Pronoun, Unknown?
?? ?? I encourage you to listen ?? ?? and follow along: https://youtu.be/m8MHmTYJ4GM
As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than there is wrong, no matter how ill or how hopeless you may feel. -Jon Kabat-Zinn
At least I had a place to start, right? I won't bore you with my self-fulfilling validation of a tenured resume. Instead, I'll dive right into what they're now telling me is, "being vulnerable, Clinton Shane." I never see it as my "vulnerability." I just see it as my story - an opportunity to share my journey of belonging. My journey, like all light traveling from deep within the heart of the sun, begins with a breath.
"Inhale, Clinton Shane." I don't often realize what I'm giving in return during a state of vulnerability. I seem to give up another piece of the armor I struggle to always carry. Over time, the armor is still there, but perhaps slightly lighter and more fitted to my structure, my form - my being. I've trained myself to believe I am indestructible, and always in control. The truth is, I am destructible, in more ways than one. I can be destroyed, and I can destroy. I can cause destruction, and I can be destructed.
"What is your strength?" It is my unique ability and purpose to destruct the barriers and stigmas that hold me back from my highest potential. But, I had to learn, through the school of Hard Knocks, that with destruction comes construction. What can be destroyed, can be rebuilt. What seems hopeless, can have hope. What seems meaningless, can have meaning.
I navigate my thoughts in two different ways: what is known; what is unknown. My knowns tell me that vulnerability can be dangerous and traumatizing, and not always avoidable. My unknowns, help me answer the "what-ifs?" and "why nots?" of life.
My known reminds me that no one can survive what I have, except for me. Because, it happened to me. That's the known part of my brain. The part that knows what barriers and boundaries I am capable of destructing in order to exceed expectation, while smashing stigmatizing assumptions. I'm proud of myself for earning the agility through these barrier-breakers.
"What is Pride?" "It's a chest-puff", we'd call it while bucking bales of hay on our small horse and cattle ranch. Whoever threw the sixty-pound square bale the furthest, earned the right to puff their chest out and strut around the field. Also, you earned the last ice-cold gatorade after a long ninety-eight degree Oklahoma day.
My unknowns are how and when I grow the most. My unknowns are crafting my authenticity each and every day. My unknowns are the uncomfortable and unexpected pivots that change the courses of my life. My unknowns started young as I would crawl my way into a closet, quickly locking the door behind me so I could gain my composure after a school beating. "You're still breathing. Just breath, Clinton Shane." My unknown was standing up, unlocking the door, and limping onto a stage, field, or court, to outperform and outcompete beyond the bruised up and physical pain.
My unknowns are as recently as last year navigating through a wrongful termination from my "seat-at-the-table" role. A position that not too many like me achieve without an implicit layer of bias. My ego identifies it as wrongful, but I had to learn that no one comes out of these pivots right or wrong. They only come out safely and agreeably. I safely navigated through a settlement without legal representation. There were times it felt like Jedi training, "Just breath. Breath through and remember your training, young one (failed Yoda-voice)."
At the same time last year, there was another unknown I was seeking to answer. "What if I wasn't here anymore?" I was all too familiar with this unknown, which has now become my known. I understand why one out of every sixth LGBTQ+ student nationwide (grades 9–12) seriously considered suicide in the past year (The Trevor Project).
"Aren't you happy?" This is a commonly asked question when they see the picture of me with the most wonderful human on this planet - my husband. This question can seem and feel a little judgmental. It's not a question of happiness. It doesn't invite me to dig deeper where this feeling of unworthy started.
"Why don't you feel worthy?" That's brave. To make a conscious and brave choice to explore why Clinton Shane has never felt worthy of love and happiness.
Like all my pivots, I've learned to settle into the fear of the unknown - that nauseating anxious knot lodged in the pit of my stomach. I can't ignore it. I embrace it, study it, hoping I can do what life has trained me to do, conquer it. Conquering means there will be casualties. I will lose relationships, reputation, and in some cases, respect.
"Your worth is knowing who you are, and what you are capable of, through the challenge. Embrace your integrity and stay true to you - without excuses."
- My pivot mantra
I journeyed last year to answer why I never felt worthy of love and happiness. I was seeing a pattern in my life where every few years I'd go through another life-altering round of rejection. Each and every time the feelings of unloved and unworthy would seep through the cracks of my armor, causing my structure, my form, to deteriorate a little more. It was getting harder to smile, to laugh, to keep appearing brave.
"I need help, please." That's what I told the man I married five years ago. An unknown who became my known, my know, my knowing. For the first time in my forty-three year old life, I asked for help in the best way possible - vulnerably and authentically. And, without my armor. I trusted love and allowed it to guide my journey.
"Exhale, Clinton Shane." I had to release the fear and worry of someone feeling sorry for me after reading or listening to this. I don't feel like I grow or achieve anything from pity. My message is this:
"To know you, and believe in you, you must be prepared to embrace ALL of you. Even the unknown parts of you." - Clinton Shane