When we set out on this journey to put words to the emotional journey of black gay men, we knew it would be complicated. What we did not know, is how cathartic it would be to express out loud the trauma we carried since we were little boys with big secrets. In this final episode of the series, we explore what we’ve learned, what it means, and where we must continue to grow. 

For black gay men, the intersections of race, sexual orientation and gender—among many other descriptive identities—often leaves us feeling deeply undervalued and uncertain about our future. In this episode, we finish exploring our final three core concerns we personally believe black gay men must confront if we are to heal ourselves and reclaim our future.

For black gay men, the intersections of race, sexual orientation and gender—among many other descriptive identities—often leaves us feeling deeply undervalued and uncertain about our future. In this episode, we continue exploring our core concerns we personally believe black gay men must confront if we are to heal ourselves and reclaim our future.

For black gay men, the intersections of race, sexual orientation and gender—among many other descriptive identities—often leaves us feeling deeply undervalued and uncertain about our future. In this episode, we explore three of nine core concerns we personally believe black gay men must confront if we are to heal ourselves and reclaim our future.

Codependency is generally defined as the preoccupation and extreme dependency, emotionally, socially and sometimes physically on a person or object. In this episode, we explore how under-functioning, over-functioning and codependency work together to create relationships that leave us feeling separated from others and ourselves.

According to psychotherapist M. Formica, “Attempting to manage the emotions of others engenders our relationships with a complex dynamic of power and control.” In this episode, we explore how and why we overfunction and people-please and what it ultimately does to ourselves and our relationships.

The statement: “Just be yourself.”, sounds promising, but without the expertise to do it, what good is it? For many of us, being ourselves means intentionally going against long-standing social norms. In this episode, we explore the frustrations of attempting to be one’s self in a world that would rather have you fit in.

If love is what we truly want, the only way to get it is by moving away from the people, places and things that keep you locked in moments, circumstances and situations that render love impossible. In this episode, we explore toxic relational cycles, why they’re so difficult to escape and if we’re at a place in our lives where walking away is possible.

All of us have an intense desire to love and be loved. But our experience of love at an early age and the confusion that follows over the course or many relationships leaves us believing we could live our lives without love. In this episode, we explore the relationship black gay men have with love, the archetypes we use to justify love and how cultural norms, pressures and expectations work to extinguish our love.

We’ve all been there. In the middle of a conversation at work with colleagues, out for a night on the town with friends, or at home with family, and suddenly you’re overcome by a sudden, intense emotional reaction to a joke, a comment or a suggestion. Your thinking escalates and feelings of fear and anger overwhelm and threaten to overtake you. In this episode, we explore what triggers us and how we respond. 

The calendar year 2020, by any stretch, has been an emotionally, spiritually, psychologically and physically draining year. For Black people in the United States of America, it’s been even more exhausting thanks to systemic oppression, white supremacy and rampant social injustices. In this episode, we explore how we’re managing the recent upheavals, the marketing of "Black Pain” and why sometimes Black folks need to shout.

Self-Sabotage -[verb] (1) Actively or passively taking steps to prevent one’s self from reaching goals; can affect every aspect of one’s  life, relationships, career and personal aspirations. (2) Behaviors or thought patterns that hold you back and prevent you from doing what you want to do. (3) The act of destroying or damaging something deliberately so that it does not function properly; to stop achievement.

Humans are social creatures. Our need for connection shapes our neural architecture, our response to stress and the interpersonal dilemmas at the heart of our lives. Some of us develop Secure Attachments, while others develop Insecure Attachments to the people in our lives. In this episode, we explore the varied aspects of Attachment and the ways in which these patterns, unless addressed, persist in our lives.

For many of us, it can be difficult to recognize we are stuck in moments and situations that first gave rise to our pain. Because time is moving, we believe we are too. Yet year after year the same haunting past resurfaces. In this episode, we explore the ways in which we superimpose our past experiences onto our new experiences, preventing us from moving beyond the stories we now recite by heart.

Typically, when we think of the “heartbreaker" we look outside of ourselves, to people and circumstances that have had a memorable negative impact on our own heart experience. Rarely do we look at ourselves as generators of heartbreak, but, what would happen if we did? In this episode, we explore the ways in which our hearts were first broken and how those breaks paved paths to many more.

The impact of silence is deafening; particularly if that silence is shrouded in the fear of rejection, criticism, disappointment, harassment, humiliation, ridicule or other forms of punishment, perceived or realized. In this episode, we explore the tendency towards silence among black gay men and the ways in which it breeds loneliness and deep feelings of isolation.

So much of our lives are unspoken. When your decision to fall silent is based on a deep and pervasive fear of rejection, silence often seems the only answer. In this new series of conversation, we explore the makings of an Invisible Life and how black gay men can learn to be not only seen, but heard.

At the time of this recording, the world continues to suffer from the physical, emotional, financial and psychological impact of COVID-19. Hundreds of thousands of people are sick, millions have lost their primary source of income and even more are struggling through social isolation, quarantined in their homes far from the people and happenings that give their life meaning. In this episode, we explore how facing the mirror helps us to see all things through the eyes of love.

Most of what’s occurring in our lives is related to the stories we are creating about the events and our relationship to them. It is practically impossible to view the world objectively given our dependance on the stories we tell and our commitment to see them through. In this episode, we explore the purpose of thought and direct correlation our thoughts have on the life we live.

Perhaps the most important place we could be in any given moment, is fully present, in the here and now. But the challenge of everyday living, coupled with our disparate intentions for our lives finds us living in stories we’ve created that have no true middle or end; they simply repeat until we decide to free ourselves. In this episode, we explore what it takes to be truly free and how beingness allows us to experience ourselves in ways we’ve never imagined.

Everything begins and ends with intention. Your intention, conscious or unconscious, dictates the course of your life and everything that occurs in and around it. In this episode, we explore how our lives take the shape of our intentions and how to mindfully adjust our behaviors, thoughts, attitude and decisions to achieve the goals we set in our lives.

As the saying goes, all of us are fighting invisible battles no one else can see. When the world we inhabit gets heavy, where do you turn? Who offers you support?In this episode, we explore the importance of having a community to lean on and why it’s important to open up and let others in.

The first year of this podcast has left all of us appreciative of the lessons we’ve learned about ourselves, our lives and our interactions with others. In this episode, we countdown the top 10 lessons we learned in 2019.

Time is difficult to measure. As we journey through our lives it often feels like we’re making headway on the conditions that weigh us down. Yet sometimes, when we pause to check our progress we realize much of what we thought we left behind is still right there with us. The age-old adage: time heals all wounds, has convinced many of us to wait-and-see what time does; yet it seems time never had a say in that message. In this episode, we explore our journey to now and ponder what 2019 might have looked like if we had not joined time in the work.

Sexual attraction and orientation still remains a highly controversial topic in the majority of societies we occupy around the globe. And despite the fact that sexual orientation includes heterosexuality, it has traditionally been considered the norm while other sexual orientations are often considered deviant or pathological. In this episode, we explore our personal relationship with sexual orientation and how we’ve each attempted to adjust and make sense of our attractions.

Even though sexuality encompasses nearly every aspect of our being, it is at the same time the most discrete feature of our lives. But given the way media exploits sex for profit is our sexuality our own or part of a larger plan to dictate our behavior? In this episode, we explore the shame and guilt we attach to sexuality, porn and sexual expression. Featuring, the author of Stuck Pages Volume 1: Exposing the Heart of a Heartbreaker, Akim Bryant.

Religion is complicated. Many people use it to connect with a power they feel is greater than themselves. In the mist of religion, however, you find people who are more concerned with the practice than the connection. In this episode, we explore the difference between religion and spirituality and why one should never be mistaken for the other. 

So much of our lives are spent navigating boxes. Race is one box that continues to trap us in identities that sever us at a heart level. Some of us have race thrust upon us at an early age, others, much later in life. But make no mistake, we all suffer as a result of it. In this episode, we explore the makings of race, how we’ve come to experience race and how difficult it is to escape race.

Gender is controversial. And the roles we play within our gender assigned roles are even more controversial. In this unusually hyped episode, we attempt to explore gender diversity and the ways gender stereotypes trap people in harmful roles that do more harm than good. 

Most of us don't like to admit it, but so much of our identity is defined by what we think others think. We shape our identities to match family and societal norms and wonder why we struggle to find and sustain joy. In this episode, we explore the makings of identity and how our personal beliefs, family beliefs and societal beliefs combine to create our own private, often indestructible, matrix.

According to Rebecca Eanes: "Your words sow in your children's hearts. From those seeds spring up either confidence or uncertainty, dignity or dishonor, worth or worthlessness. Your words create the beginning of their life stories, and will carry this story with them always." In this episode, we continue our in-depth discussion about the challenges of parenting and effect of being parented. Our parent panel offer best practices three and four that they believe every parent should implement, and their thoughts on discipline and co-parenting.

Our parents shape and color the world we live in. As children we lean into them, depending on them to provide us with all the intangible things we need to exist in this world. But how prepared are most people for the demanding role that is parenting? In this episode, we explore hidden frustrations of parenting, and two of the four best practices we believe every parent should implement.

Our families are the backbone of our lives. We are intensely connected to the thoughts, feelings and actions of our tribe. As the lives of the people in our families shift, so do ours. For better or, for worse, we are inextricably connected. When it comes to your family, how aware are you of its functioning? How does the way in which it functions impact you? In this episode, we explore the meaning of family and their fundamental role in our lives.

Our families are the backbone of our lives. We are intensely connected to the thoughts, feelings and actions of our tribe. As the lives of the people in our families shift, so do ours. For better or, for worse, we are inextricably connected. When it comes to your family, how aware are you of its functioning? How does the way in which it functions impact you? In this episode, we explore the meaning of family and their fundamental role in our lives.

In most of the stories we digest in the media and/or create in our lives, you will undoubtedly find people in a varied states of conflict. The central character is usually pitted against himself, another person, nature, society, some unknown otherworldly entity, or, more and more recently, artificial intelligence. When it comes to your personal experience, who do you usually find yourself up against? In this episode, we explore the pressure and confusion of invisible systems that keep us from fully realizing ourselves.

The truth is, the very core of your being is love. Make no mistake—at your best, when you strip away all of the nonsense—you are love. The question is, do you believe it? In this episode, we explore what we’ve learned about love, ourselves and our relational assignments during this series on love.

When people make the decision to move beyond the agreements they’ve made with a spouse or committed partner, rarely do they stop to consider the emotional impact of their decision. It doesn't matter if the affront is physical or emotional, cheating triggers deep feelings of betrayal, hurt and issues of trust—and if left unaddressed—can last a lifetime. And because cheating is often done in secret it forces people to question their partner, their own judgement and the life they've experienced together. When it comes to love and our relational assignments, why does cheating play such a major role? In this episode, we explore why people on both sides of cheating normalize this toxic debilitating mind-fuck.

Sometimes in our need to feel and be loved, we can find ourselves moving in ways to make certain love happens. But the truth is, forced love is not love. Try as you may, but you cannot make someone love you, or, commit to you. When it comes to love, do you find yourself pulling, turning or shape shifting yourself to make it work? In this episode, we explore the challenges that come about as a result of forced love and the damaged souls that set it all in motion.

All of us at some level are aware of the chaos that circles our lives. But to preserve our beliefs and ego we ignore—or worse push against—truths that could set us free. What did the last episode help you to understand about yourself and where you are emotionally? What did you hear that made you take a deeper look into yourself? In this episode, we acknowledge our blocks and articulate concrete steps towards resolving our exhausted emotions.

Think about it, we all get tired. But unfortunately far too many of us are not willing to admit it. We’d rather pretend we’re superhuman and push against the tide. But what happens to the emotionally exhausted? What happens to the people who—though wounded—continue to move about life oblivious to the trail of pain left behind in their wake? What happens to the broken-hearted? In this episode, we bravely explore the underbelly of love stretched beyond its limits.

According to Jeff Brown originator of the term wound-mate, these relationships “are sourced in unresolved emotional patterns, issues and holdings”.  These wounds call out to each other to the point it becomes difficult to tell where one partner’s wound ends and the other’s begin. When it comes to love, how skilled are you at distinguishing between those who have come to heal versus those who have come to steal? In this episode, we deepen our understanding of why we’re attracted to wound-mates and learn to spot the behaviors that give rise to these toxic relationships.

Soulmate. The word alone can trigger intense emotion on opposite ends of the the love continuum. When it comes to love, how convinced are you that your soulmate exists? But more importantly, would you even recognize them when, or if they ever showed up? In this episode, we explore the numerous amount of misconceptions we have about soulmates and the challenges we face in waiting for another to complete us. 

Deepak Chopra once said, “When love and spirit are brought together their power can accomplish anything.” When it comes to love, how willing are you to open yourself up to the transformative experience of love? How willing are you to be loved back to life? In this episode, we explore the four elements that contribute to healing love: loving kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity, and conclude that love, for better or worse, is the greatest healing agent the world has ever known. 

Sometimes it seems like you meet someone, and almost as if on cue, an announcer comes out, fires a gun and yells: “Let the games begin!” When it comes to love, why do we instinctually cue the drama? But more so, why do we end up playing the games we actually claim we don’t want to play? In this episode, we explore the challenges love games create among people attempting to build real connections.

Thich Nhat Hanh, author of the book How To Love, penned: “To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love.”  When it comes to love, how do you go about it? What are the elements that make up your love? But more so, how willing are you to learn how to improve your love? In this episode, we discover that learning how to love, is as difficult as defining love.

It has been offered as solid advice from expert after expert: You cannot love another person until you love yourself, first. Yet still many of us doubt this cogent piece of advice. When it comes to love, how much of it do you reserve for yourself? How do you go about maintaining a healthy regard for self? But more so, how does your love for self influence your love for others? In this episode, we make the case that love for and of self is in fact the greatest love of all.

If for a moment we were all to peer inside your love, what would we find? What has your life taught you? From where do you most pull your understanding of love? But more importantly, how has your understanding of love shaped your experience? In this episode, we peel back the layers and take a long hard look at how we’ve come to see and experience love.

Love…is perhaps the most used and easily most misunderstood words in our human experience. It is as elusive as it is pervasive. As stirring as it is settling. But what is it? And why, after centuries, is it so incredibly difficult to define? In this episode, we attempt to do the impossible: define the feelings and emotions that bring about love. What we discover is it is more difficult than we ever imagined; tensions run high as we discover a word we’ve all expressed is never quite what we believe it to be.

It’s easy to see why so many of us have resisted the call of relationships—or have fallen utterly frustrated moving in and between the relational assignments in our lives. Relationships can be complicated. But if you’ve been following along with us as we explored the ins and outs of our collective need to connect and belong to others, then you might be feeling a bit bold. You might be feeling ready, to toss out the old limiting beliefs of old, for new more expansive beliefs of what’s possible when like minded people unite. In this episode, we explore what we’ve learned about ourselves and relationships to-date and come to understand the process though challenging, has enlivened our interest and ability to connect with others. 

Mention relationship goals nowadays and an array of IG images are likely to flood your mind, of couples offering an endless assortment of intentionally orchestrated PDAs anyone with a pulse would want to emulate. But beyond the fantasy of the hashtag, what are your relationship goals? What is it that you truly want from the relationships in your life? In this episode, we explore the challenges of setting intentions for our connections, and come to learn without a clear articulated goal it’s easy to find yourself hitched to someone else’s, with no true benefit for you. 

Perhaps the greatest gift you can give to another person is acceptance. Why then do we expend so much energy trying to change who they are? Why aren’t we satisfied with their truth? But more so, why do we believe our truth is better than theirs? In this episode, we explore our reflexive tendency to “fix” those we love. What we discover is our fixation on changing others is really our way of saying: “you are not enough”.

Trust is everything. One can successfully argue—that trust is the “single most-important” element of a relationship. But what is it? What sustains it? And, if broken, is it possible to ever regain it again? In this episode, we explore the infrastructure of trust and come to understand: a sound trust-of-self is the “birthplace” of trust; anything less produces a pervasive sense of distrust.

Respect is an essential component of human relationships—directly connected to our overall sense of wellbeing and connectedness. But people have a lot of different ideas about what respect actually means. What is your understanding of respect? How does it play out in your life? In your relationships? In this episode we explore the varied ways in which we’ve interpreted the concept respect, and how many of those definitions, when scrutinized, don’t actually convey respect.

The soul of any relationship is intimacy. Zen Buddhism says, “When you are intimate, you are one with. When you are not intimate you are in your head”. When it comes to your expression of intimacy do you find yourself one with, or mostly in your head? In this episode we explore seven ways in which we express intimacy in an effort to create a greater sense of belonging and connectedness.

If transparency is the heart of a relationship, intimacy is it's soul. When it comes to this deeply sensitive connection, how capable are you of expressing it? How comfortable are you with being seen? But more importantly, do you even possess the skills to make intimacy possible? In this episode we explore the three key ingredients that make intimacy possible and the difficulties we have embracing this tried and true relationship sustainer. 

Be honest, when it come to your relationships how transparent are you? How open is your inner life to others? But more importantly, what would it take  for you to remove the armor? In this episode, we explore the challenges of being our true authentic selves in relationships, and why sometimes its easier to hide.

Loneliness, and, relationships. Two words that should never find themselves together, but far too often the relational bonds we’re piecing together are the result of our inability to cope with our unresolved feelings of loneliness. What is your relationship to loneliness? How do you manage it in your life? But more importantly, how is it that so many of us can find so much comfort being alone, together? In this episode, we explore the intersection of loneliness and relationships and attempt to develop new coping strategies to manage the emptiness we sometimes feel in our lives.

Relationships are assignments. Whether you know it or not, the people in your life are there to help to you become. Through them we get the opportunity to learn, grow and practice becoming the individuals we say we are. In this episode, we explore why our relationships are assignments and what we're learning about ourselves in these unions.

Relationships alone, are complicated. The intersection of relationships and mental health is not only fraught with obstacles, it can easily become a recipe for disaster. In this episode we learn just how difficult it is to love and be loved when serious mental health conditions spiral out of control. 

Here's an unpopular truth: We need each other. All of us. Try as you might none of us can escape this universal truth. The challenge? Learning how to allow our full [true] self to show up in connections with others. In this episode, we explore our need for belonging and how this need helps us enhance our understanding of self and our understanding of the other.

When you consider the relational bonds you have in your life, what comes to mind? Are you filled with joy and satisfaction, or silent frustration? Have you curated a space of love and mutuality or one of fear and hostility? In this episode we explore the underpinnings of the relationships in our lives and come to accept: the relationship we're having with ourselves sets the tone for every other relationship we experience in our lives.

Metamorphosis: Egg. Caterpillar. Butterfly. Each stage brings the insect closer to its true self moving seamlessly from an immature form to a fully realized adult form. In this episode Christopher and Jordan check-in to assess how much progress they've made on their road to change. What they learn is they've changed quite a bit since launching the podcast. And though the process of shedding old skins hasn't been easy, they quickly realize it has certainly been worth it.

If your goal is to grow you have to be prepared to experience pain. Emotional growing pains are inevitable. But, even in their inevitability the sheer messiness of them always seems to catch people off guard. In this episode we ponder the frustrations of growing versus the frustrations of staying the same. 

Resistance is real; and persistent. Much of it stems from our inability to first recognize it, and then manage it. In this episode we dive deeper into what we resist, why we resist it and attempt to find ways to resist the resistance.

Resistance. It could all be so easy, but you'd rather make it hard. What are you pushing against in your life? What do you hope to accomplish by resisting it? Are you not aware of your awareness of the resistance? Or, are you hoping the truth doesn't find a way to catch up with your behavior? In this episode we dive into the underbelly of growth, and attempt to find out what we insist on knowingly getting in our way.

What do you believe? About yourself? About others? About your current situation? Are your beliefs aligned with the core of who you are? Or, have you compromised your way into a meaningless shallow existence? In this episode we explore the significance of values and how in the absence of a core set of realized values nothing in our lives will work.

Limiting Beliefs, disrupt, maim and ruin—turning talent, into potential. What are your limiting beliefs? What are you holding on to? Why are you still contemplating what happened yesterday? Is your future, your past? Or, are you helplessly stuck in beliefs that won’t let you go? In this episode we explore the lasting cyclical impact of limiting beliefs and how these growth-stoppers keep us stuck in the past or clamoring for the future.

Letting go. So many of us claim to do it, but few of us ever truly do. If your goal is to be free, why are you still holding on?Why are you still looking back? But more importantly, what will it take for you for finally let go? In this episode we explore the challenges of letting go and come to see it's a lot easier said, than done.

Fears, we all have them; some are greater than others, but each of them holds us back. What are you afraid of? Where do your fears come from? And why do you continue to give them life? In this episode, we explore some of our deepest fears and begin the process of pulling from the root in an attempt to rid them from our lives forever.

Here's a universal truth: People are generally unaware of their own self-sabotage, the damage it is causing or the depths to which they'll go to stop themselves from feeling the pangs of disappointment. Here's yet another truth: we all do it. In this episode we scratch the surface of our own self-sabotaging behavior and try to understand why its so pervasive in our lives.

There’s no question that we are all passionate, and, to varying degrees, committed to our desires, but why? Why do you want what you want? What is the driving force behind your desires? What’s your reason for being? In this episode, we explore the importance of knowing your why, and why understanding your why helps to ensure you remain committed to your goals and purpose and not give up on them.

Everyday we make choices. These choices and decisions add up to who we are today and often who we will be in the future. Deciding who you want to be is a revolutionary act; one that leads you on a deeper, more profound journey into self. In this episode, we explore what it takes to be who you want to be and why it is important to make that decision.

Who we are, at any given point in our lives is based on our levels of comfort with those around us; but even then, many of us still don a mask. Fear, a powerfully persuasive survival mechanism, causes us to hide who we are behind masks that limit our ability to show up fully in our lives. These physical and emotional masks, act as a social disguise to help us get through a variety of uncomfortable situations. Donning a mask periodically is actually quite normal. The challenge happens when the masks displace our true identity in an effort to appease others.

Throughout history, one of the most profound—and necessary—questions mankind has asked is the question of our true identity: Who am I? And while you may not have personally asked, you can be certain a fair number of the people you know, have. To be clear, it’s not an easy question to ask or even stomach—particularly if the impetus in asking is the budding awareness that who you are—or at least think you are—is tied to the desires of your family, community, ethnic or gender identity and not to who you actually aim to be. 

Every day is a new day to get it right. In this episode of theCDeffect we introduce the podcast, identify the purpose and define what we hope to accomplish through this platform.