Gays in Search of Meaning
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.
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist online anywhere in CA & Florida.
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