Choose Your Beliefs
For many years, my automatic beliefs didn’t serve me. I believed I didn't have what it takes to make it in life, that the world was a scary place, and that others were better off with me on the sidelines. These beliefs kept me from enjoying the fullness of life and showing up as my authentic self, uniquely created for God’s kingdom purposes. With...
Dear Younger Me
I’ve shared before the scene where my dad would pin me down during an activity he called wrestling and urge me to break free. But his grip rendered me powerless to exert force against him. I would try to obey his command but eventually give up. It was an impossible and confounding task. In my coaching program, we choose a scene from our life and...
Is it Worth Getting Hurt?
I asked a friend recently, “If you are vulnerable with someone and get hurt, is it worth it? Is it possible you could be better off for being vulnerable even though the outcome wasn’t what you desired?” He responded, “No, I have been hurt enough.” My heart broke for him. I get it. It is hard to put yourself out there not knowing what...
Choose Life
The psalmist said "For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness." It is easy for me to agree with that verse intellectually, but it is not always my felt belief. I scroll social media, stare into the refrigerator, ruminate on...
Take Inspiration from Eden
I believe the greatest driver of unwanted same-sex attractions is a belief and feeling of separateness. In my life, I believed I was separate from other guys and masculinity as a whole. I was often out of touch with my power and purpose. And even while a believer, I have felt separate from God’s favor and protection. But no matter what we feel,...
Deflate Your Attractions
I once believed my unwanted same-sex attractions were bigger than me and my dreams. I’ve learned that’s not the case. It was the fear and shame I allowed myself to experience in response to them that made my attractions feel so overwhelming. I imagine it like blowing up a beach ball. If I bring my kids to the dollar store to buy a beach ball,...
Is Masculinity Beyond Your Reach?
A belief of separateness from masculinity is a primary driver of same-sex attractions. As a boy, I had an out-of-body experience during a father-son activity meant to bring connection. The “wrestling” he initiated ended in me laying on my back pinned between his legs struggling to obey his command to break free, but the force he used struck...
Expand Your Vision of What’s Possible
When I finally decided I was open to the idea of marriage and family, I wondered if it was even possible. I searched for evidence from both my past and present that might give me confidence. I found some. I also found lots of evidence to snuff out the idea. If I could give some advice to my younger self, I’d tell him to look to his future instead...
Dear Younger Me – CJ
Dear Younger Me, I wish I could be next to you right now, giving you the attention you deeply desire but haven’t received. But I want you to know that I see you. I am familiar with the long route home you walk to avoid the bullies. I can picture the sidewalk cracks and potholes and feel the emptiness of rejection. I know the feel of the...
Talk to Yourself, Don’t Listen to Yourself
When I was young, the mirror was a comfort to me. My reflection gave me certainty; it told me I was likable and competent. I was touring the architecture building at my future college. I widened my eyes at the vast, bustling space as I walked through the glass entry doors. It was cavernous and austere. Students and faculty crisscrossed the...
Dear Younger Me – Tim
Dear Timmy, I’m so grateful I get to write this letter to you. Let it remind you that things won’t always be as they are. You won’t always feel being picked last for baseball in PE is the end of your existence as you know it. You won’t always feel “different” for feeling different, because you’ll find out everyone feels different in one way or...
Rewrite the Story of Your Past
It would be naive and harmful to pretend the abuse of my childhood didn’t happen or that its effects weren’t real. It brought confusion, stunted my growth into manhood, and led me to seek validation from unhealthy sources. But it’s not the liability I told myself it was. I thought others would get infected by the trauma I had experienced. That my...
June Belonged to Me and My Dad
Before the overlay of Pride, June belonged solely to me and my dad. It contains Father’s Day, my birthday, and his. My birthday fell on Father’s Day this year. My wife was out of town but orchestrated a celebration by the kids. Helium balloons came out of hiding and eggs cracked open to mix with lemon cake batter—my favorite. I opened handmade...
Dear Younger Me – Bruce
Dear Younger Me, I want to give you an essential truth. If I had known it at your age, it would have transformed the way I lived. Please receive it and believe it. Your life will not be the same: The Father, Son, and Spirit are always good, always kind, and always loving. God will never, ever forsake you or stop loving you. Even though this was...
Rewrite Your Rules of Success
I was not the coolest kid. I can prove it. True story: I was on the brink of starting high school after our family moved to the city. I stepped into a church van with guys from my new youth group, prepped to blend in. Twenty minutes in, we were belting out the lyrics to Rascal Flat's Life is a Highway, our hands turning imaginary steering wheels...
Make Your Purpose a Must
Lewis Howes, author and host of The School of Greatness podcast, said “The greatest crime we can commit is going to bed without a dream and getting up without a purpose.” WHAT PURPOSE ARE YOU LIVING FROM? If you asked me three years ago what my purpose was, I would say to know God and make Him known, love my wife unconditionally, and instill a...
Dear Younger Me – Ken G
Dear Younger Me, I was asked to write a letter to you, Kenny, and I hope you will hear and receive my words. Kenny, I look back and see how lonely and afraid you were during most of your childhood. Both of your parents worked outside the home, leaving your grandmother or older sister to babysit you. Your sister resented it. You often felt...
Own Your Identity
What you say after the words “I am” is the most important thing about you. A FRAGILE SHELL My mom has been teaching my daughters how to decorate blown eggs. They put scotch tape over each end, push a pin through it, and blow out the insides with a straw prior to painting. With each step, and forever after, there is a good chance the shell...
Discard Shame
Two years ago, God gave me a picture of the ground beneath me as thick mud. Just a couple inches. Sometimes saturated with water, sucking at my shoes and making that awful slurping sound when lifting them up. Other times it was dry and went unnoticed. It represented a general sense of shame that remained despite years of inner healing work from...
Fear Magnifies Your Same-Sex Attractions
Fear makes things bigger. It’s the shadow of a bedside toy looming as a monster on the wall. It grows with time, exaggerates risk, fosters isolation, and veils your dreams. Left unchecked, it keeps you stuck. It has for me. FEAR COSTS US Sitting at my drafting table freshman year of architecture school, I stared at a blank sheet of...
Demystify Your Attractions
Attraction is multifaceted. It comes in all shapes and sizes. By identifying the attractions we feel, we remind ourselves they are simply experiences. They do not define who we are. We can appreciate their messages and leverage them to grow. During a recent workout, I sat up from the bench press and noticed a guy pass by in a sleeveless...
My Story
I don’t have what it takes to be a man. That’s what I told myself. I have a vivid memory of my dad and me wrestling. He called it wrestling. I know now it was physical abuse. He would pin me down and tell me to break free. But with the same effort I used to push against him, he pressed equally as much and more. He continued urging me to...
Choose Your Frequency
Have negative thoughts snowballed on you? The more attention and influence I give them, the louder and more frequent they become. I get tuned in to them. Here is an analogy I bring to mind when I get into a negative cycle. Picturing myself building the antennas I’ll describe motivates me to make better choices. Imagine you are given two...
Embrace Pursuit to Live Fully Alive
I want to live full out. That has been my desire and God’s design but often not my experience. When I honor and learn from both my healthy and unhealthy pursuits, I open myself up to experience more of the purpose-filled life God intended for me as His unique creation. Playing Small Looking back on my life, I can see Satan was trying to keep me...
Leverage Your Same-Sex Attraction for Personal Growth
When I discovered my same-sex attraction, I believed it was the nail in the coffin to achieving the masculinity I had dedicated time to study and model. SSA was a big “F” on my manliness report card. Removing it from my life was on my to-do list for being accepted and valued. I focused on my attractions from a place of lack, fear, and shame. The...
How to Redirect Desire by Owning Your Emotions
In my last blog post, I described a day in which I first felt intense physical desire toward another man. My mind and body felt certain that acting on those desires would provide relief from my uncomfortable emotions of fear, self-doubt, and anxiety. I didn’t have the tools needed to hold those feelings lightly and examine them, nor had I...
Harness Mindfulness to Neutralize Same-Sex Attraction
For many years, I was on the defensive against my same-sex attractions and strong emotions. My desire to deny and avoid them kept me from being mindful of my thoughts and feelings surrounding them. I was blocking myself from two powerful tools that diminish their intensity: 1. Increase your awareness of what is running through your head and your...
Why Your Same-Sex Attractions are Not a Problem
Problems standing in the way of achieving a goal need a solution. Your same-sex attractions, on the other hand, don’t need to be solved. They are just experiences you are having that can be observed and acknowledged, but don’t need to be acted on, circumvented, or taken apart. It is easy for same-sex attractions to FEEL like a problem, because...