| The balance between love and
fear in the human psyche varies from person to person, and few
come close to exercising either extreme (according to the Bible
Jesus demonstrated that a state of pure love can be achieved,
while it can be said that Hitler was the embodiment of pure
evil.)
Science is now widely acknowledging and researching
the presence of the seven metaphysical energy centers that
span the length of the body (chakras), each aligned to aspects
of emotional growth. The fourth - "heart" - energy
center, green in color, is located in the mid-chest region
and is the conduit through which "universal love"
(positive energy) is said to flow when open, filling the mind
with a profound sense of peace, wellbeing, interconnectedness
and a passion for living that makes life flow smoothly and
with minimal effort.
When the heart center closes the flow is restricted
and stress, lethargy and a sense of disconnection set in as
fear returns to fill the void. Life feels empty and complicated,
and everything seems to require much more effort for less
return. In turn, your behavior becomes fear-based as you seek
to recharge your power externally by attempting to control,
manipulate and/or belittle others.
People driven by an extreme craving for external
power, consciously or otherwise, manipulate themselves into
positions in which they have direct control over the lives
of others, be it at home, work or play. Power acquired externally
is false power (negative energy).
As one of the most maligned minorities in any
society, gay men are accustomed to living with fear. In the
eighties AIDS arrived and indiscriminately infected thousands
of unwitting gay men, shrouding our world in darkness and
seriously impeding the progress of gay rights. We strove to
overcome the stigma of AIDS and the barriers it created between
us and mainstream society, and, for the most part, we succeeded.
But now, another "plague" has emerged
to strike us down. This time around common knowledge of the
dire consequences of crystal meth - one of the most blatant
forms of mass disempowerment ever invented - has not prevented
tens of thousands of gay men voluntarily succumbing to it.
Crystal disempowers the user by seducing him
with an overload of the chemical dopamine, which connects
his mind to a euphoric wave of energy (love), well-being and
confidence that temporarily liberates him from his fears.
Crystal appears to be his salvation and tricks his mind into
thinking he can control her but then cynically proceeds to
decimate his internal power supply, leaving a vacuum that
can only be filled by an equivalent overload of fear, and
a mind infinitely more tortured than the one he sought to
escape.
So why have so many of us become willing participants
in Tina's web of fear and disempowerment? To find the answers,
we need to understand why we have allowed fear to play such
a prominent but debilitating role in our lives…
Psychology recognizes that each person is born
with an innate desire to love and be loved, unconditionally.
Let's go back to 1982. Soon to be born 'John' will not come
into the world with any preconceived or deeply held views
about life, or which football team or religion (if any) he
will follow. In the womb he is at peace and one with everything;
it is the source of his own universe and love because his
mind is attuned only with his heart center.
Only when he emerges and experiences his new
environment does he eventually become aware of 'his self'
as a seemingly separate entity as he starts to form judgments
and beliefs about his new reality and his place within it.
When these judgments and beliefs conflict with those of his
parents - his main source of love - John begins to learn that
love flows with conditions attached ("Do this and I will
love you", "Do that and I won't"…).
John's parents are typical in that they instinctively
feel compelled to want to create him in their own image, as
their parents did before them and so on across the generations.
They feel it is their duty to groom him in their own experience
of the world and to save him from the mistakes which obstructed
or held them back in some way. They don't give him total freedom
in which to explore his unique identity and make his own mistakes
from which to learn, grow and be himself. Instead, in setting
out to rescue John, they end up smothering and thwarting him
with their own set of beliefs and ideals.
Conflicts arise because what they want for him
does not equate with who John, at heart, feels he really is;
his identity. In changing his natural self-expression to please
his parents and so maintain their supply of conditional (false)
love, he reluctantly forms modes of behavior which create
barriers of fear that cloud the connection between his mind
and heart center.
Additionally, John's growing mind is designed
to absorb information like a sponge and he can only evaluate
life from what he is told or perceives from his environment,
and so he comes to believe everything he is regularly told
about himself ("You are bad/ugly/not good enough/not
wanted/etc."). All of this negative, false programming
gives birth to a new identity, the ego; a monotonous voice
in the mind which reinforces all the fear-based judgments
and decisions John will ever make to justify his separation
from his heart's true sense of identity.
Once activated, the ego's survival depends on
John's continued and increased separation from his heart center
through fear, because the ego (fear) cannot exist in the presence
of his heart and source of authentic power (love). It ensures
this by conditioning / tricking John's mind into believing
the very things that his true self does not recognize as truth,
causing him to dislike aspects of his true identity. Anything
that contradicts the ego is subconsciously filtered from his
mind and he erects more and more barriers of fear/self-hatred
around his true self.
To bolster his shrinking self-esteem caused
by the ego's severing of his mind's connection to his heart
through fear, John will manipulate and control his environment
in order to seek external sources of power. Life becomes a
struggle for power as he switches from being open (love) to
closed (fear) at the pressing of any button that triggers
a subconscious association with a past experience - barrier
- as a form of mental defense.
By the age of 12 John is a combination of two
identities: his self (his true expression, love); and his
mind's ego-driven perception of what others think of him and
expect him to be (his false expression, fear).
As he enters puberty, the line between his two
selves - his Jekyll and Hyde - is blurred still further. To
survive high school means being accepted all over again and
conforming to peer pressure. He buries his true self beneath
yet more barriers of pretence in order to go with the herd
as the voice of his tormenting ego grows ever louder.
By sixteen, John is deeply confused about who
he really is. His resentment may manifest as teenage rebellion
because, in an effort to avoid being labeled as "different",
he loathes the very aspects of his true identity that his
fear is automatically masking. He may direct his self-hatred
at the classroom loner, who is different because of his unyielding
connection to his heart center, and so reflects back at John
and his other tormenters aspects of their true selves which
they are suppressing.
In his formative years John also has to take
on board his sexual feelings towards other men, a fear that
is compounded by societal homophobia and negative stereotyping
in the media. He lives in a small town and knows he will face
a tough time if he is "found out", not least from
his parents who are looking forward to being grandparents
one day. He responds by submerging his sexual feelings among
his deepest barriers in the hope that they will somehow disappear.
But his unquenched desires make him restless
and John resolves to relocate to the big city after graduating
in order to explore his sexuality, unlike many "straight"
men from small communities who suffer a lifetime of anguish
and self-denial in trapped marriages.
Like love and fear, straight and gay are the
two polarities of human sexuality, and most people at heart
have the potential to fall somewhere between the two. Many
men who suppress their gay feelings express their self-hatred
vitriolically or violently (gay bashing) in order to deflect
suspicion away from themselves.
It is 2003. John is now twenty and arrives in
the city, nervously anticipates that a climate of tolerance
and acceptance awaits him there. He is typical of gay men
all over the world - from New York to London to Sydney - who
have long flocked to the cities to become less visible and
to live alongside other gay men.
The problem is, we come to the city and form
our own gyms, clubs, shops and cafes - ghettos - harboring
the same unresolved barriers that we attached to our homosexuality
years earlier. John's first experience of the scene, therefore,
far from being accommodating, is hostile and uninviting, because
almost everyone is projecting their internalized homophobia
at their environment. Gay men who are happy and at peace with
themselves, not surprisingly, tend to stay away from such
places.
In social environments fear masquerades as attitude,
and varies in strength depending to the degree a person consciously
plays up their reactive behavior as a way of reinforcing their
false beliefs about their true identity. Despite its immense
ugliness, this display of attitude is nothing more than a
person's protective reaction to their inner pain, and is more
deserving of compassion than contempt because people who hide
behind attitude are trapped in their own fear and ignorance.
They know no better.
A person's inner qualities do not count for
much in environments fraught with fragile egos, in which people
thirst for external power and compete for attention, and where
a person's worth is measured by material attributes such as
appearance and status; a fear-based mentality that drives
many gay men to obsess on their looks and bodies in order
to be noticed.
It is into such a tense, judgmental environment
John will step as he emerges onto the scene for the first
time. As such, instead of the openness he was expecting to
find among other gay men, he feels a pressure to embrace a
whole new set of parameters in order to gain acceptance into
the 'muscle boy' scene…
Before too long, John has acquired a gym card,
a steroid dealer, the latest fashion accessories and a trendy
haircut, and is now more lost than ever. He has spent his
life surrendering his power and his connection to his heart
center through fear of not fitting in, when the only source
he ever really needed acceptance from all along was…his
self. Far from feeling like he finally belongs, secretly he
is just as full of anxiety and insecurity as everyone else
at what he has become, and never has he felt more alone and
adrift.
In John's last vestige of a connection to his
heart is a knowingness that he has betrayed his soul and his
birth rite - to love and be loved - because he has processed
and packaged himself to look and behave just as superficially
as everyone else on a Saturday night. If he refuses to make
a stand for himself and accepts that bump of crystal he has
just been offered amid the mind-numbing, screeching noise
being spun by the DJ, he will risk losing his last trace of
his true identity and internal power. He will become totally
immersed in a cultural trend that is homogenizing vast numbers
of gay men across America, like John, into hordes of emotionless,
scowl-faced, dense, squarely muscled automatons, as described
in 1984.
In the seventies the gay clone look was tailored
around handlebar moustaches, check shirts and Levis. The 21st
Century gay clone is just as distinctive, but in an altogether
more sinister way.
Natural feelings of self-expression and non-conformance
have become anathema in the American gay club scene, where
crystal goes hand in hand with an exaggerated and forced masculinity,
a body fascism that worships the distorted effects of human
growth hormone abuse, and a limited, monosyllabic vocabulary
deigned to lessen the risk of uttering anything that might
resemble an emotion; where those who dare to be individual
and distinctive from the herd are rendered invisible by cold,
shallow eyes that neither register nor acknowledge their existence.
Like the crystal-fuelled proliferation of carefree
bare-backing and degrading forms of sadomasochism in recent
years, America's crystal club culture is the devastating manifestation
of internalized homophobia taken to an extreme level of self-hate,
fuelled by disempowerment, fear and a rampant denial that
prevents anyone speaking out and saying:
"Guys, we need to take a good, hard look
at ourselves, because if we don't change the way we think
and behave, then pretty soon our community will implode and
we will end up destroying ourselves…"
Anyone who takes, or has taken, drugs like ecstasy
and cocaine does so, knowingly or otherwise, to temporarily
reprieve them from their barriers (fear) and to connect to
their heart center (love). For a gay man, his barriers / boundaries
prevent him expressing his authentic power all of the time
(i.e. they make him ignore the same people at the gym who
he confidently feels able to express himself to whilst high
in a nightclub).
When the drugs wear off his barriers snap back
into place, his heart closes again and he returns to being
aloof. Like most other gay men in his position, he will then
proceed to ignore or deny the feelings he has just rekindled
and return to the nightmare created by his ego's internal
chatter (magnified ten-fold if he uses crystal).
Someone totally cut off from their heart center
thinks with the mind (the intellect) and functions like a
computerized automaton. Each plug into external sources for
their power supply, and think logically based on the information
they have been programmed with. His behavior is cold and mechanical,
and he cannot comprehend anything that cannot be perceived
with his five senses (sight, smell, taste, sound, touch).
He has fallen for his ego's deceit; that he is separate and
alone - a grain of sand in the universal scheme of things
- and so is driven to succeed materially, often with immense
struggle, in order to survive and stand out.
In contrast, a person whose heart is open is in tune with
his feelings - 'his sixth sense' - which imbue him with a
peace and inner knowing that his existence is as meaningful
and profound as anyone else's; only his experience is different.
His intuition and empathy navigate him through life with minimal
effort and maximum fulfilment as if guided by a greater force.
Big houses and fast cars are a bonus but are not the key to
happiness to an open heart.
Many of the richest people are tormented by
a nagging emptiness, no matter how much money they earn, and
yearn to return to a feeling that no amount of wealth has
been able to provide. Likewise, people change the shape of
their bodies and resort to plastic surgery in the deluded
belief that the end results will make them happy and diminish
their aching emptiness. But the only way to overcome this
nagging feeling and be at peace with yourself is to reconnect
to your heart, and its source of unconditional love
To eliminate the fear that separates you from
your heart centre, you have to heal the pain that made you
erect each barrier in the first place. Like drugs, meditation
and yoga are ways to temporarily quieten your ego's internal
chatter, connect to your heart and experience a peaceful state
of wellbeing and oneness, but do not offer permanent solutions.
Identifying, dismantling and discarding each
barrier that isolates you from your true self requires confronting
your pain head on. Not surprisingly, many people are terrified
of the thought of delving into their past and raking up their
demons because of what they will find, and are prone to obsessive
and addictive behavior that keeps their minds fixated externally
(working long hours, computer games, the internet, celebrity
magazines, gambling, food, sex…). Yet until it is confronted,
the pain continues to reside in the subconscious, influencing
your decisions in the present and therefore shackling you
to the past.
Healing through therapy is big business, particularly
in the States. The therapist, counselor or psychologist listens
attentively while the patient recalls the events in the past
that led to their creating barriers. The therapist will encourage
the patient to identify why each barrier went up in the first
place in order to explain why it didn't serve their true self.
Only when the patient can acknowledge how each barrier has
tricked them into living a lie, separating them from their
source of true power, are they ready to let go of their attachment
to it, release the fear and pain associated with it, and move
closer to their heart center.
Forgiveness is the ultimate expression of love,
and the only effective way of letting go of attachment to
the past because, until pain is released, you will subconsciously
harbor deep-rooted resentment towards the very people who
made you erect your barriers in the first place. Most people
find they need to forgive their parents most of all for imposing
their beliefs and ideals on them.
The letting go of barriers and the associated
fear and pain results in a cathartic outpouring of emotions
such as anger and the release of unrealised tears, which serve
as outlets for the departing pain to express itself. The experience
is often comforting and rewarding, and feels like a weight
being lifted from the shoulders.
People who have never cried or learned to grieve,
especially those conditioned by their environment to be 'real
men', store up a pressure cooker of negative emotions in the
subconscious that literally grid locks the mind. This can
manifest as rage, anger or violence at the flick of a switch,
or in careers and contact sports which allow the expression
of pent up aggression, such as the military or boxing. If
society allowed people to express their emotions more freely
from birth, there would be far fewer, if any, pressure cookers
in the world waiting to explode.
Once you have released your attachment to pain,
you are free to love the person(s) associated with it for
who they are and not for what you wish they were. Sadly, all
too often people wait until the point of death - when they
no longer have any need for their barriers to protect them
and so speak directly from the heart (truth) - to forgive
and express love. The effect of not forgiving or expressing
love because of sudden death can have an emotionally traumatizing
and negative effect on the lives of those left behind
Unreleased emotions create stress and tension
in the body caused by the build up of negative energy which
feeds off vitality, decaying and ageing the body beyond its
years. The blockages it causes ultimately lead to disease
('dis-ease'). The secret of eternal youth can't be found in
a bottle, but in a connection to your heart center and its
abundant supply of positive, radiant energy, that keeps you
staying vital and young at heart into old age. It is that
connection that explains why some HIV-positive people are
as fit and healthy today as they were when they were diagnosed
20 years ago.
Healing pain is like peeling away and discarding
each layer of an onion in order to reach the core of your
being. As each barrier is conquered and released, the judgmental
voice of the ego gradually withers and dies, giving way to
a liberating transformation in your state of mind and a sense
of peace and lightness in your whole being.
You literally glow with positive energy which
inspires others, unconsciously triggering in them a desire
to heal as well. You automatically draw people with a similar,
positive energy into your life, leaving those who are unwilling
to change their old, negative patterns behind.
Self-acceptance is the key to respecting and
loving yourself and extinguishing the negative, automatic
thought patterns which disempower you and make you seek love
outside of yourself through control and manipulation. When
you have learned to accept yourself - when you can receive/accept
a compliment instead of rejecting it, and look someone fearlessly
in the eye and sense a direct connection to their heart -
you are ready to share that respect and love with a like-minded
person because your love for each other will flow unconditionally,
free of fear.
Until then, every relationship will evolve and
become based around power struggles. In the beginning, people
fall in love when they meet someone they like for who they
really are, and vice versa. The tables, effectively, turn
as their true selves come to the fore and their barriers are
suppressed, allowing their love to flow freely. As they become
accustomed to being around each other their barriers start
snapping back into place, revealing the less endearing traits
of each of their personalities.
As the fear associated with each barrier causes
the love to diminish, they start resenting each other for
not continuing to be the person they thought they knew. Each
feels betrayed and sets out to change the other, but the only
real way forward is to learn to accept each other unconditionally,
warts and all, and to begin the process of confronting and
letting go of the issues that got in the way of their love.
Otherwise, the cycle of failed relationships will continue
unless a breakthrough (miracle) makes them, literally, see
the light.
At the end of the day, how you live your life
really does come down to something as simple as choice. Heaven
and hell are places we create for ourselves, here and now,
with the choices we make and how we choose to perceive events
around us. We disempower ourselves when we choose to be victims
by blaming everyone else and not taking responsibility for
our own actions and mistakes; we empower ourselves when we
make a stand that is true to ourselves and, most importantly,
harms no-one else.
In choosing to ignore the pain and being slaves
to the ego, all thoughts and actions continue to be referenced
from past experiences. In choosing to heal and reconnect to
the heart center and your own source of power, each moment
is created in the present from a blank canvas; a space where
that nagging, internal voice is no longer dictating your responses
and actions, allowing you to freely and lovingly express who
you really are.
As gay men it is time to banish Tina to the
shadows from where she came. To start to pull together, not
apart. To heal our pain and to take control of our lives.
To accept and appreciate each other for who we are, not what
we are; individuals with unique, all equally priceless, identities,
each striving to do the best that we can based on our own
perspective and experiences of life...
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