Matresence & Idenity Shift Therapy
in Pasadena & Sierra Madre & online throughout Califormia
Helping women rediscover themselves through the transition into motherhood
Motherhood changed more than your life—it changed you.
Compassionate therapy for women navigating the identity shifts, emotional changes, and quiet grief that can accompany becoming a mother.
Motherhood changes far more than your daily routine. It can reshape your identity, relationships, priorities, body, career, and sense of self.
Before becoming a mother, you may have felt more certain of who you were. You had your own rhythms, goals, relationships, interests, and sense of freedom. Now, so much of your time and energy may revolve around caring for everyone else, while your own needs are often the first to be postponed and the last to be noticed.
You may love your family deeply and still miss who you used to be. You may feel grateful for your life and simultaneously wonder why you feel so disconnected from yourself.
Questions like may quietly follow you through your days:
Who am I outside of being a mom?
Why do I miss my old life?
Will I ever feel like myself again?
These thoughts do not mean you are selfish, ungrateful, or failing. They do not mean you regret becoming a mother.
They may be part of matrescence—the emotional, psychological, and identity transformation that comes with becoming a mother.
Motherhood changed everything, including you. And you deserve space to understand who you are becoming.
What is matrescence?
Matrescence is the developmental transition into motherhood.
Much like adolescence, it involves profound changes in identity, relationships, emotions, priorities, and the body. Yet while adolescence is widely understood as a major life transition, mothers are often expected to adjust quickly and naturally.
The truth is that becoming a mother can be beautiful, disorienting, expansive, and painful—sometimes all at once.
Matrescence can begin during pregnancy and continue long after the postpartum period. It may resurface as your children grow, your family changes, or you enter a new stage of motherhood.
You are not meant to emerge from motherhood unchanged.
Matrescence is a developmental transition - one that can be meaningful, disorienting, joyful, painful, and deeply complex.
You may notice changes like…
✓ Feeling less connected to the person you were before motherhood
✓ Missing aspects of your former freedom, confidence, or identity
✓ Feeling guilty for wanting time or space for yourself
✓ Becoming more aware of the mental and emotional load you carry
✓ Feeling different in your relationship with your body, partner, career, or friendships
✓ Reconsidering your priorities, values, or sense of direction
✓ Feeling overlooked or less visible within your family
✓ Finding it difficult to make room for your needs alongside everyone else’s
✓ Comparing your experience of motherhood with other women’s
✓ Wondering what it might mean to feel more fully like yourself again
Therapy can help you reconnect with yourself.
Motherhood asks so much of you. In the midst of caring for everyone else, it's easy to lose touch with your own needs, dreams, and sense of identity.
Therapy offers a space where you no longer have to hold everything together. Together, we'll explore what has changed, what you may be grieving, and the parts of yourself that are longing for care and attention. Depending on your needs, I may integrate EMDR, Internal Family Systems (IFS), somatic therapy, attachment-based work, and nervous system regulation to help you process your experiences and move forward with greater clarity and self-compassion.
The goal isn't to become the woman you were before motherhood. It's to care for the woman you are today while making space for the woman you are becoming.
You can love your children deeply and still long for rest, creativity, meaningful work, friendship, or simply time to be yourself. Making room for your own needs doesn't take anything away from your family—it allows you to return to them with greater presence, resilience, and a stronger sense of who you are.
let’s begin
Let’s make space for who you are becoming.
Therapy can help you explore how motherhood has reshaped your identity and reconnect with a sense of self that feels grounded, meaningful, and true to you.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Matrescence is the emotional, psychological, relational, and identity transition that occurs as a woman becomes a mother. It can involve changes in your sense of self, priorities, body, relationships, career, and emotional life. Although it often begins during pregnancy or postpartum, it can continue or resurface throughout motherhood.
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Yes. Missing aspects of your former life does not mean you regret becoming a mother or do not love your children. Motherhood often involves real losses alongside its joys, including changes in freedom, identity, relationships, work, and time. Therapy can help you make space for both gratitude and grief.
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These feelings can coexist. You can value motherhood deeply and still need creativity, purpose, connection, rest, or meaningful work outside of parenting. Therapy can help you identify what is missing and find ways to bring more of yourself back into your life.
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Yes. Matrescence is not limited to the first year after birth. Identity shifts may continue for years and can re-emerge as your children grow, you return to work, family roles change, or you enter another stage of motherhood.
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Therapy can help you understand what has changed, process grief or resentment, clarify your needs and values, strengthen boundaries, and reconnect with parts of yourself that may have been neglected. It offers space to explore who you are now without pressure to return to who you were before.
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No. You do not need a diagnosis or a mental health crisis to benefit from therapy. Many mothers seek support because they feel disconnected, stuck, overwhelmed, resentful, or uncertain about who they have become.
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Yes. I offer in-person therapy in Sierra Madre, serving women throughout Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley, as well as secure online therapy for adults throughout California.