The Velvet Rage (21 page)

Alex's story isn't unique. The signs of Craig's sexual craziness and tendency toward addiction had been present from the beginning,
but Alex was swept off his feet by how attracted he was to Craig. Even in the beginning, Alex had some idea that a life with Craig wouldn't likely be easy, but he was so damn good-looking. Alex, like so many of us have done, buried his head in the sand and hoped for the best.

Whether it is who you date, the job you choose, or the friends with whom you spend time, always ask yourself if the choice is likely to contribute to your own inner peace. If the honest answer is “no,” then take a hard look at why you are wanting to make a choice that isn't in your ultimate best interest. Sometimes we do it to escape the pain or boredom of our current circumstances, sometimes out of loneliness, and still at other times because we are hungry for validation. All of these are legitimate needs that are better addressed directly, rather than acquired at the cost of our own contentment.

Skill
: When feeling an intense emotion, ALWAYS delay taking action until after the emotion has subsided. Rarely do we make the best choices when under the influence of intense emotion, and worse, it is at those moments that we are often convinced that we are absolutely right and must take action immediately. Notice the feeling and immediately take whatever steps you can to allow the emotion to subside before acting. Write the e-mail, but save it rather than send it. Don't pick up the phone. Refuse to make the purchase. Walk away from the conversation. Do nothing until the emotion has diminished.

Background
: The key to this skill is twofold. First, notice that you are feeling an emotion. Second, consider whether or not it is effective for you to act on that emotion. Is it really effective to tell
off your boss because he criticized you in public? Is it effective for you to spend the night at a friend's house every time your lover complains about something you've done? There's nothing wrong or inappropriate with feeling the emotions of anger or shame in these two examples. However, acting on these emotions in the moment isn't really helpful. It certainly doesn't help the situation improve, and worse still, it is likely to cause you to feel more of this emotion in the future.

An important point to understand is that there is a big difference between
feeling
an emotion and
acting
on it. You are capable of feeling a wide range of intense emotions, but just because you feel them doesn't mean you are helpless and must immediately take the bull by the horns. That's like saying the murderer couldn't help his actions because he was enraged, or the embezzler isn't responsible for stealing because he feared at the time for his own financial well-being. Emotions in healthy, functioning, nonpsychotic individuals are not valid rationalizations for actions. Emotions inform us but control us only if we allow them to.

Creating the “contemplative moment” between feeling and action is an important practice for authenticity. Feelings in the moment aren't always representative of what we consistently feel over time, so expressing these impulsive feelings can communicate inaccuracies about ourselves. Telling your lover that you haven't enjoyed sex with him because lately he seems less interested in sex is likely inaccurate and inauthentic. Or telling your new boyfriend that you've known only for a few hours that you love him is equally inauthentic. Acting on an emotional urge isn't necessarily honest, authentic, or effective. In fact, it will most likely do harm.

Intense emotions create a full-body response, much in the same way that alcohol or mood-altering substances work. Your
reaction time, perception, judgment, and sensitivity to your environment are all affected by the emotion. One of the most notable effects of a strong emotion is that it limits your focus and memory to those things to which the emotion is attached. When you are angry with a friend, in that moment, what occupies most of your attention are the circumstances that elicited the anger. It is harder to recall the times when your friend was kind or helpful, for example.

It's never a good idea to make decisions when in an altered state. When you are under the influence of a strong emotion, it has two notable properties: (1) the emotion screams in your brain, and (2) it has a sense of urgency seemingly saying “do it now!” How many times have you made a phone call or sent an e-mail when feeling something intensely, only to regret it the next day after the emotion has subsided?

Skill
: Choose those investments in life that contribute to your sense of feeling contentment, rather than those investments of your time and energy that promise to earn you the acceptance or approval of others.

Background
: Since we were young boys, most of us were heavily focused on winning the acceptance of others to compensate for that inner feeling of being unacceptable, perhaps even unlovable. As men, we can continue this pattern by choosing careers, partners, and friends based on what we imagine will make us more acceptable to others rather than those things that are intrinsically rewarding to us. Putting the effects of shame behind you and getting your life back on track to authenticity demands that you examine all of your emotional investments for their
“intrinsic” value to bring you contentment versus their “extrinsic” value to bring you acceptance and the approval of others. Only those that increase and support your contentment will ultimately bring you joy and fulfillment; all others will drain you of energy and time that could be spent doing something that brings a far more meaningful return.

Jim is an artist who makes a decent living selling his paintings in local galleries. He's not getting rich, by any stretch, but he pays his bills and loves the fact that this time is his own and he doesn't have to report to a boss. On several occasions, he has had the opportunity to take other jobs, particularly in the field of graphic and website design. These jobs pay better than what he can make from his art but would require that he work on projects that are assigned as opposed to working on his own art. He's often been tempted to take a job so he could have money to do some of the extras, like take a great vacation, fix up his house, or drive a nicer car.

It's not that there's anything innately wrong with Jim taking a job, and at some point it might even be wise. However, the right job for Jim has to offer him the ability to express his artistic talents in a way that brings him contentment rather than just a paycheck. While the latter might make him feel more accepted and successful, in the long run it's likely to make him unhappy and dissatisfied with his life.

The most important thing to remember about this skill is that
contentment is created when your behavior is consistent with your values.
When you act in ways that are consistent with the core of who you are, even when your actions aren't approved by others, you increase your overall contentment. Happiness, success, money, relationships, and even the approval of others will come and go in your life, but what is ultimately satisfying is feeling
content—regardless of these other more transitory highs and lows. Making the decision to act according to your core values rather than what brings approval from others ultimately makes you more content in life.

The skills in this section are particularly effective at helping to contain and reduce the experience of negative emotions and increase your positive experience of life. Finding contentment and inner peace is almost entirely dependent on our ability to limit the negative emotions and interpretations of life. Learning the practice of containing the negative, and actively employing the willingness to do so, is the secret to a happy life.

Without realizing it, you may already practice the following skills. But by bringing these skills into awareness and initiating focused practice, you increase your daily experience of joy and overall satisfaction with life. While none of these skills is particularly unique to gay men, I find that many of us either don't use these skills or don't practice them regularly.

Skill
: When life doesn't turn out the way you want, stop insisting that it not be so. This is a skill that is rarely practiced once and accomplished successfully; rather, it requires repeated use until you finally relinquish the demand that life be something different than what it is.

Background
: In Alcoholics Anonymous, most meetings include the recitation of the serenity prayer, which reads: “God, grant me
the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” In this ancient prayer is contained the essence of the acceptance skill—learning to accept those things that cannot be changed.

Many years ago, I attended a professional training workshop in which the speaker made the statement that “everything is perfectly as it should be” to illustrate the essence of the skill of acceptance. I'll never forget the uproar that followed that comment, as it seemed that everyone in the room disagreed with the speaker. For years I struggled with this statement, until I reached the point of understanding that what “should be” is always “what is.” In other words, the speaker was stating that there really are no “should's” in the world, only what is. The “shoulds” are fantasies, large and small, and are not reality—they do not exist.

Most often when we experience distress in life it's because we consistently and rigidly refuse to accept reality, or “what is,” and demand that it be something different. You refuse to accept that your partner is not responsible with money, no matter how much you insist that he be so. Or you refuse to accept the body you were born with and keep trying to change it, hide it, or create the illusion that it is different from what it is.

If you're like me, you're probably thinking, “Yes, but isn't there something to be said for being dissatisfied with the status quo and reaching for something higher?” This is the dialectic (two seemingly opposing truths that don't necessarily cancel one another out) that is at the heart of this skill. In short, this skill requires we first accept everything about reality before we even consider making a change. For example, you must accept that your partner does not naturally have the skills to manage money and may even have a resistance to learning such skills. Is it possible, in some future reality, that he will acquire these skills? Perhaps,
but the present moment requires that you accept where he is, for only then will you be able to see the opportunities to truly help him to acquire the skills, and perhaps the desire, to manage money more effectively.

Keith absolutely dreads going to work. More to the point, he hates his boss. He's been passed over for a promotion on at least three occasions, and his boss consistently takes personal credit for Keith's work. Every time this happens, Keith goes into a quiet rage—which he sometimes takes out at home on his partner. Keith's boss has been something of a cut-throat, self-centered person since Keith first took the job. His behavior isn't fair and clearly hurts Keith's chances of getting a promotion and making more money; nonetheless, this is who he is. Keith's refusal to accept that his boss behaves badly causes Keith great distress every time his boss does something to undercut him. If Keith truly accepted his boss for who he is, his anger would lessen. The boss's behavior isn't right, and nobody expects Keith to like it, but it is the reality of his boss.

Keith often would proclaim things like “but he shouldn't take credit for my work” or “I deserve the promotion—I've earned it.” Whenever life begins to feel blatantly unfair, ask yourself if there's something you need to accept. Persistent and troubling feelings of unfairness are often based on one's unwillingness to accept some aspect of reality. Likewise, when something seems absolutely unbearable (i.e., “I can't take it”), that is also most often a sign that we are refusing to accept some aspect of reality.

It is extremely helpful to remember that acceptance is not approval. Very often, those things that we must accept in life are also those things we do not like, and perhaps even despise. You likely would not choose to be HIV-positive and may even despise what that virus has done to our community and world, but
if you test positive for the HIV antibody, you must accept that you are HIV-positive. To consistently refuse to accept this keeps you in continuous, excessive, and unnecessary suffering.

When Joe found out he was HIV-positive, he was devastated. He made an appointment with one of the best HIV doctors in Los Angeles, but did so under an assumed name and made the appointment at a time when he figured there wouldn't be many other men in the waiting room. Six months later, Joe came to therapy seeking help with a new relationship. He'd finally met the man of his dreams, and the only problem was that he hadn't revealed his HIV status to his boyfriend. While he was insistent that they practice only safe sex, he was terrified that his boyfriend would have a problem with his HIV status and might even break off the relationship because of it. And if he didn't have a problem with Joe being HIV-positive, he would most surely have a problem with not being told of it. Joe's refusal to truly and fully accept his HIV status prevented him from being completely honest about it from the beginning of the relationship. For if Joe had fully accepted his status, he would be quite clear that no matter how great the boyfriend might be, the relationship hasn't much of a chance unless he reveals his status—since it isn't likely to change until there is an effective vaccine. Perhaps you can remember how much distress you felt when you dated a man prior to being out of the closet. Once you fully accepted that you were gay and were honest about it with the important people in your life, much of that distress disappeared.