I’m Having A Big Feeling

How to feel a feeling

I stopped saying the word "triggered" months ago as I reached a point where I was pathologising my expansive emotional experience. I am not irrevocably damaged. I am a human who feels. I am a feminine woman whose gift is to feel keenly everything. This is not a disorder. This is human experience.

"I'm having a big feeling" makes a huge difference to me.

I had insomnia last night and I was feeling ALL the feelings. Prayer didn't work, meditation didn't work, writing it out didn't work, and I'm not sure how much sleep I ended up getting. I spoke to friends.

I bundled the kids off to school this morning and sat and spoke to myself. I tapped the release points on my body and said what I was feeling. I feel abandoned, I feel unloved, it's okay, I kept saying what I was feeling. It's okay that I feel like this. I acknowledged a huge part of me knew it was "unspiritual" to feel this way but right now I didn't care. The child part of me wanted what it wanted - the easy solution. I wanted somebody to make it better.

I let the tears flow. I knew if I had what I wanted it wouldn't solve my problem because the longing came from somewhere deep inside that cannot be filled by another human.

I prayed on it and asked for a sign. I said that I was willing to see it differently. I cried and cried.

Then I started feeling really angry. My favourite part of my morning is my fifteen minute dance break and this morning was one that left me breathless. Animals shake to release trapped emotion and we have a huge need as humans to consciously do it. Allowing the emotion to come up through the body and letting yourself move however you want to. Even if that is more stamping and punching than dancing.

This whole process took an hour and I might have to repeat it later or tomorrow. Our emotions are like pressure valves and what gets released the amount we are able to deal with at the time.

So now I've flopped down. My head hurts, my eye makeup is smudged, but I feel peace and calm starting to creep back in. The knot feels less. Nothing has been forbidden or left out.

On Catholicism

I am not a practicing Catholic, and the last time I attended Mass was in my mid-teens. I've spent many hours teaching about the effects of patriarchy on women and women's bodies.

I've been observing the posts about abortion going back and forth on my timeline. My heart is with every woman - knowing that as women we have the inalieable right and ability to give and take life, and the simultaneous sorrow that many of these women are trapped and this is their last resort.

Bodily autonomy is my bottom line and I am particularly sensitive to cultural context when it comes to women. And so I leave a flower for all the life that returns to its Mother, and the lives of those who need so much love right here right now.

When I listen to abortion stories, I am always struck by the sorrow, the suffering and the self-love. The woman saying, I matter. I am the child who I am gifting new life to.

I've recently been wondering whether to get back into online dating and thinking of the good things about me... loyal, reliable, funny. What would be the cons of dating me? That I regularly bring home human placentas and statues of the Virgin Mary. Perhaps there is somebody out there who will find my idiosyncrasies charming. That remains to be seen.

When my mother describes her experience of Church I feel like I participate in this mutual love and worthiness. She talks about the flowers for Mothering Sunday and taking them to her grandmother after service, in particular the way that when you announced you were pregnant people were excited and pleased for you, as opposed to friends and family who made comments like "another one?" "what about money?" or "just as you were getting your life back too!"

Nobody thought you were too poor, had too many, were limiting yourself. They just saw the miracle in front of them. My mother said, they saw children as a blessing. This in turn made her feel blessed for that hour every week.

That is one of the beautiful things about the Catholic Church. At the centre of devotion you have a woman, a poor woman, birthing Love through her body. A child who will be a man who works with his hands, who could be classed as "uneducated" but brings forth words of truth and love from his heart. I know this was passed down to me as a shining example, influencing my life path, as all I know and revere is Sacred Mother.


I've always had a difficult relationship with God that I'm trying to heal. For a long time one of my biggest frustrations is that men would treat me like "the virgin mary", my exact words, somebody to be respected from afar but not touched. Then I see how nothing is black and white, that ideas can heal and harm.

Sometimes our biggest insecurities, what we try to run from within ourselves, is our biggest gift. It turns out she is the face of the Goddess I most relate to, who always answers, who never lets you down. She is very real and very touchable.

I doubt I will ever be a practising Catholic again. I don't like rules and I don't like ideas being set in stone. To me, learning is about staying curious as you meet beautiful new ideas you hadn't considered yet. And I think that's just how Jesus would have felt to those around him.

A font of beautiful new ideas that hadn't been considered yet.

I hope this brought you some value - from my heart to yours.

Seven Years

Yesterday I realised I've been doing this work for seven years.

From teaching baby massage to pregnancy yoga, to working as a babywearing consultant to running parenting groups, providing placenta remedies and of course doula support, I have worked with hundreds of women and babies.

Sometimes I forget how much I have done, how many families I have served. I often forget how much I know or where I learned it.

Some families stick in your memory as you begin to notice babies with certain personality types, as you see the effects of trauma playing out in front of you throwing out symptoms that speak to you like a neon sign. Tears come to your eyes as you see women putting one step in front of the other, for their babies, for themselves, with love.

The delicate dance of what do I know versus what does this situation need. That is wisdom.

Yesterday I got a beautiful text message from a client that reminded me why I do this work.

When you're hiring me you aren't just getting the doula service, or the remedies, or a baby sling... you're drawing upon the stories those many many dyads I have been privileged to walk with.

We are all connected, we are one.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.