We recently connected with LINDSEY LEAVERTON and have shared our conversation below.
LINDSEY, appreciate you joining us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?
What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career? Maybe you can share a story (or stories) that illustrate the things they did right and the impact they had on you and your journey.
I just celebrated my 42nd birthday and was flooded with memories from my childhood, early adulthood, and my coming out journey, specifically. It was 2008 and much to my surprise, it finally hit me that I’d fallen in love with my tour manager, who also happened to be my full-time drummer. She also happened to be a… well… female. Let me back up. I started playing guitar, writing songs, and performing in high school. I continued pursuing a music career throughout college. I would study during the week and tour on the weekends. I was primarily involved with evangelical Christian organizations who would book me to lead worship at their events. After graduating college, I knew I wanted to continue pursuing my passion and calling for music. I ended up touring full-time as a professional musician, singer, songwriter, recording artist, and worship leader for 6 years. The more my career/ministry grew, the deeper into the closet I went. The deeper into the closer I went while attempting to deny a huge part of myself, the sicker I got. I spent the majority of my life trying to abandon the whole gay thing. I prayed, fasted, attending meetings, went to counseling, and even dipped my toe in the damaging, hurtful waters of “ex gay” therapy. I was raised in a conservative Christian home and in a church that taught me s*x was bad and homos*xuality was the greatest sin of all. I loved Jesus from a young age and wanted to live my life in a way that aligned with the teachings of Jesus. I loved how Jesus was a rebel, loved the poor, and hung out with people that wouldn’t be caught dead in my church growing up. My love of Christ and my faith fueled my music. I felt called into full-time ministry when I was in college, which is the main reason I continued touring and recording after graduation. Despite my career taking off, averaging 200+ dates a year, and making a decent living doing what I loved, I was miserable and headed down a dark path. I remember one night in college where I genuinely didn’t want to live another day like this. Nothing I had done or was doing was working to pray the gay away. It wasn’t until I met the woman who would eventually become my first wife, that I realized I’d been wrong all along about this whole gay thing. Without a warning or even an awareness that this could potentially happen, after touring with my drummer and tour manager for a year, I realized I had feelings for her. One day I got up the guts to tell her, assuming this revelation would be the end of us and thus my band. In a crazy turn of events, she expressed her feelings for me, as well. We spent another year touring, falling in love, getting to know one another, and hiding deeper and deeper in the closet. It was the best of times and the worst of times. The process of reconciling my faith with my s*xuality was long and arduous. It started long before I ever met Jenny. Meeting and falling in love with her only helped to expedite that process. I didn’t go into this with the goal of falling in love with a woman and ruining my career and life. No one wakes up one day and says, “Ya know what would be great? I’m going to choose homos*xuality while being in full-time Christian ministry, so that I can screw up everything in my life!” After what seemed like a lifetime, and after countless hours spent studying the original Hebrew and Greek portions of the Bible that supposedly touched on the topic of homos*xuality, I finally came to believe that I was created by God exactly as He intended – gay and all. I was finally able to love myself fully, all of me. I no longer believed I was broken and destined for hell. I knew my worth and knew the woman I wanted to be. I didn’t have to choose my faith over my s*xuality or vice versa. God isn’t an either/or God. God’s a both/and Higher Power in my experience. When I finally came out to myself and accepted myself, my life truly began. It was like I could take a full deep breath in a world that made me feel like I was constantly drowning. In 2008, Jenny and I started to develop a plan for coming out. I was booked out for a year and a half, so this would take careful planning and strategy. We decided we would start with telling her parents. They were the pot-smoking hippies who gave off a very solid “All are welcome” vibe, so we figured they’d be more accepting than my religious, evangelical southern baptist parents. We jumped in with both feet and told her parents everything toward the beginning of 2009. Mercy me, were we completely wrong about how they’d respond and react. Turns out, her parents were devastated and enraged. I can still hear the destructive, heartless words they shared soon after we came out to them. Not only did they wholly not accept us, they full-on rejected us. Jenny’s mom went even further to contact the head honchos at a large Christian organization for whose events I led worship. As if that wasn’t enough, she then found my dad’s office number at his law firm and called him to inform him of what I’d so desperately longed to share on my own with my family. In less than a month, thanks to Jenny’s mom’s actions, I went from being booked a year and a half out, to losing everything. No gigs. No events. I was outed and it was merciless. I was cyber bullied. CDs pulled from stores and songs pulled from various radio stations. I went from a successful dream job touring the country and parts of the world sharing music, hope, and love, to the unemployment line seemingly overnight. What does this have to do with sharing a story about what my parents did right? I’m glad you asked… The more hate that Jenny’s parents hurled our way, the more love we received from my parents. Don’t get me wrong, they absolutely struggled with the news that their only daughter who loved Jesus with all her heart was a lesbian. Despite their best efforts, they didn’t handle it well at first. However, from the first moment I saw my mom and dad after he received the call from Jenny’s mom at his office, I’ve felt nothing but God’s love. They continue to surprise me to this day by how they never fail to show up for me and my kids. When most parents would’ve cut their gay kid completely off, like Jenny’s parents ended up doing, my parents stayed with me. Though they didn’t fully affirm me, they accepted me – gay and all. They loved me the best way they knew how. One night, when I was in the depths of despair with no hope in sight, they brought me ice cream. Sounds like a small gesture, sure, but it meant everything to me. Since 2009, my parents have walked with me every step of the way. In fact, they ended up starting a ministry for Christian parents whose kids came out as LGBTQ. Thanks largely in part to my parents, there are countless kids who still have a relationship with their parents today, because these parents chose to love their kids without an agenda and without condition. As a result of my parents choosing to love me and maintain a relationship with me, they’ve suffered greatly. They’ve lost friends and family, and were forced to leave their church. I’ve done an unbelievable amount of things that hurt my parents, and we’ve had incredible difficult and painful conversations over the years. However, I respect them and they respect me. We don’t have any desire to change one another’s minds. We are able to co-exist in the beautiful mess that is life. Do I wish they fully affirmed me and my s*xuality? Of course. Do I wish they’d march with me someday for a Pride parade? You bet. They may never get to that point, and I’ve made peace with that. They are showing up where it matters. They love me unconditionally. They support me and show up for me at every turn. They fight for me, instead of fighting with me. They accept me instead of abandoning me. My mom and dad seek to understand rather than be understood. They are kind and gentle and reflect God’s heart as best they can. I think about the difference in approaches between Jenny’s parents and my own. I am so incredibly grateful my parents chose love. We have a better relationship now than we’ve ever had. Plus, my twins are almost 12 now and they are obsessed with Nana and Pop-pop. Our lives are full and I couldn’t be more grateful. My parents stood by me through my first divorce, my second marriage (yes, they attended my super gay wedding!) and most recently through my second divorce. I’m not sure I could’ve survived the last few years without them, honestly. I certainly know I couldn’t have worked on this book for 4 years and released it earlier this year without their commitment to being there for their daughter. People used to ask me why I chose Jenny over my career. I correct them immediately and explain that I chose myself over my career. I chose integrity and courage over my desire to continue down the destructive path I was on. I chose Love and integrity. I chose to show up for myself instead of continuing to live my life for others. I suppose the apple truly doesn’t fall far from the tree…
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I started writing this book in my head and heart decades ago, but didn’t put pen to paper until 2020 toward the beginning of Covid. I’ve always loved to write, but never in a million years thought I would actually be able to jump through all the hoops necessary to release a book into the world. I worked on “Not Another Self-Help Book” for 4 years from start to finish. One of those 4 years was spent enduring the grueling process of editing (6 different rounds of edits, in fact). It also didn’t help that I wrote 280,000 words and the book had to be between 60-90K words. That was one of the most challenging parts – having to cut out so much, slicing stories and good content left and right. However, once all was said and done, it made sense because the best of the best made it into the book. This whole author gig is not only new for me, it’s a side hobby. When my time isn’t occupied by my favorite role of single mom of twin tweens, my day job is the Director of Wealth Management at a boutique financial planning firm in Austin. I’m grateful to have a career that allows me to use both the left and right sides of my brain. The creative in me loves building financial plans for clients. Writing a book, composing a song, or creating a financial planning analysis out of numerous puzzle pieces, is what gets me up in the morning. I am just as passionate about the creative process as I am about the final deliverable. My goal with this book is to encourage the readers to reimagine their relationship with pain in all its forms, while also providing tools, actionable steps, and resources to look at Life with a new lens. It’s not unlike what I do with my clients. My objective is to challenge clients to look at their financial picture through a different scope, with new eyes and with a new mindset that is free from anxiety. If I can lessen a client’s anxiety about their finances and lead with education to simplify the complex financial concepts in our industry, that’s a major win all around. If I can encourage the readers who pick up my book or listen to the audio book and provide them with a renewed or completely new sense of hope, peace, and love, that’s my life’s mission. If I’m known for anything, I hope it’s this: I want to share love and light with whomever I come in contact with. To love and be loved, without condition and without an agenda. Life is hard and the pain is prevalent. Life will keep on lifin’ like it always does. I hope that my role in someone’s life (be it through the book, my music, or the work I do in the financial space) will alleviate pain or anxiety, even if in just a small way. For all my failures and flaws, I do have confidence that to know me is to know authenticity, vulnerability, resilience, and grit. I strive to be all those things every day so that I can model the behavior I hope my kids will exhibit someday.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
If I had to drill my life’s passion down to one goal or mission, it’s this: Hope. Life is too short and too painful to move through it without hope. It’s scary to have hope because that can seemingly set us up for failure. More often than not, I become aware of my fear of hope and my fear of courage. I still struggle with finding the courage to continue to choose hope and hold onto it, knowing that Life will continue to throw different challenges at me. I try to always keep this truth top of mind: Life is happening for us, not to us. If my presence in someone’s life brings only one thing, I hope it’s hope.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
For the majority of my life, I subconsciously thought my role was to deny my feelings, wants, and needs in order to ensure everyone else around me had their needs and wants met. I’ve been a recovering people pleaser for most of my life and it’s taken decades to finally realize that I can no longer set myself on fire to keep others warm. I am not responsible for anyone else other than myself. I have no control over anyone or anything except myself and how I react and respond to situations. I’m still actively unlearning various things every day. People pleasing and perfectionism are the top two. I finally reached this point of awareness after setting myself on fire one too many times to keep others warm. Within the past year, after my second – yes second divorce – I finally realized that the way I’d been approaching life and relationships was simply resulting in me becoming a pile of ashes.
Contact Info:
Image Credits
photo cred:
Jenny De La Fuente
PINK MUD PRODUCTIONS
and
Sally Lok