wild, embodied self-reclamation
wild, embodied self-reclamation
meet carley
I walk with women as they return to their raw, wild, unbroken selves.
meet carley
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6 years ag0...
I was an autism consultant and started my own business called “One Happy Family”. I was used to helping parents and teacher navigate their children with ASD so I figured I could start my own business to help all parents on their parenting journeys. Prior to my very first client I was so anxious that I thought I was goinig to pass out. I was popping natural anti-anxiety pills like candy and visting the bathroom over and over again. I somehow got through that first session but I found a therapist right away. I had been meeting with parents for over a decade, why “all of a sudden” was my anxiety so out of control?
At the first session she asked me to tell her about my childhood. I said, “0-12 was great, 12-18 a little blip that was hell, but look at me now! I’m doing fine”. She asked me to elaborate on the “12-18 blip”. After much reluctance, I told her that my parents divorced and my mom moved in with an emotionally abusive, wildly narcissistic and immature man. After spewing a little bit more she said, “you have childhood trauma. And if you don’t heal this with your own mother, your business will never take off”.
I went home and the world all of a sudden had changed. Things weren’t as easy. I felt heavy and grey. I had kept that ball of trauma hidden in my head and now it had exploded all over the place and I didn’t know where to put it. Over the next 9 months I would experience what I now know was a dark night of the soul. Where everything I thought I knew no longer made sense. Who I was didn’t exist anymore. I had a 3 hour conversation with my mom, unleashing all of the pain and trauma I experienced from her “decisions”. I assumed having that long-overdue conversation would be the end of it. I would feel better. It would go away.
It did not.
I went to a girls night a few days after starting anti-depressants and having suicidal ideations. I went to the girls night pretending that everything was fine. That I was still the cool, funny, perfect Carley everyone knew me as. I drank and drank and drank to try and avoid the fact that I was feeling the lowest I ever had in my entire life. That night, all hopped up on booze and pills, I started to hallucinate. I saw men with gas masks coming at me. I saw a cartoon baby eating a greasy turkey drumstick, laughing. I said I was sick so I could go to bed early and suffer alone. I called my husband a few times to try and feel some sense of groundedness. At 5am I got up and drove home shaking and sweating.
I couldn’t go home and mother…I didn’t have any energy left. I was depeleted. So I drove to my mom’s, crawled in bed with her and sobbed for and hour. I kept repeating, “I can’t be this Carley anymore”. I couldn’t hold the anxiety, perfectionism, pain-avoidant, fake woman I had to become. I was hollowed out. She asked me who I was instead, and for the first time in my life I said, “I don’t know” and I didn’t have any energy to care. That was the day I released all the parts of me that I hid to survive. Those were the parts that had they keys to save me. The two things that helped me through the dark were the forest and reiki. I visiting the forest to cry and wail and weep and scream daily. I saw a reiki practitioner regularly. Over time, I was able to collect pices of myself that I didn’t have access to when I kept myself hidden.
I am very intuitive. I am deeply connected to nature. I have an infinite capacity to love. One day that reiki practitioner asked me to take my reiki level 1 training. I said, “do you say this to all of your clients?”, and she said, “no, just the ones who are supposed to do it”. So I did.
In that training, during a group meditation I heard the message, “love yourself through it”. That has been my north star since then. No matter what challenge, obstacle, fear, or feeling, whenever I love myself through it, I make it through stronger than before I went in. Over my healing journey I have become a reiki master healer, yoga teacher, meditation and mindfulness teacher, author, couple and family therapist, and an entrepreneur. I have met parts of myself that are bright and beautiful and show me that I’m here to change the culture that we live in. I am able to see the world from a perspective that not many have and I use it to help other women free themselves.
I normalize the human experience. I first did it for myself and now I help others. My biggest teachers have been insomnia, solo trips to Hawaii, selling our family home, going into severe debt for my business and getting back out, motherhood, writing a book, conversations with trees, speaking my truth in my marriage and truly believing that even if I have to walk alone, I will stay on the path that is MINE. This is not a negotiation. I have taught myself how to follow my own path and now it’s my sacred responsibility to help other women do the same.
I speak to trees. At the beginning of my healing journey, when I was raw and deeply lost, I would often find myself at the forest. I would lay on the ground and cry to a grandmother maple or a grandfather oak and ask them questions. Questions that helped me understand who I was and who I was pretending to be. At first, I would hear statements that I thought were my “imagination” but over time became clear that I was downloading wisdom. Whether it’s a willow teaching me how to be adaptable or a black-eyed susan telling me how the colour of the flowers tells you about it’s frequency, I come out of the forest as a changed human.
I once had a meditation where a hawk came into view. It said to me, “you’ll speak for the Earth”. I felt very contracted and resistant of that. I told the hawk that that was too big of a job and I don’t think I can do it. Turns out, it is a sacred responsibility that is actually a Divinely-placed talent. I now have a substack where I write short essays on my conversations with the Earth. It’s called “human nature”
my connection to nature
Choosing to quit my 9-5 to follow my dreams.
Waking up at 6am daily to write a book…and then ignoring it for a year….and then getting back to it exactly when I was meant to. Taking two solo trips to Hawaii because my soul called me there and walking through all the guilt and fear and anxiety that came with that choice. Opening my own business and staying committed to it through all of the ups and downs (we aren’t going to give up on each other!) My relationship with my daughter – I am able to support her from a place of love rather than fear. My ability to see the best in every situation and to gather miracles from everything and everything, no matter how “dark” it seems. I’m proud of my relationship with my mom. I have moved through so much hurt to give us the best possible chance of getting it right in this life. I am proud of all of the work she has done too. The day I spoke my truth to her was her 60th birthday… which I now see was her “rebirth day”. But mostly, I’m proud of how much I love myself. I’m proud of how much I listen to my heart and honour the soul that lives in this body. How much I go after what I feel is right for me and willingly take on the roadblocks that get in my way.
what i'm most proud of...
why my clients choose me
People tell me they feel better after being with me. They feel lighter, more connected to themselves, more excited for life.
I have heard many, many times, “I wouldn’t be where I am without you”
And women often ask themselves, “what would Carley do?’ when they are in a challenging situation.
My intuition is steady and powerful. I feel what’s moving beneath the surface – the emotional, energetic, unspoken – and translate it into language that you can understand, trust, and act on. I ground energy is a way that is honest and human. My presence is lovingly authoritative. I often refer to this energy as “the Kind King” and I have mini-meditations before I lead anything asking to be led to my Kind King energy. I create the kind of space where truth rises naturally. I rely on my inner knowing to guide myself and others. In a society that has taught women to doubt their own power, I willingly use my inner knowing to make myself and the world a better place. This guidance system reflects something that is bigger than me but has chosen me to work with. It is my job to serve humanity by helping people return to themselves.
I trust what comes through me. I trust what I sense. I can take a small symbol and work with it until it reveals higher and bigger truths. I connect with the subtle energy that people often overlook. They way you say words. The way your body moves. The things that change your tone of voice. I see what you don’t so you can live freely. My gift is to help you recognize your own voice in the sea of noise and to finally claim it as your own.
