Andie’s Place observations of gender dysphoria and beyond

Last night in a feeling of sheer gratitude as I drove home from a concert, I thought through all the people who have most helped me over my transition years. I began with one or two, and then remembered more. Someone who spent hours, helping me explore and express, unselfconsciously being out in the city with me, protective. One who had been very close, being a friend who stuck with me. Another who became a best friend for some time and made me believe I could go it alone. And another, and another, until the number grew and grew. People who were there when I needed it. And I thought too of how I have been brought to others, who I in turn have befriended, supported, helped. And so with immense gratitude I have become who I am and where I am today.

One of these I may have spoken of before as leading me in a guided meditation, long before I became visible. I was redundant and looking for a bit of vision as to my future. It was a skill swap: I would give some business marketing advice in return. It was a beautiful meditation, and at least, it was nice to know someone was helping at a difficult time in my career. Something was stirring, and I needed to understand. As many, this meditation began in a meadow, on a sunny day under blue skies, birds in the high air, insects buzzing peacefully, a breeze gentle on my skin. I was there. And so we went on a journey, and the rest was very useful. At the end she asked about how I was in that meadow. I replied that I was a woman in a long white summer dress with my hair moving in the breeze. This was before I even had a dress at all.

This week I had another meaningful guided meditation. I don’t think these things are supernatural, or divine, or necessarily spiritual, but what they do is release parts of your mind, your self-awareness and intuition, from the restrictions of what we think possible today, tied down to what others, or even we, expect or feel safe. Here we can move into a safe place where we can become free to find our deepest understanding, wisdom and authenticity.

And yet … and yet I do speak as if an angel, a helper, some connected other being, however you describe it: has been standing at my shoulder all this while. Asserting nothing, just helping me to see the step ahead, even when the step beyond that is unknown. So many times I have not known, worrying about three steps ahead, fearing I shall miss the next or be left stranded, unable to move back or forward, or sideways. I now feel it is as much as anything about readiness to understand, or make that step with complete freedom rather than sticky doubt from past experience. I can say no more than that. Deep inside me is an appreciation of trust.

I have met the philosophical difficulty with this, of course. It is easy for me, living in this country, society and era, where my basic needs are fairly secure. Would I speak of guiding angels, connection with the universe and so on, if I had no money, no food, and no home? I won’t try to unwrap that one now; too many arguments provide too many get-outs from harsh reality. All I can say, is that I have this awareness, and maybe it is all within me. Either way, it is about trust, not fear.

This week the meditation was about meeting your Powerful Self. Imagine, this powerful you has attained that empowerment, which will help you reach real fulfilment in life, in living. Maybe ten years from now? The meditation places you in a beautiful and relaxing place; a meadow, the smells, sensations, sounds of a blissful and free summer day. You follow a small river and round a bend see someone, who turns and welcomes you. You see that it is your Powerful Self. The rest (not to spoil it if you should do this properly) is about how they seem to you, the guidance they offer, the resources they say you will need, what you need to release and let go, what you need in order to really find and be yourself. What do you want to ask them, and what are their answers? She gives you a gift: what is it, what does it signify? And as she leaves, what is her message to you, and how do you feel?

As I say, I don’t believe this is a voice from outside; this is from within. Sometimes deep within. For someone who writes at length, my experience was very succinct! My Powerful Self was younger, very strong, radiating joy, and very complete in herself. She was serene. Her message to me was simply: trust. What do I need to do next? Allow. Allow things to happen naturally, like the river to take its course; not to ‘go with the flow’, but to be the flow. And what to release? Again, a very short list: everything. All my precious hopes, all my fears and doubts, my preconceptions of how things were going to be. And what would I need in order to become her? She just laughed, for me, not at me: ‘it’s all there! It’s in you; just be you.’

One question came to my mind, to this self, ten years from now and younger: ‘Did you love?’

Her answer, equally short: ‘Always.’

‘And were you loved?’ She smiled lovingly back, and said; ‘that’s not the point.’

Her gift in this meditation, or vision, or intuition, was a ring. To me it signified continuity, strength, connectedness, bonding and being unbroken.

Even if this is all already inside me, I do find it profoundly liberating. I have spent too much time in fear, in looking back, in regretting, seeing change as loss, doubting I can ever be loved again, or find really meaningful work, fearing loneliness, or simply being too afraid to make changes and welcome new things or people in. And too clear, often, of how things are going to happen. As if I knew. And quite coincidentally, this is just the moment I feel completely free to move on.

The ship, the harbour, that I wrote of two blogs ago? I am ready and sailing. But feeling strangely guided.