I am Strong! Happy International Women's Day!

I am strong!

 I didn't always feel strong. Nor did I know just how strong I was until I walked through a family crisis a few years ago. The most difficult time of my life. However, I made it safely to the other side. Although I should have known my resilience long ago.

As you read in my previous post, as a young, naive 18 year old, I travelled to Sweden on my own after high school to attend a Bible College for 7 months. Then I backpacked around Europe solo.

I moved to western Canada knowing no one to start my full time career after university. I created a wonderful life in Edmonton.

I then transferred to eastern Ontario finally settling in my hometown where I have been working as an Educational Assistant for 15 years.

For my 40th birthday I travelled to Paris on my own for one week. It was the most freeing time I have experienced. I felt alive. Joie de vivre!

Even though I never married nor had children, I have an incredible tribe of men and women surrounding me, supporting me, encouraging me. I am  grateful to God for allowing my path to intersect with beautiful humans who have empowered me and taught me many life lessons along the way.

Here I am now in a new role,  a woman entrepreneur. Some days I feel out of my league as I advocate for better health protective/beauty laws in Canada. But I am strong. I am resilient. I am intelligent. I am compassionate! I can do it!

I am strong!

 My strength comes from my parents who always believed in me and encouraged me on my life's journey.

 My strength comes from God who showed me unconditional love and ignited a passion within.

My strength comes from another women:

Nellie McClung.

Thank you Nellie and your suffragettes for paving the way for us women in Canada. Thank you for fighting for our right to vote. Thank you for fighting for us to be declared as persons. Thank you for empowering the future generations.

It is my prayer I can empower women that come behind me to be all they can be and recognize they are beautiful, strong humans on this planet with the mission to spread their love and voice to all they meet!

Happy International Women's Day!

We are strong.

We have a voice needing to be heard. Use it wisely!

You are strong!

Love,
K
xo

Why #thistimeitspersonal My Beautycounter story

Navigating my singleness has been an interesting journey for me. I thought I would be married by now.  I always wanted to be married and have children. I wanted a legacy to carry on my family heritage. I wanted to pass down traditions and yarns. I wanted to experience motherhood and that unique love parents have for their children. I always felt by having children as well it would help me understand God's love more deeply.
But God had a different path for me and I finally feel settled about it all!

I have had a great life. I didn't let my singleness stop me from experiencing an enriching life. I discovered I am a strong woman. I moved to two completely new cities for my career and built a life. I lived in a foreign country, Sweden, for a gap year before university. I have travelled far and near. I have an incredible tribe of family and friends.

Yet I thought I would have a husband and family of my own to also help with the financial burdens of life. Fear of being left alone began to suffocate me. My parents have been a huge support to me and I am very close to them. I am their caregiver now but we help each other. Fear of their death compounded the problem.  So I began looking for a way to ease that financial burden and conquer these fears. I needed a supplement to my full time job as an EA.

@beautycounter entered my life unexpectedly and drew me in! It was a perfect fit. It was a company like nothing I had seen before. It became more than a financial supplement to my income. It also was in line with the healthy lifestyle I was trying to implement as I navigate this "mature phase" of life I find myself in!  I was impressed by their integrity and by the business owners involved who lead with passion, drive and integrity.

I am so proud to be part of this movement for better beauty. Proud to be  collaborating with other incredible business owners who are advocating for more health protective laws so we leave behind a safer legacy for our children and those that come behind us!

I love hearing the stories behind  women in small business who are leading with integrity and challenging others to do the
same.

If you might be looking for a change in your current situation or are just looking for something different to try on- I would LOoVvvEee❤ to chat with you!

#thistimeitspersonal #beautycounter #beautycountercanada #takethejob #betterbeauty #switchtosafer #bethechange #bossbabe #entrepreneurlife #thisshouldbeablogpost #beautycounterred #advocacy

When are we going to love the people no one else loves?

For some reason today in church I was reminded of the time I heard this speaker, Tony Campolo, at a conference for university students. One particular story spoke to my heart. After sharing the story with us, he said,

"When are we going to love the people no one else loves."

It has been 30 years and I have never forgotten this message. But now the context has changed.

December 31, 1987. I was a university student at Ryerson in Toronto and  had the privilege of attending this student conference at the University of Illinois, Urbana campus. The event was sponsored by Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship.

During this era, AIDS was a disease no one really knew anything about, except it was terminal and it was a disease apparently rampant in the gay community. I remember in high school when my grade 13 (1985-86) biology classmates had to do a project  on this "thing" called acquired immune deficiency syndrome. There was not much knowledge at that time about AIDS/HIV. I know I was afraid. I was afraid to get close to anyone I knew who was gay for fear of getting AIDS. We were misinformed how it was spread.

So when I was a nursing student at Ryerson, I was very fearful of coming in contact with any blood. And I was fearful of people who were gay, not because of their lifestyle but because of this misinformed information surrounding the AIDS crisis. I remember struggling as a christian because I knew I should love these people but was in fear of contracting this disease. Many people were dying from AIDS in the 80's.

Tony spoke of a friend of his who was a pastor. To earn extra money, he would conduct funerals. One particular funeral no pastor wanted to officiate because the person died of AIDS. So Tony's friend took the funeral. At the end of the service, all these gay men asked if this pastor could read some of their favourite scriptures, like Romans 8..."nothing can separate us from the love of God..."  Nothing can separate us from God's love. Nothing.

Then Tony passionately asked, "when are we going to love the people no one else loves?" At that moment I knew I needed to change my attitude towards those living with AIDS/HIV.  I didn't need to be afraid. I needed to love. I needed to show God's love to these beautiful humans who were afraid and very ill. If my idol at the time, Princess Diana, could shake hands with someone dying of AIDS/HIV then so could I!

But now the context has changed in our world. We rarely hear of people dying of AIDS anymore thanks to medical breakthroughs. 

 I encourage you to find the AIDS Memorial in downtown Toronto at Church and Wellesley streets. I had the privilege of being led through this memorial a few summers ago. I wept. Etched onto plaques  are the names of more than 2700  loved ones who have died of AIDS/HIV in Toronto .  As I strolled through this memorial, I noticed there were more names in the 80's and early 90s than present day. There is now hope.

However, the same fear lingers. But the context has changed.

 Today it is not about AIDS. Today it is about those who are transgender. Today it is about those who are muslim. Today it is about _____. You fill in the blank. We may not agree with certain lifestyles or certain religions.  We may not understand.   We may be fearful.  But we need to remember God is the Creator of these humans.  God is the Creator of you and I. God loves these humans  as much as He loves you and I.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing.

When are we going to love the people no one else loves?

The Reality of Life When A Loved One Has a Mental Illness

The day I feared is here.

My loved one who has a mental illness has been doing amazing for the past year and a half since hospitalization--the worst year of my family's life.

She is back to her old self once again.

Amazing what a change in medication can do for a person. This was the needed change after years on the same meds.

My loved one always took her meds, never missed a dose. But with age and being on the same meds for years her poor body couldn't handle it.

We have loved being able to breathe again.

We love having our loved one back!  Our loved one is so content and happy !

The only side effect is our loved one sleeps a great deal...is very tried all the time with little energy. It is complicated as we are not sure if it is age or a side effect of the meds.

Well I did a bit of research and unfortunately feel it is a side effect of the meds. Other heart tests our loved one had have revealed nothing. So it is probably due to the new meds.

My fear has always been that her psychiatrist would change her meds due to these side effects. We do not want to go through the hell we experienced 2 years ago. We want our loved one like we have her now. Balanced. Peaceful.

Well, my fears are realized....her psychiatrist changed her meds at her appointment this past week--Only by half a dose and only one of the pills. However we have no idea if this will change her personality again.

I am praying to my God that it will not.

I am crying out to my God to allow her to be who she is and to continue to experience this peace and balance while not experiencing these debilitating side effects.

I have to trust God.
I have to trust this psychiatrist.

It is very difficult to trust and not worry about something I have no control over.

The pain of the ordeal we experienced has surfaced again.

Yet I need to trust and leave this in the hands of God and the psychiatrist.

At least we are prepared if something does go terribly wrong.

We know the drill.

We know the sytem.

We know the pain.

We know we can get to the other side.

But if it should happen again our scars may not heal.

The title of my autobiography would be...

My friend Pip has begun a series called, Becoming Questions .  Here is his latest question:

What would be the title of your autobiography and why?

The title of my autobiography would be:

"Strong After All:  The adventure of life that was explored."

Why?

I guess my life motto has been, "life is an adventure waiting to be explored." I have no idea if I copied this saying from someone or modified a quote to suit me. But somewhere along the way I adopted this motto for my life.

In addition,  my brothers would always say to me when we were young that I was "socially inadequate." You see, I always fumbled with words. In my head I knew exactly what I wanted to say but it came out all mumble jumbled. It didn't help that my two older brothers made fun of me. These words have never left really even though I am not bitter and am a confident woman now. But I always struggled with self esteem issues in this area and never felt I was strong. I felt I never had anything of value to say.

I was also always overshadowed by my two dearest friends I chummed around with all the time. They were the popular ones whom everyone seemed to listen to.

Who knew... I WAS strong after all!  Even though some insecurities creep back into my soul at times, I know I DO have something of value to say!

I look back over my life and not only see God's hand upon it, I see a strong, independent, smart, beautiful woman who loved life to the fullest and was always up for adventures. No where was she socially inadequate and no where did her voice need to be silenced.

I cannot believe I moved to a totally new city, far from home, knowing no one and formed a new life for myself. I cannot believe I lived in Sweden for a year. I cannot believe I travelled the world-well part of our world-on my own. I cannot believe I backpacked across Europe experiencing incredible adventures. I cannot believe I made it across a zip line ropes course at camp as an adult. I cannot believe I survived the worst year and a half of my life living through my loved one's mental health challenges. I cannot believe I had the courage to leave a toxic church and find peace in my new parish.

Who knew I was strong. I AM strong. I am proud. I am proud I inherited this strength from my Grandmothers.

Who knew I WAS socially adequate. I AM socially adequate.

Who knew I had a voice. I HAVE an important voice.

Look out world! God is not finished with me yet. More adventures await.

Never stop exploring. Never stop using your voice. Stop believing the lies and believe the truth.

STRONG AFTER ALL!

If I had a tattoo on the palm of my right hand...

My trademark is a whale.

 Not just any whale.

But one I have been drawing since I was 12 years old.

 Why? 

My last name is 'Whale'n. All my life everyone has asked me how to spell my last name (And my first for that matter) and I would always say, " It's a whale with an N at the end!" But I already have my whale tattoo on my back which I LOVE! 

So...what tattoo would I put on the palm of my right hand?

I think I would have a handwritten message from each of my Grandmothers' letters they wrote me saying they were praying for me. I would also try to include messages from my parents. Why?

Family and faith is important to me. I loved receiving the hand written letters from my grandmas (my grandfathers died when I was 4 so I barely remember them)over the years and their beautiful words of encouragement to spur me on in my faith and in my life.

My parents give me beautiful cards all the time for every occasion expressing their love for me. When my parents die, which could be soon,  I will have no one left who loves me uncondtionally (except God)!

So I would love a reminder everyday of this love my family had for me to continue to spur me on in my life without them. I want the incredible legacy -the hard times too- to be imprinted on me so I can remember to share that legacy of faith and love with those that come behind me. When I get sad and lonely I want to see their words and know they are in my heart forever and are watching me from above.

In addition, cursive writing here in Canada is becoming obsolete. I feel there is something special seeing peoples' personal handwritten lines. I even bought an old book at an antique store once because I was intrigued by the inscription in the front cover handwritten in fountain pen ink! Cursive writing is unique to each of us and unique to my family. Seeing their writing brings me comfort. 

I will need comfort when they are gone! When I am lost I will look at the palm of my right hand and find my way once again.

The Last Time I Cried

A beautiful human soul whom I now call friend, loves to ask unique questions. These questions bring conversations to a deeper level where honesty, vulnerability, non-judgement, transperency and love abide. He has actually begun a "Becoming Questions" series posting a new question each week. His question this week sparked a surprising response from me. I thought I would post it here on my blog. Without further adieu...

When was the last time you cried and why?

The last time I cried was last week in my car driving to work. I had to hold back the deep gutteral tears that were forming or I would not be able to see to drive and my contact lens would be blurry all day!  So I released some of the tears but not all.

I need desperately a good gutteral cry but don't have an alone place just yet where I am free to let it all out not worrying about the sounds that come out from deep in my soul.  I am not sure why those deep gutteral tears hit me that particular morning but they have been forming for a while. Why?

Weeping for the stress I have been under the last three years caring for my parents' illnesses. Weeping for the way it tore my family apart. I had to live through it, keep going, be strong, live life. Work. Grieve. No time to weep then.

Weeping for the restoration God brought to our family. A true miracle. Grateful to God.

Weeping for the resentment at having to let go of some of my life to help care for my parents. Weeping for the guilt because they have sacrificed so much for me over the years and have loved me unconditionally. The least I can do is care for them.

Weeping for this season of life. My time is precious with my parents. I don't want to lose them but that is the cycle of life. I am afraid to be left alone. I love them so deeply. The cycle of life continues on.

Weeping because I won't be a mother to my own children. Weeping at the anger towards God for not allowing me to experience a precious life growing inside me and raising that precious child.

Weeping at more anger towards God for not bringing that precious soul mate into my life even though I felt I have lived how He wanted me to live as  a Christian. I am definitely not perfect but I tried my best.

Weeping at these thoughts because I know God has given me a fabulous life and I have experienced so much!  I have not put my life on hold. I am grateful for my life.

Weeping because I am just plain overwelmed.

Clearly I need a gutteral release. And soon!  Funny how many of these same issues I am weeping over return to the forefront of my mind and I weep a little here and there. But I need that deep soul wrenching release. Praying I find a space where I can cry, really cry and be free.