all parts

rejecting shame and inviting discernment

What does it mean to allow all parts of me to be here? What does it feel like to invite my whole self into interaction?

I’ve been reflecting on the ways that I have been praised for fitting within a narrow mold, ways that I have cut off or shunned parts of myself for the comfort and pleasure of others. As I look back on the intensity of those banishings, I feel the scar lines of where I have sliced parts of my soul out and away, or buried them deep beneath the sutures. I recently have begun the process of reopening those parts of me, sealed off for so long, and it’s been painful, it’s been vulnerable, and terrifying, and equally rewarding, euphoric, and freeing.

All parts of me being here means I don’t have to be a certain way. I can be as I am, in whatever is true. I can be honest and rooted in my experience, and I can have this sense of self respect to know it’s in my best interest to live my full truth. I do not owe anyone comfortability. It’s one of my values to be kind, compassionate and respectful, but not necessarily to be polite. Polite to me means knowing certain rules and abiding by them to make others feel comfortable. That feels kinda dumb honestly. I can be my whole self, and interact within my values, and people might really not like me- I might make them super fucking uncomfortable. And that’s absolutely fucking fine. Because it is so worth it, to experience rejection in my truth so that I can also experience connections in my truth. Connections that are delicious, playful, loving, and divine.

Little Rylee was so scared of being rejected (like literally most/all humans???) that she sought belonging through severing parts of her off. It makes me so sad, because I genuinely love who I am now, and I wish that little me didn’t have to experience so much hurt and fear in that process. I know that I am deserving of respect, care, love, adoration— and that those things quite literally heal me, give me life energy, when I am being my whole self and in relationships that want me.

I was chatting with a friend lately about discernment, and I think its a really important piece of this. I get why I abandoned parts of me: because I was fucking scared of being alone! I need to trust that people will want to stick around if I share the most vulnerable parts of myself, especially the parts that I once hid away. So there absolutely is this lovely process of discerning who gets to know me in certain ways. This doesn’t mean I’m being fake or being someone else, it just means that I might be more protective of some parts. I am not banishing them, they are not riddled with shame…. these parts are actually so precious that they require trust and relationship for someone to access.

So yes, all parts of me are welcome. I want no part of me to feel wrong, or shameful. But, there are parts that are vulnerable, special, and rightfully so, require a sense of security and love in order to be accessed in relationship.

I am also working on being comfortable with other people’s discomfort. I am working on allowing myself to be in all parts of me. I am working on accepting that the protective part of me is also allowed to be there. To be embodied does not mean I am vulnerable all the time, or that I am authentically sharing my whole self with no discernment. Being embodied means tuning in to my body, listening for cues that I feel safe enough to share myself. It means listening to the protective cues if that is not the case. It means releasing shame. If someone is rejecting parts of me I really love, that probably sucks and hurts, and is also okay, because it is the truth. And it is also okay, and true, that I feel protective of myself. I refuse however, to internalize that rejection into shame.

In the past my body has perceived rejection as a confirmation that I am unloveable, that I am responsible for being unwanted- that I caused this. I have metabolized rejection into shame, and this has wounded me to my core. As I refuse to do that going forward, as I release the shame stored in my flesh, I have to give my body another path to experience rejection- because it is inevitable, but it is not inevitably resulting in shame. So what path am I carving out in my nervous system? Strangely I am finding that I need to sense into hurt and loss, look rejection in the face, and feel my sorrow, my sadness around it. Weirdly, shame has short circuited my reaction to rejection, and has acted as a protection from from feeling hurt or abandoned by someone, which cannot be felt if I am responsible. If it is my fault, then I can’t look at the loss in the face- not really anyway. I have to feel difficult feelings and allow them to move through me. Then I have to ground myself in my values and resource myself enough to sense into the love and support around me, all the people who love me for who I am. The ways that I feel really good in knowing myself. Maybe this is more of a cognitive moment of rewiring than a somatic route, but there is this element of finding what supports my body to feel safe as I sense into hurt, and ultimately being embodied in my sadness allows me to be embodied in my release of rejection that would become shame otherwise.

As I mentioned before, politeness and comfort for others are no longer a part of my value system. In order to be okay with other people’s discomfort, I have to be in my body enough to see what’s mine and what is theirs. I am not honoring myself by internalizing shame, by making others comfortable at my expense. It is just a truth that there are people we are compatible with, and people we aren’t. It is in my value system that I treat others with respect, regardless of compatibility, but I don’t owe anyone comfort. I reject people. People reject me. There is nothing inherently wrong in this process. But I refuse to reject myself. The more that I am loved, and have trusting, long-standing, meaningful relationships, the more I can accept all this love I have for myself as well.

I guess I wanted to finish out this post with some ways I’ve been exploring this. Sharing some parts of me that I once rejected myself, that I have been inviting (with so much care), to come back.

The first one is my femininity! When I started thinking about my gender experience in a queer way like 5 years ago, I unfortunately ate up all this bull shit about what was desirable in the London queer community: masc, skinny, ripped, mullet or a buzz, a certain style of clothes, flat chest… and I became it to a T. Which felt eerily similar to high school and hella trying to fit into the clique. I rejected all my femininity so hard, no more dresses, no heels, no make up, no feminine gestures or mannerisms. It was a whole performance. Parts of it were important for me to give myself permission to explore more masculine things, to step away from a conformity I didn’t agree to, but found myself in for my whole life. Parts of it were just me rejecting really important parts of myself. I’m not talking just about aesthetics, but more feminine energy. I found myself being really averse to softness, expressiveness, emotions, sensuality, vulnerability, and tenderness in myself, and even averse to really feminine people. I low key became a trans-masc misogynist. Which is so ironic, and not uncommon. And so painful!

I think after I started taking T, maybe like a year in, I was like, “ohhhhh, yea, fuck…. I see what happened.” I rejected myself again, so that people wouldn’t be uncomfortable with my gender. Funny enough, it wasn’t til people started reading me as male, and that I was doing it well, that I felt uncomfortable in myself again. I had gone from feeling uncomfortable in my woman-ness that was expected, to feeling uncomfortable in my man-ness that I was now passing as. Through that process of experiencing myself socially in different perceived binary genders I finally gave myself permission to be in my full expression of gender, which is expansive, or fluid? I’m not sure. The thing is, T gave me such a beautiful experience (I want to write a whole thing on this separately), and it opened the door to me feeling I had all the options that were true for me. I give myself permission to be everything I want, everything I am.

This feels like a good ending for now. I have so many other things I could say about gender, but it feels like a really alive example of how I am embracing and inviting all parts of me every day, in a way that (on some level) has to be shared and perceived. I might be protective about the details or my experience of transness, but I refuse to hold shame in my body around gender. If it makes you uncomfortable, that is not mine to hold. I will not reject me because you do. We all have things like this, it is absolutely not just gender. I wonder what are parts of you that you have banished? Parts that want to be soothed, held, explored, tended to? I wonder what happened in your body as you read this? You are so deserving of love in all that you are, and it exists.

God that’s stupid sappy, and its fucking true.