As a trans man who is called to ministry, I’ve been slacking.
I’ve been afraid.
I’m not afraid anymore.
Now I’m hustling and building. Challenging systems and cistems. I’m grinding.
It’s not about me.
It’s not about the money.
It’s all about the message.
God is love.
God is in all of us.
We should be love.
For this coming week, I’m going to reassess my worth. Presently, even while working a job that’s paying me the most money I’ve made in my adult life I’m still making far less annually than I should for a person with my education and experience. This is something I’ve accepted for far too long.
I owe it to myself to not accept less than what I should be making. I owe it to myself to stop letting “bonus potential” convince me to take jobs making far less than I should be. I should be able to afford to live in a great neighborhood. I should be able to pay all of my household bills on my income alone. Moving forward, I’m holding myself to that standard. I’ll be dedicating the next 5 calendar days to solidifying what that should look like and my plan for getting there.
I’ve had enough. I deserve better from myself. My wife deserves better from me. I will realize my potential.
Today I quit my job to do something important. It was terrifying. It was exhilarating. It was necessary. I still have one shift to go but I did it. I seized an unexpected opportunity and decided to say yes to an adventure.
I’m happy to be leaving the world of B2B sales behind. I won’t miss this job. I have to be honest with myself about that one. I have given it a shot and am okay with admitting that it’s just not a good fit for me. There’s no shame in that.
As a recovering codependent, I’m happy that I chose to do this. It’s the first time since I started this journey of recovery that I’m making a major shift. I aim for it to not be my last.
I’m grateful to the source of all for this opportunity to grow. My faith increases with each passing day. I’m not a mistake. My trans experience is a gift from on high. I choose alignment with purpose. I choose to bet on the god in me.
I love you.
~Bash
Today’s thought is simple. STOP MAKING EXCUSES FOR NOT LIVING THE LIFE YOU DESIRE.
It’s a hard truth but sometimes we come up with an abundance of excuses for remaining in a rut. Having excuses gets us off the hook for any responsibility we have for changing our lives. We sell ourselves short when we do this. Let’s stop it TODAY.
I love you.
~Bash
I’ve mastered many things in my life but self love ain’t among them. For most of my life I learned to be a chameleon for my own safety and the real me got lost in the process.
Now that I’m at a place in my life where I can live out loud, I sometimes struggle with being kind to ME. Working on my manuscript has brought me face to face with my need for some good loving from myself. That can be tough but I’ve decided to be intentional about it.
To start, I’ve dusted off my dreams and interests. I’ve made some needed investments in those things that bring me joy like dystopian novels, strong coffee, time alone, motivational lectures, etc. It’s necessary.
Why?
Those of us who are called to bring light into darkness and speak truth to power must first learn to heal ourselves. We must learn to accept ourselves. We must be comfortable with loving on ourselves. We must do this in the face of the many years of programming which told us that who we are is evil and disgusting in the eyes of the creator. We must do this even when relatives and friends walk away. We must do this so that those whose lives we are called to touch can be impacted positively because our service will come from a place of healing and not a place of bitterness.
Love on yourself. It’s okay.
Love on yourself. It’s necessary.
Love on yourself until you understand that you are worthy of unconditional love just because you exist.
I love you.
-Bash
There is a lot of blood on the hands of those who continue to spread hate speech in the name of religion.
We must do better.
It’s literally a matter of life and death.
-Bash
It’s 2020 and yet people are still Hell bent on being pissed off at parents who love their child unconditionally. Dwayne Wade has accepted his daughter’s truth and people are bent out of shape.
I saw statuses and posts about it on various social media platforms today at my day job and tonight, with a malt beverage in hand, I’m going to address it.
Trans people have been here since the dawn of time. We have been in every civilization and the fact that your limited understanding of the trans experience is where it is, does not excuse the foolish arguments that find their way to the light each time a story like this is in the limelight.
It would take much more time than I have tonight to address all the stupid things people fix their mouths to say so I’ll address one. There is no LBGT agenda to destroy the black community. If half the folks who say shit like this KNEW their history, they would be ashamed. Black and brown people of LGBTQ+ experience have been on the frontlines for progress and movement building for generations. One of the most brilliant minds behind the African American Civil Rights Movement was a gay man.
We’re in your families. We’re in your churches. We’re in your communities & we’re not going ANYWHERE.
I, for one, am glad that the world can now see what unconditional love looks like. The world can see parents loving a child and just letter her be HERSELF. I can only imagine what the world would be like if more parents would choose loving their children more than their ego and programming. Maybe the number of LGBT youth who take their own lives would drastically decline. Maybe the rate of homelessness among LGBT youth would decline. Or maybe, maybe parents who love their programming more than their children wouldn’t be missing out on relationships with amazing human beings.
🤷🏾♂️ I don’t know.
But I can imagine that the next generation of LGBT youth would be better off if we could get our collective shit together and educate ourselves.
-Bash
p.s. Don’t blame your bigotry on God. They made LGBT folks and have no issues with us living in our truth.
You are worthy of love.
You are under no obligation to apologize for who you are.
I love you.
-Bash
Bash Shares 