As a queer, Chinese Mexican woman, the first thing I did was redefine myself by transcending the limitations of identity. But wait, isn’t this whole thing ​about​ identity? Don’t our identities and their intersections have substantial implications in our daily lives? They do.

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And yet.

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And yet.

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The moment I woke up to everything I came here to be, I recognized how little my identities mattered. There is a difference between resistance and transcendence. Both require a level of burning, painful as it may be. I’m not an activist. I’m an alchemist, and fire is my tool.

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The matrix, programmed by our governments, media, and pay-to-play institutions (academic, financial, health, religious, etc.), functions to keep us small and triggered, and we’ve unintentionally bought in. Despite their superficial cries for equality, they’re actually programming us into victimization, separation, and polarization.

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And yet.

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As a woman, I have experienced sexism and gender-based violence. As a Chinese Mexican person, I have experienced discrimination and carry intergenerational trauma from those who lacked resources to cope. As a queer woman, I have received ignorance and hate. Where these identities intersect, my reality has often been denied.

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And yet.

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I acknowledge all the ways I have been victimized. I acknowledge all the ways I derived power from maintaining the role of victim. I acknowledge that I deserved better. By doing the work to heal and integrate these stories, I released emotional baggage that wasn’t mine.

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By healing childhood and intergenerational traumas, I grew disillusioned by the false matrix projecting itself onto me. I want to emphasize that ​ownership​ and ​healing​ broke me through. Sitting in meditation with discomfort; sitting in therapy with shame; sitting with myself, free from d i s t r a c t i o n s, wracked with grief and anxiety, I learned that the fear of the thing is often worse than the thing. What truly had me locked in stagnancy were the stories I was telling myself and the trapped emotions in my body. Trauma and oppression get trapped in our bodies. Once free, they no longer have the same hold because our frequencies renew themselves.

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The scariest thing in the world was ​me​ because I had been programmed to fear my power, my voice, my light, my truth, my woman-ness, my queerness, my ethnic-ness. The matrix doesn’t want me empowered, but the divine spark within me decided it had enough with that nonsense.

So I faced my biggest fears and spread my wings. It’s a lifelong dance, this healing journey. It’s not a switch. But I do it for myself, my ancestors, and my communities.

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And yet.

 

Awful things happen. Which brings me back to the matrix. I now recognize trigger events as propagated systems of control, and I welcome the opportunity to see where I’m not free so I can begin my liberation work. I’m not here to live under a cloud of oppression or victimization. In embodying a queer, Chinese Mexican, female form, I get to break free from illusions I’d otherwise never notice.

The Revolution is ​US.​ The light shining within our colorful, queer, Asian selves is our invitation for liberation. Let’s expand into the beings we came here to be, and let’s alchemize all the heartbreak, pain, shame, and fear into fuel to propel ourselves to places we never imagined. We have each other, our pioneering forebears, and the intensity of our devotion illuminating our path.