By
Many gay people are acknowledging
a need for a more meaningful way of living to avoid a motionless and
purposeless existence. Lack of depth and meaning has caused many gay people to experience
feelings of boredom and emptiness. Such feelings have forced many to look for
something outside of themselves in order to feel content. Some indulge in drug
use, excessive drinking, or brief romantic affairs, while others might engage
in excessive shopping, traveling, or overeating in order to cope with their
negative emotional states. Even though such activities might feel pleasurable and
provide a momentary sense of euphoria, they do not lead to a real experience of
vitality and aliveness. There is a different kind of intoxication that involves
the experience of the soul. Such experience is beyond the ego’s need for cheap
thrills. By embracing what is inherently sacred about our gayness, we can start
to live a soulful life.
While we, as a community, fight against discrimination and
progress toward equality, we need to take time to embrace the numinous
qualities inherent in being gay. We need to honor the spirit that exists within
our gay souls. For the most part, our current culture places a great deal of
emphasis on maximizing one’s pleasure through consumerism and minimizing one’s
need for a deeper purpose in life.
Couple that with internalized homophobia, which prevents gay people from
gaining a deeper understanding of gayness. Internalized homophobia is the
internalization of shame that many gay people have been forced to experience
growing up in a heterosexist society. By working through this internalized homophobia,
a path toward an understanding of the deeper meaning of gayness can become more
accessible.
The essence of being gay is love. We come out in order to love freely. Many gay people
experience love in the form of romantic relationships. A conscious
participation in a romantic relationship—which includes working
through what we project onto each other—can serve as preparation for
a different experience of love. Beneath our gay love affairs, there is an
empty space waiting to be ignited with mystical love, waiting to be known for
the sake of a deeper love affair—the kind of love affair that takes place at
the level of the soul. This is expressed in one of Rumi’s poems:
“The minute I heard my
first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere,
they’re in each other all along.”
A love that begins in a romantic relationship needs wings to fly
beyond the field of personal connections and into the realm of the
transpersonal. We help such love to grow wings by attending to our inner garden
and weeding out toxic shame. The more we embrace our gayness with a sense of pride,
the more room we can make to love and approve of ourselves.
On our journey inward toward our true essence, we need to deal
with the mind. Our mind can be like a wild horse that, through meditation, needs
to be tamed and taught to bow down to our heart. The heart is where the flowers
of Divine love bloom and the fragrance of such love fills our inner emptiness. We can
connect with the sacred place in our heart by gently closing our eyes and
concentrating on anything in the universe that helps to generate feelings of
love in our heart. Neuroscience tells us whatever we focus on becomes our reality. In other words, “You
energize anything that you give your attention to.” So why not energize the
feelings of love in your heart? This is how we can embrace our true essence and
add more love to the world.
Humanity is facing difficult choices pertaining to our future survival
on the planet. Given the threats of climate change, war, poverty, racism,
homophobia, and mass shootings, we as gay people more than ever need to
participate in the healing of the world. We can make a difference. Triumphs
like the way we took care of our dying people during the AIDS crisis when the
Reagan administration turned its back on us and how far we have come in our
struggle for equal rights are truly a reflection of how courageous we are as a
community. Our courage can continue, and we can advocate for issues that can
make this world a better place. By honoring our gayness and letting it become a strong
foundation to stand on, we can “love the world back to health.” Our involvement
in helping the world can also add meaning and purpose to our own individual
lives.
By focusing on the love in our heart and cultivating an awareness
of the world soul (Anima Mundi), we can trigger an awakening of healing energy
that could transform our current civilization. LGBT people are only a small
percentage of the population, but our contributions to helping solve our
current global problems can be enormous. When we connect our gay soul with the
soul of the world, not only do we start tapping into a deeper purpose for our
existence, but we also begin to experience the oneness of life.
For more
articles by Dr. Payam, please click on the following link: https://drpayam.com/articles_and_book
© Dr. Payam Ghassemlou MFT, Ph.D. is a Licensed Marriage
and Family Therapist (Psychotherapist), in private practice in West Hollywood,
California. www.DrPayam.com
