A couple years ago I watched Ellen DeGeneres on Oprah's "Master Class" show share her experience of coming out on her 1990's TV series "Ellen".
Ellen's character was the first lead in an American TV series to share she was gay, and at that same time Ellen announced that she too was gay. The backlash that followed not only ended her TV show but it instigated "attacks" on her personally.
The feelings of heartbreak, confusion, guilt, lack of acceptance, shame, unworthiness that one could have going through such an experience is completely understandable. The courage it would take to decide to share a personal thing like sexual orientation, to stop the exhausting and shame filled hiding of who you really are, and to be strong enough to allow yourself to be vulnerable in front of friends, family and fans, only then to be criticized, ostracized, and be so vehemently judged on the world stage, for me, is unimaginable.
However, as I sat and watched and listened to this show I thought to myself, "perhaps we are all in the same situation?" It could be to a lesser or different degree, but who of us does not have things about ourselves that we keep hidden from others for fear of loss of acceptance, shame, and possible judgement? How much energy do we use up each day managing some image of ourselves that we think we are needing to show others in order to measure up? How much more important do we make the acceptance from others than the acceptance of ourselves? How tall and invincible is our wall that we think keeps us protected from the judgement of others, but is really only holding us prisoner? How stressed, suffocated, exhausted, and unhappy have we become because we no longer stand up for, and honour, who we really are?
Thanks Ellen, for your actions all those years ago. I believe it was giving all of us permission to come out of the closet about who we really are, and that is LOP in spades.