When the storm comes,
You shelter me.
And I don’t say a word,
and you know exactly what I mean.
In the darkest times,
You shine on me.
You set me free.
And keep me steady as we go….

Steady as we go… These 4 words have helped bring me comfort in some volatile times over the last year. I love every word in this song. It speaks to me and to my relationship with my husband Scott. We have had such a unbelieveable 15 years together. These words have helped me find strength in hard times and have allowed me to look back on them with gratitude in the good times. That is about all you can really ask for in a song, that it resonates with your soul in both good and bad times.

We are coming up to the one year mark on the hardest year of my life. But it has been the year of the biggest changes and deepest gratitude. When I look back on myself a year ago I feel sad for who I see. I see a woman trapped. Trapped partially by her own choosing. I am grateful not only to be able to look back, but to be able to look back and take responsibility for my own situation. For in that responsibility I can see real growth. I can see the fact that I have learned from the lessons I have lived through and know that I no longer have to go back there. I can set myself free from that type of mental bondage. There is still a little lingering emotion as I look back but far more gratitude in not being there anymore.

I had given up everything by my own choosing. I was making decisions from a place of how others would react. I was living with deep dark secrets that needed to be set free. Every move I made was made in fear of upsetting a balance that I really had no control over. No one should live their life constantly looking over their shoulder to see how someone will react. This may sounds like an exaggeration to those of you who have not walked along this path, but for those of us who have lived in this type of situation, I am really not doing it justice at all. We were making decisions from fear and defensiveness, not from joy and happiness. And what we thought about we certainly brough about. No denying that! But today I want to reflect back on this last year in joy and happiness. I want to allow myself the opportunity to see where I was in order to see the reality of where I am now. I own myself this opportunity to be proud of where I am and what I have survived. And to acknowledge that no one placed this situation on me. That over the course of 10 very long years I accepted every aspect of the place where I was. Every negative situation gave the opportunity to accept it or walk away. I did not see that then, but the choice was there even if my eyes were closed to it. I know now that I can accept things or turn them away. Only I have that choice and that is a power that I do not ever want to be blind to again!

While I am in this space of gratitude I want to extend my love and thanks to those who have been on this journey with me. Scott, who has been in this every step of the way, has helped to make even the hardest of times seem bearable. We have been through more than we ever imagined when we first took our vows on the beach. But through all of it we are stronger than any challenge that has ever come up. That is a blessing I will forever be grateful for. I also want to send my love to those amazing people who have lived this pain and sadness with us. Your love and support helped make this year of great challenges and wonderful blessings a little brighter. To all of my dear friends, old and new, I send you my love and gratitude from the bottom of my heart…

In Love,

Michelle

“Well, hello world, how’ve you been?
Good to see you, my old friend
Sometimes I feel as cold as steel
And broken like I’m never gonna heal
I see a light, little grace, little faith unfurl
Well, hello world

Sometimes I forget what living’s for
And I hear my life through my front door
And I’ll be there, oh, I’m home again”          Hello World by Lady Antebellum

Hello World…

I was driving today and  I was deeply saturated in my own thoughts and worries when I had a moment of reality. I looked out at the road, the sky, the trees and realized just how small I am. I was looking at the same road and same scenery I see everyday, but there was a newness about it, a clarity that gets lost in my everyday life. It was as if I was looking down on my thoughts & worries and could see how miniscule they are in comparison to the world. It gave me a much-needed moment of freedom. As I pondered this feeling of being such a small part of the world, I felt deep relief. Logically, I think we can all agree that we are small in relation to so may things. Most of us still feel small when we stand beside the ocean, but it is in our everyday lives that we seem to get lost in our own thoughts. We allow ourselves to get boggled down by our everyday tasks. But one simple moment of clarity allowed me to take a breath, to breathe in life again. I find myself consumed with stress and my list of things that I “need” to get accomplished and I forget the beauty of it all.

In a few seconds of breathing and allowing myself to step down off the pedestal of importance that I place myself and my worries on, I found an inner peace that I have been looking for. The worry began to dissolve away and I gained perspective. I think we all need to feel this peace. And the beauty of it is, that it is inside all of us. We do not need to pay anyone to find it, to take classes to learn it or read about it in a book. It is a gift we all have, that we have always had, I just forget I have it sometimes. In this quite place of perspective I can gain awareness of the fact that nothing out there matters. This doesn’t mean that I don’t have to continue to do my “to do list”, but it means that I can see it clearly for the time being. I deeply believe that all of the small and not so small worries that we allow to creep up on us are just things. Just worries we give power to by acknowledging them. Sometimes the worries are to great to see this place of peace and if that is where you are than just allow that and know that you can reach for this feeling whenever you want.

One of the most beneficial aspects of this for me is that I do not have to allow others emotions or problems into my life. If someone is upset or angry, that is their choice. This acceptance has been a long time coming and one that I feel such overwhelming joy that I have reached. My spirit is just leaping with joy that my head has finally accepted this to be the reality I can live in. But this inner peace came to me from a big lesson that I would have consumed me a few years ago. I will share this lesson with all of you. I have come to realize that there are some people very unhappy about me speaking my truth and writing this blog. I have broken the silence. I have allowed myself to speak freely in hopes of sharing with others. The beauty of the situation currently is that I can accept their feelings and allow them to feel however they need to, but I do not have to let ANY of those feelings into my life. What is going on with them and with their emotions are theirs, not mine. I believe life gives you lessons over and over until you finally learn from them. I can boldly and proudly say today I have learned! I know I have learned from the feeling of joy, peace and relief I feel in not taking on others emotions.

With all of this said, I am going to work on continuing to allow myself to feel this freedom. That doesn’t mean I won’t have moments or days of regression, but I can never go all the way back. I have seen the goal line and I am going to see what life holds for me on the other side. I want to continue to put the important people in my life first and not allow myself to get weighted down in stress. Sometimes we all need a wake up call to live life and say Hello World…

In Peace and Love,

Michelle

‎”I don’t need a certain number of friends, just a number of friends I can be certain of”

This simply written statement says it all. It allows a certain amount of reflection into our lives. Most of us learned a lot of lessons around friends. I certainly have. Quality over Quantity is definitely the way to go.

Over the last year, when the hard times showed up, I began to see who my real friends were. They are the ones who loved me no matter what and stood beside me even when I was not there to see it. They are the ones who knew the real me, inside and out. They can feel my heart and know what I am about. This has been a blessing. The challenges in life turn out to be your biggest blessings. They have in my life. Even though everything is not back to perfect, (What is perfect anyway?) I have had the blessing of seeing who will be there when I need them.

I do not open myself up very easily. There are people I have known for years who still don’t know me on a personal level. This has been on purpose. I guard myself and I am always looking to keep myself safe. This goes back to my childhood. I have learned some lessons the hard way. Being guarded is one of those self preserving necessities that has helped me live through these lessons, and I am thankful to my inner self for taking such good care of me. But now is the time to begin to open the doorway to my heart, just a little. There is a peace about gently opening up my soul to others. Without these hard times I would have never gotten the courage to begin this process. I would have never known who will be there when I really need them. I am grateful for the challenges that have weeded out the people who were close to me just for their own benefit. I am so much happier now. I can look at these amazing people in my life and know that they are what true friends should be. They are the ones who show up, not for themselves, but because they are needed. They do not make it about themselves, they see the pain or need in the situation and they are the ones who will be on this new journey with me.

I have always been a person who loves to help. I will go above and beyond if I feel I can be of service to others. I deeply feel that giving of myself is one of my gifts to the world. But now I have to be a little more selfish in giving of myself. I tend to overextend myself and it begins to take away from myself and the ones that truly need me.

Selfishness gets a bad wrap sometimes, but we owe it to ourselves to be selfish with our hearts and our time. This helps ensure that the ones who really need us get the best of us.

In closing, I want to extend all my love and gratitude to my newest friends. To the amazing like-minded people who have become close to my heart. Some of you helped inspire me to look closely at myself and others around me and be deeply grateful in recognizing the truth of my relationships. You don’t even know you did this, but my love goes out to you. I just want to thank my friends who have shown up for me. The gift of your love and care mean more than you will ever know. You are my definition of true friendship!

In Peace,

Michelle

“Friends are those rare people who ask how you are and then wait for the answer.”

“Even the least among you can do all that I have done, and greater things” (John, 14:12)

What a beautiful idea… The idea that we can accomplish anything that we put our minds to, that there is nothing “out there” holding us back. The only thing that limits us is ourselves. How empowering and terrifying all at the same time. In this one statement we have permission to create a life of miracles or amazing manifestations. So, then why don’t we? Or to be more specific why don’t I? Fear… I believe that I am afraid of the power of this statement. I have limited myself through my thinking and created boundaries that aren’t even there. It is like I am living inside a fence of my own creation, looking out at the other lives and wondering why I can’t be, do, or have… But I can… We all can. Can you feel the momentary relief of that. That moment of freedom before our minds say “no you can’t”. That beautiful freedom of knowing that you can do anything. It is there, it is all there just a thought away.

We grow up in this life so tied by our beliefs and limitations. We create such rigid thoughts that we don’t dare question them until… one day we do. Thankfully, that day was yesterday for me. I have been reading and studying for several years now on how to create the life I want, yet I still remained stuck. At least in my head I was stuck. Until yesterday when the right quote came into my life that began to really open up the gates of my self-created fence. Here is that quote:

“What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep, you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower? 

And what if, when you awoke, you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?”

– Samuel Taylor Coleridge

So simple and beautifully written by Mr. Coleridge. It opened the door enough for me to really get a look at what we believe can and can not happen. I believe it is so ingrained in our culture that most people who will read this quote will feel the same way I did at first. I felt that it was beautiful, but couldn’t happen in life. And in that thought, in that split second of thinking, my gate was opened. The immediate doubt that came through me is why I have been stuck. It isn’t the lack of anything in my life that is keeping me from getting what I want and where I want to be. It is as simple as my thinking that is keeping where I am. I do not need to wake up with a flower in my hand to believe it can happen. I can just believe. It is that simple. I have always made things more complicated than necessary. I over think, I over analyze everything. This has helped me with certain tasks in life and for that I am grateful, but for my overall outlook, it has kept me from being free to believe.

As children we believe. We believe in magic until an adult tells us otherwise. We believe in the magic of life. We want something until someone tells us no, that it is not possible, setting up the beginning of limited thinking. And this has gone on for generations which is why the simple concept of believing is so difficult. When we do not believe, it can never happen, thus completing our self fulling prophesy of life. Today, I am reprogramming my thinking. I am going to believe. I am going to accept the fact that I don’t always need proof before I know it is possible. What is the worst that can happen? But the bigger questions is what could happen?

“The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind.” Wayne Dyer

“Your problem is you’re… too busy holding onto your unworthiness.”  ~Ram Dass

Today that quote is me. I know we have all been here before, to that low place where we just feel like quitting. Nothing I do seems right, it seems like I am going no where. Well, today is one of those days. I feel tired, a little depressed and just ready to throw in the towel. But I can’t… That is the good news. I know I can’t. But I find myself arguing with myself about wanting to. There is an inner conversation going on between my higher self and my mind or maybe my emotions. The labels don’t matter they aren’t listening to me anyway. There they are just arguing away even as I type. The fact that I am aware of the duality of the situation gives me a little courage. It lets me know I have made progress. Because several years ago I would have fallen victim to these thoughts. I would have surrendered to the depression for more than just a few minutes. Now days I honor my feelings by giving myself a few minutes to feel sad and depressed. It is easier for me to give it a few minutes than to fight with it all day. Then after a few minutes of allowing myself to go there, I pick myself up brush the dirt off my pants and get on with it. I get over it or at least I tell myself I am and if I say it enough it will become true, at least for me. Why I still need to go here everyone in a while I’m not sure. But I have lived there before and I am much happier as a visitor than I was as a resident. So I accept the progress and move on.

“Does that screaming come from me?” I love the symbolism of this quote. That there is a person screaming and a person aware of the screaming all wrapped up in one. That is me today!

I get to these places where I just want it all to go away. I want to run away and never come back. Because it is so much easier to run away than it is to face the problems head on. Sometimes I get tired of fighting. Fighting for progress, fighting for what I want. Maybe part of the problem is looking at things as a fight. There is no happiness or progress in fighting. But sometimes life feels like a fight. Like there is someone at every turn waiting to take you down. And the more I think about life this way the more I prove to myself it is true. So, I need to change the way I look at things so the things I look at change. That is my way of turning that quote into my own words to match my day.

So right now I am going to continue to do the best I can do and continue to put one foot in front of the other. To continue to move forward and try not to get sucked down into the darkness that is calling my name today. It would be so easy to surrender, to turn around and walk into that darkness. It is so familiar and I know that I could go there and just sit down and cry. I wouldn’t have to fight anymore, I wouldn’t have to smile I could lose myself in the self-pity of it all. But despite how easy it would be, I am not going there. I am not going to take that easy road, I am going to put my head up high and walk towards the light. Because deep down in my heart I know I would rather be sitting in the sun laughing than sitting in the darkness crying….

In Peace and Love,

Michelle

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You’re on your own.
And you know what you know.
You are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
~Dr. Seuss

I love this quote! Even though I do not believe this 100%, I still can see the humor and the glimpse of truth in it. I truly feel that our biological family is just our way of coming into the world. We should be grateful for this path that allowed us to be here in this body at this point in time. In light of this, I do feel that there is too much emphasis placed on the biological family unit. I know there are some families that get along well and are supportive of each other, but these seem to be few and far between in my experience. In my life I have come to realize that sometimes family can be detrimental to ones inner being and self-confidence. It is from this perspective that I am writing.

For years I have been encouraged to put the needs of family above myself and my own needs. While I can understand that for some family is something that makes them feel grounded and love, for others it is a tie to a painful past full of selfishness and deep hurts. It took me a long time to get to a place where I go let go of the programming that I need to be somewhere I didn’t want to be and be someone I didn’t want to be for the needs of my relations.With that being said let me tell you a little bit about my family. I have a very large family, a biological paternal side, a stepfather and his family and my maternal side. That is over 100 people I have been programmed to make happy. I never knew my biological father. I learned from the internet that he had passed away 7 months prior to my looking for him. I knew some of biological fathers family but I have been separated from them for over 15 years. My step father was not a positive influence in my life, so when I was old enough I made the hard decision to separate from them. The maternal side of my family is who I grew up the closest with and the ones that ended up causing me the most pain. It was in this large group of  people that I learned the hardest lessons in my life. And even though these lessons were harsh and direct, I am a better person for having lived through it. It has not been until very recently that I was able to really feel that statement. I knew it logically but to have your inner emotions match up with that is another story. So now, I am beginning to step out of the haze of my pain and begin to see life clearly again.

The pressure that families can put on a person is quite amazing. I felt this from the time I was a teenager. My maternal family has been built around competition and manipulation. And theses are lessons that came from previous generations and passed down without any awareness. It was just the way they were raised and without a lot of presence and awareness can be a very hard thing to overcome. It is from this place that I am grateful for my lessons that have allowed my awareness of these issues. For without them I would be continuing the cycle of dysfunction to my children.

Over the last 20 years I began building a small group of people who today I am proud to call my family. In my life trust is a valued gift that I do not extend to everyone. I have been fortunate to have many amazing people come into my life and the lives of my children. Some of these people I am actually related to, but many I have no genetic link to at all. Even without that link, I feel a bond with them that is as good as family, or in my case better. I know that this amazing group of people love me for who I am without any strings attached. They have no motivation to change me or get anything out of me, which to me is what family should be. I am so deeply in love with these amazing people of all different ages and from different walks of life. To all of you, I love you and I can not begin to express my gratitude for your presence in my life!

“Friends are the family we choose for ourselves” and I have chosen very well! To my friends from the bottom of my heart!

Love,
Michelle

“Don’t let a bad day make you feel like you have a bad life!”

Who hasn’t been there? Well, I guess I should say that I have been there! Many times… I usually fight really hard not to allow myself to go there, but when I finally wave the white flag and surrender myself to those low emotions, I usually get really down. I become filled with sadness and those feelings of depression. All the sudden everything begins to show me how right I am, that everything is horrible. I know, that I am attracting those supporting factors, but somehow they make me feel right. That everything has gone to crap. I find myself just wanting to sit and wallow in the terribleness of it all. Poor pitiful me in this horrible situation, with all these horrible people doing this horrible stuff to me!! Me of all people!? I try to be positive, I try hard to be happy but THEY keep bringing me back down here!!! I QUIT!! Sound familiar? Well it does to me because those are my thoughts. But my question today is why does it feel so comfortable down there on the bottom? I know deep in my heart that is not where I am supposed to be. But it feels so familiar so much like home… Well today I realized that it is because it is easy! It is easy for me to be there blaming others, blaming the lack of money, the lack of free time. That takes all the pressure off me!

Happiness is work! Some may tell you otherwise, you may feel otherwise and if you do, please feel free to share the secret! But for me right now, being happy requires not looking at the negative. Not falling back onto the easy path of self-pity. Being happy requires that I see myself in a different light. The light that I was created to be in, the light that makes all my dreams possible. But being in that light makes me scared. Because if I am there, in all my happy glory, then who can I blame if I fail? Who will look at me and say, “poor thing, she had such a rough time”? If I am happy and being who I was created to be, there is no one but me there on that the amazing yellow brick road of life. No one but me creating my reality, and no one to blame if I don’t. Now I don’t know about you, but that scares the hell out of me! My ego has been blaming others for years, and now I have to open myself up to the possibility of all the pressure, the choice to make my dreams come true or not. My fears react to that just writing it! But when I really think about how I want my life to go, I know that I want all the power. I know that I do not want someone else to be in charge of my experiences. It is my life after all. I should be the one to make it or break it so to speak! And once I see my fears for what they are they lose their power over me and that really pisses my ego off. It wants to hold into to its role in my head, in my life. But it has had its time in power long enough! I am taking back the power, the power that was rightfully mine all along! Good Bye ego, Hello Life!

“Fear cannot take what you do not give it.”

In Peace and Love,

Michelle

“There’s a spirit of a storm in my soul, a restlessness that I can’t seem to tame. Thunder and lightning follow everywhere I go. There’s a spirit of a storm in my soul. There’s a hurricane thats raging through my blood, and I can’t find a way to calm the sea. Maybe I’ll find someday the waters aren’t so rough, but right now they’ve got the best of me. But oh, it’s been a long, long time, since I had real peace of mind. So I’m just gonna sit right here, in this old chair, until this storm rolls by.”

Sometimes all you can do is sit right here until the storm rolls by. This has been my experience anyway. The storms come just like the sunshine and they both have their place. These days I wonder why are there so many storms, but I do know that there is a reason. A rainbow cannot come without the rain, so I am going to keep my eyes to the heavens looking for that moment when the colors first start to appear. I have seen the colors before. In the beginning of their formation, in the middle when their color are the strongest and at the end as they slip away, either due to the sun pushing the clouds away or by the rain setting back in. But in looking back at all of the stages in my life, I have learned that I learn the most from the heaviest storms. And without these storms I would never be able to really appreciate the sunshine.

Mother Teresa has a famous quote “I know God won’t give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.” I have lived those words over this past year. I am starting to appreciate these lessons, but I also have these moments where I just want the sun to shine again. In my life everything is all or nothing, or so it seems. I really do not have very much middle ground and I never really have. Even though I know that gray does exist, I seem to align with either the black or the white. I am not a middle of the road person. Maybe that is partially why my life is a beautiful day or a dark storm. They are following my thought pattern. Well, now there is a thought! I do believe that we create our future by our thoughts. Knowing that we have had a hand in the hardest lessons in life that have caused us our deepest pain is a concept that is very hard to swallow. But it is true for me all the same. Life looks different when you can take a step back and take a little responsibility.

During my younger years it was easier for me to sit back and blame others for the hard times and the things they had done to me. But when I can begin to see that even without understanding why something happened, that it plays a part of who I am today then somehow it eases the anger and the pain. Learning is something I strive for everyday. If I can take from the storm of today what is being taught to me then hopefully I won’t have the same storm again tomorrow. I have had a lot of repeated storms. It has taken a lot of time and a lot of patience, mine and the people who love me, to get me to this point of awareness. Knowledge is power, and so is awareness. And today I am working on forgiving myself when I slip back into that old frame of thinking. That thinking that leads me to look outwardly instead of inwardly for the answers, for the solutions. Deep down I wish that there was a knight in shining armor out there that could rush in and fight the inner battles for me! But I know that I do not need to be rescued. That I have all the power that is needed in any given moment, for anything that is brought before me. Now to just remember that tomorrow….

In Peace, Michelle

The truth… The truth about what? The truth about ourselves… The truth about our lives… The truth…

How can two small words have such great meaning? I don’t really know how, but I can speak to their power. Truth is something we all are looking for or striving for and this is no different for me. I have been looking for my truth for years, but it has not been until the last year that I was really ready to see it.

I have lived my life always looking to please everyone. I never rocked the boat, well, never very much. I found that if I stayed in the middle of the road I was safe. At least I felt safe. The middle of the road does not come without consequences. Losing myself was my consequence. Or I should say never really knowing myself… I was always walking with my eyes open looking to be sure I was making everyone around me happy and that way I could just fit in. Fit in with what is what I am asking myself today.

As a child I had more than my fair share of trauma at the hand of other people. And that was what lead me to seek the middle of the road, or where I felt the most safety. It hasn’t been until 20 years later that I have gained enough courage to step out into my life. Everyday I have to choose where to go, back to the edge or back to safety. Most days I choose the edge and I love the way life feels out there! That is where I want to be. Out there where I can create, live and be happy.

In my journey, I have had to look at and acknowledge my issues, my fears and traumas to get to where I could even see the edge. But I can see now, that it has been worth it. I have not gotten here by myself and I am grateful that I can continue with the help of the loving people in my life, but I do plan on continuing. This is where this blog comes into play. I want the hard lessons I have had to go through in my life to be open for my children. I do not want them to have to travel the difficult roads I have to go down to get to happiness. If I can show them my lessons and give them ahead start then I will open the doors of my life, which have been closed tightly for years, to them and to you.

“Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.” 

I love this quote, especially now that I have finally met happiness….

In Peace,

Michelle