In time, I have come to more fully accept and integrate my sexuality as a natural part of myself much like the fact I have red hair and green eyes. Yet, over the past year I came face to face with a place in me that was deeply and resentful over being 'different.' Emotions I'd felt my whole life and stuffed deep down that I wanted to keep hidden. But slowly, they began emerging out of the depths of what author Eckhart Tolle calls our 'pain-body.' Because even though on the surface of my life, with friends, family, colleagues, and even myself, I'd addressed these feelings, there were still deep emotional and energetic patterns hanging on. And I would feel them when they'd get re-activated, as they did when I began dating again last year.
After dating a few women, I realized a common theme with them all: they were all either recently 'out of the closet' in terms of their sexuality, or they were still in it in some way. At times, I found myself frustrated by where they were, as if I had somehow forgotten what it was like to be in that space of confusion, fear and in some cases, shame. And little by little, it became clear to me that it wasn't their fault. They were where they were. After really turning that mirror back onto myself, I realized it wasn't their inability to be authentic that I was frustrated by: it was mine.
It's funny, really, because paralleling these dating experiences over the past year and a half has also been a recurrent mouse problem in my house. Yes, mice. Not just one or two. I'm talking six of those suckers. It's been less than pleasant dealing with them and utterly flabbergasting as to how in the hell they are getting in my house (namely in and under the kitchen stove).
So last weekend at the energy workshop I was co-teaching, I talked about what was the metaphorical meaning or message the mouse parade was trying to teach me. I mean one or two is one thing but after a half-dozen, it's like what's really going on here? My friend Mark said what showed up for him was that the message hadn't been revealed yet. So I was to wait and let it appear. Hmmm…OK. I really wanted something sexier and more concise than that; but alas, I agreed to let it show up.
And I laughed yesterday about what appeared for me as I was cleaning up the mess they'd left in my stovetop. These mice are also about coming out. In other words, what angered me about the mice was the fact that they were lurking and hiding in my house. They were making messes and eating my Cliff bars, but rarely did I see them until the poor things appeared on the traps (which sometimes I dealt with and sometimes I ignored until the maintenance man could come take care of them).
So what frustrated me most was that they, like my former girlfriends, were hiding. And once again, I turned the mirror around to look at me. Yes, I had been hiding too. In fact, what I see now is that aside from the sexuality piece, I have resisted allowing other parts of myself to fully come out. You know, the powerful part. The confident part. The leader part. The financially responsible part. I had gotten so attached to my drama story of never being good enough that I was keeping all those radiant parts of myself hidden. And they want to come out!
And what I realize now is that I'm not alone. I find it amusing that as a society, we put all this focus on us coming out in terms of our sexuality. Yet, we don't encourage or support each other, really, in coming out as our best, most confident, most powerful selves. Where's the pride parade for loving our bodies? Or the parade for making peace with money's role in our lives?
I see now that I'm not the only one who has been living in fear of coming out because we are all fearful of allowing our true selves to shine. We're scared to speak our truth. Scared to live our passion. Scared to love ourselves first. Scared to show up as who and what we really came here to be.
So like the mice, we hide. We frantically scurry and hide, hoping that no one sees us in the light. So we hide behind the shadows and layers of our ego. Out of fear, we prohibit ourselves from more fully expanding and showing up in our lives as the brilliant, beautiful Souls we already are. Our ego gives us the false sense of identity that all we are is our bodies, our stories, our pasts, our relationships, our jobs. And in the maze of our hiding, we begin to believe that lurking in the dark is the only place we can ever be.
As I sit here in the quiet of my home, the parade participants are down on Cedar Springs putting the finishing touches on their costumes and floats. The beer is flowing. The music is blaring. And the rainbow flags are flapping.
I've had several invitations to participate in the festivities, but in all honesty I have no desire this year to be amongst the drunken, sweaty crowds. For I see now that every day for me is a chance to 'have the pride' (as a friend's mom once called it), integrating all the many parts of myself and allowing them to express.
In fact, every day is a chance for all of us to ask ourselves if we are really showing up in this moment of our lives from a space of fear or pride? Are we ready to march out of our closets and out from under our stoves and allow others to see us in the light? To see us for the radiant, loving Beings we truly are? Are we ready to put down our drama stories of the past in order to embrace the world with the same wonderment we did as children, believing it was possible that we could do, have, or be anything we wanted in life?
One morning last week in my shower, I randomly began singing (butchering, rather) the chorus to Dianna Ross' hit 1980 song 'I'm Coming Out.' It just seems to fit for me right now in my life. And wherever you are in the process of coming out as your true self, I hope this song will be your new anthem. I don't know about you, but I know for me, it's about damn time.
I'm coming out.
I want the world to know
I got to let it show
There's a new me coming out
And I just have to live
And I wanna give
I'm completely positive
I think this time around
I am gonna do it
Like you never do it
Like you never knew it
Ooh, I'll make it through
The time has come for me
To break out of this shell
I have to shout
That I'm coming out
~Dianna Ross
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