#lgbt advice

Build That Foundation
A Mixtape for if you have to see your ex again soon.

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curated by Brittany Ashley for Everyone Is Gay’s ‘An Honest Mixtape’

An Honest Mixtape: Build That Foundation
by Brittany Ashley

Hello! We are starting a new advice series here at Everyone Is Gay called “An Honest Mixtape”! Each month (starting right now!) we will feature a new guest writer who will tackle one of your advice questions with words *and* music! 

Writer, comedian, and actor Brittany Ashley kicks things off with some back-to-school breakup advice and a mixtape to help mend your broken heart and give you the strength to get through seeing your ex again for the first time. GREAT.

“I’m in high school, and I went through a really messy, miserable breakup last school year. For the rest of the year, I would get anxious every time I saw my ex and tried to avoid her at all costs. Now I haven’t seen her in two months because of summer and I’ve been doing a lot better, but I’m afraid of how I’ll react when I see her again/if she tries to talk to me or if we end up in a class together. Help?”

BrittanySays:

We’ve all gone through it. Trying to avoid seeing an ex-girlfriend is like the world’s worst video game that we’re all stuck playing for the rest of our lives. To take extra precautions, we’ll deny ourselves going to that party (5 points!) or cut off seeing certain friends (Bonus level!), just in hopes of avoiding one particular human being who seems to have the cheat codes to our anxiety.

Let’s start by saying this: throughout the summer, there’s no doubt that you’ve made progress. You started to feel like yourself again and finally like she’s not the only radio station playing in your head. Seeing her again doesn’t get to erase any of the work you’ve done. She doesn’t get to have that—that was work that you did! It’s yours! You own the rights to it!

I get that you think seeing her again might throw a wrench in your betterment. The best (but also worst) thing about being a fleshy mortal in this situation is that you simply can’t control the outcome of every awkward interaction or every student’s class schedule. Well, wait. Actually, if you learned how to hack into your school’s database, you could probably engineer the perfect schedule to where you two wouldn’t be likely to cross paths. Obviously you’d have to come up with an algorithm that also prevents hallway run-ins–maybe setting up roadblocks that block the flow of students. But even so—learning hacking as a trade feels like an enormous amount of effort just for this.

So focus on what you can control, like how much time you spend dwelling on the what if’s or how much space you let those negative feelings take up in your mind in places where good stuff could go instead. Remember good stuff? Good stuff is nice.

Once you relinquish the idea of control, the next thing you can do is build up your foundation. By that I mean: think of your self-esteem like a house. How banal, I know! But you don’t have to take an architecture class to understand how spot on my metaphor is. It’s easy to feel better momentarily when you paint the walls a bright new color or hang up a cool new Buffy poster. Who wouldn’t? Aesthetic improvements feel nice but they’re momentary. Why? Because if your foundation is cracked, the way the house looks doesn’t really matter because you have to rebuild that goddamn thing. The good news is that whether or not your house feels like an abandoned roadside shack or an immaculate mansion a la MTV Cribs (too old a reference?), remember that you can always build up your foundation.

So how can you build up this foundation, you ask? Well, emotional health should be tended to at all times, not just when you’re in dire need of it. If you continuously appreciate yourself and the people around you, you’ll build a strong ass foundation that won’t crack easily.

Think about what makes you feel warm and good. Maybe that’s simply being outside. Listen, you don’t have to go base jumping or extreme whitewater rafting, but sometimes it means just taking a book in your backyard or sitting on a swing.

Too much like an indie movie? Fine. Then go do something nice for your friends like writing them a handwritten card or making them a mixtape (Am I out of touch?). Strengthening your friendships and telling people how much you care about them is by far the coolest thing on the planet. Trust me. They won’t forget it.

Walk through the halls confidently with your headphones in while you listen to music. I like to daydream and picture myself as the lead singer, but that’s just me. Maybe you can even jam out to this playlist I crafted for you.

But most importantly: Give yourself a break. It’s okay to not fully be over the messy feelings that ensued, that just means you’re human. If we could think our way out of heartache, we’d all be robots.

Eventually, you’ll be so distracted simply basking in your own incredible atmosphere, that you’ll forget that you ever cared what you’d think if you ran into her. I know it sounds kind of silly: Distract yourself with yourself. t’s the best advice I can give and has gotten me through many versions and variations of “fear of running into my ex at school.”

Listen to Brittany’s Mixtape, “Build That Foundation,” right here!
Cover Art designed by the incredible Isabella Rotman.

Getting In Bed with Kristin: PRIDE

Kristin is going live in 10 minutes (3pm Pacific/6pm Eastern) on @autostraddle‘s Facebook live to answer all of your questions about Pride, and to show off this fancy little rainbow. Join us!

You can ask your questions live in the feed, or click “Ask” on everyoneisgay.com and start your question with #GIBWK!

An Honest Mixtape: Resolution Revolution
byReneice Charles

Welcome to January’s “An Honest Mixtape”! Every month we will feature a new writer who will tackle one of your advice questions with words *and* music!

“Okay, so, it’s another new year and this time I JUST WANT TO DO IT RIGHT! I feel like every January I organize things and have all these goals of being healthier and more positive and more productive… and then by March I’m back in my same habits again. How do I make actual change that will actually last?!”

Reneice Says:

Let me tell you a story. Years ago I decided one of my resolutions would be to get back into doing yoga three times/week. Of course, I bought an entire “new year, new me” luxury yoga kit: a Luluemon mat, cute activewear sets, fancy sports bras with the cute criss cross straps, two water bottles, and yoga blocks.  I also got two Groupons for classes at popular studios in LA. I made it to approximately 4 classes before relinquishing yoga time for happy hour and Netflix time, leaving all my new swag–some with the tags still on–to collect dust.

About four months later, my motivation was renewed and I headed to what I thought was an advanced yoga class. I was in the mindset that jumping in at the level I was before I fell off the wagon, despite being way out of practice, and struggling at something that used to be easy for me would definitely get me motivated. I got to the studio, unrolled my lavender mat, framed it with my freshly unwrapped rainbow yoga blocks, and started stretching while waiting for the instructor to arrive. A few minutes later he came in, introduced himself, and thanked us for coming to the beginners flow class. I was pissed.

I wanted a challenge. I hadn’t been a beginner at yoga for eight years, and was definitely not interested in spending 90 minutes learning things I already knew. I was about to quietly pack up and leave when something told me to stay. I’d already made the effort of getting there, what was the harm in easing my way back in with a simple beginners class? I listened, I stayed, and let me tell you, that class kicked my ass. By the end I was exhausted and drenched in sweat. We held every pose for what felt like forever as the instructor walked around making minor adjustments to our form that made a major difference in how many muscles were engaged and how long they could hold out before the shakes set in. He explained that he had us in the poses for so long, and took such care with modifications because he didn’t want us leaving his class with weak foundations. That, he said, cheapens the entirety of your practice for the rest of your life. I was floored.

I left that class feeling so disappointed in myself. How could I have struggled that much in the class for newbies? More than I had in any advanced class in years? What was going on? As much as I wanted to brush the whole thing aside as a fluke, the instructor’s words stuck with me. I already had the answer: I’d been practicing with a weak foundation. Sure, I knew I could go to the advanced classes and complete the sequences, but I also knew that I’d eventually hit a wall with every pose that I couldn’t figure out how to move beyond. That was not for a lack of strength or ability, but simply because there’s only so much that can be built on a weak foundation.

So many of us have rolled into a new year with a mile-long list of resolutions that we are determined to succeed at–never mind that half the list is the same as it was last year; that was the “old us”, and this is the “new us”. All of a sudden we’re going to drink half our weight in water daily, wake up early for jogs, then make the green smoothie that we prepared ahead of time! We’ll also read more books, be more productive, go on more dates, and be nicer to our parents. But really? We won’t. We might try, but inevitably we’ll add yet another year to our history of made and abandoned resolutions and wonder “why do we always do this?” whilst returning to our old habits in defeat.

Here’s the thing: At its core, a resolution is simply a decision made mindfully to do (or not do) something. That’s it. It is one instantaneous item in a much larger overall process. That’s why so many of them go unfulfilled. Resolutions are easy to change, ignore, or give up on (especially if they’re overly optimistic)—plus they’re prone to ambiguity. Goals, on the other hand, are concrete, detailed, driven, and realistic. They have timelines attached for motivation and are much more than a snap decision scribbled on a piece of paper. We have to throw out our lists and see resolutions for the empty unnecessary promises they really are. We have to start a resolution revolution.

After my experience in that yoga class, I decided never to make a resolution again. Instead I’d set goals focused on internal improvement. I started to examine my cracks, identify patterns of behavior, and seek the root cause of my inability to achieve things I set out to do. The evidence all led back to one crucial place: I didn’t have the beginners level skill set needed to turn thoughts, hopes, and aspirations into dreams, then into goals, then actions, and finally achievements. The same is true for so many of us!

What you might need, instead of those detailed lists, is to work on a foundational principle: self-discipline. Without self-discipline you’ll never get to the achievement phase. You can read every self-help book in existence, go on every retreat out there, and still never take a step toward improvement if you don’t realize that somewhere along the way you never learned and strengthened the skills needed to make change occur.

So, to answer your question: “how do I make actual change that will actually last?’” Take the time to examine the cracks in your own foundation, then take what you find and practice! Practice self-discipline, practice self-awareness, practice mindfulness, practice confidence, practice self-sufficiency. Work only on those basic things first and I promise the rest will follow. All that practicing will take a lot of time and motivation, there’s no way around it. Fortunately there’s no lack of musical inspiration to help keep spirits high and minds on track while we work toward self-improvement, so I made you this playlist of some of my favorite songs to listen to on the way to crushing another goal. Play it, make a plan, and get ready for some change that will finally last.

Reneice Charles is a just another queer, liberal, woman of color using the Internet to escape from reality and failing miserably. She received her MSW from New York University and is an Entrepreneur and Vocalist living in Los Angeles. She spends her spare time wishing she didn’t have to use her spare time convincing people that everyone deserves the same basic human rights.

Cover Art designed by the incredible Isabella Rotman!

An Honest Mixtape: I’ve Got Stripes, Too
by Kristin Russo, co-founder of Everyone Is Gay

Welcome to November’s “An Honest Mixtape”! Every month we will feature a new writer who will tackle one of your advice questions with words *and* music!

“Hi, I’m thirteen and I’ve been questioning whether I am bi or not. I am a girl and I identify as one, but what I am not sure of is if I’m straight and just making illusions for myself, or bi, or just lesbian and denying it, or something else I don’t know of. Uugh, it’s all so weird. How could I find out what I am?”

KristinSays:

It is confusing, isn’t it? We are given these letter-shaped symbols to mush together in ways that will explain our millions of feelings to ourselves and to other people, and they don’t always just “fit.” Now, I do like letters and words, and I think that they can help us work through our feelings in incredible ways. For example, it is helpful for me to be able to say “My name is Kristin and Demi Lovato has come out as not straight and that makes me feel SIMPLY DELIGHTED.”

Now, I know you didn’t ask me about my feelings regarding Demi Lovato, but I do think they are relevant. Hear me out. Right now, in the year 2017, I call myself bisexual because I know I have the capacity to be attracted to more than one gender. I also call myself queer because I love the word and all of its infinite possibilities. In years past I identified as a lesbian, because I didn’t yet fully understand all of my attractions (do we ever?), but I knew that I felt at home in the “lesbian culture” of the early 2000s (think The L Word, fedoras, pin stripes, and lip gloss). I have used a lot of words over the years to help me move through my various understandings of myself, but one thing has remained true: when I think a girl is pretty (and especially if that girl is into kissing other girls), I am SIMPLY DELIGHTED.

There isn’t really a word for that feeling, and it’s one I have had for as long as I can remember. It’s a feeling that I had before I even knew I had it, but it is also one that took me a lot of time to understand.

When I was thirteen, my best friend’s name was Katie. She was hilarious and loud and strong and her hair was always shiny and smelled like this one deliciously incredible conditioner, the name of which I cannot remember, but that came in a blue plastic bottle. I never thought about kissing Katie, ever. I thought about the idea of dating boys (seemed interesting) and the asshole teacher who made me spit out my gum even when it wasn’t disturbing anyone (the worst) and how much I loved music (it made me feel like I could do anything) and how I wanted to dye my hair using Manic Panic (blocked by parental bullshit, of course). Looking back on my friendship with Katie, I can now draw connections between the way I felt about her and her hair, and my reasons for going out of my way to get the same conditioner so I could smell that amazing smell all the time… but that is because I am now 36 years old, and I have a wife and a cat and a long history of crushing and dating and wondering and questioning – which is what you are doing now!

*blasts ‘The Circle of Life’*

Here is one promise that I can make to you: You are not making illusions for yourself. If you have feelings that are confusing when it comes to people of many genders, that is real: you have confusing feelings about people of many genders! I will go out on a limb here and say that prooooobably means you aren’t 100000000% straight, and that it will also likely shift and change as you grow. And I am not trying to pull some “you’re 13 and shit will change because you are young now” crap on you, I am literally saying that your attractions and desires will shift and change forever.

Part of our identity is the wondering. Do you want to kiss the girl in your science class? Rad! I’ve been there. Do you want to hold hands with the boy who lives three houses down? Makes total sense. Do you want to spoon with the nonbinary barista at your local coffeeshop? Hooboy, I totally get that. For now, maybe that means you choose to call yourself bisexual. Even if you kiss that girl in your science class and it isn’t fireworks, you can still call yourself bisexual! And, if you do suddenly realize that, hey, you aren’t attracted to more than one gender after all? THAT IS OKAY! It doesn’t mean you were just lying to yourself about your feelings before, it just means that you have a mind that is open to the many possibilities that exist out here in this crazy world.

Before I go and leave you with all of life’s confusing feelings, let me do two more things to try to help you walk this maze (we all walk it! I promise!). First, let’s break your question into three concise lil bits:

How do you know what to *call* yourself?
I think most of us just choose a word that seems kind-of-correct and then change it down the line if we find something that fits even better. It’s okay to do that, and it isn’t “attention seeking” or “lying” to yourself or anyone else to try on identity words and see how they feel.

How do you know you aren’t lying to yourself?
Well, you wrote into an advice site anonymously to figure out more about feelings you are having. That isn’t the typical behavior of a person who is lying about their feelings… it is the typical behavior of a person who has very real feelings that they are trying to sort through. Trust your feelings. The world out here will try to tell you not to trust them, especially when you are a girl, and that is a giant pile of bulllllllshittttt. Your feelings are real. Confusing as all hell, sure, but real.

How do you know what you are?
You’re you. I know, I know, my part-time job is probably writing cards for Hallmark… BUT IT IS TRUE. You are you and right now that you has confusing feelings about attraction and sexuality and identity. Some of that will always be confusing, and some of it will solidify over time. For now, explore those feelings. Write them down. Remember to trust yourself, and remember that you can be more than one thing (at the same time! at different times! ahhhh!).

Second, some music. I mentioned earlier that music made me feel like I could do anything when I was thirteen. It still makes me feel like that, and it also helps me stand up to a world that tells me to doubt myself and my feelings. Music helps me face those confusing feelings and say “fuck off, world, I can be something different than what you expect. I can change. I can be a million things all at once, and I don’t have to pick one and I don’t have to apologize.”

Last week I asked all of my internet pals to tell me about songs made them feel like they could be whatever the fuck they wanted to be, and so together we created this mixtape for you. When you are feeling that creeping doubt, pop your headphones in and remember that you are who you say you are even if that is *not knowing exactly who you are*, and anyone who challenges that can SCREW.

Kristin runs Everyone Is Gay, My Kid Is Gay, and OUR Restroom, co-authored This is a Book for Parents of Gay Kids, and worked as host & producer of PBS Digital’s LGBTQ series First Person. Additionally, she co-hosts a weekly Buffy the Vampire Slayer podcast called Buffering the Vampire Slayer with her wife, Jenny Owen Youngs. You can follow her on twitter @kristinnoeline​

Cover Art designed by the incredible Isabella Rotman!

An Honest Mixtape: It’s Code
byKathy Tu, co-host of WNYC’s Nancy Podcast

Hello! We are starting a new advice series here at Everyone Is Gay called “An Honest Mixtape”! Every month we will feature a new guest writer who will tackle one of your advice questions with words *and* music!

“Hi, I have known I was queer for a while (like… a while. a long while) but haven’t actually come out to anyone until a month ago (to my out gay friend at church camp–different story). The problem is, I have no idea how to tell people. Sometimes I feel like yelling "HEY I ACTUALLY ALSO LIKE GIRLS THANKS” when my roommate walks through the door or talks about guys, but there is always the fear I have that I will be treated differently. What should I do?”

Kathy Says:

Hey, friend. First and foremost, I just want to say to you that your feelings are completely valid! I remember when my friends would talk about boys or dates to the school dance or celebrity crushes, and I would feel so left out, because I had absolutely nothing to contribute. Believe you me, had I known I was queer back in school, I would absolutely have wanted to jump in and add who I was crushing on.

Okay, now onto your actual question. You have the urge to come out to the people around you, but you’re afraid that people will treat you differently.

I think that if you have the urge to come out, you should absolutely do so. Listen to your gut on this one – and it seems like your gut wants to tell people! I think that people tend to emulate the energy that you give out to them, so that’s a good thing to keep in mind when you take the plunge. For example, if you are just bursting to tell your roommate that you’re also into girls, tell them with all the excitement in your body, and more likely than not they will be excited with you! I mean, don’t just shout “HEY I AM A GAY!” at them as they walk through the door, because that might be confusing…

Personally, I like coming out to people in the chillest way possible. When people talk about their partners, I will casually slip in something about a girl I used to date, or a girl I’ve had a crush on, or a girl I think is cute. Sometimes people raise an eyebrow, so I follow up with, “oh yeah, I’m into girls too,” and then I move on. Because I am completely relaxed about it, usually the people I’m talking to are too. I’ve also come out by having “the conversation”: I sat someone down and I said, “hey, here’s a thing I want you to know about me…” and proceeded to talk to them about my sexuality.

Another thing I’ve learned: the people you come out to sometimes need time to process what you’ve just told them, and giving them the space to do that will be helpful. Maybe your roommate will just take things in stride and immediately begin talk to you about your thoughts on Demi Lovato’s girlfriend – but it is also possible that she will hesitate at first and then find her footing once she has a moment (or a few days) to process.

If the thing you’re most worried about is people treating you differently after you’ve come out to them, well…  the harsh reality is that you have absolutely no control over how other people are going to treat you. Some people are going to be dickheads and make inane comments about lesbians or bisexuality. That’s on them. They need to learn to not do that, or you just don’t need them in your life. Sometimes people are going to ask dumb questions, or make hurtful remarks without thinking twice about it. You may be the first person in their lives to tell them what they’re saying is hurtful. In spite of this, there will also be people who are super supportive of your sexuality. There really is no controlling it.

Since you’ve only told a few people so far, I’d start coming out to the people around you who you trust, and the ones you feel like need to know most–for your own sanity (like your roommate!). I get the feeling that the main reason you want to scream “I AM A GAY!” at your roommate is because you haven’t had the opportunity to talk about your sexuality very often with people. You can start slow and have a few longer conversations with people; don’t feel like you have to cast a wide net when you come out. It’s not a race and it never will be!

Also keep in mind that you can be as out as you want to be. Coming out can mean telling your friends and family about your sexuality. But it can also mean presenting more authentically as yourself (e.g. more androgynous, more feminine, more butch). It can mean writing in your journal about how you’re feeling. It can also mean going to queer-normative spaces like a gay bar, a queer art show, or generally the entire Pacific Northwest (just kidding about the Pacific Northwest… but also maybe not kidding, I hear it’s pretty queer over there).

I’ve got a playlist here of music that my girlfriend help me put together. It’s by mostly queer artists who write about various aspects of queerness and are all out in different degrees. I hope you can take inspiration from them, and feel more agency in your coming out story.

You can be as out as you want to be.

Kathy is the co-host and producer of Nancy, a podcast about the LGBTQ experience today. Prior to Nancy, Kathy worked on The Memory Palace,The Mortified Podcast, Masterpiece Studio, and others. And prior to that she was an EMT and law school grad. It’s been a trip. Kathy’s on twitter @_ktu.

Cover Art designed by the incredible Isabella Rotman!