The Stripes We Carry: A Reflection on Heritage, Identity, and Truth

I couldn’t sleep last night.

It wasn’t the moon. It wasn’t even my partner (smirk). It was grief. Grief over something I didn’t expect to matter so much.

Hudson’s Bay is shutting down for good. The entire company is being liquidated. And by June 15, the oldest and longest-surviving company in North America—one of the oldest continuously operating companies in the world (according to Wikipedia)—will be no more.

And I found myself heartbroken. Not because I shop there all the time—I can’t remember the last time actually. Not because I agree with anything the brand has stood for historically—I certainly don’t. But because Hudson’s Bay was always there.

Like snow. Like skating rinks. Like winters that arrive too early and linger too long. It was part of the fabric of what I understood as “Canada.”

Those stripes—green, red, yellow, and indigo—weren’t just a pattern to me. They were stitched into memory. They reminded me of snow days and thick wool blankets. Of cottages and adirondack chairs. Of something solid in an increasingly shaky world.

I’ve travelled with those stripes—on my passport holder, on my luggage tag. Not because I was loyal to the brand, but because they meant home. They marked the intersection of my identity: Canadian and Italian. Green, white, and red—my tricolore—was woven into The Bay stripes.

I once walked into a yoga studio in Florence and saw a woman carrying the same Hudson’s Bay tote bag I had slung over my shoulder. We smiled. No words exchanged. Just a silent, shared belonging. A piece of home in a foreign land.

But that pride? It feels different now.

The Bay, as we knew it, had already been hollowed out. Sold to an American businessman who gutted it for real estate profit and left its legacy behind like an empty shell. And somehow, we let it happen. We watched the soul get extracted. And we shrugged. Or we didn’t know. Or maybe—we didn’t care.

That’s what hurts the most: when something sacred is turned into just another business decision.

But this isn’t just about a department store. It’s about identity. Belonging. It’s about what it means to love something flawed—and what it means to outgrow it.

And that’s a story I know too well.

Years ago, I worked for an American company that seemed to align with everything I believed in. It promised to unify fitness, mental health, and spiritual growth. It sounded like home. It felt like purpose.

Until it didn’t.

The cracks began small. I began to see the founder didn’t walk the talk. I was teaching classes, training teachers, and working at the head office, and when I told her I wanted to focus more on helping people and less on “building the business,” I was sidelined. I became invisible.

Months later, I saw her at an event.

“What’s your name again?” she asked.

My colleagues heard it. No one said a word.

Then, I won an industry award. Suddenly, I was valuable again. She gave me a few gifts—shallow tokens to win back a loyalty she had already lost. I donated them all.

Still, I stayed. For three more years, I stayed.

Because I loved the students. I loved the work. I wanted to believe it still mattered.

Then came the last straw.

I had spent nearly a month working closely with a group on their training journey and planned a masterclass that I hoped would be memorable for them. I poured my heart into it and just hours before, I was told I couldn’t lead it—because the founder wanted the spotlight for herself. A vanity moment.

No warning. No apology.

So I resigned. Quietly. And no one acknowledged it.

But still, I’m grateful.

The Canadian co-owner of that company—she shielded me from so much. To be honest, if it wasn’t for her, I’d probably have left sooner. She left the company around the same time I did and now leads a vibrant community of teachers and healers. I’m proud of her. She too was burned by a system she gave her life force to—and she turned that loss into something beautiful… It truly is inspiring.

That chapter taught me this:

When wellness becomes performance, when healing is packaged and sold without integrity, when people are used up and tossed aside—something sacred is lost.

I gave everything to a machine that didn’t value me. My devotion was met not with care, but with spiritual bypassing—the kind that masks harm with mantras and merchandise. And the cost? My health. My peace. My self-worth.

But not anymore.

I’m done shrinking to fit into systems never designed with me in mind. I’m done working for titles. I’m done bowing to egos. I’m done softening my edges to make others comfortable.

I’m not a brand. I’m a being.

And I’m reclaiming all of me—the fire, the heart, the truth I tucked away to make others feel safe.

So here’s my vow:

To be unapologetically myself. To be weird. To be wild and free—not bound by expectations, roles, or rules that don’t fit. Free to trust my heart. Free to honour my truth. Free to live whole, with every part of me held in love.

I vow to help others do the same. To fall wildly in love with themselves—their bodies, their stories, their inner knowing. To reclaim their life force from systems that try to monetize their magic.

As Kylie Minogue once sang:

We’re not young and we’re not old.
We’re the stories not yet told.
Won’t be bought and can’t be sold.
We are golden.

And that’s where I begin again.

✨ Want to hear the full story?

I share even more in the first episode of my newly relaunched podcast, ALIGN — now available on YouTube and all major podcast platforms. It’s a heartfelt unpacking of this story, the grief, the lessons, and the vow I’m making as I move forward.

🎧 Listen to the episode or

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