Matrescence: You’re Not Broken, You’re Becoming

Introduction and Welcome

Britta Bushnell: Hello folks, and welcome to transformed by birth, a podcast about the rite of passage of pregnancy, birth and new parenthood. I'm your host. Britta Bushnell, author, mythologist, childbirth educator and all around deep diver with a side of goofball. I'm so glad you're here. Today's episode holds our hands through the often messy transformation into motherhood. So grab your comfy beverage of choice or take us along for a walk as we connect with Coach doula and author Jesse Harold before we begin, we start the way we always do by lighting a candle. If you want to join me, please do or just take a breath as I light mine. Today's candle is for everyone currently traversing through a rite of passage,

Defining Matrescence and Introducing Jesse Harold

Britta Bushnell: matrescence, the profound identity transformation that happens when someone becomes a mother. This is a term that has broken into the mainstream conversation. Thank goodness. I love that this unique transformation has been named, is being studied, and that focus is being placed on what is needed to support parents through this identity overhaul. That last part is one of the reasons I'm thrilled to have today's guest on the show. Jessie Harold is a coach, a doula, a writer who has been supporting women through radical life transformations for over 15 years. She's the author of the award winning book that I love folks. I love it called Mother shift, reclaiming motherhood as a rite of passage, and editor of the new anthology mother becoming reflections and scholarship on matrices. She's also the host of the becoming podcast. What I love about Jesse's work is her focus on supporting the transformation, not just on identifying it in Mother shift, Jessie breaks down matrices into four phases of transformation, into four phases of transformation, offering context, guidance and personal practices to support a mother through this rite of passage.

Britta Bushnell: Our work is deeply aligned folks as we are both big fans of Rites of Passage and ritual, among many other things, so having Jesse here on the transformed by birth podcast is a natural fit, and I'm so thrilled to have her here to share her warmth and wisdom with you. Welcome Jesse and thank you for being here.

Jesse Harold: Thank you so much, Britta, what a beautiful introduction. I'm really excited to be here,

What Is Matrescence?

Britta Bushnell: okay, because you and I can talk all things transformation and rites of passage. So just I gave a quick definition of matrices in the intro, but I'm curious if you want to add anything, what do you want to add? What do we need to know before we dive into this conversation with an understanding that everybody understands what we're talking about?

Jesse Harold: Yeah, totally. So matrices is the word that we use to describe that process of transition into motherhood, and it's sort of all encompassing, right? It's changes to your body. It's changes to maybe your relationships, maybe how you feel about your your career, where you live, your values, like literally everything you use the word overhaul, right? It's overhaul, appropriate. Complete overhaul,

Britta Bushnell: appropriate. It truly is an overhaul, truly.

The Two to Three Year Timeline

Jesse Harold: And I pause it in my work that it takes about two to three years, and I find that to be something important to uplift a name as well, because it's not, you know, we talk about the fourth trimester, as you know, three months postpartum, and maybe we're talking about

Jesse Harold: the transition that some of us might make, it a year or something. It takes longer than that. It takes, right? Three years?

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, if we're talking about an overhaul,

Britta Bushnell: I mean, I don't know about you, but an overhaul in three months, while, while there is an acute phase, it's, it's that might be enough time for the unraveling

Britta Bushnell: that may not be enough time for the rebuilding,

Jesse Harold: yeah, for the integration, for the lost part. And yeah, so so it.

Britta Bushnell: I love that you name it as a two to three year. I think that's an important piece to name and highlight and in, in the subtitle of your book, you say reclaiming motherhood as a rite of passage. So I need to know what you mean by reclaim and what you mean by rite of passage.

Reclaiming Motherhood as a Rite of Passage

Jesse Harold: Much. So, yeah, unpack those for us. Let me do that. Yes, totally. So let me start with the rite of passage. The idea of a rite of passage, what I think viewing matrices as a rite of passage gives us is the ability to normalize the difficulty of it and the distress that most of us, I would argue, feel in this process of overhaul. Right?

Jesse Harold: You know, there's a lot of parts of yourself, maybe even entire selves, that we let go of, maybe for a while and maybe forever.

Jesse Harold: You know, we're confronted also with a culture that devalues mothers and makes it very difficult to be a mother.

Britta Bushnell: Oh, boy, am I.

Britta Bushnell: Are we seeing that right now in big ways?

Jesse Harold: Yes, totally. And we can, we can unpack that, you know. But so there's this, there's this tremendous challenge. And you know, when we talk about in rites of passage theory, this idea of going through an ordeal, right?

Jesse Harold: And what a rite of passage also holds is that there is power and potential, and then ultimately, when you complete that rite of passage, or when you kind of traverse the return from that rite of passage, that you have

Jesse Harold: hopefully become more of yourself in the process, that you have become more aware of Your gifts in the world, more authentic that there's all of these sort of other possibilities that are unlocked when we when we view that process of becoming a mother in this way. And I guess it juxtaposes against, you know, one of the dominant sort of paradigms of postpartum that we have, and necessarily so is one of pathology. So we're looking for

Jesse Harold: postpartum mood disorders in that postpartum time. And thankfully, you know, we're much more aware of those than we were, say, when you and I were starting practice

Beyond Pathology: The Worried Well

Jesse Harold: and and also, you know, the research shows us that about 40% of mothers are among what you might call the kind of, quote, unquote, worried well, like they're not depressed, but they are distressed. You know, this is tough, right? So it gives us different language, other than the language of of, you know, pathology or or clinical language for the difficulty and then subsequent possibility that might be unlocked in this process. So that's kind of, you know, where is that part of the Reclaim is reclaiming motherhood, not as a pathology, or a process of becoming a mother, as pathology, or as as a change that that has a clinical definition, but as something that is that rite of passage, that transformative piece, so reclaiming it back from From pathology totally. And, I mean, there's a, you know, there's a certain amount of historical reclaiming there, where, you know, in, you know, in the past, in historical times, or in other cultures. And I should say that, like, primarily, I'm referencing, sort of the Western experience of matrices, that's what I'm most familiar with. But, you know, there are, the transition into motherhood was venerated in a very different way. And it was seen as a time where, you know your your wisdom and your maturity and and all of this beautiful development was unlocked. And so there's, there's some of that reclaiming, just in a historical sense or in a cultural sense.

Navigating Cultural Narratives About Motherhood

Britta Bushnell: And I think too, you know, like, actually, as I'm speaking and talking and thinking about this, I'm thinking about, literally, a conversation I had earlier today with a mother where we were talking about sort of this, this cultural narrative that we have, that there's either sort of motherhood is the worst, and you're tripping over Legos, and you've got spit up on your shoulder and you've lost yourself. And this is awful. And then there's this other narrative, and we see this all over social media, right? Like this is very common, this other narrative that I call, like the sacred mommy narrative, maybe, maybe like a little bit of Trad wife narrative that might be mixed in there where, like, you know you've got sourdough proofing in the oven, and you know you're so grateful for the blessings that are your children, etc, and and like all of us, know that the truth is right in the middle, right? It's right in the middle. Sometimes it's awful. And.

Jesse Harold: Sometimes it's wonderful and it's always kind of both at the same time. And so there's also this, like reclaiming motherhood as this, like gritty and beautiful process and role and reality, you know, away from, I guess, the claws of culture that would have us think that it's either terrible or wonderful, but not anything more complicated than that.

The Power of And Rather Than Or

Britta Bushnell: Well, and you know that I love and rather than, or, I mean, I've got one in my video, you know, over my shoulder and ampersand over my shoulder. Because I do think that the idea that it's supposed to be some kind of dualistic experience, that it's either this or that. I mean, I talk about that in my book around birth, that there is this. I call it the flowing white nightgown and candles version, and the OH MY GOD, kicking and screaming Hollywood version of you know,

Britta Bushnell: you know of birth, it's like, wow, actually there. The truth is a mixed up combination of the two of those in a lot of different ways, and depending on so much of your own background as well, which I think also spills into this process of matrices is what it what are the messages that have been sold to you? What are the the what are the upbringing that you've had that or even the community that you're in, and what it is that the messages are coming from that. And one of the things that comes up for me, as I hear you talking about, like other cultures or the idea of right rights of passage, is I'm thinking about rites of passage as coined and explored from the perspective of young men coming into adulthood being a transformative time where it's there are rituals that support the change of Identity, rituals that hold and contain and guide and honor. Honor is probably one of the big words. Honor. This change, these ordeals, these, yeah, you're gonna lose yourself. And the elders are here, and the rights, the rituals are holding you through that. So I love in your book and in your work that you are talking not just about, hey, let's think about this in a different way, but let's talk about some of those rituals. Let's talk about some of that work that we can hold and as, potentially, you know, elders in the field and putting that in in air quotes, but can can offer and support that feels important, and I love that. And one of the things that you do, I'm, I'm rambling and sharing my love for just as book.

Introducing the Four Elements Model

Britta Bushnell: So yes, just get it. But I want to highlight one of the ways that you do that is through the four elements model. So can you share a little bit about that? And if you want to respond to what I was just saying about rites of passage and the rituals too, I'm gonna let you do that too.

Jesse Harold: Yeah, totally, there's so much there. So I'm going to guess that your listeners won't mind if I nerd out a little

Britta Bushnell: bit. Yeah, so especially if you do that in that deep voice, that's like,

Britta Bushnell: let's nerd out together. I love it.

The Origins of the Four Elements Model

Jesse Harold: So when I so maybe the backstory, little tiny bit of backstory, when I first started working with mothers around this topic, like I'm a big nerd and I have a research background, and I figured there must be something out there that can help me to guide,

Jesse Harold: guide mothers through this process, something that might characterize some of what they're going through. And of course, I stumbled upon, you know, lots of things. I stumbled upon adult development psychology, which you know, deeply informs my work, as well as rites of passage theory, by our old guy, Arnold van Gennep, who, you know, coined the term rites of passage, wrote the book rites of passage, and his sort of three part

Jesse Harold: framework or structure for thinking of a rite of passage is sort of like the default that most of us who are working in this field and thinking about trying.

Jesse Harold: Know, but it's not enough, yeah, so, like, right? So this three part framework is, like the idea of separation, you know, there's different words for it, but separation, liminality, and then this kind of point of transformation, or return, integration, whatever you want to call it, right? It's a great model. Don't get me wrong. It's a great there's truth parts. Yep, there's truth to it. And the thing is, you know, when I got to thinking about it, here is a white man who actually didn't do his own field research. He collected the field research of other white men who parachuted themselves in tradition, into traditional cultures, and kind of had a look at what was going on in terms of Rites of Passage, decided they knew what they were looking at, and then wrote about it. And then Arnold van Gennep decided to kind of summarize all of this into his book. And he was actually not well respected in his lifetime, and it hasn't really been until recent years, when we've actually kind of pulled this work forward again. Oh yeah, this is really, it's really great. Yeah. So, so that's kind of, you know, it brings me to why create another model of a rite of passage, like what you know, we've already got one. Why create the wheel, which is what the four elements of radical transformation has. There are problems with that three part structure. I mean, there's there's problems, there's Yes, and when we're trying to utilize it, and looking at transition given to women, it's also missing a bunch.

Britta Bushnell: I mean, I tend to like Bruce Lincoln's work a little bit better, in part, since we're geeking, seeking, since we're geeking. I mean, he still uses the try, you know, three part model, but looks at them as different because, because his research is all on rites of passage given to young women coming into adulthood. And so it looks different.

Jesse Harold: It's so different. And when you so, so then I, I'm working with actual women, primarily people who are, who are women, and identifying, or wanting to identify as mothers and like this is not computing, right? Because there are so many aspects of this experience that aren't true or aren't aligned in so many ways. So I created this four elements model, which I think is sort of like

Jesse Harold: it's just got a little bit more teeth and muscle, and it's Praxis oriented. So in in the model is sort of inherent these developmental tasks that we might kind of move through in order to support ourselves through the phases of transition. So, you know, that's like one beef that I have about that three part model, is it, it's, it's kind of theoretical, right? And it doesn't tell us. So what do you do then, if you're going through a phase of separation, not at all. Yeah, so I'm all about like, what are we going to do about this, and how, what are we actually doing, and how are we supporting ourselves? What are the rituals, what are the practices

Jesse Harold: that can help move us through so that we do come out the other side of this rite of passage, more ourselves, wiser, you know, contributing members of the community, sharing what we've learned along the way. Right? So that's the like preamble.

Earth Element: Unlearning Cultural Conditioning

Jesse Harold: The four elements of radical transformation looks like this, we've got the element of earth. First, earth is about you know, how do we unlearn the cultural conditioning that we've learned that isn't serving us. So we are culturally conditioned in so many ways about what it means to be a good mother, what it means to be a woman, what's acceptable of us, you know? I mean, we could be here for days unpacking this, right?

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, we totally could. And it's a real an and it keeps changing the messages Yes, yeah.

Jesse Harold: And so it's there's so many assumptions in our lives that maybe we took on when we were really little, or even before we could think about them, you know, that then become sort of part of our kind of operating system that we need to unlearn in order to get to a place where we can be ourselves a little more fully, right? So, and then other assumptions might be more fairly recent. I sometimes ask my clients questions like, where did you get that? Get the idea that you should have a Tupperware drawer organized like Instagram. Like, where did you get that? Like, let's talk about Instagram. Let's let's talk about what you're seeing there, and kind of turn over some of the rock some of these rocks and get to, you know, who says? So, I love that. Who says? I love that. So. So that's earth. It's all about unlearning. Well, so it's all about kind of who says, and you know, that's very reminiscent of, you know, Arnold van Gennep's idea of separation, right? Disengaging from things, beliefs, ways of being, maybe even entire relationships that aren't serving, and so that's that's earth.

Water Element: Feeling and Metabolizing Grief

Jesse Harold: And then we move into water, which is the element of feeling. And so here is where we access and metabolize grief. And grief is a very big part of matrices,

Britta Bushnell: and also, I would say, the most, like the best kept secret of matrices. Like it is not talked about,

Jesse Harold: you know, and well known. And I say, you know, there's some privilege in discussing this, too. You know, we don't have a lot of skill around working with grief in our culture. We don't have a lot of meaningful ritual to support us to work with grief in our culture. And I think that can leave us worried about, you know, kind of going there,

Jesse Harold: I think in the mothers that I work with because they're afraid of postpartum depression. They're afraid to feel anything other than happiness, because they've kind of equated

Jesse Harold: like complex emotion with a possible sort of slide into an experience that they really don't want to be having. So I think that can happen as well, and I want to name too that that grief and feeling grief is a privileged experience. And there are, you know, entire swaths of our population who who can't access the privilege to be honest about their experiences of motherhood, especially when they're complex and maybe, you know, unpleasant, right?

Jesse Harold: So I think you know what I talk about in the book, and what I work with with my clients, is that grief wants kind of one of, or maybe all of four things. It wants to be felt, it wants to be honored, it wants to be metabolized. And then sometimes, maybe not always, it wants to be released, and so those are some really tangible things. So how can you feel your grief? Well, you know, I have a regular grief practice of taking my grief to a trail that I walk on, and it's the same trail, and my body kind of recognizes that trail as a place where we feel grief, and it's almost like a little pressure valve that I offer myself every week, every two weeks, or something. And I go and I cry and I talk to the chickadees and I sing and I scream whatever is needed. I talk it out. And by the time I'm off that trail, I feel really different, you know, so feeling our grief, honoring it like and you said it. You know that that feeling of, you know, having lost yourself in motherhood, or that feeling of grief that might ensue, is vilified, right? We're told you should bounce back. You shouldn't change in Mother. Worst thing that could happen is that you might change,

Jesse Harold: right? You're going to be like you, plus a baby. Everything's gonna be the same, but you're just gonna be having this baby you know to look after, right? Which we know is not true, but I think that's actually what kind of there's some part of us that really assumes that that's what's going to happen, and that's reinforced by our culture, right? It's reinforced by our culture. And I have a certain tenderness for parents who are heading into that place of reckoning with the grief around what it is that the messages they were sold and the reality that they're facing and that there's grief in that, and it's and grief and anger

Britta Bushnell: and.

Britta Bushnell: And and anger at others and self, grief at the loss, losses, let's put it in plural and and the grief in the the missed expectation, like the loss of the fantasy, does deserve some some morning time, totally. But I often see parents

Britta Bushnell: mad or sad about the message they were sold as being something that was actually wrong with them,

Jesse Harold: yeah, totally,

Britta Bushnell: rather than an understanding of the system, systems that have instilled that.

You're Not Broken, You're Becoming

Jesse Harold: Yeah, just this morning, I was thinking about our interview because I received an email from a very well respected list serve that I'm on, and it was, you know, a new podcast episode with a psychologist who was going to be talking about how not to lose yourself in motherhood? So like these are, you know, respected, esteemed professionals reinforcing this idea that you shouldn't lose yourself in motherhood. So you're right when it feels like you have, but everyone else is telling you that you shouldn't have. What happens is that you feel like you've done something wrong. And I always tell my clients and wrote about it in the book, that you're not broken. You're becoming like nothing has gone wrong here, because you are uncertain, because whole entire swaths of your life have been put on pause, and because you have feelings about that, right? That makes sense. Actually, that makes so much sense.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, but what if I don't want to lose myself?

Britta Bushnell: Who does? Wait a minute? Wait a minute. I kind of like who I am and are we, what are we saying when we say that that's a story that's been sold, that actually isn't what's true or what happens, and that we do lose ourselves, what like, yeah, grieving that. But also, fuck do I have to right?

Adult Development and the Potential of Transformation

Jesse Harold: Totally. And I think there's something really beautiful about kind of leaning into some of the, some of what we know about adult development psychology here, and thinking about matrices as a developmental process. So if you look at, I've done a very nerdy, like deep dive into a cross section of various adult development theories, and at the heart of them.

Jesse Harold: Don't want to be so arrogant, just to try to sum them all up, but actually, at the heart of them, it's like when we grow up and grow into sort of advanced, I don't want to use this hierarchical language, but like more maturity as adults. Essentially, what happens is we we learn how to hold paradox and complexity with more skill, as we were talking about earlier the and we become more interdependent, as opposed to individualistic. We tend to in source our knowing, so we tend to

Jesse Harold: trust and follow our intuition, rather than sort of pulling the external powers that be, your information for what we should do next. You know, there's these sort of really tangible, beautiful, important, like culturally right now, very important skills that we learn and that we grow and gain through the process of losing ourselves in this rite of passage, right? And so, so I think we can, like, lean on some of that potential and possibility. And I think also that

Jesse Harold: you know people who are supporting mothers, you and I, other perinatal professionals, the the wise people of the sort of community need to help hold the vision for what's possible for mothers in this process, when they're like in the muck of it. And you know, we could use that, that chrysalis metaphor, right? They're in the goo,

Holding the Vision for Mothers in Transition

Jesse Harold: and it's like when we can kind of hold that for them and uplift that and remind them and validate. Oh, my God, I heard your intuition there. Wow. It sounds like you actually really know or wow, I can see you tangling with these two seemingly opposite things. Look how much you're growing. Wow. Look how much you're learning about yourself, like when we can kind of feed that back and uplift and validate and mirror that. I mean that is, you know, people like you and I are the surrogate for the village that would have done that were we actually going through a.

Jesse Harold: Passage. And so I think, you know, it behooves us to play that role for the mothers that are coming up now, so that they can step into that full potential of what's available in matrices, which is a very different message than what a lot is being

Jesse Harold: modeled that is like, aren't you so happy? Or you have, you know the aren't you happy you have a healthy baby? Or isn't, isn't your child just the best? Isn't motherhood like or, oh my god, back to that, that piece you were saying a few minutes ago about kind of the polarity of experiences as being

Navigating Multiple Truths and Internal Knowing

Jesse Harold: one of the truths available, that it's either spectacular or or awful, and the the reality is it's usually both and more that that that messaging really needs to be kind of held and acknowledged, and also that piece that you spoke about, which is the the multiplicity of truths. So there's, there's not one way to do this, but there are many ways, and our internal job is to feel into, navigate and and identify what feels right to us in any given moment over and over and over again, because the moments keep coming. It's not a one time did that checked in with myself,

Jesse Harold: done and, yeah, hard, yeah, yeah, definitely. I kind of liken the four elements model, as I know you and I both love to hike, and I think of it as like, little trail markers. So I love to hike, but I also sometimes get lost, or I think I'm lost. And without fail, the minute that I think that I'm lost, I'll kind of look around and there will be a trail marker there. It's like a miracle. It's like I've got nine lives, and I'm gonna be trail markers just appear for me,

Jesse Harold: but the feeling of relief that you're on the trail, like you've been walking for a little ways, and you've got a ways to go, but you're on the trail, you've got this kind of orientation to the path, and that's kind of how I think of it, like that path might look really different for different people, like, for example, my clients who've gone through a long fertility journey, their transition to motherhood looks really different than someone who maybe had a surprise pregnancy, right? And, you know, I could go on,

The Fertility Journey and Grief

Britta Bushnell: I've noticed that too, because the ordeal,

Britta Bushnell: the ordeal happens earlier, or some of the ordeals totally plural, happen earlier. And so there can be a journey of letting go that becomes more skilled, more totally, more available at an earlier place, and that can transition into the process of of matrices on the other side of birth. That can be like, oh yeah, oh okay, this, oh yeah. I already stripped that part of my belief system. And yeah, I've noticed that

Jesse Harold: I do find that it can be what, what can be a wrinkle for people who've, who've gone through a fertility journey, I agree like that, they're often kind of deeper into matrices before even being pregnant, in some way, like deeper into that transformation. But accessing grief when you're you've maybe you finally, you're finally pregnant. You finally had this baby that you've been longing for, and then admitting that it's really tough and that you actually miss your old life, like I have so much compassion for that feeling and so, you know, permission slips abound, right? Let's give lots of permission for the experience to be, not not mapped or scripted or any of that, but but felt and experienced as as it comes.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, it isn't. There isn't a one size fits all approach, even for the same kind of external situations there, there might be trends, but there's always outliers, and

Jesse Harold: totally

Britta Bushnell: and it's important to be in that place of, wow, okay, what am I feeling? And I was working with a couple yesterday who were really.

Britta Bushnell: Really struggling with feeling.

Britta Bushnell: And I feel that that's actually part of what I think this water element really captivated me in my preparation for our conversation again and and also, when I read your book, is, is is that element of the it's really asking for a lot of feeling?

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, yeah, totally. And we have kind of been told are sold, sold the bill of of packaging saying we're not supposed to feel feelings.

The Magic of Working With Grief

Jesse Harold: Yeah, yeah, totally. Well, that's how, you know, that's, that's half of it. And people kind of say, like, is there? They assume that there's some kind of magic to working with grief and working with that fire element. And as I said, you know, talked about being, feeling it, honoring it, that's half of it right there. Like I'm allowed to feel this way is I'm allowed to be angry about this, I'm allowed to be sad. I'm allowed to be ambivalent.

Britta Bushnell: I love that you include the ambivalent in there as well.

Jesse Harold: Absolutely, yeah, and then, you know, metabolism and release. Those, those practices have a little bit more kind of muscle to them, in the sense that, you know, we metabolize grief. I metabolize grief on my walk. I metabolize it through my body. Maybe you write about it. Maybe you build an altar to this, you know, old self. Maybe you're sharing about it. Maybe you're making art about it.

Jesse Harold: We're moving it through and, you know, as with metabolizing, you think of metabolizing food, we're taking in a bunch of stuff, so we're taking in a bunch of change, and then we're absorbing the nutrients and letting go of what doesn't serve. So at this point in the grieving process, you're you're starting to be able to make meaning of and sort of like draw the wisdom from this process of letting go and being able to kind of alchemize it into your life, right? And that starts to feel a little bit more familiar to people who want to grieve through action, right? And that's great, that's the way.

Jesse Harold: But I think it's true that, like we we sort of need a bit of

Jesse Harold: language and skill and and, you know, permission to be able to access that part of this rite of passage. I think that the water element is like, Is my also my favorite, because I feel like it's the biggest game changer of all of them,

Britta Bushnell: well, and it's not talked about even in the messy middle, right,

Jesse Harold: totally,

Britta Bushnell: or metamorphosis or liminality, like it's not necessarily talked it's not named in in any of those, you know, triphasic model kind of pieces. And yet it's such a living, vital part of the transformation into through matrices,

Grief as the Other Side of Love

Jesse Harold: yeah and yeah, when a scholar that I love to refer to talks about Martine parktell, he talks about kind of grief and praise being basically two sides of the same coin, or grief and love. So really, your grief is just a sign that you loved your life before having this baby. And, you know, there's this kind of really beautiful poignance to that. And it's not actually, you know, contrary to what people might be afraid that they might become depressed, perhaps as a result of feeling their grief. Grief is very alive. It is the opposite of, sort of that the flatness of depression. It is the other side of love, you know. And so when we can kind of maybe that makes it feel a little safer to to approach

Air Element: Calling In Resources and Support

Jesse Harold: and the third element is air, and it's kind of another one that's not talked about too much. So it's about calling in resources, kind of mobilizing your support network. It's about really getting very intentional about who you spend your time with, who's in your circle, the questions that you're asking to yourself and to others. Who do I call when blank happens? You know what you're reading? What are you filling your mind with? So that's air. And,

Fire Element: Embodiment and Transformation

Jesse Harold: and then the last element is fire, which is all about the somatic the embodiment of, of of matrices and is it's where transformation actually lives? Right? Embodiment? Yeah,

Jesse Harold: so really, we actually are transformed when we transform in our body. Like, if your body doesn't come along with you on the ride, that's dissociation. It's not transformation, right? It has to happen. And so where fire also lives is in, you know, the process of accepting the physical changes that may occur as a result of having a baby. And again, that's another taboo, right? Taboo conversation. And, you know, really, really normalizing and reclaiming those changes. So,

Britta Bushnell: yeah, normalizing, reclaiming, and it's such a living, vital part. And I'm thinking also of it as like, the way that we can activate, you know, knowing. Or accessing what is, what is within us. And I do feel like this is also part of that developmental as we sort of mature, as we make it through rites of passage to sort of trust our body more, access our body, our body knowing more,

Jesse Harold: totally, totally well and and like, do you remember? Like, you know, people in adolescence talk about embodiment. Right for this reason. One of the kind of milestones, if you will, of adolescence is learning to kind of befriend an embody the physical changes that occur in our body during puberty. And we do that, again when we go through matrices, we are learning these skills again. However, when we learned them before, when

Britta Bushnell: we're in adolescence, we're not talking about the fact that we're going through a ride. We're just riding that horse.

Britta Bushnell: We're just pissed about it.

Building Fluency in Grief and Transformation

Jesse Harold: Yeah, so like, let's say that it is. And then we learn. Say we learn. I've learned that I grieve really well on that trail. And so I know that when grief arises for me in future transformations in my life, I can hit the trail, you know, and so there's this sort of fluency in our skills that we can then apply to other areas of our life. And you know, you and I were talking offline about some of the things that we're grappling with as we move into middle age and all of the responsibilities and realities that come along with that. And like, I don't know, as new parents, you kind of don't know what's ahead, but as a parent of older children now, I can tell you like I grieve all the time for things that are different than I wish they were, for ways that I've parented that I wish I hadn't, for experiences my kids had that I wish they didn't. And it's gonna be a part of that's why I go to this trail every week, my friend, like it's gonna be a part of your parenting, and it's going to be a part of your life. And so best make friends with it now

Jesse Harold: and have some skill and some literacy to be able to approach it without as much fear.

The Labyrinth as Metaphor for Transformation

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, I love this. I, you know, when I in my classes, and thanks to the gift of this metaphor from Pam, England, my former mentor, the labyrinth. As a journey into the center the transition to parenthood and then the long journey out of the labyrinth. As you know, oh, she's holding up a labyrinth pillow. Folks right behind her. Yes, we geek out on these symbols together, two peas in a pod. Yes, the that, the that labyrinthian journey, that being a three year kind of process of re integration, like a pulling of I sometimes talk about it as like re weaving. So we're in the process of exiting the labyrinth, and we're pulling new threads from our experience of going into the labyrinth, of birthing, of meeting our child, of of all the parts of disintegration that are happening. And on the outside of the labyrinth are all these threads of our former life, and we have to integrate these threads in our tapestry of our life. So it's we the tapestry changes. It absolutely changes because we've got new threads, and we're cutting out threads that no longer serve us. We're not we're not always weaving with all the same threads anymore. And when you talk about learning how to do that transformation and using in with your work, the four elements model and being able to kind of copy paste into other parts of your life. It makes me think of this for myself, using the labyrinth as a symbol and metaphor for like the the journey I went through becoming an empty nester.

Britta Bushnell: It felt like a three year exit. Yeah, it was a, it was probably a three year journey in, like, anticipating, imagining, here it comes. The last, you know, all the ways that we acknowledge these things. And then it took three years to kind of really be like, Yeah, this is who I am. Like, I am somebody who is more used to not having a child in my house than I am to having a child in my house, which means that when my children are in my house, I'm kind of like, who am I? What's happening? This feels weird and and a coach that I've worked with has has said to me recently, because I'm going through all kinds of upheaval in my personal life right now, and she has said to me,

Britta Bushnell: it's like, you're in postpartum again. And I'm like, oh yeah. She's like.

Britta Bushnell: Good thing you're really familiar with what's going on there, Britta, and so I love that you're speaking to that. And I'm just sorry I'm on a ramble. But I have one more thing, which is that is also true of menopause. And so

Jesse Harold: yes,

The Intersection of Matrescence and Perimenopause

Britta Bushnell: and we I do feel like as

Britta Bushnell: as the generation of parents is getting older,

Britta Bushnell: the intersection between matrices and perimenopause is like, how do you peel those apart? Yeah, and I know this is a juicy place for you, so I don't know what my question is, but I'm laying out the red carpet for you to talk about this.

Jesse Harold: It's so true. Yes, yes, yes. It's funny. I've been thinking about this for a while as I've been going through my own perimenopause journey.

Jesse Harold: And although my my kids are a little bit older, but just knowing how intense that's been and how difficult mothering has been in the context of you know, what we know is happening hormonally is that you know our estrogen is dropping. The estrogen is the hormone of caregiving and caring what other people think, and smoothing things over. And that's one of, one of the books I read, called it the hormone of accommodation. And I was like, oh, fuck, is that on the nose. I no longer want to accommodate others. And then also your progesterone. Shifts in your progesterone are accountable for the feeling that I know I have had, and many people have of like wanting to escape their lives. And so there's literal sort of physiological stuff that's going on that when coupled with having a very young child or maybe even being pregnant at the same time. So we don't equate. We think of perimenopause and menopause as being the end of fertility. So it doesn't compute. When we're we've just had a baby, or we're still breastfeeding, or, you know, we're pregnant, even, that our bodies could be doing these two things at the same time

Jesse Harold: is just like we're not realizing it. But then we've got, yeah, we've got more and more mothers waiting or, you know, like, for whatever reasons, having children later on. And they're, they're parenting through this drop in estrogen, parenting little people who need a lot from them. And it is, I do not have a hack for this, but I have found that naming it, I had a post go kind of viral that was basically just sort of showed a Venn diagram of, you know, perimenopause on one side and matrices on the other side, and then the overlap, where basically you're going through two rites of passage at the same time.

Jesse Harold: And yeah, people just felt so seen in that. And I think it's sort of sort of similar to, like, when matress, when we first started talking about it, people were so excited, you spoke to this. People were so excited that we had a name for the thing that we were experiencing, and that for a long time was all we needed. It was just revolutionary in its oh my god, we've got it great. There's there's like, and Next, connect with what's next. So I think we're at the like, the naming that perimenopause and matrices can happen at the same time, and is increasingly so happening for people.

Jesse Harold: And yeah, again, don't know what to do about this.

Britta Bushnell: I've got, I've got a podcast coming up with a mid a midwife who focuses now on midlife, and she's going to talk specifically about the intersection between postpartum and our fertility years with perimenopause, that's going to be a whole, yeah, we're going there

Jesse Harold: totally. So that's coming up. Yes, amazing, amazing. Yeah. I'm really keen to talk more about it, because it's a thing. It is a thing, that intersection is tough.

Creating Meaningful Rituals for Matrescence

Britta Bushnell: So I want to, I want to get kind of into

Britta Bushnell: what, what folks can do. And I know that you and I both love ritual. You spoke about your your path ritual, your hike ritual, and how that was supportive to you, what you also facilitate circles and rituals, and like we don't, we don't have a lot of rituals held and supported by the over culture. So how do people create ones that support them when, when they're not, when they're not readily accessible by by a cut, paced kind of existence?

Jesse Harold: Yeah, totally. I.

Jesse Harold: Feel like in matrices, there's sort of two, I mean, maybe beyond matrices as well, but there's sort of two

Jesse Harold: types of ritual that are really of service to us. And, you know, there's the rituals that are sort of these big, almost ceremonial,

Jesse Harold: you know, marking of this rite of passage, and so, you know, maybe that's your mother blessing, if you had a, you know, a meaningful experience with that, a lot of us, I think,

Britta Bushnell: yeah, you're right, like, kind of copying pasting from Pinterest, and it's very Instagramable, but it's not really that meaningful, you know, but some kind of, or maybe that, maybe there's a mark, a way of marking that, you know, two to three year completion. I did a ritual when my kids were both finally in school, and it felt like, oh my goodness, there's like, another dimension of me available now

Micro-Rituals for Daily Life

Jesse Harold: so we can have these kind of big one off. I shouldn't say big, like, they don't have to be that monumental, but like, more significant rituals, and then what I often find myself supporting mothers with is just sort of daily micro rituals. And sort of the other purpose of ritual is not just to kind of mark and recognize and honor big moments and, you know, transitions in our lives, but also to kind of ground us and anchor us, give us something to anchor into. And, you know, ritual was traditionally used in times of liminality as a way to kind of create more safety in a time that was actually quite unsafe, both literally and metaphorically unsafe. And so that's also something we can do. And, you know, I talk about like, so here's how small a ritual could be I talk about this drinking water that I used to do, and I still do, actually, when I my little person was my youngest was 15 months old, so I had a toddler and a 15 month old. There was no self care happening. Was zero self care, at least as we think of it, right in the in the fancy Pinterest table self care version, yeah. And maybe even, like, the self care of, like having a shower. There's that too, that was also not even happening. Well, it's certainly not as ritual, maybe a function from here.

Jesse Harold: It was wrong there as a rapid get my body wet, kind of experience, exactly. It was rough for a while there and and I was kind of like, okay, what's the lowest hanging fruit? What's the thing I can do to support myself? Like the easy thing, and the easy thing that I kind of landed on was drinking more water, like I should be more hydrated, right? And I found myself very organically, actually making that a ritual. And so what I would do is I drink my water, and I would say to myself, this is self care, this is nourishment. So it was like, No, it wasn't just hydrating. Even though that's what it looked like, I decided that it meant that I had remembered myself that day. So really, like, while ritual is is making meaning of a moment, right? Naming it, making

Britta Bushnell: totally love it exactly.

Jesse Harold: So I decided that that drinking water was remembering myself, that I was nourishing myself, and pretty soon I actually found myself. It was kind of pevalee, and like, when I was feeling really stretched in I would go and I would drink Just a sip of water, and it would remind me, like, okay, here I am, you know, so, like, less than 30 seconds, right? Which is kind of what we need to, you know, especially in the early days of parenting, it's micro self care. It's micro ritual. It's focusing on letting the little things actually land in your body, rather than doing anything that's big or splashy or requires a babysitter, right? Yeah, so that is a ritual. So we can kind of expand the way we think of what ritual is. And it's not all as they say, bells and smells, right? That it can be really simple and that

Moment Meditation and First Sip Outside

Britta Bushnell: I gotta, I'm gonna add one in, because my youngest got his black belt in Tae Kwon Do. Tae Kwon Do was a huge part of his life, which, by association, meant a huge part of my life while he was growing up and his teacher at the end of each practice session, which, of course, when you have a school age child going to something like taekwondo meant that I was going to Taekwondo, right? Or my husband or a family member, or somebody was taking him, which meant I was there a lot, particularly at the beginning, in the end, you know? And this was also some of this for me, was during the phase of No, no smartphones. So it actually meant that I was okay. I'm really dating myself here, Jesse, but it meant that I actually was there.

Jesse Harold: You were there degree.

Britta Bushnell: And at the end of the class, there was always this thing that Edison, his teacher, would call moment meditation. Mm.

Britta Bushnell: Right? And he has this very beautiful voice, and to this day, I can activate his voice in my head for a moment meditation, like one moment. How long is one moment?

Britta Bushnell: It's it's got lots of possibilities, but that as ritual for myself has always felt so much more accessible than a

Britta Bushnell: like I need to sit on my cushion for 20 minutes every day.

Jesse Harold: Yeah, totally another one that I started doing when I was I was homeschooling my kids for a year and and working full time, which was, like, just,

Britta Bushnell: I did that too. Yeah, I know you did

Jesse Harold: yeah. Was not easy. I started doing this thing that I called first sip outside. And I actually, like, made a hashtag. So if you search this, the hashtag first sip outside, you'll see me and a lot of other people who decided to do this. So I'd make my cup of tea, and I would go outside on the deck, and I would close the patio door behind me. My kids were like, five and nine at the time, so they were old enough to know you do not open that patio door unless you are bleeding. And I would just take the first sip of my tea outside. I'd smell the air, maybe there'd be some chickadees flying across and just like a sip, and then I'd turn back around and go back into the fray. But oh my god, that just kept me going. And it still does. I still like, I'll anchor into that. If it feels really chaotic, I'll do a first sip outside. And it's like,

Britta Bushnell: I love this. So we've we've just given three examples, one, one a sip of water, one a moment meditation, and one first sip outside. These like actionable, doable rituals to anchor us in safety, stability, regularity, honoring during a time that can feel really unsettled and shifty, because when we're in a major rite of passage, a major life quake, life transition, there's a lot of movement that feels like it's happening, And these little micro rituals can help create a grounding, as you called it, which I love.

Where to Find Jesse's Work

Britta Bushnell: So Jesse, as we start to wrap up, I would love you to share I know you have a whole bunch of amazing things happening right now, and I want to make sure that you speak to those. What, what? What have you got? Yeah, I mean, tell people where they can find your work.

Jesse Harold: Yeah. So my I have a website, Jesse harold.com Harold is spelled with two R's, and I'm also often on instagram@jesse.es

Jesse Harold: dot Harold.

Jesse Harold: Yeah, we've talked lots about Mother shift, and then also this new book that I've edited with just this incredible crew of scholars and mothers thinkers practitioners, called Mother becoming and it's, you know, it's a, it's a really neat hybrid of, like, academic, sort of some academic orientation, and also poetry and literary essays. And so it's really cool. And I think it dives deeper than we've gone with matrices yet. So I'm really excited about that, and I'm also newly out right that, yeah, literally just came over the last couple of weeks. Yeah, yeah. I just unboxed my copies today, so as we're speaking. And another exciting thing is that I'm offering a program at Kripalu Yoga and retreat center. This may called Mother Morphosis, and it's for both people who are going through matrices, but all transformations of motherhood. And we're going to dive deep into that four elements, model and ritual and earth connection. It's gonna be really cool.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, of that. How joking.

Closing Question: What New Parents Need to Know

Britta Bushnell: So as we bring our conversation to a close, I like to end with one question, one final question. So here it is, which is, what's one thing you feel passionately about that you want new or expectant parents to see, hear, feel or know during this profound period of their lives.

Jesse Harold: Well, I think maybe I'll repeat that sort of phrase, you're not broken. You're becoming and like really holding that vision. I'm holding that vision for for the listeners, for anyone who's going through this rite of passage that

Jesse Harold: it is challenging and you will feel like you're unbecoming everyone you've been, and everything you've been, and everything you've believed in in so many ways, and that.

Jesse Harold: Feels really difficult, and I'm holding the vision of the potential that also exists in this transformation. And there's just, there's so much on the other side, my friends, there's so much on the other side.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, so that's what I want to hold. Yeah, about becoming the unbecoming and the becoming as parts of this absolutely. Thank you so much. Jesse, it's wonderful to be with you, and thank you listeners for sharing this time with us. If something shared today impacted supported or moved you, please share this episode with a friend. I produce this podcast myself, and your support makes it possible to show a little love for the podcast and these conversations. Please follow rate and review. If you'd like to continue the conversation, please join us on Instagram at transformed by birth. I look forward to being with you again on the next episode of transformed by birth, and now let's gather what we want to take away from this episode with an inhale and with an exhale, I'll blow out our candle until next time bye. Friends.