Introducing Cassandra Stark: Creative Founder, author, and the visionary behind The BeMo Practice, a transformative tool born from her own journey of emotional healing.
In this candid interview with House of Coco, Cassandra shares how her personal battles with self-doubt, loneliness, and emotional cycles led her to discover a nurturing approach to mind-body wellness. With over 20 years of therapy behind her, it was through deep introspection, academic research, and her unique journaling method that she developed The BeMo Practice—an accessible, adaptable, and empowering process aimed at helping others reconnect with themselves.
From the launch of the BeMo Journal in 2022 during Mental Health Awareness Month to its widespread use today, Cassandra’s dedication to holistic wellness has inspired countless individuals to embark on their own healing journeys. Now, she’s opening up about her path to self-awareness, emotional security, and how The BeMo Practice is changing lives. Dive into this interview for a closer look at the woman behind the movement and the wisdom she’s gathered along the way.
Cassandra, your journey with BeMo began from a very personal space of self-discovery and healing. Could you share a pivotal moment in your life that led to the creation of The BeMo Journal?
Like many healing journeys, there are a lot of points I’d call “the start,” but the one that comes to mind as most pivotal to my healing journey, which is also the journey of creating BeMo, was about a year into COVID. Not knowing that it was going to last, my partner and I had launched a home renovation and headed out on a road trip that felt more like wandering across the country in a silent zombie movie – looking for a group of people who would allow us in and would welcome us to stay a while. Only in hindsight do I recognise the parallels of tearing down the walls of our homes and how it coincides directly with tearing down the walls I had built within myself to see for the first real time, what my foundation was built on.
My partner and I were on our way back home, driving through the New Mexico desert – a road I’d driven well over a dozen times. Suddenly, I couldn’t speak. The very skin of my body kept flexing and shaking like a horse trying to rid itself of flies. All I could do was hide and groan. I couldn’t look at the road ahead or notice the car that captivated me.
My partner had to pull over and wait for me to talk. All I could do was cry and look at him with these big, pleading eyes. What I was experiencing wasn’t new, but its frequency was growing rapidly. So, he called my long time friend and therapist – someone I’d been seeing off and on for nearly 20 years. At that moment, unable to form words because describing my body experience made it that much more painful, my therapist broke the fourth wall of therapy and told me exactly what I was going through – and why. I couldn’t argue. He was right. At that point, I had already started creating the early versions of The BeMo Practice, sketched across nearly a dozen journals. But after that moment, I leaned into it with the energy of rising to the top of the first fall on a rollercoaster. This was my grip bar, my seatbelt, my safety and I could not see the wild ride ahead. This point of realised trauma, experienced violently through body memories and flashbacks allowed me to find the last pieces that would make this practice hold space for joy on the good days and provide safety in the darkest times.
Two weeks after I first shared my daily practice with someone, I realised that if this practice could hold me through that, I owed it to the world to share it. Therapy wasn’t enough for me. As good as my therapist was, therapy is infrequent, short, and expensive. And it’s only as reliable as our ability to put ourselves out there in 45 minutes. I’d leave profound sessions wondering, “Ya, but how?” How do I be kinder to myself? How do I break through without breaking down? How do I set boundaries? How do I rid my life of toxic relationships? BeMo became the answer to these questions and more I didn’t even know I had at the time. It’s my “how,” and it has changed my life exponentially.
The BeMo Journal is described as more than just a journal. What sets it apart from traditional journaling practices, and how did you integrate those unique elements into its design?
The BeMo Journal isn’t just blank pages—it’s a guided experience for personal growth and self-healing. It includes an intuitive guide to The BeMo Practice, the very steps I created to break through my healing journey and escape trauma response patterns. It’s not a workbook that boxes you in with rigid prompts; instead, it gives you the freedom to go as deep as you need, whether that’s on one page or 40.
The BeMo Journal also includes tools like a glossary of feelings and needs, organised for quick reference, and the interactive Feelings-to-Needs Wheel, which is part of the FUNCK Method—the core of The BeMo Practice. You’ll also find 3-6 months of habit tracking, creative dot pages for doodling, photos, and even a Things To Forget section. This section is my personal favourite—it helps you focus on your feelings instead of letting to-do lists pull you out of the moment. The BeMo Journal gives you the space to work through whatever you need, whenever you need it, without being another venting session that doesn’t truly leave you feeling changed for the better.
You mention the FUNCK methodology as a core part of The BeMo Practice. Can you explain what each element of FUNCK stands for and how it empowers individuals to shift from a survival state to a thriving one?
Without giving away too much, the FUNCK Method involves five stages of self-awareness and discovery. When you follow them in order, in one sitting, you can really connect with yourself and self-soothe. The stages help you identify what you’re feeling, respond with compassion, dig into your needs narrative, recognise empowered choices, and ground yourself in what you know about yourself.
The FUNCK Method moves you from a survival state—where you’re stuck in stress or trauma responses like fight, flight, freeze, faint, and fawn—to a state of presence and Being, where you can thrive. It’s like a self-therapy tool that helps you learn from yourself and go deeper with every practice. As you repeat the process, you’ll move through the four stages of healing: Feel, Deal, Reveal, and Heal.
As you build emotional safety and attachment security with each stage, you’ll experience more within that stage. For example, as you become more comfortable with identifying feelings, you’ll identify more and more of them which will put you in a state of dealing with how you feel. Now, as you continue working through The BeMo Practice, you’ll recognise your state of dealing and start to understand the lifelong narrative behind how you behave, react, and essentially deal with situations which is already evidence that you’re starting to reveal more. The reveal stage is the longest and one that will cycle you back through feel-and-deal until you have built enough personal safety and security around your personal narrative that you are able to unwind individual storylines and discover what wasn’t in your power, what a secure response to your need would have been, and then choosing to show up for that inner child and your adult-self with that need today.
Over time, you’ll build emotional safety and attachment security, and you’ll see real change. FUNCK isn’t just a method—it becomes part of how you talk to yourself and, in turn, how you interact with others. It is easy to remember and weaves its way into your innermost thoughts allowing you to speak to yourself differently which, in turn, becomes the secure and assertive behaviour you have with others. Rather than focusing on all of the exact logic around “how” to do things like set boundaries, FUNCK allows you to arrive at your personal answer – the one that is right for you with the full story as to why you need it and what you can do about it.
BeMo emphasises emotional regulation and self-awareness. How do you believe these tools can transform someone’s daily life and their long-term personal growth?
The BeMo Practice, especially the FUNCK Method, gradually teaches you to break up with “need to’s.” There’s nothing you absolutely “need to” do—not now, not ever. Instead, BeMo helps you challenge that inner dialogue and reframe your approach to life. You move from anxious or avoidant attachment behaviours to a more secure way of Being, which makes space for real change.
In daily life, BeMo helps people be more present, confident, and emotionally aware. Some people use it to handle trauma, while others use it to navigate conflicts or prepare for difficult conversations. Parents use it to be more present with their kids, and families use it to connect in a safe space. Executives even use it to better understand their teams. No matter how you use it, BeMo fosters healing by changing how you respond to life’s challenges. It’s not about erasing your feelings or stories—it’s about not letting them inform your presence.
Your personal experience with burnout played a significant role in the development of BeMo. How does The BeMo Journal address the issues of burnout, especially for those who feel disconnected from their dreams and values?
Burnout often comes from a disconnect between feelings and needs. When you’re stuck in your attachment style—whether you’re feeling everything all the time or avoiding everything altogether—it can lead to burnout. The BeMo Journal helps you reconnect with your core needs and values, building the confidence and security to make assertive, bold choices that align with who you truly are.
I went through my own experience with burnout while juggling big career moves and personal upheaval. To fully illustrate how burnout can be healed, I’ll talk about my own experience with this.
Before that experience on the side of the road in New Mexico and before COVID left so many jobs in question, I was moving through a rapid and involuntary state of change – moving from Australia back to the United States to a new State while trying to lead an International Marketing Team for an agency I’d been running for most of a decade. During that time, I moved from one client to another, serving others big box needs in ways that felt increasingly worse for both myself and my team. I was waking at 6AM to work from a coffee shop for hours before working on the train to work, being bombarded with useless meetings all day long and responsible for so much more than my job description only to get back to what it was I had to do by 6:00PM when the office was mostly empty and I’d stay later, work on the train longer, and then toss and turn through a sleepless night to do it all over again.
I’d wager a bet that this lifestyle sounds very familiar to a lot of people experiencing burnout in their careers. But burnout goes so much further than the commute between our inner self and our work desk.
This is when I started to feel deeply unhappy, angry, and desperate for a change. I just didn’t know how or what!
We were on that cross-country zombie-like road trip when I was about one year into being groomed as the CEO for a tech startup I was a partner in. That New Year’s Eve from a quiet, un-celebrating New York City, I sat on the couch of a rented apartment by myself and decided to move through the FUNCK of my career – a moment where I began reaching for additional therapies and behaviour information that would form this self-healing acronym in its near final state, bringing all five steps together for the first time. One week later, I boldly quit my job.
From a couch in Washington DC after experiencing a horrendous night being stuck in the middle of America’s infamous insurrection when I was neither invited nor taking part in any of it, I took what I had written in my journal over the last week, what I deeply knew about myself, and the freshened “life is too short for this” outlook and quit the first thing I had ever quit in my life. I quit my job. I quit all of the beliefs around what it meant to be a female CEO. I quit what it meant to me or what I thought it meant to my relationship with my family. I quit all of it! I had never quit anything and by that I mean I had not only never quit a job properly, I had never properly left a relationship or an apartment. I was more of a leave-a-note-if-you’re-lucky-disappear-in-the-night type. For me to step into even this much power for myself was already a phenomenal breakthrough for me.
So, how does BeMo address the issue of burnout and disconnect from dreams and values? It builds confidence and security. It allows space for assertive, bold, and brave behaviour that is backed by your self-understanding and your choice.
Like a therapist, BeMo guides you to the answers. But unlike a therapist, BeMo is always there with you for the long haul, when the moment is bright or dark, when the conversation is a 10 minute one or a 3-hour one; unlike a therapist BeMo doesn’t have its own bad days or baggage, it is never tired, nor do you have to worry if it is tired of you or if it really wants to hear you hash out that storyline one more time. It does. In fact, the more often something repeats in your life, it is repeating in your mind so much more – creating burn out! That’s why I often tell people that it is journaling on the good days and the boring days that actually will take you so much farther. Those are the days, you truly get to hear what’s on repeat in your mind and start to break down why you’re putting yourself through this again and again!
Wanna beat burnout? Meet BeMo in that “need to” versus “need for” narrative challenge. BeMo will teach you how to work on your own “how-to” without all the “need to” of it all because so many of us associate that type of need with manipulation, gaslighting, and ultimately – burn out. BeMo is there when you’re tired and there when you’re ready to wake your Self up.
The Needs Wheel and Feelings Wheel are key components of The BeMo Journal. How did you develop these tools, and what impact do you see them having on users’ understanding of their emotions and behaviours?
Everything about The BeMo Practice came from nearly three years of living in desperate need for change without understanding how or what exactly it was I wanted to become. During this time, I went back to my roots of studying behaviour and psychology – from business communications to love and sex in relationships, from the art of stillness to habit stacking and goal forming. I studied attachment theory, internal family systems, radical acceptance, dialectical behaviour theory, cognitive behaviour therapy, shadow work, reparenting, and more. I also broke up a lot of my studies by intently reading and listening to memoirs, taking me further into people’s most common experiences.
From all of this, I tried every suggestion and when it felt like it failed me, I asked myself if anything about the process still resonated with me. Bit by bit, as I practiced everything and found myself uninspired, unchanged, unable to adopt it into my subconscious behaviour or live independently from it while still experiencing a change within, I took the things that did inspire me and started to build a framework of more questions which led me to digging for deeper answers.
I studied core values as they relate to goals and habits. I studied what helps us be actionable, accountable, and present with both habits and healing. I listened to talks, worked through endless workbooks, and read so many medical studies. I stared at brain scans and studied neurotransmitters which led me down a long path of functional medicine. I went everywhere with this and tried everything in an effort to change myself – to hold on to a job, to hold on to a relationship, and in the end, to let all of it go and hold myself a little tighter instead.
The Needs & Feelings Wheel took the longest to build. Years. The two are synonymous and interactive with each other; the first of their kind.
Needs, as you may already know, were first popularised by Abraham Maslow and his Hierarchy of Needs. I studied his papers alongside core values and attachment theory. Bringing these three elements together, I built the Needs glossary and Needs Wheel that you’ll find in The BeMo Journal today. From here, I took the core of the feelings that we experience as humans and built upon it with a very weathered thesaurus – specifically building from simple to more complicated and diverse feelings that, at the end of the day, would align with the met/unmet Need of the Needs Wheel.
This took a lot of study, feedback from therapists, and tedious work, but in the end, it is by far the favourite tool of The BeMo Practice.
My partner and I use the Feelings & Needs Wheel for all crucial conversations and our weekly relationship sessions – where we approach our plans for the week more as intentions and discuss how our choices relate to our core need..
Many people struggle with the ‘how’ of healing, as you did. How does The BeMo Practice guide users in bridging the gap between knowing they need to heal and actually taking steps to do so?
Like therapy, there’s nothing I can do nor is there anything BeMo can do to truly let someone Know when it is time to embark on a healing journey. You’ll Know when you’re ready.
A lot of users start with BeMo not with an intention of healing but simply as a new journal. But the FUNCK Method is magic in that way. Even using it as a daily checkin, you’ll start to find repetitions and gaps in your life – recognising them is the start of healing.
It’s like building muscle memory at the gym—you’re strengthening your emotional resilience, and over time, your mind becomes more willing to reveal what you need to heal. The more you practice, the more your unconscious memories start to surface, and you’ll find yourself better equipped to handle what comes up.
With BeMo, I have been incredibly lucky to speak at events and be a part of retreats hosted around the world. Through these events, I am often hosting a dozen or sometimes a room full of first time BeMo users who come at it with absolutely no previous information. In these moments, I am grateful to be able to observe human behaviour as I witness the different ways that hope and discomfort roll through people as they feel a deep need, but can’t yet put their finger on it. Some people get very antsy and move a lot, trying to avoid everything that feels unknown – including defining that feeling. Some people go right with it. Some are well practiced in emotional awareness and yet, no one has ever asked them what it is they need while holding that space that encourages them to not turn it into a to-do list.
During these retreats, almost everyone hits a wall of, “Wait. What?” with The BeMo Practice which is fantastic because it is teaching them to do it differently – the one thing that every self-help guide, healer, and therapist can agree on is a requirement for change, transformation, and ultimately, healing. I say all this because I want to describe that even when you’re in the middle of healing a storyline, there’s an element of disbelief. The same happens in therapy. A well-trained therapist with years of experience will know within just a few sessions exactly what it is you’re dealing with. They might know steps you can take to heal, but they can’t tell you exactly how, which is why, even when you’re brave enough to ask, often you’ll get a really vague answer like, “Healing comes from within.” And, your therapist is not wrong. In fact, they’re spot on. But what they Know from experience is that if they were to sit you down 5 sessions in or even 5 years in and say, “Let’s drop the who-done-it question and let me just tell you who it is that has damaged so much of your life” you will leave and eventually convince yourself that your therapist was joking or incorrect. Or, if it is particularly hard to hear, you’ll likely repress it and stop going to that therapist entirely because of that internal vibe of they don’t know me! And, you’re right! They don’t. That’s why therapists refer to clients as “unreliable narrators.” You are one side of every story you tell, but also they know only the stories you’re willing to tell which is whatever you’re stuck in, at whatever age or timeframe you’re currently stuck in and without that full narrative, they aren’t going to be able to give you any exact, “Ya, but how?” But, you can! In fact, only you can.
The BeMo Practice guides users in bridging the gap between knowing they have a need for changing and actually taking the steps to do so by allowing you to be where you are now.
BeMo is unconditional support. BeMo is always here for it. And so long as you’re willing to show up for where you are now, BeMo is working its magic. How? Because every time you come to the page to complain about your job, worry about your relationship, diss on that incredibly loud neighbour, and wonder ‘what if’ about your life, by then moving that storyline through the FUNCK Method – you are being present with your feelings, showing up with compassion, revealing what it is you need (which over time brings you to question a lifelong narrative around unmet needs), validating yourself with empowering choices, and standing in your power.
By doing this, you’re building resilience. You’re exiting the stress response and trauma narrative to find yourself empowered and grounded in the present. Even if you have no agenda for healing the bigger narrative, you’re building an emotional toolbox and strengthening your response to the things that bring up emotions (good or bad) inside of you. You’re learning to sit with joy longer and you’re learning to stop running from discomfort and pain. You’re deeply changing. You are building resilience not in the face of our feelings, but rather, strength in being with them.
Today, at this moment, you may be experiencing a lot of fear and worry. But imagine, once you become really practiced with being able to sit with it rather than change it or ignore it, only then will you start to understand where your reactions to fear or worry originated and how that has manifested in your life.
In what ways does The BeMo Journal encourage mindfulness and resilience, especially in the face of life’s inevitable challenges?
Have you ever tried to meditate and immediately remembered what it is you forgot at the store? Meditation is hard. Sitting still is hard. Being present feels impossible.
The BeMo Practice is a moving meditation, similar to EMDR which was developed after Francine Shapiro realised when she goes on walks she is able to activate different parts of her brain by allowing herself to become memorised by the repeating motion. She was able to experience more presence with her subconscious without alarm. BeMo does the same thing. The BeMo Practice encourages you to be present with what’s going on in your life and to break it down into manageable pieces. Writing is in and of itself a repetition of movement that can be quite meditative and helps focus your thoughts while also allowing for emotional release. BeMo takes that one step further, guiding you from a venting session into a state of self-discovery and resilience. It’s like practicing mindfulness in motion—you’re not just meditating, you’re actively working through your emotions, building new responses that lead to long-term change.
Community seems to be a vital part of the BeMo experience. What role does the #BeMoJo Community play in the healing and growth journey, and how do you foster a sense of connection among members?
The #BeMoJo Community is growing every day, and it’s all about creating a safe space for people to share their experiences, break through familiar patterns, and support each other. We host live events, retreats, and wellness workshops where we dive deep into journal prompts and work through them together. As the community grows, we’re planning even more events and online resources to keep fostering that connection. It’s about building a community where everyone can grow and heal together.
You’ve mentioned that your journey with therapy, though long and valuable, left you with unanswered questions. How does BeMo complement traditional therapy practices, and where do you see its strengths?
I just barely shared an amazing video response from some of our #BeMoJo Community members on this very topic. These ladies really share how BeMo advanced their therapy experience and therapists share how it advanced their practice with their clients! You can find that video here on Instagram or here on YouTube.
BeMo compliments traditional therapy practices because it acts like a take home therapist. At any time, you have easy-to-remember and applicable self-therapy tools that you can throw in your bag, take with you, and use for 5 minutes or for many hours.
Through my years of creating and then utilising this practice, I learned to never re-read everything I wrote (it can be way too tough and triggering at times), but to take the highlights from FUNCK or a topic that still felt fresh with me to my weekly therapy sessions.
In fact, the way in which The BeMo Journal is represented is, in part, to allow me and other individuals to quickly access pages (did I mention it has page numbers?!?) for future therapy sessions. I utilise the habit tracking pages to note what days I have therapy and note specific page numbers I’d like to reference in sessions. If there is something in particular that I am working on as a goal with my therapist, my nutritionist, my personal trainer, my partner, or anyone I dub as part of my team and in my corner, I also utilise these pages to ensure that I am building better habits and coping mechanisms and use the creative dot pages to list a Table of Contents of frequently repeated topics, similar to how a Bullet Journal might Index repeating topics.
As a result, I actually go to therapy a lot less frequently, and I’ve learned assertive communication skills through speaking to myself with the FUNCK practice and therefore, I can rock up to my therapy session and not only engage with my therapist in how he is doing and what is new in his life, but I can get straight to what it is I feel, the compassion I’ve given myself, the need I keep having and where I think it originates from and then we can have FUN with that. I take any new thoughts, ideas, and notions I have in therapy and put them right back into my practice allowing me to get through it before the next session or arrive in a deeper place, even more willing to let the foundations of that storyline surface with safety.
Now that I’ve been doing that for a while, I can honestly say my therapy sessions feel more like hanging out with a friend and practicing my communication skills in a safe environment and less about repeating storylines or whinging about the same old behaviours. I am less reliant on the session and utilise the session as active practice for communicating need in a safe space.
Journaling played a key role in your own healing process. What advice would you give to someone who is new to journaling but is seeking meaningful change in their life?
For those who aren’t sure what to say: I tell all new journaler’s that this is just a conversation with themselves. Write out your thoughts as you would an email or a text message to a good friend and eventually you’ll learn to not hold anything back.
For those who don’t think it’s for them: To help you be more kind to yourself and your practice, Know this – if you know your attachment style and you are typically Dismissive Avoidant, don’t beat yourself up about not becoming an avid journaler overnight. Trust is huge for you including trusting what shows up on the page as it feels outside of yourself and therefore, a threat. The BeMo Practice and FUNCK Method will still work for you. I’ve seen it work for adults on the autistic spectrum who struggle to formulate words around unknown emotions. I’ve seen it work for highly Disorganised behaviour, such as my own. I’ve seen it bring Anxious attachment styles to a more centred space. No matter where you fall in the attachment quadrant, healing will start to feel like a swinging pendulum. Use your practice to find the strength to allow that change Knowing that you will find a centre that is fully Secure Give yourself that space..
For those who seek more page-by-page structure: If you are new to journaling and seeking meaningful change you might be encouraged to do something daily like The Five Minute Journal and that’s fine. Do it! BeMo encourages gratitude as well, but a lot of new journalers find safety in a repeated, workbook-like structure. But they also get bored with it easily and then feel discouraged when they don’t finish a new journal which discourages their breakthrough or ability to fully adopt journaling.
For everyone: So, here’s my advice. If you want a Five Minute Journal, get it! If you want journal prompts, save them! If you want to work on a particular topic such as communication in your relationship or fanning the flames of your sex life, buy the workbook! Then… run it through The BeMo Practice to stay interested, encouraged, and engaged with these niche tools.
One of my absolute favourite aspects of BeMo is that it is there to take you deeper into your Self, over and over again, no matter how you start. If you want to start with a statement rather than a big, emotional brain dump. It works! Simply state, “Today, I really struggled at work because ____.” If you want to take a prompt, an inspiration, or a quote from a self-help book or workbook, let that be your prompt for what to say and then run what you say through the rest of The BeMo Practice. As you get used to allowing yourself this time and space, you’ll start to open up.
As for being worried about your handwriting, don’t! Wear your scratch-outs like a badge of honour because you’re actively reframing and catching yourself in the moment. If you’re worried someone will read your journal, keep it with you or, if you’re like me, you write such long winded, epic length entries with such brutal honesty that only two things will happen – the reader will tap out and not want to keep going because none of it makes sense to them, or they will deeply know you and there’s pretty much no one worth having in your life that would react poorly to you meeting your needs and sharing your Self with such vulnerability. So, don’t fear the nosy partner who flips through one or two pages. The only thing you have to lose by actively engaging in The BeMo Practice is toxic people and behaviours from your life.
The BeMo Practice is designed to help replace stress responses with patterns of hope and resilience. Could you share a success story from the BeMo community that illustrates this transformation?
One story that comes to mind is from a #BeMoJo Community member, Victoria Bravo. She’s a Functional Nutritionist in South Florida. Victoria attended a retreat I was leading a guided BeMo journaling session in the mountains of North Carolina. I remember her vividly because she was skeptical about journaling and feelings at first. She felt guarded. She had already done a lot of work on herself. But noting feelings and writing them down were far from her desire at the time.
At that retreat, I didn’t speak to Victoria one on one and didn’t hear from her much at all. But I distinctly remember at the end of the day, as we brought the practice to an end, her voice came from behind where I was sitting and she very genuinely shared, “I wish my mom could be here for this. I really want this for her.” After that, we went our separate ways.
I didn’t know the extent of the impact until one day she tagged BeMo in some Instagram posts sharing a family BeMo journaling session. She had taken her practice home to her family and taught it to her husband and two sons who were too young to even be able to write, yet.
In leading these sessions, her sons brought up emotions and experiences that she knew they wouldn’t have shared with her without this held space and the safety of this structure. Eventually she shared with me that she would have journaling nights with her family because her need was for connection with her husband and two boys.
A few months later, Victoria manifested her dream and brought BeMo to her mom by hosting a one day retreat in Florida for a room full of people. Her mom attended. I was so lucky to meet her and to create a custom practice that held that space for so many parents and their children attending together in the audience. As I prepared to lead that session, feeling a lot more weight about it than I normally do prior to speaking, Victoria’s husband came to me and rested his hand on my shoulder with a deeply genuine, “Thank you. What you have created. This here. It saved my marriage and my family. I can’t thank you enough.”
Even then, I still didn’t know the full story. I felt deeply touched as I sat down and opened the session to all in attendance. There, in the first pages of my notes, guiding people through what they’d be expecting to experience that day, Victoria chose to speak. She hadn’t planned to. As she snuggled in to the spot on the floor next to me and took the mic from my hands, she shared, “I met Caz in January of this year which was the first time I went through this practice just like you’re about to do and I want to share a little bit about what that practice did for me as a non-journaling momma who didn’t believe in feelings and journaling. As I went through the practice, I arrived at something that I knew or at least thought I knew that I wanted, but with so much more clarity. Going into this retreat I was thinking of quitting my job, my practice, and possibly ending my marriage…”
Now I knew more than I had ever known before despite all the times I had spoken to Victoria online or in preparation for this event – something that is both telling to what it is we hold inside and put on the page that is so much more than we bring forward with our voice in spaces like retreats or therapy. Victoria had found exactly what it was she needed and formed an answer around that need that empowered her future and allowed her a deep sense of presence that day in a North Carolina retreat. Today, she’s formed a new company, Revival Collective. She’s hosting her own retreats. She’s bringing this practice to others because in one, first-time session, she found herself deeply grounded in purpose. I led a session. I held the space that encouraged people to stick with it for hours and to hear and connect with their deepest Self. She did the rest. And she will forever be one of my greatest heroes as a result of her sharing in that vulnerability.
Your story is one of persistence and self-discovery. How do you keep yourself inspired and motivated, especially when you encounter obstacles in your personal or professional life?
Getting comfortable with the discomfort without finding purpose in suffering was a complex line for me to walk as someone with Disorganised Attachment Behaviour and diagnosed C-PTSD from repeated trauma in my life. For me, persistence comes from finding joy in self-discovery. The healing journey isn’t linear, and it’s not always easy, but I’ve learned to embrace the discomfort of change. I remind myself that every new level of growth will bring up fear and anxiety, but that’s okay. I know how to sit with those feelings now, and I’ve seen the results of pushing through them.
I used to experience burnout and even suicidal ideations, but through BeMo, I’ve healed so much of that. I’ve balanced my thyroid hormone levels, gone off medication, and changed my life from the inside out. The healing journey is about finding security within yourself, even when the future is unknown. That’s what keeps me going—knowing that every breakthrough brings me closer to who I truly am.
Self-awareness is a journey with no fixed destination. How do you envision The BeMo Practice evolving as more people engage with it and share their experiences?
The BeMo Practice grows with you. As more people engage with it, we’re expanding our offerings—more in-person and online resources, more retreats and wellness events. We’re listening to our community and creating products and tools based on their needs. Whether it’s working through emotions, handling relationships, or dealing with career challenges, BeMo is there to help people build greater awareness and foster deeper growth.
The BeMo Journal aims to help users move from hindsight to insight. Can you describe a personal insight you gained through this practice that profoundly changed your perspective or approach to life?
The greatest insight I have harnessed through this practice is realising how the stories we tell, especially ones we put on repeat, have a broader and sometimes shocking view. The things that are told with laugh out loud disregard are often at the core of the belief systems (BS) that have been working against us and no longer serve us.
For example, in my Renurturing through this practice, I have gained a deep understanding of what should have happened to instill security and love in life’s most terrifying moments. Knowing what should happen is a big reason why I no longer speak to myself with shoulds. I no longer have “I really should do…” as part of my vocabulary.
I don’t like the word “deserve” when talking about the things we deserve in life because it implies to deserve, we must earn. Rather, I have learned very deeply as hindsight becomes insight, what my intrinsic right is – as a child, as a woman, as a new employee, as the second half in a relationship, in whatever I choose to Be.
All of us have one core need: connection. To receive connection one must be seen/see, be heard/hear, be known/know. We are all born with the intrinsic right to be seen, be heard, and be known. What I now hold in my insight is a full spectrum understanding of where and how these needs have broken down across my life and how they manifest one story into another.
Previously, my trauma informed my response. Now, my insight informs my response and my insight Knows that I don’t have to do anything for anyone to deserve these things, but I Can absolutely give them to myself, surround myself with people who do their best, and lift up the ones that I love with my willingness to see, hear, and know them.
BeMo is all about empowerment. What does empowerment mean to you personally, and how do you ensure that BeMo continues to empower others in their self-healing journey?
This is a timely question. I am currently working on a new level of healing my sense of empowerment by fully allowing myself to be in the middle of the stories I keep around “power” as it relates to “force.” I am learning at a more advanced level that while I have found a lot of capability in empowering my vision, my understanding, and my awareness – my healing journey came with a stillness that was needed, but also manifested at times as though I were frozen in place.
My current breakthrough has shown me that my complicated storylines around the root word of “power” have manifested in being frozen both by being “very successful” and by “not being successful enough” at any given thing. So I’d have to say that for me, in this moment, empowerment means to stand in my own power.
With BeMo, we encourage individuals to name their Need and express what it looks like and feels like. So, I will say that to stand in my own power looks secure, effortless, and strong. I am self-validating and actively making choices for what I need. I am removing fear from my life and my being – no longer afraid of the stillness nor of forward movement because I am strong in ways that I have proven to myself over and over with no need to prove to anyone else (because, after all, that’s a “need to” and we’re leaving that kind of self-talk behind).
At BeMo, we plan to continue to empower others in their self-healing journey by providing products that help guide these deeper dives and encourage individuals to sit through it in similar ways to our in-person events. Right now, we have many ideas and at the forefront, we plan to bring these tools not just to individuals who are or feel alone, but to family dynamics – to children and teens, to parents, teachers, coaches, and more.
With the rise of digital tools for wellness, what made you choose to create a physical journal?
There’s an art to slow living. As mentioned previously, there’s also a physical response to writing your feelings that acts similar to EMDR. When we write, we remember. When we talk, we often repress things that are difficult to face.
The art of remembering while breaking things down with The BeMo Practice means that rather than remembering more of the things that cause stress in our lives, we are working to deeply know the things that are showing up for us in our lives. This is part of the threat-to-pet concept. The reason we remember the bad times is part of our survival. For example, we remember what makes us sick because we don’t want to get sick again. By the time we are well into adulthood, we have an inordinate number of things we have added to our “look out for” list and completely forgotten about the things that nourish us.
Because of the self-soothing manner in which The BeMo Practice helps build awareness, each time we build our set of empowering choices and each time we come back to what we Know about ourselves without a doubt, we’re specifically remembering what has been working for us. Unconsciously, we’re building a new “look out for” list, but this time it looks more like, “Look out for those amazing sunsets you love so much and a new book on the shelves by your favourite author. Look out for opportunities to listen to jazz quietly by yourself when something feels complicated and confusing and then phone a friend to cook an elaborate meal together. Look out for your Self in all things. Look out for how your Needs are being met.” With that, we’ve gone from threat to pet – it is no longer a lion, but a cat. We’ve got this!
How do you see the tactile experience of writing contributing to the healing process?
Writing by hand helps to solidify thoughts and feelings in a way that typing doesn’t. Typing is distributing and fleeting to our minds. It is something that can happen like an automated response – it comes from our subconscious and stays there. Writing brings our subconscious forward and is an act of presence.
While I do think that there are other methods of healing that we will adopt at BeMo, at the core of our offering will always be a journaling practice because it stands the test of time and helps in a deeper way than any application tool can. However, it is important to us to be accessible. There are people who are not able to write. It is important to us to broaden our community to meet people where they are.
How has creating BeMo and engaging with its community influenced your own growth and healing? Are there any lessons you’ve learned from your users that surprised you?
There’s nothing like witnessing another person’s breakthrough and that soft sense of pride and security they feel as they build emotional freedom for themselves. These shared moments are important to me. Feedback – good or bad – is important to me as it helps me choose where to go with the BeMo concept or how to guide a BeMo session. Sometimes these messages come in dark moments where my healing journey has taken an unexpected dive or a pause that leaves me feeling like an imposter in the mental health space.
At my core I know that the goal is never to be perfect or to seem the epitome of a healed person because that isn’t realistic. At my core I know that the way I work through and rely on the practice is what I want to show, not some kind of imagined end result. After all, there’s no end to a new way of living.
However, sometimes as an entrepreneur it gets hard to believe in your business when you’re in a place where you’re struggling to believe in yourself. The community often shows up for me when I least expect it and reminds me how worthwhile this practice has been for each of them.
When I see others grow and change it reminds me how I have grown and changed; it reminds me to be compassionate and patient with myself.
I love what my users share with me and a lot of it surprises me. Every time I go into a conversation with an individual or leading a group, I think I have a good idea of what will happen and it never happens that way. The quietest people have the most to say. The people who seem to beam with empowerment are the ones most moved by their ability to make and recognise new choices in how to live.
The community teaches me every day. And the biggest surprise to me, over and over again, the infinite possibilities in how well The BeMo Practice works. I’ve seen it work beyond the scope of what I ever imagined possible, for people I never imagined would feel so inspired by this practice.
In the words of James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, I’ve taken a lot of things that a lot of really smart people have written about and discovered it and simply pieced it together in my own way. There’s nothing new here and yet everything about the experiences we are having as a community feel deeply and profoundly — new.
The BeMo Practice focuses heavily on aligning feelings and needs. How important do you think this alignment is for overall well-being, and what happens when these elements are out of sync?
The reason I chose to lean heavily into the feelings-needs narrative is largely due to attachment theory. How we show up to everything pertains to a lifelong relationship with what we’ve been taught to believe about ourselves and the world around us.
Aligning feelings and needs is everything. When they’re out of sync, we rely on coping mechanisms that might serve us in the short term but hurt us in the long run. For example, if you’re avoiding your feelings, you might turn to unhealthy habits like overworking or distracting yourself, which only adds stress. When feelings and needs are aligned, you can respond to life’s challenges in healthier ways, breaking out of those old patterns.
For me, that misalignment manifested as an auto-immune disease. But through BeMo, I’ve been able to address the deeper fears and feelings behind that and heal myself in ways I never thought possible. Aligning your feelings and needs can literally change your life.
Looking ahead, what are your hopes for the future of BeMo? How do you plan to expand its impact and continue supporting individuals on their journey of self-discovery and healing?
I’m currently working on a series of books about The BeMo Practice, what led to its creation, and how it’s changed my life. The goal is to distribute these books and journals internationally, in multiple languages, to build a broader #BeMoJo Community.
Beyond that, we’re developing tools and products for teens, children, and families, helping break generational trauma and create deeper connections. We’ve got plans for workbooks, guided journals, apps, educational systems, and more. We’re just getting started!
Our readers love to travel. What destination is at the top of your bucket list?
Traveling is part of my soul! I’ve been to 65 countries, and next on our list is a 2025 trip across Scandinavia during a dark winter. My mini Australian Shepherd, Isa, is named after the Scandinavian rune for Ice, and my goal is to take him with us (if not on this trip, the next one). I’m definitely taking recommendations for Scandinavia, Northern Japan, and Dolomites—so please, drop into my Instagram or find me on Facebook and let me know what you suggest!
What’s your go-to quote when you are lacking motivation?
I don’t know who said it, but I heard this one a while ago and it has been so powerful for me. The quote goes something like this, “Someone has a hole in their heart in the shape of your words.” To me, it reminds me to use my voice and to put myself out there with BeMo as often as I can because helping just one person get through is what it is all about.
Where can people follow you and find out more?
Find us on Instagram, Threads, Facebook, Pinterest, TikTok, and YouTube @BeMoJournal.
You can follow my personal healing journey and enquire on the launch of the BeMo book and more at CassandraStark.com or reach out to me on Instagram.com/areyouwithcaz or Facebook.com/areyouwithcaz or Substack.com/@CassandraStark.
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