AI has become a hot topic of discussion, not the least of which is in my own home.

You see, I live with two teachers.

They are constantly dealing with AI-driven essays and assignments, often while discovering that their own administrations are using AI to post memos to other teachers, students, parents, and the public.

Not my problem, but I get why they’re upset and often confused.

AI has been around for years, so it’s not new

Artificial intelligence has been part of our lives for so long that we can’t begin to list all the ways we use it.

Think Google Maps or voice-activated answering systems, to name only two.

The first one I use every time I get in the car to avoid speed traps and make sure that I’ll get to where I need to be on time. I don’t even own a paper map. The second one annoys the crap out of me, while forcing me to realize that AI voices can provide better direction than a person across the globe who doesn’t have a clue where I live.

The reason it seems like AI just took us by storm, as with so much in our global world, is the many daily reports we’re hearing about it. Many of those include the ugly sides of AI, particularly deepfake videos on our favorite social media platforms, and the rise of scammers using AI to impersonate our voices or those of our loved ones for sinister purposes.

Positive sides of AI

In spite of being the author of over twenty books, some of them award-winning, my grammar sucks half the time. If you’ve read my work, you won’t find many grammar errors, but the blunders I catch are suggestions by Grammarly or MS Word before they even reach an editor’s eyes. Side point: Over the years, I find fewer mistakes now than I did in the past. Booboos tend to decrease because I use AI to teach me what I should have learned in elementary school or lost due to a stroke.

But AI, like all our devices, is a tool. They do not replace our responsibility to show up on time for an appointment just because we put the wrong date or time in our planner.

“The more I rely on them, the less I have to think,” I’ve been told. Sadly, this is from the same person who spends all the time they save by scrolling through TikTok instead of spending time with the person they are in a relationship with.

There is, however, one thing that AI doesn’t have for us.

Wisdom

Far too many folks I know over 50 tell me they feel out of the loop. They may not understand all the latest apps, so they feel useless, and perhaps hopeless. They feel kids today know more than they do because of the Internet or AI.

Younger people do have far easier access to information than I did when I was in elementary school 60 years ago. But that information is useless without practical wisdom to apply it to their lives.

People over 50, particularly those in their 60s, 70s, 80s, or older,
have life experience that AI can’t provide.

Some kids type in a question, the AI spits out a response, and they take the info that unfolds as the gold standard for direction.

It’s not.

It’s information, often originating in Wikipedia, which, while a fascinating starting point, is full of misinformation from everyone who thinks they know what they’re talking about, when it’s frequently just their biased, undocumented opinion.

Sources for real help and wisdom

Want real advice, a new thought on our completely confusing world situations, or counseling about an issue or job? Ask someone who’s had some life experience, not a mindless, possibly unethical AI program.

This is where those of us “of a certain age” can find a place in today’s complex global society. Now that I’ve fully retired from four long-term careers, I’ve learned a couple of things.

I made mistakes I’m more than willing to admit to others freely, and I’ll discuss how one might avoid the same pitfalls. I’ve also had success in areas that society and some former friends thought were impossible to achieve.

I’m not the only one.

If you are older, you are not useless because you can’t figure out which of the three remotes to use to stream a video, or need help in cleaning out your computer’s cache.

(You really need to do that. Regularly. Really.)

If you are under 50, you don’t have to go it alone. Find someone in your family or circle of friends who would be more than happy to share what they know. I didn’t create a successful life by knowing how to do that from the start. I asked questions. I admitted my ignorance. And found so many wonderful mentors, teachers, and guides who were delighted to help me.

Whatever your age, find your place.

Know that your young exhilaration or your older wisdom is valued and needed.

We aren’t going to get through the global shitshow alone.

Reach out for help if you need it.

Offer help freely when asked.

Together, we’ve got this.

Could you benefit from a counselor, therapist, mentor, or coach? My training includes all these modalities. If you need someone to chat with, consider reaching out to me today!

In the past, when people have asked me about how I’m accepted as a cis-gay man, I’ve told them frankly that I’d take tolerance over being beaten up or killed any day of the week. As we seem to be moving toward a more authoritarian society worldwide, I still see this as true, at least in this case.

Somewhat, at least.

I’m hearing from far too many clients and friends that they don’t feel they are living their true life’s purpose. Almost always it revolves around a person or some societal expectations the person perceives as stopping them from having a life truly worth living.

“Oh, my lover wouldn’t like that.”

“WHAT would my mother say?”

“The Church wouldn’t agree, and being there means so much to me.”

“I’m not able to hold a job like that. I don’t have the education.”

I’d love to tell you I have some perfect questions for those excuses.

Yes.

They are excuses. They are not reasons.

Particularly when they come up in every client session, over coffee with a friend, in a telephone conversation that needed to be voice-to-voice and not a text, or in the sadness I see in the eyes of someone I care for.

“But you don’t understand, Dr. Terry... “ and the excuses continue.

Do you think I’m being unkind?

I’m not.

I’m being realistic.

To be unkind would be to continue with the third or fourth suggestion of what they could try to change the situation, even after the first and second attempts to create options had already been shot down without any consideration. The response is often more “reasons” why what I’m suggesting wouldn’t work, even though they haven’t tried it, or the situation had changed since they tried it the last time. To quote Jack Nicholson’s character from A Few Good Men, some people “can’t handle the truth.”

In case you feel this feeling never comes up for me, I could refer you to my own therapist, who does the same thing to me. She understands with me, as I do with my own clients and friends, that sometimes I’m not ready to let go of the excuse, even when I’m sure it’s an iron-clad reason. It’s true for all of us, myself included, to varying degrees and from situation to situation.

There is a common denominator in each of these situations, including my own present situation.

FEAR

Under all the upset, buried beneath the anger and worry, is fear.

It’s usually found with its constant companion, SADNESS.

It’s debilitating. It sometimes makes me want to sleep late in the morning, returning to dreams I long to be realized; or take a sleep gummy to make me fall asleep the next night, again to get back to those dreams. (Feel free to fill in your own go-to medication or addiction, including shopping, acting out sexually, over-using anything to ignore the pain, etc.)

“OH MY GAWD! Dr. Terry has problems! He can’t possibly help me!”

Yeah, I get that from time to time. When I was a pastor, I found other ministers were appalled - yes, APPALLED - that I would admit problems so openly, that I might fall off my pedestal, as they were so afraid it would happen to them. It was they, not I, that sought a pedestal. Frankly, I’ve never had the balance to attempt being on one. Eka pada pranamasana (the one-legged yoga prayer pose) continues to challenge me, though my yoga teacher continues to encourage me. Unicycles, also, are not my friend.

The attitude about accepting toleration in my life when acceptance isn’t possible has been bothering me for some time. Not just because I’ve felt inadequate to help clients, but because I was living those feelings in my own life.

It was easy to get away from the problems when I was flying around the country 15 or more days a month. Now that I’m retired... not so much.

So I’ve kept busy. My gardens look better than they ever have. I’ve returned to writing, both my blogs and my next book. The cleaning and tossing of possessions I no longer need or want would make Marie Kondo and Tilo Flache weep with joy. I’ve been taking better care of myself since my heart surgery five years ago. But since I’ve retired, I’ve chosen (operative word here) to be more regular at the gym, eat on a regular basis (I used to get to writing or working on something, and suddenly I find it’s dinner time and all I’ve had is coffee all day), and take time to prepare the food, usually from scratch. When I put it into my body, I eat it with reverence and as an act of worship.

In my spare time, which I cherish and enjoy, I read voraciously, over 100 books a year, or so I’ve tracked consistently for the last five years. Many of those gay bodice rippers that I write and read, as a “friend” once called them, have amazing insights. (Side point, I do read other genres, too!) But it’s why the novels I write aren’t sex from start to finish. My Male/Male Gay Romance Novels focus on the romance, the personal interactions, and sometimes secrets that are too often glossed over in life.

It was in one of those novels by another author, Casey Morales, that I found an answer to the question I had about settling with tolerance when acceptance wasn’t available. The story is a prequel to a series of seven books, beginning in the early part of America’s involvement in WWII in the early 1940s.

The main character, Thomas, suggests that Nate is saying he’s accepted the lack of compassion and legal issues men who love men face in their world.

I don’t accept it, he said, I endure it. There’s a difference. Accepting means you think it’s okay. Enduring means you know it’s wrong, and you survive it anyway... I didn’t make the world, Thomas; I just learned how to live in it without letting it kill the parts of me that matter.”

Endure.

I’ve endured, which is how I’m now looking at a change in my own life. I endured the recovery from several surgeries over the years. Some were quick, some were longer than I felt warranted, but they all ended.

Tolerating a situation, to me, now means it’s ongoing, with little or no end in sight. Enduring a situation, to me, has come to mean there’s an end in sight. I know what will constitute that end in my own mind.

This subtle change of meaning altered my perception about having the dark thoughts most people experience from time to time, and brought about a new, positive, and hopeful feeling within me. That is,

Relief and peace of mind

Perhaps this blog will help you with what you’re going through, or maybe you think I’m just playing with words. Either way or somewhere in between is fine with me. The great thing about growing older is not giving a rat’s ass about what other people think of me. If one person likes this blog, makes a comment, or contacts me, then I call that success.

Enough for now. Casey’s information is linked above. If you decide to read any of his work, please let him know. Like me, he’s a relatively new M/M romance author (though he’s published more than twice what I have in less time!), and we very much appreciate comments of all kinds about our work. Below you’ll find a link to the book I just finished... and I’m getting ready for the rest of Of Shadows & Secrets.

P.S. (After my last edit.) I now have all seven of the books on my Kindle, and the first few chapters of book one do not disappoint!

Goodnight Not Goodbye:
A romantic, MM romance prequel (Of Shadows & Secrets)
by Casey Morales

Could you benefit from a counselor, therapist, mentor, or coach? My training includes all these modalities. If you need someone to chat with, consider reaching out to me today!

If you haven’t checked out my M/M romance novels, go to my alter-egos site at:

Kenrick D. Turlock

I believe in and practice compersion.

Part of that means that if one consistently embodies that concept, we don’t usually feel the need for others’ approval to enjoy our pursuits.

But how would you answer this question, which recently came from a colleague over a coffee conversation:

Sometimes I just want to share my joy with my partner, but they’re not interested. “Just go enjoy what you want to do,” they say. How can I keep my joy when I’m alone... even if I don’t want to be?

Full self-disclosure here: I didn’t have a quick answer, a leading question, or a humorous anecdote.

It was a full-stop moment.

What is described is a difficult version of a very common emotional experience:

Wanting your joy to be witnessed by people you love, only to find they don’t always have the interest, bandwidth, or inclination to share it.

Compersion is often described as taking joy in someone else’s happiness.

But there’s a related need that’s just as human: Wanting someone to take joy in our happiness.

Those are different things.

If a partner consistently doesn’t engage with the things that light you up, it can leave you feeling oddly alone even when nothing is “wrong.”

Here are a few thoughts we came up with:

• Separate the joy from the witness. Your joy is real regardless of who sees it... or, in this case, who doesn’t. The hard part isn’t that the joy disappears—it’s that celebration often feels richer when it’s shared. Recognizing that distinction can help us avoid interpreting a lack of enthusiasm as evidence that our joy isn’t worthwhile.

• Be specific about what you’re asking for. Instead of hoping they’ll naturally match our excitement, we might say, “I don’t need you to get into this hobby—I just want you to celebrate with me for a minute because I’m really happy.” Sometimes people are willing to witness without sharing the underlying interest.

• Accept differences without assuming indifference. Partners may love us without loving every topic that excites us. That’s normal. The question becomes whether they can still show curiosity or delight because we’re delighted.

• Build a wider circle of witnesses. One person — or even several partners — can’t always meet every emotional need. Friends, hobby communities, online groups, or people who share a particular interest can become the people who genuinely “get” that kind of joy. That doesn’t diminish your relationships; it distributes your emotional ecosystem.

There’s also a deeper question:

How can I keep my joy when I alone... even if I don’t want to be?

The goal isn’t to become someone who never needs witnesses. Humans are social. We evolved to celebrate together. Instead, it might help to practice holding two truths simultaneously:

I’m sad that no one is sharing this with me, and I’m still glad this wonderful thing happened.

Those emotions don’t cancel each other out. We don’t have to extinguish our joy to acknowledge the loneliness.

One exercise some people find useful is to become an attentive witness to themselves. After something exciting happens, instead of immediately reaching for your phone, spend a few minutes asking yourself:

• What exactly am I excited about?

• What does this mean to me?

• What feeling do I want someone else to reflect back to me?

Sometimes writing it down, taking a photo for yourself, or lingering with the moment can help the joy settle before you seek someone else’s response. It doesn’t replace connection, but it can make the joy feel more stable.

If you’re under 30 years of age, you’ve never been without a computer or a mobile device to share your life with friends, family, or strangers from all over the globe — if you have a well-followed social media account.

Are we to believe that, for eons before we owned handheld devices to share our personal adventures, millions of people throughout the world in our time didn’t enjoy what they did or saw, just because they were alone?

Of course not.

The truth is that while we may want the world to be excited for us — or our partner — and comment on our postings, the vast majority don’t even know we exist, let alone be excited about our wins. And, the people who are followed by millions? No one can prove they are any happier than someone who lives alone in the forest. Sadly, the opposite is more likely the case for the would-be influencer.

Finally, it’s worth noticing the pattern over time. Is this occasional — our partner simply isn’t interested in a particular topic? Or is it broader — that they rarely seem curious about our inner world, our accomplishments, or our delight?

Those are different situations. The former is an ordinary mismatch of interests. The latter could indicate an unmet relational need worth discussing openly.

If you’re interested in discussing this further, use these two questions to ponder or write about yourself:

Can you think of a recent example where you wanted to share your excitement?

What was the joyful thing, and how did your partner respond?

If you decide to do that, a next step might be to share those thoughts with the other person.

Just a thought...

Could you benefit from a counselor, therapist, mentor, or coach? My training includes all these modalities. If you need someone to chat with, consider reaching out to me today!

Bob and I moved into our house here in Mexico about a year and a half ago. It took almost a full year before we finally had the first floor painted. We were thrilled with the results. The painters did an amazing job, and every room finally had the colorful Mexican character we had fallen in love with.

This past weekend, we hired a pair of carpenters to shorten and reinstall the cabinet above our refrigerator. They did solid work, but they weren’t especially gentle.

While lifting the cabinet into place, they slammed it into the door frame.

Our house doesn’t have wooden trim around the doors. Like many older Mexican homes, it’s plaster. The impact knocked away a chunk of it, leaving a fresh scar that wasn’t there the day before.

Bob immediately saw another repair on the growing to-do list.

I saw a story.

One of the things I’ve come to appreciate about Mexico, and many parts of Europe, is that people don’t always rush to erase every mark of age or wear. Buildings develop cracks. Stone steps become smooth after centuries of footsteps. Paint fades. Corners get bumped. Life leaves fingerprints behind, and somehow the place becomes even more beautiful because of them.

That little chip in our doorway reminded me of a Japanese philosophy called wabi-sabi.

Most of us grew up chasing perfection.

We wanted the perfect body. The perfect relationship. The perfect home. The perfect vacation photos. We were taught that wrinkles should disappear, scars should be hidden, and mistakes should never happen.

Wabi-sabi quietly says the opposite.

Beauty lives in imperfection.

An old wooden table with scratches from decades of family dinners. A favorite coffee mug with a chipped handle. A weathered leather chair that has molded itself to the person who sat there for years. None of these things are less beautiful because they’ve aged. They’re more beautiful because they’ve lived.

Wabi-sabi rests on three simple ideas.

Nothing lasts.

Nothing is finished.

Nothing is perfect.

When I read those three lines, I couldn’t help thinking about our own community.

Many of us spend far too much time apologizing for getting older. We worry about gray hair, soft bellies, surgery scars, stretch marks, and all the little changes that come with simply staying alive long enough to collect them.

But what if those things aren’t defects?

What if they’re proof that you’ve lived?

Japanese culture has another tradition called kintsugi. When a ceramic bowl breaks, they don’t throw it away or try to hide the damage. They repair the cracks with gold. The break becomes part of the story. The repaired bowl often becomes more treasured than it was before.

I love that idea.

Every scar tells a story. Every wrinkle marks another year you were lucky enough to experience. Every friendship that drifted apart and somehow found its way back again leaves its own golden seam.

Your life was never supposed to look untouched.

Neither was your body.

So this week, give yourself a little grace. Instead of focusing on what time has changed, spend a moment appreciating what time has given you.

Maybe you’ve become kinder.

Maybe you’ve become wiser.

Maybe you’ve become more comfortable in your own skin than you ever were at twenty-five.

That sounds a lot more beautiful to me than perfection ever did.

Could you benefit from a counselor, therapist, mentor, or coach? My training includes all these modalities. If you need someone to chat with, consider reaching out to me today!

I’ve written about kindness in the past. Being kind is so easy and especially needed in today’s world.

There was an article by Rosi Golan published in HuffPost. (The link to the article is at the end of this blog.) She relates that a flight attendant noticed she was struggling to get her bag into the overhead compartment and asked if she could help her.

“Whoa,” she said, laughing. “What do you have in here, bricks?”

Golan told her it was her husband’s ashes.

The woman changed completely, knelt down with tissues, and told her how sorry she was. She assured her that the crew was there to offer any support she needed.

A box of ashes, even though small, is heavy. Really heavy.

I know.

Which is why this hit me hard.

It was 1995. I was carrying an 8x8x8 box containing the ashes of my second husband. The security people (no TSA back then) couldn’t have been kinder as I went through the X-ray machine. It wasn’t the first time someone went through their area with human remains. I was a mess by the time I got to the plane.

The plane was delayed out of Pittsburgh, and I realized I was going to miss my connection to Helena, Montana. I had the box with Frank’s remains on my lap, and I totally lost it. A flight attendant came over to me, and I explained the problem.

The next flight was hours later. The loss of my partner, the bi-coastal memorial service which I conducted myself (OH GOD! WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?), were behind me, but I was due to go through another memorial, this time at a Catholic Church with Frank’s family who didn’t know we were married or that he was gay. I didn’t think I could cope with the delay, the changes, just everything.

Side point: We weren’t legally married, though two years earlier we had a full-church wedding, presided over by our minister, the Reverend Doctor Arleen Bump. Not only was she our minister, but she was also the president of our organization, Religious Science International. RSI didn’t perform same sex weddings as a rule. She performed the service in her full robes, much to the dismay of many other ministers in our faith. Most of those opposed were gay men, by the way. Everyone knew they were gay; most had partners in the church, but back then very few admitted their sexual orientation.

Fortunately, that’s changed over the past thirty years, and the current organization, Centers for Spiritual Living, has many out and proud gay, lesbian, bi-, and trans ministers. But Dr. Arleen will always have a special place in my heart as an “in-charge” ally who wasn’t going to be told who she could serve.

Back to the story. I wasn’t a flight attendant back then. The flight attendant told me she’d get it handled, and boy did she. She had me wait until all the other passengers had deplaned. Then the crew walked me, not to my next flight, but to the Delta lounge. The captain found a connection from Salt Lake City to Helena that went via Missoula. Four flight attendants, two pilots, and I waltzed into the lounge.

The captain explained what the lounge staff would do to make sure I had everything I needed. They were all based in Salt Lake City and finishing their trip, but they took time to do a lot more than say they were sorry. I wasn’t a lounge member, and I’m sure this violated Delta’s policy. But like Dr. Arleen, he and his crew weren’t interested in corporate policy. They were interested in showing kindness to a total stranger.

I’ll never forget that day, but not for the reason for the trip.

It was the kindness a crew of strangers showed to me.

I empathized with Golan’s flight attendant. When I was a “baby flight attendant,” a thousand years ago, I made my own mistake. I was trying to be supportive and asked this woman how far along she was.

Point of note: Please don’t do that... ever, unless she’s already mentioned it.

She wasn’t pregnant.

She was going for surgery to take care of the abdominal hernia she was carrying.

Sometimes...

Sometimes...

... I’d just like to go back and slap the snot out of that clueless cisgender, gay manchild I was.

I learned then that the best way any of us can help another is not by making suggestions or telling them how we got through something.

It’s a very simple sentence.

“How can I support you?”

It’s amazing the looks you’ll get.

Do more kind things today.

And remember to start with yourself.

Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/husband-death-flight-attendant-ashes-grief_n_6a43e2bde4b0d6c25f53de76?email_hash=99d43096fff0e7293c01384b30dd4425efc9a64a

Could you benefit from a counselor, therapist, mentor, or coach? My training includes all these modalities. If you need someone to chat with, consider reaching out to me today!

This short book was first released in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID Pandemic.

As I was going through my first months of retirement this past March, it literally fell out of my bookshelf. When that happens to any book, I tend to take it as the universe giving me a push... or in this case, a rather hard shove. Re-reading my own work reminded me of what I needed now, as well as what I went through then. It is my hope that you and others will find it helpful in your own lives.

I updated it, reworded a few sections, did some necessary re-editing, and am now releasing it as a second edition.

Now, more than when it was originally written, I found it once again helped me make sense of my life, even when discomfort seems to be the norm.

Copies can be purchased through the Amazon link below for $6.95 (paperback) or $1.95 (Kindle). As always, if you are a Kindle Unlimited, the book is free to you!

https://bit.ly/4a9UfJV

All the best, always!

Terry

Terry Drew Karanen, LSW, MSW, DD (he/him)
TDKM Counseling, LLC, Owner
Carlisle, PA 17013-2604 USA

https://linktr.ee/terrydrewkaranen/

https://terrydrewkaranen.com

It has been said that with gay men, we feel like we want to be the knight. And yet... in the next instant, we long to be the damsel.

WHAT a crock of shit.

(I’m quoting myself, so I can diss that crap right from the start.)

But is there any truth in that?

Men who love men are raised just like heterosexual guys. There’s only room for one person at the top. We have to be in charge. We have to beat everyone out of the prize, whatever that prize is.

What about the guy who’s interested in a more passive role? Over the years, I’ve taken care of a number of straight-identified men as a tantric sex therapist, often in positions of power, who wanted me to take charge, sometimes to the point of subjugation.

Like their corporate buddies who see a dominatrix for punishment and spankings, they’ve learned to trust someone, male or female. by giving up all the power. To finally take off everything they’ve strived for and allow their Dom to totally take charge.

The line I started with, and then dissed the same, speaks to an aspect that men, in particular, aren’t often willing or able to admit. We like it both ways. We may love to be in charge in one situation, and more than willing, even excited, to let someone else take the reins in another scenario.

An elderly friend of mine called me several years ago after reading my first male/male romance novel.

“I have just one question,” he stated, before even saying hello. “How much of this is you and how much is made up?”

I can’t say this for every author, but I will admit there’s a little of both in my main protagonists, as well as other characters, plus a good amount of personal attributes or accomplishments that I wish I had. Conversely, there are also a few character flaws of other characters that I hope I’ll never demonstrate in my life.

In the early days of coming out as a cis-gay man to my mother, she said something that stunned me. Well, actually, she said a couple of things, but the one I’m talking about was her inquiry about what position I played in the bedroom.

“I mean, I understand that you could be turned on by another man’s body. I certainly can be. If your sister told me she was a lesbian, I probably couldn’t handle it. I know what other women have, and I couldn’t be less interested. What would bother me, however, is if you were the passive partner.”

Drop mic moment.

At the time, I was able to assure her that it was the case. Fortunately, that conversation was never repeated, primarily because there are a number of things about my work over the years that she doesn’t care to hear about.

Shortly after that conversation, I decided to take a chance on the wild side. It wasn’t pleasant, and I gave it up immediately. Why?

I was operating on stereotypes. I felt like I was less of a man. Over the years, I can confidently repeat one line from the movie Car Wash: “Honey, I’m not only more man than you’ll ever be, but I’m also more woman than you could handle.” When my Grindr profile says I’m versatile, I mean it.

Granted, in the past few years, the women in Disney fairy tales have been in charge. Some don’t even find the handsome prince or the knight in shining armor.... It’s not his story anyway.

Young girls seeing powerful role models can be just as novel as Ken finding his own life and way in the wake of “Barbie.” He does that, however, by realizing a simple tantric principle.

We are all, male or female, capable of being both dominant and submissive. We can be in charge of our lives, with or without a partner. We can ask for what we want, when we want it, how we want it delivered, and by whom. We can be our own cheerleader. And, we can allow ourselves to be held, to be comforted, and to be nurtured.

It has been my tantra training over the years that has given me the ability to access all of my emotions, without permission or approval from others. I don’t play the romance games that other men expect from me, so that means I’m often alone. As it happens, I enjoy my own company, so I’m seldom lonely.

Tantra teachings, much like the Science of Mind teachings I taught for years simultaneously, are powerful. My first teacher told me that while she was happy I’d decided to study, she was also saddened by one thing:

Once we realize there is no knight in shining armor riding up on a stallion to save us, we have no need to be the damsel in distress.

Whatever you are doing in your relationship, with yourself or someone else, know that your needs are always met. Speaking our word for what we want, whether it’s from the 1950s or from a place that only we can access, is the key to our happiness.

I don’t have a brand I’m pushing.

I don’t require huge numbers of followers.

I do hope, however, that my musings, foibles, and being just Terry can somehow be the catalyst to helping others have a life worth living. Recently, I’ve been failing myself in that regard. But fortunately, I have tools, mentors, teachers, and treasured friends who have gently guided me back on a path.

I hope you have people like that in your life.

You deserve that.

We all do.

Now go out and live life full tit-boogie!

Could you benefit from a counselor, therapist, mentor, or coach? My training includes all these modalities. If you need someone to chat with, consider reaching out to me today!

I attempt to provide solutions for my readers and clients, not a litany of more insurmountable problems.

However, the current global situation has recently affected me personally.

This convinced me to share my own experience, and perhaps a bit of hope for your day.

It’s no surprise to you that we are enduring a shitshow here in the U.S., along with the rest of the world. It used to be that most of our leaders in high places could be trusted to at least exemplify a modicum of decency. Now, in an effort led by our own leader, we see people in power throughout the earth using hatred, bigotry, misogyny, and lies to model their own lives and attempt to replicate what they see as workable governance.

What I hope you take away from this writing is that it doesn’t matter who you are; this, or something similar, could happen to you.

Besides being a counselor and therapist for nearly 40 years for others, I’ve also spent that same amount of time, and many years prior to that, working on myself. A wise teacher must, I was told early on, never stop being a studious learner. This admonition has been the catalyst for a lifelong pursuit to learn more about life.

I mean seven years of ministerial training, followed by three years of ministry internship before I was ordained; and another seven years of earning my college degrees and, you guessed it, another 18 months of internship before I received my license. In addition are the years I’ve spent in classes, weekly-long experiencials, and studying the practice of tantra and many other teachings, which make up the unique and esoteric nature of my personal spirituality.

So what happened this weekend?

I have been fighting severe depression over the past week, but the uncoordinated movement of my legs when turning in the kitchen and the forgetfulness of the simplest facts were a new twist.

So were the tingling in my extremities yesterday morning, a rapid heart rate, and an increase in blood pressure, all at once. This includes vivid nightmares or night terrors for the past week, where I couldn’t stay asleep, and was accompanied by chest pain throughout the previous week.

I could rationalize a lot of it. None of those responses was individually life-threatening. But considering I had open heart surgery only five years ago, I was more than a little concerned when I began six days into these feelings. I also had a stroke while in recovery after that surgery, and the thought of having to go through that recovery again was unbelievable to me.

But you know how men usually are, right? I may be a 70-year-old, cis-gay guy, but I’m still a man, raised with the same bullshit most men in the western world were that says we should tough it out, be able to handle everything, and... my personal favorite, and I’m sure yours... “Just fuckin’ man-up, dude.”

If you’ve ever experienced a panic attack, you know how debilitating and, especially if it happens in public, humiliating it can be.

Yesterday, it all fell on top of me. All those symptoms culminated in a panic attack that finally got me to ask my husband to drive me to a local urgent care. Perhaps “ask” isn’t quite the right word to use here, since he’d already asked me twice.

If you’ve ever experienced a panic attack, you know how debilitating and, especially if it happens in public, humiliating it can be.

I was only in urgent care for maybe fifteen minutes before they called for an ambulance. I soon found myself in the local hospital emergency room, where I spent the next three hours having blood tests, monitoring, and a CAT scan.

Why make it a topic of my blog? I’m not looking for people to worry about me, and I don’t need sympathy. So why tell the world how insecure I felt? Don’t I feel clients or readers will run in the opposite direction from someone who is younger, better-looking, and apparently has the world by the tail?

Good questions.

Here are my answers:

1. Because I know you might be one of the people out there who have already related to my recent situation. The first time it happened to me was in my 20s. I couldn’t figure out which paintbrush to pick in a hardware store, and it appeared that every one of them was laughing at me. (The paintbrushes, not the other customers.) I saw my first therapist that week.

2. Because in over 40 years of speaking, writing, and counseling, I’ve never stood on a pedestal to say I have all the answers, nor will I today.

3. Because no matter who you may listen to, who appears happier, younger, better looking, and trouble-free, someone who is a person you never see online any other way than picture-perfect, because they, too, get afraid and panic, but are too busy protecting their precious brand to take time for themselves.

I don’t have a brand to protect, nor do I have sponsors who will pull my funding for what I write. I don’t answer to any corporation, secular or ecclesiastical, that will pull my license or ordination because I got “too real” for their tastes.

During my 30 years in ministry, I was ridiculed by other ministers who couldn’t believe how honest and open I was with my congregations. When a member asked me how I came up with my topics for a Sunday service, I usually told them something along the lines of: “This is how I totally messed up my week, and this is how practicing the principles I teach and spirit got me out of it.”

My life doesn’t always work, and when it does, it often isn’t the way I might have expected.

Newsflash: No one’s life does all the time.

So, yes. I had a panic attack this week that sent me to the hospital for blood work, consultation, and a CAT scan just to make sure my brain wasn’t bleeding... again. It’s not, and I’m told, perfectly healthy.

The attending physician on call didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know about this condition. Rest. Take it easy. Meditate. See someone professionally.

The same thing I’ve counseled thousands of people about this.

Putting what we know is true for us, whatever that is for you, is the hardest part of living a life worth living. It’s not the principles or the teachings.

It’s the practice.

“I should go to the gym.”

“I need to take the afternoon off.”

“I need space.”

“I want to take a nap.”

“I should eat better.”

Find the principles you trust, do what your teachings tell you, and move forward. If you are lost, find someone who isn’t and figure out if what they believe in might work for you, too.

A trusted friend or colleague may be a godsend for you, but a trained professional or a teacher of some sort may help you more than a shoulder to cry on. Personally, friends and hugs, often with a bottle of wine and a good cry, are exactly what I need at times, so I’m not putting that down.

Many of you already have a professional in your life to bounce ideas and concerns off of. You probably meditate, take yoga or tai chi, rest properly, balance life and work, and create loving relationships.

Yes... I’ll be seeing my therapist this week.

That shouldn’t surprise you. If it does, ask yourself this:

Would you allow your dentist to check your teeth and make a recommendation for oral surgery if you knew she never went to the dentist herself to have her teeth cleaned?

Just a thought.

You might try asking your therapist, or one that you’re thinking about seeing, how often they see their therapist. The answer will be telling.

I hope you got something out of my most recent ramblings. I’m taking good care of myself this Sunday, something I’m striving to do on a daily basis. The first 70 years haven’t been all rainbows and unicorns, but I’m hopeful that as I enter the final 70 years of my life, any past struggles will help me move forward.

You can, too.

No matter what’s happening to discourage you, find a way through the situation or out of it. You deserve to be happy despite whatever’s going on in your own life and in our global situation.

Could you benefit from a counselor, therapist, mentor, or coach? My training includes all these modalities. If you need someone to chat with, consider reaching out to me!

I spoke about this idea of labels in the first part of “Are You Your Labels?” Toward the end of part one, I suggested that we take a look at how we label ourselves, or how others might label us. I hope you took time to look at that for yourself!

Continuing with examples, let’s look at how three common areas of labeling can empower or limit us, depending on how we use them. These areas are: health, marital status, and ethnicity.

Health

“I can’t do <BLANK> because of <BLANK>.” Fill in the first blank with what you tell others you can’t do, and the second blank with the reason. For example:

“I can’t garden because of my arthritis.“

“I can’t get a good job because I didn’t go to college.”

“I can’t rollerskate because of my bad back.”

It’s easy to get caught up in naming our disease or situation since there are so many fancy names out there today. Instead of “experiencing arthritis,” we say we’re arthritic. Instead of investigating how to start college, we use that as an excuse to be miserable in our jobs. We don’t just name a situation or a disease. We become the disease. We allow it to define us. We label ourselves.

It becomes more fashionable in some circles to delve into what’s wrong with us instead of what’s right with us. I’ve seen “support groups” that ended up supporting the problem more than they helped people to move on to a life worth living.

Marital Status

I was asked one time by an admitting nurse in an Emergency Room whether I was single, married, divorced, or widowed. At the time, I said I was three out of four, so take your pick.

The energy we feel about a person or situation is totally different depending on the answer.

Suppose you were single and wanted to date someone. First of all, saying a person is single may indicate to some people that they aren’t with anyone in particular, which may or may not be true.

I could be single and still be dating five guys. I’d still be single…tired, but single. But let’s assume you are not involved with anyone else at the moment, and you want to date.

What if the person tells you they are “divorced”, then what? Questions, right? Really divorced? Just separated? Kids? Child support? Alimony? Ex-spouse calling in the middle of the night?

Naaaa…not for me. Check her/him/them off.

Widowed? Hmmmm…how long? Are they healed of the loss? Am I just a replacement partner?

Naaaa….not for me. That gets another check.

I’m exaggerating, of course, but there is usually some kind of pause for us with these labels of single, married, partnered, divorced, separated, or widowed.

Ethnicity/Race/Heritage

In some arenas, it is difficult to refer to a person’s genealogy, skin color, or ethnic background without violating their civil rights or, at the very least, offending them.

I have a colleague who is dark-skinned and objects to being called “African-American,” because she doesn’t identify that way. She’s from the Bahamas; her mother is very dark-skinned; her father is very light-skinned; and she’s not American.

How we refer to cultures, ethnic groups, and race depends on who you ask. I used the term “Oriental” instead of “Asian” in a writing a couple of years ago when describing how the Eastern cultures view dragons very differently from Western, primarily Christian, cultures.

I received a scathing letter from a man--Caucasian, I might add--who lives in Nepal part of the year. He informed me that the term “Oriental” should NEVER be used in referring to culture, people, or practices of the various Asian countries.

Yet in my work, I’ve asked Korean, Japanese, and Chinese practitioners of medicine from that part of the world if the term Oriental Medicine was offensive; should we be saying, “Asian Medicine?” They all laughed at me.

They personally identified as Asian or by their country of origin, but the medicine was still oriental to them. We might cringe at the use of “Persian rug” or “Oriental rug,” but where I live in South Central Pennsylvania, we think nothing of saying we bought an Amish quilt.

I think by now you have the basic idea of labels and see how confusing and limiting they can be, even within these three categories.

You may also have a few questions about how to deal with the issues I’ve discussed.

I don’t have your answers, but I’d like to share some of the ways I continue to work on this in my own life. I’ve found four key ways to deal with labels.

Be clear on who I am.

With me, what you see is pretty much what you get. I don’t act, write, or conduct myself to please others.

We may genuinely feel a certain way. But if we act in ways that are not politically, socially, sexually, or culturally correct, it can interfere with our self-expression. We need to be ourselves, but we can’t just discount the consequences of our actions or speech either.

Ernest Holmes wrote that:

“...unity does not mean uniformity. … the changeless nature of the original mind
in no way imposes monotonous action upon it.”

It may mean being different than society, or it may mean being different than our peers. Discovering who we are, deciding what to change in our lives, and making those changes is our challenge.

Our ego mind makes judgments through comparisons. This may be our mind today, or it might have been the objective mind of a two-year-old, a seven-year-old, or a mind bound by tradition or false beliefs, but those concepts may still reside in our subjective/subconscious mind.

We must find ways around the judge. It’s almost like being an attorney in a courtroom. Sometimes the attorney uses logic and law to prove her point, sometimes she uses an emotional approach.

Frequently, we can become so comfortable with what’s wrong in our lives that we begin to live our lives in such a way that we perpetuate the very situation that we claim we want to rid ourselves of. By falling in love with something else, by turning our other cheek toward another focus, we take our mind off the undesirable situation and onto a more advantageous pursuit.

This allows the healing to occur. Why?

Because while our ego mind is off orchestrating something else, the universe can begin to do its work unhindered. The result is that many times the undesirable situation or circumstance dies of neglect. The situation, illness, or disease is not our label, but it can be a direct manifestation of an old idea that no longer serves us.

We do not have to let our ego mind have anything to do with who we choose to be today. This is called the quest of the Spiritual Warrior. We are not waging war against anything. Rather, we are directing our efforts toward something by being clear on who we are.

Be clear on my communication of who I am.

Ask yourself: Do I want to be identified by a label, or for who I am? Is the label all of who I am, or just a portion of me, just the part I want someone to acknowledge at any given time?

We cannot live our lives solely for others. Mom or dad may have wanted us to be doctors or lawyers, but if that wasn’t what we wanted, we’d have been miserable. It’s not that our parents or friends want to make life miserable for us – they truly want the best for us.

It’s we, however, who have to make the decision about our lives. That clarity will show up in how we are perceived by others.

That’s a fine line, however. The tricky part is what is the goal? What is our intention?

If your goal is to cause a scene or be outrageous, then do what you want, and you’ll be successful at that!

With our dress, it’s often easier to dress the way we are expected to because it eliminates questions, comments, and obstacles that don’t need to be there. (For more information on this subject, check out a previous blog, “Should We Dim Our Light?”)

Acknowledge the situation

This one can be very ego-bruising. It requires us to admit something about ourselves or our circumstances, which we’d rather ignore.

I’d like to think I’m usually pretty much in charge, kinda guy, but there are days when I am, well, shall we say, “just one or two french fries short of a Happy Meal”? I’m not present, I’m not focused, and I’m probably annoying people.

My family will sometimes gently hold my face, look me in the eye, and say, “Shhhhhh... Terry. Focus... Now continue.” Either that or, “Yes, we see the shiny object, now please get to the goddamn point!”

There is another part, too, in acknowledging ourselves, particularly through labeling.

When we label ourselves, we define our boundaries, we establish our parameters. However, they also limit us.

If that is our purpose, then we need to acknowledge that we are there by choice. It’s appropriate for us at this time and therefore see it as a choice, not a sentence.

I could blame it on ADD, dyxlesia, or a stroke, but those are part of my past that I choose not to create my reality now or in the future. By acknowledging what is happening in that moment of my life rather than ignoring or defending it, I can address the situation and move on.

Be willing to let go of the label

My entire life revolves around fulfilling my vision. mission, and purpose. It’s the way I get to live my life and fulfill my dreams. I teach people how to do that so that they, too, can have a satisfying life, a life truly worth living.

Part of that is deciding how I want to do that. Part of that decision, then, is taking on certain responsibilities and roles. With these roles come labels, labels that in society allow me certain privileges. Even so, we must be willing to let go of our labels, just as we let go of everything else in our lives on a daily basis.

Why?

Because it’s not the job, or the label, or the house, or anything else that is our security. I believe in a universe that’s set up to support us, not in a God that judges our desires or stops us from living to our full potential.

That universal energy and the channels it uses must change over time if we are to grow. That means we have to give up some of our preconceived ideas about what we might do under any number of labels.

To some people, this is terrifying.

“I’ll lose my identity!”

“If I don’t have the title, the position, the right house, the right car, etc, etc, etc, then who am I?”

I’ve found it to be just the opposite. Just because I release everything on a daily basis doesn’t mean that everything leaves my life. Sometimes things or people leave, but that’s all right, too, because it’s time for that to happen.

When it does, particularly when it’s something I really think I need to have or be, I end up discovering all over again just who I am and how I can fulfill my life purpose. If we do that without expectations about the outcome, we can allow good into our lives, through our decisions and through others, in ways we’ve not imagined.

Labels help establish the illusion of stability in our lives... but it is only an illusion.

Nothing is stable in our physical universe; nothing is forever... except constant change. It is only when we truly believe in a power greater than ourselves--whatever that means for you-- and know that at the depth of our soul, then and only then do we have the peace of mind that comes from knowing we can never want for anything or worry about losing what we have.

In our day-to-day life, we have plenty of support and approval to label ourselves and each other. These labels can lead to discrimination based on both who we are and how we are perceived.

Labeling others allows us to pigeon-hole people we don’t even know into a category, which can make them inaccessible to us, people who, for all we know, may be the very ones who can be our greatest partners in growing through life.

Are you your labels?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

It’s your choice, and either choice may serve you at any given time.

Perhaps they are a part of you, but if you choose to be known by your label, be sure that it is a label of your conscious choosing for the purpose of enjoying life to the fullest.

Could you benefit from a counselor, therapist, mentor, or coach? My training includes all these modalities. If you need someone to chat with, consider reaching out to me today!

Do you like to be labeled?

You may think that our sexual orientation, gender, race, or cultural background (to name only a few) aren’t really labels.

“That’s just who I am!” you might say.

Really?

While that may be true in some cases, the point is not the term “label” itself, but what we think of when we adopt certain labels.

Take fathers, for instance. While the outer expectations of what a father’s responsibilities are have changed over the past fifty years, many of the inner expectations or traditional values associated with fatherhood are still counted on to maintain stability in our society.

The purpose of this blog isn’t to compare how that so-called “stability” may have gotten us into the mess we currently find ourselves in as human beings on planet Earth. What I mean by this is that we may “say” we see people one way, but our subconscious mind, or subjective consciousness, is still reacting to old habit patterns, stereotypes, and labels that are no longer politically correct or that do not explain who or what we or someone else is.

Try asking the question at the start of this blog to five people, “Do you like to be labeled?”

You’ll find that most, if not all, will assume the term label to which you may be alluding will be derogatory. That’s not always the case.

I’m not sure why, but it’s a fun experiment, and quite telling in how someone assumes we might be labeling them.

While we may not like to be labeled, we are often guilty of labeling others. Have you noticed that when we meet someone new, it’s not uncommon for the questions to be steered in very basic directions:

Are you married?

What do you do for a living?

What kind of car do you drive?

Where did you go to school?

And on it goes. We get that information, pigpen-hole the person through classifications (labels), and create our judgment of the person.

I apologize to my foreign readers! You might be saying to yourself, “That’s SO typically American!”

And though I have just as much evidence as you that it is so, regardless of citizenship, that comment (just in case it sprang to your lips) is also another form of labeling. This is another example of how labeling is critical, not complimentary.

On the other side of this discussion are the labels we stick on ourselves and then, with tenacity, refuse to peel off when they are old and tired. The unhappily married couple must face the truth of their relationship once the kids leave home. The corporate executive or factory worker is forced to reassess her place in life after being laid off. Who are we without our spouses, our careers, or our homes?

I have become afflicted with so many labels that I have become invisible unto myself. - James Baldwin

So what purpose do labels serve?

We use labels to identify ourselves.

We use them to create comfort boundaries.

We may use them to limit ourselves and our experience of life, either intentionally or through our subjective consciousness.

As with most of our lives, we use them without even thinking; we label ourselves, without giving any thought to changing our paradigm of the situation.

According to Noah, George, and Charles
(the boys otherwise known to us as Merriam-Webster),
a label is:

A word or phrase used with a dictionary definition
to provide additional information.

So what are labels?

Simply, a label is a way of categorizing ourselves or others.

Labels fall into three basic categories:

How we wish we were labeled.
This is what we wish people would think about us. It is what we ideally envision for ourselves.

How we know we are labeled.
This is what we hear others say about us, either directly (what people tell us) or indirectly (what we hear people say behind our backs). It is also what we can honestly admit about ourselves at our core.

How we hope we aren’t labeled.
This category revolves around judgment, how others judge us (perhaps because of a difficult decision we might have made with which they did not agree), as well as how we judge ourselves.

Would you be willing to make a list of the labels you have for yourself today?

Do they serve you?

Is this the way you want to be known or remembered?

Perhaps today is the day we can ask ourselves, Am I my labels?

Once we answer that question, we will discover whether or not our labels enhance who we are or obscure us to the point of being invisible to ourselves.

I’ll leave you to your list and these thoughts. In just a few days, I’ll be publishing Part Two of this mini-series. Till then...

Could you benefit from a counselor, therapist, mentor, or coach? My training includes all these modalities. If you need someone to chat with, consider reaching out to me today!

In 2011, I closed my 25-year massage practice.

In 2019, I retired from active ministry after serving four ministries for over 30 years.

And, on 16 February 2026, I flew my last trip as a professional flight attendant.

As of today, 1 March 2026, I have officially retired from American Airlines, nearly 29 years after I started flying in May of 1997 at age 47 for Kiwi International Airlines, shortly followed by AirTran Airways.

Three of my long-term careers are over.

If one takes my job history in a linear timeline, I’d be close to 140.

People told me I couldn’t have it all.

I did…

… and I still am.

It took me 44 years to realize my dream of flying for a living. I decided it at age four.

Mom and I left Santa Barbara, California, in 1959, bound for Los Angeles, where we caught a United flight to Chicago. From there, we flew on TWA to Dayton, Ohio. My mother would tell the story of how the actor Tom Ewell was on our plane into Chicago and carried me across the field to our third plane so we wouldn’t miss the connection.

Yes, my precious younger readers… people really did run across the tarmac to make a plane, then run up the portable stairs to board.

TSA really wasn’t a thing back then.

(Side note: My mother loves to tell that story, since a sleepy little Terry wagged his finger in Mr. Ewell’s face and said, “I don’t trust you.” Sigh… looking back at his pictures now, I’d tend to differ.)

But I digress. It was on the last flight that I fell in love with the TWA stewardess, as flight attendants were called back then. I woke up shortly before landing, and she brought me a donut with chocolate icing and a glass of orange juice.

“Here you go, young man. You were asleep when we served breakfast, and I saved this for you.”

(For the senior flight attendants, remember when we did a full service on a short flight like that?!?)

I thanked her and turned toward my mother.

“She saved this. For ME!” I cried loudly, probably louder than I needed to, to appropriately indicate how utterly impressed I was. (Seriously? You’re surprised, why?) “Mommy… I wanna be just like her when I grow up!”

Mom didn’t tell me that men didn’t become stewardesses back then. We’d have to wait until a guy sued Southwest Airlines before that right existed in the U.S.A. At the time, the “Luv Airline,” as it was known then, chose any young, white women with big tits, bigger hair (Hey, in the south, the higher the hair, the closer you are to Jeeeee-sus…), and long legs in shorts that would embarrass even the ladies at Hooters.

American Airlines, however, was ahead of the game. American bought Trans Caribbean before that and suddenly had a whole lot of male stewards. Trans Caribbean had ALL males working their flights. Not to be outdone, back in the day, when corporations at least tried to look like they cared, American hired the first five African American flight attendants and, later, the first African American First Officer. I got to fly with one of those flight attendants, Miss Bertha. She was an amazing story in her own right. But, corporate dissing aside, it was still a monumental feat in its day and one that opened the door for so many great flight attendants and pilots who would never have had the opportunity for a career in aviation.

Before the lawsuit that permitted men to apply as flight attendants, the Purser at American, the flight attendant who oversees the cabin crew, was referred to as the “First Lady.” During my training with AA in 2000, I met the first male “First Lady,” a portly gentleman who once flew the LA-Honolulu route, a man with whom I wish I’d had the chance to fly. That’s why "Purser," a more gender-nonconforming term, came into use for us.

So, yes, in case you’re curious, I’ve kept track of all the time I spent flying.

As of my retirement date, I worked over 9.6 million miles. Which, by the way, is nothing compared to the senior flight attendants I know, who have been flying twice as long or more.

I’ve spent 21,428 hours in a plane, sitting on the ground for takeoff, flying, (returning to the gate for an aborted takeoff, or flying in circles after an aborted landing), and finally waiting for a jetbridge because we were early and our gate was occupied, or the ground employees went home before we got there. (Uh… no… I’m NOT making that up.) It also doesn’t count the unpaid time spent waiting for maintenance to fix whatever was wrong, or apologizing profusely to passengers with special needs whose wheelchairs or aisle chairs to take them off the plane were unavailable.

I’d like to think that I made at least a small difference in the lives of the passengers I served. I’ve met famous people: Patti LaBelle, Lily Tomlin, Joan Rivers, Mr. T., Herb Albert, Whitney Houston, Nancy Pelosi, Gloria Allred, Maxine Waters, Anderson Cooper, Mario Lopez, Marlo Thomas, and so many more. Each of them was gracious, and all but one was kind. (And, no, I won’t say who it was.) I don’t have even one autograph, but I have wonderful memories. (I do have a picture of Miss LaBelle and me, but only because she insisted.)

You just don’t deny Miss LaBelle anything, ya know?

Among my favorite memories is the stranger who hugged me on my way to Newark on a weekend morning and wouldn’t let go. I was part of the first American Airlines cabin crew out of Newark, a 727 to Dallas, on the Saturday after the 9/11 attacks. She was crying and said how much she appreciated the flight attendants and hoped I didn’t lose anyone in the attack.

I didn’t tell her I had.

Another memory was nearly being accosted by this dude who insisted he needed a lemon for his Diet Coke. I told him we didn’t have any lemons on board. “I know they have them up front. They always have them up there.” We didn’t, and even in our business class on Air Tran Airways at the time, we only had this nasty reconstituted lemon juice. (UGH!) I just looked at him. Then, he said, “So you expect me to believe you don’t have ANY fruit on board?”

(Oh, no… you’re thinking. He dunna… Oh, yes, he did!)

Wait for it… wait for it…

I smiled and softly stated, “Other than me, no…. Now, do you want the reconstituted lemon juice or not?”

The woman at the window seat laughed so loud she sprayed her drink on the wall.

Hey—back then, we still had “Reader’s Digest” every month. I wrote up the incident, submitted the story, and got 25 bucks.

I’ve had an absolutely great 26-year run with American. I wasn’t even off my six-month probation before I was walking the picket line for a new contract. Soon after, I became the union representative for our Newark base and, eventually, the Union vice chair for our three New York airports. Less than two years ago, I walked the picket line again for the third contract before we signed our most recent agreement with the company, for which we negotiated for over five years.

I finished my undergrad while I was flying, something I’d put off for years, but decided to go back to university during my furlough after the 9/11 attacks. I’d continue earning my Master’s in Social Work after earning my Bachelor’s in Social Sciences. During my Master’s program at Temple University, I completed 900 hours of internship serving our union, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA), as an EAP (Employee Assistance Professional) representative. I fought for our flight attendants’ rights as much then as I did when I was in New York, serving on the union leadership team.

It was the flexibility of my schedule that allowed me to pursue ministry, massage work, university, and eventually counseling, all simultaneously. I carried a laptop to write my essays, and an extra carry-on bag for my textbooks. Homework made me into a “slam-clicker” on layovers. That’s the flight attendant who slams the hotel door, locks it, and doesn’t come out until pickup the next day.

It wasn’t easy.

Sometimes it seemed impossible.

But I kept my eye on the prize and achieved it all, though at a higher cost than I felt I should have to pay. I kept my different lives and careers separate, seldom allowing them to cross from one arena to another. I felt it was necessary, perhaps at the time at least. But it didn’t feel like I was being the authentic me I wanted to show the world.

And, it was feckin’ exhausting.

When I developed my new website late last year, I finally put it all together. I don’t hide who I am or what I am. Some people find parts of what I done shocking. Certain areas of my life don’t seem possible to some people, given that some parts are diametrically opposed to other parts. That can lead some people to feel I’m not sincere in one career if I pursue another that appears to conflict.

I just smile. The thing about knowing who you are and being proud to go “full-tits-boogie” into life is that one doens’t need to allow the issues others have about how one leads one’s life, particularly when what you do is of service and healing to others.

So… now what?

As my eighth decade of life began last year, I find myself in a unique position, and one that I’ve yearned for most of my life.

I have nothing left to prove.

I’m proud of who I am, warts, scars, and all.

I no longer seek to take yet another training, class, or course to be “me.” Yet at the same time, I find myself looking forward to learning so much more about life, the people around me, and showing the world who the Rev. Dr. Terry Drew Karanen, DD, PhD, MSW, aka TantraDad, really is.

My counseling practice continues, just like it has since I started it as my first business, Support Services Unlimited, in 1989. Today, it’s known as TDKM Counseling, LLC, and provides counseling, therapy, mentoring, and coaching, primarily for men, with clients worldwide, thanks to Telehealth, which became popular during the COVID pandemic.

My writing will continue, with twenty books to date in the genres of spirituality and empowerment, and, most recently, male/male romance novels. All my activities, social media, and more are on my LinkTree account, which will give you far more information than you probably want.

I’ve put together the best part of my life at American: The crews I spend hours on the plane with and enjoy more than one layover. You’ll find the link on my Instagram account. If we’ve flown together, maybe you’ll find pics of you, too!

It’s been fun.

It’s been real.

Okay, it wasn’t always fun; some of it was more “real” than I’d like to remember, including two emergency landings (both were without injury, but still!) and countless aborted takeoffs and go-arounds on landings. Medical emergencies were tense during the situation, but I saw people's lives saved or made comfortable because flight attendants did their jobs. Our annual training sessions are a pain in the butt for most of us, and I’m so glad for all those reviews, because when I needed that knowledge and practice to show up, I did.

Just like every other flight attendant will do for you who’s still out there if, one day, you need them.

Thanks for following me on one of my social media sites, as a subscriber to my Substack account, or on my website.

So yes, Virginia, you CAN have it all… usually.

The trick is knowing you can’t always have it ALL AT ONCE.

It’s kinda like being sorta pregnant.

Yeah… probably not a good look.

And so, “B’BYE!” in one sense… and hello to the next 70 years of my life!

Could you use a counselor, therapist, mentor, or coach in your life? My training includes all these modalities. If you need someone to chat with, consider reaching out to me today!

All subscribers have been advised of this previously, so if you haven’t received an email from me, please take a look at the flyer below. See if you'd like to join us this coming Thursday, 26 February. We're currently about 50% of the number of participants we can book. Thanks!

All the best always,

Terry aka Tantra Dad

Could you benefit from a counselor, therapist, mentor, or coach? My training includes all these modalities. If you need someone to chat with, consider reaching out to me today!

Enjoy!
Terry aka Tantra Dad

The author has noticed something simple during coffee dates with his wife: some people push their chairs in when they leave, and some don’t.

It seems like a tiny thing — but over time, he’s realized it often reflects deeper habits and character traits.

People who consistently push in their chairs tend to:

• Think about others.
  It’s not about the chair. It’s about making life easier for the next person — whether that’s a server, a coworker, or a stranger.

• Appreciate order.
  They like spaces to feel neat and functional. A little organization helps life run more smoothly.

• Finish what they start.
  They complete the whole task, even the last small step. That mindset often shows up in bigger areas of life, too.

• Respect shared spaces.
  They understand that public or shared areas belong to everyone, so they leave them in good shape.

• Notice small details.
  They see what others might overlook — a chair out of place, a light left on — and they take care of it.

• Take pride in small things.
  No one applauds pushing in a chair. But they do it anyway because doing small things well matters to them.

• Build good habits.
  It’s not something they debate each time. It’s automatic — part of a pattern of positive, consistent behaviors.

• Value small courtesies.
  Holding doors, saying thank you, letting someone merge — these little actions quietly make the world kinder.

• Live intentionally.
  They move through life with awareness rather than rushing on autopilot.

The author isn’t saying people who leave chairs out are bad. We all forget or get distracted. But those who consistently take that small extra step often show thoughtfulness, discipline, and care in other parts of their lives too.

In the end, the message is simple: small actions matter. And sometimes, who we are shows up in the smallest habits.

Next time you stand up from a table, what will you do?

To read the entire article, go to: https://geediting.com/d-people-who-always-push-their-chair-back-in-when-they-leave-a-table-usually-display-these-9-distinct-traits/

This is a reposting of an article I wrote for GoNaked Magazine in May 2025 when I began my eighth decade. I wanted to share it with my website and Substack subscribers before I make a special announcement on 1 March - stay tuned! For now, please enjoy this glimpse into how I navigated this marvelous process I recently went through.

“How the heck did that happen?”

That was my mom’s response when I recognized she had turned ninety years old. I asked her if she felt different after her birthday.

“Not really,” she responded. “But I need to get a new mirror. Some old lady keeps looking back at me when I get up in the morning!”

I can relate. I turn seventy this month.

I don’t feel seventy.

But I am.

SIDE POINT: With turning seventy, I’ll be entering my eighth decade of life. I know. I’ve been dealing with turning seventy without recognizing that turning seventy means the end of my seventh decade of life. A friend informed me of that over a glass of wine. Slapping the snot out of her wasn’t an option at the time… but I did consider it.

It’s not like this birthday came as a surprise to me. I’ve spent the last ten years ensuring I could retire comfortably. I thought I had it all sorted. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, followed by open heart surgery. … I wasn’t surprised by the surgery—a few years before, my doctor informed me I had a congenital heart defect in my aortic valve. I knew I would eventually have to have the procedure to replace the valve and repair an aneurysm.

However, having a stroke after the surgery while I was recovering in the ICU was not in my plan.

The surgeon had advised me that a stroke after a lengthy open-heart surgery was a possibility. I didn’t expect to be in the five percent group who stroked out. I’m the one who takes care of everyone else. No one usually takes care of me. The stroke dramatically changed that.

I couldn’t form a complete sentence and had difficulty recognizing what people were telling me. Words to express myself escaped me, words I knew but couldn’t say out loud. This was terrifying and frustrating since I’m a published writer of over twenty books. I have only partial memories of the three months after the stroke. The next three months are more complete, but I continue, now four years later, to be reminded by others of things I can’t recall.

When we’re young, we can’t wait to grow up. As we age, we can’t understand where the years go. There is a difference between the six-year-old who can’t wait till Christmas and the sixty-year-old who feels last Christmas was like yesterday. For the kid, six months is one-sixth of her life. But for the older man, a year represents one-sixtieth of his existence.

Time is relative… and it is fleeting. I still feel much younger than my years, though I know how old I am. I wanted to be muscular like my best friend when I was younger. He was my first adolescent crush and built like the proverbial brick shit house. I graduated, weighing only 135 pounds at six feet two inches. I had a twenty-eight-inch waist and thought I was pathetic compared to him.

Looking back at those pictures, I didn’t realize what a hot little twink I was! Older men (probably in their forties!) thought I was cute. I didn’t. I also remember feeling “not enough” in my thirties, only to look at those pictures twenty years later and think, “Wow. I had arms and nice pecs!”

These trips down memory lane helped me remember that what I see in the mirror today is who I am. If there’s something I want to change, I change it when I can. I no longer wait to be told by others but have relaxed into the knowledge that, for the most part, I’m whole, complete, and perfect as I am.

Terry Cole-Whittaker wrote a book over forty years ago entitled What You Think of Me is None of My Business. That’s been a mantra of mine since I first read it. Recently, however, I’ve expanded on that concept by reminding myself and others of this fact:

What we think others think of us is far less important than what we think about what others are thinking of us.

I know. It sounds convoluted, but it’s true. (Just read it a couple of times till it clicks. Trust me on this.)

We don’t know what others think about us, but we often speculate. More often than not, we’re wrong. Even if they tell us something we don’t care to hear, the comment or attitude comes from their own experience, not ours. I’ve said in the past that—usually with an air of arrogance or superiority—I don’t care what other people think about me. But I’ve been caught dressing a certain way or acting in a manner that doesn’t suit who I am today. Age has made me believe in myself more than in others’ opinions, but I still have my days. Doubt can be reasonable—it gives me cause to pause and reflect on whether I truly believe what I say and teach.

I hear other older folks say they want to be younger while retaining all the knowledge they’ve gained. I believe this desire stems from an attempt to change our past, which is an exercise in complete futility. Over the years, I’ve been lauded and criticized for expressing some of the most outrageous opinions, often simultaneously by people around me. I remember saying similar things in my youth. I was told my remarks were inappropriate and unacceptable for a boy or young man to express. Now that I’m older, I can get away with saying almost anything, usually without repercussions. People assume I’m just older and entitled to my views, and they don’t correct me even when they think I’m wrong. Perhaps they fear that I might be right!

Kindness, mindfulness, and childlike wonderment are the basis for how I live my life. Much comes from over thirty years of practicing and teaching a tantric lifestyle, but a good deal also comes from my upbringing, grounded in sound, old-fashioned common sense. My maternal grandmother never finished middle school, and my mother didn’t pass her GED until she was 75. Yet both were wise beyond the education they felt they needed to succeed.

Guys don’t, for the most part, have the type of transitions women do. Females have the maiden (menses), mother, and crone (menopause) transitions. I teach the boy/man/elder model for men. The boy can also be seen as the child, the man as the warrior, and the elder as the sage. Other designations work as well. We must learn to honor where we are, be who we have become, or change what we no longer care for. It’s healthy to find other men, as we do in this magazine, to celebrate our transitions however we desire.

Just because I’ve moved into the elder/sage episode of my life doesn’t mean I have all the answers. I tell my counseling clients up front that I have little or no idea what they should do with their lives. But my education, background, and therapy skills are filled with ways of helping others find the answers within themselves. We all have our own answers. Sometimes, it just takes someone else to nudge us along.

That someone doesn’t have to be older than us. As the “out of the mouths of babes” adage suggests, our mentors can be younger. You’ll probably miss out on essential facts of life today if you’re over fifty and don’t have a mentor-type person under thirty, particularly when the rapidly developing AI and ever-changing computer devices are involved. The publisher of [GoNaked Magazine], Nick Vannello, is a fantastic example of someone in constant motion, learning more and deepening his knowledge. I love that about him. The idea of living in childlike wonderment means we can always learn more about the sacred ideas and beliefs we’ve held for most of our lives.

The only constant in life is change.

So… seventies, here I come! Some of you reading this will think you’ll never get there. Others are older than me, and I honor who you have become! You might fear growing older or being alone. Men who are dealing with the same problems I’m facing are nodding.

The great thing is that we aren’t alone. Thousands of us subscribe to [GoNaked Magazine] or read [similar articles or blogs]. Men’s groups of all ages are available online and locally in many cities. Reach out to others for the help you seek, and be there for your brothers.

One of my mentors, Jason Tantra, says, “Tell me about your life, and I’ll tell you about your sex… and if you tell me about your sex, I’ll tell you about your life.” My therapy and counseling clients may come to me for help with their sex lives or relationships, but often, the rest of their lives reflect the same problems they’re having in the original reason for their session. I teach tantra as a lifestyle, which means that I help men bring tantric principles out of the bedroom and into the boardroom… their marriages… their hobbies… and everywhere else.

My life is full. I’ve already retired from thirty years as an ordained minister and twenty-five years as a licensed massage therapist. …I’m writing and will publish three new novels this year. I continue to see counseling clients through telehealth and work one-on-one with tantra students across the U.S. I’ll spend time in my gardens and travel for pleasure in my free time… and yes, I do have free time! …

I leave you with two quotes I’ve developed and used over the years, both for myself and others. I hope you find them useful!

We have freedom of choice but not of consequences... or rewards.

&

You can’t have a relationship with someone’s potential.

With love, truth, and playfulness,
Terry Drew Karanen

* * * * * * * * * *

P.S. Here’s some practical stuff to have a life worth living!

Some people have asked what I do to stay healthy in all areas of life. Here are some daily or weekly routines I’ve developed, which I try to follow to the best of my ability. You do not have to do any of this, and I’m not providing medical or dietary advice, as my degrees do not permit that! But, if even one thing speaks to you, give it a try, then try another… if you want!

• Fresh-squeezed lemon juice in eight ounces of warm water upon rising

• Rub the lemon pulp on age spots (hands, scalp) and elbows/knees/heels

• Rx, vitamins, supplements

• Meditation: Loving-kindness meditation daily (www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d_AA9H4z9U); TM/Transcendental Meditation (daily, twenty minutes in the morning and later afternoon); chakra balancing and energy merging meditations (one to two times a week)

• Reading for pleasure and knowledge – I read upwards of 100 male/male romance novels each year, plus many more books or audiobooks on a variety of subjects

• Forty-five minutes MAX, at any screen, followed by anything physical that gets me moving for the next 15 minutes

• Gym, strength training three to four times a week; [yoga] three times a week; yoga stretches [daily]

• Eat well-balanced, nutritious meals that coordinate with my lifestyle or goals

• And… I enjoy eating whatever I want once a week, along with other foods or treats most people avoid (see my first quote above!).

• To do all this and more, I faithfully practice “D.D.” (Delete Distractions) with all activities and people in my life – it’s incredible what I can accomplish when I stay off social media and no longer watch hours of repetitive, pathetic news and meaningless TV shows!

• Once or twice a year, go over your contacts, social media accounts, and address book (if you still have one)—If someone no longer supports and celebrates who you are today, why are they still in your life?

Could you benefit from hiring a counselor, therapist, mentor, or coach? My training includes all these modalities. If you need someone to chat with, consider reaching out to me today!

Pink lives in Scotland, and we met through the Tantra 4 Gay Men (T4GM) group when we were both teaching online classes for T4GM. Since then, we’ve met in person in the Diploma series and during other T4GM events.

But his posting on his teaching website over the weekend wasn’t about compersion.

It was about love.

The YouTube video he posted was from a live performance from the Grande Salle Pierre Boulez at the Philharmonie de Paris. Les Arts Florissants perform an excerpt from Rameau’s “Tendre Amour” (Tender Lover) by Les Indes Galantes, conducted by William Christie and Paul Agnew.

In my blog, “5 C’s of Tantric Principles,” I describe compersion this way:

This word is most generally defined as the opposite of jealousy. But it’s so much more than that simple explanation. Compersion comes to us from the world of polyamory, intimate relationships with more than one partner. It is the reason those of us in successful poly relationships can cope with our partners having other partners. To have compersion for a lover, a friend, or a family member is to be filled with joy at their joy! It is also the ultimate level of unconditional love. As one woman put it, “Why would I stop someone I love from loving someone else?”

Besides being a beautifully performed piece, the video is also a perfect example of what compersion can look like in the people we surround ourselves with. The love, respect, concern, and joy that the musicians and singers show for one another brought tears to my eyes.

I leave you to watch this gorgeous piece of music. Picture, if you will, what our world would look like if we each gave those around us the love, support, and admiration that the people in the video are expressing. I considered sharing the moments that matter to me by typing the minute and second they occur, but I decided to give you the same joy I felt as I watched the full 5.21 minutes. The love in the eyes of the lady in red as she quietly acknowledges the singer to her right; the expression of the soloist with the long dangly earrings, as her face conveys concern and attention to what’s going on around her; or any one of many faces in the background who are revelling in the performances of the people around them. These are just three examples I hope you’ll enjoy, but I trust you will find many more.

What would your life look like if you did this where you work, where you shop, or in your own family? Or, if you were the recipient of those feelings?

To me, this is a big part of living a tantric lifestyle.

If you’d like to learn more about how to live the life I’ve chosen, consider scheduling a Discover Call with me.

In either event, enjoy the video!

This blog is provided free to all who receive it, with love and appreciation for all you are and do to make our planet a place we want to live in.

In Spirit, Truth, and Playfulness,
Terry aka Tantra Dad

Could you benefit from a counselor, therapist, mentor, or coach? My training includes all these modalities. If you need someone to chat with, consider reaching out to me today!

Today, I’m highlighting another author, colleague, and personal friend, Nick Vannello. I hope you enjoy his latest article!

Sixty does not knock. Sixty slides into the room, pours a drink, and sits down like it has always lived there. It stares you in the face, lifts an eyebrow, and dares you to say something.

(NOTE: I had a full stop, just laughing at the first paragraph… Terry)

One morning you wake up and your body has formed a committee. Your knees vote without you. Your back files complaints. Your neck refuses overtime.

So you adjust.

And if you are smart, you tell yourself a few well-polished lies. Not the destructive kind. The survival kind. The kind that lets you age without shrinking.

Here are ten worth keeping.

I’ll Start Yoga/Stretching Tomorrow

Tomorrow is a fantasy island. Everyone there stretches. Nobody pulls a groin reaching for a sock.

You have promised yourself yoga for twelve straight tomorrows. Your mat still looks new enough to return.

The lie still serves a purpose. Underneath sits a small act of defiance. You refuse to close the door on growth.

Hope remains flexible. Even when you are not.

I Don’t Need Reading Glasses

Yes. You do.

Restaurants did not shrink the font to punish you. Your arm is not long enough anymore. Accept defeat with style.

The first time you wear proper glasses feels obscene. Suddenly the world sharpens. Leaves have edges. Men across the room look better. So does the dessert menu.

You will own six pairs within a year. You might be lucky if you can locate one when you need it. (ProTip: There might be a pair balancing on top of your forehead. You forgot you put it there.)

I Can Still Dance Like I Used To

You do not. Thank God.

Your dancing carries weight now. A uniqueness. No hunger for approval.

Back then you ran after the beat. Now the beat finds you. Fewer jumps. More hips. Deliberate footwork. Planned recovery time.

Anyone worth your energy is busy guarding their own knees.

I Don’t Care What People Think

Not 100% true - You care less. Freedom hides inside that distinction.

You stopped dressing for strangers. You dress for the man you see in the mirror. Or the one you plan to meet later.

Do you replay conversations? Of course. Growth never erases vanity completely. It trims it down to a manageable size.

Progress beats perfection every time.

I’ll Remember That Name

No, you will not.

Names slip through your brain like water through an open hand. Confidence carries you anyway.

You become a master of conversational aikido.

“Good to see you.”
“Remind me how we met.”
“How is your partner?”

Whole discussions unfold while your brain frantically scans old files. Sometimes the memory arrives mid-sentence like a delayed flight. Sometimes it never lands.

Charm covers many sins.

I’m Not Set in My Ways

You earned your ways.

You know the mug. The chair. The side of the bed. The exact temperature of a proper shower.

Call it refinement. After six decades, you edited your life. The nonsense got cut.

Comfort stops being laziness. Comfort becomes wisdom.

This ties in to today’s post, “Why Time Speeds Up The Older We Get“.

I’m Not Tired. I’m Busy.

You are tired.

You carried careers, lovers, families, heartbreak, reinvention, grief. You survived versions of yourself that would not recognize you now.

Rest stops being optional. Rest becomes strategy.

The true skill at this age involves lying down without apology.

It’s Just a Stiff Neck

Nothing is ever “just” anything anymore.

Every ache arrives with history. Weather predicts your joints better than the local news.

Still, you negotiate with your body like longtime partners in a complicated marriage. Some days you win. Some days you reschedule.

Either way, you keep moving.

I’m Too Old for New Things

Strange how curiosity refuses retirement.

You test new tech. You fall down internet rabbit holes at midnight. You form friendships you never saw coming. You change your mind.

Selective curiosity beats youthful chaos. You no longer chase everything. Only what feeds you.

That is not aging. That is editing.

I’m Fine

Sometimes “fine” means private. Sometimes strong. Sometimes fragile with excellent posture.

You learned resilience rarely looks heroic. Resilience wakes up, makes coffee, and proceeds.

Look at your life. The pivots. The recoveries. The risks you took when staying safe would have been easier.

Fine carries more power than people realize.

The Truth Beneath All These Lies

These lies protect something sacred. Your forward motion.

Aging strips performance. What remains is the real man. Clearer. Sharper. Harder to intimidate.

Acceptance does not equal surrender. Acceptance sounds more like this:

My body changed.
My appetite sharpened.
My tolerance for nonsense collapsed.
My joy deepened.

And tomorrow?

Maybe you start yoga. Maybe you pour another coffee and call the walk enough.

Either way, you are not fading.

You are arriving.

Nick Vannello is the owner and ringleader of GoNaked World and publishes GoNaked Magazine on a monthly basis.

Source: https://www.gonakednews.com/ten-beautiful-lies-we-start-telling-ourselves-after-60/#ghost-comments-root

Could you use a counselor, therapist, mentor, or coach in your life? My training includes all these modalities. If you need someone to chat with, consider reaching out to me today!

Leave a comment

The graphics above and below are of my friend, Arkem, a popular entertainer, singer, and songwriter living in the United Kingdom, who probably has even more talent and life experiences that I have yet to learn about.

One of my teachers, Sandhi, once gave a talk about how we should all “Live life, full-tilt boogie!” Arkem, I believe, would have made even Sandhi drop her jaw.

While my past might appear as if I often live my life without caring what others think of me, that’s not the case, at least normally. I very much care about how my personal and political views could prevent others from hearing something unrelated that speaks to them, whether that be a counseling client, when I speak publicly, or if someone is reading one of my books or blogs.

So, yes, I do proceed with caution when I’m covering sensitive issues.

Conversely, when I feel something needs to be said, I’m not afraid to ruffle someone’s feathers. I dress as I feel I want to. I have for years, even if I’m accused of “not dressing my age,” or have someone appalled that I would wear something “that gay” in public.

Yes, I may have pushed someone’s buttons, but I also know I didn’t install them. I admit that sometimes it’s most amusing to see some poor sods head spin, but I don’t show up intending that effect. Most people who read my work or want to see me in counseling know that what you see is what you get with me. Frankly, if a potential subscriber or client can’t take me as I am, warts and all, then I’m probably not the writer or therapist they need.

This is what sparked me to write this blog. Nick Vannello, CEO of GoNaked World, recently wrote:

There’s a difference between dimming your light and adjusting its brightness so it doesn’t blind the room.

I had to read that a couple of times, and even then, I wasn’t sure it was what I believed. It made me think that those words could be taken by some as a call to tone ourselves down for the crowd. That we should “read the room,” or otherwise hold back from being totally who we are.

As I continued to ponder this, my other psyche chimed in with, “Well, honey, you do that every time you speak to your mother.”

Do I? I don’t know that I do that so much as I leave out parts of my life that either (1) she doesn’t agree with, or (2) she doesn’t understand. For example, she’s never read my male/male romance novels, even though she’s read all the other books I’ve written, and even wrote the preface for the one dedicated to the memory of her mother.

I even offer to send her a redacted copy of my erotic books, with all the sexual scenes left out. Nope. She wasn’t going to have it. On her end of the fence, she knows how I’m going to respond to her if she starts preaching to me. That never ends well for either of us.

In this way, I believe we are both adjusting our brightness, not dimming our light. One doesn’t have to blind the room to be seen, although it can be fun. When I’ve seen Arkem perform on stage, I’ve been thoroughly delighted by his showmanship, talent, and professionalism. He dances, sings, writes his own songs (a few which I’d never share with my mum), and speaks with clarity that cuts through the BS to the heart of the issue.

I’ve also been there when the makeup comes off, when his beautiful soul smiles at me, and makes me feel like I’m the most important person in his life, at least at that moment. One cannot perform the way Arkem does and not connect in unique ways with every person in the audience. He looks at his audience in ways that make you feel like, regardless of the outrageous costumes, that he’s performing only for you. The makeup, the feathers? All for you, darling… all for you.

Who are you? Are you at all afraid to be the magnificent light being that you are? Do you sometimes feel you have nothing to give? Do you fear you are “too much?”

I assure you, you have a special something that no one else in the world has. Find that, fearlessly express it, and be the light you were meant to be. Choose to live your unique light on high-beam, low-beam, a little brighter than you feel, or slightly dimmer than you might. You’ll figure it out. Just be you, however that shows up.

Next time you’re think you are too out there? Remember Arkem.

Make him proud.

(Below is my outfit from New Years Eve 2025, at Gaunts House, Wimborne, Dorset, U.K. I hope Arkem would approve.)

Could you use a counselor, therapist, mentor, or coach in your life? My training includes all these modalities. If you need someone to chat with, consider contacting me today!

All of the content on this site is free—both for one-time readers and for subscribers. That will continue. At the same time, I'd like to invite you to consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the work I’m doing.

You might reasonably ask, “Why pay when I can read for free?”

Great question, especially with today’s world situation. Here’s the answer.

This week, I encouraged readers to become free subscribers, which gives them access to a private chat feature. Through this benefit, subscribers can ask questions that won’t be published publicly—whether about a specific post or another question, comment, or concern.

Paid subscribers receive two additional benefits.

First, an annual subscription includes a one-hour video session with me. This is a guided life review that looks at five key areas of our lives: Health, Wealth, Love, Full Self-Expression, and Spirituality. It’s a practice I began more than thirty years ago with my clients and students, and I’m pleased to offer it again here. The annual subscription represents roughly a 30% discount on my standard counseling session.

Second, as a thank-you, I’ll send you a complimentary copy of my book, Let Discomfort Be Your Guide: How to Understand What Your Body Is Telling You.

There are two options to become a paid subscriber:

• $6 per month

• $60 per year (saves $12)

I invite you to give this some thought. By becoming a paid subscriber, you’ll receive these added benefits and support me as I move into the next phase of my work.

And please know—either way—my writing on Substack will remain free for everyone to read, reflect on, and discuss.

All the best, always,
Terry aka TantraDad

Read more

I’m opening the Chat feature on my Subtrack account, available only to Subscribers. This will be a place for Subscribers (which is FREE!) to ask questions outside of the discussion of my blog postings. I have no rules or restrictions on content, unless a situation arises that makes them necessary. As long as everyone consents to posting their own thoughts and honors each other’s views, I don’t see a problem.

I’m excited to add this feature and hope that it will spur active, positive, and exciting discussions. As a guideline, my tantra training takes into consideration the concepts of what I’ve coined, The Five C’s of Tantra Principles:

• Curiosity

• Childlike Wonderment

• Communication

• Compassion

• Compersion

Let the fun begin!

P.S. There is, however, another way you can participate, but that’s an offer and opportunity that you’ll hear about in the coming weeks. Stay Tuned!

All the best always,

Terry aka TantraDad

Today, we are faced with doubts about the simplest facts of life. We can no longer believe everything we see, hear, or read at face value without consulting the source.

Yeah. I know. A lot of questions come up, but stay with me on this.

· Is the latest video for real or an AI creation?

· Is that latest, “Did you hear about…” designed to make our lives better, or make us fear the future, or support our own ideologies?

· Is the article we’re reading based on facts, or is it designed to trick us with slant, or uphold propaganda we support or abhor?

· Added to this, have we surrounded ourselves with people who never ask these questions, but prefer to live in a world where they have no choice but to succumb to the will of governments and corporations?

Wow. Take a breath, right?

We find ourselves doubting beliefs we’ve held sacred for much of our lives. Doubts will come up from time to time, no matter who we are or what we believe.

Our doubts are often similar to our sense of touch. If it’s hot, we break the connection. Like physical reactions, doubts can be a moment of reflection, and not the reason we refuse to move forward with our plans, our dreams, or our hopes. Doubts give us time to pause.

Doubt can be the reality of personal power. No one who started a new business, decided to pursue marriage, or made any other major changes did so without at least some semblance of skepticism.

Like an amusement park ride, change can be scary or exhilarating. The key factor to remember is that we have the ability and responsibility to choose.

Not choosing is choosing

“I didn’t have a choice,” you might be thinking.

That is seldom the case.

More accurately, we choose to do things that do not conflict with others’ choices. In effect, we let others decide, then often complain about the choice when we make no attempt to choose an alternative. We may not wish to forgo an event because it would make the host upset. So, we choose to attend, make ourselves and those around us uncomfortable, but at least mom, grandma, or our boss is pleased. Is that really the way you want to live your life?

I won’t.

There are several actions we can take if we allow doubts get to the point of incapacitation. Find one below that resonates with you and try the rest another time. These methods include:

· Merge with the doubt. If this seems odd to you, take note. I’ve received training in this technique and can vouch for its effectiveness. To “merge with the doubt,” quiet yourself by taking four deep, slow breaths. As best you can, let go of any thoughts about how this situation needs to be resolved. Simply let it be, no matter what it is. See the doubt as an entity and have a chat with it. Does that sound a bit too far-fetched for you? Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. It can result in amazing breakthroughs and healings in your life. (Yes, I can help you do this!)

· Recall how you managed to overcome obstacles in your path in the past. This focuses on your previous wins in difficult situations, which can give you additional strength to move forward.

· Think of how your strength and willingness to help someone else made a difference in their life. Alternatively, consider who could provide the support and guidance you need.

· Finally, set and maintain your intention. Too often, we run headlong into a serious problem or situation without the foggiest idea of what we want as a result. What do you want in this instance? Focus on the outcome, not all that needs to happen to get there.

Simple, right? Oh, hell no! It takes work to sustain a better attitude about our lives and the future of our planet. Are you willing to join me?

Life isn’t some straight line from sorrow and frustration to ecstasy and joy. There are hills and valleys as we go through our short time on this planet. Make the most of it to the best of your ability. I’ll tell you one thing:

It sure beats the crap out of sitting there on the pity pot, wondering why we feel stuck with no knight in shining armor to rescue us.

Could you use a counselor, therapist, mentor, or coach in your life? My training includes all these modalities. If you need someone to chat with, consider contacting me today!