Do you want to be more interesting AND attractive? That's exactly what will happen if you type your email address below.
Growing Up: people have opinions & drag queens
|
Guys hey, Maybe you're interested, maybe you're not. Maybe you relate, maybe you think I'm an alien. Maybe you already thought that. Let's find out. (Or not, if you want to skip, there are some beautiful words from RuPaul below re inner child healing... I bought myself MasterClass for Christmas and just took "RuPaul Teaches Self-Expression and Authenticity...") People have opinions!!! GRRR So, I've noticed that people have opinions about things. About other people, about other people's lives. About how they are living. Okay, not new. I've noticed that people have these opinions about me. About my life, about how I'm living, about what I *should* be doing, about things I need to change, about things I'm doing *wrong* (in their opinion). I find this very annoying*. Not when it's random people, because who cares (although sometimes I still do). But for the purposes of this exploration, it's when it's certain people who I'm close to (or *supposed* to be close to... because how close can you really be to someone if they aren't really SEEing you?) Now this isn't about criticising anyone. Everyone is just doing the best they can, and why should any person in particular** invest the time in really seeing me? Or maybe they want to but they don't really know how? Relating to each other meaningfully is hard work! And we are all busy. **as far as I understand, humans have a universal need to be seen and understood - but, as adults, our needs can be met by anyone. i.e. if everyone you know dies (which would be devastating and extremely traumatic obviously) you would still, after a (probably long) period of grief and rebuilding, be not only capable of survival but of thriving too. You could go off and create a new life and find a new tribe and love and meaningful work etc. You could maybe even transform the grief into something beautiful one day. Or not. And then you just pass the trauma down to other people. Completely understandable... or maybe it's a combination of the two. Anyway... back to me not wishing to judge or criticise anyone. If I'm sensitive about people having opinions about me, I certainly don't want to start having opinions about people having opinions... you see? Live and let live... people are free to have their opinions and live their lives however they wish... My 2025 intentions are: 1. be more offensive (big topic - more later) and 2. love and accept all humans exactly as they are. So to live in accordance with 2. Loving and accepting people exactly as they are, it's "Ahh X has opinions about my life and doesn't seem to really understand me at all. Cool. I mean, that's kind of a shame, but I love X and accept X exactly as (s)he is, opinions and all... I am an adult who is capable of getting my needs met and I don't need anyone to change in order for that to happen."... by the way I do none of this perfectly. Obviously. But trying my best. So! Why does it bother me so much? People have opinions, what's the big deal? I think because what I deeply crave is to be understood. Eughhh. Okay now I know what my work is. Annoyingly. Whatever I'm craving outside of me I have to make sure I'm giving it to myself first :(. Why? Because someone on TikTok told me. Also because I'm pretty sure it's a thing. HMMMMM. Anyway I think this is a good time to cut to RuPaul. *Wait last thing (which kind of relates to the last point??) Sorry these footnotes are all over the place. Okay, I fully believe the world is a mirror... what I am triggered by in other people is a reflection of what's going on internally for me. i.e. if I feel like I'm being judged for something, probably a part of me is judging me for that thing. Once I resolve that internally, the trigger will stop showing up. Not that people won't continue having opinions, just that I won't be writing about them in this newsletter. i.e. I won't notice them or be triggered by them in the same way. ~MasterClass: RuPaul teaches you how to find your inner truth to overcome hardship, gain confidence and live your best life~ Okay I really did not know anything about RuPaul before watching this except that I had vaguely heard of the show RuPaul's Drag Race. Now I'm like this man is the coolest person alive. Example. RuPaul on Monty Python as an influence: "I remember when I was 11, I saw Monty Python's Flying Circus on PBS. They were so irreverent. They were in drag, they were out of drag, they made fun of all of the sacred things, religion, sexuality, politics, you name it, they made fun of it. And I thought, this is my tribe." Okay inner child story: "My parents divorced when I was seven, so... I would get picked up by my father on weekends, and I would wait on the front porch for him to pick me up, and he would never show up.
So in therapy, all roads led directly to that moment, and what I've learned from my experience with my father... is that he wasn't present enough to see what an incredible opportunity there was waiting for him on that porch.
That was his choice. And I can only guess that it would have been too much for him to be present for his own life. It would have been too much for him to accept the amount of love I had for him. He was an alcoholic, a compulsive gambler. He was doing everything he could to not be present for that moment...
I mean, I've had my own struggles with not wanting to be here right now. In fact, you know, my thinking was, this is all too much for me. I'm just going to tune out until it's over. Just wake me when it's done. Until I realise, you know, I want to be present for my life.
And this is where your power is. This is where the healing is. This is where the healing of trauma is. Because when I think about the trauma of back then, waiting on that porch for my father to show up and he never came, that's an old wound that happened in the past. It's not happening right now.
And I have to take my [inner] child in my arms and say, Baby, listen to me. That had nothing to do with you. He was a fool. He would have had so much more fun with you. He would have had so much more fun with you. That's him. Now, what are we going to do to repair your heart right now? What we're going to do is we're going to have you treat yourself with all the love and kindness that you wanted him to treat you with. You're not going to repeat his mistakes.
That's how you repair it. And you repair that here and now.
You don't revisit—you revisit the past to just, um, to collect some evidence. And to see what was really happening, you know.
Actually, I feel sorry for him, because he missed out. And it forced me to understand my own value. Not through someone else, but for myself. Which is the most valuable thing you can do, is to understand your own value.
Because when I really looked at it with adult eyes I was able to see that it wasn't personal. It was not personal. Now, my sweet, gorgeous little heart was broken, and it was personal to me, because I thought, who's better than being with me?
And it's an interesting question, just because I have relived that sitting-on-the-front-porch scenario with other people, other relationships, where that's the tender spot where it kept coming up. But it's important, it was important for me to see it with clear eyes."
AHHH I just did something fun and recorded this newsletter. Okay you already know because you read at the top. Okay signing off. Podcast links etc below. xx Delia P.S. Original intro to this newsletter... oof I am feeling things. I have recently come back to Melbourne after a truly magical adventure in the US and ouch it's like my heart has been ripped open... HI, I am back in Melbourne this month... hmu if you want to chat life, ideas and being more offensive. Previous editions here. Forwarded this and want to subscribe? Click here. |
Hi! I'm Delia Burgess
Do you want to be more interesting AND attractive? That's exactly what will happen if you type your email address below.
Hiiiiiii, I'm back! Okay this email is v intense but v powerful... So, remember when I sent you: Growing Up: how to be a good dom & dead birds about the book Unbound: a Woman's Guide to Power by Kasia Urbaniak. You know, the taoist nun / dominatrix lady? And this quote: "Many of us prefer to deny that power dynamics exist, outside of games played by greedy, dishonest manipulators. But, like gravity, just because you deny the existence of something doesn't mean it doesn't affect you." (the...
Guys hello!!!! I have missed you. It has been weeks since I have written and not a moment has gone past where I haven't thought of you. Just kidding. But honestly I have been meaning to write every week for about the last 6 weeks. How rude of me to last time say "hey I'm going to write a lot more frequently again", and then to ghost you. That's like f**kboy behaviour no? Anyway here we are. (fboy definition for my Dad to avoid being accused of swearing for the sake of it:F**kboy: A guy who...
"Many of us prefer to deny that power dynamics exist, outside of games played by greedy, dishonest manipulators. But, like gravity, just because you deny the existence of something doesn't mean it doesn't affect you." Right, so I am reading a veryyyyy interesting book about POWER. It's by a Taoist nun / dominatrix lady. & although the target audience is women (subtitle literally 'a woman's guide to power'), men I think you are going to find this interesting as well so do read on... Unbound: A...