How I am both black and gay at the same time – (Gay Star News)
Being Black and Gay at the same time!
21 Oct 2013 2 Comments
in Reflections Tags: Gay, LGBT, Nigeria, Race
The Power of Storytelling
24 Sep 2013 5 Comments
in Gay Tags: Africa, Father, Gay, LGBT, Mother, Storytelling
“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we’ll ever do ” – Brené Brown
Early next month I take to stage with a fellow storyteller to share stories about my journey with my mother. My solo piece is called ‘Killing My Mother’!
When I think of the phrase ‘killing my mother’ there are three stories that come to mind. The first story features the statement – ‘I never killed my mother, so you cannot kill me’. This was something my mother often said, as she would beat me in my teens whenever I misbehaved. The second features – ‘You have killed me!’ This was the first thing that my mother screamed when in my late 20s I told her that I was gay. The third features – ‘You made your mother miserable and that misery killed her’. This was what my mother’s pastor told me when I returned to Nigeria in my 40s for my mother’s funeral.
I recently sat down with my fellow storytelling collaborator (Paul Woodward) to discuss our upcoming performance, our inspiration and intentions….. here is our conversation…..
Daring Greatly with Brené Brown
18 Jul 2013 2 Comments
in Courage and Vulnerability Tags: Brene Brown, Gay, LGBT, The Quest
I remember being filled with such excitement and anticipation when in early April I discovered that Brené Brown was coming to London to give a talk at The School of Life. I immediately posted the details on Facebook, and notified a few of the guys who had journeyed with us at The Quest about the event. Since discovering Brené’s work via her TED talks, Darren (Co-Founder of The Quest) and myself had often referred to her research in our work with gay men on the issue of shame, vulnerability and courage.
I got out my diary to put in the date and then noticed that I had another engagement on the same day, which I could not get out of – or could I? I was in the process of starting a monthly group coaching session in June, and our second session would clash with the Brené event. I debated whether to move the session, but everything was already in place and so I gradually settled to the possibility of the talk making its way to YouTube and seeing it there.
Few weeks later as Ernesto, (fellow collaborator at The Quest) told me that he had his ticket for The School of Life event, I silently debated whether I could take my coaching group for an outing to see Brené, but by that stage the tickets were all gone. ‘Oh well, that’s that’ I thought!’ More
Reflections on being Freshly Pressed
10 Jul 2013 9 Comments
in Reflections Tags: Brene Brown, Freshly Pressed, Gay, LGBT, Storytelling
Three weeks ago, I had no idea what being ‘Freshly Pressed’ meant. I’m rather glad I did not, because such knowledge was bound to have triggered my old chestnut of ‘I am not good enough’, which in turn might have led to me striving and striving to get something Freshly Pressed; all with a view to becoming the illusory and momentary ‘good enough’. Yes I know, what does ‘good enough’ mean anyway? And does being Freshly Pressed really matter? But hey, it’s an old wound I carry and much as I’d like to pretend that I no longer hear its silent whisper, deep down I know that it still rears its stubborn head from time to time, to let me know that I can run but cannot hide.
A couple of days after the Freshly Pressed post, I noticed that my email inbox was filled with tons of notifications of either people following my blog or posting a comment. My immediate thought was that my spam filter was compromised and I decided to ignore them. Later that evening I noticed that @freshly_pressed had tweeted my post. Aww, that’s nice I thought, as I looked though the other blogs that had also been tweeted. I mentioned the tweet on Facebook and got a few ‘Congratulations’, for which I felt embarrassed; ‘its only a tweet I thought, no big deal’. More
OutTales around the Fire 