Cayley Benjamin Coaching

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Cayley Benjamin Coaching

Virtual workshops and coaching supporting mothers to normalize the transition to motherhood and to lead fulfilling lives.

08/20/2026

BC passed Bill M204 in May 2025 recognizing the need to create a perinatal mental health strategy. The strategy is yet to be created, and it’s still not funded.

This morning on Global BC, The MotherFlock and I talked about why that matters — and what grassroots groups like ours are doing about it.

Bill M204, in short:

Bill M204 received Royal Assent on May 29, 2025 - the first Private Member’s Bill in 43 years to pass Second Reading unanimously in the BC Legislature.

It requires the Minister of Health to develop a perinatal and postnatal mental health strategy for BC, covering:

Universal access to perinatal mental health care
Timely access to perinatal mental health providers
Expanding community-based perinatal mental health services
Increasing health care provider training
Addressing the social determinants of perinatal mental health
Reducing barriers to accessing care

The government had one year to deliver that strategy.

Last week, the BC Select Standing Committee on Finance released its 2027 budget recommendations — funding for Bill M204 wasn’t among them.

So far: no strategy, and no substantive funding.

07/22/2026

This is Vivian 👆🏻speaking about her matrescence and her founder’s story this past weekend

Five years ago, I was launching what is now becomingThe Matrescence Movement, and Vivian was in the thick of her own matrescence — dealing with a severe pregnancy rash and refusing to accept there weren’t better, safer options for her skin and her baby’s. Out of that frustration and conviction, she built Naetal® | natural mama, baby & family skincare

That’s matrescence in action: it doesn’t just change your circumstances, it changes you — your body, your mind, your identity. It challenges you and presents you with opportunities. And sometimes, it becomes the thing that changes what you build.

Vivian took her lived experience and turned it into a company that’s nurtured five years’ worth of mothers and babies.

I was honoured to celebrate Naetal’s 5th anniversary this weekend, and to celebrate Vivian — a woman who has generously supported my work from the very beginning. Here’s to five years, Vivian!

Not sponsored — I so deeply believe in sharing powerful stories of matrescence.

06/19/2026

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Mead

12 practitioners said yes to the first cohort of Matrescence: In Practice, the matrescence practitioner training program I launched this year.

12 practitioners from coast to coast in Canada, United States and Australia!

While the tendency is to move onto the next thing, I want to pause and acknowledge this monumental moment.

Watching practitioners — people who already care so deeply about the women they serve — encounter matrescence for the first time and/or explore it more deeply is something I will never get tired of.

The moment a concept lands. The quiet that follows. And then: “I’ve been seeing this for years. I just didn’t have a name for it.”

That’s why this work exists. Not to add something new to an already overloaded practitioner’s plate — but to offer a lens that makes everything they’re already noticing make more sense.

Every practitioner who learns to recognize matrescence carries that knowledge into every session, every appointment, every conversation with a mother.

This is the ripple effect of matrescence education.

Cohort 1, thank you. I am so inspired by you - we are changing the world!

06/02/2026

Imagine being the first person to say to a client: “What you’re going through has a name. It’s called matrescence.”

That moment of recognition? It can change everything.

Practitioners don’t need to have all the answers, yet having the language and knowing how to use it can fundamentally shift the experience of motherhood for mothers.

That’s exactly what the Matrescence Practitioner Training Program is designed to give you:

A high level grounding in matrescence
Key research
How to name it for your client/patients
What matrescence-informed care looks like in your context

Sometimes, a single word is the most powerful tool in the room.

Matrescence: In Practice
June 11 & 18 | 12–1:30pm PST | Zoom

Link in bio to learn more

05/29/2026

Did you know the term adolescence is only 100 years old?

In 1904, G. Stanley Hall named adolescence — and it ultimately changed how we understood and supported young people forever.

Matrescence is having that same moment.

First named in 1973 by Dr. Dana Raphael, matrescence is the profound transformation a woman undergoes when she becomes a mother. Resurrected in the early 2000s by Dr. Aurelie Athan, it’s only now beginning to receive the rattention it has always deserved.

If you work with women, mothers, parents or families — this is the most important developmental stage you were never taught about.

Matrescence: In Practice is a specialist training program designed to give you enough grounding in matrescence to recognize it and name it for your patients and clients. Because I know that can make all the difference.

June 11 & 18 | 12–1:30pm PST | Zoom

Link in bio. Early bird rate ends today!

05/26/2026

During the average low-risk pregnancy in Canada, there are:

12+ doctors/health care provider appointments
2+ ultrasounds
3-5 blood tests

And for many,
Pelvic floor physio appointments
Prenatal massages
Prenatal fitness classes
And birth prep courses

And for most, not one mention of matrescence. Not one conversation about the identity shift she’s moving through.

This where you come in.

The Matrescence Practitioner Program will equip you with the language and knowledge to prepare her for what’s happening to her sense of self — who she was, who she’s becoming, and the tender, disorienting space in between.

June 11 & 18 | 12–1:30pm PST | Zoom

Early bird registration ends for the program this Friday May 29

Link in bio to learn more about the program.

05/22/2026

One week left to register for the Matrescence Practitioner Training Program at the early bird rate.

I designed this program for practitioners who want real, applicable knowledge. Just two 90-minute Zoom sessions built around your full life.

My goal is simple: that you walk away with enough grounding in matrescence to recognize it and name it for your patients and clients. Because I know that can make all the difference.

June 11 & 18 | 12–1:30pm PST | Zoom

Link in bio to register before the early bird rate ends.

05/08/2026

Over the next two weeks, I’m bringing conversations on matrescence to parents and practitioners at three events (online and in person):

May 13 | Matrescence & the Identity Shift of Motherhood | For parents

Mqy 14 | Matrescence: A Missing Piece in Maternal Care | For practitioners

May 20 | Creating Capacity: Parenting, Partnership & the Goldie Effect

Mothers, and all parents, deserve to have their experience named, witnessed, and truly understood. These events have been created to give mothers, parents and the practitioners who support them the language, the tools, and the community to make that happen.

Please join us.

Link in bio to register.

05/05/2026

It’s Maternal Mental Health Week. And there is a concept that belongs as part of this conversation……

It’s called matrescence.

We talk a lot about pathology in maternal mental health — postpartum depression, perinatal anxiety, perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.

These matter deeply and deserve every bit of attention they receive.

But pathology is not the whole picture. For the mothers who don’t meet a clinical threshold — the current conversation has very little to offer. And that gap has consequences.

This Maternal Mental Health Week, we are making the case for matrescence as a foundational piece of the conversation — for mothers, for practitioners, and for the health care institutions and training programs shaping maternal care.

The word matrescence is not a linguistic gesture. It is a clinically meaningful intervention.

Join my free virtual talk next Thursday May 14 - Matrescence: A Missing Piece in Maternal Care at 12pm PST on zoom.

Link in bio.

This week’s in person workshop is SOLD OUT!

Sources:

Trinko, Victoria et al. “Improving maternal well-being: a matrescence education pilot study for new mothers.” Maternal health, neonatology and perinatology vol. 11,1 18. 2 Jul. 2025, doi:10.1186/s40748-025-00203-0

Athan, Aurelie M. “A critical need for the concept of matrescence in perinatal psychiatry.” Frontiers in psychiatry vol. 15 1364845. 10 Jun. 2024, doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1364845

# matrescencemovement

04/22/2026

Last night I was in a room with Gabor Maté. And everything he said made the case for matrescence.

He asked how many people in the room had been pregnant.
Most hands went up.

Then he asked how many were asked about their emotional wellbeing at their first prenatal appointment.
Almost every hand went down.

That gap is exactly what the Matrescence Movement exists to close.

- the inspirational creator of last night’s event - called the healthcare system what it is: “a sick care system, not a health care system.”

A system built on pathology — with no framework for a healthy developmental transformation.

Matrescence is not a pathology.
It is a becoming.
And it is time practitioners had the framework to meet it.

Please share it with a practitioner you know - this is a grassroots movement.

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