A few evenings ago, intuitive nudges urged me to watch a YouTube video containing an interview of several women from a group called the “Mama Dragons”. During that emotional experience, my heart burst open, and tears were shed as I listened to how these amazing mothers of LGBT+ youth had bonded together to provide unconditional love and support, not just to their own children, but also to other LGBT+ youth who desperately lacked such crucial support in their own families and life circumstances.
As I watched the video, I pondered my own lonely struggle through hopeless teenage years consumed in agonizing self-loathing. I remembered how utterly terrified I had been at the thought of anyone ever discovering my “evil” transgender secrets. While my parents were indeed honorable and loving people, I did not believe that they could ever have loved and accepted the female-me that incessantly struggled to make herself known as the determined male-me continued to force her back into the shadows. To hide my shame, I did my best to wear a genuine mask of pretense … of desperately trying to conform and fit in with my family’s religious beliefs so that no one would ever have to learn of my shame.
As the years wore on, I became my own parent — one who continued to judge and hate myself based on the conditioning that I had absorbed from the religion and culture around me. The second half of my sixty-one year journey has been an uphill struggle to increasingly embrace the authentic me — a journey that has been frequently embroiled in gut-wrenching emotional processes — a journey of determined-but-gradual healing and learning to love myself once again.
One profound truth has recurringly graced my heart during my adventures of the last seven years. I have learned that the healing I seek is an “Inside Job” … that there is nothing “out there” that can complete me … that I will not allow myself to feel truly loved until I learn to recognize and deeply love my own divine nature … my own pure innocence … the same innocence that we all possess at our deepest core.
As I later pondered the “Mama Dragon” interview, I was suddenly overcome with intuitive giggles.
“I need to be my own ‘Mama Dragon'”, the inspired inner voice spoke. “I need to fiercely love myself as only a mother dragon could do — unconditionally honoring the innocence and worthiness of my own precious inner child.
Today, as I sat in a dry river wash just north of Bell Rock (in Sedona, Arizona), I was reading the book “Whatever Arises Love That”, written by my new favorite author, Matt Kahn.
As I read (and continued to read during this process), I suddenly found myself judgmentally reacting to loud voices that I could hear from more than a hundred feet away. My old friend “Noise Anxiety” was again rearing its “ugly” head.
Suddenly, I stopped in my tracks. Rather than impulsively yelling out “Shut Up!” at the top of my lungs, I questioned the source of my angry reaction — a noise anxiety that has plagued me for more than five decades — posing this self-question in a brand new way.
“Just who is it that is angry?” I curiously asked myself.
I began to giggle as I realized it was my own pure innocence that was angry, desperately wanting me to notice and acknowledge her. That innocence had been constantly beaten down by a well-intentioned world — a world of religion and culture that turned an innocent and free wild stallion into a reluctantly-conforming sheep. The bombarding noisy energies of a conditioned rat-race world were quite painful to that innocent me. I had repeatedly tried to voice my angry rebellion toward the external chaos that broke me, but after frequent parental punishments, I had finally given up, succumbing to the conformity-saddle, sinking into the survival-role of an externally-smiling people pleaser.
In that insightful moment, just a few hours ago, I took on the mantle of that “Mama Dragon” label, and I fiercely loved that precious little innocent me, doing so with a new level of clarity and authentic depth. I acknowledged how agonizingly painful the noisy world had been to her innocent nature. I begged her forgiveness for having unknowingly repressed and hated her for so long. I promised to unendingly and unconditionally love and support her as any true “Mama Dragon” would do.
As the next few hours unfolded I found myself both laughing and crying at the same time. It was a state of pure joy during which layers of repressed emotion were humorously and agonizingly let go. That serious controlling parent in my head was finally beginning to embrace another layer of magical and giggling innocence that has been long-hidden in my heart.
Words could never adequately convey my adventures of today. But I can say that something is quite different inside of me, and I am more eager than ever to continue this unfolding journey of self-discovery.
Copyright © 2016 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved
What an inspiring and uplifting post. Thank you for taking the time to write it and sharing your amazing story with us.