13 beautiful voices

Coming fresh off our Tuesday night group. This group is where individuals are struggling with their sexuality and working on their addiction. Tonight was a special night. I feel fortunate that I am able to share with you, with the groups consent. Sometimes we feel we don't like our body, or our gender, and want to be different. Society appears to have strict guidelines on what is acceptable and what is not. Therefore, some hide their aspirations of wanting to be who they really think they are. Addiction for this population serves as a coping mechanism. Many of our group members have been using drugs and alcohol over the years to deny who and what they really want to be. For what ever reason, tonight we broke individual barriers and began to examine self's real identity. It was amazing to hear the courage of each member tell their story and be honest with their feelings. The amount of energy that was used in the past to pretend they were something that they did not want to be became disheartening. Half of our group has tried at one time to end their life, some of the group members tried multiple times. Tonight's topic was self acceptance for self. Accepting who we are at this moment, and who we aspire to be when our body fits what we want to accept. I think the lesson learned tonight was not about what horrible things happened to some of these members in the past, nor what  addiction they latched onto to hide themselves from society, but how self has the power to accept self on self's terms.  Does it really matter if you like men, women, and want to be a man or a woman, or share the body of both? What really matters is that you can accept yourself for who you are, and what you want to do with your life without using addiction to cope. 13 voices were heard tonight. 13 voices began to accept their path on their terms. 13 voices decided for this group tonight that making things bigger does not work. Stay in your health, stay in the moment.