Welcome to Belonging, a podcast that explores being alive in the age of loneliness.

Becca Piastrelli is your host and guide on a journey of courageous reconnection as we explore topics like ancestral wisdom, cultivating meaningful community, living with the seasons and cycles of the earth and your body, and what it means to be a good ancestor.

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Episode #101: Lessons from my journey with delayed postpartum depression

Episode #101: Lessons from my journey with delayed postpartum depression

While I often talk about mothering on the podcast, it’s been a few seasons since I shared a personal reflection on being a mother. So this episode of Belonging is a solo episode where I open up about my journey with delayed postpartum depression. In this episode, I...

Past Episodes:

Episode #100: The Women’s Circle with Anoushka Florence

Episode #100: The Women’s Circle with Anoushka Florence

Anoushka Florence is a teacher, an author, a circle-tender, and a mother. She is the Keeper of the Mama’s Village, the Mama of The Goddess Space,...

Episode #99: Keeping Grief Weird with Tracy Benjamin

Episode #99: Keeping Grief Weird with Tracy Benjamin

Tracy Benjamin is a food photographer, stylist & blogger based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In this episode, we have a tender conversation...

Episode #98: Being Alone in Nature with Nicole Antoinette

Episode #98: Being Alone in Nature with Nicole Antoinette

Nicole Antoinette is a writer, podcast host, and community-builder who is super into long-distance hiking. In this conversation, she tells us the...

Episode #97: Writing as Pregnancy & Publishing as Postpartum with Asha Frost

Episode #97: Writing as Pregnancy & Publishing as Postpartum with Asha Frost

Asha Frost is an Anishinaabe (Ojibway) Medicine Woman (member of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation), Healer, and Spiritual Mentor. Last time she...

Episode #96: Friendship deserts, creativity floods, and ancestral mothering with Megan McGuire and Ariella Daly

Episode #96: Friendship deserts, creativity floods, and ancestral mothering with Megan McGuire and Ariella Daly

Have you been craving a deep, expansive conversation about creativity, burnout, postpartum, paying for the village, and raising children in...

Episode #95: You have a right to feel good in your clothing with Dacy Gillespie

Episode #95: You have a right to feel good in your clothing with Dacy Gillespie

Dacy Gillespie is a personal stylist who intuitively guides us to discover the clothes we feel best in — uncovering and releasing what society says...

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Follow me! @beccapiastrelli

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During my presentation to employees of a European company this week, I was asked about how to take the concept of rewilding I talk about in my book and apply it in a work-from-home-around-the-clock business setting.
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I realize that not all of us can spend our days howling at the moon on our tented homestead or tending to the hearth at an earth pace in our cottagecore fantasy. And I don’t want that belief to preclude us from making very real, impactful shifts in our daily lives in order to live a slower, more intentional life.
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So my response to these employees was primarily about email. Yes, email. The thing that nearly all of us have to be on and do in our modern lives that is also ripe with opportunity to shift the narrative around it.
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Here are some examples of that: In your email signature, let folks know how you approach email - how often you check it (I’ve seen people say they check their email on Mondays and Fridays at 10am), approximately how long it takes you to get back to people, and - most importantly - why that is.
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Not only does this set expectations, it also helps the people who are emailing you snap out of their urgency-emergency email head and drop into their earth paced bodies which can only have ripple effects outwards. Some of the examples that inspired me: Both @jessie.es.harrold and @mythicmedicine have email auto-responders saying they live a seasonal life as mothers and business owners and cannot promise a timely email response. I’ve also seen @nic.antoinette put in her website contact form that one of her goals in life is to be worse at email. I remember reading that and thinking, "oh my gosh, we can do that!".
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Bottom line is this: You have permission to rewild yourself in every moment - even in your inbox, even in zoom meetings, even in your calendar. It's radical, it's culture changing, and it's deeply impactful.

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AKA why I lay low on IG one week per month 🩸

It can feel like a short-term amnesia when, a few days a month, you can’t figure out why you are so anxious, your body looks wildly different in the mirror, and you are particularly prone to feeling sad and icky after scrolling your feed.

Hello Late Luteal Phase 👋🏽

To be a cyclical and seasonal being is to understand and embrace the natural moments where you need more care. For me, this means deleting the apps, getting outside to breathe and move lightly, and reminding myself that our bodies weren’t created with this level of social stress in mind. But here we are - forgetting and remembering every month.

What’s true for you in those waning days before you bleed?

#seasonalliving #mooncyclecare #mooncycle #cyclicalliving #selftending #matrescence

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Mom and dad had fun at @bridgertonexperience Queen’s Ball tonight 💎 🥂

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What have you been severed from that you want to return to?
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I recently asked this question of a group of women I was holding a private workshop for. I was storytelling about the great severing from our innate ways over the last several hundred years and how it has impacted our feelings of disconnection, loneliness, and discontentment in these modern times.
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For so many years, I walked this earth convinced something was wrong with me for feeling this way. That if I could just figure out how to move faster or feel less or get a meaningful job or eat better, then all of my existential ache would evaporate like morning fog.
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But when I looked back at the root of these feelings - the history and reasons why we are where we are as a human family - my lens shifted away from me being wrong and towards a deeper understanding of the systems we are living under.
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First we were separated from the land.
Then we were separated from each other.
Then we were separated from our bodies.
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Cut to now, when we are largely living more isolated from the natural world, from community, and from our own earthly vessels than our ancient ancestors ever did. There is grief in that realization. And there is hope and power in having the agency and privilege to change that story once more for seven generations to come.
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So I ask you: what have you been severed from that you want to return to?
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I've got my own answers that guide me to the next right step each day. My hope is that we are walking that path together.
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Interested in reading more of my words? This is an excerpt from an email I sent out to subscribers of my newsletter, called Slow & Seasonal. You can sign up to get the next one - coming in August after summer break - at beccapiastrelli.com/subscribe (or link in my bio).
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First photo credit: @ohkayyoga

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I've got a solo episode for you on the podcast:
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**Lessons from my Journey with Delayed Postpartum Depression**
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While I often talk about mothering on the podcast, it’s been a few seasons since I shared a personal reflection on being a mother. So this episode of Belonging is a solo episode where I open up about my journey with delayed postpartum depression.
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In this episode, I talk about struggling with anxiety and rage, realizing that I was taking out my anger on my partner, being diagnosed with PPD, trying meds that helped and then didn’t help, microdosing psilocybin to support extended breastfeeding, and finding my way forward with as many questions as answers.
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This episode was really vulnerable to record and share. My hope is that it helps mamas in a situation like this feel less alone. Whatever you need to do to feel better, I’m with you.
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Have a listen by searching "Belonging" wherever you listen to click the link in my bio 🎧

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Dear Becca of May 2021,

You’ve heard so many mothers who’ve gone before you say it gets better, and I’m here to tell you that it’s true for you too.

I know.

I know how annoying it felt to hear those words “it gets better” in moments of your suffering - the moments when you thought the sleep deprivation would kill you, when you would put the baby down for the night and feel the anxiety and rage bubbling out of you like a volcano, when the despair and grief would overtake you and it all felt so wrong and shameful. I know you needed relief in those moments and July 2022 was too far away to even consider.

What you are experiencing is deeply sacred. You are in an 18 month long ceremony, and our culture isn’t providing the witness and care you deserve right now.

And.

And you make it out the other side, beloved one. You acquire the tools and the language to traverse the rocky paths before you. Your voicing of your pain in your circles and to your community is deeply important. Please don’t stop doing that.

What is felt by you is felt by millions. You are at the root.

Feel me whispering prayers at your back. Feel me calling you forward as you crawl through the mud. Feel me laying in a hammock, breeze on my face, nervous system soothed, crying with gratitude and deep love for you.

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Circle is the sacred space where you can remember who you are. 🌀🌀🌀

Anoushka Florence of @thegoddessspace shares the essence of why we circle. Folks who are wanting more connection, more sacredness, and are feeling nervous or maybe even a little judgey of the woo woo work we do: this is worth a listen.

Check out the whole episode on my podcast, Belonging (link in bio).

#thewomenscircle
#womenscircle
#sacredfeminine
#witchy
#bringbackthevillage
#reenchantment
#ancestralways
#sacredlife
#ritesofpassage
#ritualcraft
#livingwiththeseasons
#seasonalliving
#revillaging
#witchythings
#ancestralhealing
#ageofloneliness
#embracethemystery

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New episode alert:
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The Women's Circle with Anoushka Florence
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Anoushka @thegoddessspace is a teacher, an author, a circle-tender, and a mother. She is the Keeper of the Mama’s Village, the Mama of The Goddess Space, and the author of The Women’s Circle. Her work is based on ancient spiritual feminine practices that are grounded in the belief that the power to heal comes from within.
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Together, we begin with the question what is circle? and spiral out to the importance of women’s circles, rituals, cleaning as clearing, ancestral lineages and more. We also discuss common questions about circle, such as— how do I find a circle near me? what if I’m an introvert? and what if I feel uncomfortable or unsafe in circle?
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At its center, this conversation is about how circles can serve us all well. And it’s an invitation to hear if circle is calling you.
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Have a listen by searching "Belonging" wherever you listen to click the link in my bio 🎧

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My fellow astrology-curious, biz runnin' folks: here's a cool idea I just learned about from my podcast producer, Amelia from @softersounds.studio
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🌟 RUN YOUR BUSINESS BIRTH CHART 🌟
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I just ran mine (birth time is the timestamp on the email confirming my EIN for my business entity back in Nov 2013) and am digesting the results:
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My sweet lil biz is:
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♏ Sun
♓ Moon
♑ Rising
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What am I making this mean?
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My biz is watery with an earthy foundation. It is known for its intensity and staying power. It is dreamy with deep compassion and love. It is deeply giving. It is unmistakably serious when it wants to be - also hardworking and all about the family it serves.
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For non-biz-owning folks, you could run birth charts for other important thing in your lives. Like your homes, you book clubs, your moon circles, or your relationships.
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FUN :)

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The past couple of years have been hard for a lot of us. My personal experience of it (though dotted with a good dose of joy) was a feeling of existential grief over the isolation and loss and division of our communities. I have felt so tapped into the collective trauma response of our culture and it’s been exhausting. And as I find myself emerging from the fog of it all, I'm yearning for something to make meaning of it all - to say "that happened and I'm changed because of it."
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We need ritual to honor this moment. We need to pause and be witnessed in our grief and in our clarity and in our longing.
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Have you thought about how you can craft meaning for this moment? How can you bring a sense of witness and honoring to your heartbreak and loss and the newness that is emerging from it? Even the unexpected joys?
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If we don’t pause, we continue the unhealthy and traumatic patterns.
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This Saturday, I’m leading a workshop to help you do just that - craft ritual to bring meaning to this moment or others you have experienced. If you can make it happen in your schedule, I’d love for you to join me.
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The Details:
Saturday, June 25th
10am - 12:30pm PT
Virtual Sacred Zoom Space
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More info on our time together and financial exchange at Passagecraft.com or head to the link in my bio. 🕯️
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photo credit: @sophiastudio.co

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We are rarely taught in this society how to truly listen to one another (often feeling the urge to interrupt with a similar story or offer advice), when all we really need is to be heard and seen as we go through our own process. Fertile listening is the act of holding space of possibility for the speaker, giving them room for their full expression.

**A distracted listener who is more concerned about their own upcoming response is taking energy away from the person who is trying to share.**

To begin a practice of fertile listening, grab a trusted friend or family member.

Make yourselves comfortable, away from the rush of to-dos. Do this practice when you can commit to making time for each other. Each person takes five minutes to answer the question, “How am I doing, really?” while the other empties out their mind completely and fully takes in what the speaking person is saying. There is no interrupting or nodding of approval or disapproval. This is an exercise of simply receiving what the person is saying, without judgment or advice. You can offer your attention with eye contact and smiles. After the five minutes are up, switch roles.
When you both have finished, resist the temptation to talk about what was shared and instead discuss what that experience felt like.

Psst: If you want to dive deeper into creating more meaningful community in your life, check out the Tending the Flame Home Practice at tendingtheflamepractice.com (or link in my bio) 🕯

#friendship #friendshipgoals #friendshipgoal #communitycare #seasonalliving #riteofpassage #griefsupport #rootandritualbook #revillaging #bringbackthevillage

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If you’re feeling this loss too, you’re not alone!

We are living in a time where so many of us are feeling a disconnection from old ways of being that were meant to serve us during the transitions that each of us naturally goes through in our precious time on earth. And while the world has evolved at a record pace, our bodies and our nervous systems and our emotional capacities have not.

WE 👏🏼 NEED 👏🏼 RITUAL👏🏼
WE 👏🏼 NEED 👏🏼 CEREMONY 👏🏼
WE 👏🏼 NEED 👏🏼 HONORING 👏🏼

It is essential to our sense of belonging to the earth, to our bodies, and to each other that we mark the moments of transformation in our lives. This acknowledgement supports us in consciously stepping forward into new roles in our lives, while also allowing space to grieve and say goodbye to the ones we are stepping out of.

And we reclaim it - without needing to wear ornate robes or study for 10 years in the mountains. We are sacred beings who can ritualize our lives in every moment.

**If you are like me and are feeling like you want another chance at honoring the meaningful passages of your life, then I invite you to join me for Passagecraft - workshop to help you reclaim the meaningful moments of your life and craft the ritual you crave to honor them.

During this 2.5-hour workshop, we’ll come together – leaving behind the worries and to-do lists for a few precious hours – to connect and regulate our nervous systems to each other. We’ll drop in to a sacred gathering – offering up our tender hearts, vulnerable stories, and deep truths in service to the rituals we will each craft and carry out to provide healing and completion.

There will be journaling, there will be reflection, there will be sharing, and there will be planning (with provided worksheets) so that you can design your own personal ritual or self-ceremony to bring the much needed honoring to the life moments you wished had felt more sacred and seen at the time.

If reading this invitation makes your heart flutter and your head tingle, then head to Passagecraft.com or click that link in my bio 🖋

#ritualcraft #ritesofpassage #sacredlife #ancestralways #simpleritual #rootandritualbook