Support for women ripening into their second bite of life.

Dear Reader,

You're probably going to know the answer to this question before I finish asking it:

When life gets full — and it always gets full — what goes first?

The walk without your phone. The unhurried morning spent recalling your dreams. The ten minutes at the window, not doing anything, just there.

Gone.

And here's the tape that likely starts playing the moment you even consider taking a beat:

If I slow down, things will pile up and I'll be even more overwhelmed than I already am.

If I stop, I'll be letting people down.

You're not imagining it. We're swimming in a culture that prizes doing over being, certainty over surrender, the linear path over the spiral.

Most of us have internalized it so completely that stillness feels lazy. Rest feels irresponsible.

And the wise voice inside us — the one who actually knows what we need — gets crowded out by everything we think we should be doing.

Sometimes the consequences are undeniable. Things pile up. The world doesn't pause because you need a quiet hour to yourself. So you learn that internal rest comes with a price tag. And you stop prioritizing it.

But here's what I keep noticing, in my own life and in the women I work with:

The thing we sacrifice first is almost always the thing that helps us truly hear ourselves.

Not the productive self. Not the capable, managing, making-it-happen self — she's fine, she's been running the show for decades. The other one.

The heart-centered one. Who lives somewhere below your collarbone. Who knows when something isn't grooving anymore before your mind catches on. Who knows when what used to get you through okay just... isn't working anymore. Who doesn't make a fuss about it, but goes a little quieter each time you move her to the bottom of the list.

And we wonder why we feel so far from ourselves!

Here's what I want you to really let in: you are not alone in this sacrifice.

Every woman reading these words right now is sitting with their version of the same answer.

Because we have all learned, in our own kitchens and calendars and bodies, to put soul last. That's not a personal failing. That's a collective one.

And this pattern gets unmade the same way it was made — together, in the presence of women who are ready to try another way.

When we keep moving soul to the bottom of the list, we don't just lose rest. We lose access to our own signals and callings.

Sit with that for a moment.

If something in you recognizes this — if you're tired in a way that sleep doesn't fix, if you've been running on a momentum that has nothing to do with joy — I want you to know there's a place I've been dreaming about bringing you.

Six days in Tuscany. An all-female-owned vineyard, generations deep in this land. Mornings for creative, inward work — the kind that awakens your heart. Afternoons for the pool, the art supplies, the vineyards, a novel, nothing at all. Meals made from what grows in the garden. A cappuccino that someone else makes for you.

It's not a retreat packed with programming. It's a long, slow exhale with a small group of women who are ready to stop sacrificing their soul when life gets busy. To remember what it feels like to be in a body that isn't constantly bracing.

Enrollment closes March 1st, or when full. I don't want you to miss it if something in you has been saying yes…

​Learn more about the Tuscany retreat.​

With love,

Brooke

P.S. Your spot gets saved with a $1500 deposit. From there, Sarah (part of the fabulous Vita Bella Retreat team) works with you to create a payment plan.