vivid in their place that better supports you as an individual, and that ripples out into your work as a mother in your family and community circles.
Step Five: Walk with Water— Jewels In the Sunlight / Jewels In the Rain / One Hour
We end with a culminating walk in the woods, in reflection of the jewels of emotional awareness we uncovered during the process. These are the jewels that were found in the Mother Well, and are responsive to sunlight, dew, rain, and fog.
Step Six: Flower Essence #2, Emotional Support from the More-Than-Human / 30 minutes
I send you off with a second flower essence to support your integration and re-entry to your life as a refreshed, renewed and revitalized feeling mama. We discuss what might come next in terms of continued work.
This package is for you if:
· You are a mom with kids between the ages of 5-18
· You are surfacing from the overwhelm of raising young children and realizing you have no idea who you are anymore
· You are burned out and ready for your soul to come back online
· You have 3-5 hours per month to dedicate to this process
· You are ready to engage in a one-on-one program that lasts 4 months
The majority of this creative change work will happen online, with a hybrid of Zoom, talk, and possibilities for in-person or outdoor sessions for those who live in the area.
Pricing:
I am offering the Mother Well package in beta form right now, which means it is being offered to you for a much lower price to begin with.
For the package as a whole, you will pay $1500.
I can provide a payment plan in 2-3 parts if you need that option.
To review, that price includes:
A 4-month journey with an experienced ritualist, space-holder, and healer
10 hour-long somatic expressive arts ritual coaching sessions
2 flower essences to assist you on your journey
2 walks in the woods – one opening, one closing
1 personal orientation to the work
1 two-hour-long evolutionary astrology reading
If you are interested, simply reply to this email and we can set up a time to chat.
I look forward to meeting you at the Mother Well.
XO
Sarah-Lu
Ready to take the next step?
You can get in touch with me at heartmarrowhealing@gmail.com
Or, you can set up a FREE DISCOVERY SESSION with me below:
PS: Here are some words from my clients:
I felt so seen, nourished, and affirmed. I felt empowered! And lighter. I felt excited about what to focus on in my life next. I really trust the clarity of insight that Sarah-Lu brings. Not just because of their inherent gifts, which are obviously abundant, but also because it’s so clear they have devoted hours, months, years to their work. I trust someone who truly respects and partners with their craft as they do. Sarah-Lu’s integrity shines through.
-Danielle Spoor, Development Manager
The experience of an astrological reading with Sarah-Lu was one full of depth, reflection, connectedness, and compassion. Sarah-Lu's grounded presence and clear communication made the experience of self-connection and self-learning feel safe, held, and sacred. I would recommend Sarah-Lu to anyone who is feeling curious about self and would like some guidance on the path of self-reflection and discovery.
-Genevieve Layman, Mom and Author of Gather and Make
After sharing detailed information about the network of my personal astrological chart Sarah-Lu took me into a felt experience of the dynamic nature of my primal triad. They did this with movement practices, drawing prompts, and amazing music that was tailored just for me. I have left this experience with so much more self-awareness, and a real lived quality that I can connect with when I need to draw upon the potency and power within the archetype that lives in my chart.
-Tracy Broyles, Mom, embodiment facilitator, energy worker
See you at the Mother Well!
