Think Queerly

In today's episode, I discuss the present and observable factors that explain why we respond or react to the stresses, threats, and challenges that this pandemic has brought into our lives:

• How “hedonic tone” affects (and controls) how we feel which affects our nervous system;
• The role of the amygdala (the “reptilian” brain) and how it uses our various senses to read the environment to establish the level of threat or safety to us;
• Why the effects of COVID-19 on society make it challenging to create prediction and response, and thus a feeling of safety and security (low hedonic tone);
• Why we are hard-wired for negativity as a survival mechanism;
• Why there is no such thing as a negative mood or mindset;
• Why good news and good feelings are short-lived and seem to do little to reduce “negativity,” and;
• How we can witness the world to more easily understand and create strategies to “accept things as they are.”

Click here to watch the video.

I have created a short course called, “What’s Out of Your Control, Right Now?” to guide you through the process of understanding the two main aspects of control, i.e. what’s out of your control, and one’s reaction to what’s out of your control. By the end of this course, you will know what you are able to control, which will help you with your peace of mind and being better able to calmly respond instead of reacting.

“What’s Out of Your Control, Right Now?” is exclusively available to Think Queerly VIQ Members.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As we bear witness to this virus and its affect on us, how can we see things differently by embracing natural phenomena for the simplicity of what it is?

Perfection is a natural unfolding; the flow of life on this planet and thus even the Novel Coronavirus is a part of that unfolding or coming into being, regardless of the apparent conditions which may have helped the Novel Coronavirus come into being.

Listen to today’s episode for my thoughts about what this natural perfection tell us about who we are.

"An Invitation to Experience Things As They Are in the Midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic."

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you are a creative, an entrepreneur, someone who works in the gig-economy, or a business owner, you wear many hats and do a variety of tasks in your work. 

If you're pulled in several directions but you need to show up in those various areas of business, the only way you can establish and keep boundaries is to make them public. You will need to tell the people you work with or service when you are available; the same goes for keeping true to your personal commitments. This goes entirely against the current Zeitgeist of immediate customer response and satisfaction.

Ask yourself,

"What do I need to let go of and stop doing to spend more time working on what’s most important to me?"

We all have too much to do, too many tasks, expectations, distractions, and so on. If you want to live the life of your dreams, why not spend a little time figuring out what's distracting you; what's at least one thing you can let go of, so that you can spend more time doing what you love, or more time working on what you want to create, sooner than later!

Read the post here: "4 Questions to Determine What You Need to Let Go Of."

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The biggest challenge lately has been what some are calling, moral fatigue, which is our experience of having to make one too many morally challenging decisions. This is showing up during the pandemic as the personal responsibility and respect we have for front-line workers, paying attention to adequate physical distancing, making sure that we minimize how often we go out to all the places we used to go to without a second thought, and so on.

But in this challenging time of uncertainty with the COVID-19 pandemic — including having to stay at home, physical distancing protocols, economic instability, and existential worry — what can you do to improve your state of mind when you feel like you have no control, or when you feel stressed out with uncertainty? How can you shift your focus to a better future vision, one that you want to create for yourself, and one that you can imagine happening?

I have created two coaching exercise episodes that can specifically help with overwhelm. The first is, “What’s Out of Your Control, Right Now?” and the second, “4 Questions to Determine What You Need to Let Go Of.” Both episodes are available exclusively to Think Queerly VIQ Members.

• Who Do You Want to Be During the COVID-19 Pandemic?
• If Ever There Were a Time to Tell The Truth…
• Timeless Wisdom in a Pandemic: Give Up the Need for Control
• A Novel Pandemic — How a Virus Could Unite Humity

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a powerful thought experiment prompt that could reveal far more about who you are, now during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown than at any other time.

“If ever there were a time to tell the truth, what do I need to say? Who do I need to say it to? Why have I avoided speaking this truth for so long?”

You might not find this a difficult or challenging question. This could also be the sort of question that makes you feel immediately uncomfortable. You might get angry or feel depressed as you thinking deeply about your answer. There are many good and valid reasons for why we hold back and protect our deepest truths. Revealing our secrets or fears to others requires emotional vulnerability, personal responsibility, and courage.

----

Read the complete post on Th-Ink Queerly.

----

Download my free book: Think Queerly – Meditations & Critical Reflections On Liberating Humanity.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When did you realize that you had to forgive yourself first, before anyone else, for your “gay shame”?

Gay shame is a term used (and possibly coined) by Alan Downs, author of The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing up Gay in a Straight Man’s World . Downs worked as a therapist for gay men, many of whom experienced a lack of validation for their identity during adolescence. 

When you grow up in the closet, the world around you (in the form of parents, family, friends, news, entertainment, politics, and religion) reinforces a status quo in which you might not see yourself represented. As an adult, this can show up as challenging and negative behaviours, unless the shame is understood and dealt with.

In this episode, I suggest that the term “gay shame” can be used more broadly for any queer person who experienced growing up in the closet and felt like they were not represented or accepted in the world around them.

Once we fully come out into our own sense of self and self-acceptance as a queer person, we can frame the experience of gay shame as a formative and foundational experience in out lives — one that literally gives us the superpower to see the dark truths of social norms and ideologies.

When we do the work to overcome internalized shame, we increase our capacity to feel empathy — one of the greatest forms of influence and the capacity to step into another person’s experience without judgement. The generosity of empathy is possibly the most human path towards connecting with another human being and changing their hearts and minds.

• Is Forgiveness of Homophobia a Gay Male Gift? LOP030
• Vulnerability: How Gay Men Teach the Cleansing of Shame – LOP080
• From Sissy Boys to Straight-Acting Gay Men
• The Secret that Lives in the Closet

---

If you want to experience more of the best of who you already are to freely create a life you love, go to: https://darrenstehle.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this Think Queerly Podcast Leadership Discussion, I speak with Jeffry Iovannone and David Butler about having lived through the origins of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, political and social observations, human behaviour, social media, community response, ACT-UP and activism, and how we can contrast this knowledge with what we are currently experiencing in real-time with COVID-19.

Historians have long argued that infectious diseases have changed the course of humanity throughout history.

“HIV, a pandemic that is still with us and still lacks a vaccine, has killed an estimated 32 million people and infected 75 million, with more added every day” (Bryan Walsh; BBC).

While HIV and COVID-19 are both considered pandemics (a disease epidemic that spreads worldwide) they are dramatically different for many critical reasons that we discuss, including:

• How did AIDS change humanity?
• While there are aspects of the current pandemic that are beyond our control, in what ways might this situation provide us with the opportunity to reshape humanity for the better?
• Instead of just critiquing our current system, what kind of a world would we like to live in, and what can we do to get there?
• What lessons from the HIV/AIDS epidemic are most applicable to this moment in terms of not only surviving the current crisis but working towards a better world?
• How do we come together to create change when the current pandemic necessitates us to remain physically apart?

David Butler is an eclectic artist, actor and designer living in Buffalo, NY. After thirty years as a traditional theatre actor and set designer, Butler has now transitioned to work in the motion picture industry. As Production Designer, a number of his films are available on Amazon and Netflix including After the Sun Fell, Cold Book, the lesbian thanksgiving coming-out comedy Lez Bomb, and the recently released teen thriller, Dead Sound.

Butler has been an active member of his LGBTQ Community since his early days in Act UP in the late 1980s and he currently shares facilitation of his home town LGBTQ Facebook page. Later this week they plan to announce the group’s first mini, virtual, pride fest called “PRIDE INSIDE!” Follow Dave on Twitter and Instagram.

Jeffry J. Iovannone is an activist-scholar, writer, educator, and researcher from Buffalo, New York who holds a Ph.D. in American Studies and specializes in gender and LGBTQ studies. He is the creator of the blog Queer History for the People, a columnist for Th-Ink Queerly, and a member of the Buffalo-Niagara LGBTQ History Project. Follow Jeffry on Twitter.

----

Download my free book: Think Queerly – Meditations & Critical Reflections On Liberating Humanity.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, I offer a mediation on Verse 29 of The Tao Te Ching in light of the COVID-19 Pandemic and how it is teaching us how little control we have of the world.

We have an opportunity to respond to this pandemic in a way that will improve society and change our behaviours and actions in our attempts to control the world and other people. This is a tipping point for humanity ,  a time for witnessing the harm we have caused the planet and other human beings with aggressive capitalism, unsustainable production, gender and sexual inequality, human rights violations and a lack of human dignity.

Read the complete post here: Timeless Wisdom in a Pandemic: Give Up the Need for Control.

----

Download my free book: Think Queerly – Meditations & Critical Reflections On Liberating Humanity.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

• How trying to win the approval of his father made him seek out religion.
• Why this in part led him to become involved with conversion therapy.
• The years he spent in a private Facebook group (from about 18 to 23 years old) speaking with about 300 other men who classified as having “unwanted same-sex attractions,” how toxic that environment was with mental health issues and shaming, and how and why he was unable to leave.
• His experience when he attended a so-called “life-changing” conversion therapy camp weekend (Brother’s Road: Journey into Manhood — the subject of the Vice documentary video, below) in the US when he was 23.
• Why he remained connected with the weekend group for about 18 months, even though he no longer believed in the teachings or process.
• Matt’s involvement with “No Conversion Canada” and his media scrum on Parliament Hill when the Canadian government’s tabled the first reading of Bill C-8 to ban conversion therapy in Canada.
• And, what to do if you want to leave a conversion therapy program, or if you know someone you care about who needs help.

Read the complete post with additional details, resources, the videos of Matt speaking at Parliament Hill and the Vice documentary, “Living Through Gay Conversion Therapy” on my LGBTQ publication, Th-Ink Queerly on Medium:

------

Join the discussion in my Facebook group.

Download my free book: Think Queerly – Meditations & Critical Reflections On Liberating Humanity.

Support The Way of Queer Leadership.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are all trying to do and be our best, respect physical distancing, staying at home, and keeping ourselves and those we love safe from infection. But what happens when we read too much news, or get caught up in the herd mentality of feeling panicked that we need to go buy 10 kilos of flour or 90 rolls of toilet paper?

We are experiencing a worldwide disruption and we don’t know what to do. In these moments of uncertainty, we cannot predict what will happen next. This is what causes worry, upset, panic, anger.

From a neuroscience perspective, we are seeking connection with others but we have been told to practice social distancing (which needs to be changed to physical distancing) and self-isolation; to stay home. As humans we need connection and when that need isn’t being met, we get pretty feral; the animal takes over and we “go out of our minds.”

So when you ask, "Who do I want to be during this pandemic?" you are, in a sense, reverse engineering. You are setting up who you want to be, probably based on a past version of your best self. What are you seeking is prediction and response so that you can manage being your best self.

This is great because then you can go out with that sense of who you are, move to the side by two metres when you pass someone on the street, stand in line with the same distance from the person in front of you, only buy two of the same thing. After all, you desire to "be the kind of person who respects others."

There is no right or wrong here, just something engaging to think about so that we can be compassionate towards ourselves, which allows us to be compassionate towards others.

------

Download my free book: Think Queerly – Meditations & Critical Reflections On Liberating Humanity.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.