Be confusing.

For multi-passionates who don't make sense.

Hello precious being, 🌻

In my work coaching creatives, a common theme sounds like this:

"I want to share my multiple passions with the world, but I’m scared it will confuse people. I worry I’ll be judged or misunderstood for contradicting myself.

People don’t know me as a [poet/dancer/coach/singer]. It’s been a hidden passion until this point.

What if they don’t accept this part of me that I cherish? I told myself I had to figure it all out before I allow myself to share it. But I’m tired of hiding.

How can I share all my desires and creations with the world, without being too confusing?”

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Education systems rooted in colonial thinking have taught us to reject confusion and seek clarity.

When society and culture implore you to “make sense”, it can be challenging to radically accept the ways you, well… don’t.

“Who are you?” (Undefinable) “What is your passion?” (Where do I start) “What do you do?” (For money or joy?)

The pressure to be defined and definable can make us repress the fullest expression of our creativity.

As a podcast creator, my contradictions can feel stark and glaring. To share but one: my spiritual, uplifting, loving side can feel in contrast to my cultural/social critic side. Are we building it all up, or are we tearing it all down? As you know, it’s both, but herein lies the never-ending tension between theory and practice.

In theory, I know these archetypes of my being are not separate, but two necessary aspects of the same whole. The law of divine oneness teaches us that everything in the cosmos is connected. Separation is always an illusion. Criticism can be a form of love; love can be a criticism of a world not rooted in it.

But in practice, I still feel a dis-ease within myself when I am showing up as one archetype of my being and not the other. Am I who I said I was? Am I letting down the people who may follow me for a different version of me? Again I am reminded of the Byung-Chul Han quote about self-production:

"Today, we are constantly and compulsively playing to the gallery. This is especially the case, for instance, on social media: the social is coming to be completely subordinated to self-production. Everyone is producing him- or herself in order to garner more attention. The compulsion of self-production leads to a crisis of community.”

This line of reflection led me to the mantra I share in the TikTok I posted about being confusing: “I am not here to be consumed, I am here to be experienced.”

In a consumerist, capitalist society, the pressure to niche down to make yourself more consumable is high. Within a white supremacist imagination, the demand to subsume the self into a logic of rationality, certainty, and definition is strong. And in a queerphobic culture, the insistence on “either/or”, binary thinking is severe.

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As my clients were expressing this fear of being confusing, I started to zoom out and see the tragedy of this predicament:

There is a creative energy that seeks to be expressed through all of life.

Imagine a beaming light of creative energy trying to shine through the prism of your being.

Conditioning, oppression, and isolation block the beam of light from shining through.

And when you do have the capacity to bring the light forth, rather than allow it, your impulse — due to your conditioning — is often to block it. To dilute or hide or repress its power so it will be more palatable to other people.

The result? An earth experience that does not reflect of our highest creativity. If we are to reach a collective utopia rooted in love — we will have had to create it.

In contemplation, I started to zoom out and see confusion from the perspective of the universe. I began to notice the abundance of confusion as an energy all around us, all across the cosmos. Like us, clearly it belongs.

As a lover of mystery, I started to ask myself: Why do people love puzzles? Mystery books? Chess? Or the feeling of not knowing what will happen in a new show or film? Why do we love to be surprised and, yes, even confused?

If our consciousness is the universe experiencing itself, could it be that confusion is something the cosmos intended to experience through us? Something natural, at times pleasurable, all times necessary? Something mystical and divine.

My clients were onto something: in some way, people would be confused by their multiple expressions. But the notion that this is necessarily a bad thing is where I offer a different perspective.

Rumi has said: “Whatever the ways of the World. What fruits do you bring?”

Maybe all multi-passionates are here to deliver a specific kind — flavor, texture, frequency — of confusion to the collective.

Maybe we come bearing fruits of beauty, love, magic, truth — and confusion.

The confusion brought on by a mystery book is not the same as that of a chess game is not the same as that of a night of stargazing and pondering the cosmos.

Perhaps you are here to offer the collective a specific frequency of confusion — one that will be magnetic to the people who seek to be confused in the same ways that you are confusing.

The way your multiple facets manifest is delicious to the people who are meant for you. Please don’t deprive us of the particular frequency of confusion you are here to embody and deliver!

To integrate this understanding, I began to ask myself what might happen if I allowed myself to reclaim my own state of confusion: the ways that I am confusing and the ways that I am confused.

I had a vision that this idea wanted to be expressed in a TikTok. I posted it three different ways before it went viral, reminding me of the importance of devotion to an idea rather than quickly moving on to the next.

Eventually (i.e., three days later) the idea resonated.

People felt similarly excited and invested in the idea that multi-passionates are here to deliver a certain kind of confusion to the collective. That the ways we are each confusing may not be something to avoid, but something to celebrate.

This is what led me to make this Soul Session (aka episode of the Soul Salon Podcast). Soul Session #51: multi-passionates, be confusing is an ode to:

• Reclaiming being a confusing person due to your multiplicity

• Embracing not knowing how to describe or fit yourself into a specific category, niche, identity, or role

• Wanting to do many things as you continue to expand in your passions and interests, resisting the advice to dilute your desire.

Making this Soul Session for you was so wonderful and helped me reclaim the ways that, as I say in the episode: we didn’t come all this way to make sense.

While it can be uncomfortable to acknowledge your very being may naturally confuse people, there are many aspects of the cosmos that it can be DELIGHTFUL to not fully understand. And you get to be one of them! How exciting.

I hope that you enjoy this Soul Session, made with love.

Here are a couple of my favorite quotes from this episode:

• "The purpose of my being on this Earth is not to make sense. I did not come here for a human experience that is subsumed by the goal or desire to make sense."

• "There are different frequencies, textures, and flavors of confusion. And what if, my love, your being brings about a certain frequency of confusion that we, the collective, can only experience through your expression?"

with love & gratitude,

Ayanda

P.S.: If you’re looking for a related Soul Session, I suggest 20: You are Not a Machine (YouTube, Spotify, Apple) or 39: The Wisdom of Feeling Lost. (YouTube, Spotify, Apple)

This essay was channeled through Creative Activations, a guided meditation album to help spiritual creators and artists move from fear to flow. Get a free Creative Activation here.