Support for women ripening into their second bite of life.

Pre P.S. Today I'm hosting a workshop I think you'd love.

We'll spend two hours making an altar together — a tangible space in your home for the part of you that keeps getting pushed to the back of the line.

Two hours of using your heart and hands to express what your ego keeps interrupting.

And a recording you can return to again and again.

$24.

Join me today for MORE OF YOU.

Hi Reader,

How’s your heart today?

It's been a while since I've shared a behind-the-scenes glimpse of my own second bite — what's meaningful, nourishing, and worth holding with reverence right now.

TBH, it's not particularly glamorous.

I'm finally over the lingering virus that washed away my voice completely. For years I've heard that grief likes to hang out in the lungs. YUP.

My husband Dustin and I both lost our mothers this spring, within just two months of each other. We've been moving big grief through a small house — with a tween who needs our patience and levity, and not always knowing how to do any of it well.

But the other morning we sat on the edge of the bed and made a pact to be good to each other. To give the love we hold for our mamas new places to exist. To look back at the end of our lives and say, we brought each other more fully alive.

We've been living by it ever since — imperfectly, of course. No myth of perfection here!

Determined to rebuild my immunity and energy, I've been flooding myself with nettles, tulsi, and schisandra berry. Drinking three quarts a day and trusting that these wild weeds know things that will serve me. I honestly didn't expect the herbs to tell me anything. But after that tender morning with Dustin, I knew...

My heart is more healed and open than I realized.

I had a beautiful session with my reiki practitioner Tekla — falling asleep as she cleared my sinuses and jaw clenching. We talked about raising our daughters and how this season is one of apologizing to each other A LOT.

When I'm not on client calls, I've been working from my hammock swing on the front porch, surrounded by deer, chipmunks, ferns, wild raspberries, wind chimes, and butterflies. It feels a bit like doing my work inside a fairy tale.

Once again I ordered too many books at once. (Which, honestly, could be the title of my memoir.) This is just the first half of the pile.

Inside Second Bite, I pulled this card during our co-working session that sparked a conversation about trusting your own way of working, even when you can't see where the thread leads. About moving toward goals not to "arrive" somewhere, but to be more alive as we follow them.

And lately I've been committing to waking slowly enough to catch snippets of my dreams — spending time with them in my studio as often as I can, letting the watercolors and sketches slow me down long enough to see what my unconscious is showing me about where I am and what needs to come into deeper balance. In workshops and trainings, I’ve been painting notes instead of typing them — so freeing!

These are the threads I'm following. Deep rest. Wild idling. Time for creative expression. Dreamwork as a path to wholeness. I’ll take that over the illusion of "work-life balance" every single time.

This is what I want you to know: the ideas and practices I share here really can hold you.

They don't ask you to rise above your uncertainty or your grief, but to move through life more slowly, more consciously.

I'll be back Sunday with an invitation to practice this kind of reflection with me. Until then — press reply and tell me: what are you moving through right now, and what's helping you?

With wild love from the messy, ripening middle,

Brooke xx

I'm Brooke Hofsess—Midlife Midwife for women living their messy, holy second bite of life. Through coaching, creativity, and ritual, I guide women back to the parts of themselves they were taught to tamp down—their wild, their creativity, their intuition. The women I work with are hungry for depth, meaning, and the relief of not doing life alone anymore.

You'll find me in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, where I live with my husband Dustin, our daughter Thea, two clever border collies, and an ever-growing collection of handmade mugs for Egyptian Licorice Mint tea.