A gentle note before you read this: This letter mentions infant loss. If that is a tender subject, please take care of yourself and read when you're ready or not at all.

Hello dear one,

Nineteen years ago, I started The Consciously Parenting Project on my son Jacob's birthday.

Jacob came into the world 24 years ago on Sept 21, 2002 at 10am and he left at noon. He had a neural tube defect that was incompatible with life. He was born at home right after the heat of summer broke as tornadoes ripped across southern Indiana where we were living at the time. That moment changed everything for me. I don't think you can live through something like that and not have it change you.
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I struggled for a long time after that. I struggled with grief, Indiana winter, and my son's behaviors that I didn't understand and for which I didn't have the tools I needed. I didn't know how to find the right support. I didn't know how to find someone who would help me to look at the big picture and that would honor my connection focused parenting style. So I didn't get support. Not for a long time. Years.

When I did finally find the right support, it changed everything for me. I could finally see the pain my son was in and the pain I was in. I needed space to express and move through what I had gone through before I could really see my son's experience. And after that, everything started to shift. Our relationship changed and I knew that I needed to share what I'd learned with the world.

It wasn't long after that I started working on The Consciously Parenting Project. It was a place to collect the things I'd learned on my journey and it became something that could grow, help others, and honor his life and all that I learned from him and my two living sons.

Everything I have learned in the years since, about how we begin, about what our bodies carry, about how we heal and come back into relationship, grew out of that beginning. Jacob is in all of it. He always will be.

And on the day after his birthday, something feels ready to be named.

For a while now, I've been calling this work Thriving Humans, because what I keep arriving at is bigger than parenting. Whoever we are, parent or not, we are all in the lifelong work of becoming, of healing what we carry, of learning to be in relationship with ourselves and each other. That doesn't end when children grow, and it doesn't require having children at all.

And yet parenting is where it started for me, and where it started for so many of you. So the name I've been settling into holds both: Raising Thriving Humans. Because that's what we're all doing, raising thriving humans, and it begins with ourselves.

And yet. Parenting was the lens that let me see everything. Jacob showed me my own patterns. My older son showed me more. When I had my Rainbow Baby, I saw even more of my patterns. It was in becoming a mother, and in struggling as one, that I finally had to look at myself, my own history, the things I'd carried without knowing it, and do something different. Parenting brought me home to myself.

So Raising Thriving Humans holds both. We are all raising thriving humans, and it starts with ourselves. Whether you're parenting your children, tending your own becoming, or supporting the families and humans around you as aunties and uncles, tías and tíos, grandparents, teachers, friends, there is a place for you here. All of it will continue. There's something here for everyone.

Because here is what I believe to my core: if we cannot care for our children, not just our own, but all children, as parents and as a community, we cannot make the world a better place. And to care for them well, we have to be willing to look at ourselves. To understand our own personal and collective histories. To change the patterns that get passed down without our meaning to. That is the most radical thing any of us can do. It's how the world actually changes, one healed pattern, one safer child, at a time.

There's a small piece of numerology I can't help but notice: nineteen years. One and nine. Ten. One. New beginnings. And this letter reaches you as we move toward October first, 10/1, that same number, made into a day. It feels like exactly the right moment for this transition.

Which brings me to something I want to offer you.

When Jacob died, what I needed and couldn't find was a safe place to be with my feelings and not be alone with all of it. It took me years to find someone who could hold the big picture and honor how I wanted to parent. I don't want that for you.

If you're carrying something that feels stuck, a pattern you can't seem to shift, or something that happened that you didn't know what to do with at the time, there is support for that now. A Story Healing session is a space to be with it, gently, and not alone. It's the thing I wished I'd had.

And in honor of Jacob and this new beginning, from now through October 1:

Your first 30-minute session is $90, an easy way to begin, if you've been wondering what it might be like to work together. No coupon needed.

10% off all sessions and packages with the code BEGIN at checkout, for those ready to do deeper or ongoing work.

If the cost isn't within reach and this is the support you need, please write to me. I can offer a sliding scale, and if I'm not the right fit, I'll help you find someone who is. Money should never be the thing that keeps you from the support you need.

And in the spirit of learning and growth, my books and the Little People, Big Challenges series are 19% off through October 1, one percent for each year of this work. Use code GROW19 at checkout. The Little People, Big Challenges series, audio sessions of Ray Castellino and Mary Jackson working with real families, has been quietly tucked away for too long, and I'm glad to bring it back into the light. It's a rare chance to feel this work in action.

And if what you're longing for is connection, our monthly community circle meets online Saturday, October 3, at 1:00pm Eastern, a warm, welcoming space to slow down and be met, together. We also have an in-person circle in Largo, FL happening on Saturday, September 26 at 1pm. By donation, everyone welcome. You would be so welcome there.

Thank you for being here, some of you for many of these nineteen years. It means more than I can say to carry this forward with you, in Jacob's memory, and toward everything still growing.

Be curious. Be kind. Start with yourself.

Warmly,

Rebecca