This episode tackles some of the fears we all face. We spoke about the types of fears that we struggle with through different seasons of our life. Bonnie Violet shares her testimony of getting her HIV diagnosis.
This episode will leave you asking: Do I manage my fears or do my fears manage me?
a queer chaplain
Helping to lace one’s narrative with a spiritual thread.
Big shout out and Thank you to our monthly supporters. With your support we can continue to bring and upgrade Splintered Grace Podcast quality and reach.
To learn more or to join our Patreon go to patreon.com/bonnieviolet
a queer chaplain
Helping to lace one’s n
Engage! Rate, Follow, Subscribe & Share
Book ME! - Keynote, Panel, Guest on Show, Officiate Wedding /Memorial in/out of drag.
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Sponsor! Patreon, Venmo, PayPal
This episode tackles some of the fears we all face. We spoke about the types of fears that we struggle with through different seasons of our life. Bonnie Violet shares her testimony of getting her HIV diagnosis.
This episode will leave you asking: Do I manage my fears or do my fears manage me?
a queer chaplain
Helping to lace one’s narrative with a spiritual thread.
Big shout out and Thank you to our monthly supporters. With your support we can continue to bring and upgrade Splintered Grace Podcast quality and reach.
To learn more or to join our Patreon go to patreon.com/bonnieviolet
a queer chaplain
Helping to lace one’s n
Engage! Rate, Follow, Subscribe & Share
Book ME! - Keynote, Panel, Guest on Show, Officiate Wedding /Memorial in/out of drag.
Collaborate! - Join Team, Guest, Make a Pitch
Sponsor! Patreon, Venmo, PayPal
0:02
[Music]
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is
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[Music]
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says
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hey everybody hey how's it going i'm going to fix this real quick
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there we go i hate change so good call on that i know if our names
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were if i didn't put our names under there already it would have been fine that's awesome for folks who are just
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listening we just kind of came on the screen in different positions and what we're used to so we're like what do we do
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i know like no it can't be different i know we didn't even talk about who was going to kick us off
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as far as introducing ourselves did you want to do that today or ah it doesn't matter you guys all know
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me i'm tina frank and i'm your conservative christian i guess i'm a mature conservative
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christian woman hi everyone and i'm bonnie violet a transgender queer
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drag queen um living in san francisco at the moment um you are at splintered grace
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thanks for joining us everybody sorry for the crazy start but hey this is real this is who we are right
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it's the reality of it all yeah anyway so hey we decided this week we
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want to talk about fear so let's go what do we think
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just dive right in huh so um we also like to participate with folks so if you're able
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um if you're able to participate we'd love for you to hear what you have to say about fear what your experience is we're going to
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talk about i think defining what fear really is and so um if you have a
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definition or something you like to share about what fear is uh that would be great yeah keep in mind
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the fear comes in all shapes and sizes and that fears change as a where our seasons change
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so we just want to engage with you guys a little bit um right now especially i know that uh fear
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is real for all of us in in some capacity or another so let's just have an open conversation
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about it so so what do you think fear means
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well i um i have some like in some of the circles i've been in i've come across these uh is the acronyms
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for fear oh um i thought were kind of good there's one called or one that is um false
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evidence appearing real is fear um and then the other thing i've
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heard is um f everything and run
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i've not heard that one right sorry charlie says hello oh hey charlie
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good that you could log in this morning yes glad you could join us we're talking about fear it's a it's
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exciting uh i guess topic huh yeah
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yeah i'm not trying to think how would i define fear like actually like what is like what
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does fear mean like yeah yeah it's it's i'm not sure that there's
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really a definition a definition at least not that i have found it's anything that makes your
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heart race or makes you uncomfortable i would think and it's can be defined by lots of different things you know
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we were talking before when we were little i know i was scared of the dark that was a very real fear although my
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friends thought i was silly my parents would roll their eyes oh come on you need the light on to sleep
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um but it was a genuine fear i i've i've been afraid of the dark most of my
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life like i still um like yeah i've been afraid of the dark i've got
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to be a little bit better at it but a few months ago i started being scared in the dark again i actually started being a really afraid
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of like in a lot of fear um when i was in the dark in my room for whatever reason um
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and it was it was wild so i started sleeping with my door open um and my light on because
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those are things that i would do to kind of um i guess sleep when i
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was dealing with fear and fear in my in the night um i just actually started
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sleeping without a light on again like a few days ago so oh wow
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so yeah i don't know what that's all about but um that that was there for me christine has
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a comment she said lol about the acronyms
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i've also read recently that anxiety closely related is just conspiracy theories you make up
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about yourself that's interesting i hadn't heard that
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yeah well i guess it's the idea you know i mean a lot of the times and i think especially like when we're thinking
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about like spirituality and we're thinking about like for us people who have a connection with
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god or an understanding of god you know it's like in reality we should have nothing to be afraid of right
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so i think that that kind of makes the idea that if we're afraid of something then you know that's not real that's not true
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that's fake news it says right right christine brings up an interesting com
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point is anxiety and fear the same um i think they're closely related i
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think maybe anxiety could be a how it manifests maybe like
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fear fear can man it like what happens when somebody is afraid maybe anxiety is something they feel
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yeah um uh also i think anger is very closely related to fear i think
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i definitely grew to fear yeah yeah like angry is kind of an outward expression of fear um
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but i think also anxiety can probably cause fear as well yeah that's i was thinking too that's a
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twofold anxiety yeah yeah so i think that's why they're closely related
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and i'm wondering if i don't know if all anxiety is fear and all fear has anxiety but oh i i think that
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they're you're right they're close cousins because i know i was just thinking as christine was sharing
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um i deal with anxiety um but it's it's about usually my schedule
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which is funny right now because i don't have a whole lot of stuff on my schedule not not like oh that doesn't say that i
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would be anxious about it but if i start to get behind the curve on the schedule that i want to keep i
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find myself getting anxious and and that's an anxiety that i put on myself
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that i guess it stimulates a fear that i'm going to be late for something i'm going to miss something or i don't know what but
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so that's interesting that christine brought that up because i i have to make a conscious okay i'm not going to get anxious about
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this it's fine my schedule's fine i'll be just fine but i have to talk myself down sometimes
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because i get myself worked up right because is it anxiety because you're afraid you're going to like be
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late you're not going to show up you're going to miss something or i don't know yeah i don't know
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charlie's been making some comments i wanted to catch up that she says i struggle a lot with anxiety
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so i definitely believe that it's true that they're so connected uh the hardest thing for me is the fear
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and anxiety i see in my kids that's that's that's tough what are you
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guys thoughts on that but how do we respond to fear and anxiety that we see in the people that we love
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yeah i can i can't even imagine what it would be like as i think because i'm not a parent but i i
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think i i mean even not being a parent i still have a i would have a lot of fear about if i did have a child like
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how how the world yeah i just i just don't know i feel like i needed to protect them and
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and then in reality you can't really protect anyone from from everything you know right right
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um i think they feed off of my essence enough of your anxiety charlie the
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anxiety that you have i feel like i think that's true i think
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that that can be true i've i've found that um
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ah yeah they see stress so it makes them stressed yeah i i can see that i know that um i
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have over the years realized that my attitude or my
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response to things can dictate how other people around me respond so if i come in all anxious and stressed
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out and whatever the other people around me will and sometimes that sparks anger i found so even that earlier um it
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causes people to not feel safe or to feel like they have to respond in some way
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and it brings out all types of different emotions i think that's yeah that's a good thought charlie it it
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reminds me of when um i remember like um being being around kids when i was
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younger like and like a kid would like be walking as they do when they're little toddlers
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right and they fall and then like they fall and you're like you freak out for them then they start
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to freak out and cry usually the parents are like stop it knock it off if you don't freak out they won't freak out like they'll just
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brush it off and keep walking yeah it's true it's it's really true and some things just don't change we
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just have to remember that don't don't freak out that's easier said than done a lot of times
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yeah and i think for me i i would bring on that anxiety myself
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you know i don't have anyone calling me saying you're late i don't have anyone calling me saying oh did you get this done or this or that
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it says something i find that um that's an expectation i guess would be a good way to put i have on myself that causes me to be anxious and
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then that fear kicks in then i'm going to have a negative whatever be late or whatever
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and i mean that i mean if and if you go like dig deep deep deep into that i'm sure it comes
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from somewhere whether it's from our unsure idea needing to be productive uh fear of what other people are
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thinking of us uh fear of like maybe fear of not doing
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the things that we want to do before we die or you know like there's so much that could be kind of feeding into that
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yeah christine says um i like the point that fear manifests
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sometimes is anger so when parenting or caring for others i look at the symptoms i might be seeing
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and try to have conversations that help them see the what is at the root uh that way we
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can give ourselves and others grace as we react or process the core emotions
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surrounding our fears that's true yeah very well said very very well said
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um and that takes some awareness um to be able to kind of like um it's because it can be hard when you're
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actually in that fear yourself i mean seeing it in front too it could cause you to i don't know
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sometimes you can get to a space where you can't see the forest among the trees
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yeah and see the full picture because you're either caught up you're just too into it whether it's fear or you're trying to control it or you
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know whatever especially when you got anger involved i mean how many times have we just had
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someone be angry at us and we don't even know why and so our response then sometimes can be anchor back
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and then i'm thinking about it and thinking when we're angry back that's just because we have to we feel
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like we have to defend ourselves yeah you know so there's a whole whole mechanism called
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and and here's an underlying fear and all of this but i think this is a fear that people struggle with
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but i think there's a lot of other kinds of fears as well what do you think oh yeah there's
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i mean there's there's everything from like little kind of teeny fears or fears that might seem like
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i don't know it might seem smaller yeah in comparison to other fears and and
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they're i feel like they're some somewhat relative um you know like they're personal and they're dependent
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upon kind of your experience and then not everybody is maybe afraid of spiders
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like you are i believe right don't you have a fear of spiders no oh
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no no no do you have a fear of some creature uh
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maybe snakes but not not spiders
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lots of other things but but not that not i'm pretty being outside in the garden all the time
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i've kind of overcome a lot of that um whole be afraid of bug things yeah like
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scorpions either but i'm not scared of them right well and that's something you've i'm sure you've gotten used to yeah
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yeah it's because of where we live yeah yeah but yeah you're right some people are really frightened out uh
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my daughter's uh scared of jello jealous yeah she's a grown-up and she's
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she still is is scared of jello it's crazy i know people who are scared of balloons
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so so fear is a real thing and it's just it's just random you know
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things that don't make sense to us that other people are held hostage in actually
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yeah i have a weird um fear fear feels like a strong word but
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reaction to to cockroaches
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i you know i never really like growing up i was never exposed to cockroaches really either it was actually until i
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moved to arizona and um there one thing is they come up out of the sewers yes where
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i used to work and they're like i don't know like a cat size i don't know they're just like
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they're but i kind of thought all of the insects in arizona were like so much
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bigger than what i grew up with you know like everything just seemed the spider seemed bigger the
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bugs seemed bigger um but i had one time a cockroach the thing that gets me about cockroaches is the um
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their um texture i guess like i had one crawl up on my
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on my foot when i was like at a urinal in the bathroom and i remember just
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getting that feeling and it's like ever since then like every time i like um i see a cockroach like even in a
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film or anywhere i just kind of like go back to that go back to that that's a cringe yeah
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yeah yeah no fun i'm not a fan of cockroaches when i first moved out here that was a hard adjustment
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now we're you know like everybody we keep our uh spaces uh bug free with the
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with help of local bug people that come out and take care of our properties but yeah
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yeah so anyway no no no fears of that here yeah what what is your um
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what is your biggest fear is that a lot to have no i'll share i
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you know it's funny all the things that when i was thinking about this this week and um our conversation i was trying to okay
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because you know i want to say that i'm fearless i think we all have a desire to be fearless and just accomplish whatever it
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is that we want to accomplish every day but when you really think about it there i have some fears you know
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the anxiety that i shared already but i don't know i think i have a fear of being rejected
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you know i think i've always had that from the time i was young and i think that as i've grown up
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and become an adult and mature even i might say
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it's it's still there it's different and it takes on different things and i feel like um i still have uh
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fear of rejection because i want i want people to like me
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yeah that's a real fear that i think a lot of people yeah um i hear a lot of people talk about i i
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know i know i have that fear a lot too especially when it comes to my
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just identity and stuff you know um but um i saw angel has a great
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um question uh so angel says how does god define fear do we not instill fear on those who
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oppose the teachings of the bible how do we change that what can we do to
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be more accepting and loving while still aligning ourselves with the image of god great questions
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angel you know um i have to be honest i don't have the
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scripture reference on how god defines fear but i will say that anytime god showed
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up he always said fear not so from from that i'd have to assume
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that to be in the presence of god or to be pursuing the presence of god
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there's peace and you know i i feel bad for anyone who's dealt with a
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christian myself included and that i made you fear
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feel fearful of the teachings of god because god's teachings aren't aren't fearful they're not fearful at
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all so if we want to be more accepting and loving um by aligning ourselves with the image
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of god then we need to be loving and kind we need to go back to what we talked about last week
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about love and being able to love one another and to focus on those things um that are
18:11
amazing about one another instead of those things that we don't like but i think rejection is a part of that
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you know i i think that hesitancy for people to reach out in any capacity to reach out to someone
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to encourage them or to even be the one that's being reached out to there's a vulnerability
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there that's required that could mean that we could be rejected and so
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i think that's all a part of of this process is being able to reach out even though
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you're afraid you're going to be rejected and then happen to manage all that emotion because it's an emotional thing
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to be rejected yeah and manage and you know manage that emotion and for me as a christian and for you as
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a christian we line that up with who we are in christ because at the end of the day that's
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what really matters and although i know that here i don't always get that here in my heart
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and i i spend some time sometimes anxious because i've been rejected
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somehow yeah one more thing and i apologize to be long-winded but
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sometimes i find that i feel like i'm being rejected when i'm really not being rejected
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that's something that we need to be have discernment about yeah um one of the things that comes
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to mind for me is like i you know i i like what you said about god saying
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fear not um i think that that's probably like a response
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like that could be our response to fear as um you know aligning ourselves with our
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image of god is this idea of like you know um i don't need to be afraid i'm afraid
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but i mean i think fear does it can help us it can motivate us to put ourselves in better places
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sometimes though it can cause us to make decisions that aren't the greatest because we're
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we're doing them out of you know fear or urgency or just not in the right frame of mind
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but um i'll be i'm real that um i always i always think that's funny when when people and i'm gonna say it but
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when we say well to be honest or can i be honest or to be real it's like no girl we want you to lie to us but um
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yeah yeah but i caught myself saying that but um i i'm afraid of falling
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short um even like especially to god and especially um
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to my my purpose and my calling and what it is i'm supposed to do in life
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with my life i think that that's been a big um fear of mine i
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would say most of my life i've had that fear and i would say that's probably still my biggest
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fear is that and i wonder if i wonder where that comes from because
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there's a part of me that knows that i don't need to fear god
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in um like loving me anyway so to speak
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but um but i still feel like there's a belief of me falling short or me needing to try to not
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go to hell you know and and i i wonder what that you know i
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don't know if that's something that you know i learned growing up that you do bad things you go to hell you know like it's a very generalized like
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you know thing that i feel like we learn as kids um or maybe younger and maturity
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you know we might be able to as we get older realize that there's nuance and what we call what we call bad um isn't
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bad or you know good or i i don't know it's just um it's interesting because i still feel
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like a lot of what sometimes keeps me from moving forward but also causes me to
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be more thoughtful about moving forward is you know how would god want me to be in
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this situation am i living up to the the the potential
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or am i selling myself short am i not you know what i mean like those are the sorts of things that i think
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still comes down for me and it's it's interesting this still i think i have a fear of
22:30
not of god itself but letting down god yeah yeah i i get that but let me just
22:36
encourage you one if you've asked jesus into your heart to be your lord and savior you're not
22:43
going to go to hell now there is a point of forgiveness
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that you have to be willing to forgive those around you but at the end of the day we're not
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going to get to heaven on works and that's why god is grace and i know you already know this but
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for those of you who don't god can't love you any more than he loves you today it doesn't
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matter what you do how you do it how many times you do it god can't love you any more than what he does right now in this moment
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so our our goal and our desire and i understand your concern about
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falling short because i don't want to miss god's plan for my life either but i find great comfort in knowing that
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as long as i'm in pursuit of him i'm good i'm good there's he's not going
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to ever he doesn't have the ability to be disappointed in me because he i'm no surprise to him
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he knew from the moment he conceived me that my potential good and my potential not good and he
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said okay i'm gonna i'm gonna save you anyway yeah so [Music]
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yeah i have less um i have a less belief in like heaven
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after death like i know i don't feel like i know that right like i don't feel like
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i i don't know i just don't feel super connected with that idea but i do but i do connect with the idea
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of trying of like creating i guess in christian terms the king kingdom you know the kingdom on
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earth or heaven on earth or like um like creating it to some degree
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on the on earth so i feel like i can experience heaven and hell um on earth um because that's my
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experience right um but i haven't i don't i don't recall experiencing life after death so it's
24:38
like i i feel like that's what i i feel like i've experienced in my own understanding of
24:44
heaven and hell and i believe in my own um spirituality is that my role on this
24:51
earth to just kind of keep it general is to leave it better than what i can than when it when i came into it you
24:58
know how am i going to affect the world in a more positive way to facilitate healing and uh collective
25:07
lovingness and you know what i mean like i feel like that's everyone's role kind of is to get us to
25:13
that space of being able to be better with one another um but who i i understand i'm not trying
25:21
to be confrontational here but how do you define better
25:27
because i think that can be different for you and for me my definition of better is going to be different than yours yeah
25:33
i mean my my feeling is to be a less harmful uh less harmful for life to be a less
25:40
harmful experience for people so like part of like trying
25:46
to reduce trauma fighting for the oppression um you know working toward having a more
25:53
balanced and equitable living and life situation for folks to where we're not people aren't having different
26:00
experiences because of their race or because of their gender or because of where they were born or because of the education they have or
26:07
they don't have like to begin to try to create an space in which we all can exist in our difference
26:12
and it doesn't change our value which in god's in in god's eyes and my understanding of like secreted sacred
26:19
economy we're all of the same value i i really in grace and that understanding that
26:25
also we don't have to earn our value and we earn our worth however we live in a
26:31
world that tells us that we live in a world that says that you have to work hard you have to
26:38
pull yourself up from the bootstraps if you're having a bad experience it's because you're
26:43
you're not doing it right um or like you have or there's this idea that maybe if you come from a different space you have
26:49
to work really hard and you have to work harder in order to kind of come up so i think the world
26:54
tells us that we have different value um and god tells us that we
27:00
don't um and so i think part of what i feel like our role is
27:07
is to help people have that experience come to know that while they're on earth
27:14
not after they die does that make sense i i i'm tracking with you yeah i i i believe
27:21
that god wants us to experience him on earth i believe that he wants us to to live
27:26
out our potential in each one of us i believe all those things um i i think that when we try to define
27:34
what god meant for us i think that's when things get jaded and and i i feel like that culturally
27:42
people are defining these things on their own and then creating spaces for people to
27:48
band together and make it line up to their definition of that and i think that's where we're having a lot
27:54
of a lot of challenge and we have to remember that god's economy works different than our
28:00
economy and god's economy doesn't take from one to give to the other yeah god's economy is is blessed he says
28:07
that he provides for us every single one of us but here's where the the provision comes it comes according
28:14
to his riches and glory not ours it has really nothing to do with the world that we
28:20
live in tangibly it has everything to do with the world that we choose to live in spiritually
28:25
and that's why we hear these amazing stories about people that are living in bondage that that feels so free and at peace and can still
28:32
love their neighbor it's because they've realized that true wealth comes from that spiritual um
28:39
living now i'm not that doesn't mean we don't all deserve to have a home and whatever and whatever but i think that's
28:45
part of god's monetary provision as we seek him spiritually and i'm not
28:51
and so we're all here to work together to move forward and and i think we're all on our own journey
28:56
but when we try to define some of those things or try to
29:02
express those things you know i am glad that i don't understand god
29:07
because if i was god we'd all be in trouble because you all would understand what i'm saying you all know what i mean and
29:13
you would all know that it's self-serving and so i'm grateful that i have a god that i don't necessarily understand that
29:19
i can trust so anyway i don't think that made sense but thank you for letting me ramble
29:24
no totally no it totally makes sense and i think it's really good to it's
29:30
good to hear as well you know and and i i do i do get that but i think
29:35
that the part of it is is that we're also still like we're still on earth too so it's
29:40
like that weird balance of we can understand and we can sort of live in our
29:46
our bliss with god but there also is an element of also still
29:52
needing to be present and showing up in a world and with people that might not be experiencing
29:58
god in the same way um you know that's the yeah i think that's a great thought
30:04
so how are some things that i mean because right now we're in a time in our history
30:09
soon to be history that's unprecedented you know we're all kind of quarantined
30:15
inside our homes or we've had some huge shakeups in our lives over the last year so how is it that we can be present not
30:22
for ourselves how is it we can be present for our neighbor because i think that's an opportunity there to
30:28
to make change that's an opportunity for us to be god's hands and feet and allow people to experience
30:34
spiritually the love that god is so let me let's
30:40
let's let's throw that out there i'm happy to share some of my thoughts some of the things i want to do some things i
30:45
can do that maybe i haven't been doing i'm sure you are what about you guys out there
30:50
is there something that we can do tangibly individually or even this together that we can do to
30:57
um yeah honor those around us yeah well i mean if we're just thinking about the term or if we're thinking
31:04
about just a topic of fear which i think is in a lot of ways probably feeding a lot
31:10
of what is happening or what ails us in the world today i think fear probably is a
31:16
big part of that like what are people they're afraid of losing something maybe they're afraid of
31:22
i don't know what it is that they're afraid of but i feel like there's fear and if god says i liked when you said fear not
31:29
if you're not you know that's often what like the angels said and you know things like that when with when things were happening so i
31:36
feel like that would be our call is to to approach and be with people in that
31:42
fear not state so in a way of potentially helping folks
31:47
to not be afraid yeah and what does that look like tangibly i
31:53
know well that's and that's i think that we're all tasked with every day what does that look like tangibly
31:59
yeah i mean i think in some ways it's really hard because i don't think that we have a lot
32:05
of we don't have a lot of power over people and i and a fear can potentially play a role
32:12
a little bit in in people making change and doing things so i feel like it it can have a function um and
32:20
part of that is is like what's yours what's your place in somebody else's experience um and so i feel like probably the way
32:28
in the fear not is to be able to i guess share and show what it's like
32:35
to live in without fear in maybe those places in which other people
32:41
are experiencing fear i think i think that's good i i it's
32:47
easy for us and i i'm not trying to be like i said comfortable i just want to have a conversation that
32:53
that's viable um it's easy for us to talk about all this it's easy for us to talk about all these
32:59
spiritual things but something i've learned is that we need to take action on some of this
33:06
and now i have to be honest i'm not agreeable to all the actions that i've seen over the last couple years
33:12
but i believe that there needs to be action taken and i think there's action that we can take individually as people
33:18
for even if it's just a few people around us that we're comfortable with that can help us overcome fears um for
33:25
those of us as we get more comfortable i think there's bigger steps that we can take but but i want us to stop thinking about
33:32
our personal fears and i remember one of the bible teacher that i respect stacy says
33:38
hi to both of us hey stacy i just want to say hey real quick it looks like
33:44
somebody froze for a minute
33:51
can you hear me now i can hear you now yeah okay okay i don't know what you could
33:57
and couldn't hear so i'm just gonna keep going but um sometimes you just gotta do something afraid
34:02
and so i encourage everybody out there now i'm not saying do something crazy and go down the dark alley because
34:08
you're scared of it in the in the middle of the night i'm saying do something that you're scared you're like i know a lot of people are afraid to hug
34:13
people now don't go hug everybody that you don't know but be willing to hug someone maybe that you know that that you feel like they're they're
34:20
okay and that they just need an embrace you know do to reach out to someone that maybe
34:26
you haven't talked to in a while like like you did for me let's reach out and let's make a connection with something
34:31
do it afraid and god let's overcome some of these fears we can start to break these fears
34:37
we can create an opportunity where love can exist we can bring that shalom that peace do not fear
34:45
into the life that we have with with the people around us we just have to be willing to take those steps
34:50
and they can be baby steps it's fine but we have to be willing to move forward to have courage that's exactly right
34:58
courage is when you're afraid but you keep on moving anyway that's exactly right you know
35:03
it's it doesn't mean you're without fear it just means that you you pursue you you know you keep going
35:09
yeah you're persevering you keep going yeah that's good that's good
35:15
so awesome trey stacy how are you good to see you back up on online here
35:23
definitely um what i was trying to think one of the things
35:29
that came to me when we were talking about fear that i think sometimes is still kind of there is this idea of like
35:35
maybe a fear of death um i think my relationship with fear around death has you know it's
35:42
changed over the years um i remember you know when i was diagnosed with hiv
35:49
you know um i was really young i was 19 20 when i found out and like i even i don't recall
35:58
i recall even saying to myself that i wasn't really afraid of dying itself i was afraid of
36:05
doing whatever it was that i wanted to do before i died so i was afraid that i wasn't going to
36:10
be able to do that and then i was really scared of what
36:15
the process of dying would be for me as a person living with hiv would i
36:21
start to lose my sight would i start to lose my mind when i start to lose parts of my body will i
36:28
you know become you know like those were the things that i was more afraid of than i think death itself
36:35
yeah does that make sense how did you work through all that um i you know
36:43
it was really hard i think it's just like with most things it's like time and experience um
36:51
i remember um and i missed out on a lot because i was afraid um i remember i would go to when i first
36:59
went to the doctor's office and i just was really i had a really hard time accepting what
37:06
was going on and because i just didn't know a lot i just expected to die
37:11
and it felt like the more i knew the scarier it was that somehow
37:16
ignorance or not knowing more was like less scary
37:23
um i wear the same clothes um when i went to the doctor
37:30
um for the first while of my hiv after being diagnosed
37:37
with hiv i would wear the same clothes which was a pair of bib overalls which were kind of in style at
37:43
that time but also also i think for me they made me feel very um
37:49
kid-like or very kind of sick for some reason i just kind of felt safe and so i always wore those bib those overalls
37:56
and i always took i had this yellow backpack and i called it i called it my backpack
38:02
of death and i would i would put it on my on my back and i would go to my doctor's
38:07
appointment and the doctors would give me all this sort of information and i would just put it in that bag and then
38:13
take it home and throw it in the closet and you know the next week or whenever i had to go back to the doctor again i would
38:18
just grab that bag and go and like and it took me a long time to actually like
38:25
metaphorically if you will to open up that bag and to like really look at
38:32
all that all there was to know about my my situation and what was going on
38:38
and i'm so sorry you had to walk through that without us it was you know it was it was you know it was
38:44
an experience that i you know it's just what i went through and yeah it was it was pretty intense i remember um
38:51
i was pretty scared and i was not like uh you know i think most people would assume i'm kind of like a pleasant nice kind of like
38:58
maybe charismatic kind of quiet though but um but when i went to the doctor's appointments that was not me
39:05
i was very um in myself i was no eye contact no like i was just very
39:12
like afraid you know and i remember a nurse um trying to like uh console me or
39:18
trying to help me yeah yeah with where i was and i remember she she said aren't isn't it so great that
39:24
like everybody here is just like you like this is it's an hiv clinic so everybody
39:30
here has hiv doesn't that feel great and i was like uh no because like i'm looking around and i'm
39:37
seeing people at different levels of having the disease i'm seeing people walk around with
39:43
iv bags and walkers and um you know like
39:49
hell no no no that's not helpful actually this is scaring the [ __ ] out of me because this is way too much
39:57
yeah it's real and you know i really feel like that's why uh drugs became a part of my life it's
40:03
just i it was just so much to take in that i couldn't um i just couldn't take it all in at once and
40:11
um i had to kind of like i don't know um it was it was an intense time but you know i'm uh i guess i'm all the
40:18
better for it on the other end what what a wonderful testimony to share with someone who may not understand
40:26
or who may be walking through a similar situation maybe not with hiv but with something else
40:31
yeah i mean i i think we all have those probably those moments in life where yeah we um you know and
40:39
yeah i mean i think the thing that i would have wished i could have had at that time was to not be so alone
40:45
in it i felt super isolated and alone but i think again that's part of the process i think for a
40:51
lot of things it's like the more you talk about something and the more that you're
40:57
with others with it it just becomes more and more real and so i think i was afraid
41:03
of the truth for a really long time and really and it's not even really the truth because of the truth the whole truth is
41:11
like it doesn't really all matter that much you know like yeah no you're right you're right that's
41:17
i that that's interesting to bring up um truth uh you know that pursuit of truth in the
41:24
long run it sounds like you set you free you know and and gaining some
41:29
understanding you know during the time of hiv and i'm thinking man we're kind of going through a space of
41:36
unknownness with a new disease that we're all trying to figure out you know nobody really knew what was
41:41
going on um you know from my perspective on my side of it i their people were just like oh
41:47
afraid of it they're afraid to be around people who had it they you know they didn't understand what they were supposed to do or if they
41:53
could get i mean it was just ridiculous looking back on it they're in the middle of it
41:58
all those fears were valid because no really no one really knew no one really had any experience to share
42:04
yeah i feel like that's sometimes interesting how the our response to like because the
42:10
thing that changed that fear was we learned more right we came we kind of came to understand more we
42:16
learned actually how it was transmitted we learned how to protect ourselves from it we learned how to deal with it
42:22
better when we did have it so it was like it's actually the the the more we um looked at it
42:30
the more we sat with it the actual less scary yeah aim but it was interesting
42:36
that it was fear that was keeping us from from that
42:42
you know from truth yeah but once you understood the truth of what was happening
42:47
then you could actually respond yeah or even if yeah and and the truth is just a fuller i think
42:53
just having a more of this more of the story i guess
42:58
more of the information um was kind of that truth i guess yeah that's awesome that's an amazing
43:06
testimony thanks for sharing with all of us yeah and just in kind of thinking about that i think it still kind of plays out
43:12
and it's just something to kind of think about is there still places in my life where i am afraid um which
43:20
there is you know my transness i'm afraid to talk with my parents about it
43:26
you know like and it's like um you know it's like where's that coming
43:31
from you know i have some of my own fears and again it's because i don't understand everything fully i
43:36
don't have all the answers i don't know how people are going to respond or how things are going to play out or even how
43:42
i am so i'm wondering how i can kind of like take that experience from then to try to like help me
43:50
be more willing to kind of like i don't know yeah yeah
43:58
move forward you know i don't know yeah i think you i think your parents would like to have
44:03
that conversation with you yeah and you just have to be ready that and and i think this is something that
44:09
we all have to do especially when we're we're moving towards moving forward in things it's like
44:15
you're taking a step you're going to have a conversation you have to be ready for the worst case scenario yeah and pray that that's not the case
44:22
yeah that's really what i've had to let go of is that like that he that i but i had to be okay with
44:28
it you know i'm okay with whatever response that was but um i did get to um like grandma violet
44:36
your mom you know i i send out those postcards to a few of my folks and i signed it bonnie violet as a way
44:43
to start to maybe start that conversation or to just
44:48
kind of put it out there um without having to make it a a thing or like a a big meeting where we
44:56
talk or you know i don't know um and uh uh i got to talk with grandma
45:02
and she called me and um i just was recent yeah it was like i could never get a hold of her yeah go
45:09
ahead she called me it wasn't this week but the week before but she called me and she's like i just wanted to and it was
45:15
weird she called me and i was like i don't know if i'm going to answer it it's like girl why wouldn't you answer
45:20
it so i went ahead and i answered it and she was just like hello how are you doing we were chit chatting and
45:26
you know she loves she loves that she's where she's at and in the home and i know we had a lot of
45:31
fear about that situation and we did and she's really just seems to be loving it and really enjoying it
45:38
and i said so did you get my postcard and she said yeah it was like with the glitter there's glitter everywhere and it
45:46
yeah i think i think glitter runs in our family actually definitely right well unless so i told her i was like well did
45:51
you notice that i signed the postcard bonnie violet and she said yeah and i said that's my name
45:57
now that's the name that i go by all the time like that's my name now and she goes oh
46:02
well okay no that was it she was like okay all right you know and then i told her
46:08
why you know because i named myself after her you know and i shared with her that experience of why i chose my name and
46:15
you know those sorts of things and so it was actually you know it was nothing i needed to be afraid of
46:21
yeah um and it worked out really you know it worked out really nice that's awesome
46:27
i'm guessing you'll have a similar experience with your parents yeah yeah and it's i think it's those
46:32
situations where i don't know if they're waiting for me or if you know like you know like i
46:38
think sometimes you feel like you need to have permission to answer questions and it's coming from
46:44
a good place yeah talking to parents is hard it's it's hard and i think it's hard for
46:51
them just as much as it is for us you know because the the relationship changes so much from us
46:58
being uh taken care of by them and and being raised up by them to become an adult so
47:04
then as you know my parents have gotten older of that role changing to us taking care of them and different
47:10
things so those conversations are not easy and i used to have such a hard time and i
47:16
love my dad i was a daddy's girl my whole life and when it came down to some of those hard conversations oh my goodness
47:23
they were they were so hard and and especially if he was resistant to a conversation
47:30
there's more times than once and he'd say i raised you better than that or who do you think you are talking to me like
47:36
that or whatever here i'm an adult trying to have an adult conversation about something that i thought would be
47:41
important to them and in the long run it was but in that moment oh those are some hard conversations yeah i
47:49
encourage you to have them because just prepare yourself like i said for the worst case scenario
47:55
and decide if you can live with that and if how you might respond to that and then just pray for the best case
48:02
and it usually lands somewhere in the middle yeah yeah i just and it's so hard because i just feel like there's been so much
48:08
healing for myself when i'm able to just be real about what's going on and not have any judgment
48:14
and it's like there's a part of me that wants that with my family as well and i think in order for me to continue
48:21
maybe in some way would be great if we were like if we were able to do that together
48:27
um and there's there's there's progress being made there definitely it's um like it's it's it's happening
48:34
um yeah we have to make sure that we don't put um sometimes this
48:40
acceptance of who we think we are who we want to be as a responsibility for someone else
48:46
they can accept us or not accept us um we have to make sure that in our
48:52
pursuit for christ that we're following his lead and following along with what he says and
48:58
and we're living the life that he declares for us and sometimes people around us don't
49:04
necessarily agree with all that and i think sometimes people are trying to guide us
49:09
with a with a good intent but but don't understand fully and so
49:16
they're they're we're taking that as a negative within their heart it's a positive and it's just not communicating well
49:23
right well it's and and it's hot i'm like i have no clue i have no clue what their
49:30
experience is and what they're experiencing you know like they could be quote unquote in the same head space
49:36
if you will um but it plays out in a different way like i don't know i don't know i and i know that um in the
49:44
experience i have and you have like if we both were in a car accident right now our experience with that would
49:50
be very different and how it played out in our like even if we both ended up losing a limb
49:56
through that process how we respond to that and how that impacted us is going to be different
50:02
because of for like a number of different things and that doesn't mean that i don't know and i think we learn things
50:08
differently we experience and feel things differently in different ways yeah
50:13
because of different experiences like i don't know
50:20
it's amazing to me how uniquely worried it's created but as god places us in the household
50:27
that he does and in the locations that he does how together we're woven you know what i
50:33
mean it's like um the the fine lines behind the big picture
50:40
the big pictures are different but some of those fine lines in the background are the same and and it's it's amazing
50:48
to me but we have to remember that in search of our big picture that we don't lose track of the fine
50:53
lines or we don't try to alter someone else's big picture yeah because i think sometimes in an
51:00
attempt to to figure out who we are we want to i'm guilty
51:05
of this that we want someone else to change and be like us or to understand that the way that we
51:13
understand it because we experienced this now i have a testimony you have a testimony they're
51:19
intertwined foundationally the same but they're different you know what i mean
51:24
and and i think it's when we try to have that same but let me let me give you an example i
51:30
think it's the best way for everyone to understand it because i'm a mature christian woman i
51:35
read my bible regularly and sometimes when i read my bible i'll think oh my goodness i'll get an
51:41
idea or i call it a prompting from the holy spirit and i'll write that down i try to apply
51:48
that to my life well then i'll go to my friend's house and we're sharing and i'm sharing this
51:54
amazing thing with them and then i wonder why it doesn't affect them the way it affects
51:59
me and i'm like oh no no you don't understand it's got to be like this
52:05
and and for me to say you know you don't get it if you don't get it the way i get it it's wrong
52:11
yeah yeah you know they need to be able to read it process it and apply it the way that the
52:18
word is is is the the fine line there is the same but the application on how it is can be
52:24
different right and and i think we experience that culturally here on a regular basis
52:30
that everyone wants us to all fit into this one mold that it's all the same and it has to be this way and it's not
52:36
we all have a different big picture yeah well and it's i think in some ways we have to ask ourselves like somewhere we think
52:44
we're better than them or we know something more than do you know what i mean know something more and
52:51
i just don't know that that's always true um isaac has a comment isaac says one of
52:57
the great lessons i've learned is to trace my fears to the root of their voice
53:03
to ask the question is this my fear or is this an inheritance a voice from
53:09
my parents family society etc disguised as my own
53:15
that's good i think that's good it's really good
53:20
thanks for sharing that isaac that makes a lot of sense yeah well those are like right let's i think
53:25
that kind of even leads to our first con like one of our first comments about uh the conspiracy or whatever of fear it's
53:32
like is that you know or false evidence appearing real like where is this coming from is this my fear is this your fear is
53:39
this a fear that was placed on me or was things told to me or put on me in a
53:45
way that's you know created in me yeah and it reminds me of in uh
53:50
in genesis when um eve ate the apple and they and adam and eve were hiding
53:57
from god as he walked through the garden and when they finally came out he says
54:02
why were you hiding and adam says because we're naked and
54:07
god said to them who told you that and i feel like that's a question i ask
54:13
myself every day you know if i'm anxious or if i'm afraid or whatever
54:18
who told me that i know i know who i am in christ i know the plans and the purposes god
54:25
has for my life so who told me that so when isaac shared that wisdom
54:31
that's kind of where it took me you're right i need to be asking myself who told me that is this something i should really be
54:37
afraid of or is it something that that i shouldn't be afraid of right so is a is a
54:44
function of god to
54:50
cause us not to fear i don't know like is that is god our protector i guess or ours
54:56
absolutely the bible says the battle is not ours it's his
55:01
so we just need to let him fight it for us we don't always do that yeah well but i think there's also an
55:07
element of like it's not real what do you mean like it's not like this
55:12
is like who told you you're naked you know like like god doesn't think you're naked or god doesn't
55:18
care like it does it's not a thing right they think it's in the same way of like when when church tells you that you're going
55:24
to hell because you're gay or because you had premarital sex or because like for whatever reason like
55:30
they're telling you that you are not worthy for god and
55:35
that's not their place to think you should have fear of god or you should have fear of hell or you should
55:41
have fear of whatever godly fear is different than the fear i think that we're talking
55:46
about on day a day-to-day life to me a fear of god is a reverence as to who he is and the authority that he has
55:52
it's not a fear of his love for us a fear of how he interacts with us it's a reverence of who he is god
56:00
doesn't want anyone to go to hell he he would not and he did and only god knows our heart
56:06
what we wear on the outside of our body doesn't matter yeah god god knows that
56:11
god knows our heart and who am i to judge your heart who are you to judge my heart yeah
56:18
all we can do is love one another where we're at encourage one another the best way that we can towards the purposes and
56:24
the things that god's outlined in his word and and i don't know move forward i
56:30
i i just want to um love my neighbor i have so much to learn about that
56:36
just just loving my neighbor you know i've lived in this house here in arizona for 15 plus years
56:42
and not only in the last i don't know three or four years do i know the names of all my neighbors
56:49
shame on me and it's not because they changed right you know it's like oh my goodness how is it that
56:55
i can i can live in this area and not know who my neighbor is someone could be in their house and i
57:01
would think it was them and i wouldn't even know because i don't even know who they are and that's a literal but
57:09
that was what i needed i took i introduced myself to all my neighbors and now we live in a space where people
57:15
say hello to each other people talk to one another we share abundance with one another my neighbor
57:20
across the street she's newer to our community she brought me over fresh tamales it's like yay you know she wouldn't have
57:27
done that 15 years ago because she wouldn't have known my name or if i liked mexican food right so you know this is just a basic
57:34
foundational thing that can move us in those spaces where there's no fear i was scared to talk to my neighbors
57:40
i don't know why they didn't do anything to me right so anyway stacy says absolutely tina
57:49
um we are like right at almost the hour mark um which i don't like to edit
57:56
so like before uh 60 minutes um but yeah i think i wanted to yeah
58:03
i was thinking about like because i believe that god has kind of got his cree i am created and continue
58:08
to be created in god's image in a way in which maybe can change change
58:15
the world like a part of changing that world and i don't know it's something i that kind of came up with that idea around
58:22
fearing god or um people telling you
58:27
that you're not you know like you're not worthy or whatever um or you're going to hell that sort of
58:33
thing i'm totally losing my train of thought right now i should just
58:39
um but uh thanks uh thanks everybody for joining us today um it was great to um interact with you
58:46
all really great comments and thoughts um hopefully there you heard something that was
58:52
uh helpful to you as well or thought provoking um if if something was you know uh
58:59
think about maybe somebody else who might benefit from hearing this conversation today and you know consider sending them
59:07
uh you know a copy of this um uh if if you feel so inclined i know i
59:12
always have to get to that place right oh stacy stacy stacy says bonnie talk to
59:19
your family and free yourself amen so i just have a random thought to close
59:25
this out today yes so think about this are you managing your fear
59:31
or is your fear managing you because there is a difference happy monday everybody enjoy your week
59:38
take care and we'll see you next week bye bye hi play the outro
59:46
grace podcast is brought to you by a queer chaplain
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59:58
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