The Clarity of a Piece of Work

Upcoming Retreat
Cuddle Therapy Retreat Immersive
August 7-10, 2025 in Upstate New York

Join us for a healing and memorable long-weekend retreat, where we’ll connect more deeply with one other—and tend to the parts of ourselves that need more love. In this sacred container, participants will experience platonic intimacy and have the opportunity to practice mutual consent and boundary-setting with five Certified Cuddle Therapists. In community, we’ll process any emotions that arise, share nourishing meals and space with one another, and have plenty of time for rest and relaxation. Includes accommodations, all meals prepared by a private chef, cuddle therapy sessions, group work, sound healing and access to all amenities. Learn more »

Photo by ArtHouse Studio

I used to think of “a piece of work” as a cutting remark, but now I see it differently. When I signed up for a somatic trauma processing retreat last year, I had no idea that the long weekend experience would change me in profound ways.

Last August, I did my first piece of work—it was an intentional processing of fear, a familiar inhabitant of my body. In previous posts I’ve mentioned being targeted by a white Christian nationalist group last year, but I haven’t yet talked about how being afraid for my physical safety, as well as the injustice of it all, activated similar experiences from childhood.

Being targeted for my values—for existing as I am—felt eerily familiar. It awakened something deep in my body, like an echo of childhood, when fear kept me small and unseen. When I was young, anger didn't feel like a safe emotion to have because it would have made me more visible, a direct target for my mentally ill and violent mother.

In both cases, I felt blindsided, and my body was flooded with fear—and then rage.

Naturally, the best way to combat anything that’s been repressed is to express it. So, my first piece of work was focused on releasing the rage I felt for eight solid months of 2024. I needed to let that fire burn through me before I could even touch the more tender parts of myself—the younger parts that have been aching to be heard.

The Value of Expression

So, what did this somatic processing do for me? Well, a few things:

1. Underneath the core wound that I did not matter, I was offered the truth of my fear, which is that I've actually been more afraid of how powerful I am.

2. I made emotional and psychological space to step into the full expression of my life, which included the decision to have top surgery last December.

3. I met myself and began to believe in my ability to fully step into my innate gifts for the first time in my life.

In short, the work I did last year at that retreat was a clearing that was necessary for me to thrive, and it helped me see the strength and truth of who I am in the world. Pretty amazing, huh?

There’s Always More to Release

Historically, the most terrifying thing in the world to me was to be fully seen by a partner. Two weeks ago, my fiancée and I returned to the retreat together, ready to witness and hold space for each other’s most vulnerable work.

Instead of the release of rage in my body, this most recent piece of work had a very different focus: bringing some deep shame to light around former acts of emotional manipulation, as well as infidelity, in past relationships.

We’ve all done things we're not proud of and would rather forget. Shame is insidious. Left unspoken, it festers undetected, but consuming. By naming what's true and expressing associated, big emotions within a sacred container—expertly facilitated by the way—we can create more space for life.

The work itself looks different for each participant, so it doesn't matter how my body chose to express the shame and underlying disgust that resided within it. What matters is that I felt safely held during the process—and even more importantly, I felt loved after it. Imagine, a dozen people witnessing your darkness and loving you more for the wholeness of who you are. There was a point when I didn’t think that capacity of love was even possible.

Love: For Ourselves and One Another

It felt important to me to do this work with my fiancée prior to getting married because I want to be loved for all of who I am, not a version of myself that felt the need to hide the details of these void-filling tactics. What was unexpected was how tender I felt in realizing that had I been loved the way I deserved to be as a kid, there may not have been such a chasm to attempt to fill as an adult.

Now, I think about what an honor it is to get to love myself so fiercely in this lifetime.

This work is powerful, intense, intimate and beautiful. There’s no clearer call for me than to become a facilitator myself, which is why I've decided to begin the path toward leadership training. This work isn't entirely different from some of the work I do already (trauma-informed coaching, energy integration and cuddle therapy), but the particular formula of this retreat is magic. In fact, I’m leading a Cuddle Retreat Immersive in August 2025 in upstate New York that will utilize the same format and container-building components from this retreat. Instead of doing pieces of work, healing will happen in cuddle sessions.

Because of all of this, referring to someone as "a piece of work" has been permanently reframed for me. Now, when I hear that historically derogatory phrase, I’m reminded of our shared humanity. And I think about how much pain someone must be experiencing to exhibit behaviors that don’t serve them in relationships or interactions with others.

At our core, we all want the same thing—to love and be loved.