This Is What Integrity Sounds Like

I’ve Changed. Can you feel it?

If you’ve been with me a while, yep, you may already feel it.

A full-on 180 degrees into genuine joy and approval of myself, in the beautiful present moment, and peaceful embodiment instead of effort/survival.

I used to teach from pain, from trauma, and from a deep, burning desire to help other women not feel so broken. That version of me was honest and real,
But - it was also rooted in the wound.

That’s not where I live anymore.

I'm not here to rage against religion, rehash trauma, or twist myself into what sells. I'm not interested in spiritual fluff or bypassing or trying to fix people. I'm not a therapist, and I don’t want to be one.

What I am is a woman who’s finally breathing in her own skin. And loving it!
I’m a women who feels joy in her bones, who trusts her gut, and
who isn’t performing anymore for approval. What you see…is what you get!

Let me clarify: I am fully present in my body. No anxiety, no desperation. I’ve developed a daily joy practice of meditation, dancing my butt off to at LEAST a song a day, going barefoot in the grass daily, at least one iced coffee (I make my own), AND a creative activity (drawing, painting, nature prints, or playing the piano, the djembe drum, dulcimer, or my Native American flute. Every. single. day. Non-negotiable.

This past week, I sat on my little deck and watched something I wouldn’t have noticed years ago: A pair of mourning doves who chose my deck to nest in one of the hanging flower baskets. She laid one, then two little eggs. One hatched, and I’ve had the joy of watching Little Fry grow!

I watched her sit with Little Fry through the rain and the heat and the stillness. And dang, it’s hot in Kentucky.
But she didn’t flinch when I came near, and didn’t fly away when I talked softly to her,
Because she knew she was safe here.

Little did she know I was on my own journey of healing in a spiral. And I have realized - I am safe too.

I’m safe in my own presence.
I’m safe in this stillness that I used to run from.
I’m safe in the joy I used to think had to be earned.
And for the first time in my life, I’m not chasing meaning. I’m living it!

Through some amazing and intense inner work, I’ve learned wholly that when I stop rushing, when I stop proving, when I approve of myself, and be the love I need to myself—life meets you. AND - life loves to be good to me!

Joyful embodiment isn’t a course I’m selling and it’s not a digital product I’m touting -
but it’s the way I live now.

I walk barefoot. I paint when I feel it. I write from the gut. I talk to my plants and name them like family. I cry with my feet in the grass. I listen to my body. And I trust the frequency I’m holding, with no masks, no apologies, and no agenda.

Little Fry fledged a couple of days ago. The day before ( in the photo above), he sat on the edge of the hanging basket, gazing at me. Right. On. The. Edge, like he was thanking me. As I stood there, not a foot from where he was, he cooed. Have you ever heard a mourning dove? Their coo is so beautiful. I knew the inevitable was coming. I embraced it with joy - and a little melancholy tear. And then…he gloriously flew. Just like he was meant to.

If you’re still here, you’re meant to be. Thank you. I don’t take you being here and reading my work lightly.
If you’re feeling this shift too, welcome.
So my newsletters are changing a bit; What I DO know is that you’ll see me living a joy filled, embodied life - and hopefully, you take the cue and decide to do it too.

We’re sinking in. Rooting down, and letting joy be the proof.

—I love you big,

Debby
🌀

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