Celebrate, Activate, or Hibernate: Finding Queer Joy This Pride

Celebrating might be the farthest thing from your mind this Pride, given the attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, and that is understandable. In this episode, I want to help you make peace with however you decide to interact with Pride this year. I also explore the idea of cultivating Queer Joy as an act of rebellion. The whole point of liberation is for us to live in ways that make us happy. 

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Transcript

 Hey, bestie, how are you? What's going on? I, myself, I'm just trying to find some kind of groove lately, and it feels a little next to impossible. There was the holiday weekend and before that I had. Jury duty one day last week and before that there were some events and social things going on. It just seems like life picked up all of a sudden, and I do not like when my routines are messed with, it throws me off completely and I'm working to kind of find that sense of like homeostasis, that feeling of alignment that Helps keep me going. And I'm gonna say it hasn't been that easy, but one of the things I have been doing to deal with it is, um, watching a lot of television. 

It's something I used to do as a child and a teen. I think I've talked about all of my, like, you know, Obsessions of shows, be it Buffy or Felicity or Dawson's Creek or Charmed or Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place. My daily soap operas. You guys, I used to tape the Young and the Restless, um, and the Bold and the beautiful and watch them every day. When I got home from school, I lived for. Soaps and I actually did for a while, watch Days of Our Lives, uh, was a huge Lisa Rena fan. She actually took my Soul Cycle class once I was freaking out on the inside, but did not show it on the outside cuz like, you know, we gotta keep our cool when we meet celebrities, right? We don't wanna like geek out into, we don't wanna like com like, We don't wanna like geek out and like fangirl all over them. So I had like a really chill just conversation with her. Rinna, she's amazing. Anyway, I've been watching a lot of television. I've been watch Anyway, I've been watching a lot of television.

Um, mostly binge watching selling Sunset and work in Moms. And I'm so mad because I swore I was not gonna watch selling Sun. And I'm so mad because I swore I was not going to watch selling Sunset without Christine and fuck me. I couldn't resist it. But here is the thing. I cannot, for life of me understand what any of the conflict was about this entire season.

It made zero sense. The conversations weren't tracking the way people were up in each other's business. I didn't understand. And it seemed, it just seemed like for no reason and Mary kept saying like she was dealing with real stuff, like quote unquote real stuff. So all the like petty shit going on in the office was like too much.

And everything Jason was asking her to do was too much. But like we never got any explanation for like what the real stuff is that she's dealing with. So it was really hard to understand like why she was so stressed, because we didn't have any background. Like it just came out of nowhere. And I don't know, maybe there was something going on last season that I just don't remember.

Um, but it just felt like her stress level was super high for no apparent reason. Like I just feel like all of the drama felt super manufactured and like more so than normally. Like it was just like, I didn't get it, and yet I still watched the entire thing. And I will say that like I actually found myself on Team cro.

And that, that felt weird. And Heather, who used to really annoy me and Heather, who used to really annoy me, um, I don't know, she was like super endearing this season. I dunno if it's, she's like pregnant, but like, she just was like, so cute and pregnant and like, I don't know. Her like annoying laugh. She's this like annoying laugh that like I actually thought was kind of cute.

She's kind of grown on me. So that was selling sunset and working moms was fucking awesome. I'm so sad it's over. I feel like they could have done like a season where the episodes were twice as long because like. They're short episodes, which like made it easy to binge, but I feel like they had to jam pack so much into the last season and especially the last two episodes, they felt a little bit rushed, but it was awesome.

I loved the ride. You should watch it. I'm a fucking Katherine Wrightman fan now. She's hilarious. She created the show and she also was like the main character, which I love. I love when like someone creates a show and then it's also like, They act in this show like Ted Lasso, which, oh my God, that's ending.

Ah, like tonight, final episode. I'm gonna cry my eyes out. I just know it. Anyway. Um, Katherine Wrightman was completely inappropriate on this show as Kate, like spoil alert here because this thing doesn't come up until like, I don't know, maybe the third or fourth season, um, where this plot point happens.

But, so this is a spoiler alert if you don't wanna hear this, like, Walk away for a moment. But, um, the conversations she has with her gay teenage stepson about sex are like, kind of equally refreshing. Like she's super cool, but also like so cool that they're absolutely horrifying. Horrifying. You're just, I was like cringing and being like, oh my God.

But she's also like super cool.

So anyway, I hope I've convinced you to watch it if you haven't. Um, I finished it today and I didn't think it was gonna get emotional, but I totally did. Um, this show is just like, it's brought me a lot of joy. I've laughed my ass off for the last like week and a half, or how long, or however long I've been watching it, and that's kind of what I wanna talk about today.

Um, joy and more importantly, queer joy. It's literally the first day of pride and I was feeling all this pressure to do like an uplifting celebratory pride episode, but I'm actually finding it very hard to be in the spirit right now with like the dumpster fire that is the attack on trans rights and like fucking drag shows like one of the most joyful fun things in the world.

Our drag shows and people are attacking them like, what the fuck is even happening? I actually saw my first real drag performance at Barracuda in New York City. It was Candace Kane, um, when she was like still performing in as a drag queen, but I think she had already come out as trans. I don't know. I don't know the timeline, but she was amazing.

It was like such an awesome experience to see a performance like that. I was, I don't know, 19 anyway. It just, it's making me, it's bumming me out. It's bumming me the fuck out. Um, and so I was thinking about celebrating this time and honestly having a real hard time with it. Um, and I think I just really, I, I needed to make that.

Okay. So if this is you, I want you to know that I see you.

You might not be in the mood. And we're just gonna make everything okay. We're gonna make, wherever you're at this month, however you're processing all of this, whatever you need, we're gonna make it. Okay? So you wanna celebrate, that's cool. You wanna activate and protest, like get the fuck out there.

Remember, the first pride was a riot, so go for it. Or you may wanna hibernate like me, right? Like all of it's fine. You get to take care of yourself and find the joy and however you choose to interact with pride this month. And that's what's most important is you finding the joy in it and not judging it.

More joy, less judge. So talking about queer joy, um, I actually Googled what is queer joy, and that's not really weird for me because I often like to see how the internet is defining a concept before I speak about it. It just like, it sometimes gives me a jumping off point, a reference point, or whatever, whatever you want to call it.

And the definition I found. Was queer joy is a positive feeling that we get from encountering signs of progress in gender equality and gender diversity. And I was like, no fucking wonder. I haven't. And I was like, oh, no fucking wonder. I'm having such a hard time with this topic of queer joy and celebration and pride.

It's really hard to see the signs of progress. If anything, it feels like we're going backwards. But then I reminded myself of what Martin Luther King Jr. Said, and like, not exactly what he said, but like the gist of what he said. So I also had to look that up. Um, and it's like the quote that says The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice and.

This really speaks to me, or whatever version of it that like popped into my mind was speaking to me. Um, because one of the basic things I teach is that our thoughts create our results. So these fights for equality, they're long because change takes time, but we have to have faith that the action we take is having an impact.

If I can believe that we're moving towards justice and accept that justice is not linear, then it gives me the drive to keep going. So I see this as like a fa, so I see this as like a statement of faith, and I think that faith is exactly what we need right now.

If we're going to. Kind of see the what, the forest between the trees. Is that, is that the saying? I don't Whatever the light. The light at the end of the tunnel. Let's go with that one. That one makes more sense. I don't understand the forest and the trees. One, maybe someone can explain that to me or I can Google that, but I don't wanna take the time to do that now anyway.

Like I think faith, right? I try to, to go back to that like deep connection with, Whatever, higher power, whatever, energy, the universe and trust that like if we look back over time, we're never going to like eradicate injustice. We're never going to like eradicate suffering, but we are getting better conditions are getting better.

Things are very different for gay queer trans youth than they were like when I was a teenager. And I just have to keep reminding myself that like there has been progress. And with progress there's always going to be pushback. And while that can feel really daunting, if I accept that, then I can also expect the burnout from pushing against the backlash.

Cuz it's gonna happen. Like we're gonna get burnt out, we're gonna feel stressed out. And if I can know that, then I can prepare myself for it and take the steps that I need to take to. Really support myself through that journey. So that's something that I would really recommend. It all comes down to acceptance.

Accepting what is in the moment, knowing that we are still gonna keep fighting and having this like level of faith where I believe that we are. Bending toward justice where we are bending toward things getting better and sometimes shit does need to get worse before it gets better. Right. I have you ever been through a healing crisis?

I've definitely been through a healing crisis where like, you definitely feel like you're gonna die before, like you get better before the healing begins and it's like, ah, it doesn't feel amazing. We don't love it, but it does happen. So I, I just want to keep trying to remind myself of these things. And not just remind myself of those things and prepare myself for that, but also to like cultivate joy.

So like how do we find joy and why do we find joy? What's it all about? Well, I personally believe that allowing myself to experience joy in the face of these very real battles we are fighting is an act of rebellion. Like my happiness, like me finding moments of happiness and joy and excitement that cannot be taken away from me.

That brings us to the Victor Frankl quote, which again, had to look these quotes up because like they, they're a little like paraphrased versions of them in my mind. Um, But I don't want to give you those because they're actually on the internet anyway. That quote is, everything can be taken from a man.

But one thing, the last of the human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstance to choose one's own way.

So I wanna honor the difficulties. I wanna honor. Like the fear. So let's talk about the fear that we might need to honor right now. So the proud boys have said that they're going to be increasing their presence at Pride. That feels very violent to me, right? That is scary. So we wanna honor that. We wanna know that like that's going to be coming up for us and we wanna make decisions based on our capacity.

To process that. So if you have a lot of fear because of something like that and it makes you feel like you don't wanna go and celebrate in large groups, that is absolutely fine because I believe the threat is real. That also doesn't mean you can't experience joy and celebrate and find connection and plan things.

To do with people that you love. That feels good, right? The worst thing would be for us to not still experience our joy and connection with people. We might just wanna shift what it looks like so that we are being compassionate and creating space for the part of us that is like, mm, I don't wanna go to this thing, you know?

So really leaning into the acceptance of the fear, the negative emotions, the worry, whatever it is that's coming up because of the threats, the very real threats that have been being made, but still like allowing yourself to choose your attitude.

So what does that look like for you? And the way that I work on this with my clients is like choosing the way that they want to feel. And I do that a lot in the presence of negative emotion. So we've talked about this before, like the duality of emotion. I believe I did an episode on, on it entirely, but I'm gonna bring it back here, right?

The duality of emotion in this experience where you hold space for the negative emotion and then you decide what positive feeling emotion you wanna cultivate. And so right now for this episode, I'm focusing on joy, right? And joy being an active rebellion. That feels good for me. To lean into, I don't know what it's gonna be for you.

And so when I think about wanting to feel joy, where do I find that? How do I cultivate joy? Well, for me, I find it in like the small moments where I feel really at home in my skin. And that is tough, but. There's at least one moment every day where I feel exactly like myself, and that feels really joyful and I'm working on extending the amount of time that I spend in that feeling.

Right? So last week we talked about. So last week we talked about like success intolerance, right? And building up our tolerance for positive emotion. And so this is one of those places where I am trying to increase my tolerance for that feeling of alignment, that feeling of like connectedness where I feel exactly like myself, where I'm not censoring what I really want.

And I'm not denying myself of what like feels authentic to me in that moment. And that's really how I experience joy. And to me, again, is the thing that no one can take away from me.

So,

When I experience those moments, I'm leaning into them even more, and sometimes it can feel a little uncomfortable, right? To try to stretch it out because fear comes back in or worry comes back in. Like something else tries to tell me that it's not okay to want what I want. To be who I am,

but I, but I anticipate that I know that that's coming and I decide that I can hold space for that. I can understand that that is not me. I can understand that that does not belong to me. That, that that was something handed to me by culture, by society, by other people in my life,

and I can redirect myself to that present moment of being, just being with me. And what's so wonderful about this is be, is that I don't have to do anything else other than that. I don't have to act on anything. Nothing has to change. I just need to be honest with myself, right? I need to tell myself the truth about myself in that moment.

That's the entire exercise if I want, right? Like if I wanna act on it, that's the option two. If I wanna act on it, that is an option, right? So like, I think I talked about like drinking water. Like sometimes we just need water, right? So if what I, so if what I genuinely want in a moment when, when I tap into my body and I'm really feel into what my needs are, maybe I want a glass of water, maybe I need to lay down, right?

There are maybe some things I'm gonna wanna do, but the point of the exercise is not to actually do anything. It's to just. Give myself permission to be like, feel, want, whatever I want in that moment. And that brings me a lot of joy. That makes me feel really good. And that is something, again, that nobody can take away from me.

So where do you find your joy?

What's the smallest moment? It doesn't have to be big, and maybe it, it, it is for you. Maybe it is celebration with other people, but I really want us to focus on that cultivating of those small moments where we're just with ourselves. What are those moments for you

and hold space for that? And be honest with yourself about what it looks like for you this year to interact with this thing that we call pride, because it's important for all of us. The point of this whole thing is that we get to live the way we want to live. So judging yourself for the place that you're at right now, given the state of what's given, the state of the world is the exact opposite of what we wanna do to celebrate this to honor.

This month and this time. Okay, my friends, I will be back next week. We're gonna continue to talk about this cuz guess what? Pride is a month long thing, so we're not going anywhere. I feel like these topics are gonna keep like unfolding as the weeks go by. I hope you have an amazing week and we'll talk soon.