Ask a Queer Coach

You ask, I answer. A monthly Q&A column with a Queer Life Coach.

Qstack | The LGBTQQIP2SA+ Community, Directory, and Platform of Substack creators is a reader-supported newsletter and depends on paid subscriptions to highlight the diverse creative talent of queer writers. All content will always be free, but your support is deeply appreciated.

Welcome to Ask a Queer Coach, the Qstack monthly feature where Transformational Coach and Associate Editor Keith Aron gives his best coachy take on questions from Qstack community about sticky, scratchy or sludgy life situations. Have a question you wish you could ask a queer coach—about identity, relationships, work, creativity, community or becoming more yourself? We invite you to submit your questions for consideration. Big crossroads or small stuck places welcome. Submissions can be anonymous. DM Keith directly.

Greetings, Qstack! I hope y’all are finding some sweetness amongst the sour during this terrible time of so much worldwide suffering. Add to that my heartfelt wish that you’re maintaining a workable pH balance of sorts between the both/and.

This month’s quandary comes from Waymon Hudson, author of the Substacks Messy Reinvention and Silent Horrors. Thank you, Waymon, for submitting the following question for our collective reflection and dissection:

I’m realizing a lot of what people liked about me was how easy I was to digest.

Funny. Palatable. Non-threatening.

The “good” gay. The inspiring deaf guy. The version that made people comfortable.

Now that I’m showing up more honestly, the energy is different. And I actually like that.

But there’s still a part of me that grieves how easy it was to be loved when I was performing.

How do you grieve that without turning yourself back into something consumable?

“What is needed is the constant unmasking of ego’s strategy.” [Quote by Chogyam Trungpa; Photo by Stephen McFadden on Unsplash]

Well. Talk about “both/and” (I hear no small amount of both/and in Waymon’s question)! All change requires letting go of some sort, and in the letting go, there will be loss. This is the case even when it’s “good change.” Even when we’ve longed for it. Even when we like what it yields and feel we made the right choice. Even then, still there is loss. And with loss, comes grief. Waymon’s loss and grief are both very real and very relatable.

So, how do we make space for the inevitable grief that accompanies change? How do we do that without letting it push us back into our old ways of being/believing/doing? I have a few thoughts to offer, along with the following evergreen invitation:

Take what you like and leave the rest, yo.

Setting the Stage: Cultural Conditioning

Before we dig in, I want to acknowledge the likelihood that most of us have been conditioned to process our thoughts through the warped machinery commonly known as all-or-nothing thinking. In the simplest of terms, this mechanism filters all things onto either this side of a binary or that, then adds a dollop of value judgment on top. Either something is this, or it’s that. Therefore, we feel either this way or that about it, because it’s either some version of right/good or wrong/bad. It’s a space hog of a cognitive distortion that leaves no room for nuance or contradiction.

Many of us have also been conditioned to react, rather than respond, to our emotions. We’ve gotten the idea that it’s not enough to simply feel them — we must do something about them — and the faster, the better. We’ve learned by cultural osmosis to greet our more challenging emotions with doubt and mistrust, to deny or minimize their existence, wield them as weapons, fix them, or shut them down altogether. Yikes, yikes, yikes, and yikes, with an extra shot of yikes.

So, it’s not surprising that Waymon feels apprehensive about entertaining grief’s arrival. My hunch is that he may be seeing this grief through the aforementioned distortion of the either/or lens, where he has only two choices. Say “yes” either to grief or to showing up honestly. There is no clear path to having it both ways.

Ferocity and Fragility. Both/And (again)

Implicit in this particular distortion is a sneaky little paradox. Waymon’s grief both holds more than its fair share of power and at the same time, it’s fragile. It seems to both have the power to potentially tip him over backwards, and yet it lacks the sturdiness to co-exist with authentic honesty. It may help to picture this tension as a tantruming toddler. What better model of simultaneous ferocity and fragility?

Would Waymon’s grief be appeased — maybe even disappear — if he were to revert to his old self? Probably not for long. Think about that toddler again. They might be temporarily distracted and placated by a toy, but not soothed at the roots as they would by the presence of a sturdy attachment figure. I suspect Waymon’s grief might quiet for a moment, but would then simply hop over and buckle itself into the loss of his authenticity. Grief doesn’t just go away on its own, nor can we silence it with some sort of hush money. And if we bury it, we bury it alive. It needs presence and support to truly settle. Just like the toddler.

So back to Waymon’s question. How might he feel/express/support his grief safely, without stepping backwards? How can he circumvent self-abandonment?

Safety and Comfort. Similar, but Different

Before we turn to solution, let’s chat about an important distinction. Comfort is not the same as safety. Nor is discomfort necessarily dangerous. Feeling grief can be quite uncomfortable. It can also be inconvenient and/or messy, because it slows us down. And that’s frowned upon in a culture that centers efficiency, productivity and positivity. That doesn’t mean it’s unsafe, though. Grief related to unresolved trauma is a different kind of animal — and for that, my suggestion would be to work with a skilled therapist.

In addition to feeling uncomfortable, processing grief can also use quite a lot of resources. So it makes sense to prepare and plan for this. Just as we might for any event we knew would demand a lot from us. We do ourselves a favor when we get curious about the kinds of “fuel” and supports we need to see us through such an event. For instance, maybe we need to set aside some dedicated grieving and recovery time. Maybe we need a support crew or accountability buddy. Maybe we need extra hugs or a compassionate witness who won’t minimize, shame or try to “fix” us.

Looking Under the Hood

After Waymon supports his grief and feels well-resourced again, he might also want to investigate whether it has any additional wisdom to offer about his needs. All our emotions are cues and signals meant to tell us how adequately (or inadequately) our basic human needs are being met.

It’s really up to Waymon to make his own call as to what his un-or-under-met needs might be in this scenario. But since I see a clue in his question, I’ll speculate. Here’s the clue:

But there’s still a part of me that grieves how easy it was to be loved when I was performing

From Waymon’s use of the word “easy,” I’ll deduce that a need for ease might be clamoring to be met more fully. “Ease” here might be roughly synonymous with peace, flow, harmony, or even freedom.

Here’s another thing about needs. Our needs are never “wrong” or “bad.” In a sense, they’re not even personal, because they’re universal to all human beings (although they fluctuate in terms of importance as our circumstances change). They really just are what they are, and our job is to meet them as wisely as we best can. What becomes problematic sometimes is that our strategy for meeting one need might cause us to neglect — or even abandon entirely — another.

Might there be a different strategy that could help Waymon meet his need for ease? I’d wager there are probably at least a handful of others. And they might look nothing at all like his old go-to, performing. Not even remotely, which is tricky for the brain. Finding an alternate strategy, or combination of strategies to provide a “good enough” level of ease might take both patience and a little experimentation. It will probably also be well worth Waymon’s effort.

Lastly, Waymon is only part of the equation here. If the people with whom he’s choosing to interact aren’t able to accept him when he shows up honestly, that’s helpful information for him to have. Painful, but helpful. In fact, it’s critical information for healthy discernment about his relational investments.

The Secret Sauce Recipe

Let’s sum it up here. To review, Waymon asked how he might grieve how easy it was to be loved when he was performing — without turning himself back into something consumable.

Here’s my recipe for the secret sauce:

1. Hold compassionate space for the discomfort/inconvenience/messiness of the grief. Witness its “tantrum” without trying to fix it, knowing that the storm will pass.

2. Refuel and recover.

3. Check under the hood for any un-or-under-met needs.

4. Evaluate current and alternate strategies for meeting those needs.

5. Adjust/adapt strategies for better balance across the universe of needs.

What do you think, Qstack? Have you navigated something similar to Waymon’s situation? What wisdom emerged from your experience? Comment below. And if this resonated for you, give me a thumbs up!

Keith Aron (he/they) writes Big Blue Sky Dragonfly, a Substack about finding the sweet spot between belonging and authenticity. He’s a trans and queer transformational coach, writer, erstwhile Jack of all trades, proudly witchy weirdo, and honorary tree. Find him at keitharon.com.