A Life in Many Genders

Fifteen years ago I began a life-changing transition process to claim a gender more complex than being a “girl”, which had been automatically assigned to me as someone born female. I have now transitioned once again with the same goal in mind, shifting from being Kalil, a genderqueer trans person mostly seen as a man, to being Kalil, a genderqueer trans person sometimes seen as a man, sometimes as a woman. For me, being both genderqueer and transgender signifies a complex interweaving of femininity and masculinity – and a blurring of the gender binary. While my gender identities have remained consistent throughout this journey, my gender expression continues to evolve.

This ongoing process of transitioning my gender expression stems from my yearning to be seen in a world that is blind to my multiplicity, to be understood in a culture that lacks the categories to describe me, and to be embraced in a society that is constructed to exclude me. I thought this process was complete when I transitioned my body and gender presentation from female to male fourteen years ago. However, it was simply the end of one life cycle of my gender journey. While it removed the limitation of being seen as unequivocally female and made my masculinity visible, the masculinity others saw was rarely the one I experience. And there was something ineffable missing as well.

The gender evolution of my first 23 years of life culminated in my decision to medically transition from female to not-female. Genderqueer and trans-identified, I felt trapped and controlled by the female gender role, my masculinity invisibilized at every turn. And while I admired lithe butch bodies with small chests and no hips, my busty Jewish figure could not comply. And so I eagerly underwent top surgery, thrilled to no longer be weighed down by the DD mounds of flesh hanging from my chest. Forging a new life as a non-female person, however, proved to be more complicated than a few hours of surgery and a few months of recovery. I quickly realized that walking through a binary world as a non-binary person was simply not an option. People still saw me as a woman. If I wanted to truly leave femaleness behind, there was no option but maleness. And so, six months later, I started a very low dose of testosterone, just enough to allow me to move through the world as male - a lower voice, masculine fat distribution, and a bit of facial hair. I was grateful for the added benefit of relief from my exceptionally heavy moon cycles, including a month-long period in my teens that landed me in the emergency room because of excessive blood loss. At the same time, I did not like the extra emotional disconnection I experienced from testosterone, especially as an already mind-dominant person. However, this was not a strong enough drawback to dissuade me; I soon grew used to this new emotional state, and it began to feel natural to me. I didn't plan to take hormones forever, but I was confident that it was the best solution for the time being.

Strongly trans-identified, I cultivated a community of trans and genderqueer friends and chosen family. I finally felt seen, understood, accepted, and respected. For the next seven years I explored this realm of gender outlaws, transhuman futurists, and body sculpting visionaries. I played in the infinite colors of gender fabulousness. I mostly gravitated to a butch expression but reveled in my femme side as a performance artist with a fey aesthetic. Proud of my place as a freak, I was glad to exercise the important muscle of evaluating rather than accepting social norms, and rejecting those unaligned with my personal sensibilities. Strongly connected by our shared social marginalization, I bonded deeply with my chosen family. 

At the same time, I was now experiencing the other cage of the gender binary, the “man” box. It didn’t bother me at first, because I was so relieved to no longer be trapped in the “woman” box that had plagued me for 23 years. At first, I enjoyed that people listened to me more, criticized me less, and didn’t objectify me physically. But slowly the male cage started to feel just as claustrophobic as the female one had. While the constraints and expectations of being male were not always as offensive, they were just as oppressive. I was no longer allowed to hug children in public lest anyone thought I was a sexual predator. Men teased and bullied me in their quest for dominance. Queerness was more strictly policed, and the homophobia more violent and aggressive. I was also less supported in exploring my emotional world, healing from trauma, and becoming an embodied and balanced person. And even after all my physical changes, I still felt disconnected from my body. While I was no longer measuring myself against the impossible standards of female beauty, the muscular masculine ideal had quietly replaced them. I slowly realized that my body dysmorphia was about more than just gender. It was about living in an anti-body culture, dissociated from physical sensation and lacking mind-body balance.

Seven years ago I stopped taking testosterone. I didn't want any more body hair or facial hair than the small scruff I'd already grown, and although I really appreciated the benefits of no menstrual cycle and greater muscle tone, it wasn't worth it to continue just for that. I was lucky that hormones were no longer crucial for my mental health, as I had already achieved the physical changes I desired. Additionally, I'd become more interested in nutrition and holistic wellness and felt growing concern about Western medicine and more cautious about what I put in my body. I had also started a new self-development process for my 30th birthday in order to become a more heart-centered person, and hoped that coming back to a female hormonal balance would help me deepen my connection with myself. Little did I know that this would lead me on an entirely new journey of self-discovery, healing, growth, and transformation. 

Only a month after I stopped taking hormones, I started to bleed again, for the first time in seven years. On a camping trip and ill-prepared for this novel occurrence, I reached out for help. I connected with a female friend over the rhythms of our bodies as she shared her pads and tampons with me. The experience was somewhat familiar and yet entirely new. During my adolescence, I hadn't felt allied with my female friends as we were initiated into this rite of womanhood. Not identifying as a woman, I had felt like a foreigner, an imposter. Now I had a community of genderqueer and trans friends who bled, with whom I could explore this experience of body and moon in rhythm together. Now I had a spiritual connection to this monthly cycle, to the opportunity for mindful awareness, reverence for the sacred womb, and the emotional expression that it offers. Now, no longer consuming hormone-laden dairy and meat, my cycle was much lighter than it had been. Now, I knew about the cup and cloth menstrual pads - ways to bleed that were not toxic to me or to the environment.

As I started to settle in to the rhythm of bleeding, I opened into a whole world of beauty that I had never known before. I discovered that I have an open door to grief when I'm bleeding - a mechanism to process and digest the pains of my life in a measured and consistent way. I discovered the empowerment I felt when I gathered my blood in a cup - when I could see what was being released. I discovered that this cycle asked me to arrange my life with flexibility so that I could take it easy for the first day of bleeding. And suddenly I felt the supportive, profound, esoteric sanctity of what had once been a terrible burden and insurmountable obstacle in my life. 

With this shift came a newfound reverence for my womb and its power. While I had always been a yoni-centric person, the rest of my sex-specific organs had always been somewhat mysterious to me. They were vague line drawings from biology class that didn't have real meaning in my life or self-image. I now felt drawn to deeply know my womb, to embody the power residing there. And with these new interests, I slowly became more aligned with people I knew who were on similar journeys of self-discovery. I began to seek out spaces to be with others sanctifying the monthly rhythms of their bodies, most of whom identified as women. And for the first time, I didn't feel like an alien in these spaces. As a genderqueer, yet male-appearing trans person, I felt accepted and respected as I talked about the spiritual empowerment I had found in my womb and my moon cycle. In these circles I found a shared narrative of defamation and degradation of the bloody potency of our bodies. 

Through this process, the question of gender expression emerged to the forefront of my life once again. Still faced with the inadequate constraints of the gender binary and the social reality of being seen as either male or female, I began to reconsider my options. My priorities had shifted, and rather than wishing to demonstrate my non-femaleness as clearly as possible, I now wished to be seen as a person with a womb. And if "female" was the clearest word that most people could summon for such a person, then so be it. My appearance shifted gradually, more slowly than my first transition, as I felt out the significance of this gender reorientation in my life. I began growing my hair out, shaved off my mustache, and welcomed more purple into my wardrobe. For the first time in nine years, some people called me "she" when they met me, and it felt nice and a little daring. As I slowly followed this thread of transitioning my gender presentation, I felt closer to my body, more able to convey my spirit to the outside world.

Next, I started wearing prosthetic breasts made for women who had the same double mastectomy surgery I did, mostly for breast cancer. I tried to lilt my testosterone-lowered voice up a bit, into a more androgynous range. These shifts opened the door to exploring how it feels to have the female aspect of my being recognized by strangers, acquaintances, and friends – to be genderqueer on the other side of the binary gender line. With my hairy legs, no make-up, and same androgynous wardrobe, I didn’t appear more feminine, just more female. For me, this had a different meaning than it did ten years prior, when I was last seen as female. This time, I was able reinterpret what people were seeing as not my “womanhood” but my “womb-hood”, not my femininity but my capacity to create life, to connect deeply with the moon, to chart my own fierce emotional and spiritual pathway. Of course, most people have no such complex thoughts when they see a “woman”, but by reclaiming these aspects of my identity for myself, it no longer mattered as much what others could see of me.

This was my first real foray into womanhood. Even though I was socialized as a girl, I never experienced adult “womanhood”. I went from girlhood to a genderqueer adolescence, to a transgender adulthood. At puberty I only felt disconnected and let down by my body, without any way to experience an empowering sense of womanhood. This is partially because I did not see a pathway toward embodiment that reflected my genderqueerness, one not made-up and lacy, objectified and disempowered. But it is also because of our cultural disconnection and dismissal of wombs, the power of bleeding, and the potential to physically grow another human. While the feminism of my youth embraced the notion that women could do and be anything, it did not include a spiritual component or a way to understand the sacredness of my female body. And yet, this newly defined womanhood was inevitably rife with the heartbreaking limitations of being truly understood and seen in the world. And the misogyny I experienced in the “woman” box is just as painful as it was the first time around.

After three years of proactively choosing to be seen as female in the world, I shifted into a more in-between appearance by removing the prosthetic breasts I had been wearing. This one small change caused some people to start calling me “he” upon meeting me once again, while others continued to use “she”, and some people began to avoid using pronouns altogether, or to ask my preference. This current reality of having different aspects of my gender and selfhood being seen by different people feels like the closest I can get to being fully understood or visible to dominant society.

As a genderqueer trans person, I have an overarching life experience of most people not fully understanding my gender. This is a given in casual encounters where someone will never know how I identify or what those identities mean to me. But it is often true in relationships with colleagues and cisgender friends as well. Before transition, I thought that if I could materialize the reality I felt inside, making my physical body part female and part male, people would believe me when I told them that I was trans, would see that I was non-binary. But what most people believed instead is that I wanted to be male instead of female, or that I just “thought” I was male.

Our culture has a long way to go before we will have a shared understanding of gender identity and expression, and how these relate to bodies and biological sex. So, gender variant folks navigate the systems in which we find ourselves. And as my desires shifted and morphed over time, so have my strategies for playing this gender game. Now, some people say “he” and others “she”, and I don’t correct them. Neither option is right, but neither are they wrong. In another few decades perhaps everyone will know how to use non-binary pronouns like “they”, “ze” or just my name. For now, my chosen family and community of trans and genderqueer folks and allies understand the complexity of my gender, and most of the rest of the world doesn’t.

Even though it might appear that I’ve “gone backwards” or “de-transitioned”, that is not my experience at all. My gender expression is a continually evolving aspect of myself, and I am wholly different than I was 15 years ago, when I was last read as female by strangers. My deeper voice feels so natural to me, like a true reflection of how I would imagine sounding. And even though I don’t drop into the depth of my low range as much anymore, I still enjoy the resonance and sound of my testosterone-lowered voice. Top surgery has turned out to be a more complex aspect of my journey, however. I continue to enjoy the convenience and contour of my flat chest, but I now feel conflicted about the loss of my mammary glands, an important aspect of my reproductive capacity and life-giving abilities. And while many people with intact mammary glands are unable to breastfeed, I am sad that this intimate experience of parenthood was not be an option for me.

And yet, I don’t regret physically transitioning. I don’t regret transitioning like I don’t regret former romantic partnerships. Even though I am no longer in love with my ex wife, I don’t lament the six years we spent together, and am grateful for how that experience has shaped the person I am today. I have gone through a lot to get to where I am now, but every part of this path has been crucial to my development as a person navigating the gender binary. The level of self-acceptance, comfort with my body, and connection with my spirit that I now enjoy is priceless.

I don't know how all of this would have unfolded without the years of living as male. What if I had gone on my womb reclamation journey while still feeling frustrated and trapped by the label of woman? What if I had never experienced the feelings of being trapped and frustrated by the label of man? While it is difficult to transition socially again, I don't think these deeper understandings could have occurred without the invaluable experiences of the past. Now that all this has come to pass, I know that this may not be the last time I write words such as these. I now truly understand that expressing my unique gender and navigating this culture of gendered limitations and assumptions will be a lifelong journey for me. I am curious to see what else this path has to teach me, and how I can help illuminate the complexities of gender for us all.

In sharing my story with you, I hope to expand the narrative of what a life in many genders can be. This journey is uniquely mine and represents only one of a multitude of trans and genderqueer experiences. Also, I am grateful for the economic privilege and social agency that have allowed me to make these ongoing shifts to my appearance, and to how people read me while maintaining employment and familial connections throughout my journey.

Parenthood: Reflections on the Early Days

Nine days into parenthood and my heart has expanded beyond my wildest imaginings, while my world has simultaneously shrunk down to this one room the baby is in right now. Everything feels tender, illuminated by the preciousness of this material realm: R’s first walk in the redwoods, first experience of sunlight on skin, the complete relaxation of a baby nap. What would it be like to feel so safe in one’s vulnerability, to fully trust one’s companions, to feel heard and cared for in each moment? How would it be to fully inhabit each moment of discomfort, dis-ease, discontent, and then let it go as soon as it was over, dropping in to the new Now of rest, sustenance, peace? As a student of Presence I bow to the babies, wise teachers sent from other realms to remind us of the truths we’ve always known.

Nine days into parenthood and the profound pain of this material realm weighs on me more acutely than ever: the injustice, violence, oppression, fear, anger, shame, and control. In this profane world humans have collectively dreamt into being, my heart burns with the pain of each violation of innocence. The grief of my own disillusionment is activated by the unrealized potential of leaving a better world for our progeny. My deepest wish is for a world worthy of the babies, a world that reflects back their love unconditionally.

Nine days into parenthood and I inhabit a state of awe. After years of preparation, an intentional insemination, witnessing nine months of pregnancy, and a midwife-assisted home birth, it all still seems surreal. The science of reproduction does not negate the miracle of this new being coming suddenly into this world, appearing as if from the ether, whole and embodied, so delicate and yet so strong. I am bewildered by the fragility of human existence, perplexed that so many infants have survived, amazed that so many parents have managed to show up for the incessant needs of their care. These early days of sleep deprivation have left me loopy yet blissed out, buoyed by the energy of new love. And even as I show up for my family in all the ways I can, there is so much more care than what I can provide. I am astounded by S’s strength of body, mind, and spirit, and extend my deepest respect to all those who have carried, birthed, and nursed babies. You have tapped into the infinite love that connects all life, drawing sustenance from the deep well of nurturing that is life’s longing for itself. You are a manifestation of Divine Love. I am humbled to be in your presence, and so grateful for this opportunity to learn and grow. I also look forward to sleeping through the night again some day!

How Are We the Same?

Like everyone I know, the triumph of an openly white supremacist, bigoted bully in America’s deeply flawed “democratic” system has left me reeling. I am vacillating between shock, fear, anxiety, depression, paranoia, and rage. I am witnessing many people get physically ill, along with the great impact to our mental health, emotional stability, and hopes for the future. Nearly everyone I know and love is directly harmed by the ideology of those who are preparing to seize power, which leaves me grappling with many big questions.

How can we make sense of this turn of events? How can we continue to build a new paradigm of environmental sustainability, respect for the earth and all sentient beings, interdependent community, and interpersonal safety in this political climate? How can we explain this to our children?

Since the Civil Rights Movement, there has been a dizzying and painful pendulum swing between protecting and expanding the rights of oppressed peoples and repressing and subjugating us – while the deeper roots of that oppression have never been addressed or healed. From JFK/LBJ to Nixon/Ford. From Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan. From Bush to Clinton to GW Bush to Obama. This pattern cannot continue. We must find a way to understand one another on a deeper level, to develop empathy and find compassion for those with whom we disagree politically, so that we cannot be divided and manipulated based on the identities that separate us, as a tactic by the wealthy to remain in control. We need to build connections in such a way that there is no “us” or “them”, only “we the people”.

And so, I have been looking into myself for the ways in which I agree with Trump supporters, the ways in which our hopes, dreams, fears, and pains are the same. Here is my attempt to elucidate some of these similarities, in the hope that doing so may help us find common ground on which to connect and move toward a world of safety, healing, and stability for our children’s children.

We are both full of rage at the “leaders” of this country for neglecting us and our needs, and for favoring the needs of others over those of our families.

We are both fearful of the future, sure that our current trajectory leads to nowhere but destruction and greater suffering.

You felt as scared and bewildered the day Obama was elected as I did the day Trump was – like your world was suddenly crumbling, that your family was in danger, and that the country was being taken over by people you could not trust.

We both feel the impact of a struggling economy, and believe that certain communities have been most neglected and deserve to be better represented and championed by the government while others are receiving undeserved advantages.

We both feel negatively impacted by religious extremism, and fear the continuing rise of these violent and reactionary forces to undermine our freedom and safety.

We both feel personally persecuted by the changes happening in our culture, and wake up in the night in fear of our current trajectory and the unforeseen repercussions yet to come.

We both feel unjustly persecuted and that the anger and violence directed toward us in unwarranted, while also feeling that our own rage is fully justified and under-expressed.

The truth is – we are all in deep pain and suffering, carry the wounds of historical and personal traumas, and live in a state of anxiety and fear encouraged and promoted by a broken culture of disconnection and dehumanization.

Rather than focusing on silencing or neutralizing the power of any individuals, let’s focus on moving beyond the ideas of white supremacy, misogyny, and environmental subjugation. When these myths are finally broken, we will heal from their consequences without continuing to be on this pendulum swing of reactionary outbursts. We will be able to have black lives matter to every person, every day. We will be able to address rape culture as a species, grappling with the impact of our genetic legacy and cultural baggage together.

This work existed last week, and it will exist four years from now. It is our work in the world as healers and visionaries. Let’s draw on our shared dreams of liberation to bring sustenance to our communities, taking care to work toward the future while also finding ways to bring beauty and wellness to our present realities. We will only achieve sustainability and health by being sustainable and healthy. So reach out to someone you care about and share your love with them, today and every day. Let’s practice viewing all people through the eyes of compassion, acceptance, empathy, and unconditional love, so that all people will learn to view us that way as well!

Curating my social media exposure as a form of self-love

Better Safe Than Sorry by Teacher's Media

The never-ending onslaught of offenses, catastrophes, violations and disasters that pepper my social media news feed is a testament to the state of our world. As a life-long progressive activist, I am largely exposed to the posts of folks with similar views and politics. I stopped watching television news years ago, filtering my exposure to current events through the interpretations and actions of reporters who are activists and change-makers. This decision meant I no longer yelled at the screen or turned it off in a fury over the biased, offensive slant of patriarchal, capitalist, racist, sexist, homophobic "news" reporters. It did not, however, protect me from being affected by each horror in a never-ending loop of traumatization. While I freed myself from exposure to the infuriating biases of the news media, I have still been bathed in the injustice of each atrocity. Often I go through several days of depression, anger and grief upon learning the details of yet another violation. From Orlando to Oaxaca, the domestic and international reign of terror, force, control, violence and dehumanization never ends. And while I don't click on each article, analysis, protest announcement, or petition, I see the headlines and learn the basic facts of dozens of such events every week. And then there are the ones that I read in-depth. The ones that touch me too deeply to avoid, the ones that catch me at a moment of weakness, the ones that keep coming up over and over and over as I scroll down the screen. 

Most recently I became ensconced in articles and protests and community responses to the deaths of 50 mostly Puerto Rican, mostly LGBTQ young people in Orlando and the campus rape of a woman at Stanford. In both cases, the more I read and the more details I learned, the more triggered I became, and the more these atrocities took me over. In some ways, my rage and grief about these incidents connected me to others, reinforcing my sense of solidarity and community with folks committed to dismantling the systems of oppression that cause such violence. On the other hand, I lost sleep, lost peace of mind, and increased my sense of vulnerability and fear. 

While I believe it is crucial that we understand the big picture of how oppression, power, and violence function in our world, I am rethinking my exposure to each new example of these larger forces. This is what I know: powerful men are allowed to violate whomever they wish, however they wish, with minimal consequences. Women are raped with impunity. The US legal system is set up to maintain the wealth and power structures of this country, to target oppressed people and protect privileged people. The particular details of the Stanford rape trial reveal nothing new about the objectification of women and the perversity of rape culture. And yet, I am infuriated by the media's lauding of the perpetrator's athletic prowess, their use of his friendly, innocent, cute headshot rather than his mug shot, his refusal to acknowledge any guilt or offer any apology even after being found guilty, his father's letter in his defense, and the insult of a 6-month sentence to "protect his future". 

In the case of the Orlando massacre, I already know that queer people of color are targets of hatred, that gun violence is rampant, that anti-Muslim sentiment and cries of terrorism are prepared by the media and politicians regardless of any facts, and that internalized homophobia is deadly. After learning of this massacre, I participated in a vigil in a tiny town in the South where I was able to offer a Spanish-language reading of the names of the dead for a mostly monolingual-English community mourning ceremony. This felt like a meaningful contribution, and an important honoring of the lives of those who were killed. And yet, what about the days I spent in a fog before and after the vigil, the disconnection I felt from my own sense of love and belonging? And what about the angry days and restless nights I spent after reading about the victim-blaming trial and light sentencing in the Stanford rape case? 

Choosing to learn about these current events did not hone my analysis of inequality or increase my capacity to offer love and healing to the world. So, I am left wondering what this anger does for me. It does not make it any easier to face each day or to sleep at night. It does not make each personal brush with these power structures less troubling. It does not connect me more strongly to the vast majority of us who are oppressed by these truths. It does not explain my life's purpose more clearly. In fact, reading the details of these events is triggering and painful, causing greater physical harm to my body, already ravaged by decades of over-production of stress hormones. And it causes me great psychic strain, uprooting my emotional well-being as I read the troubling details of yet another instance of police brutality, war crime, or climate chaos disaster. 

As an activist, I have always believed that it is important to know what's going on in the world of social justice, to be informed about current events and to have an opinion about politics. I now believe that my understanding of rape culture, gun culture, and the impact of patriarchy, capitalism, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and all the other forms of inequality is sufficient to inform my actions and activism in the world, and that learning the details of each new atrocity is actually perpetuating the violence on myself. When I consent to expose myself to each offense, I victimize myself. And while it is a privilege to choose not to know about every oppressive act, I believe that we all deserve it. Rather than sacrificing my own mental health because of the sickness of my communities, I want to uplift myself and those around me by spreading love and light in the best ways I know how. I may no longer be able to discuss current events with outrage and incisive political analysis. I may no longer be able to earn activist props for the stories I share on social media. But I will not forget what I know about the power structures of our world, or lose my conviction that they must be dismantled. I am curious to see how this will affect my mental health, my ability to support others in my communities, and my critique of the dominant culture.

The Anatomy of Change

Grow by Aororak

Over the past year, I have experienced more major life changes than during any other single year of my life. Some of these changes are so new and raw, I am not yet ready to share them with any but my most intimate circle. These changes are tender new shoots, barely peeking out of the soil, so delicate and fragile that it’s hard not to hover over them, monitoring them constantly. Are they still there? Are they okay? Did they get bigger? Change color or shape? Do they need more water, or sunlight, or better soil for their roots to grow? Are they going to survive this tenuous time, so vulnerable and small? The fear that change brings up has been a barrier in the past, a reason not to reach toward my dreams quite so fervently. Perhaps if I keep one foot, or even half my body in the old reality, it won’t hurt so much if these new buds don’t flower. Then, if a deer eats them when they’re only a few inches tall, or an unexpected late frost kills their roots, I won’t have to be so sad, because I can just go back to the way things were before they ever existed. Although this deadening of the spirit may create some degree of distance from my pain, the cost is alienation from all emotions. In this way, my joy is also diminished, my hopes mitigated and small, my dreams tiny “safe” fragments of their true selves. And, it turns out, these “safe” pieces aren’t really all that safe after all. Losing the fragments hurts too, in a different way. Then I feel the ache of never having given my true dream a chance to live, while simultaneously mourning the loss of the fragment into which I’d half-heartedly invested myself. And so I decided to be all in, unleashing a whole new level of fear and anxiety.

Through the highs and lows of being fully committed to my dreams, I am acutely aware of the unpredictable, uncontrollable, uncertain nature of life. This year I have traced the trajectory of change through its many seasons –dreams and fantasies, births and new life, periods of growth and development, and transitions and deaths. As a person who craves control, and has spent many years harboring fantasies of a superhuman ability to actually achieve that control, this has been a rollercoaster ride. Accepting these facts – that life is change, and change is inherently unknowable – means confronting the deep feeling of fear and lack of safety at the center of my being. In reality, this fear isn’t about any particular change. It’s about feeling inadequate, doubting my ability to protect myself, unsure if I’m strong enough to survive the vulnerability of the unknown.

Image by Proggie

As I’ve become more familiar with the anatomy of change, and its accompanying anxieties, the only antidote I have found is to witness and accept it. When I am in this state of fear, which is often a daily occurrence at the moment, I visualize my anxiety as a wet, shaking Chihuahua, barking incessantly, hair standing on end. This tiny creature is scared and vulnerable, and in attack mode. Ze is so mixed up that sometimes ze doesn’t even know that ze is scared, because ze only feels anger and defensiveness. But underneath that high-pitched bark is a deep fear, and a real vulnerability. Being the tiniest of dogs in a world of giants, lacking the usual doggy defenses, ze is understandably afraid. So I imagine scooping zem up in my arms and holding that trembling body, feeling the rapid heartbeat pounding against my chest. Just holding zem with sturdy arms, breathing deeply to slow zir heart rate, and speaking to zem gently and compassionately.

I, too, am tiny and fragile. I’m in new territory, wholeheartedly pursuing my dreams, all in. I, too, need to be held and seen, and spoken to with calm understanding. This simple act of picking up my shivering, defensive self and offering comfort and support is a powerful salve for sometimes overwhelming anxiety. And learning these skills is crucial, because this is where I plan to spend my life – in a state of transformation, re-evaluation, challenge, and change. Because this is where I grow the most, learn the most, and the place from which I can taste true liberation. Because freedom is not feeling safe, but rather feeling capable. It is not to be problem-free but to be a problem solver. Freedom means accepting that life is change, change is constant, I am never in control, and trying to be only limits my potential. Freedom means journeying to the edges of my capacity and stretching out over the chasm, learning from my mistakes and successes in turn. It means celebrating the process rather than the results, and shining my light on these new shoots with humble affection, feeling the fear and joy, marveling at the potential power of these baby plants, and being fully committed to the ups and downs of following my deepest yearnings wherever they lead.