The Woman Who Forgot She Was Made of Saltwater

A modern fable on re-enchantment as survival — weaving neuroscience, trauma healing, and the return to the inner child after exile

Once, there was a woman, strap-tongued and heavy with bite, who lived far from the shore, though she did not know it.

Her days were filled with things she could not put down: tasks, responsibilities, noise, expectation. Her laughter had dried somewhere in the folds of time - pressed seaweed in a crooked book. She wore small shoes that pinched, carried loaded bags that bent her back, and her hands, once full of feathers and paint, were now calloused and always doing something.

At night though, she dreamed of waves and water.

A song calling in a language she no longer spoke.
A name she couldn’t quite remember in the pressed corners and underbelly of her mind.

She didn’t know she had once belonged to the sea’s outstretched arms.
She didn’t know she had once danced with dolphins and moonlight, or sung storms into stillness.
She didn’t know, that is of course, until the day the child arrived.

The girl was found curled on her doorstep, handed by some unknown stranger, soaked to the bone, skin shining faintly with scales that faded in the light. She said nothing, only smiled in a way that made the woman’s ribs ache with sudden memory.

And so, the woman took her in. Called her little one. Wrapped her in warm towels. Fed her soup and stories.

The child laughed loudly. She painted with wild colours - the world her canvas. She lined up stones and sang to them. And slowly, the woman began to hum.

The child asked provoking questions, as they often do, like: “Why don’t you dance when the wind comes?” and “Didn’t you used to fly in dreams?”

And the woman, oh, the woman, began to remember.

Not all at once.
But in flashes:
The smell of brine.
A blue ribbon.
Her own voice, melodic, before it was silenced.

Yet, sadly, sea-children do not stay long.

One day, the girl was gone. Returned to the tide that first bore her.

In her wake, she left a gift behind. A mirror made of shell and sorrow, salt and starlight.

The woman looked into it.
And for the first time, she saw not who she had become - but who she still was.

Not ruined. Not lost.
Yearning. Wild.

Still made of saltwater.

Some stories are not just stories. They echo. They shimmer at the edges of our own lives. I have met this woman many times - in workshop circles, in reflections across the page, sometimes in the mirror.

I remember an elder’s words as a teen, for example. We were standing in a doorway - half home, half escape - on the breath between relapse and return. They told me, quietly, that the light at the end of my garden - the one I’d always seen as my Narnia lamp, glowing with magic at just the right angle - was the place they often dreamed of driving into at full speed. The easiest way to go.

There are so many little moments like this. Where enchantment is tarnished. Children are forced to grow up too quickly, where joy is buried under responsibility, and the ache of survival and the darkness of the world becomes a swallowing shadow pressed upon us by many things outside of our own control.

This tale is a composite archetype - a Sea-Morgan Mother, inspired by Welsh folklore, whose inner Selkie remembers herself through the care of a magical child. A reflection of so many women I meet in my workshops - tired, aching, brilliant - who begin to reclaim their enchantment, not by escaping life, or burying their truthful shadows, but by listening for the song beneath it.

Traumatized individuals often disconnect from their sensations, thoughts, and desires because their bodies were once unsafe to inhabit.

This fragmentation of self can look like

• Disconnection from the inner child (the playful, creative, emotional self)

• “Masking” or people-pleasing to stay safe

• Abandonment of creativity, expression, and spontaneity

• Inner split: the caretaker vs. the dreamer; the doer vs. the feeler

As Peter Levine states, “Trauma creates a fragmentation of the coherence of experience.”
— Somatic Experiencing

Therefore, the traumatized child often grows into an adult who cannot feel safe enough to rest or play. This insight illustrates how trauma interrupts our ability to experience ourselves as a unified whole.

Likewise, this is what happens when the body experiences trauma: it rewires itself for survival.

Three key areas are affected:

1. Amygdala – The Alarm Bell

• Becomes hypervigilant.

• Always scanning for danger, even when you're safe.

• Keeps you in fight, flight, freeze or fawn.

2. Prefrontal Cortex – The Imagination Centre

• Goes offline in crisis.

• This is where creativity, language, and planning live.

• When it dims, so does our ability to daydream, write, or feel like ourselves.

3. Hippocampus – The Memory Weaver

• Becomes disoriented.

• Struggles to file experiences properly.

• This is why the past can feel like it's still happening, and why trauma fragments the self.

Trauma doesn't just live in memory.
It lives in the body. It rewires the brain.
No wonder we forget how to sing, paint, or play.
Our nervous system has been too busy surviving.

Returning to re-enchantment then is not simply an act of whimsy and child-like magic, but a rebellion against the shadows which tried and still try to consume us. A revolutionary act. There is so much to discourage us in this wild, wicked and wonderous world. So much that makes our enchantment dwindle, discarding core-soul parts of ourselves to become more palatable. But there is freedom to be found here and whimsy as reclamation is how we fight back - joy becoming a kindling flame, that lights the way for ourselves and others buried parts with pockets full of silencing.

So how do we actually remember our songs?

We begin by making the body feel safe enough to sing again.
We let play back in—not as indulgence, but as resurrection.
We listen for what delighted our younger selves, and do it slowly, softly, rebelliously.

We gather what shines - those tiny, defiant joys.
We become magpies again.

If you’re aching to soften, to reclaim joy, and to feel safe in your body again—subscribe to unlock the full trauma-informed guide: science-backed healing tools, inner child rituals, play theory, and creative prompts below. You’ll also receive an invitation to Magpie Moments—a private community chat where we gather what glimmers and practice daily enchantment, inspiring, together. {Plus lots of other goodies for less than a cup of coffee!} I’d absolutely love to have you there!

~ How We Begin Again ~

We begin slowly. Softly. Not by forcing change, but by tending to the ground beneath us. Before we can reclaim play, we must first rebuild the conditions that make joy possible. And that begins, always, with safety.

Returning to the Inner Child

There is a part of us that never left.
She lives in memory, in dreams, in the quiet ache we feel when we see someone laugh too freely.
She is not childish, but sacred. The one who once believed in magic. The one who wanted to dance, to paint, to be seen. The one who hid herself to survive.

Inner child work is not about indulgence. It is about restoration. Reconnection.
It is about holding the hand of the girl we once were and whispering, “I see you now. I’m ready to listen.”

Practices:

• Write a letter to your younger self, then write one back from her. Let the tone shift. Let her be honest, strange, free.

• Look at an old photograph and notice what she’s carrying. What does she need? What does she want to say?

• Let her guide your day, even just for a moment. Wear what she would have worn. Eat what she would have loved. Pick wildflowers for no reason.

Building Somatic Safety

Trauma lives in the body. And so too must the healing.

When we are in survival mode, our nervous system is not concerned with creativity or connection. It is simply trying to keep us alive. This is why play often feels impossible - not because we are broken, but because our body doesn’t yet believe it’s safe.

Stephen Porges describes this through Polyvagal Theory: in order to access joy, we must move out of fight, flight, or freeze, and into a state of felt safety. What he calls the “ventral vagal” state. A place of rest. A place of home.

Practices:

• Sing! Use rhythm to soothe. Rock gently. Hum softly. Let your voice become a lullaby.

• Orient to the room you’re in. Ground in your breathe. Turn your head. Name five colours. Let your body know you are here.

• Try havening touch - stroking your arms and face gently, as you would comfort a child.

• Let slowness become your rebellion. Choose one small act today that signals to your body, “You are safe. You don’t have to rush.”

As Ilene Smith writes, healing is not in the thinking. It is in the body remembering it is allowed to soften.

Letting Play Return

There is a reason mammals play. It is how they learn, how they bond, how they heal.

Jaak Panksepp found that play activates the parts of the brain responsible for joy, social bonding, and resilience. It is not a reward for healing. It is the path to it.

But we cannot begin with structured games or curated joy. We begin by noticing what stirs us. What awakens a flicker of delight.

Practices:

• Make a “joy map” of what delighted you as a child. Sidewalk chalk, collecting feathers, baking messy cakes. Try one, without judgment.

• Go on a solo adventure with no destination. Let yourself follow the tug of curiosity.

• Dress with whimsy. Wear a ribbon. Mismatch your socks. Let your body feel like a painting again. Adorn yourself and embody your latest creative project!

• Make something with your hands - not for display, not for praise, not for feedback, just because it feels good. For you.

The Neuroscience of Enchantment

Wonder is not frivolous. It is deeply biological.

Moments of awe and delight release dopamine (motivation), oxytocin (bonding), and reduce cortisol (stress). According to Ingrid Fetell Lee, sensory joys - bright colours, soft textures, gentle patterns - calm the brain and reawaken the reward system. In doing so, they rewire us for trust, for presence, for pleasure.

Furthermore, as Barbara Fredrickson writes, joy broadens and builds. It expands the mind. It restores the heart.

Practices:

• Begin a Magpie Journal. Each evening, gather what shimmered: a stranger’s kindness, a flicker of light, the sound of a robin.

• Create a small altar of wonder. Fill it with items that feel alive - shells, dried flowers, scent, light.

• Take “beauty walks.” Move slowly through the world. Speak aloud what is lovely. Let the world hear you naming it back into meaning.

As Robert Macfarlane says, “Naming beauty helps us recover lost intimacy with the world.”
And it helps us recover intimacy with ourselves.

Narrative as Reclamation

We do not have to tell our stories directly to heal them. Sometimes it is safer to tell them sideways - in metaphor, in fable, in poem.

According to White and Epston, externalizing stories - especially through fairy tale structure - allows survivors to reframe their pain, to become the heroine instead of the wound. Something I found deeply healing in my own journey healing from C-PTSD.

Practices:

• Write your story as myth. Give your fear a creature name. Find the enchanted object that saves you.

• Ask: what ash is waiting to be spun into gold? What spell do I need to break?

• Speak to the enchantress within. What does she know? What does she long for you to remember?

As Clarissa Pinkola Estés reminds us, “The wild woman is the one who goes by her instincts.” And stories are how she remembers.

Nature, Children, and the Sacred Mundane

Re-enchantment doesn’t live in the abstract. It lives in earth, in bark, in breath.

Sharon Blackie speaks of enchantment as a return to sacred relationship - with place, with body, with myth. It is a listening, a tending, a remembering of the old ways of being.

Children are masters of this. So are animals. So is the dusk.

Practices:

• Spend time near children and let them lead. Let their play show you what’s still possible.

• Imagine a woodlands story, the villages folklore, the life of a tree. (Bonus if you can share this with someone on a walk and begin with the sentence. Imagine if?)

• Mimic the weather you most relate to. Move like it. What does it know?

• Sit beneath the moon/stars. Say nothing. Let her see you. Imagine you are her dream.

You do not need to be fixed before you begin.
You need only be willing to look for the shimmer.
To gather one small thing each day that reminds you - you are still here.
You are still capable of joy.
You are still made of saltwater.

A Soft Invitation

If this piece stirred something in you - if a memory returned, if a forgotten part of you leaned in - I’d love to invite you deeper.

Magpie Moments is a quiet gathering place I’m building. A group chat and community space for paid subscribers to gently practice joy together. Think of it as a nest for noticing - the small glimmers that bring us back to ourselves: light on water, the curve of a petal, a child’s laugh, a song that stirs something old and true.

It’s not performative. It’s not overwhelming. It’s just a slow, shared practice of remembering what delights us.

Inside, we’ll help one another rewire our neural responses. Rebuild trust in safety. Share what’s softening us. And inspire one another toward re-enchantment through:

• Noticing the good

• Play, games, and exploration

• Creativity without outcome

• Touches of nature

• Doing what makes us happy (softly)

Whether you’re already a paid subscriber (thank you for making this work possible), or considering joining (subscriptions are 20% off for now - less than a cup of coffee), your support helps me keep writing stories like this, creating trauma-informed resources, and holding space for collective healing.

I’ll be posting Magpie Moment prompts regularly. You’re welcome to join in, tag me, or simply read along and gather quietly. All forms of presence are welcome.

Let’s begin practicing enchantment, together.
Let’s help each other come home.