Solstice Counseling and Consulting, PLLC, 2012 New Garden Road , Suite E, Greensboro, NC (2026)

06/22/2026

Saturday, something that had been quietly growing inside me for a very long time came to life.

One circle.

Seven women.

Seven handwritten notes waiting on seven chairs, welcoming each woman into the space before a single word had been spoken.

Candles flickering around a collection of objects gathered from nature and from my life.

A gallery filled with art.

Questions.

Poetry.

Space.

Before anyone arrived, I stood alone in the room.

The chairs were empty.

The notes were sealed.

The flowers were arranged.

And for a few moments, all I could do was take it in.

Not the room.

Not the workshop.

The woman who had created it.

For years, I’ve admired women who seemed to create beautiful things that flowed naturally from them. Retreats. Communities. Gatherings. Writing. Offerings that felt deeply aligned with who they were.

I used to wonder how they did it.

Standing there on Saturday, I realized those things don’t appear out of nowhere.

They emerge from years of living.

Years of paying attention.

Years of listening.

Years of becoming.

This circle wasn’t born from a business strategy.

It was born from my life.

From sitting beside friends I have loved for decades and learning that life is both heartbreak and heartbreak open.

From being a mother and slowly discovering that loving my son doesn’t mean holding on tighter—it means trusting him enough to grow.

From dancing under bright stage lights and learning the difference between performing and transmitting.

From marriage and friendship and the countless moments where I have had to learn how to stay connected to myself while in relationship with someone else.

From years of tending anxious parts of me that believed I had to carry the room, manage the feelings, and hold everything together.

From learning that I don’t.

From learning that sometimes the most loving thing we can do is create space.

This circle was born from all of that.

And from one small act of devotion after another.

The notes.

The objects.

The poetry.

Even the paper itself, chosen one sheet at a time because somehow that mattered too.

And standing there, before the women arrived, I found myself feeling something that wasn’t pride.

It was reverence.

Not for what I had accomplished.

For the woman who is emerging.

The woman who kept showing up.

The woman who kept listening.

The woman who kept tending her own fire long enough for this day to emerge.

Later, I shared a little of that story with the women gathered in the circle.

As I looked around the room, I noticed tears in a few eyes.

And I realized that maybe what so many of us are hungry for is not another answer.

Not more information.

Not another thing to fix.

Maybe we’re hungry for witness.

For spaces where we can tell the truth.

For spaces where we can hear ourselves again.

For spaces where we can honor not only who we have been, but who we are becoming.

Saturday night, I went home with a full heart.

Grateful for the women who came.

Grateful for the circle that formed.

And deeply grateful for the woman who is emerging in me.

06/03/2026

What if growth doesn't mean arriving somewhere?

What if it means discovering another room in the house?

I've spent years doing "the work."

Reading. Learning. Healing. Paying attention. Asking hard questions. Sitting with uncomfortable truths.

And recently, I stumbled into a room I didn't even know was there.

Not because it was new.

Because I had never seen it before.

That's what struck me.

The room had been there the whole time.

I think so many of us imagine growth as getting closer to a destination.

Less anxious.
More confident.
More healed.
More present.
More organized.
More peaceful.

But what if growth is less about arriving and more about discovering?

Discovering the grief that's been quietly living behind a door you didn't know existed.

Discovering the longing underneath the irritation.

Discovering the part of you that has been working tirelessly to hold everything together.

Discovering the conversation you've never had with yourself because you've been so busy managing life.

Not because you've failed.

Not because you've been avoiding it.

Because you've finally gone deep enough to find it.

That's what I see happen when women are given enough space to slow down.

Not fix themselves.

Not improve themselves.

Just stop long enough to notice what has been waiting for them.

A memory.

A truth.

A grief.

A desire.

A piece of themselves they haven't heard from in years.

At Tending the Fire, we're not trying to force breakthroughs.

We're creating the conditions for discovery.

The kind that happens when the noise quiets down enough to hear yourself again.

The kind that leaves you saying:

"Huh. I didn't know that room was there."

And somehow, nothing is fixed.

Yet everything feels different.

One spot remains for Tending the Fire on June 20. If something in you recognizes this, I'd love to have you join us. ❤️

Registration link in comments.

06/01/2026

✨ Tending the Fire Mini Retreat
June 20

I’ve had a realization that has been landing in my body in a very real way:

For much of my life, I haven’t just been carrying responsibilities, relationships, or decisions.

I’ve been carrying the meaning of them.

The significance.
The felt sense of what it all means.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re the one tracking the meaning of things—while life keeps moving around you—this may feel familiar.

The lingering weight of a goodbye that doesn’t fully resolve when the moment ends.

The quiet internal shift of a transition before anything external has caught up.

The felt sense that something is ending or beginning, even when life around you continues unchanged.

I was the one noticing that this moment matters.
Feeling its gravity.
Holding the unseen thread of meaning in what was happening.

And when others didn’t seem as impacted, I often felt alone.

Not because they didn’t care.

But because it felt like I was the one carrying the significance of the experience.

And then something shifted.

Maybe what I’ve been longing for isn’t reassurance.

Maybe it’s participation.

The experience of not being the only one holding the meaning.

And honestly, it made so much sense of my work.

Because this is what happens in a very real, human way inside Tending the Fire.

People slow down enough to actually feel what matters.

They stop bypassing the significance of their own lives.

And for a while, they are no longer the sole keeper of meaning.

They are witnessed.
Met.
Accompanied.

And something about that is deeply medicinal.

Not because anything external is fixed.

But because they are no longer holding the meaning of it all alone.

And women often leave feeling different in tangible, embodied ways:

Their breath drops lower in the chest instead of staying held and high.

Their shoulders soften without effort.

The mind stops scanning as intensely for what needs to be handled.

There is more space between thoughts, instead of everything stacking on top of each other.

They can sit in silence without needing to fix, explain, or fill it.

What once felt overwhelming feels more possible to meet.

And there is an unmistakable sense of exhale when they realize they don’t have to interpret everything alone.

✨ Tending the Fire Mini RetreatJune 20

A space to stop being the only one holding the meaning of your life—and to experience what it feels like to be witnessed in it.

One place in the circle remains..

Registration link in comments♥️

05/26/2026

⸻

I’ve been noticing a very particular kind of longing in myself and in many women I work with.

The longing to be beheld.

Not evaluated.
Not improved.
Not advised.
Not measured.

But beheld.

To be looked at and felt as if your presence is enough to soften something in the one who is seeing you.

To be seen in your aliveness without immediately being turned into a project, a performance, or a problem to solve.

So often, what we learn instead is how to manage being seen.

We learn to:

* present ourselves in the “right” way
* soften our edges so we are easier to receive
* anticipate how we will be interpreted
* correct ourselves before anyone else can
* stay aware of how we are coming across

And over time, we can forget that there is another kind of seeing entirely.

A seeing that does not reach for improvement.

A seeing that simply stays.

But the body remembers what it is like to be looked at that way.

Even if only in brief moments:
a glance that feels warm instead of assessing,
a moment of being witnessed without commentary,
a sense of being received rather than analyzed.

And when we don’t have enough of that kind of seeing, something in us can begin to ache.

Not dramatically.

Quietly.

A subtle sense of:
“I don’t think I am fully being met here.”

And many of us try to solve that ache by becoming more:
more capable,
more attractive,
more self-aware,
more understandable,
more “together.”

But what we are actually longing for is not more effort.

It is a different quality of attention.

To be beheld.

And perhaps part of what makes this longing so tender is that we often turn it inward too.

We look at ourselves and repeat the same pattern:
assessment instead of presence.
correction instead of curiosity.
management instead of meeting.

So the longing exists both in relationship with others…
and in relationship with ourselves.

And slowly, something begins to become visible:

There is a difference between being seen…
and being beheld.

And a life changes when you start to feel that difference in your body.

Because then the question is no longer only:
“How do I become someone who is worthy of being seen?”

but also:
“What would it feel like to stop abandoning myself in the way I see me?”

This is some of what I explore in The Fire Mini Retreat on June 20

Not becoming more worthy of attention.

But learning what it feels like to live inside a different kind of seeing — from others, and from yourself

I only have two more spots available in the circle

Is one of them yours?

Registration link in comments.

05/25/2026

There is an experience most women have that doesn’t get talked about very clearly.

It’s not dramatic.

It’s subtle, ordinary, and often so familiar it doesn’t even register as something separate from life itself.

It looks like:

Standing in front of the mirror for a few extra seconds and immediately scanning what needs to be fixed.

Putting on clothes and feeling a quiet internal “nope” before you’ve even fully settled into them.

Brushing your teeth at night while replaying conversations from earlier in the day and thinking about what you should have said differently.

Looking at other women and automatically measuring yourself against them without meaning to.

Trying to relax, but still running a background check on yourself while you do it.

Feeling like you’re always slightly behind your own life — like there’s something you should be doing to yourself before you can fully land in it.

For many women, this doesn’t feel like suffering.

It just feels like functioning.

But something begins to shift when that background noise starts to soften.

And what surprised me is this:

You don’t immediately feel free.

You feel space.

You notice it while washing dishes and suddenly realizing you’re just… there.

Or walking and realizing your mind isn’t actively fixing you in the background.

Or cooking dinner and noticing you’re actually inside the moment instead of observing and evaluating it.

And instead of relief, there can be moments of:
“Why do I feel a little lost?”
“Why does this feel unfamiliar?”
“What am I supposed to be doing with myself right now?”

Not because something is wrong.

But because something familiar has gone quiet.

I’ve started to understand that the inner critic wasn’t just stress.

It was structure.

It was how I located myself inside my life.

So when it softens, there is suddenly space where constant self-monitoring used to be.

And that can feel disorienting at first.

Not long ago, I started noticing this in very ordinary moments:

Walking.
Buying flowers.
Cooking dinner.
Dancing in the kitchen while music is playing.

Moments where I realize:
there is less internal “fixing” happening.

And I’m not fully used to that yet.

Because if I’m not constantly managing myself into becoming someone else…

then I have to meet a different question:
who am I when I’m just here?

This in-between space is not failure.

It’s transition.

And in that transition, something very simple starts to become available again:

Presence.

Washing dishes and actually being in the kitchen.
Walking and actually feeling my body move.
Cooking and noticing color, smell, texture.
Dancing without evaluating how it looks.
Letting moments be enough without immediately improving them.

And slowly, something starts to return that many women haven’t felt in a long time:

Life that is lived from the inside instead of managed from the outside.

Less self-criticism.
Less urgency.
Less internal noise.

More aliveness.
More softness.
More real contact with your actual life.

Not all at once.

But gradually.

Like coming home in layers.

This is what I am exploring in my own life right now, and what I also hold space for in The Tending The Fire Mini Retreat on June 20th

Not becoming a different woman.

But learning how to inhabit your actual life without abandoning yourself through constant self-judgment.

If this resonates, I would love to have you there. The circle is filling up so claim your spot soon♥️

Registration link in comments

05/22/2026

Tonight I was kind of hungry, but I didn’t want anything heavy.

I wanted something warm.Something nourishing.Something that felt easy on my body.

So I heated up a mug of bone broth and stood quietly in my kitchen holding it in my hands, thinking about tending.

Not fixing.Not forcing.Not depriving.Not punishing.

Tending.

For so many years, I thought care for the body had to come through discipline, pressure, self-denial, and trying to become smaller, more acceptable, more “worthy.”

But lately something softer and truer has been emerging.

A question:What would make things easier on her?

What would nourish instead of strain?What would warm instead of harden?What would support life instead of fight it?

And standing there with that warm broth, I realized this is the work of tending the fire.

Not just metaphorically.Literally.

The fire inside us needs tending:our bodies,our nervous systems,our joy,our aliveness,our grief,our longing,our beauty,our exhaustion,our becoming.

Not through intensity.Through relationship.

Through small steady acts of care.

A nourishing meal.A slower breath.A walk.Fresh flowers on the table.Movement that feels alive.Rest without guilt.Choosing not to abandon ourselves while we heal.

This is the heart of the Tending the Fire mini retreat.And it is the deeper invitation of France as well.

Not self-improvement as punishment.But coming home to yourself.

Learning how to live with more beauty, more intimacy, more aliveness, more presence inside your own life.

Less war.More warmth.

That’s the fire I want to tend now.

Spaces for both experiences are beginning to fill, and I would love to have you there.

Registration link in comments.

05/20/2026

I’ve had a lot of people ask me what Tending means as I’ve spoken to them about my upcoming tending the fire mini retreat on June 20

So I want to explain it in a simple way.

To me, it’s a lot like tending a garden.

You don’t wait until a plant is completely dried out and struggling before you give it water.

You pay attention along the way.

You notice what needs rest, what needs nourishment, what needs space, what needs care.

And you also wouldn’t yank a plant out of the ground just because it wasn’t growing fast enough.

You’d understand that growth has a pace.
That it needs the right conditions.
That it responds to consistency, not pressure.

That’s what tending ourselves looks like too.

Most women are living in constant output:
thinking, planning, responding, caring for others, managing details, holding emotional weight.

And because of that, they often don’t notice how full or tired they are until they hit a wall.

Tending is the practice of stepping in earlier.

Not waiting for burnout, overwhelm, or shutdown to finally listen to yourself.

But slowing down enough to notice what’s happening inside you while life is still moving.

And when women do that, the changes are often very practical.

More clarity.
Less reactivity.
More presence with the people in their lives.
Less constant internal pressure.

Not because they’ve become someone different.

But because they’re no longer ignoring what they need until it becomes impossible to miss.

If this resonates and you feel curious about the Tending the Fire mini retreat, you’re welcome to message me for details 🤍

Spots are filling up quickly, and I’m keeping the group intentionally small so the experience can stay intimate and grounded.

05/15/2026

For the women who feel like they have 37 tabs open in their brain all the time 🤍

The Tending the Fire mini retreat is a few hours to slow down, stop holding everything for a bit, and actually hear yourself think again.

If this resonates, you’re welcome to message me for details.

05/15/2026

I’ve been reflecting on the kind of women who are signing up for the Tending the Fire mini retreat on June 20th

Women who carry a tremendous amount mentally and emotionally without always realizing how much they’re holding.

Not just responsibilities on paper.

But the constant internal management underneath daily life.

Remembering what needs to get done.
Managing schedules.
Thinking ahead for everyone.
Replying to messages.
Holding emotional tension in relationships.
Keeping up with work while also trying to be present at home.
Making decisions all day long.
Trying not to forget anything important.
Trying to meet everyone’s needs while slowly losing touch with their own.

Even during “rest,” the mind often keeps going.

The running list.
The planning.
The worrying.
The replaying conversations.
The feeling that there’s always something else waiting.

And after a while, many women adapt to that level of internal pressure so fully that they stop noticing how heavy it feels.

That’s why spaces like this matter.

Because when women step out of that pace for even a few intentional hours, they often return to their lives differently.

More patient.
More clear-headed.
Less reactive.
Less emotionally crowded.

They communicate more directly instead of holding everything in until it spills over.

They notice overwhelm sooner and respond to it earlier instead of pushing themselves past their limits.

They often return home more present with the people they love because their nervous system isn’t stretched so thin.

Not because four hours magically changes a life.

But because sometimes a pause is enough to help someone remember there’s another way to move through their days.

Four women have already said yes to this space, and I’m feeling deeply thoughtful about the room that’s forming.

I’ll only be opening this experience to a small number of women so it can remain intimate, grounded, and supportive.

If you feel drawn, you’re welcome to message me for details while there’s still room in the circle 🤍

05/11/2026

Today I’ve been noticing how hard it can be to actually let love land.

The kindness.
The tenderness.
The care people are trying to show me for Mother’s Day.

Part of me wants to brush it off or distract myself.
To act like it’s not a big deal.
To stay moving.
To not fully feel it.

And another part of me wants to hold onto it tightly…
almost afraid the moment will disappear as quickly as it came.

I think a lot of us live somewhere inside that tension.

Wanting connection deeply…
while also struggling to fully receive it.

Because receiving can feel incredibly vulnerable.

Especially for those of us who learned to stay busy, emotionally responsible, independent, or hyperaware of everyone else’s needs.

Sometimes we become so accustomed to tending, anticipating, managing, and holding everything together that slowing down long enough to actually feel love, care, grief, tenderness, or connection can feel overwhelming to the nervous system.

And today, alongside all the love, I also received news that someone I knew passed away last night.

So there’s this strange feeling in me of being both heartbroken and heartbroken open.

More aware of how fragile life is.
More aware of how quickly moments pass.
More aware of how deeply we need each other.

I think this is part of why I’m creating Tending the Fire.

Not as another space for performance or self-improvement.
But as a place where women can practice letting things land a little more fully.

Connection.
Reflection.
Care.
Honesty.
Rest.
Tenderness.

A space where you don’t have to hold everything together for a few hours.

Where you don’t have to force openness or have everything figured out.

Just a slower, steadier space to be human together.

If this speaks to something tender in you too, I’d love to have you join us June 20 for four hours to tend life in community.

DM me for details.. i’ll save your seat in the circle❤️

Solstice Counseling and Consulting, PLLC

06/22/2026

06/03/2026

06/01/2026

05/26/2026

05/25/2026

05/22/2026

05/20/2026

05/15/2026

05/15/2026

05/11/2026

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The Practice

Shortcuts

Share

Category