Introducing Cody

The terrifying and liberating blessing of changing a name

Photo by Jade Forrest Marks

Hello and a blessed Monday to all of you. After years of using it as a nickname I have officially changed my name to Cody and started using my last name Cook-Parrott. This is the last email you’ll receive with my old name in the “from” line, which for almost thirty six years served me well and built me a life of magic, success, abundance, grace, and connection.

One helpful action item is I can’t change my Instagram username and would like to. If you work there or have a direct contact there I’d love to be in touch.

You have heard little hints of Cody in this newsletter and on social media the last few years, as its been the name that some of my dearest friends call me and the name my parents had picked out for me if “I was a boy”. Spoiler alert I am boy, and a girlie, and whatever I want to be as each hour passes.

Years ago I was on a hike in Lake Tahoe and Jade asked what my name would be if I could pick a new one and Cody flew out of my mouth. In that moment, on the hot trail, I knew I was Cody. It was like lightening struck and I couldn’t believe it. It took me a minute to realize where I’d gotten it from, it felt so ancient in the way it came through and out of me.

I had a chaotic but predictable entrance into this world as someone with five planets in Gemini. Born during a Mercury Retrograde, upside down, backwards, folded in half, with my legs splayed open. I was Cody then and I am Cody now.

What I want to share about today is how scary this has been and continues to be, privately and professionally. I feel nervous to confuse all the old timers at my twelve step meetings, I felt afraid to disappoint my parents, I felt afraid it was just a phase, afraid of having to correct people. The fact that tens of thousands of my books live in people’s homes with a different name on the front cover makes me feel like this must be the dumbest choice I could ever make for my career. How do I change my SEO and google searching, will anyone ever sign up for one of my classes again, will my newsletter plummet because people have no idea who Cody is?

I let these questions stop me for the last two years and let me tell you friends, two years is a long time to feel like you’re dying inside every time someone says your first name out loud.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

―Anais Nin

I would say I normally pride myself in being a swift mover, ready to pivot when something strikes me. This process has been nothing like that, wildly uncomfortable, filled with grief and confusion. It has also been filled with boundless gender euphoria, signs that lead me to knowing it was time to change, and a to do list of what to tackle professionally and personally. I’ll walk us through the seasons of Cody’s great return and what I am doing to make it go as smooth as possible.

I want to start by thanking my friends who never called me anything but Cody after the first time I mentioned it. This helped me to hear it and to feel into it and to know it was what made me the happiest and what I preferred. It reminds me of when I first started using she/they pronouns. Whenever someone would use they it felt so good in my body, and slowly she started to feel worse and worse and that helped me to know my pronouns were they/them. I thought that by mostly going by Mar I would be able to feel better, and in many ways I did. But it never felt all the way correct.

The somatic experience of shifts in gender has been a guiding light for me.

Last month I walked into my friend Hannah’s mom Beth’s house (who knew me as my old name) and she said Hey Cody! I said - oh I forgot you call me Cody, with a big smile on my face. And she said - Well isn’t that your name? It’s the interactions like this that made my nervous system feel so at home, like Cody was my home and certain people could see and feel into that. Thank you to Hannah, Bobby, Laur, Lukaza, Tamara, Robyn, and so many others who never wavered. I have some grief today over a lost friendship with the first person who ever saw me fully as Cody. No friendship has ever given me so much clarity on my gender, being a guy, being that name, and being myself. The layers of grief are strange and many.

Text from my Mom

I’d like to name how lucky I am to have parents who completely accept me and love me for who I am. Who have gone through their own discomfort and confusion with using they/them pronouns for me and now this name change. They have always fully loved everyone I have ever loved, every version of myself I have become, and I know not every kid outside the binary gets to experience that.

I’d also like to name my brother Sam who is my greatest ally especially when it comes to family and friends. Sam corrects people before I can and we have found gender affirming language that feels good. I am his brother, but also his sissy.

Talking with family is so scary and so clunky and I find that when we don’t transition within the binary system it can actually be more confusing. This still feels hard and might be for awhile. As with everything I know we can’t wait for it to not feel hard to give it a try.

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I got to grad school last Wednesday and had been texting a friend how nervous I was to go to the cafeteria alone for the first time. Arrival anxiety in my chest I went anyways and sat next to my new classmate Nikole. We were talking about our names and when my old name came out of my mouth it just felt so weird and wrong.

I had a dream a few months ago that when I got to grad school it would be a perfect time to change my name because no one would know who MG was and I could just start fresh. The fear of dramatic professional downfall prevented me and there I sat. I told Nikole that a nickname I have is Cody and some of my friends call me that and she looked at me in this way that I now know only she could have and said - Would you like me to call you Cody? I’d like to call you Cody. I felt hot in the face and nervous like ok well if I let Nikole call me Cody I should probably not confuse everyone else too. I said yes.

All night the ghosts of Goddard College kept me awake as my dresser rattled and strange sounds and spirits filled the room. I tossed and turned and woke up and knew. I am Cody, it’s time.

I got out my pen and paper and started flying through my to do list. Thank you to

luca j. davis

who coached me through my website and digital changes related to my new name. I was reminded how many trans and non binary kin and ancestors have done this before me, I am not the only one.

It didn’t matter how uncomfortable it was, how much I am still worried that when people listen to Common Shapes they will be like who the hell is this person? That I will never be searchable again.

Perhaps not being searchable is part of the new me.

HOW TO SUPPORT THIS NAME CHANGE 101

☁️ If you are my real life friend - change my name in your phone and text me. It feels so good to be connecting with friends right now, affirmed, and know they got the message. It all feels a little lonely still!

☁️ If you are a reader, a student, a peer - please correct people gently when they use my old name and let them know what I go by now. Share this newsletter! Note new contact info and website URLS (former ones will forward)

info@codycookparrott.com
www.codycookparrott.com
codycookparrott.substack.com

☁️ If you comment anywhere or are referring to my old name it feels better to see MG or if you really need to write it out M@rlee Gr@ce :) It of course makes sense to say it out loud if you’re explaining to someone else that it’s different - but seeing or hearing it as little as possible is what feels best

I made a grid post on Instagram to share about my new name, which you can share, even though I said I would be logged out forever. This feels important to have it named in that space, even if my username is stuck in the vortex. A mini retirement from forever to speak a new truth, only to log out again.

I am choosing to trust, I am choosing faith as an action. I can’t feel it in my body the way I usually do. Some sort of rushing tingle of hope where I can tell that god has my back and no matter what I do I will be held. It isn’t coming naturally to me in this moment. But I do know that some days and with some things it is a choice. To turn my life over. Today I hand my life to the mystery and say listen - I am filled with fear but I am also filled with a deep knowing that you haven’t let me down yet.

Three cheers for Cody, and many blessings to you all.

⌇⋰ Website

⌇⋰ Email : info@codycookparrott.com

⌇⋰ PO Box 252 Cedar, MI 49621