Devon Murphy-Davids, chief executive of Inspiring Stories at her Mt Maunganui home. Photo / Alex Cairns
Devon Murphy-Davids, chief executive of Inspiring Stories at her Mt Maunganui home. Photo / Alex Cairns
THE VIEW FROM MY WINDOW
Festival for the Future CEO Devon Murphy-Davids had a picture-perfect life — until she turned her world upside down.
When you walk through the door, there’s a neon sign that says: “Come as you are.” That’s the first step, right? To show up really truthfully,with a beautiful sense that you are exactly as you need to be.
A big bay window looks out to Mt Maunganui on one side and the garden on the other. I’ve adorned it with colours and patterns, and it’s where so many moments of love happen — hugs or just settling in with a book. My friends call it the Big Gay House, with all its sparkly brightness. It’s like I now have a home where my outsides match my insides.
I’m currently in the messy middle of change in my life after coming out nearly three years ago, burning the safe and picture-perfect life I had with my husband and best friend of 13 years, our kids and the community around us. It was the bravest, hardest and most wildly liberating thing I could ever imagine doing after keeping my sexuality deeply hidden for years.
Devon Murphy-Davids, chief executive of Inspiring Stories. Photo / Alex Cairns
My husband was the first person I told and it was met with a huge amount of compassion; a moment we can both feel proud of. My kids had already started exploring queer identities and exampled that for me. That’s the beauty in the younger generation, when we’re allowing ourselves to become the learners from them.
There’s been a lot of joy and love and expression and freedom, and there’s been a lot of pain and hardship. I’m still experiencing that, but on the other side is the absence of truth. It’s incredibly important as a woman to recognise that as hard as it is and as much as you might lose, what is so important to never lose is yourself.
Devon Murphy-Davids, chief executive of Inspiring Stories, and her “come as you are” neon sign in her hallway. Photo / Alex Cairns
When I grew up, we knew there were different expressions of gender and sexuality, but it was just conceptual. Nothing was spoken. I remember the backlash when Ellen [DeGeneres] came out. Then there was a certain point in time where the tide shifted and it was more okay for me to be Māori and it was more okay for me to be queer and it was more okay for me to be dyslexic. In my single generation, things that once held shame now hold pride.
I’m 38, so I would describe myself as the broker between two really different schools of thought: the baby boomers and all the young people born after me into a sense of discomfort and an awareness that the world is not quite right. From my grandparents’ generation to my children’s generation, the experience of living today is massively different, but the systems we function within haven’t been able to keep up with the speed.
I’ve been working with young people for 20 years now and see a world where rangatahi are in the messy middle, too, trying to carve out space for themselves while society is going through these massive growing pains. Young people are criticised for being disconnected, but actually they’re incredibly deeply connected. And it needs to be acknowledged that it’s absolutely accurate for them to feel uncomfortable and dissatisfied with the way things are, because the world isn’t working for so many people.
Festival for the Future is Aotearoa’s biggest leadership and innovation summit, a place where rangatahi can gather to wrestle with some of those really hard conversations. For example, one of the issues that’s being discussed is the future of food. Often it’s polarising — looking for who’s to blame as opposed to how we can work collectively to move forward. Another panel conversation is on mātauranga Māori, talking about indigenous wisdom and the strength we can find so often in that space.
Young people have a greater opportunity at an early age to question the truth of who they are and to have multiple options on offer. Once you liberate yourself from the socially expected default, it’s like the world opens up and you get to create your life from a space of authentic curiosity — what is true for you, not just what you’ve been trained to think.
Photo / Alex Cairns
I have found my people, a community of colour, sparkle and fullness. Queer/rainbow communities have this unparalleled way of holding the hard and heavy in one hand, and play and wonder in the other. Now, in my role as CEO, I can hold myself up truthfully as a mirror for others and they can hold up mirrors back to me.
— As told to Joanna Wane
Devon Murphy-Davids (Te Ātiawa) is CEO of Inspiring Stories, the social enterprise behind Festival for the Future, a leadership and innovation summit being held in Wellington, June 8-9. For the full programme and booking information, see festivalforthefuture.co
