The Slow Healing Space

02/01/2026

The first day of 2026 (written yesterday!)

Over the years, I have slowly changed how I meet the New Year. As my life has grown quieter, so too have my celebrations. In recent years I have spent a lot of time on different lands, and as I have come closer to the land, I have come closer to my own body.

Through this, I have become acutely attuned to seasons and weather patterns. Living this way feels, in some small but meaningful way, like a stepping aside from collective culture. I do not believe we can ever fully exit the culture we live inside, but I do believe there are gaps, small openings that feel like portals into another way of being.

Because of this, the Gregorian New Year has never quite felt like a beginning in my bones. Land-based cultures marked the New Year at the March equinox, when day and night are equal. January 1st was claimed much later, when the Roman Church established it as the start of the year. September was once the seventh month, December the tenth. Long before I knew this history, my body has started to sense a deeper rhythm.

I will be honouring the start of a new cycle on March 20th, 2026.

But here we are - 2026.
2025 has been a deeply internal year for me. My attention has been fiercely devoted to parenting and to holding a full practice, doing work I love, work I could only have dreamed of twenty years ago. At the same time, my work has been slowly changing. I have been shaping what feels like my Opus Magnum, the body of work that holds all the others. It is arriving slowly, and I am learning to trust its timing.

I have only been able to work on this new body of work in small moments amidst my life and when I take retreat to the land. The rest of it needs to come alive in deep solitude, on land that is slow and holding. I am waiting for the right place to call me in so I can give this work the time it is asking for. A soft launch is likely around June 2026 for the bones of the work. I expect a pilot program to be released in March 2027 with a small circle.

In 2025, I also came into a deeper love. The work my husband and I have done to grow together has truly borne fruit. It feels like we have discovered something precious and sacred after many years of working on ourselves individually and together.

As I have settled into this love, and intergrating the deeper healing work I’ve been engaging in, many things have changed. I am slower, quieter, and less inclined to be out in the world. I have barely posted on my business page this year. While I have much to say creatively, I feel little desire to be front-facing the world. I have written so much this year, but none of it made public.

Some dreams I carried for years have also fallen away, not because they were unattainable, but because my heart now longs for something else.

I have not made any New Year's resolutions, found a word or held myself to some standard or goal. One thing I know is that I'll keep listening, and following and listening and following.

Life feels to me like a great unfolding these days.

I’m reminded of Reggie Ray's quote - "The purpose of your life is the unfolding of your life. "

Whatever wish you have made for yourself - May it be so ✨

(sneak peek at the new evolution of branding coming in 2026)

20/10/2025

We’re nearing the end of Held - a five day journey through Weller’s Gates of Grief:
1. Everything you love you will lose
2. The places that have not known love
3. What we expected and did not receive
4. ancestral grief
5. The sorrows of the world
6. The harms weve caused others

Each day, we’ve also entered another chamber of the heart - the Personal Heart, the Relational Heart, the Ancestral Heart, the Earth Heart, the Collective Heart and and tomorrow, the Universal Heart.
listening for the medicine in each, letting the land and the mystery and the Celtic myth of Mis guide the way.

We’ve sat in circle and ceremony.
We’ve let the land dream through us.
We’ve sat by the fire, star-gazed, rested, bathed outdoors under the moon, swum, napped, cried, laughed, and healed. Our incredible bodyworkerJaime-Lee Hind from Embodied Therapeutics turned up yesterday to offer us body work sessions. We have tended deeply to our nervous systems by learning to move at the pace of a rock.
All the while, the mystery has been holding us.

And we’ve eaten incredible food.

Before arriving here, I’d just finished a three day training for Air Services Australia in Brisbane.
I wasn’t happy about the scheduling, I’d never usually place two big pieces of work back to back, but it was the date they needed.

And yet, it’s been such a blessing to feel the contrast between the two worlds of my work: standing at the front of a room teaching, and then days later, standing barefoot in the grass, guiding in slowness, silence and presence, with nap times woven in for all of us.

When I came to this land, I felt like I finally took the exhale I’d been waiting for all year.
Working outdoors, where I can see the sky and the birds and the creatures and touch the ground is always deeply restorative.

Im proud of the way this work has come together, this retreat material unfolded over years of reflection.

This work of learning to be with grief through the body takes so much courage. Im in awe of the healing that has happened here.

🌱 Held - A Holy Heart Immersion.

May we never forget the medicine that lives in slowness, in the land, and in each other.

05/09/2025

Carl Jung says all issues come back to fear. Fear that life (mother) will abandon us or fear that life (mother) will overwhelm us.
For little ones our Mother represents Life. As we grow up, these fears transfer from the Mother to Life itself, and we either feel abandoned by life or overwhelmed by it.
Restoring trust in Life holding us is at the heart of healing. It takes patience, gentleness and slowness to develop a new supportive relationship with Life. Maybe the relationship with your Mother may never change, but your one with Life can.

18/07/2025

True healing is an unglamorous process of living into the long lengths of pain. Forging forward in the darkness. Holding the tension between hoping to get well and the acceptance of what is happening. Tendering a devotion to the task of recovery, while being willing to live with the permanence of a wound; befriending it with an earnest tenacity to meet it where it lives without pushing our agenda upon it. But here’s the paradox: you must accept what is happening while also keeping the heart pulsing towards your becoming, however slow and whispering it may be.
~ Toko-pa Turner

25/06/2025

The Myth of Mis & The Power of Sacred Retreat

In the old Celtic stories from my ancestry, there lived a woman called Mis.
When her warrior father was killed in battle, something fundamental broke open inside her. The grief wasn't ordinary, it was the kind that splits you from yourself, that sends you wandering beyond the edges of what you thought possible.
She disappeared into the wild mountains. Sometimes she became a bird, her human form dissolving under the enormity of what she carried. Other tellings say she went feral, lost her words, and lived alongside creatures who understood her wordless language.

She became other. Stepped outside ordinary time. Grief carried her into an entirely different way of being.

But here's what the old stories knew that we've forgotten: this wasn't breakdown. It was initiation.

Mis's descent was a doorway. She was being initiated into mysteries that can only be learned by falling apart: the intelligence of loss, the strange alchemy of transformation, and the wild wisdom that lives in grief's country. Sometimes we shatter not because we're broken, but because something deeper is trying to be born through us.
During this time of retreat, held by the mountains themselves, Mis learned the language of wind and stone, of seasons turning without human witness. The wilderness became her teacher, revealing truths that could only be learned in absolute solitude.

Until the day Naci found her. He didn't run. He didn't try to capture her or drag her back to who she used to be. He stayed. He sang to her. Spoke gently. Offered his presence without asking for anything in return.

And slowly, so slowly it was almost imperceptible - Mis began to return, not as the girl who had fled into the mountains, but as someone fundamentally changed by what she'd walked through. She returned from the underworld carrying wisdom that can only be earned by descent.

On the Held - A Holy Heart Immersion retreat, we dive deep into this ancient myth at the outset, letting it serve as our compass for the journey. We too might become a bird, untamed, feral, and discover wisdoms in our initiations we don't find unless we fall apart and let ourselves be held.

The 5-day immersion creates space for women to descend into their own heart initiations through the portal of grief, to be held by both the earth and each other, and to return carrying new wisdom about what it means to live with an open, initiated heart.

Years ago, in a group training, the facilitator shared something that stayed with me, she said the final person to join a circle often holds a quiet, sacred role. They help seal the container for the journey ahead.

Applications are open now… for the one who feels the call
https://carissarodgers.com/held-retreat/

13/06/2025

A repost from a few years ago came up in my memories today 🩷 , still relevant.

A NOTE TO THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN HARMED BY THERAPY

Attachment in Therapy.

I've seen many people in the online therapeutic groups I'm in this year make posts about being deeply hurt by therapists. Most of these posts have talked about the pain of abandonment, lack of attunement, and lack of care in things that mattered to them. In some cases, the trauma from this reinforced the original attachment trauma for which these folks were seeking therapy.

I felt sad at reading these posts and how the therapist's lack of understanding of attachment dynamics had gone on to create more wounds to those that sought shelter, safety, and comfort in their presence.

However, what I want you to know is that not all therapists practice from an attachment framework, nor have they done their early work in understanding their own attachment wounds.

Yes, therapy is about a kind, and caring relationship that is not supposed to create further distress, but attachment focused therapy is a deeper kind of relating framework that not every therapist is oriented to.
Attachment orientation is a concrete foundation which allows one to practice in this way. Here are some points for therapists that need to be in place to practice from an attachment perspective.

✨ The therapist must have a solid framework and understanding of attachment dynamics – to have learnt and studied attachment styles and have a deep understanding of how early wounding affects the sense of self, and relating dynamics and how those dynamics can play out in relationship – not just with clients relationships outside of therapy but with the therapist themselves.

✨The therapist needs to have done their own work exploring attachment - And to continue to do ongoing healing work in this area, understand their triggers and what might get in the way of the therapy work with their clients.

✨The Therapist will let the client make an attachment to them - To be genuinely attachment focused a therapist WILL let a client make an attachment and will have the skills to navigate this attachment healthily and safely that supports the client to rewire their attachment style and heal early wounds of mistrust/abandonment and fear.

✨A therapist will understand the concept of "Transfer of Attachment". Transfer of attachment (as taught to me by Kathy Kain) is a process that allows a client to attach to the therapist whilst simultaneously working towards supporting the client to transfer the healthy secure attachment found with the therapist to outside relationships. If this is not understood, this could end up in an unhealthy attachment dynamic between client and therapist whereby the client has not been able to translate the skills learnt to outside of the therapy room.

✨The therapist understands the boundaries of an Attachment relationship.
The boundaries in attachment therapy might look different to other kinds of treatment. They will still be firm, but they will be wide—firm and wide boundaries. Healthy boundaries need to be consistent as not to leave the client guessing as to what is appropriate. However, wide boundaries mean that there will be more room for things such as clients being able to message out of session. Part of rewiring attachment is the client learning that someone is dependable when they need them. Often therapists can get scared of this, but this is one thing that helps significant healing in attachment wounds. It is also part of the recovery that will change over time as the client moves from dependency to feeling more independent.

There are many other points, but I think this enough for now. It is important to note that not all therapists are trained this way, or have the capacity to work this way. However, all therapists should have good assessment skills before they take on a client around these attachment wounds so they can appropriately refer if it is out of their scope. I think that would alleviate some of the hurt and pain that I have read about where therapists are taking on clients that might be out of their scope of practice.

Clients seeking therapy for early wounding can also be more empowered to know what they need to be looking for in a therapist. Clients come to therapy for different reasons - problem-solving, insight, awareness, change of patterns, healing trauma. Some come specifically to heal their early wounds and need a therapist who can hold them in strength and comfort whilst being consistent and available. It's essential to seek a therapist that has these qualities. And to ask questions about that – how they work and if they understand the healing of early wounding.

A significant part of my healing came from a therapist who let me make a strong attachment to her. She was consistent and available and held a steady and strong presence and was not scared of me needing her. This kind of connection changed my life in so many ways, and through this connection, I was able to begin to make reliable attachments outside of the therapy room. Going through this process taught me how to take clients through it and not fear this process. Personal work and an embodied experience of this process is a significant part of being able to practice in this way.

If you have been harmed by a therapist that has not been able to offer this to you, I am sorry. I hope you know it wasn’t you. You weren’t too much, or to damaged, or too needy or any other meaning you made from the experience. I hope despite your experience you will reach out again and find someone who has the capacity to hold you in comfort and safety while you heal.

Much love,
Carissa💖

Embodied Healing with Carissa

12/06/2025

🩷🩷🩷

22/05/2025

I remember sitting in retreat, days stretching long, twelve hours or more, which begin before sunrise with strong movement and end deep into the night with heavy eyelids and overstretched hearts.

We were encouraged to stay present, stay open, stay with it. But you could feel it in the room. After a few days, everyone was tired. Not soul-tired in the sacred way, but tired in that flat, irritable, nothing-left-to-give kind of way. Little fractures started to show. Women snapped at each other. Some disappeared into silence. I felt it, too - every part of me quietly screaming no.

I really thought we were done with this version of healing. The kind that breaks you down to build you up. The kind that confuses exhaustion with transformation. Isn’t life already doing enough of the breaking?

So I listened, not to the schedule, but to my body. I slept in, skipped circles, napped long after lunch, not out of defiance but devotion, and moved slowly through the days. I let the retreat become what I actually needed: a deep, quiet restoration.

This is the season we’re in now. Not the era of constant becoming, but of gentle return. Not transformation for the sake of progress, but restoration for the sake of wholeness.

The women I work with don’t need more unravelling, they need space to catch their breath, gather their threads, and remember who they were before the world asked them to carry so much.

That’s why the retreats I offer now move at the pace of trust. There are no early wake-ups, built-in naps after lunch, and mornings that begin with breath, not alarms. We don't push ourselves deeper. It’s about allowing space for what’s already there to be met with care.

Slow healing is not passive. It’s powerful. And it begins when we stop performing healing and allow ourselves to receive it.

19/05/2025

Winter Circle series is one of my favourite programs to run. I’ve been guiding clients through their own personal Wintering journeys and I love it when we can Winter together.
Winter is a time to surrender to the cold, nestle in, turn inward, seek comfort, grieve, hold our unmet parts and cease external pursuits for happiness. In winter we finally surrender to ourselves. We let ourselves rest into exhaustion and let ourselves be held by the season.

We have 5 spaces left 🩷

12/05/2025

Client books have arrived! We have those in healing packages Waking the Tiger has finally arrived and our Winter circle series for the beautiful bunch of women gathering.

The registration page is now complete, and there are still a few spots left. Space is limited to just 10 participants, so if this is calling you, don’t wait too long.

I’m so excited to begin. Think: healing circle meets book club, wrapped in silence, connection, candlelight, and deep rest. We’ll gather around fire and feasts, invite the cold in as teacher, and explore Wintering as sacred art including tuning into our inner winter as a nervous system state.

Gathering Dates:
🌒 Friday, June 21st
🌘 Friday, August 16th
🕠 5:30–9:00 PM

As a special offering, I’m also opening up a limited number of one-off 2-hour Wintering sessions with me designed to support your personal Wintering journey. These are intentionally slow-paced, deeply reflective, and gently held spaces. Come as you are, and we’ll meet the season together.

https://carissarodgers.com/welcoming-the-dark-winter-circle-series/

11/05/2025

I’ve ordered a copy of Wintering by Katherine May for everyone joining Welcoming the Dark: The Winter Circle Series. I wanted us all to have it before our first gathering to anchor us as we begin.

The registration page is now complete, and there are still a few spots left. Space is limited to just 10 participants, so if this is calling you, don’t wait too long.

I’m so excited to begin. Think: healing circle meets book club, wrapped in silence, connection, candlelight, and deep rest. We’ll gather around fire and feasts, invite the cold in as teacher, and explore Wintering as sacred art including tuning into our inner winter as a nervous system state.

Gathering Dates:
🌒 Friday, June 21st
🌘 Friday, August 16th
🕠 5:30–9:00 PM

As a special offering, I’m also opening up a limited number of one-off 2-hour Wintering sessions with me designed to support your personal Wintering journey. These are intentionally slow-paced, deeply reflective, and gently held spaces. Come as you are, and we’ll meet the season together.

https://carissarodgers.com/welcoming-the-dark-winter-circle-series/