I used to run a mom-to-mom postpartum support group. I started it Spring 2014 when my daughter was one-year-old because it was something I needed and wanted. I had made mom friends; I had told people I had postpartum depression; but I needed mom friends who had had similar postpartum experiences.

The group went on hiatus when I was pregnant with Julian. I puked the entire pregnancy and just couldn’t handle scheduled meetings when I needed to be in bed, feeling like death.

I rebooted the group when Julian was about six months old because my intuition decided it was time. It felt right. Running the support group inspired me to start my podcast Adventures With Postpartum Depression so I could reach moms who could not attend group due to nap times and geography. After a few months, I found the group a permanent home at The Family Room. Instead of sporadic meetings at playgrounds, I hosted the group every Thursday afternoon in a climate-controlled room. It was great. It was the right thing for me to do.

Until one day, it wasn’t.

A few weeks ago, on Pippa’s first day of kindergarten, an idea bubbled up from my intuition: it was time for me to stop running a postpartum support group.

What?! That seemed outlandish. I had assumed I would run the group for at least five more years.

Nope, my intuition said. It’s time to stop.

Okay, I bargained. What if I run the group once a month?

No. You need more time to write. Even one afternoon enough takes away too much time from your writing.

Okay, I thought. What if I run the group once a month at night? I never write at night, but I like socializing at night.

No, my intuition said, that’s not right either. You need to stop doing the group all together.

I realized, about 48 hours after the idea first bubbled into my conscious thought, that “ending support group” was more than an issue of needing more time to write. It was (and still is) about my personal healing journey.

I told the owner of The Family Room that I needed to stop running the support group because my intuition was telling me to move on. She wants to continue the group in some capacity but was very supportive of my decision. And so, that is what I’m doing. Last week, I hosted my weekly support group for the last time. Now, a week has passed and it is Thursday again. Instead of packing up and driving over tosupport group, I’m writing at Starbucks. In an hour, I’ll be getting a massage.

I don’t know yet why my intuition wanted me to stop running support group. I have a few inklings about “needing more time to write” and “taking my foot out of 2013, when I had PPD, and placing it in 2018, when I’m working on different issues.”

Maybe ending support group will help me build and strengthen the relationships I have with the people in my life. With weekly support group, I got the chance to have deep, powerful conversations with amazing women every week. But most women only attended once and then moved on with their recovery. So I was having meaningful conversations but not building meaningful relationships. Maybe, just maybe, the support group was becoming a crutch that excused me from truly opening up to my friends and family because I was already being open with strangers at a weekly support group.

Huh.

I don’t know.

Ultimately, there are probably a lot of different reasons that I needed to end support group. I think it’s important for me to stay tuned in to myself and recognize my shifting and changing wants and needs. I can have five year and ten year plans, but ultimately, life is uncertain. I am changing every day with every experience I have. I could have resisted and kept limping along with support group for several more months or even years, lashing myself onward and forward because “it was the right thing to do.” That’s what happened when I went to law school and became a miserable lawyer. I made myself practice the law for years and years because I had spent the money on law school and it was the right thing to do.

But postpartum depression pushed me to a higher level. Now I’m at a place where I can tune into my intuition’s frequency, figure out what I want and need to do, and make big changes when they need to happen.

I wonder what magical things will happen in my life next!