Evolving Perfection
Evolving perfection is when; by being fully present, authentic, interactive, and open to evolving, we are in the becoming process. Becoming more authentic, more of who you are and came here to be and embracing change and growth. Therefore, by being perfectly ourselves in that moment, and then willing to become our next best selves, that we are perfection in motion. It’s when we stop the motion, stop the becoming, get stuck in the inauthentic version of ourselves – needing to be right, normal, liked or loved, or any number of other things, that we step out of the flow of evolving perfection.
I start here to share a series of evolving perfection moments that have led me to my latest evolving self, as a person, as a business, and even as a brand.
The freedom of being my perfect self naturally, slowly slipped away through a series of events, as often is the case, in my childhood. First was the recognition at the age of four, by my grandmother, of having a gift from God (my psychic abilities). She said some would say it was bad or wrong. Others wouldn’t believe me but as long as I remembered it was a gift from God, it would be okay. As great and positive as it sounded, and was in many ways, I started editing what I said to who and lost some of the ability to just be me. At the same time, I suffered abuse, in pretty much every way imaginable. I lost another piece of just being me. When I was silenced about what was happening by threats of hurting the people I love and that it would be my fault, if I did tell, another piece of my true and fully present self, learned to hide. I learned how to separate from my body when bad things were happening to it.
When the school system didn’t understand, what today would be labeled as ADD/ADHD, they tried to convince my parents that I was “mentally retarded” and to put me in a slow class, but my father wouldn’t and fought for me, again it made me hide another piece of my authentic self.
But still, I fought to lose as little of me as I could. When the abuser and the abuse changed, I fought when I could, hid when I could, left my body when I could, and when it became too much, many times over a number of years I tried to kill myself. All the while, becoming some version of myself that I hoped could find connection. By early adulthood, so few pieces of me remained in the forefront. I would become several Kevins – each of which had a core of validity.
I could be a professional psychic at 16. I could work at a bank and start the beginning of a business career from 15-20. I could do theater, be a dancer, graduate high school early, start college, do some modeling, and very actively figure out my sexual identity (ages 14-27). I could be a poet with my first award at 18 or try writing plays and books. But each Kevin had separate friends and ways of being and interacting in the world. When I tried to have people cross into too many different facets of my multiple lives – people said I was too much, I was too intense. I could talk business to some, and astrology, tarot, and metaphysics to others. My little empathic healer self could nurture, and caretake, my angry wounded self could crucify, my romantic self could love deeply and co-dependently, and my sexually abused self could look for love, in all the wrong places. I didn’t have multiple personality disorder, I was not mentally ill, I was simply in survival mode, trying to keep as many pieces of myself alive as possible. Metered out in small enough ways, that didn’t get me rejected. And even then, I would hear that I made people tired just listening as I shared what I was doing.
The list of experiences continued throughout the decades, the messages delivered by different people and groups, for different reasons and from different perspectives, that I need to be less, less, less when my driving force within me said be more, more, more. From bosses and friends to families and lovers, couldn’t I be just a little less me? Over time that message drove me to figure out ways to be authentically me, but not fully me. This Kevin was an authentic part of me in these roles and with these people and that Kevin was an authentic part of me with those people in those roles. If I forgot and tried to share too much of all the things going on in my head then I was either exaggerating or even outright lying, because I couldn’t be doing or have done what I said. As I launched my business and got to the point of business partners and employees, they would get bigger glimpses of me but even then, lanes were assigned for which part of me worked with them, with a notable few exceptions, who couldn’t necessarily keep up but could cheer me on.
When the world of ADD-ADHD kidnapped me (before I realized I had it) my world tilted on its axis. I felt for these kids and adults in a way I couldn’t begin to understand but it was quick, deep, and profound. I saw them as no one else did at the time, as not a problem, not disabled, but gifted and evolutionary. This pushed me to change the focus of my doctoral work and thesis to prove indeed this was part of an evolutionary process broadening the bandwidth of humanity, not a disability but a diff-ability. I got my doctorate and pushed to save these kids from a world that wanted to make them laboratory rats and cash cows. Dr. Kevin was born to be that face.
The year was 2000, I branded Dr. Kevin through social media, websites, lectures, workshops, and TV interviews. I felt the full onslaught of institutions and corporations who attacked me regularly. They needed them to keep these children disabled, to push a narrative that got them extra funding, or keep their drugs selling. They attacked not what I said but my right to say it and the validity of my source of information. My doctorate which is in Divinity didn’t count. Because I used my medical intuitive skills to get initial insights, then I built on this in my real-life practice of helping children and adults. I would constantly hear from the people I worked with that I explained what was going on in a way that made sense, that it came with unique solutions, and that worked. I would hear that I got them and helped them get themselves. I worked on causes not symptoms.
The battle got ugly and six years after working with ADD-ADHD, I finally realized that I was ADD. So many pieces fell into place. I spent thousands of dollars hiring people “with the right credentials and background” to study and point out how the research that was being presented about the how and why of the disability was flawed and cherry-picked. As more pharmaceutical dollars poured into organizations that were there to support ADD-ADHD, the more flawed studies used against this idea of it being a gift, the more benefits schools got, who initially would have me come in and speak, the more blacklisted I was becoming. Finally, I stopped the crusade. I never stopped working with children or adults who had heard me or read my books and wanted to embrace their gifts instead of managing their disability, and still do, but I stopped the battles I could not win. Oftentimes, the people who needed me most couldn’t afford to work with me, they could get help and insurance coverage for their medicated disabled child, but bupkis for trying to work with supporting the child to better understand what they need and advocate for it. I would often say to the kids I worked with “I am going to teach you, how to teach you because they don’t know how.”
My ADD kicked in and I had run out of energy saying the same thing over and over that people in power and with influence didn’t want to hear. The crusade part of my journey was over, and I shifted to working with adults, business owners, and couples where one or both partners had the gift (and the curses that came with it). But the face of Dr. Kevin and MyDrKevin continued on websites, social media platforms, and elsewhere. And has continued to live and grow there for what is now 23 years.
But, along the way, I started engaging in what, my marketing strategist says, was a potentially lethal disease of brand fragmentation. I put energies back into Web of Light – my original website, from the 1990s, when I began the journey of weaving a web of light in the world, to pick up the pieces of me and my professional offerings that didn’t fit into Dr. Kevin. I pushed out Synergy Business Consulting, which didn’t have a home at either Dr. Kevin or Web of Light. Then there were still floating pieces of who I am, what I offer, and what I can do. Talking with Lisa, my marketing strategist, and sharing this one thing kept bringing something to the forefront.
Even as a small child I always used my whole name Kevin Ross Emery. That Ross was the maiden name of the grandmother I spoke of earlier. That I always insisted on writing my whole name out. I wasn’t Kevin Emery – I was Kevin Ross Emery. Even as an adult, if the place I worked gave me a nameplate, or stamp with my initials and it wasn’t my whole name or KRE, I would send it back and make them do another one. By my thirties, hyphenated names became more common, and people would try to hyphenate Ross Emery to Ross-Emery or call me Mr. (or later) Dr. Ross, another reason why I branded Dr. Kevin (and MyDrKevin). Pieces fell together in that conversation. With Lisa’s input and support, I realized that, moving forward, Kevin Ross Emery needed to be my brand and my face to the world. That Dr. Kevin will always be Dr. Kevin – the ADD-ADHD posterchild to some people. Others might always associate me with Kevin – The Psychic Sledgehammer, or Kevin Ross Emery the synergistic catalyst, or Dr. Kevin, relationship coach, counselor, and catalyst.
Moving forward, I see all those various aspects (and more) of what I do and who I am being like the bright, multicolored canopy sections of a very large umbrella. Where the sections all come together into Kevin Ross Emery. All the pieces, out and proud. My use of the designation catalyst seemed to be consistent; Spiritual Catalyst, ADD/HD Catalyst, Business Catalyst, and Relationship Catalyst. An aspect of catalyst work is always to inspire. To inspire people to become their best selves, inspire relationships to grow, inspire businesses to actualize their potential, and certainly, inspire ADD/HD individuals to recognize, own, embrace, and utilize their gifts, making their world and the world a better place. This umbrella is the fully authentic – woo-woo psychic, practical and pragmatic entrepreneur, catalyst, author, poet, healer, passionate instigator, dynamic problem solver, teacher, and more – and shall be known as Kevin Ross Emery, Inspirational Catalyst. For those of you who have shared this journey – thank you, for those who are called to be part of this journey…what are you waiting for?
