“Don’t turn away from yourself by being like somebody else” – Ayla Nereo / 🎶 Take it Slow
| One of my favorite Gestalt teachings is that simply by being our authentic selves, we invite others to be more fully themselves. And yet, it can be so hard to be “ourselves.” Who are we, anyway? Constituent of our blood lineages, our environments, cultures and the multi-layered networks that we’re embedded in, there is arguably no “self.” Another great Gestalt teaching is that there is no self outside the matrix of one’s set of relationships. Here’s the paradox – we’re interdependent, fundamentally relational beings and we each have a uniqueness about us that yearns to be expressed – call it a person’s energy, soul, spirit (think beyond a “personality”). When we spend time with a person, we get a felt sense of that uniqueness. And we know this feeling clearly within ourselves, when we are able to tap into it.  Pictured above: Forest flower flowering on The Land Expressing our uniqueness has a contagious quality about it; being ourselves offers a permission slip for others to tap into their own authentic ways of being. To me, this has been a gift of recognizing and expressing my own queerness. I’ve given myself permission (largely inspired by spending time with other “queerdos”) to shed many of the traditional expectations about how I present, relate and exist in the world. Liberation from – or disregard for – cultural norms and expectations is a central part of queer community and culture. To be queer is not just to define one’s gender and/or sexuality outside of the cis-hetero binary. More than that, to be queer is to affirm alternative cultures, ways of being and deeply personal, authentic modes of expression. In that way, I believe there’s a bit of queerness in us all. Long before I knew myself to be genderqueer, I knew I was at odds with much of the culture I was raised in. I knew that I needed to find and enact different ways of being to support my own spirit in this world. My path has been unconventional in many ways – often driven by the suffering I was experiencing by trying to fit into conventional boxes – schooling, career, gender, relationships, where and how I lived. My hope for myself and for everyone I work with and am in community with is that we find ways to deepen into our most authentic selves.  Pictured above: more ferns, more unfurling on The Land Healing from or integrating traumatic experiences can be a portal into more authenticity; sometimes it’s about individuation – the process of differentiating from our families and cultures of origin; sometimes it’s about exploring our nighttime dreams, childhood fantasies, deep longings, fears. There are many ways in. The point is, finding ways to express our true selves is a way of being in service both to our selves (our souls, if you will), and to the world around us. To access and live out our own authentic expression might seem like a selfish pursuit (especially in times of global crises), but I would argue that to live freely is actually to be of service to the freedom of others. Civil rights leader, organizer and singer Fannie Lou Hamer said it this way: “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” Speaking to freedom from the chains of slavery, Fannie was highlighting the ways that oppression and power dynamics entrap everyone involved. Her message ripples out, reminding us that structures of oppression – internal and external – limit us all. Our being is interdependent in nature, as is our freedom. May this springtime energy, with all the life vulnerably emerging from the land, all the flowers unselfconsciously opening and the birds unapologetically singing, inspire you to find more ways to explore and express your truest self. |