“I’ve seen gay and you’re not it.”
What shame does to our sense of Self
TLDR: I shared the below with my business email list this week, and it felt important to also share here so you don’t miss out!
The Fortress - my yearly somatic & spiritual membership space - is open for enrollment and tomorrow is the final day to snag the Early Bird Price.
In case you’re here for the personal writing, and not my professional work, simply disregard. :) I appreciate you.
But if you’re curious about the inner work that has allowed for the fullness & healing I so often share about here, check out The Fortress. <3
Thanks for being here!
“I think I’m in love with her,” I said— it was six years ago last week.
That was the best I could do at the time: to make my queerness about her, to deflect from the terrifying truth inside me.
I had lived so repressed, so ashamed, so afraid of my own desire that it felt like something happening to me, not from me.
The hives that showed up the day I met her?
Proof she’d cast a spell, some kind of witchy curse. Surely, it wasn’t me.
There I was, sitting with my ex-husband in my lime green Ford Fiesta, talking in circles, desperately avoiding the capital-T Truth.
(Every time I tried to leave without saying it, the car alarm would go off— flashing lights, blaring sound. The second I spoke the truth out loud, it stopped.)
My Truth was beginning to bloom… but the freeze around my heart, the shame lacquered on top and my propensity to be pleasing meant I was lost inside it all.
I thought posting boldly on the internet and being cheered on by strangers would ease the shame.
It didn’t.
My family said:
“I’ve seen gay, and you’re not it.”
“But you liked boys in middle school!”
“You’re just doing this for marketing—it’s trendy now.”
My mentor said,
“You’re not gay, you’ve just never experienced a regulated nervous system like hers before.”
And I… was mortified.
Ashamed I didn’t know myself better.
Ashamed I was getting divorced.
Ashamed I wasn’t queer enough.
Ashamed that even after all the therapy, I was still carrying the wounds of my childhood.
Ashamed, basically, to be me.
I wanted anything but the Truth. Anything but myself.
But here we are—6 years later. And it’s been a wild, holy reclamation from the depths of shame.
These days, the Truth is my daily prayer… (a prayer I teach in The Fortress, actually). And shame (next to grace) has become my biggest teacher.
So when I say: There is no judgment of your humanity in my spaces, I mean it.
This is my invitation to you:
Let yourself come alllll the way out— whatever that means for you— in a space big enough to hold it.
✨ Do it celebrated.
✨ Do it in community.
✨ Do it with support.
✨ Do it with ritual, somatic magic, and shamanism.
✨ Do it in your own right timing.
✨ Do it for you.
THE FORTRESS is here to hold you—in your bigness, your truth, your wobble, and your messy, gorgeous humanity.
If this is stirring something in you—now is the time.
Early Bird ends this weekend.
And truth be told? This shit is good.
In 11 years of private practice, it’s my favorite offering I’ve ever created.
I don’t want you to miss it.
Big love,
Madison
P.S. If you want a taste of this program, take Sacred Sword. It's a 90-minute ritual workshop that will lay the foundations of all we do in The FORTRESS.
P.P.S. There’s now one spot in the OUT! Council - where you’ll receive everything inside the Fortress, plus a year’s worth of 1-1 and small group somatic coaching. Apply now.
Thanks so much for taking a minute to hear about my work & a little context for it. Until next time!
