Think Queerly

I used to think that self-sabotage made sense until I learned how to see it differently through neuroscience.  There is no such thing as self-sabotage. The way we have used language to come up with such a term is a shameful way to critique and judge yourself! But if self-sabotage isn’t a real thing, then why did we come up with the term? What’s the reason for not doing what you know you need to do...

Instead, we only need to look at nature and the natural order of things to be reminded of how the world works. By the fact that we are part of the world — that we are the *stuff* of this world — so too will our delusions of power and control be washed away — whether that be in the form of social evolution or annihilation. Read the post, The Way of No Contention: One of the 6 Principles of Human-He...

In this episode, I share an early draft introduction to my, “Six Principles of Human-Hearted Leadership.” I share why these principles are based in the Tao Te Ching, what that 2,500-year-old text can tell us about personal responsibility — not just for ourselves but also for all lives on this planet, and the role of the ego versus nature. Lastly, I share my plan to teach the core concepts of the T...

Perhaps the question we need to ask instead is, “What is gender?”, followed by, “What are ways to describe gender?” Notice I didn’t say, “How can we describe gender?” The difference between ‘what’ and ‘how’ is subtle but an important thought exercise in the understanding of gender as an idea or a concept, and less as a label or a container, in which we might try to drop people into. The later is w...

43 years ago today, on August 1, 1977, I was 11-years old. It's a significant moment in Toronto queer history and it was most certainly formative of early queer identity, albeit not in a positive way at the time.  Looking back, this incident may have been the root-cause of what made me intent on making a difference in the world, especially for other queer people. Read the article on DarrenStehle....

Over the weekend I wasn’t feeling well, worn out from the heat and humidity, and stuck in my head feeling somewhat depressed. I decided to lay low and take it easy and binged on Netflix. I was feeling a lot of stress and worry about how to make progress on some projects I’m working on when I'm feeling so scattered and unfocused all the time. I knew what the problem was. I just hadn't figured out h...

It often feels like everyone is speaking at a level that is loud and not in a form we would call dialogue. On social media, in the news, in person we see shouting, personal attacks, and arguing to prove one’s point and seeking to be the winner of the argument. That is a deafening alarm that makes many of us want to pull back and become silent, not to pull out of the discussion, but to bear witness...

Happy Anniversary Think Queerly! Two years ago on June 20, 2018, I launched my first podcast. It was called, The Living OUT Podcast, a tongue-in-cheek reference to coming out and being proud to be authentically out.  My focus in early episodes was the gay male experience, the uniqueness and creativity that gay men bring to the world, as well as my go-to core subject, personal development.. Concurr...

A Think Queerly Podcast Discussion with Shawn Banks Last week I published a post on my Medium publication by Shawn Banks titled, " Why White Gay Men Have Ruined LGBTQ+ Pride Month For Me ." My involvement in the comments raised a number of questions in me, so I asked Shawn if he would come on the podcast and have a conversation.  We discussed the reasons that prompted him to write the article. He...

Think Queerly Discussion with Olivia Nuamah & Jeffrey Iovannone Pride will always be political so long as it continues to exist. Pride, as a celebration, because it is celebrated, is a priori political because of its origins. Even to those to whom Pride only seems a big party, the nature and existence of Pride is dependent upon its foundations as a political movement. There are multiple intersecti...

In this special edition of the Think Queerly Podcast, I speak with my friend and colleague, Shaun Proulx about the issue of shaming and judgment of those who are choosing (and needing) to have sex during the COVID-19 pandemic and social quarantine. Haven’t We Been Here Before? In this episode Shaun and I get right into the various contrasts we are witnessing in human behaviour during the COVID-19...

Human Liberation, Planetary Respect, and the Dissolution of Power Inequality In this episode I discuss: How those of us at the bottom of the pyramid can create social and humanitarian evolution; Why despair holds us back from making meaningful change; Is sharing a meme on social media to support a trending hashtag helpful; My thoughts on #BlackOutTuesday, and; Why the time is NOW to do whatever it...

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 t...

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? What we see as perfection is witnessed in the natural order of things, not in what we think or do. 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 b...

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...

COVID-19 reveals how some things change while others become more apparent 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,...

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...

Diversity is a gift of uniqueness and creativity 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 th...

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...

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...

A Think Queerly Leadership Interview In this episode I speak with Matt about, 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...

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 th...

Your feelings, thoughts, words, and actions all lead to the alignment of what’s important to you. Each one of those steps informs the next. If you feel fear and panic, you then think negatively, and choose words like “terrifying” and take an action that is in alignment with that “process.” How we manifest our feelings into the world through action is a reflection of who we are. So, if we are afrai...

The lesson we can bear witness to as this pandemic evolves is that we are all in this world together now. We have to work together as a community, fostering connections and care around the world. This pandemic may be the crisis we need to positively affect climate change, social evolution, income equality, healthcare equality, and human rights. Read the full article on Medium: A Novel Pandemic - H...

We cannot control the actions of others. Instead, personal responsibility is the awareness, recognition, and acceptance of owning the problem. Only you can make your own life-defining choices to live authentically, to live truthfully, and to make a difference in the world. But that can only happen when you accept everything that has ever happened to you as, ‘what is’ and nothing more. Read the ful...