this week brought to the surface so many wounds around being rejected, flat out ignored or unseen.
you might have experienced this - an event, a dinner where someone ignores you, can not even look at you, as if their lack of acknowledgement that you are here - breathing - will stop you from happening. will stop you from being.
this tribute is not about the violence that this situation requires for someone to act this way. i know deep down this behaviour has nothing to do with me, i know this is because my presence reminds them of something/one/the truth that fundamentally questions their belief/reality/sense of the world. the best answer their body can bring to this moment is shut down-ignore-violence.
i want to talk about how when we are constantly brought into those situations (and no body around us stops them) we internalise this so deeply that we become the aggressor, too. i’ve watched my selves slowly ignore my selves/my feelings/my cravings/my needs, too. i can not deny it anymore: i’ve also done this to me. and while this is not my fault, it is my responsibility to acknowledge that, to “protect” my selves, i’ve ignored me. i’ve chosen to not look at the sides of me i know society will deem unworthy/unloveable in the hope that those pieces of me might go away, and i (the loveable me) will be loved.
i’ve contorted my selves so many times for so long that it feels uncomfortable for my spine to remain straight & proud. by doing so, i thought that my bullies will stop bullying me: “I am bullying me for you, you don’t have to humiliate me ! You see !!!!! I HAtEeEEE MeEEEE TOooOOOOO!”.
when we slowly reclaim those parts of us that have denied air, presence, respect & love, we show our inner bully that they can be loved, whole. with all the messy shit.
and this feels so liberating (& so by default scary!) to let the volcano of our ignored, rejected selves explode, and let its lava ruin & burn from the ground up the fake ass constructions of the past. the bullshit we’ve been fed.
that we are not enough unless *perfect*. that if only we had 2 more weeks to make it perfecter maybe they would have seen how incredible and talented we are. this is not about them but how their experience of us has tainted our own vision of our selves. take the glasses off.
you are ready. you are imperfect, you’re growing. you’re worth absolutely everything & more.