WTF 072: What My Fear Of Being Gay Taught Me

WTF Should I Do W/ My Life?!

I had a suicidal day about 6 years ago...
Yes. That’s after I started Sensophy (a life-coaching company). And no, the irony doesn’t escape me.
I couldn’t explain this at the time. But in hindsight, I was having a panic attack trying to grapple with massive amounts of uncertainty about my future… and even more scary, about who I was.
It took me 10 years to learn this excruciating lesson that I’m about to share with you. But first, let’s rewind for some real-talk about how this all started.
Growing up, I had this big shame that I wasn’t man enough. And it came from everywhere. Society. Hip-Hop. Even my pops. So I was always afraid about being seen as feminine...
But as as a teenager, I didn’t understand the difference between being feminine and being gay.
Seemed like the same thing to me. And so I would obsess over this question of “Am I gay? Am I gay? Am I gay?”
As a scared little boy trying to validate his manhood, I did everything I could to prove I wasn’t gay.
And as I grew up into my 20s, that scared “Little Jacob” was still inside of me… trying to prove his hetrosexuality by doing manly-man things like kick-boxing, racing his motorcycle through rush-hour NYC traffic, and sleeping with as many women as he could.
But no matter how many notches I got under my belt… every so often there would still be this voice that came into my mind and said… “But you’re gay, though. Stop pretending.”
This wasn’t the voice of wisdom, intuition, or truth. It was the voice of fear. The voice of shame. The voice of “not-enoughness”. And I tried everything I could think of to make my mind shut the fuck up already.
When the external action didn’t work (kick-boxing, motorcycling, sexing), I tried to cover it up internally with standard personal-development stuff… affirmations... meditations… mantras.
But there was no amount of “self-improvement” that could make up for a lack of “self-acceptance”.
And while on my blog I was preaching about “knowledge-of-self” being the gateway to happiness... I still didn’t know (with 100% certainty) that I wasn’t gay.
It was bad. Really bad. So bad, that I considered taking my own life one day. So I pulled out a journal and listed all of the reasons not to.
The only reasons I came up with were people’s name that I cared about. But even then, I was so ashamed of what these people would think of me.
At this point, the voice in my head was pounding so loudly that I could barely hear my own thoughts. I finally decided... “Okay. Fine. If I’m gay, let me be gay.” I thought that’d be enough to quiet my unrelenting mind that just wouldn’t stop yelling at me.
But. even. after. facing. my. worst. fear. and. leaning. into. it…
The questioning still didn’t stop!
And THAT's when I learned one of the hardest lessons ever...
It wasn’t about making peace with being gay or not… It was about making peace with the fact that I’ll never know.
When I came to accept the idea of “I will never know”, THAT’S when I found peace.