THE LIVING ROOM
sacred space for real connection & presence
FOR WOMEN IN PERIMENOPAUSE & MIDLIFE
Come in
Is this you?
Somewhere along the way, many of us started believing we needed to become a better version of ourselves before we could finally feel okay.
Calmer, less emotional, more productive. Someone who always knows the right thing to say. Someone who doesn't struggle anymore.
We spend years trying to improve ourselves, often without realizing we’ve also learned to hide ourselves.
We become careful about what we say. We smile when we’re hurting. We tell people we’re fine because it’s easier than explaining what is actually happening. Over time, it’s easy to lose touch with the person underneath all that effort. It's exhausting and lonely.
I don’t think most women need another self-improvement plan.
I think many of us are longing for somewhere we can stop performing and remember what it feels like to be fully ourselves in the company of other people.
It was never a you problem
We’re surrounded by polished lives. Even healing can begin to feel like another performance or project. Another place where we’re supposed to be getting it right.
I think it’s making many women feel even more alone.
Because if everyone else looks like they’re handling life beautifully, it’s easy to believe you’re the only one struggling.
The Living Room is my response to that.
This is not another place to improve yourself. This is a space to stop editing yourself and discover what happens when you don't have to earn belonging by appearing okay.
I am Michaela
I'm a licensed therapist who's been working with women closely for years. Women dealing with anxiety, trauma, burnout, and that "who am I now?" feeling that shows up in midlife.
The Living Room is my first group program, and it came out of seeing what shifts (and what doesn't) in my one-on-one work. Therapy is powerful, but something different happens when we women come together.
I created this space because I think the self-improvement world has taken us way off course. We're not meant to be perfect, productive, shiny versions of ourselves. We're meant to be human, messy, and real.
So, this is not some program I'm delivering to you. It's a living, breathing space that you and every other woman in the room will create together.
My approach pulls from somatic practice, parts work, and interpersonal neurobiology. But really, what that means is: I work with the whole of you. Your body, your nervous system, your relationships, and all the wisdom you carry underneath the strategies you've used to survive.
What I bring to the Living Room is years of clinical experience, commitment to taking it slow, and a deep belief that community is medicine in a way that individual work can never be. I'm going to hold this space with all my attention and care. And I already know I'm going to be changed by it, too.
This is not a workshop or a course. It's a living space.
A small group of women who are willing to slow down enough to notice themselves and be brave enough to let themselves be known.
13 live sessions
90 minutes, bi-weekly, 6 months. Presence-based, facilitated by me. Held space with a deliberate arc from arriving to completing.
Somatic practice throughout
Every session includes body-based practice. of listening to the body that has been carrying everything you have been managing.
Private space between sessions
Private, off-social-media space to check in, share what's up, or simply say: I'm here. No performance or pressure.
My facilitation
Grounded in somatic practice, parts work, and how relationships actually change the nervous system. Slow. Attentive. Honest.
Your participant "workbook"
With you through all 13 sessions — reflection prompts, somatic practices, writing pages, between-session questions.
My ongoing presence
I'm not running this from the outside. I'm in it with you. I show up, I get affected, I'm present. This changes me too.
What we’ll do together
This is not a place where you’ll come to be taught how to live your life.
I’m not giving you a better morning routine or another list of things to do.
I’m interested in creating a space where you can begin hearing yourself again.
Real change is often subtle.
It can look like taking one full breath before you react, and noticing you actually know what you want. Or saying, “I’m tired,” instead of pretending you’re fine.
Those moments matter and over six months, they begin to add up.
Every session includes somatic practice
Many of us learned to live almost entirely from the neck up. Thinking, analyzing. solving problems, and explaining...everything.
But your body has been part of your story all along, so we’ll spend time listening to it
Why six months?
Because it takes time to build trust and let your real self to be known.
The first few gatherings are often about arriving and realizing you don’t have to pretend here.
Then the conversations deepen. You start saying things out loud and the silence becomes more comfortable.
By the end, the group doesn’t feel like a group anymore.
It feels like a place you’ve returned to often enough that it feels like your own living room — safe and cozy.
That’s what I hope you’ll take with you when it ends.
Not just memories of meaningful conversations and shared practices, but a whole new experience of yourself.
Six themes. Thirteen sessions.
Each month holds a theme. The arc is designed to move from arriving to completing with real depth at every stage.
MONTH 1 · 2 SESSIONS
Arriving
Before anything else, you land — into the group, into yourself as you actually are right now.
MONTH 4 · 2 SESSIONS
Deepening
Feeling and saying the thing you keep almost saying. The layer underneath the layer. The truth you haven't let yourself say out loud yet.
MONTH 2 · 2 SESSIONS
Belonging
Dropping the performance of being okay. Learning what it feels like to be witnessed without having to manage how that lands.
MONTH 5 · 2 SESSIONS
Clarifying
What's shifting and what you're still figuring out. Getting clear on what's yours now.. Changing the way you see and experience yourself.
MONTH 3 · 3 SESSIONS
Softening
What would you like to call it instead of Softening? A few options:
MONTH · 2 SESSIONS
Completing
Real completion held with the same care as everything that came before it. And for those who want to go farther: we gather in person in Costa Rica.
You are standing at the beginning of
the most honest chapter of your life.
A year from now, you're sitting in your last session, and you can feel the difference.
You don't see yourself as a project you keep failing at anymore. You just see yourself, someone you're finally getting to know.
You'll know what it's like to be in a room, even a virtual one, where you didn't have to pretend to be okay. Where other women saw the real version of you, and it felt good. It felt honest.
You stop controlling everything.
The constant managing of your symptoms, your moods, your image, other people's comfort starts to loosen. Because you finally had somewhere to put it down for a few hours every two weeks, and over time that changed something in your nervous system that you can't explain but you can feel.
You are and feel less alone.
You stop feeling like you're the only one struggling. And being in a room where everyone gets it, without explanation, changes something over time.
You stop being a stranger to yourself.
"You'll walk out of this actually curious about yourself and your own life instead of just trying to survive it
You find out what you actually think and feel.
When you've spent decades being competent and reliable and fine, you lose track of your own interior. Six months of being asked what's actually there starts to reverse that. You'll surprise yourself. You'll say things out loud you didn't know you knew.
You stop rushing toward past version of yourself
The woman you were trying to get back to is not coming back. And by month four or five, most women stop wanting her to. What's on the other side of this transition is something you haven't met yet. This group is where you start walking toward her instead of away from her.
You leave changed in ways that might be hard to describe.
Not every experience can be put in a testimonial. Some of it lives in your body, in how you move through a hard conversation, when you notice you didn't immediately say you're fine. Those are "the results."
This might be right for you if
— You're navigating midlife, perimenopause, or season of identity shift & you want to meet it with intention, not just survive it
— You've done individual therapy and you're curious what the group space offers that one-on-one doesn't
— You're tired of holding it together in front of people. You want somewhere you don't have to.
— You can commit to six months of consistent attendance. Not perfect, but real
— You're done with surface-level connection. You want women who actually know you.
— You're open to being known as a woman in this phase of your life
This probably is not the right fit if
— You're in acute crisis and need more intensive, individualized clinical support
— You're looking for a content-based course with deliverables and curriculum
— You want accountability coaching, goal-setting, or productivity-oriented support
— Group vulnerability feels genuinely unsafe to you right now, not just uncomfortable, but unsafe
— You're not available to commit to six months of biweekly meetings
—— OPTIONAL RETREAT FALL 2027
Seven days in Costa Rica.
Warm water and dense jungle that runs all the way to the sea. This is a place that slows you down before you even try.
This is not a resort but a real place, only for women who've done the six months together and already know each other's unpolished, unfinished selves.
Mornings for somatic work. Afternoons that belong to you so you can swim, sleep, walk, sit somewhere and stare at the water.
Evenings for processing, parts work, and sharing;
— 6 nights fully held — accommodation and all meals included
— Morning somatic sessions in nature
— The Caribbean coast is the ultimate LIVING room — warm water, jungle, wild animals, stillness
— Women who already know you
— Unstructured afternoons — intentionally
— Evenings to process and integrate with each other
Three ways to join
ONLINE ONLY
The Living Room
$2,000
Pay in full
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All 13 live sessions
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Private Skool community
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Participant workbook
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Somatic practice guide
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Session recordings (30 days)
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Maximum 10 women
ONLINE + RETREAT
The Living Room + Costa Rica
$5,990
Pay in full · Flights not included
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Everything in online only
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6 nights Costa Rica retreat
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All accommodation and meals
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Daily somatic sessions
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Extended somatic work
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Evening integration sessions
PAYMENT PLAN AVAILABLE
PAYMENT PLAN - ONLINE ONLY
Monthly Option
$350
Per month × 6 months ($2,100 total)
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All 13 live sessions
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Private community
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Participant workbook
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Somatic practice guide
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Session recordings (30 days)
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Retreat can be added
—— QUESTIONS
Before you make a decision...
I've done so much therapy. Is there anything left?
You get seen without having to explain everything first, because someone else already said it for you. You get to practice being honest in front of people, not just your therapist. And you find out that the parts of you you've been hiding aren't as strange or as much as you thought.
I've tried programs like this before and didn't get results. Why would this be different?
Because most programs are built around content delivery. This one is built around relationship. If you've done courses and workshops and they didn't shift anything, it may be because information was never what you were missing. Presence and community was.
Is six months a commitment I can actually make?
That question alone tells me you're taking this seriously. Not perfect attendance, but consistent presence over time. If six months feels like a stretch right now, trust that instinct and reach out. We can talk through whether the timing is right.
Do I have to be in perimenopause to join?
No. The group is for women roughly 35–60 in the territory of midlife transition.
Do I have to decide about the retreat when I enroll?
No. You can add the retreat later if spaces remain. Mention your interest when you apply and I'll follow up with details.
What if I don't feel safe showing up like myself, even in this group?
You won't be pushed. You'll be gently invited to notice that and join when you're ready. Showing up at all is enough to start. Your presence and the pace itself is what matters most and creates the living space.
Is this therapy?
No. I am a licensed therapist, but this is not group therapy. It's women in a room together, telling the truth, held by someone who knows how to hold it.