friendship – Dancing in the rain!

Steal my sunshine- Wise Project 2019 #Naked Wednesday

March 20, 2019April 15, 2019 michd74Leave a comment

I had a great day yesterday, one of those days that makes you feel filled up. I was talking with a friend that has a lot of exciting things going on and then I met another friend for coffee that is on a new and exciting journey and I felt such immense excitement for the two of them. It was a powerful and thrilling feeling and as I sat with it I was immediately taken back to a time when those electrifying feelings were not possible for me. There were many times throughout my life that the world around me felt very out of my control. I subscribed to the belief that life was happening to me, not through me or for me and my best defense was BRACE. DUCK. COVER. ENDURE. During those times I saw people in my life having better luck and getting things that felt impossible for me. I am sure I feigned some sort of halfhearted interest but I am being honest in saying that I did not always feel it. Sometimes your good news and your accomplishments made me feel small and diminished. That shook my confidence and though I desired things as much, or even more than I do now, they felt very unattainable.

I am delighted to be able to say that in the last couple of years I have realized that I am in charge of my life. I am not always in charge of circumstances but I am in charge of how I react to my circumstances. Life is at all times happening for me, and it is not happening to me, it is happening through me. I am the co-creator of my life. This has been huge. I have made some huge changes in my life and most of them started with something very simple, choosing me. I had to believe that I was worth the investment and a great deal of that, I will admit, is because of my children. I am their teacher, the person they will look to as they grow and spread their wings. Sometimes it does not matter what I tell them, yet it will matter what I show them. If I never choose me, if I never deem myself worthy of good things, I will teach them the same. I will raise people pleasers that gage their self-worth against how much they can do, not on being who they are meant to be. Being yourself is the greatest revolution, it is something that can never be taken away from you and once you know yourself and love yourself and choose yourself you open up a world of opportunities. You start to connect the dots that the universe has laid out and you create a network of people, places and experiences for your highest good. You begin to realize that people are not always in your life forever and you learn to be okay with that. The people that are meant to be in your life forever, you learn to hold them carefully, to support them properly and to find honest ways to share and communicate openly and honestly. You become accountable to the fact that you may have been the toxic one in past relationships. You learn to own that, to learn from it and to move forward gracefully. You learn to say goodbye to the things and the people that no longer serve your greatest good. You choose the things that speak to your soul, you plant the seeds, and you tend them and water them and watch them grow. You feel the energy in that creation and you are inspired to create more for yourself and as you do this you become very captivated by what your people are creating in their lives. You support them and encourage them and you feel this massive enthusiasm for their successes. You feel drawn to lifting your people up when they struggle and it gets less scary to reach out and admit when you are struggling and your tribe is always happy to provide perspective and lift you up as well.

You become very comfortable creating boundaries and you construct a revolving grid of mutual respect and equal parts give and take. It feels amazing and it empowers you to do things that you never thought were possible.

Today I am sitting in a place of extreme gratitude. I feel so incredibly fortunate to have the support and inspiration of some of the most gifted, loving and encouraging individuals. I am also not afraid to say that I feel like I fulfill my role in those relationships and that was not always the case.

Someone else’s talent, dedication and worthiness does not diminish your own. If you are not sitting in a place of gratitude you may been wallowing in scarcity and that is a dismal place to be. Please know that you can be grateful for what you have and still desire more and from there you put in the hard work to make it happen. Generally, when you see good things happening for people, they were not born with a “horseshoe up their ass” as we like to say on the East Coast. Most of them work incredibly hard for their accomplishments and just because you do not see that does not mean it doesn’t exist.

I want to say a huge thank you to my people (you know who you are) I see you, I love you, your support and inspiration means more than I can ever truly express. The conversations that we have had, honest, void of ego conversations that have helped me to grow, your willingness to allow me to express myself without judgement and your loving acceptance of all of me has made all of the difference in my life.

Nobody can steal your sunshine without your permission, even on the days when you feel you are attempting to shine through dark clouds, take all the sunshine you can.

You are great. Go be greater.

You have a cheerleader in me.

Baby, I love your way – Wise Project 2019 #NakedTuesday

February 26, 2019February 27, 2019 michd742 Comments

Our craving to be deeply seen
Is often eclipsed by our fears
of being genuinely witnessed…
with all of our invisible stains
and rooted soul blemishes;
to be wrapped in the embrace
of purely humbled affection
both tenuous and rare
is something we quietly desire
without having the courage
to ask for it, receive it, or give
it to others…

~Michelle DeBay

I promised a piece on intimacy this week and it has been a little tougher than I thought. Everyone has different ideas about what intimacy means to them and most people relate it to their romantic relationships. Being single, I believe I am able to see a less narrow definition of intimacy, one that is reserved just for romantic relationships, but one that if also often missing from romantic relations.

I believe that one of our deepest desires is to be truly seen and understood, void of judgement. Though we desire this, I also believe it is one of our greatest fears. Even those that shine the brightest lights have dimly lit corners that we they do not allow just anyone to see. We have cravings, wants and aspirations that we estimate we will be judged for so we keep those parts of us hidden.

To achieve complete intimacy in any relationship we have to be willing to trust that we will be loved and accepted for who we are and all of who we are. For our humanness, our flaws and all of the things that make us beautiful. Allowing anyone to see those parts of ourselves, despite any initial apprehension is what creates and builds intimacy.

Though our modern society has managed to somewhat separate sex from intimacy, admitting that intimacy involves both emotional and physical connection and vulnerability, we are often still guilty of confusing the two and end up feeling that horrible feeling of betrayal when we fail to satisfy our desire for intimacy with sex, leading to hurt, confusion and questioning our worthiness. This cycle on repeat can leave us feeling consumed, exhausted and depleted.

In any relationship, intimacy creates better and stronger connections. In a romantic relationship it can be the difference between a good and a great relationship. My friend Charmaine said that to her it’s the freedom to explore one another physically and emotionally without judgement. The comfort to be herself without hesitation. To look into her partners eyes and feel safe. I wonder how many people can boast having that in their romantic relationships. Being able to be themselves and be confident that they are enough at all times; free to desire and want and need and express and explore all of it without shame or fear of judgement. Studies show that about 20 percent of marriages are sexless and 43 percent of women and 31% of men (reported…believed to be much higher) experience some sort of sexual dysfunction. I believe it is safe to say that when intimacy is absent, problems become magnified.

I was with my late husband for 20 years and in the beginning things were tumultuous as we struggled to grow as individuals while remaining rooted together, raising a family and hiding our fears and insecurities. If I am honest it wasn’t until the last couple years of our relationship that we found a place of complete intimacy and unconditional love. It was scary for both of us and it meant seeing and being seen without judgement, it meant no blaming or shaming and to always, in any situation, approach the other with love before automatically arbitrating. There were times in our relationship that we were dishonest, we told white lies or untruths and the reason being is we feared the judgment and shame that would arise so it became easier to eliminate certain things from our conversations or to shave little bits off of the truth to make it fit into a pretty box. I am glad that Kirk and I were able to find that place and I know it will help me in all of my relationships going forward. I can recall in the last couple of years of his life having moments that I felt so close to him, that we were somehow connected by invisible bonds yet still felt free. In glimpsing back on those moments I feel amazingly proud that we were able to fight our own fears to get to that place, I can assure you it was not easy.

I have discovered that being yourself is way less scary than having people in your life that do not see you and that you fear you would lose if they really knew you. The greatest revolution is in being yourself and realizing that not everyone is meant to be in your life forever, but the right ones will stay and no matter where they are in the world you will know that a part of them is always with you, and cheering you on, no matter what fucked up thing you just did or said or admitted to.

When someone makes you feel safe and seen and whole and worthy, no matter what, that is intimacy. Not everyone is able to achieve true intimacy and we really need to look inside of ourselves and stare down our own demons. If we fear not being loved for who we truly are, would we really want to be in a relationship with that person? Fears are not always reality, but we create our reality.

I have fears and insecurities, we all do. I work hard on them and at this point in my life I am only interested in investing in people that genuinely care about me for who I am. I do not care about the latest fads or being in the cool club, for me the coolest club is one that you feel like you belong at all times.

In the last several years of my life my experiences have lead me to believe that intimacy is not a passing whim, it is a deep psychological need. Learning to get that need met, in a healthy way in nourishing relationships is a step in the right direction to a meaningful life and happiness in the here and now.

When we connect in an authentic way, from a place of love and vulnerability, we can create magic!

~Michelle DeBay

You’ve got a friend- Wise Project 2018 #TenaciousTuesday

October 16, 2018 michd74Leave a comment

friend-quote-know-love

I love people that understand their place in the universe, that embrace their darkness and nurture their light. They hold all of themselves in high esteem and understand that all of the struggle, tragedy and despair that helped them to evolve is not something to hang onto but something to grow from. What transpires when a person learns to love themselves where they are and understand the vulnerable yet beautiful nature of dualism is something amazing to witness. Those are the people that make the best of friends because they support, challenge and love you, just as you are. They have no need to change you or to hurt you. They inspire you with their honesty and resilience and even if they are not where they would like to be on their journey, they have no interest in pulling you backwards so they can catch up. Those are the most authentic of all friendships and if you have even one of them you are blessed. Cultivate and develop a kind, supportive and loving relationship with yourself and the right people will come into your life. Friends get to see the very best of us and the very worst of us but the most incredible thing is to have friends who actually see us.

Friends come and go, it is reality. I used to say it was a sad reality but that is not always the case. Some relationships are not meant to last forever and some simply shouldn’t. The beautiful thing about aging and maturing is continuing to learn, evolve and grow and the realization that not everyone belongs in your life and that is OK. The people that are meant to be in your life will be, always, at some point, if they are meant for you. No friendship is an accident, all friendship teach us in some way if we are open to the lesson.

“No friendship is an accident.” – O. Henry

I think of the friendships that we attract throughout our lives and why and what we get from them and how when we are not in a good place with ourselves we vibrate at a lower frequency and we attract the same into our lives.

I was talking with a friend of mine this morning. We have been friends for ten years but things have not always been easy for us. Though we experienced some of the best times of our lives together we also were experiencing struggles. We struggled as mothers, as friends as women and as wives. There were times in our friendship that we were split wide open and I think we sort of fed of the mad toxicity of it all, pasting band aids on each others gaping wounds and calling it friendship. It wasn’t healthy and at a certain point our journeys continued down separate paths, crossing several times but always with a bit of trepidation. When tragedy struck my friend dropped everything to just be with me. My people came, my people reached out and the one thing I realized in the last little while is that the reason her and I found our way back together is that even when we did not love ourselves enough to want or demand the very best for ourselves we always wished the very best for each other. We supported each other even if at times we did so quietly from afar and I think we needed that time to reflect inward and invest in ourselves.

As we grow our friendships either evolve or they do not. I have a very eclectic group of people that I call my friends, people that celebrate my victories and hold my hand when I am defeated, that love me, understand me and challenge me and never want or expect me to be anything but me. I feel like I am at this point in my life that it feels really good to not worry who is with me or against me and to know for certain that the “my people’ only want the best for me always and I for them. When they talk behind my back it is too share share my triumphs, and that is a great feeling.

“Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.” – Henry David Thoreau

I know I am a lot, to my friends, thank you…truly. The last several years have been difficult for me and I am in a place where I am finding myself, spreading my wings and seeking freedom and joy and authentic connections.

Connections are important, we do not need a large group of friends but it is important to foster connections with people that allow us to be ourselves but also gently encourage us out of our comfort zone.

I have thought a lot about what it means to be a good friend and I admit that there are times that I have been a terrible friend. I was a shitty friend to myself and others. There are very simple rules to relationships that encourage all of the important things that make them thrive. The fantastic Brene Brown calls it BRAVING and it is an easy reminder for all of us.

To all my friends and frenemies have a fantastic day. Xo

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Ballroom Blitz- Wise project 2018 #TenaciousTuesday

July 18, 2018July 24, 2018 michd741 Comment

“To err is human, to forgive divine”

The following post is dedicated to a beautiful soul; my late husband Kirk. For years he has implored me to love more and judge less. I finally get it, it is a constant and life changing lesson.

I have a dirty little secret that I have never told anyone but I am about to share with all of you.

I turn into a completely different person when Ballroom Blitz comes on the radio. About four months after my husband passed away I was wandering aimlessly around the Superstore when Ballroom Blitz came booming from the sound system. For the past several months I had been holding my life together with double sided sticky tape and the good thoughts and prayers of the lovely people that never failed to support me during the darkest time of my life. Sure I laughed when something was funny and I was doing my best to put one foot in front of the other but that day was particularly dark.

I recognized the song in the first couple of bars and my left foot started to tap uncontrollably, followed my the unmistakable sway of my hips and that shoulder shimmy thing I do that makes my breasts move in a way that is illegal in some parts of the world. Without a conscious thought I grabbed a can of cheddar cheese soup and started pretending to sing into it ‘OOOH YEAH,” as I grooved through the aisle. I shimmied and I shook and I lost myself in wild abandon in that grocery store while strangers looked on in a mixture of confusion, judgment, amusement and quite possibly admiration. My limbs became one with the music; I was no longer in charge of anything. It was as if I the grieving widow was standing there quietly broken watching this badass, slightly crazy woman treat the grocery store aisle like the dance floor cage at her old small time haunt. I was in awe to be honest. Looking back it is likely in the top five of my most magnificent moments ever.

The song ended and I abruptly put down the soup can, smoothed out my polka dot dress and walked out of the store without looking back. I got in my truck and started driving as aimlessly as I had been wandering through the store and though monstrous tears spit out of my eyes and threatened to drown me I felt much lighter than I had in months, I felt a spark of my old self that if ignited could erupt into a full blown flame. It was a reassuring feeling. It felt like a promise that I was still in there, amongst the wreckage and if I kept digging I would emerge, bruised and bloody, but still fucking fabulous. Those people in that store that day, even if they repeat what they saw in late night conversations, over drinks, or around campfires will likely never know how important that four minutes of intemperance were for me. I abandoned my grief for four whole minutes and I was reminded that one day I would dance again, and sing, and laugh, and love. In four minutes I felt everything I was not able to feel for what seemed like a lifetime.

Their judgement, whatever it was didn’t matter, I pleaded with myself to not to fuel that fire. The only judgement that mattered in that moment was my own and I got to tell you that there was a little girl inside me shaking pomp oms and doing cart wheels.

I have found myself in the midst of many contemplative moments lately. I have been quite vocal that my late husband implored me to love more and judge less and that one thing alone has been nothing short of life changing. I try to be fair with people, I try to understand that humans err; I find myself frequently exploring the depths of forgiveness.

I am learning that there is a beautiful lesson in forgiveness, for both the person we forgive and the person we ask forgiveness of. We realize that we are not perfect and we shouldn’t ask that for that kind of perfection in others. We cannot claim to be attracted to the raw authenticity in people and then turn our backs when shit gets too real. There is something exquisite in seeing someone emerge from a mistake, owning the entire script of their life and working hard to write a better next chapter.

The thing that has struck me more than anything is that when I find myself sitting in judgment of others I am also forced to face my own shit and that is not always easy. It is however enlightening.

I realize that we are not always a victim or a product of the things that happen to us, but what we call into our lives and what we allow. We all have patterns, draws and habits and we are all perfectly imperfect. We are flawed, bruised, real…figuring this shit out as we go along. I find myself constantly reminding myself that when I dare to judge others that I better hold myself up for judgement as well and that is not always fun.

I have patterns of attraction that have been with me so long that I am reluctant to work on them. I feel that they are such a huge part of who I am so I struggle with what belongs and what is a security blanket for me.

My first step is owning that I am responsible for what I invite into my life. I have a pull to certain things that challenge me but also have the potential to hurt me and I wonder if I could ever be completely satisfied without that push/pull.

So much of my identity is wrapped up in the awareness that the people and experiences that have challenged me the most have also taught me the greatest lessons about life and about myself.

However, does this draw towards hard things mean that I am inviting difficult things into my life to avoid boredom?

The truth is I quite enjoy peace, and I quite enjoy being around people who expand my mind and fill me up without sucking away my energy. I can’t help wonder if I have been confusing things. I very adamantly told my friend that I had a healthy relationship with “hard stuff” because I knew that life would be hard, it is inevitable; and I was able to face the hard things head on. She gave me something huge to consider that has been nagging me, like a fly buzzing around my head for the past couple of months.

I can do hard things. I can face hard things. I am a badass. Do I want to? Should I need to? Am I provoking the universe? Am I asking for hard things to prove that I can keep conquering them?

It is not a bad thing to confront you, to question yourself and get to know yourself.

We spend way too much time with an eye on other judging what they are doing without considering what leads us to do the things we do. If we want to sit in the seat of the judge why are we so reluctant to turn our inquisitive minds to ourselves?

Sure, we judge ourselves right?! I am bad, I suck, I messed up, I could have done better, I will never be who I want to be…but how often to we consider the choices we make, why we make them and what would change if we genuinely believed that we were worth the world and made all of our decisions based on what was best for us.

We spend a great deal of time in our lives trying to find someone to spend our lives with and once we find that person we try to be right for that person but too often we forget how important it is to be that person to ourselves. You are the person you will spend the rest of your life with. Our journey in life is not about finding “the one”, the journey is about becoming “the one”

I believe that once we learn to love and accept ourselves and own our own bullshit everything else will fall into place just as it is supposed to.

It takes time and patience is a virtue, sadly not one of mine but I am working on that one too. I indisputably believe that we can all have the life that we were born to pursue, but it takes work and part of that is allowing ourselves to see and meet ourselves and others with love first, before judgement.

Not everyone belongs in our lives and I am careful to weed my garden of people that don’t add value to my life in some way, that is not selfish, that is self care. I am also learning that when someone hurts me, it is very unlikely that it has anything to do with who I am and everything to do with who they are in that moment. Good people do bad things; sometimes our gardens are not full of weeds, just unique flowers that need watering. We can judge them as bad and throw them away or we can show them a little love and see if they bloom.

Life is weird. We are all on a journey. We all have scars and bruises. The very best people I know are made from life’s lessons, emerged from struggle and stitched back together with love and forgiveness.

Love yourself. Forgive yourself. Once you are able to love yourself where you are and how you are you will be a lot more willing to meet people where they are on their journey. We are not the judge or the jury, we are the witnesses.

Something more than free -Wise Project 2018 #TenaciousTuesday

May 1, 2018May 1, 2018 michd742 Comments

depositphotos_45592167-stock-video-silhouetted-woman-at-the-mountaintop

Several months after Kirk died I was catching up with an old friend and I found myself describing this fleeting feeling that I had been having, this feeling of freedom, this feeling like I could spread my wings and fly and live a big bold life in amazing technicolor. Saying it out loud to someone for the first time felt kind of liberating, as did being in the company of someone that I felt certain at that moment wouldn’t judge me. Typing that feels rather silly but death can bring out the worst in people and rumors were rampant in my small hometown and I faced a lot of judgment for every decision I made after Kirk died, even imaginary ones. I was only choosing to live while I was alive, something that Kirk wanted desperately for me, so it seems outlandish that anyone could find fault in that, but unhappy people can find fault in the best of intentions.

We think we can never face the hard things, and often when we are onlookers to the pain or suffering of another we wonder how they are able to endure it. The truth is we either do or we don’t. They are our only two choices. No matter what tragedies and challenges we face in our lives we all have the same opportunity to move through or get stuck. Most of what we go through, we grow through.

In the past several years I have been doing some work on relationship studies. Robert Waldinger’s Ted Talk and Harvard studies on what makes a good life led me to want to improve the most important relationships in my own life and as I dug deeper into relationships I was introduced to the concept of attachment and the strain it can put on our relationships, whether they are friendships or intimate’s ones.

While studying attachment it came up time and time again our attachment to material things as well. I thought I had mastered that years ago when I sold my house in Nova Scotia, the house that Kirk and I got married at, the house we brought our children home from the hospital to, the home where learned to love each other, even during the times that we struggled to like one another. What I learned the day I stood all by myself in that empty house will never leave me, once you took the people out of the house it was just four walls. It really wasn’t that important. The memories got to come with us on our new journey and they were the most important thing.

The lesson of attachment as it pertains to relationships is a tough lesson, one that I couldn’t completely grasp or understand the relevance of. What I was about to find out is that experience would bring me wisdom that I would never find in a book. The significance and truth in attachments I would discover through my own volition.

Your identity, your self-worth, and survival should never be bound by people or things.

Attachment and fear-based love can put a lot of pressure on our relationships and the people that we love and support. When there is jealousy and possessiveness in our friendships or relationships we are not acting from a place of love, we are acting from a place of attachment. Attachment is needy, insecure and repressive. Attachment is a terrible substitute for love, but in the end, some people want security more than they want freedom.

Don’t you lock up something
That you wanted to see fly
Hands are for shaking
No, not tying, no, not tying

~ from Fell on Black Days by Soundgarden

A defining moment in my life is when a boyfriend that I had once been madly in love with and thought I would spend the rest of my life with told me that he wanted to own and control me. I had a new job and new friends and I was happy and growing as an individual and his fear at me finding my wings and his reluctance to love and support me in my growth destroyed our relationship.

Love is spacious, it should never make us feel caged. Love and friendship is an incredible thing if we can love and be loved in such a way that makes us feel free.

I have not mastered this intelligent free flow in all my relationships, but I have a good realization that not everyone is supposed to be with us for the duration of our lives. Some people come into our lives to teach us or to challenge us for a very short time and others though they may come and go are meant to be in our lives in some way; always. There is an ebb and flow to these things that will most often manage itself if we give up our need to control every little thing.

After Kirk passed away people said and did the strangest things. I felt like a lot of people tried to take a weird ownership of him, as if their connection or experiences with him diminished all his other relationships. I also saw a very beautiful thing, I saw people who genuinely loved him forging friendships with others that loved him in a very simple, loving and honest way.

I am a better person for loving Kirk and I am richer from being consumed by the depths of his love. Death has surprisingly taught me more about love than I could ever conceive of. Death ends a physical life, it does not end love. Kirk’s love lives inside of me, in my limbs, guiding me and helping me to see and experience things in ways I could never even imagine. Our love is not dependent on bonds and it knows no bounds. It is how earthly love should be.

Have you ever hiked to the top of a mountain and when you got to the top your legs were like jello and your lungs were on fire but the view from the top was incredibly breathtaking and you stood in the freedom pose with the sun on your face and the wind in your hair and you just felt so astonishingly free you wished that feeling could last forever? Imagine if our love could make someone feel like that? Wouldn’t that be powerful?