Finding myself is accepting me for me
There’s a quote by J. R. R. Tolkien - I’m sure you’ve heard it - “Not all those who wander are lost”.
I bring it up because it resonates so much with the journey that I see queer folx take to finding themselves.
I know for me, finding myself has been one of the hardest things I’ve had to do,
but it’s also been one of the most rewarding.
Society has a narrative that dictates the expected behaviors and roles we are “supposed” to assume to be happy and successful.
And I’ll concede that oftentimes, these predefined expectations work well enough that we (as a collective) don’t notice things can be different, or better.
It’s why this pattern still exists.
But sometimes - especially with folx going through the motions of self-discovery, and their own gender identity, following the “safe” or “expected” path can be a form of hiding.
A protective shell against a world that doesn’t accept you as you are.
But that’s not how life should be. Hiding your beautiful, authentic self doesn’t serve you
in the long run. And I’m going to tell you how finding myself can teach you how to be yourself.
Finding myself meant accepting who I am
My early years were spent hiding from myself or from my family. Hiding from my community and from God. It’s what I thought I had to do to live in peace and harmony.
It’s a strange thing when you live your life pretending to be someone you are not. You get so caught up in the story you’re trying to weave that you start to forget pieces of yourself. It becomes easier to pretend the lie.
That is… until one day, it isn’t.
You see, the funny thing about hiding your authentic self is that even though you convince yourself so thoroughly that you can live this life, live the lie, it becomes a burden.
Finding myself happened when I felt like I had nothing left to give. And the truth is, that I wasn’t just hiding my queerness. It was hiding other parts of myself that makeup so much of who I am.
Because really, we are the sum of all our parts. And when you suppress a part of yourself, the other pieces are incomplete.
I want you to think of a puzzle. And how you feel putting one together, only to discover that you’re missing a piece. It doesn’t matter if it is a piece of the edge or a piece in the middle, the puzzle is unfinished. If you’re like me, you’ll find that incredibly annoying.
When it comes to people, that annoyance manifests in different ways. It can feel like emotional detachment or dysregulation, it can feel like anxiety - or any mix of things that ultimately hold you back from living your life.
The starting point to finding myself:
My journey of finding myself started with accepting myself.
Taking a good hard look at who I was, what I was holding back, and who I wanted to be. And the first step was telling myself that it was ok to be me.
You know what’s not helpful? Blanket statements about how to be yourself without understanding what it is that is holding you back.
If there is one thing that I feel does more harm than good, is telling someone to “just be yourself.”
You might be wondering why, especially with how much I say that being your authentic self is important, and how I have worked hard on living as my authentic self.
So let me explain. As a counsellor, when I recognize that my clients are having a hard time living as their authentic selves, I don’t simply tell them to be themselves. Forget who you are trying to be, and just be yourself!
No.
I work with them to understand what it is that is holding them back.
And since a lot of my clients are exploring their gender identity or coming to terms with their queerness, or they’re youth who are trying really hard to fit into their world, it’s more important than ever to guide them to understanding who they are.
You see, when people pretend to be someone they are not, or when they hide parts of themselves, they aren’t doing it because they’re deceptive. They’re doing it because they want to protect themselves.
People might have an idea of what their coming out might look like to those around them. And they want to protect those relationships they have formed. Hiding is born from a want to protect themselves from being let down. They want to avoid conflict. And people do this at great risk to themselves. They deny themselves because they are scared of what others might think.
Finding myself led me to a sense of belonging
On my journey to accepting my unique brand of what it means to be me, and my queerness, I will never forget the moment when my university professor told me I was “too much”. It was the moment that I truly realized who I was and where I belonged in this world.
Honestly, I don’t even really know what that means to be “too much” - what am I too much of? Is there a limit to what I’m supposed to be?
Regardless of their intention with that statement, it became the undoing of years of hiding.
I wasn’t fully out at the time, and I was learning to be more comfortable in my own skin. Learning to walk my path. And those two little words “too much” felt like they shattered the remainder of the dam I had built around myself.
You see, I am not too much.
I wasn’t even being myself.
I was hiding a huge part of my life - of course, I was because I was attending a Christian university and if you’ve been following my story you know how queerness mixes with religion.
How could I be too much, when I hadn’t even shown the world 100% of who I am?
I embraced the gregarious laughter that I so often restrained. And permitted myself to dress in a way that represented how I felt as a person. I accepted that this is how I was made. And I let go of the grief that I held on to for many years.
Finding myself meant losing people who meant a lot to me.
It meant accepting that I am not everything to everyone (nor should you be!). It meant allowing myself to grieve the loss of the relationships. But also celebrate the things that finally felt right.
Finding myself meant feeling right.
And the most beautiful part of this story, is that when I finally came out of my protective shell, I found people who filled my life with joy.
These folx are what I called my chosen family
People who became my community and my chosen family. People who I would never have met, had I chosen to live my life boxed up with fear.
Finding myself led me to a path to help you find yourself
Look, just because I’ve taken a similar journey in owning my narrative and my queerness, doesn’t make me an expert.
But it does give me VALUEABLE INSIGHTS
It allows me to understand the struggles and fears that my clients experience.
The reason the ‘how to be yourself’ narrative is so important to me is that as a counsellor, my role is to help you live your life in a way that allows you to feel fulfilled.
I like working with youths and young adults because it is at this point in their lives when they can decide to accept themselves a whole lot easier than when they’re older.
Breaking cycles of habit becomes more difficult the more you live the cycle. Helping my clients understand their minds, and their needs, and work through their worries with compassion and caring, is something I wouldn’t trade for the world.
Hello, I’m Nita Agustin
Registered Clinical Counsellor based in Burnaby, BC
My jam is helping curious and questioning queer youth and young adults move from confusion to clarity.
Most of my clients shared feeling overwhelmed by the messages the world told them how they’re supposed to be. They do not want to be defined by what society told them about themselves.
In our work together, I guide clients in figuring out who they are, who they want to be, and how to get there. We do this by processing how their past impacted the way they live out their life today. From our work together, I noticed clients develop better self-awareness and experience improved quality of life as they can show up differently in their relationships.
I offer virtual and in-person sessions in Brentwood, North Burnaby. In the summer I also offer walk-and-walk in Confederation Park.
I am licensed to practise in BC, as well as all across Canada, so I support clients all over BC, all the way from Vancouver to Kitimat. Other than working with clients who reside in BC, I also can support clients who reside in Yukon Territories, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Newfoundland.
Check out my About me page to learn more about what I do and have to offer for you. Also, explore my Services page to see how I can guide you in making shifts in your life today. If you feel ready to discover ways to live life on your own terms, I welcome you to book an initial intake session. I am so stoked to meet you and start figuring out how you can show up as your best self!
Throughout this pandemic, I witnessed telehealth virtual sessions become more of a norm, and it has been super transformative seeing clients can access mental health services from the comfort of their home.
There are lots of different stereotypes out there, and society tells us who we are supposed to be and what we are supposed to do in the world. It can feel very overwhelming and confusing to compare our personal experience against those ideas. The thing is, you no longer have to be defined by what society tells you. It is your life to live, and you get to decide who get a say about your life.
