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.

Enjoy the episode? Post about it and share with your friends! You can tag the show on Instagram @Unstoppable.Podcast or tag me @ColeEvans. Have an idea for a topic you want me to cover? Send me a DM!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Becoming Unstoppable with Cole Evans.
I've struggled with lowself-worth, depression, anxiety
and shame for most of my life.
The more I've talked openlyabout this, the more I've found
how common these struggles arefor gay men.
It's taken so much hard work toovercome these inner battles

(00:21):
and I want to share with you howyou can win the battles too, so
you can enjoy your fucking lifelike the happy and fabulous
dude you are yourself-compassion.
You can heal from pain andtrauma, find love and acceptance
for yourself, liveauthentically and, most
importantly, become unstoppable.

(00:43):
Hey y'all, welcome to the show.
It's great to have you hereToday.
I'm sharing a live recording ofa speech I gave a couple weeks
ago at Austin Toastmasters inhonor of National Coming Out Day
Enjoy.

(01:08):
Do you know why I'm gay?
It's because once, when I wasfour years old, I sneezed and no
one said bless you, and Satanentered my body and made me the
sassy bitch I am today.
It's easy to joke about beinggay now, at 34 years old and

(01:30):
after coming to terms with mysexuality and becoming my most
authentic self.
Today I love me, but it wasn'talways that easy.
So tonight I want to share withyou my story about being gay
and what it's like to grow upgay in a straight man's world,

(01:52):
and my hope is that you'll takeaway some insight of what it is
to be gay and realize therelevance and importance of
things like gay pride andnational coming out day.
There was a lot of confusion,pain and shame that I felt

(02:13):
growing up being gay and I oftenquestioned am I gay because of
things that happened to me?
Is there something wrong withme?
Can I pray the gay away?
And eventually I finallyaccepted no, I was born this way
and we are born this way, bythe way, like not going to argue

(02:34):
that point, but it's not theonly piece of the puzzle.
You see, there's a book calledthe Velvet Rage by Dr Alan Downs
, and he's identified the threelife stages of a gay man Number
one, overwhelmed by shame.
Number two, compensating forshame.

(02:57):
And three, cultivatingauthenticity.
So I want to share briefly oneach of those tonight.
In our culture we put such anemphasis on masculinity and what
that does growing up gay is.
It makes you feel inferior, itmakes you feel unacceptable,

(03:23):
twisted and, honestly, in manyways undeserving of love and not
worthwhile.
I spent almost 25 years of mylife in this state of denial and
not accepting myself.
As a child, I was constantlybullied, growing up, called the

(03:45):
gay kid and fairy boy, yearsbefore I even knew I was
officially gay.
As a teenager, I got superinvolved in church.
It was my way of, I guess,trying to make up for the sin of
being gay, and for over 10years I was extremely involved,
giving of my time, my money andmy whole life.

(04:06):
This was one of the mosttraumatic experiences of my life
Constantly being taught thathomosexuality is a sin that
should be hated.
I remember once a lady told methat I had a homosexual demon
living inside of me.
Clearly she didn't get the memoabout saying bless you to

(04:28):
sneezing toddlers Growing up gay.
You spend so much of your timeworrying that someone's going to
find out your secret and disownyou, that they're going to hate
you for who you are, despitehow talented you may be.
I ended up hating myself.

(04:50):
That's stage one, overwhelmedby shame.
After I left the church, I cameout.
I was 26 years old.
I decided it was my time toshine and to live my authentic
life and go out there and be me.
It was a terrifying experience,especially in Texas, but I often

(05:15):
talk about struggling withperfectionism.
Let me tell you, being gay anda perfectionist, we turn that
shit up to 11.
There is no competing.
We got to go out there and bethe best at every single thing
that we do.
Being out allows us to overcomethe shame of being gay, but it

(05:41):
doesn't fix the inner deep shamethat's left over of feeling
critically flawed.
We constantly seek out externalvalidation to make us feel
better about ourselves.
It helps us silence this toxicshame and makes us feel

(06:04):
worthwhile and deserving of love.
This is stage two compensatingfor shame.
Have you ever wondered why gaymen have such exquisite taste,
why everything that we do isfabulous, why careers, sex,

(06:25):
money, hot, muscular bodies, theperfect partner, vacations, sex
, gorgeous homes, designerclothes, big dick, energy,
expensive cars, sex, art, wealthand other worldly treasures
seem so important to us?
It's because we're validationjunkies.
We need the validation to feelgood about ourselves, to

(06:49):
overcome that critical flaw thatwe still feel deep within
ourselves.
It's no wonder why I was such aperfectionist growing up.
I was trying to show people Istill have value, despite my
critical flaw.
The problem is that validationfrom external sources do not

(07:12):
fulfill you and eventually fadeand no longer soothe the shame
you're seeking to get rid of.
When we're starved forauthentic validation, depression
inevitably takes over, andthat's where I was a year ago in
the deepest, darkest depressionof my life.
The only way to move from stagetwo to stage three is to

(07:37):
process oneself and acceptyourself, and you have to face
that toxic shame head on andrecognize that this belief that
I've had my whole life, that I'mcritically flawed, isn't true.
It's negatively impacted me andI have to move forward in a

(07:57):
spirit of authentic validation,which brings us to stage three
cultivating authenticity.
I'm new to this, but now Iunderstand that it gets better
because I'm living my authenticlife for the first time, which
has allowed me to find happiness, achieve goals, build

(08:18):
friendships and a life that I'vealways wanted.
So tomorrow is national comingout day and, as we observe that,
I want to remind you everyoneyou meet is fighting a battle
you know nothing about.
Be kind always.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, hey.

(08:43):
Y'all, thanks for listening tothe show today.
Before we go, I want to takejust a moment together to pause
and breathe and recenterourselves.
This has made such a differencein my life and it is incredible
how much of a difference it canmake in how we feel, just

(09:04):
through our breath.
So I want you to take just amoment to pause, be still and
relax and take a big, deepbreath in through your nose and
feel all the way up and thenrelease with a big, audible sigh
all the way out through yourmouth.

(09:27):
Doesn't that feel good?
I encourage you to take momentsfor yourself, just like that.
When you begin to feel stressedor anxiety, when the daily

(09:48):
little stuff of light starts tocreep in and make you feel just
ugh.
Take a moment for yourself tojust breathe.
Take a few deep breathsrecenter yourself.
Feel positivity, practicegratitude.

(10:09):
It really helps to rebalanceyou and give you the extra
little power you need to gothrough your day unstoppable.
Thanks for joining the showtoday on another episode of
Becoming Unstoppable with ColeEvans.

(10:29):
If you guys enjoyed the show,please share it with a friend or
a post on social media.
Be sure to tag the show onInstagram at unstoppablepodcast
or tag me at Cole Evans.
That's C-O-L-E-E-V-A-N-S.
Please follow and rate the showon whatever platform you use.

(10:53):
It helps the algorithms tofeature our show to new
listeners, just like you.
My goal in hosting this podcastis to make an impact on
people's lives and help peopleto find the peace and happiness
through self-compassion, justlike I have, of course, become

(11:16):
unstoppable.
I hope you guys have a greatday.
I can't wait to hang out withyou on our next episode.
Until then, this is Cole Evanssigning off.
Stay fabulous, y'all.