Sensuality – Dancing in the rain!

Semi charmed life- Wise Project 2018

December 31, 2018December 31, 2018 michd744 Comments

I wanted to sneak in one last Wise Project post into 2018, an opportunity to tell a lit bit more about myself, dispel some myths and say some inappropriate stuff.

I believe people get a certain idea of me from my writing but it is somewhat one dimensional. From my writing you would not garner that I talk about penises way too much to be normal and that I live a lot of my life in song lyrics and movie quotes. Most of you are not even aware that I am incredibly funny; the problem is I often forget the punchline.

I have passed these things along to my middle child Morgan, along with some other great stuff that I am sure she will be eternally grateful for. While students were moving a table in her high school class Morgan yelled ‘PIVOT, PIVOT” in the consummate Ross Gellar voice, Friends circa February 1999. (She would have been four months old when it aired originally) Only her teacher got the reference but in any case that is a parenting win. I also convinced her that in the U.K. there were 8 days in a week, hence the popular Beatles song. Unbeknownst to me, she carried this belief with her like a favorite childhood teddy and protected it fiercely. Despite being bullied for this she stood a firm ground on it because her mama was always right. At nineteen she finally knows the truth. She has known the truth for about nine months now and a lot of truths came out that day, she discovered that the ankles of the bread were actually heels (at least to boring people) and that Chef Boyardee ravioli was not made with horse meat. Perhaps what I should have said is that I find me incredibly funny.

If you have spent any time with me at all you know that I care about my undergarments a great deal and I believe they should match. The last thing I want is to end up in a car accident and the nurse’s judge me for granny panties and a ratty old bra. I also had embarrassing incident in my twenties where I ended up in a compromising scenario wearing no underwear, the day “el fresco died” To me, mismatched undergarments is like going on a hot date that has the possibility of ending in sex with unshaven legs.

I went on a coffee date a couple of weeks ago and I had on a nice designer sleeveless dress that I managed to score at the thrift store. My entire outfit cost about $18.99 but I felt like a million bucks until I discovered I had forgotten to shave my armpits. I have multiple Groupon’s to use and had intended to get them waxed when I took care of the rest of my personal business but alas I sat outside of Starbucks and dry shaved my armpits with a razor I picked up at Sobeys on the way there. Sometimes looking good comes with a price.

Last week my daughter was watching “How I met your mother” and Robin was on a date with a hot surgeon, she had not intended on it going so well and had not shaved her legs. I was watching this intently as I sat there with my overgrown jungle woman legs. She somehow convinced her bitchy waitress to go buy her a razor but she did not grab shave cream. Robin was shaving in the bathroom using butter as a shave cream, some dropped, and she slipped on it and knocked herself out. Meanwhile the waitress picked up the hot surgeon. I had never felt so deeply seen and understood in my life. I am Robin and Robin is me.

On a previous waxing appointment I had not let the hair on my legs grow out long enough and it hurt like a motherfucker and grew back patchy. The last time I thought they would need to use a lawn mower on it. As a lady who likes to parade around in her fancy matching bra and undies, appreciating my smooth, daily shaven limbs the grow out period is painful for me. I feel like my relationship with myself suffers immensely. I am avoid things like good night cuddles and admiring touches. Weeks pass where I do not wink at myself or slap my own ass. My love meter drops into the negative. Last week Kelsey at Bodhi Spa helped bring me back to myself. I came home that night, put on the Rose Royce classic “I wanna get next to you” and I felt a great love for myself.

Not that that is relevant to anything at all but I am not a swinger. I am finally at peace with the idea that everybody you meet creates a different version of you in their own minds so if you have created me as a swinger I hope I am at least a good one, whatever that would mean. After my husband passed away one of his old buds’s started that rumor and I am sure it was tossed around a lot over drinks. As the case is with small towns and possibly all towns, people talk more than they listen and they just adore gossip. I am glad I gave them all something to talk about and I am sorry to disappoint. I do rather respect swingers for their ability to just be themselves and no matter how you or I or their parents feel about it, adults can and will choose the sex life that feels right for them. Anyway, I am sure the rumor morphed from a story about the time that Kirk and I accidentally ended up at a Swingers bar and as he recounted it I am sure he had no idea that someday it would be twisted and turned into something it wasn’t. We sat in the corner eating donairs because we are nothing if not East coast classy and then we decided to make the most of it by playing this match the boob’s game. They had a huge poster board and rows of boobs and below those, rows of faces to match them up. There were some interesting boobs, let me tell you. I will never forget my late husbands face when a woman came over offering for him to squeeze her tits to be of some assistance. That is almost the extent of Kirk and I’s swinger lifestyle. In fact, until we moved to Edmonton in 2008, I thought Swinging was just something you do at a park. I do appreciate boob’s though, one of my fondest memories is Las Vegas in 2009, at a huge, I believe they call it ‘Gentlemen’s Club’, I was telling this young, beautiful Latin girl that her boobs were just perfect and she did not need a breast augmentation. Somehow this led to a fun game, as most nights involving tequila shots do, next thing you know I am the resident boob expert and I get to decide real or fake for a succession of amazingly beautiful women with boobs of all shapes and sizes. No jury needed, real always wins. It is difficult to recreate the squish, the bounce or the gentle curve of a real breast. Breasts really are art come to life. I suppose I just started a new rumor that I am a lesbian, which no disrespect to lesbians, I just do not like cats that much (according to Ellen to qualify you need to own three or more) and I have a great love for penises and sometimes the interesting men attached to them.

I share a bathroom with my fourteen year old daughter Haley and she could tell you a lot of stories I am sure. I am grateful that she taught me how to contour and highlight, I did it all wrong for several years and the results were atrocious. She didn’t outright tell me I was doing it all wrong but after about a year of her horrified sideways glances I finally asked her for advice. She has watched countless hours of YouTube videos and basically knows everything about everything.

My son Jeff is a younger, less jaded version of me and it is very difficult to say no to him. I like to think that everything I do is rooted in love and then Jeff visits and he is so magnanimous in his affection and capacity to love, minus the lackluster, world-weary, cynical bullshit that I often have to wade through. The way he goes through the house picking out things he would like to take home reminds me of how after I moved out I used to go to my moms and I was constantly in her cupboards, “WTF Mom, when did you guys start buying Nutella?”

My kids are amazing and I have a tiny fourteen year old cat that slithers around like a thief in the night, continually begs for canned food and stares at me while I am sleeping. It is quite romantic when I wake up at 4 am to the muted sounds of The Police ‘Every Breath you take and my cat; Aulie staring creepily into my eyes. I make excuses for Aulie because she was thrown out of a moving vehicle when she was too young to be taken from her mother, my late husband rescued her and she picked me to be her person. She has trust issues, anybody would.

My dog Buddy is a rescue as well and he was abused. He was anxiety ridden when he came to us, however he is the most loving and gentle beast. He is a Collie/Cross who hates to be brushed and even if I brush him three times a day he sheds an entire other dog. Due to early mistreatment Buddy came to us with early onset arthritis and is currently experiencing pain. He likes to chase the cat up and down the stairs and his pattern seems to be chase, hurt, rest for three weeks, REPEAT. I have a handful of people in my life that I feel truly get me and love me without judgement and Buddy is definitely in that Tribe. Aulie is not, Aulie does love me, in her own way, but I know she judges me constantly, even while I am sleeping.

I used to be a fairly judgmental person and I took a long hard look at that and I make a conscious effort to always offer love before judgement. I am human though, and therefore I err. Just a second ago I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and saw a model who was advertising a new hair color and my first thought was her nose was horrible and then I metaphorically punched myself in the mouth and decided promptly that the model was beautiful and her nose was not the problem, it was the angle and then I swiftly judged the photographer for his terrible eye and the advertisers for accepting the picture. I like to think of myself as a work in progress, constantly making an effort and calling myself out on my own bullshit.

I believe the best we can do in any given moment is the next best thing. Life is just one moment. Then the next… I do not believe in coping mechanisms, I work hard on thriving mechanisms. I am an introverted extrovert who overshares.

I am sure my mom is reading this and saying to Papa “Jesus Gord, does she really have to talk about penises? Maybe the right penis would shut her up!”

I see you Mom, I see you. 😉

2018 brought me the most amazing experiences and I thank my children for constantly dragging me outside of my comfort zone. If it were not for them I might spend all of my free time curled up watching Drop Dead Diva reruns. They show me everyday what is possible in life and how important it is that I do the same for them.

Like all of you I am sure, I had experiences in 2018 that brought me heartache and lots of tears, those experiences also brought me lessons that I really needed to learn. Society would have us believe that if we are single we are somehow less than and what I learned is that my heart is expansive, I have a huge capacity to love, though it is not my job to be enough for anyone or to make myself small to fit into a box that is not for me. Being single teaches you a great deal about yourself and what is important. When I find myself succumbing to loneliness I become curious and observant. I learn from others. The one thing I am very aware of is that I do not want to settle for someone that does not tick all of the boxes for me. In the future, if I commit to being in a romantic relationship with someone else there has to be an intimate friendship; they must be my best friend and be able to communicate with me even when things are tough, there must be mutual respect, we do not always have to agree but we should respect each others differences and while we remain rooted together we must also be free to grow individually. They also must be an animal in the sack, no exceptions. (My mom is now either fist bumping the air and saying “yes” I made her or crying and tearing her hair out” This is not negotiable! I have a great relationship with myself and I have lots of fantastic people I can spend time with, if I am going enter into a serious relationship or lets be real, even a casual sexual relationship, it must meet this criteria “GREAT SEX”

I think sex is an important criterion in a romantic relationship as it distinguishes it from all our other relationships and that intimacy that is created between couples can be powerful, should be powerful. You can all send me hate mail if you like and tell me all the reasons that there is more to sex in a relationship. I agree, there is more, lots more, however it is my fake relationship we are planning and this box must have a big, red check mark beside it (the bigger the better 😉

As I marinate in all that was in 2018 I realize that I did not become a “new me”, I did however dust off and polish some layers of me that were blanketed under the weight of burdens, expectations, old vows and beliefs, fears, shame and insecurity. As I move forward into 2019 I want to continue to shed anything that is no longer useful.

It is hard to narrow down the life altering events in my life in 2018, if was full of organized learning opportunities, courses and workshops, art, theater, ballet, music, friendship, love, loss and heartbreak. All in all I feel incredibly blessed.

I have started courses working towards my certification in Life Coaching and I just finished a 30 days of Sensuality Course with Ev’yan Whitney, who penned the piece titled “Too Much Woman” which shifted my entire perspective. I am hoping to work extensively with Ev’Yan in the coming year to heal and step fully into my own personal power and the full expression of my own sensuality so the niche of my future coaching can be focused on helping other women to do the same. I feel like I have been blessed with some special gifts that I am compelled to share with others and I know that as a woman who has suffered past trauma that we often allow our fears, shame and insecurity to keep us small and silent and that prevents us from embracing ourselves as beautiful sexual beings and enjoying amazing and fulfilling sex lives. Pleasure is our birthright and I believe great sex is an integral part of the mind*body*spirit connection that keeps us physically and mentally healthy.

I hope the year ahead for you is filled with magical madness, great literature, art that makes you ponder, movies that make you cry and moments that make you want to sing. I hope you kiss someone that thinks you hang the moon each night, I hope that same person would hoist the sky into the sky each morning if it meant brightening your day. I hope your love for yourself is profound and I hope you find healthy ways to fulfill all of your needs and that you chase your dreams instead of just living the same day over and over. You are about to be presented with 365 new opportunities. Do something amazing!!

Have a safe and wonderful end of 2018 and a fantastic beginning to 2018.

Sex and Candy -Wise Project 2018 #TenaciousTuesday

December 4, 2018December 10, 2018 michd74Leave a comment

“Desire is the kind of thing that
eats you
and
leaves you starving.”
― Nayyirah Waheed

When we refer to someone as being sensual we often think of someone as having a passion for physical pleasures, namely sexual ones, however, sensuality can go much deeper than that, encompassing the ability to fully awaken one’s senses using smell, touch, sight, hearing, and feeling . This can awaken desires in the body and influence sexual connection in numerous ways, as well as contributing to an overall sense of well being and an appetite for life.

Music, dance, art, cooking…all of these things can be sensual.

SEX can, and should be sensual.

We are living in a time where being busy is viewed as a measure of self worth and we have an increasing need to prove our relevance through our use of social media. We are actively connected while becoming progressively disconnected from other things that truly matter like our families, our bodies, our partners and our pleasure.

Desire does not start in the bedroom.

Desire is a sense of longing, wanting, a craving even. As humans when we desire something or someone our sense of excitement is heightened over the very thought of that person or thing. Desire can be immediate or it can escalate over time. I believe desire drives the energy behind our sensual manifestations. The ache and hunger resulting from desire connects the dots to our sensuality, blending the two into a beautiful union.

Our desires can often seem frivolous, wrought with feelings of unworthiness, shame or even fear. Those emotions manifest in our bodies making us feel burdened and disconnected with our sensual selves. This can be confusing, in regards to sex and other areas of our lives where we might feel unsettled.

We all have different relationships to desire, some of us feeling like pleasure is our birthright and others feeling like it is shameful and indulgent. Our enjoyment of anything, whether it is the sweetness of candy on our lips, intimate flirtation or sex is dependent upon how we identify with that thing, and ourselves.

Example 1).

I want a cupcake. I really really want a cupcake, I can picture it in my mind, and it is an oversize white confetti cupcake with vanilla icing and sprinkles, my mouth waters when I imagine biting into it. I believe I deserve a treat and I cannot wait to relish in every decadent bite of that cupcake. When I finally bite into the cupcake it tastes like angels made it and sent it down from heaven. It leaves me feeling fulfilled. I feel good about treating my body as it takes good care of me.

Example 2).

I want a cupcake; I picture it as the most beautiful thing ever, a white confetti cupcake with soft vanilla flavored icing topped with sprinkles. I can’t stop thinking about it and my appetite for it cannot be quenched by imagination alone. The thought of the cupcake drives me to distraction and when I finally get it into my mouth the first bite tastes like disappointment and shame. I hear those mean girls in grade five who taunt me and tell me I am fat, and I recall those all too tight jeans that my parents wouldn’t replace because they said I was growing too fast and I was forced to squeeze into them with my belly hanging over the waist band. My desire for that cupcake represents my humiliation. I throw it in the garbage and wipe the embarrassment off my lips. My pants now hang off my body, my once womanly curves have given way to a thinner, more delicate frame, some may say I border on emaciated.

The above examples represent different relationships to food and to our bodies; it can be assumed that the individual’s relationships to sexuality differ as well due to their distinct relationships with their bodies.

There is power in our wants and needs, in satisfying our desires in a healthy way, whether they are for sex, food or fulfillment. We do not have to satisfy all of our desires of course but what if we are able to realize them, see how they feel in our bodies, and be aware of our responses to them.

As we grow and change from children into young adults we become abundantly aware of perceptions and how society views certain things, especially ourselves and our bodies. We feel the pressure to look, dress and act a certain way, to be perceived as smart, powerful or sexy. This can lead us to feeling a huge disconnect with who we really are. When we are lot aligned with all of the things that make us unique, who are we really? This disconnect, when mixed with the shame, fears and traumas we have dragged around since childhood, or picked up a long the way can lead to further confusion and doubt. We are constantly looking outside of ourselves for approval. When we neglect to look inward to see what our needs are, what resonates with who we are and what we want and how we want to show up in the world we often get it all wrong.

Men and women enter into adulthood carrying a lot of shame surrounding themselves as sexual beings. The reason could be as simple as the way they were talked to about sex and how it was portrayed to them. Often parents use fear as a tactic to keep their adolescents from engaging in sex and that alone can have real and lasting consequences. When we are taught that sex is bad, and we give in to our desire for it anyway, we still have sex but our pleasure is limited or perhaps non existent. We may have had sexual experiences where we felt clumsy and embarrassed or were made to feel undesirable and that can show up in the way that we view sex and desire until we are ready to heal that. Sexual assault statistics are staggering, one in three women and one in six men will experience some form of sexual violence in their lifetimes and that can have tremendously damaging effects on sex lives when that trauma is not healed. When that thing that is supposed to bring you immense pleasure is used to hurt you, all future encounters can be painful and complicated. Just last week I saw a story about a rape case in Ireland where a teenage girl’s thong was entered into evidence. We should be horrified beyond words by this. To associate any article of clothing as an excuse for rape is appalling. I myself enjoy sexy underthings, it makes me feel good; sexy and powerful. I feel comfortable in my own skin. It doesn’t matter that I am the only one that is going to see them throughout the day, I feel good in them and I embrace that. Rape is not about desire, sensuality, or love and it has very little to do with sex. Rape is about power over another person. The shame that surrounds sexual assaults can impact us over an entire lifetime, causing us to become so detached from our own bodies and disengaged from desire, sensuality and pleasure that sometimes we just go through the motions.

“Desire makes life happen. Makes it matter. Makes everything worth it. Desire is life. Hunger to see the next sunrise or sunset, to touch the one you love, to try again.

‘Hell would be waking up and wanting nothing,’ he agrees.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Shadowfever

Pleasure is our birthright.

We know this but it is not enough to just know.

Do you know what it feels like to actually embody your body?

Because of beliefs that were impressed upon us from pre-birth onwards we are often under the assumption that sensuality and sexuality are things that we do, not things that we are. Knowing of course is only half the battle, to get curious about ourselves and our bodies, to expand and to be, can sometimes lead to further discouragement because what we believe to be true from years of conditioning may not feel right in our bodies anymore. We have years of outdated beliefs and ideals embedded deep in our consciousness and many more hidden in our unconscious. Challenging them may bring up some discomfort. That is OK. Change is not always comfortable.

This post is an invitation to fully step back into your body and to experience maximum pleasure, to heal your traumas, to expand your erotic knowledge and to embrace your desires.

Fully embracing your sensual self is not just a task for those partnered up. To not only recognize your need and want for pleasure but accept your right to it is a creative endeavor for anyone with a body. Get curious about yourself.

Are you talking to your partner about sex? Are you expressing your wants and your deepest desires? Are you communicating what you like and what you don’t like? Are you have mind-blowing sex?

We cannot expect our partners to be mind readers. In a committed relationship, sex is an expression of our love for one another and communication is an extension of that love. If you are in a non monogamous relationship and you are not seeking to experience the maximum amount of pleasure and fulfill your deepest desires…what are you doing???

We are all individuals; we have our own set of beliefs, wants, needs and pleasure centers. If we expect to get the maximum amount of pleasure out of anything we do, we need to get curious. The current will carry you where you want to go but you have to stop trying to row up stream. (Stop resisting your wants and needs)

In the entire universe there exists only one thing that you can control. That thing, that amazing human being is you and you are a vast universe within yourself, an infinite sea of passions, experiences and recollections. In any given moment you have an unlimited set of choices. Consider getting to know you, all of you, as a person, a divine being and a sensual being full of love, wants, needs, desires, and an unrivaled capacity for pleasure.

What is it your mind, body and soul are craving? Give it that. If it is sex and candy enjoy the sweetness of it all, with no shame.