For a month or so now, I have felt the presence of all of the women on my mom’s side of my maternal immediate family. They have all passed on.

One night, not long after my cousin Pat transitioned, it felt like the four of them were at the foot of my bed, tapping their feet with their arms crossed, waiting for me to wake up; both physically and figuratively. My grandmother, Margaret Patricia (Pat), my mom, Margaret Gail (Gail or sometimes Maggie), my aunt—Mom’s sister Mary Lou, and my cousin—Mary Lou’s daughter, Pat.

I have carried so much anger and rage, and it lived in each one of them, us, for so many different reasons. Some of them spoken but most, almost exclusively, unspoken.

I’m not sure why I’m the one to speak it, nor if I will do it justice, but I know I need to try.

I simply cannot be silent about it anymore.

And part of it is my own journey, feeling the feminine rage I carry for all of them (and likely some of my female relatives on my dad’s side) and how I’m facing it and getting to the other side of it.

On the weekend is when my partner and I usually do a bigger grocery shop. This past weekend happened to contain both Valentine’s Day and Family Day, all rolled into one. (Family Day is a statutory holiday in Ontario, where we live.)

It seemed fairly quiet when we arrived at the grocery store (we typically go early to go and get out) but it began to fill out when we were heading to the checkout.

In front of us, was an older woman. She seemed timid and moved slowly. The cashier seemed quite impatient with her, even though the woman didn’t seem much younger than the patron. The customer had let the cashier know that something on the belt was on sale but wasn’t marked, so a price check ensued. We had a pretty full cart but weren’t in a hurry. The customer kept apologizing and I said it was totally okay.

She then asked the cashier if she could put some of her items into a separate bag. I had spied the goodies (candy and chocolates with a Valentine’s theme) that I suspected may be gifts. The cashier let out an audible sigh.

This raised my blood pressure.

The woman apologized again and being an empath myself, I could see there was something depleting her energy that had nothing to do with groceries.

After the sigh, the cashier moved like it was the biggest deal in the world that this woman had asked for assistance.

I could have kept watching this scene but I quickly asked the customer if I could help her bag her groceries. Again, she apologized. I said, we’re not in a hurry and I’m happy to do it.

I made sure everything was packed up, and that her goodies for the grandkids (she shared that with me) were in a separate bag.

The cashier thanked me, and the woman checking out her groceries told me I was a treasure and that it was a rare kindness. My heart sank thinking that perhaps it may have been a long time since someone was kind to this lovely lady.

When she said that, I got choked up and said, please don’t think I think you’re her age, but when my mom was alive, I would hope someone would do that for her. I said my mom would have done that for someone else, and I missed her.

My hubby saw I was getting choked up and I had to hold back the tears as the woman left the store, the cashier left her station because it was shift change, and we bagged our own groceries with a new cashier.

In the car, I couldn’t hold back my muffled sobs (and I’m teary now remembering). I said out loud, I could have been so much kinder to my mom when she was alive.

My mom lived by herself after she retired, with her somewhat wild dog, in the woods and she took care of her older sister, Mary Lou too, as she had some complex health issues. She healed their sister relationship before she left us. I don’t think I thought about how brave that was.

I saw my mom in that customer’s face, I saw how she would have wanted my brother’s kids to have something special for any special day. I saw how fragile, insecure and apologetic she was, for taking up anyone’s time, let alone her own space.

And I could have been so much kinder to her. I could have tried to understand why she could never talk about when we were children and some of the choices she made that affected us. She would get so angry when I’d try to bring them up. It was as if everything I witnessed and felt, she wanted to hide, move on from, definitely not acknowledge. And that only made me feel gaslit and that there was something wrong with ME. I knew I hadn’t imagined it.

But maybe it just would have been too painful. My mom never really talked about what she experienced as a young girl. Her mom, after her husband (my grandpa and Mom’s dad) died, sank into alcoholism. I knew my grandma loved me, she told me or wrote it in special cards (she called me her ‘dark-eyed beauty’ because I was the only grandchild with dark eyes and hair), but it’s hard for me to remember a time when my grandma wasn’t drinking or when she wasn’t scowling when we came to visit. And she would never say goodbye.

I remember Grandma telling me that I had to get an education and get a good job before ever getting involved with a man. She said I shouldn’t rely on a man for anything. Even at a young age, I sensed she resented men.

Grandma worked in a shoe factory when Grandpa was in the war, and she remained working there, after he came home. He drove a school bus when he returned.

Grandpa died in his sleep when I was 5. Mom would have been 26. I don’t remember him at all.

I feel so much heaviness and pain, so much that was never spoken, never acknowledged, never felt, not just by me, but by all the women in my family.

But I will feel it. I have done, and am doing inner work to hold it, process it.

And when something like the checkout encounter happens, I feel a little bit more, and I can forgive others, but mostly myself.

A little bit more healing happens and I believe that lightens our collective load.

When I share it, it connects us, on a deep level.

Tonight, I’m going to a gathering of women about the books and words that have shaped us and I’m very excited. I have so many stories about books, but many of the ones that light me up inside are as a result of other people either gifting me books or me gifting them a book.

One of Grandma’s favourite books was The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams and I love it too.

I always tenderly weep through it.

Here is a treasured quote:

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real, you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out, and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Last night, falling asleep thinking about the books and words, I dreamt that my mom was outside the coffee shop where the event will take place tonight, looking in through the window. She was younger and so very happy and she smiled at me, like she was finally happy with the person I’d become.

Of course, she is me. And she is WE.

I woke up feeling a warmth I haven’t felt in a long time and I knew that she was with me.

Something else happened this weekend, something a little more personal.

I’ll save that for next time.

And I’d love to hear what your favourite books are.

And it sits in my body, waiting to erupt. This is aside from the rage I feel with what’s happening to vulnerable folks around the globe. It’s all connected.

Last weekend I started to look into goddesses and female saints.

Mary Magdalene

After hearing about her lost book, on a podcast, I became fascinated with Mary Magdalene and the lengths to which Constantine went to ensure her sacred texts were hidden. And that women’s importance in the world of healing was in essence, at least temporarily, vaporized. It was Meggan Watterson’s book that I’d heard about and ended up purchasing.

Mary Magdalene played a more a central role in early Christianity that was later deliberately buried. In the rediscovered books, she is not a marginal figure but a close companion of Jesus and the first witness to the resurrection. In the Gospel of John, she is explicitly commissioned to carry the news to the other disciples—earning her the early title “Apostle to the Apostles.” This puts her at the heart of the Christian story, not on its edges.

The rediscovery of early Christian and Gnostic texts, the Gospel of Mary, found among the Nag Hammadi texts in 1945, reveals an even more striking portrait. In these writings, Mary is a visionary and teacher who receives teachings others do not and interprets Jesus’s wisdom with clarity and authority. Her authority is openly challenged by male disciples, especially Peter. This shows that arguments about women’s leadership existed from the very beginning of Christianity, not just in modern reinterpretations.

Mary’s later reduction to a repentant prostitute, a characterization absent from scripture and formalized in the 6th century, was a political move that neutralized her authority by sexualizing and diminishing her.

For feminist scholars and theologians, Mary Magdalene has become a powerful symbol of suppressed wisdom, embodied spirituality, and the systematic silencing of women who threaten institutional power. Her recovery is not just about correcting the historical record; it exposes how traditions are shaped, whose voices are preserved, and whose truths are deemed too dangerous to endure.

Medusa

Then I moved on to Medusa. As a child, reading about Greek mythology in school, the thought of a woman who had snakes for hair, and whose gaze could turn humans to stone, was scary to me.

It wasn’t until I was faced with a huge life decision that Medusa came back into my consciousness.

I was told my full time newscaster/reporter position would be cut in half, less than half actually. My station manager said something had come up at another regional radio station newsroom, they needed a replacement that could come right in and cover a vacation for a week. I jumped at the chance, as they offered to put my up in a hotel, give me a car and pay for my travel.

Once I got there, the news director showed me around, told me what I had to do, and I was on the air doing newscasts that afternoon. That night, I attended a station BBQ. The next morning they fired that news director, and I was left with the folks who were reeling at their boss being fired and me being in the mess of it. I called my boss and asked if he’d known this was going to happen. He didn’t admit nor deny. Meanwhile. the female station manager invited me out for dinner that following night. I knew she was going to offer me a position. And there was no question I needed it, but as I was getting ready for dinner in my hotel room, I saw a waking vision of that female station manager, but she had Medusa’s head, full of snakes.

It literally scared the shit out of me.

I didn’t take the job, no matter how much she pleaded or what she offered me.

I went back to my own station and maybe two weeks later, I got a full time job offer at another station that was much better than I could have ever imagined.

I had no idea Medusa had, in recent years become a feminist icon.

Medusa served as a priestess in a temple dedicated to Athena. She was quite beautiful and was pursued by Poseiden. He violated her in the temple (to where she had fled to escape his advances). Athena was outraged this had happened in her temple but instead of persecuting Poseiden, the goddess transformed Medusa’s beautiful hair into snakes and her gaze, causing mortals to turn to stone.

The female gaze has been adopted into a petrification of patriarchy. And I’m fucking here for it.

Isis

I have felt this connection with Isis in the past 18 months. I feel her around me, her essence but had never looked into who she was until now.

Isis is one of the most powerful and enduring figures in the ancient world, long before Christianity emerged. She was a healer, a magician, a mother, and a wise woman who knew how to gather what has been broken and bring it back to life. When her husband Osiris is killed and dismembered, Isis searches for his scattered body parts, reassembles him, and restores him through her knowledge, devotion, and magic.

What makes Isis especially resonant for feminist culture is that her power comes from wisdom, care, and skill rather than domination. She is both tender and formidable: a grieving partner, a devoted mother, and a master of sacred knowledge. Her magic suggests a form of authority rooted in experience and relationship, not hierarchy.

As the worship of Isis spread across the Mediterranean world, she became a figure of protection and hope for ordinary people, especially women and the poor. Many scholars see echoes of Isis in later depictions of Mary, particularly in images of the divine mother and in traditions that honour compassion, healing, and intercession. Isis represents an older lineage of female power—one that values restoration over conquest, and wisdom over control.

From Encyclopia Brittanica:

“Isis was the perfect traditional Egyptian wife and mother—content to stay in the background while things went well, but able to use her wits to guard her husband and son should the need arise. The shelter she afforded her child gave her the character of a goddess of protection. But her chief aspect was that of a great magician, whose power transcended that of all other deities.”

Her powers were greater than all other deities, transcendental. I love that.

Hildegard of Bingen

I’m unsure now of how I landed on Hildegard of Bingen, but once I found her story, I was fascinated, and elated to research the tensions she straddled while alive.

Hildegard of Bingen was a 12th-century nun, but also a mystic, composer, healer, and writer who refused to stay small in a world that expected women to be silent. From a young age, she experienced powerful visions. It wasn’t until much later in life that she recorded these visions in works that blended theology, poetry, and vivid imagery of the natural world. Unlike many women of her time, Hildegard did not keep her insights private, she spoke publicly, wrote extensively, and corresponded with popes, emperors, and church leaders, often challenging them directly. This took immense courage. Some depictions suggest she was often sick as a younger person, and I believe this was a result of her silencing her voice. It is written that she was tithed to the church as the youngest of 10 children to a noble family. It was that, or she would have had no choice in an arranged marriage.

What makes Hildegard especially important to feminist culture is that she claimed spiritual authority without asking permission. She grounded her work in direct experience rather than doctrine alone, arguing that divine wisdom was alive in the body, the earth, and the creative act. And that it was free of dogma. Her concept of viriditas—the life-giving green force that animates all things, offered a version of spirituality rooted in balance and care for the world. She also created her own language to speak with the nuns in her charge. She started two all-female monastaries.

For contemporary feminists, Hildegard stands as proof that women have always been thinkers, leaders, and truth-tellers, even when institutions tried to contain distinguish their light. She shows how women learned to speak from the margins while still shaping the center, and how vision, creativity, and moral courage can coexist with deep intellect and political clarity.

Here’s a slideshow of some of Hildegard of Bingen’s art.

These are simply offered as inspiration I felt strongly to share.

I am also researching a vision I had regarding a woman with long dark hair and a white furry hat, sitting cross-legged leading a circle of negotiations. There is also a white elk in the vision and her father is a chief.

Let me know how these resonate with you and if you know who the last figure might be.

Much love, strength and joy to all.

I have felt pulled in a number of directions in the past few weeks, all in service to external validation and/or sources and it brings a kind of sticky shame along with the realization.

I felt like I had to prove I was worthy of just about anything. Being part of a group, a role or title in a job or even a volunteer position, contributing to a conversation, writing about my own experience even - all elusive unless I had some sort of ‘credibility’ where folks might think I was worth or worthy of their attention. That included my own family.

Only recently have I realized what a maniacal, mad pursuit it has been, all outside myself, expecting others to reflect what I had access to and could choose for myself. Looking outside to fill a hole inside is wasted energy.

Intellectually, it’s something we know. We hear that there is joy in self love, in letting go of seeking validation from others and yet every interaction seems to take up so much time in our heads.

And I’ve been thinking a lot about the rage I’ve held inside me, the resentment of being female and the expectations that come along with that in our society. Not just expectations, but the voices who are the loudest, the humans that get attention with no proof of credibility, and the folks who get the brunt of what those attention-getting folks dictate as truth.

This predates us. It’s been happening for literally centuries, at least a thousand years. I’m writing about this a bit more in another post.

This shows up in my relationships now, with the men in my life in particular.

I have just reached my limit in what I am willing to digest. As I get healthier, my place in the world shifts and that’s challenging for the people around me.

My passiveness no longer suits the person I am becoming. And the fearful voice that I was used to speaking from is becoming full of an unwavering confidence. A confidence that comes from owning ALL of me. The gritty, fallable, promiscuous, wild, awkward woman I have been and the one I have become as a result of all those perceived failures, all of those dismissals, all of that silencing - self or otherwise.

I’m tired of being scared, living in fear, paralyzing myself, stopping myself from telling the truth.

That has only come from feeling.

I heard something today that made me pause and realize yes, this is it!

We must FEEL and feeling does not attach itself to words. Feelings + words = rationalization. Can I feel without attaching shame to the feeling? Can I just have my feelings, let them wash over me, and let the energy of the feelings run out? Because the anxiety I attach to feeling is what trips me up. Anxiety never runs out of energy, it never lets up. Feelings run their course if you can let them wash over you, if you can sit shoulder to shoulder with them.

I’m sitting with this, in this very moment.

What I can tell you is that I know my rage often comes from fear of not being seen but also the fear of being seen. And what that might cost.

All the women who came before me, whose texts were hidden, whose work and words were buried, whose accomplishments were minimized at the hands of men and power.

Someone taught men to do that or that they had to do that. And that message keeps getting validated, over and over and over again.

Either explicitly or by example.

And there are those of us (yep me) who have upheld that oppression by not speaking up for ourselves and for others.

I’ve been expecting the men around me to learn as much about feminine rage as I am. I share stuff with them, I stand up for myself and explain why.

I’m expecting them to understand the implications now.

But what would they have to give up? What would have to shift for them?

I’ve found myself tearing up easily, almost grieving my old self in real time. But also grieving what else might fall away as this shift continues to gain strength and momentum.

It’s also a relief to release my death grip on my throat and accept that my voice does matter.

All of us carry the words that women before us could not speak.

It’s in our bones. And it’s our time now.

I have a new routine. Parts of it aren’t new, but the way the blocks fit together is. Some of that is movement, some of that is journaling, some of that is meditation, some of that is intentional writing (like this), some of that is creativity, some of that is joy and some of it is mindful eating.

At 58, mindful eating is new to me. I’m embarrassed to say that. Intellectually, I knew what it meant, and wanted to do it, but never did. Until now. But this isn’t just about eating. That’s a small piece.

I love beets. It started with a love of pickled beets, then I started to boil my own when we’d get in the summer from a local farm.

As I was boiling beets last week, I realized it was kind of like 2025, and frankly, a collection of years behind it.

I could have cut the beets up a bit or peeled the skin off first, but boiling in the water, immersing it in the heat, makes the skin literally slip off so much easier.

It occurred to me in that moment, that I’ve avoided the hot water in previous versions of myself, and stuff took a lot longer to figure out and learn. And I’m not sure I got the full lesson, always in a hurry to ‘keep up’ with the development of ‘others’, whoever that happened to be at the time.

Sure, it takes longer, but there’s such a satisfaction in easily slipping the skin right off because it’s ready, it’s ready to give it up. It’s spent.

It’s such a relief to let the skin actually come off.

In a somewhat intuitive premonition, I started this almost 5 years ago during the pandemic.

I'm sick. I'm sick because our world is sick but mostly I'm sick because I've been part of this sick world and I've been helping to keep it sick.

I've been sitting in it. 
I've been sitting with my own biases, the ways I've sat idly by and kept quiet. 
I've been listening, watching, FEELING the discomfort of my own white frailty, struggling to understand and learn the right words to speak up, in a way that serves others, and not me.

Because I am finally awake.

I want to crawl out of my skin but maybe that's for the best. 
I feel like I am shedding my old skin all together, working it off, moving it along and all the while sitting patiently as the itchiness and irritation of the new skin grows. 
But while it grows, my flesh is raw and I am feeling the pain of just the air hitting it. 
I am impatient and uncomfortable. 

I also know that's necessary. 
I should feel uncomfortable in my white skin. 
I finally realize that white skin has allowed me privileges not allowed to other humans. Systems are in place that continue to allow that privilege to exist.

This is not a time for me to look away, it's time to walk into the pain that has dogged myself and so many, for so very long, with the understanding that I had a part in ensuring that pain would continue.

I've started conversations with, "I'm going to get this wrong but....".

I want to be better. 
I want to do better.

Will I stumble? Yep. 
Have I stumbled already? Yep. 
Do I have the strength to stand in it and wait for what to do next? Yep.

I'm also trying to be gentle with myself as I learn and grow. 
And my joy is my resistance.
The liberation and the joy are the whole point.

We are not equal. 
I need to do better.
I can do better.

~ Shauna Rae - June 2020/January 2026

It also shows me how far I’ve come in my understanding of privilege and how I feel called to show up in the world now.

While I can’t shed my ‘white skin’, I have gone deep into a universal unity and connection I may have seen glimpses of in the past, but that I have never seen to this magnitude, in this lifetime. I’ve done some serious work on myself, and that is continuous but man, I had to go into that boiling water and sit in it, sometimes for days and days.

I am still getting clear on next steps.

I have two accounts here on Substack. This one, and a podcast account that I have had for a few years. The podcast started during the pandemic. I have sputtered at it though in the past year, struggling to enjoy it.

I’m debating whether to merge the two together, in an attempt to show up in one space as my whole self, and I’m exploring what that looks like.

Please bear (and bare) with me as I evolve and ease bravely into my newest human expression.

What would you have me know about longing?

It is the question asked her readers on her own Substack. The idea is to ask yourself, your soul self, your true self for the answer. Here’s what came to me.

Oh dear sweet lovely girl, you have sacrificed so much for longing. You’ve spent so much energy, so much time, so much money, running from me, in the pursuit of more.

You thought you had to be someone else, from the time you were a small child.

I know why. I’ve been with you all along. When you’d sing and play and laugh with your friends, when you felt free and unencumbered, I was there beside you.

But I was also there when you felt silenced, confused and afraid.

Longing kept you searching. But longing also told you not to give up. When you could have turned your back on love, you defied the allure of a life of bitterness.

Longing held you together. Longing kept your hope alive.

Longing kept you fearful. Longing paralyzed you. Longing convinced you there was more, even though you already had all you needed.

Longing locked you into scarcity, a wound you inherited long ago and through many lifetimes.

What do you long for now, my love? What is it you think you need?

Peace. A self love that remains steady through the storms. An unwavering authenticity, a public bleeding when things are so low, and so very hard to understand.

An uncovering. An emergence. A doing, rather than witnessing.

Pouring my heart into words so that others, like me, don’t feel so alone.

I long for connection. True connection. Real, no holds barred friendship. Truth. Knowing. Love.

I long to know my soul. I long to write from her essence. I long to work together with her, with them.

I long to better understand that my suffering is the suffering of all. And that another’s suffering is also my own, no matter where we come from, what we believe or how we show up. Our suffering is collective. I long to understand this much better and write about it.

Longing keeps me curious. Longing keeps me asking the hard questions, the human questions, the questions that will merge my humanness with my soul.

What would I do if I longed for nothing? If I didn’t have any questions?

Longing is proof I’m alive. I can be content and still long for understanding, can’t I?

When will I know, when I’ve longed long enough?

Who will I be?

Will I be free?

Lots of things have been rising.

And the consistent message is, “Let go. Release with love.”

Earlier this year, I hosted live sessions here on Substack, a course in fact, on letting go. As the universe would have it, I have some letting go to sit in myself. My physical body has been calling out for an unclenching, in a not at all quiet way.

I got word this week that my first cousin died. She was 65. She had cancer and I don’t even think she shared the extent of its advancing stages with her own brother. I messaged her on her 65th birthday, about 7 months ago and she seemed in good spirits, celebrating her birthday on her own in a new restaurant she was exploring in a small town in the US.

(My Aunt Doo (MaryLou - I couldn’t say her name when I was little) on the left and my cousin Pat on the right)

I have memories of her having the most enormous Barbie collection, but not only the dolls but all the accessories and one, maybe two giant cases to carry them all around in. Later, I remember her in the local newspaper profiled as the first female bartender at the tavern in her rural Ontario hometown. She was always inspiring to me.

I also remember her pain. She worked for the Canadian Coast Guard at one time. I was in college when I’d get calls from her on the college dorm phone, drunk and crying. She felt responsible because someone died when she was on the dispatch line with them, the Coast Guard boat not able to make it in time. I didn’t know that it was PTSD back then.

She was whip smart. Everyone knew she was. She was quick witted, but there was also a darkness there, from deep wounds.

Hers is another story that needs to be told. She takes her place with Grandma Stafford, my mom, my Aunt Doo (Pat’s mom, my mom’s sister) and now Pat.

They’re the inspiration for something I’m writing. Because I feel like they’re all with me now. And I need to explore that.

All of our voices, together, once silenced, now quietly stepping into the spotlight and the microphone.

Truth, they’re asking me to tell the truth and I must.

I’ve drafted a proposal for a book. One that examines the convergence of journalistic truth and mystical truth.

Can someone be both a journalist and a mystic? A witness AND a witch? I have no idea, but we’re going to find out.

Watch this space.

Last night it rained, with thunder and a pounding force.

As I walked with our rescue puppy Lucy through our local conservation area this morning, it was as if the universe sprinkled us with magic, treating us to a gentle shower of steady and beautiful fall leaves releasing from the trees in a delicate, flowy dance of exhaling ecstasy.

Exhaling. Leaving. Letting go.

For many years, I’ve struggled to grasp exactly what it is that my time here on earth was for. Whatever I did, mostly professionally but personally too, I mostly felt wanting, and wondering, was that enough? Is THIS enough?

I release that now. I release all of those expectations I put onto myself. I release the old stories, the old identities, the old excuses.

Since I was a child, I would often have vivid dreams that don’t make sense to me at the time but I figure out their meaning later. (Because they are coming more often now, I’ve taken to writing them in the notes on my iPhone).

One of those dreams happened the night of February 10, 2024.

In the morning of February 11, 2024, this is what I wrote:

I am in a boat in the dark holding a lantern looking for lost souls in the water, pulling them onto a boat

No need to be afraid

Not mortal

Clang of bell ringing

Writing things down, observing

Vocation

Full moon shining on the water but pitch dark

Peace and love

Pain in upper stomach from food last night

Cramps, pain

Springtime new, fresh smell

Renewal resolved grief, sadness

I believe this is happening now. I believe the morning journaling sessions I’ve been facilitating on the meditation app Insight Timer, three times a week for almost a year, has been helping to pull folks out of the water.

More on that later.

And I have been steadily journaling, sometimes sharing publicly, but mostly scribbling in a number of notebooks.

Yesterday, I saw a clip from a podcast I used to listen to religiously during the pandemic, called We Can Do Hard Things (newly on YouTube).

Here’s the clip:

(Here’s a link to the NYT essay by Michelle Alexander that Glennon references. We are Not the Resistance.)

Glennon explains that in her essay for the NYT, Michelle Alexander wrote about The River, the ‘order’, the flow that we are to surrender to, what someone might call Source, Spirit, the Universe, etc. It’s the pursuit of love, equality, freedom.

And that there is always a resistance to that flow.

We are not the resistance, Glennon explained, we are the river.

Folks wanting to stop the natural energetic flow of the river, they are the resistance.

Glennon goes on to say, those working towards unity, love, freedom, we are in a fleet of ships, the Freedom Fleet she called it. People built boats to harness the power of the river and move humanity forward. Many ships, one fleet, all working together.

There are shore standers, freedom fleeters and dam builders.

Our job is to get as many people as possible from the shore, into the fleet. And we can organize, protest, boycott, etc. But it’s also our job to make life in the fleet, in the river, so irresistible that people on the shore can’t help but to want to jump on board. That means everyone in the fleet works together. And that when the shore standers finally come aboard a boat, we don’t yell at them for something we just learned not too long ago. We don’t prioritize our egos above the mission of the fleet.

Ouch. That hit home and hard. I have let that happen, many times. I’ve been judgy in some of the worst ways.

I have been the person, in my dream, in the rowboat, with a lantern, in the dark of night, pulling the cold and wet folks onto the boat, to row them to a bigger boat in the fleet and to get them warm again.

After I had a big cry and a big think on this, it brought to mind another dream I had, before my mom passed away (in 2015). I dreamt that I got brain cancer and that my mom would have to choose between my aunt (who was aging and my mom was gently tending to, hundreds of miles away from me) or me. And in the dream, she chose my aunt.

And then it hit me, that my mom was the one who got cancer (previously, I thought my dream wires just got crossed) and although it would be my mom who decided to stay with her sister and take care of her, instead of coming to live with me sooner when her cancer advanced, she actually did CHOOSE ME.

She chose to share her final weeks and days with me, as we healed our relationship together. She transitioned and that started a whole whack more healing, growth and transformation that needed to happen, in order for the patterns of our family to stop with me.

My mom was the first one in the rowboat, pulling ME out of the darkness and the cold, terrified and shivering. It was through her passing that I stopped being a shore stander and got onto one of the Freedom Fleet boats.

I need to remember that I was also a dam builder, many of us have been, perhaps unconsciously because the conditioning is so hard-wired.

I think we all are the ones in the water sometimes, and also become the ones with the lantern, pulling others out of the water. There are many rowboats in the water. And remaining warm and close with the Freedom Fleet is imperative.

But one thing is clear, we need to always believe in the flow of the river. That kindness, justice, equality, love and joy buoy us and that the opposite only contributes to the dam.

Wouldn’t it be fabulous if there was one day, no dam, no resistance?

I have to believe it’s possible.

I’m not really sure how to write about this but here goes.

On Thursday, July 24, 2025, in London, Ontario, Canada, a much anticipated verdict on the alleged gang rape of a young woman by 5 hockey players, was delivered by a female judge. It was a national and international story.

I happened to be at home that day, doing some work on my laptop while listening to the coverage. Later, I had to go out and run some errands, and every woman I encountered had been watching/listening/commented on the verdict.

All five were acquitted. Rubbing salt in the wound, the judge used the words “I do not find the evidence of E.M. (a media ban on the victim’s identity) either credible or reliable.”

Meanwhile twelve women’s groups had come together outside the courtroom to support the victim (E.M.) and let her know they believed her.

All were outraged.

I was outraged.

Most women were outraged.

Hockey is Canada’s unofficial sport. Youngsters are put into hockey at a young age. Every small town may not have a grocery store, but most have an arena that is typically packed with kids and parents each winter.

The pinnacle is the NHL but even junior (league) players are treated like royalty, at least they were at the small town high school I attended. There were ‘puck bunnies’, girls who hung around the players and dated them. In rural Canada, that was like dating a celebrity. Dating a hockey player certainly raised your popularity status.

I wasn’t one of those girls.

I wasn’t popular with boys and I certainly didn’t consider myself attractive enough to date a hockey player. I know now how ridiculous that thinking was, but at the time, it was very real.

I found the arrogance around the heralded players’ status both disgusting and miraculous. Even then, I found myself asking why these ‘boys’ were lifted up like gods and given such bulletproof protection?

That culture has not changed in 40 years.

I watched the reaction to the verdict on social media. I chatted with my husband, my brother, friends about it.

Many felt rage.

The rage I felt though, was not only about this situation, this verdict, this story. It felt deeper and darker.

I wanted men to take more responsibility for not speaking up, for not stopping things from happening, for not teaching boys (by example) that this behaviour is not excusable nor acceptable. I wanted them to take back each and every sexist-laced joke. in any hockey locker room or any after-sports bar.

Just. Fucking. Stop.

How is this culture allowed to continue?

In this landmark case, why did some of the players participate in the events described by E.M. and others did not?

How did we get to a place where it was the words of five lawyered up (now) professional hockey players against one woman saying she was victimized?

Think about if that young woman was your daughter, your niece, your sister, your granddaughter or your wife? Does any woman deserve that?

Five men (and more were in the vicinity) who were in top physical condition, taking turns having sexual encounters with the same young woman.

We know that Hockey Canada maintained a ‘fund’ for these types of allegations and that in a civil suit, Hockey Canada paid the victim 3.3 million dollars to keep the details quiet, to silence her.

I hear so many old men complaining about what the government spends money on that they consider wasteful but I don’t hear a single one of them complain about the wasted money the government has given Hockey Canada to settle lawsuits to silence victims.

My rage is palpable, however I challenged myself to go deeper.

What I found was surprising, even to me.

It brought up pain and shame from my own sexual experiences as a young woman.

I consented.

But many times, I wished I hadn’t. I was promiscuous and passed it off as exploratory sexual independence.

I grew up in a home that told me I was too fat, not pretty enough, not needy enough (my mom asked me why I couldn’t just be more needy) but that I had a great personality.

Society validated all of those things for me.

I was your classic insecure, sensitive (fragile) girl with ‘Daddy issues’.

But I had an acerbic wit that could cut glass, level someone (mostly males) with words, protecting myself from the anticipated rejection I was sure to receive. But I was also kind, empathetic and supportive to those who braved getting close to me. And whip smart, with an edge.

As a young woman, boozed up was mostly the way I could have sex. Later I would discover the anxiety and insecurity the booze masked. I let that numbed sex pass for intimacy because I had no idea what or how intimacy worked. All I knew is that I desperately wanted to be loved and to belong.

No one spoke of feelings in my home, it was discouraged.

And I had a lot of feelings about everything.

No one taught me I could have boundaries, that I could set those myself.

I carried my self loathing into every intimate interaction.

Many times I regretted the sex I had, and with whom. Sometimes I liked the physical act but in my case, I was longing for a real relationship, for love and it was the only way, the only shortcut I knew, to real intimacy.

Of course, casual sex didn’t do that for me.

I didn’t feel loved by my family, how could anyone else love me?

Because I didn’t respect myself, the folks I slept with didn’t respect me either. And sometimes I felt scared. Sometimes I’d be in a situation that seemed too dangerous to say no and that I couldn’t think clear enough or fast enough to get away, even if I did say no.

I remember a guy saying to my face in a bar, in my early 20s, that I was ‘like a moped, fun to ride but I wouldn’t want my friends to see me.’ And I didn’t know what to say.

I believed him.

Take that in.

What kind of a person says that to someone? What kind of a culture did patriarchy create where a man thinks he could say that to a woman’s face in a public place?

Now, similar sentiments are regularly posted online without incident.

The message I got was that I wasn’t good enough, that I was embarrassing and worthless.

I’d attempt to mold myself into whatever I needed to be. A Shapeshifter. As much as inside, I felt like an outsider and that I was a fraud, I’d try to project a sense of confidence and that I didn’t care what anyone thought.

But of course, I did. Or I wouldn’t have masked my insecurity and the shame that dogged me because of my own sense of lack.

I’m 58 years old as I write this, some of those sexual encounters still haunt me.

The gossiping about me behind my back stung for many years.

But I now have compassion for that young woman who wanted to say no but said yes.

Does any of my past mean I am flawed in some way? ‘Crazy’? Undeserving of love, affection, respect or empathy?

No.

I own every version of me. I love each one of her.

The only way is through, shining light on shame and loving myself through all of my versions.

This layer of the onion has been a hard pill to swallow, many years, much pain.

But I have called back each little piece of dignity I left behind and am whole again.

I share this story openly and vulnerably so others don’t feel so lonely in their own shame, in their own story.

No one benefits from patriarchy.

For the men, the boys, the folks who identify (or identified) as males, society conditioned you to seek conquests, you’ve been sold/told that that is ‘manly’.

You were taught to hide your feelings, to channel them all into rage, each feeling pushed down and into anger and violence. You were less of a man if you showed emotion. Maybe you were called (gasp) a girl.

You have been allowed and encouraged to be enraged.

Maybe your mom was the one who told you to stop crying and ‘be a man’. Maybe it was your dad, a teacher, your grandparents.

Those identifying as women have been told to smile sweetly and be obedient, hiding our rage.

We are so much more alike than we want to admit, than we’ve been allowed to explore.

We are all humans, designed to feel, emote, love, express anger, sadness, grief, loss, failure and forgiveness.

But none of us have been allowed, or allowed ourselves, to be authentically ‘us’.

We’ve all played our parts.

"All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players…”

As Jacques in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, so aptly speaks, however even this speech/passage is from the male perspective.

When will we see that the way we currently show up in the world, is not good for us? When will we see ourselves as human, never to escape pain, love, loss, joy, failure, exuberance, enthusiasm and sorrow?

When will we stop hiding from our true selves?

When will we turn away from the constant stimulation, the constant noise of distraction and examine what’s inside?

What’s inside all of us?

The rage was never about consent, it’s about our collective loss of self.

We are longing to love, on a deep, connected level.

Do you/we have the courage to explore that?

The mirror moves from side to side and all around, like a fun house.

I am finding the joy in the excavation.

We rented a cottage, sort of last minute, and were excited to find it comfortable, clean and not far from the beach access. We settled in. The next day (a holiday) at 7:30 a.m., the construction crew arrived to start work on the new house build, directly next door. I’d say it was almost 100 ft away from the window? That continued for the extent of the 5 days there. 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. We spent a lot of time at the beach and it wouldn’t have been so bad, except that our small, timid rescue puppy was with us, and we left her in the crate when we went to the beach (other dogs were off-leash) and she trembled in her crate from the noise. We took turns taking the 1,789 steps (really maybe 30) up and down from the beach every 90 min to check on her and spend time with her. It was also 170 degrees outside (maybe 35-40 C with the humidex).

The night before, I had a breakdown. It was a bawling session, where I was triggered, became angry, dug deeper and realized I had pent up shame and anger attached to not being present at home (as a teenager) when my youngest brother experienced verbal and physical violence from my then stepdad. This was long held pain and anger that kept showing up in my life.

Dan just held me in bed while I sobbed and sobbed. Tears are welling up now as I think about it.

Dan also addressed some of his own pain. And he got really honest about the traits he may have carried, some he doesn’t necessarily like or is proud of, from his own family line. He practised great humility and I’m super proud of him.

I’m proud of us.

I no longer have tolerance for a fake life. I no longer can pretend like everything is okay in the world and in my own life.

I can no longer hold back and play small.

I can no longer hold my tongue for the sake of being nice, and push down my own anger and pain.

I can no longer hide my power.

I will no longer shrink to appease anyone.

I can no longer ignore my intuition, even when everyone else does not believe me.

When we returned from our break, we took our lovely puppy (her name is Lucy) for our usual walk in our conservation area.

This is what we came across while crossing a bridge.

We live in Ontario, Canada. The beaver is a very Canadian symbol. (That’s Dan’s voice in the background. I’m holding Lucy.)

And this! They are cleaning each other’s tails! It’s a social ritual of beavers.

In all my 58 years of living in Canada, I have never seen a beaver in the wild this close.

We spent several minutes watching in awe.

Then we carried on down the trail and not long after saw a small snake.

We are building something powerful together. We are building a foundation. We are shedding old skin. We are shedding old ancestral, familial patterns because we are facing them with courage and with self compassion. And we are holding each other through it.

We are seeing the beauty in the excavation, in the digging up of old patterns, putting a mirror up to parts of ourselves that brought us shame in the past but because we are shedding light on them now, shame scurries.

We are removing barriers to loving ourselves and making room for new identities and new ways of showing up in the world.

We are making space for our own power.

And the vacation? Well, next door, a new construction, a new house? As annoying as it was, and as we watched our puppy slowly get used to the sounds, we too are getting used to new construction and the sound of building something new for all of us.

My head was on fire.

I was angry as hell and to be totally honest, I really wasn’t sure why. And I felt ashamed of actually being angry.

My partner had gone to work, like usual and I was hosting a live journaling session at home, as planned.

Suddenly I heard someone in the house, and I saw my partner slip into the bathroom and shut the door out of the corner of my Zoom screen.

He was at home again, maybe 90 min after he’d left the house.

I found it unnerving. I’d just gotten into a nice rhythm and routine, including walking the dog twice a day in our local conservation area, eating better and booking time at our local library to write.

My routine was disrupted.

Actually, our dog had to go to the vet for a procedure later that morning, and I had to give her puppy sedatives in order to have it done later that morning. So there had already been a change in plans.

When I finished my live event, I walked into the livingroom to find my partner on the couch, sprawled out, with his head on a pillow.

He was sick. He said he hadn’t slept the night before and his head was out of whack.

At the start of last week, I’d been at the doctor’s office with a raw throat and headache. I thought it was strep throat. The doc said it wasn’t and sent me on my way. She mumbled something about it likely being a viral throat infection but offered no remedy.

I just kept going, telling myself, maybe it’s just allergies.

My partner is totally succumbs to sickness.

I ask him if he needs anything. No. I ask him if I can get anything for him. No. But he mopes around as if he is on his last legs.

He went to bed.

I took puppy to her appointment. She did really well.

We came back and puppy had to sleep off the sedatives. I thought the two of them could sleep together. Puppy wouldn’t have it when I wasn’t in the room.

My partner woke up later and sprawled out on the couch again. I asked him if he wanted to walk the dog with me. No.

On my walk, I was seething. I kept asking myself, what is underneath this? Why am I so angry? What is this lesson?

When I got home, my partner picked up on my mood. Staring at me, he asked, are you mad at me? I instantly said no, but that was a lie. I didn’t know why I was angry though so I couldn’t really explain it to him.

I tried to be nicer.

I journaled and journaled. And then journaled some more the next morning.

What’s underneath this anger? It seems irrational.

As the oldest child and only girl in our family, I was expected to look after my brothers. And when my parents split, and struggled with their own issues around that breakup, I became a second mother. I resented that role. I never really got to be a kid, I was always looking after someone else. And that played out in my relationships later.

My dad also expected me to mother him and there was backlash if I didn’t.

And then there’s the whole system that upholds women doing all the emotional labour of ‘taking care’ of children and people in general: Patriarchy.

After all the work I’ve done on myself, on focusing on my own well being, why did I have to mother someone else now?

The thing is, I don’t have to. I can choose not to. It is only my perception.

My perception is that I am expected to mother my partner, but I can always choose not to. When I ask if there is anything they need, or anything I can get them, and they say no, that is where my responsibility ends. I have received the information required to go about whatever I would like.

Being angry about something I think someone expects is pretty silly.

But it’s also an old wound, something that needs to be acknowledged and addressed. That anger is in there.

Obviously, I’ve held on to that anger for a very long time. And I’m directing it towards someone in the present.

That’s not helpful for either one of us.

But I can tell you, I wanted to keep being pissed off! I did not want to let go of it, nor did I want to go deeper.

Asking myself what’s underneath has been some of the hardest work of my life so far. But it’s also the only way I’m going to put a stop to projecting, and the cycle of shame that comes with that. And I really felt ashamed of that anger. I wish I could have recognized how I was holding on to it and why, much sooner and without putting it on to my partner.

Now, I have to apologize to my partner and explain, yes, I was angry and it had nothing to do with you and everything to do with old resentments and unacknowledged and unprocessed anger.

I’ve had a lot of anger. I held so much of it inside me.

My body is grateful that I am processing and setting it free.

I can finally let it go.

I grew up wondering why my mom shopped in the husky jeans department of the store for me, instead of buying me Carhartt painter pants like every one else had (I mean, aside from me being at least slightly overweight, most of my life).

I also didn’t get the Roadrunner jeans I begged my mom for, so I could look like the other girls.

My parents would take us to Kmart, to the toy section and leave us there to ‘play’ until they were done their shopping, I’m sure annoying everyone around us.

My dad would buy us ‘treats’ at the store. That meant chocolate bars. He expertly chose everyone’s favourites then like some sort of mind fuck, he’d ask us to choose. If we chose the one we all knew was our favourite, he would deny us that one and let someone else choose, because we were being selfish and not putting others first.

Dad would also buy a 2L box of neopolitan ice cream, cutting it into the 3 sections, again, asking us what section we wanted. Let’s just say we rarely got the chocolate section.

When I was 15, I got my first job, because my mom said that if I wanted to buy clothes, I’d have to make my own money. We got the ‘Baby Bonus’ they called it at the time, in the fall, but after that, we were on our own.

Because so much was happening in my home (my parents split, both finding other partners fairly quickly, puberty, wanting boys to notice me, peer pressure, having curly hair when straight hair was all the rage, and other much deeper stuff) I didn’t know what to do with all of my emotions. No one ever talked about any of that stuff, any of the stuff I was scared about, insecure about, didn’t understand.

I got a job at the local donut shop. It wasn’t a chain, it was owned by a German couple, Gerhardt and Helga. It was called the Donut Mill. I worked there from 15-18.

It was hard work. I had to wear and buy my own uniform. I worked many weekend nights and early mornings, when my friends were out partying and having fun. (Oh I managed to do that too but I worked two shifts every weekend.)

I remember buying a bag of Tostito chips, the ones that kind of stank and left your fingers orange, a thick Dairy Milk bar and a pop at the closest store, walking home and gorging myself on it till I felt sick.

That’s where some of my hard-earned money went.

I did buy some clothes (that I always felt ‘fat’ in) but I also got folks to buy me booze.

When I was 14, I got drunk for the first time with some girls from school. Someone bought us a 26-er of gin and I chugged it straight from the bottle.

My friends had to call my dad to come pick me up when I couldn’t move from the hockey arena washroom, puking my guts out.

I didn’t drink for 2-3 years after that.

All that to say, I never learned the value of money. I understood I had to work, like it was my ‘duty’ to have a job, but no one taught me how to save or how to budget. That’s definitely not something we were taught in school.

As an entrepreneur, my dad had to file for bankrupcy with one of his businesses, I think there were two times he had to do that, and because my mom did the books, she got taken down with a business, at least once.

My parents got married when Mom was 19 and Dad was 21.

My mom wasn’t much of a cook nor a housekeeper, so our place wasn’t what you’d call ‘well kept’ and growing up, my house basically felt full of chaos.

I remember friends knocking on our door to walk to school and symbolically shutting the door behind me, and putting on the ‘happy face’ that everything was okay behind that door. But it felt like, for part of the day, I could forget about what I shut behind it.

The first place I lived on my own was the nurse’s residence in the town I grew up in. I, along with one of my brothers and two step sisters, all teenagers, had been given the ultimatum from my dad and his wife, go to church with us, or leave today at 5.

I went and stayed with my mom and her maniacal partner for awhile but eventually moved in to a room by myself.

I worked two jobs to pay the rent and buy my own food. I’d get up on the morning for my shift at 6, riding my bike to the Stratford Festival where I worked in the Green Room kitchen where the actors, wardrobe, and all staff went to eat. Those shifts typically ended at 2. I’d ride my bike to my next job at a local convenience store and work 4-midnight. And then do it all again the next day.

Meanwhile, my dad married a partner who was a hoarder just like he was, so they filled their home with stuff they’d gather from garage sales and flea markets, spending their last dollar on found treasure.

My mom lived with a partner who was stingy but a decent housekeeper. Mom’s final partner was a cook and housekeeper. When he died, my mom also became a hoarder.

Neither of them were taught how to manage money and never had the tools to teach us.

For a long time, as an adult, I didn’t think I was worthy of making good money. The first time I negotiated a contract, I had to have a conversation with another woman in a bigger city to find out what she made, and what others made.

Often, I would turn to my younger brother, as he seemed to learn his value (but let’s be honest, men are much more valued than women and the negotiating process is far different for women - but that’s another post).

I struggled financially at different times in my life. I carried debt, after going back to school, then as a struggling meagerly paid radio reporter in a medium market. I took on roommates or became one, splitting rent and utilities, always struggling with spending and saving.

I had my hydro shut off temporarily, and a few times risked having to live in my car. Money was scarce and getting food for my dog today, trumped paying a big hydro bill.

There were bright lights, times when I was doing well financially, and debt-free, some seemingly long stretches where I was able to save and even invest, but another job loss would tumble the house of cards.

It wasn’t until recently that I started to examine what has been passed down to me and that I continue to carry.

Money, as in romantic partnerships, for me, has been linked to worthiness.

I spend money on myself because I want to think I am worthy of whatever it is I have my eye on.

The trick is, I actually have to really believe it, and not use the ‘thing’ I’m buying as a validation of my worthiness, of it.

Trust me, this has been a work in progress, a very long one.

I’ve blamed partners but ultimately, I’m the one who must believe and embody my own worthiness.

And just like the previous post, where I was asking myself ‘What’s underneath this?’, I am also asking myself that question here.

What is underneath this?

Scarcity is a belief that there will never be enough. One side of that is hoarding, keeping everything, for fear you won’t have enough. That includes objects but also money, never spending your money because you may need it.

In my case, I never saw what abundance looked like in my family. Abundance, financial stability was for ‘other people’, ‘other families’.

My dad was an artist in his early life and moved from job to job, much to my mom’s disappointment and worry, being home with a young family.

I believe my parents thought that ‘rich people’ or abundant folks, were bad people, that somehow they must have cheated, or inherited their worth, not actually working for it.

I thought that way for a long time. And I’m embarrassed to say, I couldn’t even imagine what abundance looked like for me. I didn’t even know how that could happen for me. It seemed unattainable.

I carried around the scarcity wound from both sides of my family line.

I remember my husband and I sitting on the beach in Jamaica and having folks serve us sparkling wine to our chairs on the beach, and thinking I felt ‘rich’ and that this must be what being ‘rich’ feels like. And feeling guilty about it.

That had to come from somewhere.

What has helped me cultivate abundance (and I’m still working on it) are as follows:

• Gratitude - Being grateful for everything I have - access to nature, food, shelter, the list goes on and on - This is the most important thing, to me, hands down

• Understanding that abundance is limitless - My abundance doesn’t come at the cost of someone else’s (This comes from White Supremacy but that’s another post too)

• Celebrating the success of others - Comparison is the thief of joy but celebrating the success of others shifts the frequency to abundance. Their success doesn’t come at the cost of mine and visa versa.

• Owning my situation - Not blaming where I am in life on anyone else, including my parents. They may have been a symptom but once I am aware, it’s up to me to shift. (This one has been particularly hard for me, moving beyond the comfort of ‘the victim’ mindset)

• Understanding that everyone is worthy of abundance, including ME! This goes back to abundance being limitless

You do not have to ‘be’ or ‘do’ any specific thing to become abundant. It’s intention and believing that it can be so, then getting out of your own way. And also imagining yourself in your ‘ideal’ situation as if it’s already happening.

Of course, I wish I could have seen this for myself earlier and that my parents and their families could have believed they were worthy, but feeling and healing is also part of it. You have to be willing to examine where, and why you’re stuck.

All of my memories, good and bad, have brought me to an awareness of some kind.

This one is big for me.

I am consistently wrestling with old family wounds. They’re mine but they’ve also been passed down through generations.

I imagine myself physically wrestling them to the ground, hairpins flying, gnashing of teeth, breathless and loud squealing.

Then I chuckle at my own sense of the dramatic. And I know there will never be a victor, as some of the wounds heal and some come back up again. I also know that embracing them with love is the best option.

I have a vivid imagination.

When I’m triggered, when I’m angry, when I feel like I’m being ignored, I’ve recently been daring myself to ask, what’s underneath?

It’s difficult in the moment to think of these often painful situations as opportunities, in fact, my desire to numb in those particular times, is almost insatiable. I have spent many years numbing the difficult feelings, but also, the beautiful ones. I missed a lot.

Last week I did something brave. I facilitated a conversation, a circle, about the experiences of racialized folks in rural Ontario at a local university. I knew only one of the participants beforehand, but also asked the others to meet on a Zoom call ahead of time, for a bit of a test run and to build trust with one another. As a white woman, with all the privilege that affords me, I felt that my place was to encourage, empower and amplify and was conscious of how my approach could shift power.

Driving there, I wasn’t nervous. I listened to poetry (an audiobook from David Whyte that I borrowed with my library card with Hoopla), took deep breaths and admired the lovely weather and the landscape on the way.

I am aware that I have a gift for this, for leaning into vulnerability and being authentic. I ask to be a vessel for the words and to heal my fear-based thoughts so I may receive and be a vessel for the healing.

And there have been times when I’ve been embarrassed, did and/or said the wrong thing, been closed to other folks’ ideas/comments sensing, somehow, that I knew what was ‘right’.

I have fallen flat on my face.

But after licking my wounds a bit, allowing myself to feel through it, giving myself some grace to be a healing human, I dare again, I keep daring to be seen.

The space between my courageous steps have been wide. On more than one occasion, I have sunk into a self-created flailing chaos, linked to my fixation on failing, miserably, what I often consider in those moments, most of my life.

Funny how the inventory of missteps and hurts we may have caused is the most easily and readily accessible. And the things we have done gracefully, the folks we reach, assist, sit beside or somehow lovingly touch, are harder to remember.

But this time I felt confident, more confident than I have felt since I was a child.

I was elated how the circle was received and I truly felt like the words moved through me, simply because I got out of my own way. Two young Black woman asked me for a hug and said how refreshing the conversation was in a university setting. I was humbled.

My husband was away at the time and when I texted him that things had gone exceptionally well, he texted back, “I’m proud of you,”. I received that. And I believed it, which I haven’t done in a long time either.

I grew up in a family that celebrated. Birthdays, holidays, being with each other, a day at the beach, all cause for a celebration. But in my family, that included booze and/or food.

When I arrived home to our rescue puppy, my husband away for the night, I wanted to celebrate. Out came the wine, the chocolate, the chips. I sat in front of the TV and gorged myself. And felt awful about it later.

What was underneath?

It took me awhile of thinking about it, half a week, to figure out that numbing with food and booze, in this case, was my way of pushing down my discomfort with my unconscious need for external validation. Intellectually, I know seeking accolades outside myself is a voracious, cavernous, bottomless hole that is never filled, but my autopilot has always been to get that validation from outside myself (never really feeling like it was ‘enough’). And I learned from my family that numbing that feeling with ‘celebration’ was perfectly okay.

But what was underneath, THAT?! What is the real source of the discomfort? There had to be more, more excavating to be done.

Then it hit me.

It felt scary TO BE SEEN. It felt uncomfortable to be seen as my highest self, my true self, because in the past, I’d been discouraged from shining too brightly, being too ‘proud’ of myself, being too full of myself.

Full of myself, exactly what is perhaps required to feel fulfilled and therefore not feel the need to seek validation outside myself, because I am already full.

This was a big breakthrough for me, one I talked about with my husband on our conservation area walks with our puppy.

That doesn’t mean I won’t ever have chocolate or wine again, nor celebrate myself but I am conscious now, of how I was using it to fill a void, in that moment. Filling myself up with food and booze because I was uncomfortable to be full of myself.

My intuition, my highest self, my soul self always tells me when there is more to a story (the stories I make up and/or want to leave buried). I’m finally listening now.

And this epiphany led to me writing a poem called The One Who is Aware, which I posted here.

All of this is pioneering courage.

You and I, we are changing our ancestral line, we are disrupting the patterns we’ve carried for eons. This is no small feat!

THAT is cause for celebration!

Who am I?

Lying on my back, on the shores of Lake Huron in the spring, the beach still strewn with the remnants of her winter’s escapades, looking up to the sky I asked myself, “Who am I?”

Who am I?

Having just finished a professional contract with an organization I worked full time previously and left, I felt rudderless, again. I left that job once and 4 years later, the dynamics were the same. What has changed is me. I am different. I have healed just enough to realize I deserve better.

But what?

As the waves crash against the break wall further up the beach, I feel like I don’t belong. I’m just on the periphery of every group and every community I’ve ever longed to belong to. But did I really want to belong? What would have been the cost?

My third husband has been patient, saying he fully supports whatever I want to do, but that’s with the knowledge from his words, actions and my own intuition, that he really just wants me to do something that makes money, anything so he’s not embarrassed by my lack of ‘productivity’.

Capitalism.

To be honest, I really have no idea who I am, and it pains me to read that sentence in print.

Who, in the fuck, am I, really? Like underneath the pleasing and performing?

I’ve spent 58 years molding, bending, shapeshifting, kowtowing, cowering, door kicking, acting, manipulating, and settling into the comfort of victimhood.

When all is said and done, who is the authentic me?

Sure, I’ve gone through periods of stepping into the sun, exploring parts of myself that I kept covered and camouflaged, and I’m living now as authentically as I know how, but I never learned how to be myself.

In fact, it was never encouraged, it was almost forbidden.

Patriarchy.

I identify as a woman, but I’ve had a rough time embodying what society considers the highest binary attributes of what being a woman means.

I have been married three times and divorced twice and been single longer than I was ever married, to all partners combined, although teaming towards 15 years together and a handful married, my current arrangement is threatening (in a good way) to overtake that reality.

I have never carried a baby to term. I have been a step-mom but only for a handful of years. I’m a proud dog mom and at various times in my adult life, have lived as a stay-at-home dog mom.

I’m an average cook but don’t feel like I have to cook for everyone, everyday and I take no pride in bringing a special dish to the summer potluck (but have no disdain for folks who do).

I’ve tried gardening but am not meticulous enough and diligent enough to really care what the garden looks like to others, so the result is usually unkempt and disorganized in various forms of living, dying and almost dead foliage.

*Trigger warning: Talking about food, disordered eating and body disphoria*

I have always been what my mom considered ‘chubby’ and wore ‘husky’ jeans as a teenager. I passed out in front of my 7^th grade class, giving a speech about horror movies (which I hate by the way). It was partly because I couldn’t remember the words and was nervous, but also because I wasn’t eating, and hadn’t eaten more than maybe one meal a day for many days. My mom gave me a book called ‘The Woman Doctor’s Diet for Teenage Girls’ when I was 13. When I lost weight, my mom said I was then ‘too skinny’. I’ve worked out to the point of obsession, I’ve allowed food and its connection to my appearance to overwhelm my thoughts, and I’ve used food to comfort me, to help me push down feelings, almost my entire life.

I wear pants and overalls but also frilly, lacy and flowy dresses because they feel amazing against my skin. I’m a size 14/16 and wear a bikini at the beach. I like to thrift but would spend my last $200 on a beautiful dress, with nowhere to wear it but around the house. I don’t wear much makeup anymore, but I used to wear lash extensions and before that, liquid eyeliner and the whole nine yards. I used to get pedicures often, facials too but I’ve recently rediscovered Ponds moisturizer (not the same concoction we used to remove Halloween makeup with but the same company).

Sometimes I like to sleep naked and sometimes I like to wear a nightie. My hubby prefers au natural to lingerie and I’m okay with that. In the winter, I’ll cuddle up to him with my cold hands and feet (but warm heart) but when he’s away, I’ll wear flannel PJs and socks to bed. I have cute lacy nighties for summer but it’s usually too hot.

Only once in my life have I faked an orgasm and it was at the end of a relationship, a marriage actually, not that that is any excuse. I don’t have to have one but I prefer, if time allows that we’re not finished until I do. However, I chose to do all manner of things with faceless strangers because I thought I had to. More on that later.

I may not appear subservient externally but my mind is always wondering if I get it ‘right’.

If I get anything, ‘right’.

And by ‘right’ I mean, do I ever make them happy, do I make people happy?

Intellectually I know the answer is no and that it’s not my job. It’s not really in my best interest to even give a shit what other people think and feel about me, but the programming is ingrained.

I witnessed it all unfold, starting at a young age. My developing brain had so many questions, all the time. What eventually made me a great journalist and storyteller, made me an annoying little kid.

My insatiable curiosity never subsided.

Why am I here? If it’s not to fit in and make other people happy, what exactly am I supposed to be doing that’s ‘productive’ and makes me money?

My husband and I recently met with a financial advisor, his financial advisor about retirement. She was shocked to see me accompanying him to the meeting. She didn’t know we married and the look in her eye, as she leaned over towards me and asked, ‘So are you working then, Shauna?’ felt like a kick in the stomach. Aren’t we women supposed to be supportive of one another? My husband is her client, not me. She clearly stated that if I was going to work with her, I’d need to open up an account at their bank.

Yeah, fuck that.

And why did my husband not notice how she treated me or how I shrunk in my chair? Why didn’t he… care?

White supremacy.

I’ve healed a great deal with the help of meditation, journaling and an incredibly supportive community on the meditation app, Insight Timer where I’ve been ‘teaching’ live journaling sessions (I call it facilitating conversation in the circle). I’ve grown by leaps and bounds, attempting to feel, and heal the ancestral wounds I’ve been carrying.

I started hobbling together a memoir and some of it, if you’ve gotten this far, will be what you’ve just be reading.

I can’t promise to write every day but I took 3 nights away on my own, bawling, lying on the floor, walking the beach, journaling and sleeping, and realized I’ve been distracting myself with all manner of other projects, avoiding leaning into my creative gift. It took Lady Huron, dancing with the sun, to whisper in my ear, “Let go”.

So I am committed.

Committed to keep writing and to keep healing.

Word by word.