A Queer Understanding

Jamal Wesley: Transforming Crisis into a Beacon of Inclusivity & Queer Love

• Dr. Angelica & Cassy Thompson • Season 5 • Episode 7

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Can a life-changing health scare lead to a flourishing jewelry business? Discover the remarkable journey of Jamal Wesley, who turned a crisis into a beacon of inclusivity and self-expression. With a 15-year background in the insurance industry, Jamal's pivot to creating a jewelry line that celebrates love and the LGBTQIA+ community is nothing short of inspiring. We'll explore his new book, "Authentically Authentic," and his YouTube series "Queer Love Letters," both of which underscore his mission to foster meaningful connections and champion authenticity. This episode is a heartfelt exploration of authenticity, love, and forgiveness, offering listeners invaluable insights and inspiration.

https://myauthenticbook.com/
https://bit.ly/QueerLoveLetters


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Queer Jewelry Entrepreneur and Authenticity

Speaker 1

Jamal Wesley is an entrepreneur who has developed a jewelry line from a queer perspective, catering to themes of inclusivity, self-expression, acceptance and pride. He decided to pursue this creative passion after a cancer scare in September 2020. Before that, jamal spent 15 years working in the insurance industry, which he still does in some capacity. Little did he know how loudly his heart would speak after his life-changing experience in 2020. Since the theme of the jewelry line is rooted in self-expression and staying true to oneself, jamal decided to share his own story of self-discovery with the world. Authentically. Authentic is his story of transforming imposter syndrome, traditions and societal pressures which empowered him in embracing his sexuality, forgiving others and living unapologetically.

Speaker 1

The book has inspired a new YouTube series called Queer Love Letters, which is an amazing space for queer individuals to give, show and receive love. In addition to the jewelry company book and YouTube series, jamal looks forward to relaunching his life coaching company, living Enlivened, in the coming months. Jamal's favorite quote is love is the whole thing. We are only pieces Rumi. Here's our conversation. Hi, jamal, thank you so much for being on the show.

Speaker 2

Hello, thank you for having me.

Speaker 1

So let's start with talking a little bit about some of your current ventures. Tell us about your jewelry line.

Speaker 2

Well, I have a jewelry line. It's called a life-altering event back in 2020. So I've worked in the world of insurance for 17 years and in 2020 I was bored. In October of 2020, I got the news that I had to have brain surgery for the second time in my life, and the first doctor that I saw said I had a cancerous mass at the base of my skull the size of a tangerine. So in October of 2020, I thought I was dying. 38 years old, I thought my life was over. So it turned out not to be cancer and but in that moment it was life alteringtering. So I had brain surgery.

Speaker 2

In October of 2020, I go see my jeweler friend to make a diamond ring for myself in December of 2020, and he asked us simple question. He said have you ever thought about starting your own jewelry company? And I said, mac, no, I've never thought about it. And he said well, I think you should, because I had sold a piece of jewelry that I had made before. And he's like I love your designs.

Speaker 2

And in that moment, what I created was I wanted to be a part of people's love stories. There wasn't a street with my name on it. There wasn't a building with my name on it, coming face to face or feeling like I was dying. Just two months earlier, it was my thought or thinking was what's the rest of my life going to be dedicated to, what's going to be my legacy in the world? And so that's how the jewelry company it started and, just coming from the place of, I want to be a part of people's love stories. I wanted everything about this company to be rooted and grounded in love, so that's how we started, in January of 2021.

Speaker 1

Wow, and what kind of jewelry do you make?

Speaker 2

So we make anything a person wants except watches. At this point, we in December of 2023, we launched our pride collection. So we launched a whole collection dedicated to the LGBTQIA plus community. So we have rainbow pieces, we have ally pieces, we have trans pieces, bear pieces and non-binary pieces.

Speaker 1

at this time, Well, you said what you said bear pieces.

Speaker 2

Yes, for the bear community. So the bear community are the men who are very bulky and muscular and have hair, so it's the bear community.

Speaker 3

Oh wow, I learned something new.

Speaker 2

Are you not familiar with the bear community?

Speaker 2

No something new. Are you not familiar with the bear community? No, they have their own flag, so it is black, brown, yellowish and it has a bear paw. So we have a piece, or a couple of pieces, for that community. We have pronoun necklaces as well. So, yeah, we launched this whole line dedicated to the LGBTQIA plus community. So what would be the opposite of a bear? An otter? A what Otter? So in the bear community, there's bear. So there's your big, bulky, hairy guy, and then your slender, more twinkish bear that's still hairy is called an otter.

Speaker 1

Oh, so it's all about the amount of hair.

Speaker 2

Yes, so what if?

Speaker 1

they're like, when you're talking about hair, you're talking about like chest hair, facial hair.

Speaker 2

More body hair. Body hair we're talking about more of the body hair, especially like more chest, stomach, hairy legs, kinds of things.

Speaker 3

Oh, wow, interesting All right. Okay, interesting. All right, learn something new.

Speaker 1

And so people can get your jewelry online.

Speaker 2

Yes, so at a hairy A-H-E-R-I dot. C-o is our website, and we also make wedding jewelry. I have designed wedding bands and engagement jewelry for people, so I actually delivered this amazing, beautiful diamond ring for a friend of mine who's getting engaged on Sunday. I'm designing another ring right now that has that's going to have an emerald as the center stone with some diamonds on the side, which fits this girl's jazzy. She's an opera singer and she teaches at Juilliard and so this really fits her.

Speaker 1

So I'm excited about that, so I do custom pieces like that too. I would definitely have to check it out. I love jewelry, especially rings and semi-precious gemstones. Oh, tell us about Authentically Authentic.

Speaker 2

Okay, so that's the book I published in June of 2023. So my marketing strategist said, jamal, you need to write a book. And I was like, girl, I cannot write a book. I can write a pamphlet, but one of the things that I know in life is, when you're willing, the how kind of shows up. And so she and I sat down and we were like, well, what do you want to talk about? And I was like, well, I'm working on the pride collection of this jewelry company and what goes along with pride, right, like owning who you are and being proud of who you are.

Speaker 2

And what immediately popped up was being authentic. And so I'm a person who I've been in personal growth and development work for the last 12 to 13 years. I lead personal growth and development courses and, for me, most people think they're being authentic and have no clue of what authenticity truly is or the depth and width of authenticity. So, authentically authentic, it's a Journey, not a Destination is a book that I wrote that turned out to be my memoir turned self-help book. It tells some intimate stories about my coming out, me healing the relationship with my parents my mom in particular, as it relates to my LGB or queerness and then with my dad as it relates to his drug abuse. Because we talk about so many things and how so many things give us access to true authenticity, but most people think authenticity lives in the world of truth or honesty and it has no real grounding in that, because most people's truth is actually at the effect of their pain or their trauma.

Speaker 2

And when your pain or your trauma chooses your speaking. That's not authentically you. The authentic you chooses speech despite your pain or your trauma.

Speaker 1

To explain that a little bit more. What does that look like?

Speaker 2

Okay. So most of the time when a person says I'm about to be authentic with you, right, it's in the world of I'm about to just be honest with how I feel, right, about a circumstance, about something that just happened. You just hit me and I'm going to be authentic with how I feel, right, about a circumstance, about something that just happened. You just hit me and I'm going to be authentic with you. That really made me feel sad, right so. But when a person really gets beyond their trauma and their hurt and their pain, they choose life and they choose speaking despite what happened. Life and they choose speaking despite what happened. The what happened no longer has control over who they are. So what that looks like is when we really and truly heal situations. It looks more like I'll use the relationship with my dad.

Speaker 2

So my dad was a drug user and sold stuff out of our house. He used crack and all this other stuff, and I would have said authentically that I was good with my dad, right, like me and my dad were cute, but I really got that. That wasn't the truth, right, and when I healed that relationship with him, I actually could accept my dad drugs and all. There wasn't a separation. He didn't have to give up anything. He didn't have to be someone else other than who he was.

Speaker 2

For me to love him Right and so that's the true world of authenticity is when we can choose beyond our pain and our circumstances, because my pain of what my dad did to me would have been more in the world of no, he did this. He sold my radio for my 12th birthday, right. He sold my go-kart. Why would I love him? And he should have been this kind of dad and he should have done this. But moving beyond my pain and my judgment of the situation allowed me to love my dad drugs and all. And in my book I actually share the only letter that I wrote to my dad when he was in jail, and when people read that letter it's really moving. It still moves me to this day and even inside of that, my dad was freed somehow, some way, when I stopped making him wrong for who he was and I actually began to grant compassion versus judgment.

Speaker 3

So when you make a man, so you said you make a man with him while he was still on drugs, right, okay? So where you have any reservations of, okay, is he gonna sell my stuff, is he gonna take my stuff, because you talk about being authentic, but do you think sometimes people still have to be careful?

Speaker 2

so here's my other caveat to this in this story, love does not negate boundaries, right, and so most of us, either we love negating boundaries or we have so many boundaries no one has access to love. This book actually begins to look at well, what does it look like to have balance and to have both? We don't have to give up one for the other. They can both coexist and both are healthy, but it's still just letting go of all the hurt that he caused, but still having healthy boundaries, because love does not negate boundaries.

Speaker 3

Okay, all right. Good, I'm happy you cleared that up.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, I like that I like loving a person for who they are and setting knowledgeable boundaries. Less judgment, more compassion yeah, I like that to.

Speaker 3

Just it's very difficult to forgive period when people wrong you, but more so to be like, okay, you know what. This person still have that flaw, so I'm just gonna let it go and move forward. It takes. It's very commendable of you to do that because, I'm being honest, a lot of people couldn't do it.

Speaker 2

I probably couldn't do it.

Speaker 3

That's just show how much of a man you are.

Speaker 2

Well, thank you, and one of the things in 12 years of personal growth and development work what several things that I got is that I'm walking around with my stories and my traumas and my pains, right, that have me respond to life the way that I do. What really gave me access to that moment where I was like, oh wow, like I must. There's something that's available between me and my dad was, and I tell the story in the book, so I guess I'll go ahead and tell y'all. So I was sitting in the middle of my bed, whitney Houston had just died, kevin Costner was eulogizing her and he said one of the top voices in the world, and people of course thought she was beautiful and what have you. But when she was doing the bodyguard, she still didn't think she was numbing herself to life.

Speaker 2

What conversations was my dad walking around with that would make him want to numb himself to life and living? See, we act like we know our parents and we don't know who our parents are. Right, I say that my, and I'll use my dad as an example. My dad was 26 years old when I was born, so there's 26 years of life that I have no idea about who my dad is, and what made up my dad?

Speaker 3

Right.

Forgiveness and Healing Through Compassion

Speaker 2

But there were two stories Cause when my dad was served with the divorce papers in restraining order, my dad told us two stories. The first story was about my grandfather who was a Rolling Stone right and I had aunts and uncles and I may have aunts and uncles, I don't know, even know that exist and how my grandfather would leave them in the house with no lights or whatever. But the second story my dad told was he had gotten into some trouble as a young man in his early teens and he asked my grandmother to go to court with him. And my grandmother was like boy, I ain't got time to go to court with you, I got to go to work. And I know my grandmother, she was just that curt. So he says that when he sees the judge and the judge asked him son, where's your mother? And he says my mom had to work. And he says and y'all I may cry. But my dad says the judge told him your mother must not give a damn about you. And I said, oh my God, if my dad is walking around this world feeling like his parents don't give a damn about him, his mother doesn't give a damn about him, I could see how he would want to numb himself to life. Because when I came out of the closet I felt like my mom didn't give a damn about me. I just made different choices. So judgment turned into compassion for my dad in that moment and I began to just weep for him. And that's when I penned him the only letter that I had written him in jail, just explaining to him I could see how he would want to numb himself to life. But the PS of that letter said if you're hanging on to any part of that drug because of how you think I feel about you, please let that part go, because I love you, drugs and all I don't. I let go of my expectations of you to change anything about you and I'll never forget.

Speaker 2

Almost a year later I go home to Louisiana, which is where my dad lives, and he's staying with my grandmother. At that point he's out of jail and he. When I get to my grandmother's house they greet me at my car. I hug my grandma and my dad reaches his hand out to shake my hand and I push his hand away and I hug my dad. Something that has I don't even know if it had ever happened at that point, but I feel my dad like tense up and then he relaxes into the hug and so we go in, we visit. When I get ready to leave, my dad hugs me Right. And so I'm in my get in my car. He's on the passenger side of my car and I rolled down my window and I said I'm sorry, you going to be good, dad, you going to be good. And he said I'm going to be good for you, son. And that was 10 years ago and my dad has been drug and alcohol free and out of jail since then.

Speaker 2

And I say, that ladder created some space for him because he can let go of that hurt, that guilt, that shame, of whatever he held on to, and create a new life, a new existence. So that's the story of my dad.

Speaker 3

That's an amazing story. It's a lot of powerful testimonies in that story.

Speaker 1

So you mentioned courses that you do. Tell me a little bit more about that. Are they live asynchronous?

Speaker 2

so they used to be live. So it's. I used well, I do courses through a company called landmark worldwide and show that I now am being trained to lead one of their senior, most level courses called the wisdom course, and that course really gives people access to live a creative life. I now am being trained to lead one of their senior, most level courses called the Wisdom Course, and that course really gives people access to live a creative life. It's a conversation around really dealing powerfully with our past and choosing the life that we're going to live rather than being at the effect of our past. And when you talk about most people could not forgive right because they're so addicted to their pain in their story. See, I would. I in that moment I was willing to give it up Now in that chapter with my dad. If people only read the chapter of forgiveness and authenticity in my book, they would have access to so much more and authenticity in my book. They would have access to so much more Because after the story I tell about my dad, I tell a story of a woman named Marianne that I met inside of my personal growth and development work, and one of the things that I really get people to say.

Queer Love Letters Project Launch

Speaker 2

We always hear the cliche of forgiveness is not for you, it's not for the other person, it's for you, right. Forgiveness is not for you, it's not for the other person, it's for you, right. But in the story about Marianne, what I could see is that when we don't forgive a situation, a person or a thing, it's really like giving a piece of our soul over to that situation, person or thing, like we're no longer whole and complete. We unconsciously, I guess give away a part of ourselves to that situation and we walk around incomplete, as our soul being incomplete, and so forgiveness actually takes that piece of our soul back so that we can be whole.

Speaker 3

Forgiveness actually takes that piece of our soul back so that we can be whole. So I will kind of shift gears a little bit. In your bio it mentioned that you worked in the insurance industry before you became an entrepreneur. How was it?

Speaker 2

being a gay man, Were you openly gay when you were an insurance agent. So I have worked in insurance claims for 17 years and so I worked. I have worked in catastrophe services. So wherever there's hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, I go on site and I handle large, commercial, large and high value residential claims. So openly gay. No, there was really no one to be open to or with because it was really me being by myself, other than showing up at people's houses. Now, how do I want to say this? So there's a whole world that existed there. So I have also consulted construction companies. I have had my own business in that world, that world too. I had my own contracts and things of that nature. So people knew that I was gay. I assert right, but I just for myself. There's so much more that makes me up than that title. So it it was like I never was like, oh, I'm gay. What's the point of telling you that I'm gay? You're not going to tell me you're straight right.

Speaker 2

Or someone is going to tell me that they're straight. So it's well. What's the point Now? What I did love is when I would run into contractors and they would lean towards my feminine side, so they would get my ladder out of my trunk, they would put my ladder up, they would make sure that I got up the ladder safe to inspect the roof and all that good old stuff. So I loved it.

Speaker 3

Right.

Speaker 2

So they catered to that energy that I give off, I suppose Right, because I think we have to begin to talk about, or really learn the difference between masculine presenting and feminine presenting, and masculine energy and feminine energy. So and I really didn't get that for myself until a conversation with my friend it was like Jamal, you're actually have more masculine energy, but I mean, but you know how to play with your feminine energy. So I used to play with my feminine energy all of the time to get what I wanted Contractors would take me out to dinner and they would pay, and I loved it.

Speaker 2

Why not? But here's the thing about that, though there were, and I tell this story in my book too. So there were two contractors who I befriended. We became really good friends, and then, after about two to three years, I did feel that it was inauthentic of me to be in conversation, be in friendship and I not speak my truth.

Speaker 3

Right.

Speaker 2

Right and even with them. I had to really get that. And one of the things that I want for heterosexual people to understand is that when we love and we come out, we fear loss of those relationships. Every time that we speak our truth of who we are, there's a fear that's there no matter what they do or who they be. There's still that underlying fear that I may not be accepted, I may not be loved, right After I built this relationship. So I had to get over that hurdle when those kinds of relationships were built.

Speaker 3

Yes, unfortunately it happens, where being a member of the LGBTQIA plus community sometimes causes us to lose friends and family members.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

It shouldn't be. But you know, can you imagine in 2023, it's still a thing. It's 24. Oh, I'm sorry, it's 24. It's 24. It's still a thing. We are so backwards right now I'll forget we're in 24.

Speaker 2

It's okay, Well, in pivoting just a little bit. That's why I started the Queer Love Letters series. So did you guys see the launch of the Queer Love Letters?

Speaker 1

Did not? I wanted to talk to you about that. Tell us a little bit more about it.

Speaker 2

Okay. So when I started writing my book, I have a best friend who has a son and when he was growing up we knew that he would be likely be a part of the LGBTQIA plus community. When he came of age, I urged her. I said just have a conversation with him that he loves you, you love him no matter what I was in his life since he was five or six, so they know that I'm gay. But again, the conversations, that's in a child head. You can't override it, right? And like most parents, she was like well, he'll come to me because she's afraid to have the conversation herself. And I was like you're going to have the conversation or I'm going to have it myself herself. And I was like you're going to have the conversation or I'm going to have it myself. So she finally had the conversation with him and the world lifted off of this kid's shoulders. Right, he comes out, he's a mom. I think I'm bisexual, I like girls and I like boys. And she's well, baby, I love you, I don't care, right? So I said you need to write him a love letter. So I said you need to write him a love letter so he'll have it forever. And I said oh, I'm going to send you guys to a video studio and I want you to record you reading it to him for the first time on camera. That way he really gets to have it for forever, like that first moment. Forever.

Speaker 2

So she did and I was going to use it as a promo for my book forever. So she did, and I was going to use it as a promo for my book. And so when she did, I was like, oh my God, people need to hear. I like cried and I was like people need to hear these kinds of stories because it really gives parents access to knowing that you can move beyond the pain, the expectations, and we understand that when a parent has a child, that they begin to dream of who and what their child will become in the world. When the moment that a child identifies as someone other than heterosexual, those dreams shatter right, their expectations shatter. But these examples will give parents access to understanding that love can still exist and choice exist. And so that's how Queer Love Letters was born.

Speaker 3

Oh wow, when was the launch?

Speaker 2

We launched it, I think, three weeks ago. So there are three of them out there. We are producing more because I had to learn from our first three videos. So we're producing more because I had to learn from our first three videos. So we're producing more. We have Queer Love Letters a love letter to my queer child where a parent gets to read a candid love letter to their queer child. We have Queer Love Letters in general, where a queer person gets to read a love letter to someone in their life who has empowered them and being their authentic self. And then we have Queer Love Letters, partner to Partner, where a partner can show their love and express their love to their other half.

Speaker 3

Where can people go to see the?

Speaker 2

QueerLoveLetterscom and on YouTube.

Speaker 3

Queerloveletterscom and YouTube. Okay, and if someone want to participate in the Queerloveletters, how do?

Speaker 2

they get through the website.

Speaker 3

Through the website. Okay, we need more of Jamal in the world. You are such an inspiration.

Speaker 2

Well, I told you in that moment that I thought I was dying. I said everything that I do and everything that I create, I want to create it from a space of love.

Speaker 3

Yeah, how is your health now, jamal?

Speaker 2

My health is fine. So again, it turned out not to be cancer. I still have about 40% of that mass in my head, so I have to do a CAT scan every year, every two years, to make sure that it's not growing. But all is well with my health. Thank you for asking.

Speaker 3

That's amazing, because we need you around.

Speaker 1

So let's cut a little bit. And I mean, you told us some personal things about yourself, but let's get into what is your earliest queer memory.

Speaker 2

My earliest queer memory was about between two and three. My earliest queer memory was about between two and three, really yes. So I loved the male form since that age and I used to watch wrestling on TV and there was just something about a man that just did it for me. I didn't understand what I was feeling and why I was feeling it, but I was feeling it.

Speaker 3

Right when you realized you were queer Jamal, what was your?

Speaker 2

biggest concern being accepted by my family and friends. Yeah, that was it being accepted, being loved and being in a place to be open.

Speaker 3

So did you have any openly queer family members or close friends that was close to your family? I?

Speaker 2

did ish. So when I was growing up, my mom had a transgender friend. She actually worked with someone who was a lesbian and so, but still, I thought that, no matter what, I still wouldn't be accepted. That's how I could relate to my friend's son, because I could see the stories that I've made up in my own head about my own acceptance, despite my mom having these kinds of friends. And I was correct, right, there was something personal about me, there was something detached for them. It was like, okay, they can do whatever they do, but my son cannot be and will not be.

Speaker 3

Right, okay, how is the relationship with your mom now?

Speaker 2

My mom and I's relationship. We are aces so. So when I came out the second time I always say I came out twice. My mom didn't. I explained to her the world of depression that I was sent into, explained to her the world of depression that I was sent into and I'm a letter writer because I can get everything out that I need to say without interruption. So I like to write. So I wrote my mom a letter.

Speaker 2

This letter is in the book too and I wrote my mom a letter and when she received it she called me and she said if I had known I was causing you all of this pain, I would have freed you long ago, because my mom really didn't get the full world of what she sentenced me to by her actions. So since then my mom have we have had amazing conversations between. She asked me about gay sex and I explained that to her. I've explained to her how I resolved my relationship with God and being gay and it gave her so much freedom inside of that, my mom, I don't even need to go to church anymore, I just need to talk to you. So my mom and she is so standing that I find the man of my dreams and fall in love, and she can't wait to meet him. Her only request is that we have children, and I'm like mom. I don't know about that part, but that is her only request.

Speaker 1

So you said, you came out twice. How did you come out? What did that look like?

Speaker 2

Okay, so y'all don't have to read the book. Okay, no, okay, so I'll tell you so. To read the book. I'm sorry, I've got everything in a book, okay, no, okay.

Speaker 2

So I'll tell you, cause I'm going to try to make it quick. So the first time I came out was around 19 years old. That was my sophomore year in college. So I had gone home for Thanksgiving and my sister and I got into an argument. My older sister and I got into an argument. So my aunt lived next door and so I went to next door and I was venting about this argument that I had with my sister.

Speaker 2

Somehow my aunt misconstrued this into a coming out story, don't know how, but my older cousin had just come out, her son, my aunt's son. So when I get back to college, I'm driving up to the school that I'm tutoring at and my mom calls me she's. I have something to ask you. Your aunt said that you're gay and I was like mom, what are you talking about? She gets the story and says what my aunt says, and I was like I don't know how XYZ turned into a coming out story.

Speaker 2

But this is what I said X, y, z, and she was like oh, and so then she starts talking about my cousin and how he shouldn't be gay and he shouldn't be this and that, and I was like you have no right to talk about him. And she was like, well, are you gay? And I was like, as a matter of fact, I am. And so the conversation, like I, black out at this point, I go into a depression. I tell more about the story in the book, but you know like my mom goes into a world of denial about five or six, five years later.

Speaker 2

That's when I come out for a second time when I get to a point where I said I'd rather lose my mom than to lose myself. I cannot exist in this world dancing around someone else's expectations of me. I'd rather lose her than to lose myself. And that's when I wrote the letter and I said you either accept me or you don't, but I have to live life for me.

Speaker 1

Absolutely so. You mentioned a sister. Is that your only sibling? Yes, and how did she accept you?

Speaker 2

My sister probably really does not still does not accept me. My sister is a Bible thumper, holy roller individual and it's just what it is. We coexist, it's fine the way it is for me, Like I don't have anything going on about it. I have got in my growth and development. People are people and people are entitled to their opinions. But their opinions don't have to dictate how I'd be, how I exist in the world. So I don't resist her, she doesn't resist me. We just allow each other to be good.

Speaker 3

Okay, that's fair enough.

Speaker 1

So, jamal, what do you love the most about being queer?

Speaker 2

I don't know that I love or dislike anything about being queer. It's just who I am. It makes me up, makes me up. I don't know that there's anything to love or dislike. It's just who I am. And I think to even entertain the question to like something about being queer is to dislike something about not being queer. So it's just an existence, and all existences deserve to be loved as they are True.

Speaker 1

I guess maybe I'm thinking what do you love most about being part of the community or about the community itself? Do you recognize that there are any differences and maybe not, because maybe you never existed in the straight community, but what things that you see that are different in the queer community versus the non-queer community?

Speaker 2

I think the thing that I've experienced that again, I don't know that exists necessarily the way it does in the queer community, I mean in the heterosexual community is the way that we come together and support and love each other, Because we, because there's this fear of the loss of family I have, I've learned to create family everywhere that I go.

Speaker 1

Yes.

Speaker 2

And so that's one of the things that I, if I had to say I love something, is it taught me to create family, no matter where I am and where I go, and I'm so able to do that and have that kind of support, love and system that's around me.

Speaker 1

Okay, has anything been particularly challenging?

Speaker 2

About being queer, oh yeah. So, like the whole journey has been a challenge Growing up, throwing myself into church and thinking that somehow God was going to deliver me from something that was authentically me.

Speaker 3

That was a challenge.

Speaker 2

Overcoming that world of who God is and who he is. For me was a challenge. The whole coming out to my mom was a challenge, and every day is a challenge, whether it's dating or whether it's just telling my story. Right, here's a funny story. My dad's mom right, she's 86, 87, just turned 87. So never had a gay conversation with my grandmother.

Speaker 2

So I send my grandma a book. I say, hey, grandma, your grandson's an author. So never had a gay conversation with my grandmother. So I send my grandma a book. I say, hey, grandma, your grandson's an author, so send her a book. Right, call grandma, grandma, did you get your book? Yeah, baby, I got my book. I said, okay, cool, me and grandma chatting. So then she says well, baby, I've been reading through your book and she's well, I just want you to know whoever you love and I love you.

Speaker 2

And then it hit me. I'm like I just came out to my grandma. So it's every day is a challenge, and what I mean by that is I can see in relationships where I haven't been totally me Right, like holding back parts of myself, like even with grandma, and so or being not being afraid, or just unwilling to have certain conversations, and now, but now that the book is written, if there is no more going back in the closet, everyone has access to that part of my life. But there are other areas of my life where I withhold and where I don't share myself, and so you know where to be, where I can be more vulnerable with people and share more of me.

Speaker 3

Right, you are such an inspiration man. I could just listen to you all day. So, jamal, what advice do you have for our listeners?

Speaker 2

So the advice that I have for the listeners is to really begin to look at who you are and who you want to be. There's a you that you want to be and that you know can exist. There's a you that you want to be and that you know can exist, but there's something standing in the way, and so my advice is to begin to engage in conversations with people, whether it's therapy, personal growth and development, reading books like mine that give you access to beginning to be the you that you want to be. There's a question that I asked. I was speaking two weeks ago, and I asked one simple question, and it had people ponder, and the question was who would you have been if the trauma never happened? If the trauma never happened, who would you have been? What dreams would you have allowed yourself to have? What choices would you have made differently? And if you really begin to ponder that question, you can actually make new choices in this moment of now.

Speaker 3

That's deep. You spoke a lot about Jamal, but one thing you did not mention where can listeners find the book if they want to purchase a?

Speaker 2

copy. The book is on amazoncom, so, yes, that is where it is. We are launching it on Google Books and some other platforms as we speak, but you can always find it on Amazon. You can get a hardcover. You can always find it on Amazon. You can get a hardcover, paperback or have it on Kindle, and the audio book will be launched April 15th.

The Power of Queer Forgiveness

Speaker 3

Awesome. And what's the?

Speaker 2

cost of the book Jamal. The cost Paperback is $21.99. Paperback I mean card cover, I think is $25.99. And Kindle, right now, until April 15th, is only three books.

Speaker 1

Oh, wow.

Speaker 2

Okay, I think it's either $2.99 or $3.99, one or the other, so it's really expensive to get it on Kindle.

Speaker 3

Yep Awesome.

Speaker 3

Listeners you need to read this book. It's called Authentically Authentic. You will be inspired. We got a snippet of it here to you on the podcast. I can't wait to get my copy so I can read it to really actually dive a little bit deeper. I know I'm going to be sitting down for a long time, probably read it multiple times, because, jamal, you're an inspiration. All right, listeners. There you have it, the inspiring Jamal Wesley. He's an author and an entrepreneur who is the founder of I Hear your Jewelry, a jewelry line that was created to tell stories from a queer perspective.

Speaker 3

He's also a motivational speaker, and what I learned about today is the art of forgiveness by just listening to Jamal. And once again, listeners, please get that book. You're going to learn something from it. Jamal, I want to say thank you so much for being a guest on a Queer Understanding podcast. We really enjoy having you on. Thanks, jamal.

Speaker 2

Thank you for having me, so it has been a joy and it's a pleasure. I love telling my story and I love empowering other human beings to live out their authentic self.