On Being Unabashedly You
On this, the last day of Pride month, I wanted to take a minute to reflect on the novelty of feeling free to be ourselves; to have that pride in who we are.
I’ll start by saying that there is no realm in which I want to detract attention from the LGBTQIA+ community, or to grab my corporate rainbow flag from storage and jump on the merchandising bandwagon. Rather, I want to speak to the people in that community, and share lessons from them that I think benefit us all.
When I think of the people I know who get so offended by queer folk “shoving their queerness in my face” (direct quote from far too many people), I see people who are terrified of being themselves. They’re people who have never veered from the path society laid before them. They’re the office-job-I-hate people. The church-every-Sunday people. The men-are-the-providers people. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with any of those archetypes if it’s what makes someone happy. But, the people who follow the traditional American societal standards for the sake of following them, those are the people I observe to be the least comfortable around queerness.
And I think that’s because the queerness they see others so boldly proclaim reminds them of all the ways they themselves are not comfortable being authentic. They’re not up in arms because homosexuality is a “sin;” if that were the reason, then they’d also be up in arms over unmarried couples living together, all-you-can-eat buffets, and CEOs amassing billions of dollars while their employees scrape by. They’re up in arms because they’re jealous. They’re insecure. They want to know that freedom of being whole-heartedly, unabashedly oneself.
That’s what Pride has come to mean for me. I have a wealth of privilege in the ways I identify and the era in which I grew up. I never knew the trauma, grief and fear of watching so many of my friends and loved ones die from a disease whose stigmas actively dehumanized its victims. I never had to fear that the way I loved might result in being beaten or brainwashed or killed. As a bisexual woman raised in a conservative, Christian, southern community, I was able to pass as straight — even to myself. I never had to question why I liked women instead of men; I liked men and was able to make excuses around my attractions to women. I hid behind my straight-passing persona until a few years ago.
Being honest with myself about my sexual identity jumpstarted a whirlwind growth period of stepping into who I truly am and who I most want to be. I stopped being so desperately concerned with the way the world perceives me, and focused on how I perceive myself. For much of who I am, what I do, how I show up every single day, the determining factor is whether it makes me happy or enriches my life. Because ultimately, that’s who matters. I live my life for me, because it would be an absolute waste to live it for anyone else.
It began with recognizing my sexual orientation, but it’s grown to include stepping into my sensitivities — which includes some very specific vernacular that feels good to me but isn’t necessarily common — and my femininity. It includes feeling empowered to communicate my needs and set healthy boundaries. It includes welcoming people into my life that enrich it, and cutting out the people who detract from it. And, perhaps most relevantly to this space, it includes me pursuing the career that sets my soul on fire: being a holistic health coach.
And so Pride has come to mean learning who I am and living into that as authentically as possible. And it ends up coming very naturally to me. (It’s funny how much easier it is to go through life when you stop fretting over other people’s perceptions.) I come out to people as is appropriate. And, with many connections in my life, this blog post may very well be the way that I come out to them. But this is what works for me. What feels good in my heart. What feels authentic to who I am and how I choose to live my life.
This is how I show up, as unabashedly me. And, god, I couldn’t be happier.
If you ever want to talk about learning to live into your authenticity and passions, and learning how to live a holistically healthy and balanced life, reach out to me so we can talk. The first session is on me.