Spring Cleaning
on intuition
You know how pregnant women get told they’re “nesting”? It sounds cute. Like we are birds or something. Very Pinterest-y. But biologically, it’s real. It’s a thing.
In late pregnancy, shifts in estrogen and oxytocin increase your energy and sharpen focus. The nervous system moves into preparation mode. Your body starts scanning the environment for safety. The impulse to clean, organize, prepare a special space for baby is instinct. The body knows what to do before our mind catches on to our behavior.
And if you’ve never experienced it, I swear I’m not making it up. There’s research on it. Mammals do it. We are mammals. Sometimes our bodies know long before we figure it out.
It’s not spring yet. But my body feels it.
Something is shifting. Something is about to move. And what does my body want?
To purge my closet.
Yes, I know you’re supposed to go through your closet every year. “Get rid of anything you haven’t worn in the last twelve months.” But for THREE YEARS, every single time I’ve tried to clean it out, my body said: “HARD. NO.”
In April 2023 I was laid off after 13 years at the same company. I started there after I just turned 24. My youngest was 10 months old. I learned how to be an adult there. How to lead. How to operate inside a business. I learned about corporate power. I got my degree while I worked there. I survived a divorce there. An abusive marriage. I was healing CPTSD while leading the company’s global go-to-market strategy.
And the reality was I couldn’t heal and survive my life at the same time.
My therapist fired me after I refused her recommended intensive treatment program. I couldn’t take time off. I was terrified to show vulnerability at work. Terrified to give my ex ammunition he could hold over my head. So I just kept white-knuckling it. Surviving. For a year.
Until I got laid off. And suddenly my body said: “DO IT.”
EMDR.
Reiki.
Internal Family Systems.
Somatic work.
My nervous system finally exhaled. And when it did, I could actually hear my body again.
Back in 2019, my autoimmune disease surfaced. In 2020 it exploded. I lost half the hair on my head before a doctor took me seriously. My body was screaming while I was too dissociated to hear it.
Healing changed how strongly I started to listen.
The voice was so quiet at first. It doesn’t shout. It waits for you to hear her. She’s persistent. And if you talk over her, she would never punish you. She just keeps tapping. Waiting. For you to listen.
When recruiters called after I was laid off, my brain said, “You need to take the call.” “You know what happens when you take too much time off.” “You get stale.”
My gut said: “Absolutely not.”
But I couldn’t do nothing. So I pivoted. Toward mental health. I went back to school. Shared my story. Got certified as a peer support specialist. Posted the inspirational LinkedIn Lesson.
And my body said: “Still NO.”
That’s the part nobody tells you about healing. When you reconnect to your body, you sometimes lose the ability to betray yourself. Before, I could override my brain and body for years at a time. But now, the thought of misalignment feels like sandpaper on the inside of my eyelids.
So I stopped trying to be palatable. I rebranded. Became “The Complex Rebel.” I allowed myself to talk about all of it: my journey, systems, corporate culture, capitalism, patriarchy through a trauma-informed lens. Because healing isn’t personal. It’s systemic. And my body knows systems. It spent 13 years mapping them. It spent my whole life surviving them.
Now I’m writing HTS. Building something foundational. Something probably bigger than a pivot. It looks chaotic from the outside. But I’m realizing, this must be what incubation looks like.
Which brings me back to my closet.
For three years, my body would not let me purge it. Why?
Because every piece represented a version of me I wasn’t done metabolizing yet.
Corporate me.
Healing me.
Trying-to-be-safe me.
Trying-to-be-liked me.
Trying-to-be-understood me.
Trying-to-be-hirable me.
My nervous system was still negotiating my identity. And you don’t throw away skins while you’re still sort of wearing them. Shedding skin is a process.
And now? It feels different.
It feels like nesting.
Preparation.
Integration.
The intuition layer of healing is quiet. It’s uncomfortable. It’s your body softly rearranging your environment to match who it knows you’ve already become.
Sometimes healing looks like EMDR.
Sometimes it looks like saying no.
And sometimes it looks like finally cleaning out your closet because you finally know,
You’re not going back.