“Transitioning is the most selfish thing I could ever do,” she said.

A little part of me wanted to jump across the desk and shake her by the collar. But I didn’t. I kept it cool. I said, “What was the alternative?”

Dolly Davis is a transgender woman and the transition she was referring to was from a man’s body to a woman’s, a process that involves, in part, a variety of medical procedures which cost a pile of money. Meanwhile, news that she’s transitioning has been impacting her architecture business – adversely, that is – and she has two kids at home.

That money should go toward my kids, she was saying. Diverting even a penny or minute from my kids to myself is selfish.

“What was the alternative?”

“Have you ever held your breath for a really long time?” she asked me.

“I’ve tried.”

Try it. Try to really go beyond comfort, into pain. Try to convince your body that you can go one more second. Your brain believes it, your brain pushes you for one more second, one more, one, she said. Meanwhile, your body is in agony and all it desires is that intake of air, that invisible sustenance.

That was how Dolly described living in a man’s body, like suffocating herself. She would allow herself little gasps of air, infrequently. A moment or two dressing up as the person she knew herself to truly be, moments of relief, authenticity, breath. And then with a deep exhale, she returned to the self-suffocation.

“And what would that have ultimately done to you?” I asked.

“Emotionally? I’d be dead.”

If spending that money on her transition rather than her kids was selfish, what’s the word for depriving herself of what she most needs to be an active, present, health parent for her kids?

It’s not valuable to compare our challenges with others’ and yet I couldn’t help but feel my own challenges shrink as I sat with this courageous woman, feeling just the barest weight of what she carries. It’s the very weight of her challenges – the personal, professional and political reactions to who she is as a person, the daunting nature of the decisions coded into her DNA – that make her analogy so very instructive for me.

We all hold our breath from time to time, more frequently than we’re aware of, as we deprive ourselves of what recharges us in the name of selflessness. We cook our families dinner instead of taking a walk. We buy our kids piano lessons instead of buying ourselves massages. We put off time with our friends in order to put in one more, two more working hours.

And then we gasp because we just can’t hold it any more. When I gasp, it most often comes in the form of snapping at someone I love or being overwhelmed by the gremlin soundtrack that says I’m worthless, unlovable.

Thing is, for me to breathe, I just have to take walks or hikes regularly. I just have to give myself time to read and write. Just the occasional hot bath, afternoon at the climbing gym, evening with a friend. Nothing dramatic. Nothing expensive. Nothing hard to accomplish… except for the part about giving myself permission, the part about releasing the belief that taking that time for myself is selfish.

What about you? What nurtures and nourishes you? How easy would those things be to enact if only you released the judgmental beliefs and recognized that by breathing, you’re claiming energy you can then channel toward those loved ones, clients, life?

A final note to Dolly, who hasn’t strayed far from my mind since we met: Doing for your children is wonderful, even critical at times. Embodying the woman you hope they’ll someday be? There’s nothing that could ever teach them to be authentic or courageous or wholehearted, or to breathe, like watching you lead the way.

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