Jessie Harrold

🎙️If you’re one of the many mothers who are going through perimenopause and matrescence at the same time, you need to tune into this conversation I had with the wise Jane Hardwicke Collings

🌀 Navigating two rites of passage at the same time is no joke. In this episode, Jane shares what’s happening in your body physiologically during this unique overlap of changes, and offers specific and practical tips for supporting yourself through them

🔗 in bio, or wherever you get your podcasts - you won’t want to miss this one!

🎙️ Beloved listeners! The Becoming Podcast is back - and with an incredible conversation with Jane Hardwicke Collings about the intersection between perimenopause and matrescence.

Going through two rites of passage simultaneously is no joke, and it’s happening for more and more mothers. The worst part? Many of them don’t realize that’s what’s happening, and so many of them blame themselves for how challenging it can feel.

🌀 Here’s some of what Jane and I talk about in this episode:

✔️ The definition of “womb-to-tomb” midwifery, and its role in supporting women through the transition to motherhood and the transition out of their fertile years.

✔️ The way all our “portals of power,” as Jane calls them (including menarche, childbirth, and menopause) have been “pathologized, medicalized, weaponized against us and monetized.”

✔️ Why cycle awareness is so important, and how it holds the key to so much of what we need to know about both matrescence and perimenopause (hint: there are times in our lives when our bodies beg us to slow down, and we’ll reap the consequences of not heeding that call).

✔️ What’s happening, physiologically, in our bodies when matrescence and perimenopause overlap. Jane makes all of the complex experiences and emotions and physical changes we have during these simultaneous rites of passage make sense!

✔️ Practical, doable steps new mothers who are also in perimenopause can take to support themselves. Jane’s wisdom here is absolute gold.

🎙️ This episode is a must-listen! Head over to my bio for the link to tune in, or download it wherever you get your podcasts.

🎙️ Friends! I’m so delighted to bring you another amazing episode of The Becoming Podcast - this time with my lovely (and local!) friend Nicholetta | Home Cook | Writer | Storyteller

Nicholetta and I met almost a decade ago, in what, for me at least, was another lifetime in which I was a food blogger. Nic and I traveled in the same circles of food loving writers, and it was such a fun time. While my writing and work took a turn away from the culinary world, hers only deepened. I still love Nicholetta’s writing, and when I read a post from her Substack, Story Salt, late last year, I knew I had to have her on the podcast.

The piece that Nic wrote was a searingly tender account of her first days and weeks as an empty nester, and what it was like to transition into “mothering from a distance.” I know so many of you are anticipating or are in the midst of this transition yourselves, and so I just had to have Nic on the show to share her experience with you.

💙 Here’s some of what we talk about on the show:

✔️ Nic’s experience of her first year of being an empty nester. We talk about the difference between the identity shift into motherhood, or matrescence, and how it compares to the change in identity that occurs once our intensive mothering years are over.

✔️ We talk about the truth that “the days are long but the years are short,” and how there’s so much Nic couldn’t fully appreciate about mothering until those long days were over. We talk about not only wanting to return to those days to experience their sweetness, but also about all the things we might have done differently.

✔️ Nic shares that, ultimately, as she asked herself who she was becoming now that her intensive mothering years were behind her, she gave herself permission to follow dreams that she didn’t have time for or didn’t prioritize when her kids were younger. This led her to her current work at and passion for the intersection of food, culture and identity as she explores the culinary roots of her family and shares amazing recipes with the world!

And so much more!

🔗 Head over to my bio or to your fave podcast platform to tune in!

I have BIG NEWS!!

The Village, my longstanding matrescence apprenticeship program, is now a certification program.

This means that when you participate in The Village and complete all the requirements, you will earn the Certified Matrescence Educator designation.

There were so many reasons for the decision to shift the program in this way, but it comes down to this: matrescence is a new field of inquiry, study and support, and, like in any new field, there has suddenly been a huge influx of links, articles, hacks, resources, and practitioners - some of them of high quality and some…not. Transitioning The Village to a certification program allows graduates to stand out among the crowd as trustworthy practitioners with time-tested, evidence-based frameworks and practices to share with matrescent mothers.

Will you join us this year?

Deets are in my b!0, and registration starts in September.

💙 Big shout-outs to some of this year’s Village graduates for the beautiful images of them doing the work they’re so passionate about - the work that you can be doing too! and Brooke Usrey Counselling