Molly Mitchell-Hardt Field of Venice on Life, Lessons & Legacy

We recently had the chance to connect with Molly Mitchell-Hardt Field and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Molly, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re thrilled to learn more about your journey, values and what you are currently working on. Let’s start with an ice breaker: Have any recent moments made you laugh or feel proud?
I know this is meant to be an icebreaker, but I am a depth oriented therapist, so when the ice breaks we’re going deep…
My brother passed unexpectedly in May and while this has yet to make me laugh, I have looked back on my process of grief with a certain level of pride, knowing that my life’s work was put to the ultimate test and I have been able to move through this experience without turning away from it or minimizing it, but also with a sense of gentleness and compassion. The cosmology I have oriented to over the course of my life has had limitations especially when life has pushed me to the brink, like when I gave birth to my son and more recently when my brother died. When I am left out in the void, reeling and trying to make sense of the shattered pieces, that is when I lean on the embodied practices I have over the years integrated into my being. While I continue to process and pick up the pieces I can see that what I have done best is allow the experience to be what it is. I allowed myself to wail, keen, and weep, I allowed myself to be confused, and angry, I allowed myself to be vulnerable and clear about what I needed. I think about who I was and how I operated in the world a decade ago and I cannot quite imagine how she may have handled all of this. I am unendingly grateful for the wise ones who came before me, the torch bearers on the path, the others who grieve as a form of prayer, devotion, and healing, and the healers who can hold others when there is nothing left to say.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Molly Mitchell-Hardt Field. I am a daughter, sister, mother, partner, friend forever student, teacher/facilitator, and psychotherapist. I grew up on a four acre horse farm in Massachusetts with nature as a familial presence, a presence I had not wholly appreciated until I felt her absence, I find myself now, back in relationship with nature in a way that sustains my capacity to function in this ever changing world-scape and for that I thank my lucky stars and the inner compass that guided me back home to the waters, trees, creatures, and skies. It is a life intention of mine to continue to tend to that connection with nature and maybe one day supersede the conditioning of separateness that even necessitates the language of naming nature as something other than self.

In my day to day I work in private practice as a depth and somatic psychotherapist for teens, adults, and couples. My work and its expression in the world is as ever evolving as I am. As a mother I am very interested in supporting parents in their parenting and relationship journey as it evolves through the developmental stages. As a woman who cycles, I have noticed the potency of the luteal and menstrual phase for healing. I have created an offering that I would want, which is intensive sessions for people who cycle either once or twice a month timed during Luteal and or Menstrual phases to increase potency, decrease monthly cost of therapy in a way that is easier on the schedule as well. As a sister of three brothers, boy-mom, and partner to a man, I am interested in supporting men in this time as well as women. I find the overculture’s conversation around things relating to men very reductionist and limited, I find it is more important to allow space for empathy and grief so we do not all have to suffer the consequences of what happens when these things are absent.

Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
I think it’s important at a baseline to hold in every relational space, that everybody has their own version or experience with reality that is completely true and valid to them. And when you start from that place, we can honor difference. Bonds break down quickly when we start to believe our version of reality is the correct one and the other’s is the incorrect one and we begin to ascribe our own judgements and opinions to another’s experience. What sustains and repairs bonds is the internal capacity to hold two opposing views or two different truths at once without delegitimizing either. Repair can often take place when both parties feel as though they have been gotten or understood, even in a sticky, confrontational moment. The goal is not to be right, but to make room for more than one version of reality.

What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
I could talk about different defining moments and wounding experiences that have shaped me and my life, but on some level, when we get to the archetypal core of the wound that we all carry with us as human beings, it’s that initial experience of separation when we are born into this world, the experience of moving from oneness to separateness and the ensuing experience of differentiation as we grow and develop. This could be called our initial abandonment wound, and perhaps it is a wound we all have to grieve all the way down to the existential core of it. As far as how I have healed this within myself, well, I don’t know that healing has a definitive end point and I don’t know that healing is really the goal as much as it is to have a relationship and dialogue with the wounded part. When we shift the goal in this way we avoid the disillusionment that can come when the wounded part resurfaces, because it will. As far as how I have come into relationship and dialogue with these wounds inside of myself, what I can say is that the first part was slowing down enough to allow the language of my physiology communicate what has been being held deeply inside the very fibers of my being and then meeting that communication. In some cases that has meant simple presence, in others it has been touch, sound or movement that allows things to start moving. Still other times it has been an image or memory that shows up to be worked with. Whatever it is that shows up the thread is followed down to where there is stuck or stored emotional resonance. All of this has taken place in the presence of an experienced and trusted therapist or practitioner that can hold a space big enough for all these parts to come forward. Then it has been a matter of allowing the time and space needed for the emotion to move through the system. In my experience, this has had the effect of taking the charge out of present moments of feeling misunderstood or missattuned to. I suppose, if I were to boil it down it is grief work, grieving the myriad losses of life, the loss of oneness, the loss of care, the loss of love, the loss of connection

Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. What’s a belief or project you’re committed to, no matter how long it takes?
I think maybe it’s more of a vision, but I really see that we’re in this pivotal portal in our time. We could go full zombie technology, disconnected, robot consumerist machine or we could turn back toward nature and the body—what’s here, real, and tangible. We could come back to connection, relationship, touch, being together bodies with other bodies learning how to revillage through hanging in with conflict, confrontation, and celebration. The simplest form of this is having a relationship with my own embodied experience. When I feel connected with nature with the seasons with a sense of place, when I feel connected with my body, when I feel like I’m honoring and connecting the rhythms of my hormonal system and life feels rich, beautiful, textured, and grounded in what is real. There is an intelligence inside of us that just far surpasses any AI or technology could possibly offer, because it’s an organic intelligence, that even our minds are far too limited to fully grock and understand. So no matter how long it takes, I am committed to holding this vision whether that’s in the form of my work with people, the way that I’m raising my child or the way that I’m living my life.

Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: If immortality were real, what would you build?
I would continue the work I am doing in the wilderness of the psyche and fold in working to restore our planet in the form of soil and land restoration. It would be a great gift to watch ecosystems flourish experience nature does what it does so beautifully, when given the chance and the opportunity. In addition I would love to be a part of the restoration of mythological lineages and earth-based culture because they honor connection with land, with place, with seasonality, with ritual and ceremony and community. Perhaps among all of this build tapestry of community and communal care.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://yoursoulrising.love/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mollymitchellhardt/

Image Credits
Last 4 photos by Erick Madrid