Mechelle's Coming Out

Adapted from a February 2022 post.

“True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.”

Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown

The truth of this whispered, “it’s time for me to let myself be seen in both my vulnerabilities AND my unique, powerful self” because I desire to belong and feel more love in the world, and it’s time I put my actions where my heart is.

I have danced around this subject in other posts, and I am not sure if (maybe I am exactly sure) individuals will read this through their own lens and have conclusions based on that. But, I will share because I love. I love humans in all their messy humanness and all their perfect divineness, and I desire to honor the spiritual connection that exists among us.

So here I go…

Ready set…

1……2……..2 and a half…3

There has been a part of me that I’ve hidden deep inside, and it feels like I have held it just out of grasp. I’ve been happy keeping it there, redefining the evidence in “safe” ways or ways that keep all facial expressions to a minimum or better yet agreeable. If I try hard enough, I can almost pretend that this part of me doesn’t exist at all. At best, I have lived through others who are comfortable sharing their similar parts and have hidden behind their stories, while at the same time telling myself their stories discount my own.

But, it’s time to pull them to the surface. This part of me and these experiences are fundamental to who I am. Trying to force them into a narrative we are comfortable with is, at last, losing its grip. I have tried hard to fit into the status quo. Oh, how I wish to be what I want to be instead of who I know I am. I long for that roundness, but in truth, I am the square peg, and I’m ready to find a square place to lay my head. I know you exist, at least I hope you do.

There have been moments in my life that are profound, to say the least, especially for my age. I’ve felt great pain in the past when I talked to someone about them and the conversation went cold. When the words ceased, I understood it was time to buckle my words up and bury them deep inside.

I had to confront within myself that I’ve gotten really good at speaking in a way that is just “normal” enough to elicit a “you are a deep thinker” response. To some, this may seem like a compliment, but I know that it comes at the cost of my true self. I hear it and I know I have hit a person’s threshold. It’s time to pull back and end the expansion, although I feel like I have never really even started. There are a handful of times within the last few years when I dared lean in fully and stretch my realms of thinking, feeling, hearing, seeing, etc. Some of these moments have been with a few cherished friends but most come on my own and, to my physical dismay, in the middle of the night after being awakened and directed to a place in my home. I have close to 10 journals written in the last 8 years. Truths far beyond my own mind live in these journals. They are my own sacred scripture that teach timeless and eternal principles.

It is as if I have been going through a transformation out of sight to most people, as I have begun to allow this part of me to be. I am beginning to piece together and document my childhood experiences, mostly as a witness to myself. I will share a few of my experiences here, but understanding this part of me is most definitely unfinished. How far this part of me can go is yet to be discovered, so I document, listen, and write as a way to find the limits of this frontier I’ve been exploring since I was a child, all the time feeling like maybe I wasn’t “supposed to.”

When I was six years old, my Grandma died after a life filled with health issues. I don’t know if I was ever alone with my grandma, but I know her. I have had conversations with her in my head from the time she died up until this moment. Her essence is very familiar to me. I can feel her, and she is a special guide in my life. I know she had similar gifts and she has helped me learn and trust them. Just days after her death, I saw her image. It was quick, and I have tried to discount it for the last 44 years. But, when I shared with my mom, her daughter, she believed me and that has been my anchor. I can tell you the clothes she was wearing and even the fabric of the chair I was sitting on when I saw her. The details have not changed, but my descriptions through the years have varied depending on with whom I was sharing. Today I declare it to be so. I had a vision of my grandmother who has passed, and I have kept a close relationship with her ever since.

I remember as a young girl being shown (much like a dream, but I was awake) a square and I understood that this represented the things we would understand while here on the earth. I was then shown a cube and understood that as we progressed beyond this life that truth, while familiar, would be like that 3D version of the truth with so much more depth. The square, although not as profound as the cube, was sufficient, but not to get too attached. Years later I was shown that cube again, only each side of that cube was itself a cube, and I understood that truth is a fractal ever-winding its way up and down like a spiral through time. I am taught wisdom beyond my own abilities from entities I cannot see or hear, and yet vision and words are very present.

There was a time I was waiting in the car while my mom ran into the grocery store. I wish I knew my age. I would guess ten or younger. I remember feeling a memory rise up of living before I was born in another place, preparing to come here. It was like I was there seeing this moment and wondering how it would feel to be where I was at that moment in time and how that would feel like such a milestone and yet here I was living that thought in current time and having a sense of all that had transpired between then and now and yet somehow knowing that time was not real. I have had similar milestone moments like that one but, it was not until my forties that I began to understand the enormity of that experience, or that it was unique for a child to have an experience like that. I am connected and aware of versions of me existing on different planes, living congruently and yet ascending differently at the same “time”.

Lastly, I was getting ready to speak at a retreat a few years back, and while I was waiting to step in front of the audience I was chatting with a woman I had never met before. I was overcome with understanding that this woman had lost a child. I could see red hair in my mind’s eye, and I asked her about this child. Normally I would have hesitated, but the words seem to burst out of me. I knew that her father had also passed away and asked her about him, and she told me that he had indeed passed and that her son was named after him.

During moments like these, I don’t always understand fully all of what I am experiencing until I hear the story. It’s like I have pieces of a puzzle floating around and as the person shares the picture comes together, and it makes sense. All of me, my perceptions, and my experiences are at play. Just today I was connecting with a person that had passed when I was young and in trying to remember his name I thought of my grandpa Delbert and assumed that this man’s name started with a D as well, but it turned out his name was Albert. It is like the hint was left for me to interpret more than it was handed to me full out. I am very fond of saying, “it’s like” when I am in these scenarios. More often, “it’s like” is more accurate than “it is”. It is true that there are times when I connect to loved ones of other people and know and discern things about them.

I am not sure why some messages come more full than others. This is the biggest reason for staying quiet so long. I know I would and will fall short of some people’s requirements for belief. I guess at 50 I am finally beginning to be okay with that.

Other reasons for staying small are that some people are not shy about telling you that you are trying to manipulate others or raise yourself up for gain in some way, or that this sort of thing is from the devil. At least for me, this has been a huge motivator for hiding this part of me deep inside. It is also true that some people are so tied to their “square” that any hint of seeing things in “cube” form feels dangerous and must be squelched.

And lastly, I have stayed quiet because I am way more impressed with the experiences of other people than my own and therefore quick to judge myself as less than for whatever reason. These experiences are as real to me as what I ate for dinner last night and since I cooked it, it doesn’t always feel special. I have had to learn to allow them to be called spiritual or mystical.

My hope here is not just to own these parts of me, but to also reach out to you to join me in claiming your gifts. I know you have them. It’s okay that you don’t have them fine-tuned and refined, there isn’t anyone with a gift for music or art or sport that doesn’t need practice and who doesn’t make mistakes. These kinds of talents are no different. It feels like a coming out of sorts, and it's scary, and it’s vulnerable. I shared with my life coach that I envy the pride flag because that community has a symbol that lets individuals know that they are not alone and that they are accepted for who they are. She challenged me to create a flag and share it with all of you.

Flag for the spiritually gifted