2. From Fear to Freedom: The Road to Resilience for a Gay Man

Growing up gay in a straight man's world is a journey fraught with challenges, turmoil, and ultimately, self-discovery. Join me, your host Cole Evans, as I share my deeply personal journey from low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety to finding self-love, acceptance, and the resilience to become unstoppable. Be a part of an unfiltered conversation where we'll navigate through the three life stages of a gay man identified by Dr. Alan Downs in his book 'The Velvet Rage'. 

Let's laugh together, maybe shed a tear or two, but most importantly, let's learn together. I'll share my struggles of being a gay man in modern society and my experience with homophobia and internalized shame. And before we part, we'll indulge in a simple and effective breathing technique that has helped me manage stress and anxiety. Join me on 'Becoming Unstoppable with Cole Evans' for an episode that promises to inspire, uplift, and hopefully, empower.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Becoming Unstoppable with Cole Evans. I've struggled with low self-worth, depression, anxiety and shame for most of my life. The more I've talked openly about this, the more I've found how common these struggles are for gay men. It's taken so much hard work to overcome these inner battles and I want to share with you how you can win the battles too, so you can enjoy your fucking life like the happy and fabulous dude you are your self-compassion. You can heal from pain and trauma, find love and acceptance for yourself, live authentically and, most importantly, become unstoppable. Hey y'all, welcome to the show. It's great to have you here Today. I'm sharing a live recording of a speech I gave a couple weeks ago at Austin Toastmasters in honor of National Coming Out Day Enjoy.

Speaker 1: 1:08

Do you know why I'm gay? It's because once, when I was four years old, I sneezed and no one said bless you, and Satan entered my body and made me the sassy bitch I am today. It's easy to joke about being gay now, at 34 years old and after coming to terms with my sexuality and becoming my most authentic self. Today I love me, but it wasn't always that easy. So tonight I want to share with you my story about being gay and what it's like to grow up gay in a straight man's world, and my hope is that you'll take away some insight of what it is to be gay and realize the relevance and importance of things like gay pride and national coming out day. There was a lot of confusion, pain and shame that I felt growing up being gay and I often questioned am I gay because of things that happened to me? Is there something wrong with me? Can I pray the gay away? And eventually I finally accepted no, I was born this way and we are born this way, by the way, like not going to argue that point, but it's not the only piece of the puzzle. You see, there's a book called the Velvet Rage by Dr Alan Downs, and he's identified the three life stages of a gay man Number one, overwhelmed by shame. Number two, compensating for shame. And three, cultivating authenticity. So I want to share briefly on each of those tonight.

Speaker 1: 3:07

In our culture we put such an emphasis on masculinity and what that does growing up gay is. It makes you feel inferior, it makes you feel unacceptable, twisted and, honestly, in many ways undeserving of love and not worthwhile. I spent almost 25 years of my life in this state of denial and not accepting myself. As a child, I was constantly bullied, growing up, called the gay kid and fairy boy, years before I even knew I was officially gay. As a teenager, I got super involved in church. It was my way of, I guess, trying to make up for the sin of being gay, and for over 10 years I was extremely involved, giving of my time, my money and my whole life. This was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life Constantly being taught that homosexuality is a sin that should be hated. I remember once a lady told me that I had a homosexual demon living inside of me. Clearly she didn't get the memo about saying bless you to sneezing toddlers Growing up gay.

Speaker 1: 4:33

You spend so much of your time worrying that someone's going to find out your secret and disown you, that they're going to hate you for who you are, despite how talented you may be. I ended up hating myself. That's stage one, overwhelmed by shame. After I left the church, I came out. I was 26 years old. I decided it was my time to shine and to live my authentic life and go out there and be me.

Speaker 1: 5:08

It was a terrifying experience, especially in Texas, but I often talk about struggling with perfectionism. Let me tell you, being gay and a perfectionist, we turn that shit up to 11. There is no competing. We got to go out there and be the best at every single thing that we do. Being out allows us to overcome the shame of being gay, but it doesn't fix the inner deep shame that's left over of feeling critically flawed. We constantly seek out external validation to make us feel better about ourselves. It helps us silence this toxic shame and makes us feel worthwhile and deserving of love.

Speaker 1: 6:07

This is stage two compensating for shame. Have you ever wondered why gay men have such exquisite taste, why everything that we do is fabulous, why careers, sex, money, hot, muscular bodies, the perfect partner, vacations, sex, gorgeous homes, designer clothes, big dick, energy, expensive cars, sex, art, wealth and other worldly treasures seem so important to us? It's because we're validation junkies. We need the validation to feel good about ourselves, to overcome that critical flaw that we still feel deep within ourselves. It's no wonder why I was such a perfectionist growing up. I was trying to show people I still have value, despite my critical flaw. The problem is that validation from external sources do not fulfill you and eventually fade and no longer soothe the shame you're seeking to get rid of. When we're starved for authentic validation, depression inevitably takes over, and that's where I was a year ago in the deepest, darkest depression of my life. The only way to move from stage two to stage three is to process oneself and accept yourself, and you have to face that toxic shame head on and recognize that this belief that I've had my whole life, that I'm critically flawed, isn't true. It's negatively impacted me and I have to move forward in a spirit of authentic validation, which brings us to stage three cultivating authenticity. I'm new to this, but now I understand that it gets better because I'm living my authentic life for the first time, which has allowed me to find happiness, achieve goals, build friendships and a life that I've always wanted.

Speaker 1: 8:22

So tomorrow is national coming out day and, as we observe that, I want to remind you everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind always. Thank you, thank you, thank you, hey. Y'all, thanks for listening to the show today. Before we go, I want to take just a moment together to pause and breathe and recenter ourselves. This has made such a difference in my life and it is incredible how much of a difference it can make in how we feel, just through our breath. So I want you to take just a moment to pause, be still and relax and take a big, deep breath in through your nose and feel all the way up and then release with a big, audible sigh all the way out through your mouth. Doesn't that feel good? I encourage you to take moments for yourself, just like that. When you begin to feel stressed or anxiety, when the daily little stuff of light starts to creep in and make you feel just ugh. Take a moment for yourself to just breathe. Take a few deep breaths recenter yourself. Feel positivity, practice gratitude. It really helps to rebalance you and give you the extra little power you need to go through your day unstoppable.

Speaker 1: 10:22

Thanks for joining the show today on another episode of Becoming Unstoppable with Cole Evans. If you guys enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend or a post on social media. Be sure to tag the show on Instagram at unstoppablepodcast or tag me at Cole Evans. That's C-O-L-E-E-V-A-N-S. Please follow and rate the show on whatever platform you use. It helps the algorithms to feature our show to new listeners, just like you. My goal in hosting this podcast is to make an impact on people's lives and help people to find the peace and happiness through self-compassion, just like I have, of course, become unstoppable. I hope you guys have a great day. I can't wait to hang out with you on our next episode. Until then, this is Cole Evans signing off. Stay fabulous, y'all.