we really resonate um you actually see me and understand me and accept me and embrace me so you got to be your own support system and then three there is an inherently mysterious part to this right like sexuality humanity all of it there if we are fixated on certainty and trying to know everything and getting it right all at once we will not only probably fall short but we also might stop ourselves from that curious exploration so go into it you know bring your values with you you don't have to like toss everything away and say it's black and white i was once this and now i'm that like let it be an ongoing fluid experience and if you feel like you've gone too far then retreat like if you feel like you're ready to try something else then explore it and know that you don't have to internalize everything as a a fixed part of your identity you can put on the hat um of a concept and and dance with it in your mind and see what comes up for you and you might go huh yeah that's totally not me or you might go we might be on to something but setting yourself up for success includes that compassion that flexibility and that internal support system without it it's it's tough enough where is your god now because you know i i i come from a religious tradition and a culture that has a very fluid like there's like a lot of names to god and there's like a female presence of god and there's a male presence of god like it's all the things it's like for me it's very flexible mystical and you know like i god is nature god is all the things and like you know um i can't imagine i literally cannot imagine what it would be like you know to feel that the way that i am is not you know welcomed in a particular community so you know i i always say like god is not the problem humans are you know like religious structure the patriarchy all of the things that contribute to what we think of as organized religion that's not god right that's our best efforts it's our best efforts historically to to control people to manage them to help them to support them blah blah blah so we're you know to me like god is above all of that right above below and inside so where does that rest for you now like d do you not have a relationship with kind of a religious like entity or community or did it have to morph outside of a structured community or is it just not a thing i i will speak as candidly as i am willing um but i do tend to stay fairly private about it because i'm aware that everyone comes to this conversation with such a different reference point that you know in an effort to explain myself i know that it's still going to be interpreted through so many different lenses and it's like ah so um so i what i will say is during this time i got to also take a step back from christianity and not just you know the broad term christianity but particularly north american westernized uh california that church christianity and i started learning through you know a mentor that concepts like individualism which you know is kind of more of a national identity um still influenced my christianity um militarism capitalism um all of these different isms
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