My mission is to create spaces and guided experiences for women to cultivate a self-nurturing inner voice and a deep-rooted reverence for their instinctual nature. From this reclamation of personal power, we feel belonging in our bodies and with this earth. So that we may serve her.
Maxine is an Embodiment Coach and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner in training. Women work with Maxine to cross thresholds into self-validation and inner nurturing. She holds space for both grief and joy in our relationships with inner and outer nature.
One of her core questions is why can we appreciate beauty, flux, resilience, etc in the natural world, but have difficulty turning that regard towards ourselves? How is this separation affecting our lives? What would be different if we had a reverence for our own natural cycles, rhythms and impulses?
Somatic work, nature connection and compassion training are the foundations that support each client and collaboration.
If you’re reading through this, you’re likely intrigued to learn more of my backstory, and how my story supports the work that I offer. So I’ll highlight the ‘big moments’ – the places where the golden thread was in hindsight, so clear.
The golden thread for me is this desire to serve in the world, with a particular reverence for future generations, and elders. The Nurturer is an archetype that resonates with me. The inner Mother. Earth energy. The Nurturer is part of my nature. This desire to care for others and perceive where the needs are, and act on them, is a gift that is born from both joyful and painful life experiences.
From teaching yoga, to market gardening, to managing a yoga studio, and a Non-Profit focused on Mindfulness + Compassion education, to caregiving for my Grandmother, to running my own business as an Embodiment Coach, the Nurturer has been present in both healthy and imbalanced ways.
This Nurturer in me has functioned as an over-achieving, co-dependent force at times. And this force can be powerful. And because of it’s power I’ve also experienced many amazing things. I’ve survived. And felt the callings of something deeper.
As a child I took the streams and meadows, as a teen to drugs and poetry, to help me process, or numb, big feelings. In my early 20s I layered on meditation, travel, adventure, and yoga.
I knew in my gut that it was time to learn what I needed when my hair began to fall out at 25. I was working 3 jobs, running to my Grandparents on days off to assist them with errands, and in a codependent partnership. My Menstrual cycle was very difficult to bear. Resentment would leak through my poorly set (or non-existent) boundaries. I experienced frequent relapses into trauma coping patterns. I thoroughly believed I was too complex to love. I did not let anyone truly see me because I was afraid of being seen, and felt very lonely. I was dependent on substances to numb my realization that something was not working.
And yet, at the same time I was shifting and growing through so many different roles, my fingers wrapped around this golden thread.
I had been teaching Yoga already for 4 years and felt that this was missing the mark for me. So I signed up for an intensive Women’s Leadership and Yoga Training. I got a taste of inner mothering at that time and sisterhood.
But that taste did not sustain me to keep my head above my shadows. I kept seeking approval. I kept looking for external rescuers. I kept giving from an empty well. I kept stretching my nervous system to capacity because feeling constant flight energy in my body felt normal.
The questions of ‘what do I need?’ and ‘am I actually open to receive it?’ came after my initiation into self-responsibility and trauma healing. I needed to learn hard and be held. 4 wisdom teeth were pulled and an epic break-up in one week catalyzed the necessity to truly reach out for support.
I got to learn over time to turn towards myself.
I got to unlearn that busy = good.
I got to unlearn that good = wanted.
I got to learn that boundaries are about me, not controlling the other.
I got to learn that I kept to exist without proving something.
I got to listen to the inner nurturing voice.
I got to listen to my inner child’s fear of abandonment.
I got to listen to other women.
It is necessary to mention that throughout this initiation into self-nurturing I also became woven into a community called Sarana Institute and my Dharma Mentors, Angie Di Iorio Blake and Andrew Blake. Self-nurturing also means taking this risks to be seen in community. I served as their Managing Director and needed to leave this dream job to pursue Embodiment Coaching.
Leaving this ‘job’ that on paper was perfect for me has been another initiation into the calling of The Nurturing Voice. Sometimes you need to leave what should feel perfect because you know the time has come.
And still, Sarana Institute, the people, the land, the teachers, all connected to this NPO, are a huge part of my network of support. I serve on their Board of Directors today and as a Facilitator for young adult retreats.
Some Random Fun Facts
➸ Deep down, there’s nothing more that I love doing that being offline, fishing, scouting, sitting in the woods… or cuddling somewhere with my love.
➸ I bought myself a compound bow in early 2019 and have started to hunting, exploring my relationship to nature and food sovereignty in a new way.
➸ I’m strangely afraid of swimming in freshwater. But I do it anyways. I don’t mind swimming with sharks.
➸ I LOVE to free dance! But try and put me to choreography and I am fumbling like a penguin on stilts.
➸I absolutely love to cook a lot of food for a lot of people, make sure everyone’s happy, and then sneak off for a private convo with just 1 or 2 people.
➸ If I wasn’t working 1:1 to help you self nurture I’d be alongside you on a forest walk, informally sharing facts about medicinal wild plants, and pointing out beautiful things.
➸Give me a log cabin, a compilation of Buddhist ecology essays by Gary Snyder or Joanna Macy, a fishing rod, and a nice dog and I am the happiest clam
➸ I’m a twinkle-in-the-eyes, smirk giving, forest nymph who loves flying by the seat of her pants, hopping on the next bus to adventure town, meditating a hole in her belief systems, who ALSO craves solid earth under her feet, a loving hug, and a week long hunting trip. That ends in a poetry writing sesh and a fire ceremony.
I welcome you to be all parts of yourself too.
Current Studies:
-Somatic Experiencing Trauma TM Therapy Training
Certifications
- 200 Hr Kripalu Certified Yoga Teacher Training – Kripalu Centre for Yoga and Health, Lenox Massachusettes
- 500 Hr Shakti Initiation Women’s Leadership Yoga Teacher Trainingc / Long Distance and Bali Immersion
- 100 Hr Devatree MamaNurture Prenatal YTT, Owen Sound, Ont.
- 100 Hr Advanced Anatomy YTT, Devatree, London, Ont
- 50 Hr Subtle Body Studies YTT, Devatree, London, Ont
- 50 Hr Advanced Asana YTT, Devatree, Owen Sound, Ont
- 50 Hr Art of Assisting YTT, Devatree, Owen Sound, Ont
- 50 Hr Yoga and Expressive Arts Training YTT, Devatree, Owen Sound, Ont
- 100 Hr Whispered Words: Walking Between the Words of Yoga and Shamanism YTT, Devatree, London, Ont
- 100 Hr Therapeutic Yoga Intensive Training, Susi Hatley
- Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training – ASIST, Ontario
- Movement Research Intensives with Diane Bruni
- The Mindfulness + Compassion Certificate Training for Health and End-of-Life Care Professionals, Sarana Institute, Toronto, Ont