So, your child is gay...

What do you say when your child comes out to you? The first thing that you should say is “I love you.” Our first job as parents is to teach our children how to be loving, kind human beings. And we do that by being kind and loving ourselves. We want our children to accept other people without intolerance and discrimination. We teach them how to do this by being tolerant and accepting ourselves. So if your child comes to you and says that he or she is gay, remember the important job we have, in teaching our children to be kind, tolerant, and accepting: and then accept them. 

As parents, we want our children to be perfect. We want our children’s lives to reflect the values that we as parents have bestowed upon them, and to reflect the way they were raised. We want them to be clean, and honest, and good. And for some parents, a gay lifestyle doesn’t immediately fit into that image.  

It is important for parents to understand that your child did not choose to be gay, and that he or she cannot choose to be straight if he or she is actually gay (any more than you could choose to be gay when you know you are straight). Realizing that you’re gay can be really scary and isolating. It’s hard to be so different from everyone else. It can be extremely lonely and scary. So know that your child has already contemplated whether or not he or she could possibly be straight, and has come up with a great big NO.  It is very likely that they have wished at some point to be straight, because it would be a much easier lifestyle than the one they were born into. But he or she did not get a choice. 

Your child was born gay, and shaming or disowning him or her will not make your child straight. It may destroy your relationship and make your child’s struggles bigger. Many gay youth take their own life because the burden upon them is so great. Your child needs you to be strong for him or her, to reach inside yourself, and to stretch your ideals such that you can continue to love and support your child the way he or she is.

As a parent, you should know that your child has always been gay and nothing that you did or did not do has anything to do with him or her being gay. Some people know they are gay when they are very young, and some people understand it later in their lives. You should also know that being gay changes very little about your child. He or she is still the person you raised and is still your child who needs you. He or she still cares about you and needs your support. 

It is okay that your child is gay. You cannot change whether or not your child is gay, but you can decide what your response will be. It is okay to love and support your gay child. He or she will benefit a great deal from your love and support. 

You might need some support too, as you stretch your ideals and change your expectations. There are a lot of support groups that you can reach out to such as pflag or other pride organizations in your city. You can also access a lot of information online that can answer a lot of your questions. 

Be comforted that your child can, with your support, lead a healthy and full life of happiness and success. Most -if not all- of the dreams you have had for your child can still come true. Be there, love your child, and know that your support will be one of the greatest gifts you can give. Know this: it is okay that your child is gay. 

If you have any questions, please leave a comment and I will do my best to answer them!

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My take on promises

I want to talk about promises. This has been on my mind a bit lately, and I wanted to share it with you. We make promises all the time. I made a promise 12 years ago to marry a man and love him forever. I was very young. I hadn't developed into the person I am now. I didn't know about the things I would learn as the years moved forward. We had a son together.

A promise assumes that we know what will come in the future. And I made the promise to get married and love someone forever without understanding how much of the future I had ahead of me. We had been together for 5 years, and at the time I figured that 5 years was enough time for me to get to know HIM. I hadn't given a second's thought to how long it would take to know MYSELF.

We make promises to other people. We make vows and say "until death do us part". We make commitments and say "you matter more to me than my own happiness". Our generation makes these statements, and yet we don't live by them. We get divorced. We call it quits. We move out. We separate when we become miserable. The divorce rate is up to some ridiculously high number. Yet people still get married, and they still make these crazy vows to be with one person no matter what. But they don't live it. We, as a society, don't live it.

I have this radical theory. We should recognize the way our generation goes about love. We should acknowledge that we don't really stay until death. We give up when it's awful. And I think maybe we SHOULD give up when it's awful. I want love. But I don't want to be with someone because they signed an agreement to stay with me despite how they feel about me. And I don't want to live miserably forever because at one point in my life it seemed like a good idea.

So what if we didn't say "Until death do us part"? What if we skipped that part entirely, and we said instead "Until we cannot be happy together". I think if we did that, we might treat love differently. We might appreciate our partners more. We might take an extra minute to check in and evaluate. We might not take love for granted. And we might make the commitment to be together, for the RIGHT reasons. Because of love. Not because of a promise.

Honesty

Today's post is about honesty, and what it means to me.

We all know that we're not supposed to lie. And yet, it is difficult to prevent hurt feelings, or awkward situations, or other people's anger when we are totally honest. How are we supposed to live in honesty when it is so difficult?

For myself, honesty with others is based on honesty with myself. Every action I take, I justify first. Like everyone else, I make decisions based on how I feel, the things I want and need, and how my decision will affect other people. Like all of us, I weigh each choice I make with the alternatives, and choose the action that fits best based on what I feel and what I know. Understanding this process is important to the concept of living within honesty. When you make a choice, you justify that choice as you make it. Most of the time, most of us make these justifications without thinking about them.

Living in honesty means being aware of the basis of our justifications, and being able to share them.

As an example: if someone was upset at me for canceling a plan, then I might need to describe why I thought that it would be okay to do so. Maybe something more important came up for me. I would need to look at my own justifications to see WHY that something was more important. Here is where honesty with self is most important. What emotions were behind the justification? Was I excited about something that I wanted to spend time on? Was I avoiding something uncomfortable? Did I have an opportunity to do something unique that I couldn't do at another time? And how did I think this would affect the person I was canceling plans with? All of these justifications are important pieces of information that you can, and should share, if you're trying to live in honesty.

The problem with sharing our justifications is that in some cases, what we decide for ourselves, doesn't always work for someone else. That's uncomfortable for ourselves, and for others. It's not surprising that we want to avoid that, and that's why we create lies in the first place.

But with practice, you will see that there is always a reason behind the choice that you make, and that is information you can share. Share your justifications. And if they don't work for someone, or you were wrong about something, then you can apologize.

Being honest can mean that you may hurt people's feelings if you are careless about your choices. But being careful in your choices means that you can be honest. You can talk about what you were thinking and feeling when you made a choice. You justified the decision you made, and that justification was enough for you when you made the decision.

As you become aware of the justifications you make, you can begin to live in a way that is easily justifiable. If you cannot justify the choices you make, then you may realize that something in your life needs to change. Seeing this and understanding this can be very freeing.

Being honest is really truly freeing. Being able to be honest with others about how you feel, the things that you want, and then being able to own those choices and decisions means that you are free. And life is much easier when truth is behind all our words.

I am thankful.

I haven’t written in ages, and to be honest it is because I have had a lot going on in these last few weeks and just haven’t been able to write. Chris of “From the bungalow” suggested that I write about things I appreciate and am grateful for. So here goes:

I am thankful for optimism. Optimism allows me to see that losing my job was a blessing. Optimism shows me that being laid off is an opportunity to get new training and start a new career path doing something better. Optimism allows me to see that change can be positive.

I am thankful for courage. Courage allows me to take a chance, to lift my foot in a step towards a new career path. Courage lets me move beyond the fear of change into action. Courage gives me the freedom to create a new and better future.

I am thankful for my family, who let me know that I will always have a roof over my head, food to eat, and our basic needs met, even if we’re all broke and have so little to offer. I am thankful for my family who let me know I am safe, even if I fail.

I am thankful for my heart. My heart jumps in and loves freely, trusts until given reason not to, and loves with such intensity that it sometimes feels like it’ll kill me. I am thankful for my big, open, giving heart; my heart that is willing to risk being hurt, that gives others the benefit of the doubt, and still believes in love.

I am thankful for my strength. Strength allows me to recognize when a relationship is not healthy. Strength gives me the power to let go of love when that love is toxic. I am thankful for the strength to create healthy boundaries in my life, and to know that I am okay on my own. I am thankful for the strength to walk away, and expect better.

I am thankful for my friendships. I am thankful for the friends I have who will put on the tea kettle, or will meet me at the beach, and sit with me and listen to me and hear out my thoughts. I am thankful for my friends who allow me to speak about my concerns, my fears, and my dreams and then affirm me for all of it and allow me to follow whatever path feels right, without judging me.

I am thankful for the friends who will hold up a mirror and remind me of who I am, even after I’ve forgotten. Those friends who will pick me up and put me on my feet and show me that it is still a beautiful day. I am thankful for friends who show me how wonderful I am, that will love me forever, and will always be on my side, even if I am wrong. I am thankful for my forever friends, for demonstrating what real love looks like.

I am thankful for my son. My son allows me to see that day-to-day life doesn’t stop. My son shows me that no matter how I feel, I need to get out of bed, get dressed, and get moving. My son reminds me to live in the moment, and see each moment as the gift it really is. My son shows me that I am strong, and that I can do anything.

I am thankful for you, my community of adventurers. I am thankful for the space we have created to be positive, supportive and supported. I am thankful that even when I can’t write, you stick around. I am thankful for every twitter reply, Facebook comment, and question you ask me. I am thankful that you talk amongst yourselves in the comments sometimes. I am thankful that our community is so diverse. I am thankful for every man, woman, and otherwise individual who is reading this. I am thankful each time you share an article that moves you. I am thankful for every new “like” on Facebook. I am thankful to be reaching you, and more so thankful that you reach back.

I am thankful for my life. It is beautiful, and filled with so much love and support.

The pursuit of happiness

The pursuit of happiness.

I feel really strongly that life should be about happiness. I feel like the goal in life should be happiness, and I have some ideas about how to make life happy.

The aspect of happiness that I want to discuss today is honesty. We all say that we appreciate honesty, and yet so many of us struggle with honesty. We are dishonest with others and we are dishonest with ourselves. We hide the truth, or dress it up to make it easier to hand over to others.

One important aspect to living happily, in my opinion, is being really honest with yourself, and that means owning and understanding your emotions. You can be strong, and capable, and powerful, and beautiful, and be scared. It is okay to feel scared. You can be perfectly okay on your own, and yet feel needy. It is okay to feel needy. You can be a kind, loving, attentive, patient, careful person, and feel angry. It is okay to feel angry. All of your emotions have value.

We feel things that don’t fit with who we think we are, and so we negate them. We don’t allow ourselves to acknowledge that we are scared, or stressed, or sad, or angry because we don’t WANT those emotions. We deny our feelings their proper voice, and so they live just under the surface of our skin: scratching at our sense of selves and well-being.

Being honest with yourself allows you to be honest with others. Acknowledge and respect your own emotions. Learn to give your emotions a voice. Explore your emotions and learn to say “I feel afraid. I feel afraid that I might not be doing a good job.” Or “I feel angry. I feel angry because I don’t feel respected.”, or “I feel lonely. I feel lonely because I am missing something important in my life”.

These words give you power. Understanding and naming how you feel changes an emotion from something that is arbitrarily happening TO YOU into something you can look at, affect and address.

By being honest with yourself, you enable yourself to be honest with others. You no longer need to fear sharing your truths with others. You no longer need to hide from others what you feel. Understanding your emotions means you don’t need to hide them. You have justified the way you feel and honesty only requires you communicate those reasons.

This all leads to happiness because honesty with yourself gives you the power to be honest with others, which means you can tell others how you feel and what you need, and that ability means you don’t have to hide. You can be who you are. You can feel what you feel. You can tell others what you need. You know what you feel. It seems so simple, but is so profound.

Be honest with yourself. Be honest with yourself in all your emotions. Own your sadness, your loneliness, your fear. Own your bliss, your love, your gratitude. Own your melancholy, boredom, curiosity. Own it all. Set yourself free with acceptance and self-learning.

Knowing these emotions allows you to move past them into other emotions. It allows you to understand them and resolve or embrace them. It allows the voice inside to speak to you and tell you what those emotions have to say. Embrace all the emotions, and give them a voice so that they can move on.

It will take you one step closer to happy.

What inspires you?

A few weeks ago I asked my friends “what inspires you?” and got some colourful answers that I’d like to share. I asked the question because I was feeling down, and I was looking for inspiration. I got some great answers from my friends, and I realized that people are what inspire me. I know there are individuals who get a kick out of being unkind, or by spreading hate, but there is a much stronger universe of people who recognize that we are stronger together, who find passion and happiness in helping, supporting and being kind. I surround myself in these people and am one myself.

I think an important aspect of happiness is identifying the things that inspire you. I’m most inspired by the kindness of my fellow people. And I’m inspired by being alive. I am grateful for the breath I take, for the feeling in my body, and the freedom I have to choose where I’m going. Life is so fleeting. It’s so precious and each and every one of us is truly lucky to be alive. We all leave here. Eventually everyone that can remember us will also leave here. We have no staying power whatsoever and that means that what matters is today. The impact we have on other people, and how we feel today are what matters.

I am inspired by my own mortality. Knowing that our time is limited and that this is our only shot to do whatever it is we are here to do makes me want to do meaningful and powerful things. When I think about what kind of mark I want to leave on this planet, I want my mark to be happiness. I want people to have felt happiness, strength, courage and freedom because I existed, and smiled at them, or because I did something kind, or said something that connected for someone that allowed them to understand that they are not alone. Our mortality is the ultimate shared experience, and it inspires me to bring happiness into the world, through acceptance, relating, and sharing. It inspires me to be the type of person that inspires me.
Today is where each of us exist, and how we feel today matters. So relish in today and be appreciative for today. Be thankful for your body and your breath and that today is ours. Share that feeling with someone, so they too can be inspired by today and be inspired by their own mortality.

Leave a comment below about what inspires you. Tomorrow will be the first installment of “Fav Fridays” where I post up and discuss some of my favorite comments from followers from Facebook, Twitter, and on the blog. Find a way to follow, and I look forward to you getting in on the conversation.

KR Munro

Note: something happened on Blogger and the post on perfection disappeared. I'll try and get it back up for you! :)