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Vulnerability. Courage. Authenticity. Love. Those are the words I would use to describe the past year for me. I don't mean to toot my own horn (...toot TOOOOT) but I envision myself walking slow motion through 2016 with my hair blowing in the wind, a shameless smolder on my face, and just the right amount of dirt on my brow while the skyscrapers tumble to the ground all around me. Some things fell apart this year, but I came out alive and stronger than ever. Ain't no 2016 gonna get me down!
I just wanna celebrate some HUGE wins from this past year! First and foremost, I CAME OUT! In January I started a blog about my coming out story. It wasn't because I wanted attention or validation it was because I needed to feel the relief of living authentically. I wanted everyone in my life to know who I truly was and prove to myself that it wasn't something I should be ashamed of or needed to hide.
By Jack Shapiro
Something big happened today. I finished a book! I finished a book for the first time in. . . I don’t know how many years! That’s partly due to the fact that I’ve been in school for eight years, and partly due to the fact that I hardly ever read fiction (I like to stick with the self-help books, but I hardly ever finish them).
The book is called “Intuitive Eating” (Yes, it’s a self-help book) and its brilliant. Here’s the deal, I’ve struggled with my weight since I was 14. At 14 years old I started putting on weight as my body was prepping for its growth spurts. In all reality, it wasn't much, but due to an extremely distorted self-image, this weight was pretty mortifying for me, why?
By Myles Woolstenhulme
Yesterday, I became an uncle. It was a day filled with many emotions, but the one that permeated through everything was infinite and unconditional love. As I held my newborn niece and nephew in my arms for the first time and imagined each of their futures, I couldn’t bear to see them living lives in shame or secrecy. I have been living for a long time in shame. I let the fear of rejection and the fear of what other people think about me control my actions and I am finally ready to shake off those chains. I am ready to share my story with the world, even though it terrifies me, because I want my niece and nephew to be able to live their lives without the fears I have felt for so long. I know in order for me to truly wish my perfect niece and nephew happiness in their lives, I must first feel that happiness and freedom in my own life; so here it is, my story.
In the Broadway show The Color Purple - the 2016 Tony Award-winning musical revival - the main character Celie survives incest, domestic violence, sexual assault, servitude, discrimination, and many other forms of abuse. The time period and environment she finds herself in was anything but empowering for a young black woman yet her final response to the degradation of her abusive partner is, "I may be poor. I may be black. I may be ugly. But I'm here."
Celie leaves her abuser, at his (and everyone else's) dismay and shock, and at the end of the show returns transformed having become completely self-sufficient after starting her own clothing business. The culminating song titled "I'm Here" brought me to tears as I watched Tony Award-winner Cynthia Erivo so honestly portray the newly empowered Celie. My favorite lyric in this song is when Celie proclaims boldly and confidently, "I believe I have inside of me everything that I need to live a bountiful life." She stopped believing that she wasn't enough or that she needed someone or something else to be happy. She took the power back.
I've been working in the nonprofit sector for all of six weeks now and I've been fighting an interesting mentality that I'll call the martyr mentality. It's this idea that, because the people I'm serving have greater needs and are in circumstances far worse than mine, I must sacrifice everything to help them - my time, my energy, and even my money. It turns out there's a lot more being sacrificed, including the quality of service being provided.
"Congratulations Trevor," I heard over the phone after debriefing my final oral strengths coaching exam. "You are now a certified Strengths Strategy coach!"
The amount of gratitude I felt in that moment didn't surprise me as much as the tears that came with it. I had started the 10-month program a year and a half before and had wondered countless times if I had it in me to turn my financial and emotional investment into an official coaching certification. But it wasn't the certification itself that brought me to tears, it was the transformation I had experienced during the certification program.
Dear Son,
I'm sorry it's taking me so long to find the perfect way to handle all of this. I should be handling this better. I wish it was easier for me accept you and your choices with complete love and understanding, but it's hard.
Since before you were born I had big dreams for you. My first son. I imagined you in your father's arms, dressed in white in front of the congregation, receiving a name and a blessing on your first Sunday at church. I could see your bright and toothless smile, posing for a picture in front of the baptismal font on your eighth birthday.
Most of us have seen or experienced extraordinary things in our lifetime. I remember driving through a blizzard one night while I was in high school and narrowly missing an oncoming car. I spun out of control and came to a stop on the opposite side of the road, inches from the edge of a steep ravine. All the stars aligned to prevent the worst case scenario from happening. I could have easily ended up dead or severely injured that night, but instead was completely unharmed. I called it a miracle.
In religious contexts, miracles can be performed and solicited. In the Bible we read about the many miracles that Jesus performed. He turned water into wine, healed the blind, and raised Lazarus from the dead. Jesus taught that the miracles he performed were conditional upon the faith of those who desired them.
by Jack Shapiro
I can feel my heart beating as I step out the door. I stand on the doorstep, breathing, terrified but sure. Through the door behind me lives my faith, my heart, my memories, my joys, my pains, everything I’ve ever known. Stepping away means stepping into the unknown, it means saying goodbye to the security, the resonance, the comfortable, the known.
I turn and look at the building, this house of my faith system and the life I’ve created in it… the life that was created for me. I feel the security of it beckoning me, but know that the security will be coupled with the same pain that always existed.
I was a senior in college when I decided to become a professional strengths coach. Two years earlier I was introduced to Gallup's StrengthsFinder assessment and promptly read all the books that Gallup put out regarding strengths. I was hooked! I had so much passion for strengths-based leadership and wanted to better the world with a professional coaching skill set. What I didn’t have was the money to pay for the 30-week intensive course nor the confidence that it would be worth my investment. I wondered if I was too young (and poor) to be pursuing a strengths coaching certification. Would anyone take me seriously? Would I get any clients? Would it be worth the money?
To help answer these questions…