Soft belly

Why I changed everything.

Aug 18, 2023

Last week I cried in the parking lot of a Goodwill in the middle of Virginia. I had put four bags of donations in the back of our car that morning, mostly to get them out of our row home, but also because I knew I’d have to get rid of them ahead of the transition that was looming before us in just a few days.

After a year and two months in Capitol Hill, we are on the move again. This time, our move is transporting us to a one bedroom apartment suspended in between farmlands and woodlands, and we have no idea for how long we will stay, or what will come after it. I’m no stranger to moving—my childhood was filled with moves. I moved from Connecticut to Florida when I was three, and then back to Connecticut when I was eleven. I moved to Israel when I was 18, and then to NYC when I was 21. I headed back to Connecticut to start my business when I was 24 and then moved to DC when I was 27. And then, in 2020, I moved from my single-girl-lofted-ceiling apartment to my first place with my (then new) boyfriend. We found a home that was a little “too much house” for us on the outskirts of DC that turned out to be the perfect place for us to hunker down for the majority of the pandemic. But shortly after moving there, I felt myself wanting to crawl out of my skin. The pandemic had stripped me of all of my independence. I was without work, and in my entrepreneurial world, (and as a Human Design Generator,) passion-fed work fuels my purpose. I felt a deep calling in my gut that big shifts were necessary and imminent, and whether I liked it or not, I was in a period of major death and rebirth.

Back in 2021, in the midst of my “death”, I spoke with my therapist, expressing to her week after week that I wanted to “jump off the cliff into a new life”. I told her I was afraid because I was having trouble seeing what awaited me at the bottom. I was unsure if I even remembered how to jump. She urged me to sit with this feeling for the moment. So, I journaled. I painted. I sat in the sun. I lived in the present moment as best I could and deeply listened to my heart. I connected with my inner child—my wild woman.

Last year in the spring, we decided to move from this “pandemic home” to Capitol Hill—mostly to remind ourselves of what living closer to the beating heart of DC really felt like. On our first night on the Hill, as we unpacked boxes, I declared, “This is the last place I will move to in DC.” I just felt this in my bones. It was my wild woman whispering to me, and frankly, I had known it for a while. In the early part of 2020, I was beginning to feel like I was no longer being challenged to grow in this city. But I had just met this really wonderful man, and things were still humming along in my business. And although many of my friends had moved away (DC is an incredibly transient city) I still had a pretty robust community of people I cared about surrounding me. And then, a jump made itself clear. I knew it wasn’t the jump, but it was a jump. So, I leapt off the shorter cliff in front of me and began working in my first ever 9-5 job. And it served as a piece of growth I hadn’t even known I had needed.

But by the summer of this year, after spending a year and a half in this full time role, I knew my cake had been way over baked. I felt empty. I was nearing a dangerous territory of frequent debilitating anxiety attacks coupled with periods of burnout that left me motionless on the couch. I knew that I was in terrible misalignment with my soul. I was coming home irritable, frustrated by the 40 minutes of traffic I sat through to sit in a basement office, sedentary for eight hours—despite my body’s deep craving for movement and sunlight. I was confused by why I continued to spend more money than I’d like to on lunches, digging myself into unnecessary debt for a meal that didn’t even fulfill me. I felt myself growing angrier and angrier, falling victim to pointless office drama, feeling myself caring about things that should never matter.

Most mornings I’d open my eyes in bed and lay there, staring at the ceiling. I’d hear the birds and occasional whirring of cars moving through the intersection outside of our little home on Capitol Hill. A lot of the time, my stomach felt hollow. It was empty, and food never filled it. I craved the soft belly of my youth. See, I’m the kind of wild woman who needs all kinds of nourishment to really feel full. When my insides feel warm and vibrating with life, that is when I feel as though I am truly nourished. When the windows are down and I’m driving to explore a new thing, or breathe in the company of like-minded people, opening my heart to something new, putting my bare feet on grass that feels safe and motherly—when I feel like I myself am being mothered by the truest version of myself, this, for me, is true being.

And all of this led me to feeling incredibly out of alignment with how I saw true being. Like a broken record I would say, “I am frozen, I am stuck, I am trapped”. I knew how I wanted to feel, but not how I wanted to live—how I wanted to be. So, I listened to the fear-based logic around me. I listened to the voices outside of my body who shrugged and said, “this is just the way life is”, already having convinced themselves that they’d reached the pinnacle of what is possible. I had convinced myself that the only way out of the sticky feeling was to find another job—to jump sideways to another “safe zone” with a steady paycheck. Another routine, another bodysuit that I knew already so deeply did not fit me at this juncture in my life.

My true boiling point hit in the last days of June. It was exactly a day after we’d returned from Italy that I found myself swaying back and forth in my backyard. I was in such mental shock that I surrendered to the heavy population of DC mosquitos that ravaged all of my exposed skin. I held my arms around me, in a self-soothing rocking. I could hear my wild woman yelling at the top of her lungs, begging for me to listen.

But this time, her voice was in my throat. My wild woman had escaped and there was no way to reel her back in. I paced our narrow yard, crying out loud. I turned my head to the sky and wailed out to the universe. I needed to change everything and I needed to change it right now. I had suppressed her long enough, deep in that gaping, unnourished hole in my gut.

That night, I decided that I would quit my job. I needed capital “b” Big changes. I turned to Dan, my face still plush from tears and said, “I need to leave DC. You are welcome to come with me, but either way I have to go”. Within a half hour we had devised a plan—we would put our things in storage and spend the autumn traveling around the Northeast, where both of our families live. Turns out, Dan wanted a break from the city too. And the minute this plan was on the table, it was as if the universe was given the permission it had been desperately searching for. All of the pieces began to fall into place in the most surreal, gorgeous way. A pattern of glittering stars was leading the way for us to set my wild woman free—to set us both free.

I could feel myself launching my body off of the ledge. I was jumping off the real cliff this time.

According to the stars these past couple of weeks, we are in a period of awakening. We are stepping into a new chapter of how we choose to live. Chani Nicholas mentioned reflecting on the year 2015, asking me to recall what was happening in my life then to potentially indicate some of the themes that may reemerge now. In 2015, I had just moved back home to CT from NYC to start my business. I had released myself from a stylist job at a clothing store that left me so unfulfilled. I felt excited by the prospects of my new business as I emailed as many restaurants as I could find in Connecticut, and began connecting with chefs, farmers and fellow creatives in the area. I went to creative conferences and met incredible women who became my close friends. I did my first yoga teacher training. I felt alive. I felt explorative. I was rediscovering my home state in a way that felt fresh and exciting.

I guess the universe knows what is up its sleeve because I am feeling this familiar moment of expansion once again.

We packed up our lives last week, labeling boxes with duct tape—yellow for the things that would fill the one bedroom apartment we’ll call home for the next few months, and red for our new storage unit. We fit all of our belongings into a 20 foot U-haul and drove four hours Northwest. And as I daydreamed staring at the back of the U-haul Dan drove, I thought about how excited I was to have been given the opportunity to change the way I’ve been living my life in one fell swoop. Dropping off those bags at Goodwill last week, though very hard, was a practice in untethering myself from a small bit of my earthly belongings. I felt lighter. More centered. This is the big growth I have been yearning. These moves are bringing me closer to my true self.

We’ve been here, near the Pocono Mountains, for just about a full week now. We’re settling into this new pace of life, amongst the backdrop of pine trees and open fields. I am grounding into the slowness that this area embodies. Up here in the cooler air, eating a sliced tomato on toast for lunch, and reading books on the patio, I can feel myself regulating. In this bigger nature, I can hear my soul’s callings clearer. Earlier this week, Dan bought me the most vibrant, perfect burgundy dahlias at a roadside farm stand and I marveled at a hummingbird that fed from some of the flowers in the front yard. I am focusing on healing. I am focusing on turning inward.

My wild woman is re-birthing here. And I can already feel the ways that I am in better alignment with her. In the nourishing embrace of the trees, my intuitive eyes are wide open. I am here not to survive, but rather, to thrive. I am lighter. In this new chapter, I pray for my wild woman to more fully lead the way. I want my hands in the dirt and my face in the sun. I want to read more books. I want to love on my inner child. I will put more emphasis on experiencing and less emphasis on attachment to things. I am here to be in the fresh air daily, to explore and to celebrate, to sit in circle with hearty, present community. I want to be inspired by the gift of space I have created around me in this unique moment.

Already, I feel more grounded and centered. I am ready to receive so that I will soon be ready to give from a place of deep fullness. Here, I will return to my roots—coming back into the skin of my wild woman.

It’s time to rewild.

Shabbat Shalom.

On Holiday with MOJALVO

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