Support for women ripening into their second bite of life.

Dear Reader,

I wrote my dissertation on renewal and play because I needed to learn what my body already knew: rest isn't the absence of passion. It's what rekindles it.

Here's what all that deep study taught me: the most transformative practices are often the simplest.

Il dolce far niente. The Italians understand this. The sweetness of doing nothing.

Because you can't repair what you won't stop using, beloved.

Not scrolling-while-Netflix nothing. Not even meditation.

Actual nothing. The kind that makes you slightly uncomfortable at first.

Being at home in your own skin. Sitting with your own thoughts without trying to fix them. Witnessing your feelings with tenderness instead of judgment.

Existing in openness, in stillness, in the kind of spaciousness that makes modern life feel almost frantic by comparison.

Pushing through isn't always strength. Sometimes our deepest healing asks us to simply be.

Learning to pause—that's the first layer.

But learning to take pleasure in that pause? To play inside it? To let yourself be held and nourished and seen in your stillness instead of your productivity?

That's the deeper work. The soul work.

And we learn it best in the company of other women who are ready to stop going all the time and start being.

---

A February Practice

This month, I'm inviting you into a practice of dolce far niente - right where you are.

What if you...

• Left someone's text unread because you were too busy watching the light change through your window.
• Took a bath without your phone and let yourself be bored for ten whole minutes.
• Ate lunch sitting down, slowly, like you had nowhere else to be.
• Wandered outside with your camera for no reason at all - not to post, just to see.
• Let yourself disappoint someone this week by choosing to say no or not now.
• Laid down on the couch and didn't sit up as soon as you hear someone coming.

You were never meant to run yourself into the ground.

You were meant to unfurl like sunflowers in Italian light - to receive, to ripen, to discover what overflow actually feels like instead of just staying barely full.

---

Here's what I'm genuinely curious about: What's standing between you and doing nothing?

Not "self-care." Not "me-time." Not another thing on your list.

Just... stopping. Actually stopping.

What's the story you tell yourself about why you can't?

Press reply. I read every response, and your words matter to me.

With such love,
Brooke

P.S. I'm leading a Tuscany retreat in October. Six days to practice the sweetness of doing nothing with a small circle of women. There's a room for you, if you want it. I'll be sharing more in the coming weeks, but here’s a peek.​

Hi there! 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.