Being who you really are is incredibly hard. We’re pummeled with cliches and slogans about being ourselves: be the best you can be, follow your heart, be yourself everyone else is already taken, follow your own star!
And yet, society also screams at us to conform.
It does this in overt ways–school rules like not running in the hallway–and subtle ones–the expectations of your family. We are constantly told who and what other people expect us to be and that at best we’ll be letting people down if we don’t meet those expectations. At worst, we’ll be ejected from the tribe, which can threaten our survival.
No wonder we learn to suppress who we really are. Or to rebel and lash out against conformity, no matter the cost.
Learning to be a chameleon
In my early adult years, I learned to be a chameleon to keep myself safe and accepted, if sometimes on the outskirts of my tribe. I changed my colors to blend in as much as I could. I learned to dress in the ways that were expected of me, and that made the most of the body I’d been assigned at birth. I learned to play the role I’d been taught.
I knew, all along, that it wasn’t who I was.
I remember having conversations with each of my serious partners about gender and my feelings about my own. They’d take the form of “So, who do you think where’s the pants in this relationship?” (hint: me) or “I feel like I’m just as much a man as I am a woman.”
I used the vocabulary I had at the time. Just as I do now when i say that I’m non-binary.
Most partners either shrugged off these conversations or ignored them, just as long as I continued to play my role. I conscientiously tried for a long time, but it didn’t fit.
Similarly, when I wore dresses and skirts to work — as these were the easiest ways to dress up an hour-glass-shaped figure — I often felt uncomfortable and eventually began to dress to minimize my curves.
Learning to become yourself
In the last few years, I’ve learned a lot about gender identity, and about myself. I’ve made changes to my hairstyle, my wardrobe, even my body. I feel so much more comfortable in myself and in this biodegradable soul-sac I get to inhabit.
It’s really just one more part of a journey of authenticity that I’ve been on for close to a decade.
When I was laid off from a well-paying career in marketing communications in 2013, I was emotionally devastaged. I attempted to start a company doing communication work first for non-profits, and then for small businesses. But I didn’t enjoy it.
Instead, I began doing mediumship readings, and teaching people how to develop their own mediumship skills and intuition. This was a huge leap for me, one I was scared to take.
How would the world see me? Would I ever be able to get a “real” job again if I was known as a medium? Would my non-believing spouse be OK with it?
But I knew I had to be myself, who I am. So I did.
I began writing books and teaching, then moved into helping people heal from grief and loss. There have been plenty of ups and downs and a couple of hiatuses. I’m just coming back from an extended one now.
Things have changed for me again. I’m no longer seeing clients, instead focusing on writing and online classes, and have worried how that will feel to the people who’ve wanted to work with me. Yet I know I have to follow what I know to be my path.
You do too.
Whether it’s your gender identity, your vocation, or whatever part of who you are that you’re holding back from the light, it’s OK to be who you are. It’s OK to follow your inner knowing, to let people know you and see you.
It can be scary and sometimes hard. It’s uncertain at times and may not know where you’re headed. But following your inner voice, rather than the shoutings of the world around you, will see your footsteps surely on the path ahead.