My 15+ Year Coming Out Story
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- Опубликовано: 31 май 2022
- Learn how you can share your own coming out story with the help of Soul Excellence Publishing: soulexcellence.com/
#pride #pridemonth #lesbian #lgbt #pridemonth2024 #comingoutstory
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Hi! I'm Kayleigh O'Keefe, Founder & CEO of Soul Excellence Ventures, where I help CEOs cultivate joy, spark global movements, and leave their legacy.
I help others rediscover their sense of joy and freedom and yet I have long suppressed my own joy and freedom by not fully accepting the fact that I am gay.
In this video, I share my coming-out story with the intention that it will serve all people who have grappled with any sort of inner conflict and avoided the truth for too long.
We are love. It is at the center of our being.
1. Where in your life are you using substitutes for love instead of cultivating the real thing?
2. What are you attracted to? The beauty of life is in our preferences. Bring your body and soul on board with your mind when it comes to choosing relationships and opportunities that inspire you.
3. The more we resist the truth, the more difficult we make our lives. The more that we explore and discern truth, the more we open ourselves for life to live through us.
Come say hi over on Instagram : / kayleighok11
YES! "I am gay" - GO KAYLEIGH! So dang proud of you.
Confidancia in abundancia ;) Grateful for you and your role on this journey!
I am 22 and think I am lesbian
After going through an awakening while recovering from a serious illness, I came to the "knowing" that I am bisexual. I remarried two years ago to my high school sweetheart. And very recently at 42 years old I opened up to him. He is incredibly supportive and it has been such an emotional ride that I did not anticipate or ask for at all. I grew up in a very conservative, strict home life that bled into adulthood. Then leading to a dysfunctional marriage that ended after 20 years. And NOW I'm finally discovering who I am. I appreciate this video and encouragement which is so helpful. This feels right finally even though we haven't taken that next step yet.
Added: I am also a working, professional woman in a very rural area and also kind of lost on where to start. Thank you for this video. It's a scary time in this journey so I appreciate hearing it like this.
This is such a beautiful share and recognition of who you are and what you desire. Sometimes I get frustrated that it's taken me so "long" to get at these inner truths - and then I remember this is the way/the journey and that it is never too late to be who we really are!
I don't understand if you are already married what's the next step? So you now know that you can be attracted to women as well as men. That's all actually it's enough to acknowledge that.
I’m so inspired, Kaleigh! On brand with SOUL EXCELLENCE!!!
Grateful for YOU and our crazy car conversation that further helped to let this out and also lock it in!
So inspired by your example and your courage, Kayleigh!! And the PRIDE is real! I am proud to be a member of the LGBTQIA tribe too.
Thank you, Maggie! I believe that with freedom, comes responsibility - responsibility to live in alignment, connect to what's true, and keep moving in the right direction!
Very nice , Thank you.
Hello there just wanted to thank you for such a tremendous factual video that is and was very inspiring thank you for bringing it out in the public making it so basic
Amen!! 🙌🏼 fellow lesbian women who went through a very similar journey who’s also very spiritual and conservative and who’s been through a similar path! Down to the card at the end ❤️❤️❤️ thank you for sharing and being open and vulnerable.
I so appreciate you watching and taking a moment to share your reflection. I truly believe we are all hear to live, heal, experience, connect, and create, and accepting my sexuality has been essential to that journey.
Interesting point
And for determination confidence and Faith to know that it will be an impact on someone I wish I knew your name mine is Steven and your experience was very enlightening have a great Thanksgiving and God bless you
Thank you for sharing. Being so vulnerable and giving me new perspectives to consider. Sending love ❤️
And thank you for watching and sharing. There's so much diversity in the human experience to explore, get curious about, and savor!
indeed its when you accept and let it be that it flourish 🦋 great video, thx 💕
Thank you for watching and sharing!
Love your message, “that we can be as we are, not necessarily what is presented in social media”. 😊✨👏
Thank you for watching and taking the time to share here, too! There is so much beautiful nuance in the world - and in conversation and connection - which gets lost in the morass of social media and echo chambers. Thanks for being here!
I wanted to come back to sincerely thank you for sharing your story. You gave me the confidence in my truth to finally come out as gay to myself, the man I was dating and my mother after 10 years of repression and denial. For the first time in my life I am starting to love myself for who I am. I loved the way you articulated everything and especially the comments on how God would want you to be authentic. As you said, it is something I would have never chosen for myself but I love your attitude of embracing the wonder that comes with being someone that you didn't "plan" on being. Thank you so much.
Wow, thank you for taking the time to receive this message, connect to your own truth, and discern what decisions you needed to make next on your journey. You are inspiring me!
Kayleigh, thank you so, so much for sharing your testimony. It brought me to tears. I am a 25 year old semi-closeted lesbian. I also didn't grow up with any lesbian role models or representation since I was raised very traditionally. I'm just now entering the lgbt space and it can be really overwhelming. Your story about self-acceptance and living in integrity and in the truth really speaks to me. It's so wonderful to see a happy, successful, beautiful lesbian owning her truth and releasing shame. Thank you so, so much for sharing, and for encouraging people like me to live in the truth and follow their inner voice. Love, Sonna
Sonna, as I've come to really believe, I am you and you are me, meaning when one person heals, we all heal, and I am grateful that you found resonance in my story and the courage to follow your unique path in life. Thank you for the gift of your reply and authenticity.
Thank you
You're so welcome.
Hi Kayleigh,
I could really relate with a lot of what was said in this video -- find that my experience in coming out is a lot closer to that of late bloomer lesbians rather than gay men (at least from videos I've seen online). Much like yourself, I am a conservative/family oriented person who doesn't really identify with the core message/culture of the LGBT community. I have a deep yearning for spirituality in my life and find that this is entirely missing from the LGBT space.
My first conscious memory of attraction to the same sex is from around 18, where I felt attracted to my close friend -- though I remember just brushing this off as something else (I cant be gay!). Now coming to think of it, I should have probably realised around 12 or so. It was only at around 23 that I admitted to my therapist that I might be bisexual. I was doing a course in EMDR at the time.
I grew up with an emotionally abusive step-mum for whom I felt some attraction (I am somewhere on the bisexuality spectrum, but predominantly gay). She was very liberal about discussing sexual matters around little kids (evil woman). This experience made me question sexual behaviour and morality at around 16, and I adopted a conservative stance on sexuality -- that is, wait until you meet the right girl and start a family -- whilst still identifying as straight. My teens were completely devoid of romance, as were my early 20s (I didn't explore my sexual identity like everyone else did when they were 18). I would often attribute this to the abuse that my step mum brought onto me and how this affected my confidence with women. In reality, I now recognize that I probably only ever felt a weak attraction towards the opposite sex (this is however the thing that allowed me to convince myself that I was straight).
At 26 I met my first girlfriend. She was christian, spoke my mother tongue, also came from eastern europe to live in the west at a similar age to me. We had similar personalities, values and managed to click instantly -- I've never experienced anything like that in my life before. Speaking to her felt like speaking to a lost part of myself. At the start of our relationship I would often cry daily because the universe had finally began to align itself with a future that I wanted (a familial one). I remember sobbing deeply during a meditation after I had met her for the first time -- I felt the presence of an all-loving deity in my life.
Our relationship kept growing as we got to know each other, but I struggled to express intimacy, kissing etc (primarily due to anxiety). We got over that in the end. But my mental health started to deteriorate as the relationship approached sexual intimacy. When it finally did, I realised that I was gay (my libido had increased and brought my actual sexuality to the fore of experience). There I was, a gay man who is in love with his girlfriend at the time -- it was the most sudden and earth shattering realisation of my entire life. My personality started to split, it felt. It was so stressful that I started to experience visions and stuck thoughts in my head. I had managed to decompartmentalise my attraction to men and to explain it away for my entire life!
I hid in the closet for 3 months whilst still acting/pretending that I felt our intimacy, acting completely in the moment and not being able to think through where I had found myself -- I couldn't imagine losing something so dear that I waited for, for 10 years and then having to bear the break-up. These 3 months (and several thereafter) were the worst 3 months of my entire life -- panic attacks, feeling like I would die if I fell asleep, unending darkness. It was only after I gained the courage to come out to my family, then close friends and only then my ex-girlfriend that things got better. I broke up with her over the phone because I could no longer bear my situation (I wasn't in the right head-space to separate properly in person as I was really ill). I will probably always regret how I did it.
My heart still yearns for her, its been 6 months since I ended the relationship. I still think about her on a daily basis -- if not hourly. I am still processing everything that happened and find myself watching videos on youtube of people who have nontraditional orientations who speak about their journeys. They bring a certain level of comfort to my life, which I really need at this moment.
Thank you for posting! I wish that you may live your fullest life.
Thank you for sharing your journey with us here! There is no one way to do life, explore sexuality, and embrace all that we learn along the way. Stay open, curious, and compassionate toward yourself along the way.
Cosa vuole dirmi stupenda creatura come italiana cosa c'è di meraviglioso nel essere umano he amare e essere amati
Does a woman have to be a lesbian to enjoy a lesbian relationship?
I have never been in one, but I have known so many women who I have through about being with.
Intelligent, articulate, funny and hard-working women. So much more interesting and worthwhile.
I think there is a phobia of being lesbian, not that there is anything wrong with it.
If I look around the world, no, I don't think. It seems to me that there are many women in heterosexual relationships who also enjoy being with women. I think a lesbian is someone, though, who desires full partnership with a woman, not just a one time fling, for instance. That's just my take.