what we hunger for

It’s been a long while since I’ve written. I haven’t felt the spark to share for some time, but yesterday, inspiration struck in full force, and what follows poured through me.

Stepping back from sharing—on Substack and across all social media—has given me space to reflect on why I began this journey in the first place. I wanted to create spaces that center rest, pleasure, presence, and connection—for ourselves and for each other. Spaces where worry, guilt, and shame dissolve into grace, understanding, and compassion. I believe these spaces are needed now more than ever.

Even as I envisioned these nurturing spaces, I couldn’t ignore the tension I felt within the larger wellness world. Since the beginning, I’ve wrestled with my place in wellness culture and the healing industry. Imposter syndrome is real—it’s easy to wonder if I’m “well enough” or “healed enough” to hold space for others on their own journeys.

I’ve also witnessed the harm that’s been done—often by white people—in the name of wellness and healing. In recent years, more voices have spoken truth to this, naming the shadows of toxic wellness culture. Our collective eyes are opening. We’re beginning to turn away from wellness as an individual quest for purity or peak performance, and toward wellness as community care, as connection, as mutual aid, land restoration, and reciprocity.

More of us are remembering that wellness does not live in isolation. It breathes in relationship—in the spaces between us, in the tending of the Earth, and in the quiet ways we care for one another. And as Fariha Róisín says in her groundbreaking book, Who is Wellness For,

I spent several years exploring wellness culture and both the healing and harms that happen in the name of it on my podcast, A Wave Away. I spoke with incredible leaders in the wellness world, many of them BIPOC women, whose voices we should be listening to most, about what it means to be well while existing in oppressive systems like white supremacy and capitalism. I learned so much and will cherish these conversations forever. You can find them on Apple Podcasts and Spotify if you want to dive in. But for the sake of this piece of writing, I want to share my own messy, complicated, and complex journey with moving away from wellness as a pursuit of optimal physical health and toward wellness as a pursuit of presence, pleasure, embodiment, and community care and connection.

I recently discovered the Embodied Vessel Podcast by Loren Lewis Cole. Her conversation with Dr. Roxanne Partridge offers a deep exploration into women’s desires. They explain that most women’s desires go unheard, unseen, and unfelt, shaped by deeply ingrained messages from toxic wellness culture. This culture teaches that women should prioritize optimal physical health and appearance—clean eating, detoxing, youth, and purity—above all else. When I heard this, I had to stop in my tracks and pick my jaw up off the ground.

I saw myself in the woman they were describing—someone grasping for health as if it could be defined by the rules of toxic wellness culture. I felt the weight of all the ways I had silenced my own desires, restricted and punished myself, starved parts of my own joy. The memory pulled me back to an Instagram post I wrote years ago, sparked by a question from Charlotte James, my teacher and guide in the Liberation Training program: How do I oppress myself?

Even now, the question lingers, echoing in the quiet corners of my own habits and choices. That moment ignited a fire within me—a desire to truly understand and inhabit my own body. It led me to the somatic, embodiment, and trauma studies I’ve undertaken with Linda Thai. I’m deeply grateful for Charlotte’s question; it sparked the beginning of my ever-evolving practice of being in my body.

Back to Loren and Roxanne—their conversation later turned to how many women struggle to fully inhabit their own bodies, and how this ripple of disconnection shows up in both quiet and profound ways. Even something as simple as knowing what we truly want to eat can feel elusive. They reflected on how often we reach for whatever our children are having for breakfast, unaware that it may not satisfy us—or honor the deeper cravings and needs of our own bodies.

This leads me to another powerful conversation I heard on Dr. Mindy Pelz, The Resetter podcast. She’s an incredible menopause expert and researcher. In this conversation, she explains that when girls enter puberty and begin menstruating, their own desires often become overshadowed by the urge to please and be pleasing to others.

She referenced a research study that tracked boys and girls over time, observing how their ability to advocate for their own needs evolved. The researchers asked participants what they wanted to eat at various ages. The boys, at every stage, answered easily and instinctively, naming whatever they were hungry for. The girls did the same when they were younger—responding quickly and intuitively. But this changed dramatically once they reached puberty and began experiencing higher levels of estrogen. At that stage, when asked what they wanted to eat, the girls often hesitated, looked to see what others were choosing, and even asked for others’ opinions before answering.

Estrogen is the hormone linked to bonding and people-pleasing. Its influence is evident in the way girls shift from instinctively knowing and expressing what they want to eat to doubting themselves and seeking to conform to others. This research demonstrates that, as women, we begin learning to suppress and ignore our desires from a young age.

I think about my daughter, who is nearing puberty, and how I can empower and support her in advocating for her wants and needs. I feel a buzzing sense of aliveness when I think about the new ways I can explore and experience wellbeing, both for myself and in community. I want to tend the flame of my longing and chase what calls. I want to stoke the wild fire of my desire.

This new way of seeing wellness draws me back to my motherline in Italy—a land of honeyed wine, sun-drenched hills, and goddesses of the old world, where pleasure waits at every turn. I carry with me a favorite memory of my Aunt Terri, my maternal grandmother’s sister, now in spirit: the shimmer of her gold jewelry. I remember, as a young girl, tracing her rings and earrings with my fingers, listening to the gentle clink of her bangles as she moved through a room like music itself.

Her love of gold lives in me, quietly but fiercely. For years, I felt I had to hide it, suppress it, feel shame for it. I knew, intellectually, that gold is not essential—and that extracting it is harmful to the Earth—but for me, it is more than metal. Because of Aunt Terri and the women of my Italian heritage, gold became a language of beauty, a vessel of pleasure, a thread connecting me to the women who came before me.

Now, I wear the heirloom pieces passed down to me with gratitude and joy. I feel them as a celebration of lineage, a nod to desire, a reminder that pleasure is not indulgence—it is inheritance. And I hope that one day my daughter, and her daughter’s daughter, will feel that same shimmering connection, worn proudly, a quiet rebellion and a joyous embrace of who we are.

1 - Who is Wellness For by Fariha Róisín. If you are in the wellness world or on your own journey with defining wellness for yourself, this is a MUST-read. Check it out.

2 - Embodied Vessel podcast. A gift of a podcast. Check it out.

3 - The Resetter podcast. Another gift of a podcast. Check out.

4 - The Wisdom of the Hive: What Honeybees Can Teach Us About Collective Wellbeing by Michelle Cassandra Johnson and Amy Burtaine. The past few months, I’ve been diving deep into regenerative and natural beekeeping. I’m starting a 10-month apprenticeship this January and hope to welcome honeybees to our land this spring. I just finished reading The Wisdom of the Hive, it's a deep dive into how honeybees offer a powerful example of how to turn toward each other, to deeply commit to creating conditions for the survival of all beings, and to build a future where all can thrive—from a foundation of social justice. I cannot recommend it enough. Check it out.

5 - Rainbo mushrooms. I love all of their potent and high-quality adaptogenic mushrooms, especially their 11:11 tincture. You can get 15% OFF everything using the code WAVERLY. Check it out.

6 - Tallow Twins skincare. I recently ordered their tallow-based charcoal cleansing balm and for the face moisturizer. I’m loving them.

With love and gratitude,

Waverly

♡