An Invitation to Experience Radical Nourishment 🫶🏼

What we are doing right now matters. Who we connect with, how we show up, the values that we choose to live—it matters so very much. The space we are creating in the Relational Nourishment Project to practice with one another and to get clear about what it is that we want to be different is so special. When we have each other, its more than enough. This project is truly a culmination of all that I’ve learned in my life about relationships, taking care of each other, being responsible to ourselves and our communities, and knowing ourselves deeply.

What's the update for your life story?

Twenty years ago, I had just turned 18 and my dad hadn’t died yet.

I was preparing to move for my first year of college. I was working as a hostess at a restaurant, eating baguette and butter for dinner most nights I was there. I was in a relationship with a person who was exceptionally intelligent and emotionally manipulative, and I felt like I didn’t deserve anything more than I already had, in that relationship or otherwise. My self-esteem was tanked and I was depressed.

I've been looking for a deep connection

I have always wanted more in relationships.

I remember being in elementary school, maybe 7 or 8, and deeply longing for a best friend. I had friends, but I always felt a little bit on the outside of those relationships. They would automatically play with each other at recess, and I had to ask to join; they sat next to each other at lunch, and I had to try to squeeze in or just choose to sit somewhere else. It wasn’t that they were being mean or intentionally excluding me as much as they were just in their own world together, and I wasn’t a part of it in a meaningful way until I was right there in front of them.

Integration, Internal Family Systems, + Attachment Theory

I have been thinking a lot about the idea of integration and disintegration (or abandonment) of ourselves—how easy it is to break ourselves into pieces to accommodate what’s happening in our lives. We learn how to do this when we are young. Because we are attuned to our environments, we quickly pick up on which parts of us are welcome and which parts are not, and soon we are able to put some parts away so that we are more palatable, more acceptable, and less..ourselves. This happens for all of us at some point, whether that is in our family of origin, elementary school, or later in our adolescence.

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