I’ll Give You a House, But Not a Ring: 1 of 5 Types of Ambivalence

View fullsize

Researchers report that nearly 40% of unmarried couples that live together will end up separating within five years. Is it living together or something a bit subtler that deconstructs the couple?

One of my clients told me she wanted to move in with her boyfriend. She loved the idea of taking the relationship’s stamina for a test drive, but she had no intention to marry her patient man.

She wanted neither to be hurt, nor approach the risk of being fully known. The risk of marriage and emotional vulnerability were too high. The only vow she was willing to make was one of self-protection.

We had to examine her fear-based ambivalence: I love him and I don’t want to leave him, but I can’t fully give myself to him. In this light, they were stuck.

What’s gone wrong?

1.     Her fear-based ambivalence created a palpable sensation of disconnection the boyfriend could feel.

2.     Because they never talked about her fear, he falsely interpreted the disconnection as her rejecting him. He used this speculation to feel inadequate, to self-doubt, and to fear abandonment.

3.     He began to protect himself, leading the girlfriend to create her own fearful speculations and feel as though he was too cold and unsafe.

4.     And back to #1 we go.

They sat in this cycle for years. Which one came first, the chicken or the egg?

Like my client, we sometimes rely on a signed lease more than emotional maturity. For couples with ambivalence, living together fabricates a sensation of safety without the mechanisms of authentic belonging fortifying our attachment.

In my opinion, its not the living together that creates a risk. The risk is in the process of hiding your fears, coming up with damaging speculations, and then trying to soothe yourself alone. A couple that does this will eventually wonder if they are getting ready to tie the knot or fray the rope.

The remedy?

Create an open dialogue around existing ambivalence as you make major decisions, especially living together.

With a healthy dialogue you may find that they aren’t ready to leave you at the drop of hat or that safety isn’t too far fetched.

Consider question like:

I know you love me, but what makes you fearful to talk about a long-lasting commitment?

What have you lived through, or see in me, that creates a hesitancy to let me in fully?

I can imagine that what you have seen in divorce makes you scared to think we can’t do it. Can we talk about this? I’d like to hear your fears.

A healthy dialogue will expose faulty speculations, will allow both of you the opportunity to repair irrational concerns, and it will lead to a wonderfully exquisite emotional maturity.

Give your loving relationship the honesty it needs. Talk about your ambivalence. If together you can create emotional vulnerability, chances are you can both create a beautiful home.

And if you need help, let us know. 

Feeling the Gay Heart from the Straight World

View fullsize

Today I am proud to call Stacey my best friend. She has been on one massive journey to understanding sexual orientation. Here are some of there her concluding thoughts: 

"I was asked by a friend the other day whether I would be comfortable spending time with her and her partner or if they would be unwelcome. There is a natural fear in this question: “Will you accept me for who I am?” It was as if something about her and her relationship could keep her from communion with others.

I was sad to observe the heterosexist Christian dynamic we create within our communities and our Church walls. We straight Christians assume the role or position that we are the gatekeepers to heaven and have the power to exile people from relationships.

Regardless of a theological position on homosexuality, each person of the LGBTQ community is still a part of the Imago Dei and that requires us to love without hindrance or judgment. So often I see churches, family members or friends set up boundaries to keep them at an arms length.

There is this idea that if they are shamed “enough” then they will change. But that is not the Gospel. The Gospel is about compassion and giving life to all. The Gospel is just as much about those that are in the LGBT community as those that are not.

When this conversation becomes more about who is right or wrong, the gay person at the heart of the conversation is lost and separated from the love that was intended for them. Danny Cortez, a prominent pastor recently stated, “The goal of our faith is not marriage equality or religious freedom but to love God with our whole heart and love our neighbor as ourselves.”

Truth is the person of Christ and it cannot be packaged into a sentence or a point of view. The love that Christ extends to us is not demonstrated by a concise theology but by the way we extend love and compassion to others, even among disagreements.

I have sat in the trenches of this conversation with friends and have seen the hurt and pain firsthand. As a straight woman I will never know what it is like to experience the separation from those that are closest to me, the hatred exhibited by those that disagree with my version of love, and the pain and sacrifice that comes with being anything other than heterosexual.

Before you jump to conclusion or take certain positions, I dare you to put a name, face and heart to the homosexuality conversation and then dive into the trenches with those that have walked this road. I can promise you, you won’t come out the same on the other side." 

Celebrate Your Uniqueness

View fullsize

When I was little my father would tuck my sister and me into bed with an amazing bedtime story. He told us the tale of a young newspaper salesman who would sing about the Good News.

My father’s voice, as he serenaded us, was so sincere.

I used to think that the Good News was only for those with performance-based approval. And since I was no cookie-cutter boy, I was doomed.

I thought that being a feminine sensitive soul was something wrong. I hated the fact that I played the piano, loved fashion, and definitely distained my own preference to play house over football.

I would meet a stunning wife dressed in white at the end of the isle. I would father biological children, and lead some sort of ministry.

I so desperately wanted to become this beautiful specimen of a man, for surely he would make mom and dad happy. He would be the Good News for which I thought they hoped- salvation’s perfect product.

Sitting across a table from a dear friend the other night, I remembered that I deserve to celebrate my life, my authenticity, and all the uniqueness I produce. I rediscovered the Good News that I behold.

I am 31 and single. I don’t know if I’ll marry. I can’t tell you that I love football. And I certainly don’t know if I’ll have biological children, albeit the high baby-fever in the Archuleta household of one.

Who I am may threaten the group, might push some boundaries, and will surely help some question my moral integrity. But to deny my Imago is to prioritize performance over my inherent Oneness.  

I have my own song to sing, my own version of the Good News. I have the same Essence, after all; some understand this, and others may never.

During our summer vacation my parents told me to live for my own happiness and to do away with the task of trying to please them. “Who you are makes us happy,” they spoke. Some of us may never get such a fantastic lesson on flying.

For some faith is an issue of proving, with perfect behavior, that they are good enough for acceptance. They feel comfortable because they are proud of their behavior’s approval by the community.

For others, like myself, faith is knowing that your authentic self is fully loved, even when it lives in the margin.

Someday my body will fade and the affects of my character will be the lasting song of my life. Was I able to celebrate the internal fabric of my Creation- relishing in its beauty- or did I hide?

Celebrating my uniqueness means being proud of the good man I am. It means being proud of the way I love, and the character I have- feminine, masculine, and all the constellations they produce.

Celebrating my authenticity is trusting that life beyond the fray is exactly where I am supposed to stay. Otherwise, I’ll sing a false version of God’s unconditional love and promote a discrediting premise of his creative design. Honoring internal Truth sets us free.  

If I can sing the song of my Good News to the world, then I am delivering the package I’m intended to leave behind.

No matter if I look gay, dream straight, or live tethered to the dialectic of bisexuality, I have something beautiful to give. My unique offering deserves to be celebrated and so does yours. 

Your Body Over Mine

View fullsize

After running out of that house drunk, scared, and feeling horribly disgusted with myself, I realized I left my glasses on the night stand. Walking back into that house was a massive slap in the face of where I had been. Emotionally, I had somehow agreed to give something away: Safety and security.

I grew up with this interpretation, a type of perceived pressure. Thinking that I need to perform to keep another’s attention, helped me stay trapped. I was using sex in two ways:

1.     To make someone responsible for my sense of safety and security.

Someone lays on top of us, covering us with their body and vulnerability. In this moment it is very easy to hand over an important responsibility. We undergo an emotional transaction that makes our sexual partner responsible for making us feel protected and to produce the longevity we need to feel secure. After sex, they have no idea what they hold, what kind of pressure their under. We demand of them signs of their continual devotion it our needs.

2.     To trap myself in the role of Cinderella.

Needing someone to create our security is evidence of an underlying script for self: “I am only worth how people define me.” In this context we put up with sex that feels harmful, uncomfortable, or violates our boundaries. When sex is used to feel worthwhile we prioritize feeling special more than the pain, shame, and disgust that comes when we’ve used our bodies inappropriately. Holding up a healthy boundary feels like choosing to suffocate.

In both of these situations we have to make sex something fleeting, non-uniting, and something that is used solely for physical pleasure. Otherwise the emotional underpinnings of sex would be too hurtful or too exposing of our internal fabric.

Loneliness, confusion, or resentment are the imminent results when using sex. We either consider why we’re always alone, who we have to become to keep someone around, or we become resentful because our partner isn’t doing their job right…we still feel anxious or lonely.

What do you really want in relationships? Do you want to walk around wondering who will really love you (the way you’ve determined in your head)? Or do you want to take that existential and profound exhale that implicates your ability to rest in the arms of someone safe and committed?

Learning something new about sex and safety is a process of identity formation, a deeper discovery of your inherent makeup.

What would it be like if you didn’t need to have someone? If you could find stability in your own power I am sure you might be able to cherish your partner, instead of need them. Sex and someone’s enjoyment of your body shouldn’t be a kickstand for your self-confidence. Discover your power and the aspects of your strength that keep you fortified. Life will feel much more liberating. 

A Dirty Desire: 2 of 2

View fullsize

*Unpacking the second way we break our own trust from a Sex, Grinder, and Breaking Your Own Trust

A client once sat in my chair. He was gorgeous, physically and emotionally. He was tall, muscular, had deep soulful eyes, and a smile that could persuade anyone into love. He was deeply sincere, empathetic, and wonderfully attentive. In his inherent role, he was the perfect catch. Unfortunately, he downloaded a false story.

He talked of life with his parents. “I know they loved me, but I always felt like they could instantly switch from love to pure distain. I felt like I their approval was conditional,” he would tell me.

A sliding door love: One minute he belonged, having permissible access to his parents. And when he made a mistake, they would slam the door, isolating him with nothing but his guilt.

With tears pouring down his face and anxiety like a revving motor in his body, this man believed that his entire being was something disposable. He felt like a pretty shell with no offering. He believed that if someone saw “what his parents did” no one would ever want him. He was a sexual addict, sleeping with several people a day.

Protecting himself from another slam of the door, my client used his good looks and sex, as though they were rocks wedged in the door’s tracks. He used a MacGyver trick to stop that door from slamming, finding nothing but temporal approval.  

He wasn't addicted to sex; he was addicted to proving that someone wouldn't slam that door in his face. He was addicted to affirmation.

He thought that if people could see his stunning body he would eventually find someone who wouldn't leave him. 

Like my client, we take another’s immature door slamming (e.g., their jealousy, rage, silent treatments, disapproving facial expressions, cheating, etc.) as a personal statement about our worth.

In my office I hear downloaded stories like:

“It was my fault; I couldn’t keep their attention.”

“If they see the real me, I’ll be rejected.”

“I’ll be alone forever.”

“I need someone to take care of me.”

“They don’t like (Fill in the Blank) about me.”

Our self-concept is full of all the false messages we downloaded. And we think they are true!

Becoming so consumed with how to make someone stay close, we’ll forget to identify what gifts we have to offer, how we feel, what we need, and our sacred purpose. We may also hide from any meaningful version of emotional, physical, or spiritual intimacy.

And this is how we break our own trust: We watch ourselves become some anxious, doubting, someone-will-love-me-if-I… versions of ourselves. All we want is for someone to swipe-right us. 

In this posture many of us opt for better makeup, higher heels, bigger muscles, spectacular body pics, a better story to pitch, stunning intelligence, or a bigger cave full of porn or substances. 

Find healthy people to give you true feedback. More importantly, independently identify what is perfect and everlasting about your self…and then believe it. Trusting yourself means trusting the reality of your worth, not the story you’ve downloaded.

A Dirty Desire: 1 of 2 Ways We Break Our Own Trust Sequence to the

View fullsize

Our desire is inherently innocent. I believe that full heartedly. My observations as a clinician point me to see all behavior as underscored by a deep beauty. Some call this the Immortal Diamond, the True Self, or the Original Blessing. To make the language workable, I’ll call it our innocent desire.

Our desire is an emotional beckoning calling us to be seen, safe, secure, and soothed. In other words, we all crave one thing: union.  

Unfortunately, we start to use a voice of criticism that negatively appraises our innocent desire.

If we are taught that our desire to be held as men is inappropriate or weak, we’ll hide it. If women feel as though they shouldn’t ask for emotional connection, they’ll grow angry and feel alienated. And if we feel as though we shouldn’t want to be loved by the same gender, we will call our desire sin.

Easily stated, if we call our desire dirty the next step is to suppress it’s longing.

Whenever we sit holding our breath for too long, especially when we are withholding from something essential and innocent, we’ll swing from complete denial to over-indulgence. But when we do this, we’ll do it in secret or out of manipulation.

Remember, we will try to get our innocent emotional needs met in a way that protects us from being revealed or protects us from being shamed. The continuous criticizing of your desire has limited your behavior to damaging options.

In the emotional darkness that befalls our innocent desire (a learned seperateness), we scan on Grinder, hope on hookup apps, look at porn, use a stranger’s body as the potion of secret satisfaction, or we fester in anger and resentment. And wa-la!

We have compounded the process wherein our desire is labeled dirty. We do so by wrongfully interlacing our shameful behavior with our innocent desire. We think if a shaming behavior can satisfy my desire then my desire must be dirty.  

Stop to contemplate: What part of your desire have you implicitly labeled dirty? Many of you will come up with nothing. Think again. 

Your desire, at its fundamental core, is never dirty. But in the moments of emotional desperation or starvation, your sexual body will have its own requests and the voice of your emotions will know its own powerful remedy.

What if you could identify your beautifully innocent desire from the get-go? What if you understood your emotional craving as the desire for sustainable affirmation, continuous love, or undeniable security (in other words, union)? Would you reach for something different than Grinder or porn? Would you not go about satisfaction in a different way?

Be paced and take yourself to the place that is full of honest innocent need. Reach for love, affirmation, and connectedness that will keep you sustained beyond a fleeting orgasm, praises for your body pic, or affirmation from a person who is neither committed nor mature.

Treat your innocent desire with respect, because underneath it all it will drive you closer to relational maturity. 

LGBTQ-ers: 1 Reason to Leave Your Mask at Home

View fullsize

On Halloween, I can take my mask off. It gets so hot and sticky under those things. After smelling my own breath for a while, coming out from underneath that things is like instant satisfaction.

When you use the slogan “Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin,” we don’t realize what we are really saying to a sexual minority. I can’t take off the mask of my sexual orientation.

I am afraid Christians think they are saying something compassionate when they love me despite my orientation. It can seem like they are creating a compassionate place for me while protecting the Christian church from my “behavior.” But what they don’t realize is that they are using an archaic slogan that impacts my whole being.

Behavior is what I choose. I can choose to walk to Trader Joe’s on my break. I can choose to play the piano. I can choose to make out with some guy. I get that.

Sexual orientation is something that I did not choose. I didn’t purpose in my heart to like something, tried it, and then enjoyed it only because I purposed I would. No straight boy vowed that he would be visually stimulated by breasts and then when he saw them for the first time [during puberty] he liked them only because he told himself to like them.

I get that most Christians don’t feel comfortable with my orientation and the behavior I choose to associate with it (although its none of their business). Fair enough.

But when you use the slogan, “Love the sinner, hate the sin” your talking about my whole being, not just my behavior. Using this slogan with amember of the LGBTQ community is exactly like saying, “Isaac I love you, but I hate that you are Hispanic.”

You cannot love a sexual minority and hate the way they experience excitement. You cannot love a gay person and hate the way they feel protected by the same gender.  You cannot love a bisexual person and hate they way they feel special.

“Love the sinner, hate the sin” is a message that preaches judgment instead of unconditional love. How about we stop hating parts of one another and just love? Isn’t that enough?

“Love the sinner, hate the sin,” taught me to put a mask on: if I show up in my authenticity as a bisexual man I will be hated. And inevitably I would use the premise on myself- I would learn to hate who I am.

For far too long I lived underneath that mask- hot, sticky, smelling my own shaming breath, and detached from understanding unconditional love…the love that Christ came to teach. 

I wasn’t born straight, but neither were you. So on this Halloween, don’t mind me if I show up without a mask, because there's no hate here.

Sex, Grinder, and Breaking Your Own Trust: 2 Ways it Happens

View fullsize

In college I drank till blacking out many times per week. Out of sorrow and despair, I promised myself I would never do it again! Then the next morning I would wake up in another random bed.

I had broken my own trust so many times it felt as though I was broken. I thought there was something inherently wrong with me. Later I realize that I wasn’t damaged- I was hurting. And this is how we are setup to break our own trust:

1. A Dirty Desire:

Thinking that there is something wrong with your desire can lead to a devastating relationship between what you want and how you get it. Things will get messy if you believe, “I shouldn’t want that” or “What I desire is dirty.” If we desire to be held, protected, or enjoyed, but are embarrassed or shameful, we’re going to starve.

And when our hunger reaches a painful emptiness, we’ll reach for the closest form of relief.  Usually we lunge for abusive drinking, sex that objectifies, or being cute enough so people stay nearby.

It is almost like the Monster of Dirty Desire sitting inside of us getting paid to mess up or latch on. I know the feeling all too well.

When shame is so loud that you can’t trust the innocence of your desire, you’ll shutdown like a bear in winter! The sad part is that some of us even compartmentalize our desire from ourselves. Feeling blank or numb feels better than constant self-denial or rejection.    

2. Damaged View of Self

We use our self-concept to determine what is and is not appropriate for who we are. We can believe, “I’m not good enough for that” or “Wanting that means I’m weak.”

And if we believe these messages as true, we will secretly behave in two ways. First, we will manipulate so we can get our needs met in socially acceptable behaviors: coercing our partner into affirming our value, using sex to feel close, or overcompensating so that we feel comfortable in our own skin.  

Secondly, we’ll avoid any situation or person that might ask us to be vulnerable. If we can’t trust our authentic self with those who love us, we’ll block emotional intimacy and use secretive comforts.

Why do you think Grinder, Craigslist, and porn are so prevalent?

I was hurting because I didn’t know the innocence of my desire nor that value or my worth back then. Breaking my own trust by using my body, someone else’s, or substances trapped me in a cycle of shame: shameà hiding à emotional starvation à acting out à back to shame.

When anxiety is high, we cling to another because we are “not strong enough” to create our own safety. We can also learn that one-night stands, scanning on hookup apps, and abusing substances are fun.  But when the end result is a fabricated comfort and broken trust, all we create is despair instead of peace, and sorrow instead of truth.

Practice trusting yourself by choosing the healthy and steadfast over and over again. This gets easier when you hold your worth out in front of you, guiding you from one decision to another. 

If you're interested in understanding how to build a trusting, more healthy lifestyle? Please visit my clinics website, to see if we can help iamclinic.org

Being Bisexual: 1 Reason I Stopped Praying to Die

View fullsize

There was a time when I used to pray that God would take away my attractions for men. I believed that if I had these feelings for a man, that I would be doomed to eternity in peril. I took this seriously.

When I feel in love with a man for the first time, I prayed for God to kill me in a car accident before I made a mistake that would send me to hell. If I could avoid the life-destroying decision of being attracted to men by dying then I would be saved, or at least I thought.

When I was in graduate school, I realized a different type of love- Love that wasn’t based on my performance.

One afternoon a classmate invited me to go shopping with her, as I had “good fashion.” In fear of being seen as the typical gay man on a seminary campus, I shouted “No!” After talking about it with my friends and therapist of the time, I conceded. I would go.

I had a blast. She later wrote me a card: “Isaac, the femininity in you makes me feel more like a woman than any other man ever has.”

Later that year I asked men on campus to help me feel like I belonged. And they did. I had more male friends in one semester than in my whole life combined.

After years of praying, starving myself, and shaky my fist at God I was learning something new, even about God. In rage I shouted, “You knew who my parents would be, what type of home I would grow up in, what my church would preach, and how sensitive I am. Why did you let me become this guy?”

Slowly I began to believe that he did know these things all along. He gave me those parents on purpose. He knew what type of home environment would shape my heart. He knew what my church would preach, and all about my sensitivities. All of that was on purpose. I began to learn that I was shaped just how he wanted me. I had to practice trusting his unconditional love.

I love you because you are you.

You see, its easy to hear the voices of our stories, the voices that tell us we’re not good enough, not valuable enough, and certainly not wanted.

But when we begin to trust that we are loved because of who we’ve become do we also realize an euphoric freedom.

If you ever watch “Coming out live” YouTube videos, you’ll here one question about 99% of the time, “Mom and dad, do you still love me?” To think for any moment that you are unlovable because you are attracted to the same sex, is typical. Us LGBTQ are very familiar with the fear that motivates such a question.

But when we live stuck in the false-belief that we are unlovable do we find ourselves disconnected from truth.  Thankfully my parents taught me truth: “Isaac we will love you no matter what.” And more importantly, so did God. It took me time to swallow his proof, but I got there. 

1 Reason to Fall in Love

View fullsize

I search for it. It searches for me. Its like steam rising in the air: Love. Anyone who knows me, knows that I love Manhattan…New York. Surely I am not referring to Manhattan, Kansas, for crying aloud.

Manhattan has this massive steam system that powers humongous buildings with electricity, heats them, and even cool them in the swelter of summer. Steam is like love: hot, passionate, ever flowing, and yet cozy, refreshing, and sustaining.  

If you google images relating to “Manhattan steam,” you’ll see pictures of chaos or images of day-to-day life where steam is the expected background. And this is what love feels like. Either love feels like a destructive force or it sits peacefully in the backdrop, making its appropriate and appreciated contribution to our image of daily life.

Effervescently, steam is always reaching for the top. Like love, specifically when we fall in love, we experience a deeper safety, yet elation in feelings of corresponding euphoria. The deeper the love, the higher we rise.

Some of you have been burned by the friction of steam and have reasoned away love. The power of hurt and rejection has taught you to be smarter and protective. Proclamation: Love will never hurt me again!

No one likes to fall. Falling is embarrassing, its painful, and it makes us bleed. Steam burns! And yet, someone once told me, “With every death comes a revelation of a deeper beauty.”

Grief and loss is a falling upward process: through the pain, depression, and anger we learn something resilient about who we are. We learn that we are strong, valuable, that we belong, and the stabilizing force of being known. And in the darkest moments of loosing love there begins to shine a flicker of beauty- a beautiful footprint on our identity.

Proclamation: I am my own refuge. Homer returned to his home for the second time and noticed that it was the same place, but it held a very different purpose. Home means something different after loss.   

I dream of being painted by Manhattan’s influence. Great clothes. Cosmopolitan vibes. Cultured tongue. Wonderful food. And in a similar way, many of us dream of being beautifully painted by the influences of love. We all want to be decorated with the joys of love, but we forget about the celebrations that come with the pains of love. Again, after every loss we must grieve, there comes a truthfulness that sings its accuracy from within our being.

Unbridled steam is damaging and painful. A harnessed steam is embellishing, softening, wrinkle-freeing, and elegantly forceful. Love can hurt. But when we’re open to letting it sit peacefully in our context, atop our skin (no matter what it may bring), do we welcome a new life that helps us blissfully fall, and energetically rise. Much like the infrastructure of Manhattan: to block yourself from steam means choosing darkness.

1 reason to fall in love: falling upward to discover beauty after death.