MotherSHIFT
Imagine if we saw the transition into motherhood as a sacred Rite of Passage that allowed us to access our deepest power.
It’s a transformation that starts at the conception of a child
but we are mistaken to believe that our transition into motherhood is complete when our babies are born.
In fact, the rite of passage into motherhood is only just beginning.
Becoming a mother is so much more than just birthing a human
(which is, of course, a fairly superhuman feat in and of itself).
As you birth your baby, you are also birthing yourself. You, as mother, will become a different person than you were before having a child.
Becoming a mother is a total identity shift.
In times and places long ago and far away, we were ushered through matrescence – the transition to motherhood – with the support of a community and with ritual and ceremony to celebrate our shifting lives.
But today, this incredibly important life transition is not protected and revered in the way it once was. We rush to “get back to normal” and often struggle with loneliness, sadness and a sense of feeling lost.
We’ve lost the “village” that was supposed to help us when this mothering thing got hard.
That’s why I created MotherSHIFT.
Why MotherSHIFT?
MotherSHIFT is where you turn when your postpartum doula has packed up her magic Mary Poppins bag and your neighbours have stopped delivering casseroles.
MotherSHIFT can help you make sense of who YOU are now that you’re a mother.
It’s a place to receive guidance through the unknown territory of matrescence, to be mothered as you mother. To know that your experience is real, meaningful, and okay.
MotherSHIFT will also help you claim the MotherPowers – that newfound powersource within you – that are your birthing-right as you traverse this rite of passage
and it’s a place to grow real friendships and receive wholehearted support.
“The exquisite space Jessie holds in MotherSHIFT provided me a refuge to be honest and vulnerable about my motherhood journey. This is something I desperately needed and it came at the perfect time. It was gently guided and I found myself looking forward to each week’s calls. It was so good that I want to do it all over again!”
“This is possibly the biggest transition you will undertake in your life. MotherSHIFT will support you, challenge you, and guide you while connecting with other mothers. Do it!”
“I was reluctant to make the financial investment on this course when I already felt so spread thin preparing for the arrival of our baby. Now, on the other side, I’m considering taking the course again. I’ve walked away with tools and perspectives that help me find sanity on days that feel enveloped by chaos. The ideas fostered each week in our circles have stirred an older, wiser woman within myself. I see myself stepping into her power more and more each day.”
MotherSHIFT is an entire trimester – 3 months – of support dedicated to helping you to embody your motherhood and embrace the process of matrescence.
Here’s what you’ll experience during MotherSHIFT…
Eight engaging modules
You’ll journey through eight modules of engaging content that will help you navigate your transition into motherhood, whether it’s your first time or your fourth. Each module is focused and meaningful, fun and do-able, designed to be contemplated and completed between naps and feeds.
Eight live circles and ongoing online support
Each week, you’ll circle up with the other mothers in the program to receive further teaching, coaching, and sharing opportunities. You’ll also get access to a private online community to receive support, ask questions, and find inspiration.
Two intimate group coaching sessions
This is your opportunity to take. up. space. It’s where you get to have your personal experience of motherhood deeply heard and held. One of these sessions will also include the opportunity to design a customized rite of passage ritual to honour your matrescence.
A beautiful guidebook to capture your process
I’ve developed practical tools and resources to help you navigate this sometimes gnarly work of becoming a mother. You’ll receive a beautiful e-guidebook including worksheets and journal prompts. Your MotherSHIFT book will be your motherhood bible for the next twelve weeks.
Intimate group size + gentle pace
MotherSHIFT is a small, intimate group of mamas. You will have plenty of time and space to be heard, and all of you is welcome here. This is how we re-create the village.
MotherSHIFT’s 8 modules are spaced over 12 weeks, with time for integration + connection baked right into the program structure. Trust me, I know what this new mama thing is all about: there is no “falling behind” or failing here.
Lifetime access + bonus resources
You’ll have lifetime access to all program materials. Each module also includes bonus enrichment content including readings, interviews, music, guided meditations and other resources to enhance your experience.
“So far the MotherSHIFT virtual women’s circles have been my most favourite new momma community – I have felt inspired and held by the group chats, and have felt so much relief from the group laughs. I am afraid that after our last week together there’ll be a little hole where I have felt excited and nourished and filled up these past weeks.”
“Jessie has an incredible ability to create the conditions for a nurturing virtual community in which people are seen and held. The love and support within the MotherSHIFT community was palpable.”
“I was so excited when I first discovered the Mothershift program. I had no idea something so perfect existed! I loved the experience and will always treasure it. I feel as though MotherSHIFT has helped me reach a point of being fully content and proud to be a mother. Mothershift is an essential program for every new mother. It will help you make sense of this new phase of your life.”
The MotherSHIFT experience includes mentorship + coaching, women’s circles and personal practice interwoven with ritual, creative prompts and meaningful self-care. This is what our path together will look like…
Part One: Transitioning to Mother
You’ll learn more about what it means to fully transition into motherhood, and explore the Four Elements of Radical Transformation as a framework for thinking about your transition + as a map for your matrescence.
Part Two: A Changing Life
You’ll explore the changes to your life, your relationships, and yourself that have happened since you became a mama, and how you feel about them. This module will form the groundwork of your transformation process during MotherSHIFT.
Part Three: Grief, Loss + Release
You’ll address aspects of matrescence that often get overlooked: grief, loss + release. As you navigate your new identity as mama, you’re also leaving behind many aspects of yourself or your former life. You’ll explore what untended grief needs tending, and create a beautiful ritual to support you to do this work.
Part Four: Liminality and the art of Self-care + Rest
Meaningful self-care is what happens about twenty steps before what we usually think of as self-care: it’s about learning to listen to, acknowledge and meet your own needs – even the most basic ones. This kind of self-care will help you develop the skills of self-trust and self-compassion so that you will feel deeply nourished as a mother.
Part Five: Your Changing Identity
You’ll dive deeper into your sense of who you are, especially now that you’re a mother. Like many new mamas, you may have been feeling lost and unsure of yourself. You will complete your own Momifesto, a declaration of who you are as a mother, and as a woman who happens to be a mother.
Part Six: Embodiment
Throughout MotherSHIFT, you’ll be exploring + reclaiming your “MotherPowers.” Because motherhood is not only about a change in your identity: it allows you to tap into a new powersource within you, if you’ll allow it. In this module, you’ll explore how, in motherhood, your connection to your body is never more profound, or, at times, challenging. You’ll also learn how to honour and attune to your body.
Part Seven: Inner Knowing
In this module, you’ll reclaim the MotherPower of Inner Knowing. You will reunite with your intuition in a pragmatic way, reclaiming a long-forgotten way of knowing that exists below your shoulders and joining that wise circle of mothers who “know best.”
Part Eight: The Return
You’ll prepare for your integration back into the world, considering how to weave a community of mothers who are also longing for a village to support them. You’ll integrate what you’ve learned and prepare to embrace your motherhood with your oxygen mask firmly in place.
Registration for the next Season of MotherSHIFT opens in 2024/25.
Please complete the contact form if you’d like to be among the first to find out when registration opens.When you do, you’ll receive the Momifesto Workbook, one of the powerful resources MotherSHIFT participants receive access to.
“I am feeling so full from my 3 month journey with MotherSHIFT. It was absolutely the community and witnessing I was longing for as I navigated my early motherhood and saw my baby though her first birthday. I knew somewhere deep inside that this transition to motherhood was more than birth stories, more than comparing the best “gear,” more than getting back to “normal.” Mothershift helped hold space as I explored that “more” and illuminated a path for becoming and owning this new identity of mama.”
“MotherShift gave me the space and perspective I needed to better understand my own identity as a mother. I was able to normalize my experience and find my own way into motherhood. It was hugely orienting, affirming, and gave me a lot of tools and ideas that I still employ.”
“As a single mother figuring out my first year of motherhood, MotherSHIFT guided me toward my core goals and needs. It helped me lift the blur I was living in since the beginning of my journey as a mother and to process griefs and discovering who I was as a mother and a woman. I also met an amazing community of like minded mamas, and they gave me the strength to find empowerment in my journey through griefs, doubts, and transformation. I am so grateful to be part of this circle.”
Hi, I’m Jessie.
Having been through the process of transitioning to motherhood twice myself and having supported thousands of other mothers to do the same, I want to help you to navigate matrescence in a way that leaves you feeling confident, empowered, and deeply transformed.
MotherSHIFT will help you to explore who you are as a mother, and as a woman who happens to be a mother.
I’m so proud and excited to bring you this program, which is the accumulation of everything I’ve learned about matrescence from working with birthing women and mothers over the last fifteen years of my career.
I am a doula and breastfeeding educator, and I hold a degree in Neuroscience, a Masters of Health Promotion, and I’m a certified professional life coach. I’m also the author of the upcoming book Mothershift: Reclaiming Motherhood as a Rite of Passage. Perhaps most importantly, I am a mother of two.
Questions you may have about MotherSHIFT…
How long is the program? When does it start and finish? What does it entail?
The 2023 season of MotherSHIFT begins on September 26 and ends on December 12. The weekly circles will happen at 3p.m. Atlantic Time (Nova Scotia, Canada). The program consists of eight modules, and these are supported by eight virtual women’s circles over the course of twelve weeks. The four weeks that we do not have circles are used to integrate the material and hold intimate group coaching sessions. Each module contains a written section, some journal prompts or a workbook for you to complete, and usually a few bonus resources. The virtual circles are 90 minutes in length. The program material is both rich and focused, and you’ll find it totally do-able and fun.
What if I can't make it to one of the live circles?
Don’t worry – each of the circles will be recorded and sent to you shortly afterward. You can catch up anytime you wish. Also? If you’ve got a babe in arms, you’re more than welcome to join us. That’s real life, right?
As a new mom, I sometimes feel like I'm running on empty. I want to do this, but I'm worried about how this program will fit into my life?
Though we cover a lot of material in twelve weeks, the work of this program is both incredibly rich and gently approached, complete with four weeks interspersed through the program that are designed especially for integration and connection. You can commit to doing this work in any way that fits your life: you’re a mom. Myself and EVERYONE else in this program TOTALLY get that. There are no shoulds or must-do’s here. You can turn to the readings and exercises in this program when your baby has fallen asleep in her carseat and you don’t want to wake her up, during late-night feedings, or on the rare occasion that you’re able to drink a hot cup of coffee and get a little time to yourself. No matter how you choose to engage with this material, it is my sincere hope that you find it delightful, that it feels like a space of refuge in the day-to-day of early motherhood, and that you feel safe, held and nourished here.
Also, as a MotherSHIFT participant, you’ll have lifetime access to the program and any changes or updates that might occur during that time period. There’s no rush – the program will always be here for you.
I'm not really a "new" mom anymore, but I think I would benefit from this program. Can I still participate?
Yes! I am a fan of reminding women that the transition to motherhood takes 2-3 years, and we’ve welcomed mothers with kiddos as old as 5 into the program. MotherSHIFT is also great for first time mothers and mothers of multiple children. Please, please join us.
What do I require to complete this program?
You need a computer hooked up to the internet to complete the bulk of the program material.
I have another question…
Registration for the next Season of MotherSHIFT opens in 2024/25.
Please complete the contact form if you’d like to be among the first to find out when registration opens.When you do, you’ll receive the Momifesto Workbook, one of the powerful resources MotherSHIFT participants receive access to.
Want to know more about MotherSHIFT before you commit?
Download the Momifesto Workbook: your guide to exploring who you are as a mother, and as a woman who happens to be a mother.
“I started the Momifesto last night. And I was in tears right from the first page as I finally felt like someone could see me and feel with me and help me come to grips with the reality that I’m in transition.
I am now very excited (but patient) to meet the new me. And to introduce you to her too.”
The MotherSHIFT Edition of The Becoming Podcast
Learn more about matrescence + the transition to motherhood and get the inside scoop on some of what we cover in the MotherSHIFT program by listening to the MotherSHIFT special edition of The Becoming Podcast, with four powerful episodes to engage and inform you.