In challenging times, embracing joy and your true self can be a radical act. Our Senior Counsellor Michelle reflects here on how we all might benefit by celebrating and fostering the principles of queer joy…

Last year I attended a GSRD (Gender, Sexuality and Relationship Diversity) conference to challenge my view of the world through a cis, heterosexual woman lens – one that could be decidedly unhelpful to my LGBTQ+ clients if left unchecked.  What I didn’t expect though was how strongly I related to the concept of “queer joy”.  The core  messages I came away with in how we can foster queer joy not only resonated with me, but I could clearly see how they could benefit all of us – especially those who have faced oppression in their life, whether because of their gender, sexuality, disability, belief system, race, age, or because of their experiences of sexual abuse and violence.

Finding Your Tribe

I often finding myself sharing with clients the story of the Ugly Duckling, who grew up feeling different from the other ducks, that there was something wrong with him.  It was only when he flew away and found himself amongst birds that were like him that he realized there was nothing wrong with him at all. It just so happened that he was a swan.  Some of us may feel rejected by the family or “tribe” that we were born into, and it is only when we connected with others who ”get” us that we feel part of a community.

It is when we are around like-minded people that we can step away from the sense of shame we carry, either because we are a survivor in a world of unhelpful myths about sexual violence, or because we have been “othered” in some other way.  This in itself is an essential step to processing our trauma.

Play and Enjoyment

I sometimes find myself asking my clients what they enjoyed doing when they were young, or, if they can’t identify anything from childhood, support them to explore what they might find enjoyment in now.  Sometimes we are told at a young age that what we enjoy doing isn’t acceptable. it’s too loud, or messy, or just not what little boys (or girls) do.  Maybe by challenging those messages and connecting to our inner child’s sense of fun, we can begin to feel joy.

Being Outside the Box

It isn’t just our sense of fun that is often oppressed.  Our social conditioning can inform so much of our behaviour and prevent us from expressing ourselves fully.  We might be told – or just learn from how others react to us – that we have to dress a certain way, to speak “properly” (or only when we are spoken to), or to suppress our real thoughts and feelings. In short, to hide anything about us that is different from the norm to be accepted.  I wonder how it would be to feel able to express our full, true selves? To share with the world who we really are and to do so in whatever way we wish.

Addressing Barriers to Joy

The question above may be nothing more than rhetorical for some of us. The idea of being our authentic selves might feel way beyond what is possible.  Maybe it’s time to think about what it is that gets in the way of allowing us to.  Is it the people around us?  Our fear of the past repeating itself if we were harmed when we once did let ourselves be ourselves?  Or of people judging us for living our lives to the fullest?  Whatever it is, perhaps if we can identify what those barriers are, we can begin to dismantle them.

Curiosity and Creativity

From what I have learned, I understand queerness isn’t just about our sexuality. It’s about being open to new ideas and ways of being.  It’s about questioning what we think we know about ourselves and opening up to the possibility that we may be different from what we always believed. It’s about being creative with our identity and how we express it, and challenging assumptions that we have made about ourselves and that others have made too.  Whether this is about our gender or sexual identity, or how we may see ourselves and the world if we have experienced sexual violence, opening our eyes to and accepting new ways of being might just be the key when it comes to processing the past and being able to move toward the future.

Celebrating the Self – As It Is

Whether you’re queer or as vanilla as they come, it’s hard to escape the fact that society has become very adept at pedaling certain ideas about how we should be.  We should be slim, but not too thin; toned, but not a beefcake.  Our hair and skin should be pale and smooth – and only on certain parts of the body.  We should be sexually experienced, but not promiscuous – and certainly not polyamorous.  Celebrating ourselves and all our quirks can be a bold move in a world that has become so rigid in what is and is not acceptable.  Maybe we all need to tell ourselves what Mark Darcy once said to Bridget Jones: “ I like you, very much.  Just as you are.”  And yes, that was me showing you all a little bit more of my true self, cheesy rom-coms and all!

Resistance, Liberation and Defiance – using strength against the bad stuff

But maybe we can go one step further than this.  Maybe we can step away from the mirror as we recite our self-affirmations, and be bold about who we are in the public domain.  Embracing the principles of queer joy by being our true selves might feel like an act of resistance against a world of should and should nots.  It could be seen as defiance against the norm.  Whilst it can feel absolutely terrifying, it also shows a hell of a lot of strength and resilience – and is perhaps the only path to liberation of us all.

Perfectly Imperfect

You might have heard of the concept of “self-actualisation,” a counselling term which essentially means reaching our full potential.  What it does not mean is perfection. It means finding a way to live our lives which brings us, and perhaps other people, joy.  It doesn’t mean being “sorted” either. It means embracing our messy, real selves, and not being afraid to show our raw realness to the world.  It’s about feeling the fear and doing it anyway, not waiting for the storm to pass but dancing in the rain.  It’s about truly living, not existing, whoever you are and whatever you have been through. And if that’s what queer joy truly is, I’d like to borrow a bit, please.

Michelle Buckberry,
Senior Counsellor