If we’re making changes in life, we experience stress. That’s part of the process. In fact it’s a turning point. Once we meet stress, we charge ahead or retreat. We pass through the “danger zone” as the champion or we fall back.

The beauty of stress is that it signals that change is at hand. The poison of stress is that it signals that change is at hand. So often we take a stress signal as a red alert and run. But that’s because we don’t know the process. We also mistake the stress and pain of change as dangers.

One would think that as much as we live in stress, we would know stress. We should recognize its smell from 100 paces; know its favorite carrion, whine and swan song. But alas that’s not so.

It’s like we met at the Halloween Ball, and we didn’t want to remove the mask for fear of what’s underneath. While truth or facts are still hidden, we can pretend the status quo is pretty, even when it’s killing us.

We’ve all met a dream date whose appeal was gone with the wind at the moment he or she opened their mouth. Maybe the same fear of what might come next keeps us from knowing enough about stress to sink its battleship. But a little insight is the key to winning the upper hand.

If you dare to look, here’s a peek at stress: When stress is not describing a state of mind or emotions, it describes tension, pressure, force or emphasis on materials as metals, plastics, geological formations, music and speech. It measures how much push or pull can be placed on an object. It’s commonly used in dialogue about the elastic nature of this or that. And stress can relate to durability, impact, and sustainability –breaking, shattering and exploding. That’s beginning to sound like some friends’ behavior. That’s my point.

The mind and emotions have both fixed or hardwired parts and an ability to be flexible or reinventing.

The drama of stress is the play between what we expect or desire and reality as we see it. It’s the struggle of personal habits and new choices. It can be the war between our patience and the time it takes to grow a new habit while old habits fall away. And it can be others’ actions or beliefs coming to battle our willingness to understand. These are growth processes that take time as they redevelop a brain cell (habit/new way of meeting).

Of course there’s more. But you know that.

So making choices about ‘Coming Out’ and processing through stress is largely weathering the zone between old reality and new reality. Coming Out can be stressful, but that will pass.

I consider a temporary condition a better option compared to a chronic malaise.

Remember, there are supports, education and planning that soften or eliminate stress. So I suggest, push ahead, wisely and in the right time and manner. Even if the danger zone is not a mirage, it’s only temporary.

Editor’s Note: Steven Michael Hall facilitates the Coming Out Workshop with Shelley McGoffin each Tuesday at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center in Tulsa. Contact Oklahomans for Equality at 918 743 4297 for details about the program or visit www.okeq.org.

We’ve heard the saying, “Wherever you go, there you are.” It’s tells us that we should look at ourselves and how we contribute to our lives.

But looking at ourselves may not be fun. “I’m just too this or not enough that. When I get there, maybe then I can care. Or if others first cared, maybe then I would dare.”

Beginning to sound Seussical? Certainly the attitude is childlike.

So often we want someone else to buy me some love.

Do for me. Care for me. Don’t hurt me or desert me. I’ll throw a fit or hold my breath until I get my way. But don’t get logical, reasonable or expect me to support myself emotionally. It’s that do-for-me mind that’s all too common.

Perhaps some people are born as loving people. Perhaps they have taken strides, given their life a certain dedication and used skills they learned along the way. Perhaps they do what they must do to show love and self respect for themselves and others. It’s not someone else’s responsibility to love them, to be fair with them or to accept them as they are.

Their self-love and self-respect reflect back to them because others respond to it. If we don’t live our self-love and respect each and every day, it’s foolish to expect others to want to hang with us or give a flip about us.

This Golden Rule applies to our love lives, our social lives, our work lives and every step we take. I particularly like the longer version, “do unto all as you wish all would do unto you.” Keep in mind, how we treat ourselves is part of how we connect with all.

Lying about who we are, who we love, what rights we expect, who we support politically, what values we hold dear and such is acting outside of integrity and outside of how I see self love.

In short, we have to buy our own love before we can know it from others. We buy it with our daily efforts to be the whole potential we dream for our lives. So that may take creativity, visualization, research and schooling.

At some time we must stick our neck out and shake up our lives if what we’re living is not the prize we’ve dreamt. That goes for personal relationships, community respect, professional settings, and spiritual profiles. You name it.

A few rules in life apply across the board, and one is, “If you don’t like your view, move; change your seat, your point of view, your relationships and beliefs. C H A N G E. But remember, the only guarantee for change is when you apply it to yourself.

Coming out is a basic form of change and self-love. They’re both participatory sports.

So, next time you consider looking through a magazine for changes in styles, consider looking inside yourself, and buy you some love. You’re the only one who can.

Steven Michael Hall facilitates the Coming Out Workshop with Shelley McGoffin each Tuesday at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center in Tulsa. Contact Oklahomans for Equality at (918) 743-4297 for details about the program or visit www.okeq.org.

Welcome to winter.

I guess it’s the right season to discuss being frozen in fear. By that I mean when a mind is not flexible or moving, a mind where fear dominates the point of view.

That’s when one can’t think around the fear or see beyond it. It’s a standoff, locked into a certain belief and locked out of logic or applying reason.
It’s one of the many ways in life people don’t know what they don’t know.  They only know that X might happen, and they can’t risk that event or imagine losing what has been valued so much. They have no vision to see surviving the risk or reaching a new quality of life.

Even today millions of people huddle in closets to protect themselves from fears. Their minds are frozen from seeing themselves free of conflict or threat.

Sadly they have ruled out living life openly and unrestricted.

Yet certain smart efforts can make all the difference. Little by little or all at once, logic and reason can shine light on the difference between fear and challenge so efforts and change begin to look more reasonable.

These smart efforts can take many directions, but they start with trust, support and exposure. The first smart effort is to trust you can reach your goals and trust in others that you choose to have in your life to help you do so.

The second smart effort is to collect and grow supporting thoughts and surround yourself with friends who support you. All the while release beliefs, people and whatever else in your life does not support you.

The third smart step is to expose yourself to evidence that others live free of these fears and expose the world to your true and constructive self. Remember that sexuality is only a part of your true self.

These steps can start small and grow or they can come as an avalanche. By working a personally drafted plan you guarantee your progress and you live free of stalling or freezing. With the new choices and values, you’re able to see the better quality of life standing squarely in front of you, waving its manicured hand. And you can step into that life, free, flowing and flowering.

If seven whole states in this United States of America have already found a way to make change and now allow Gay marriage, can we not make change in our lives and allow ourselves to simply live as Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual or Transgender if such integrity gives us quality of life?

I suggest you turn up the thermostat and let the thaw begin. Welcome to integrity and spring. You’ll be wearing the fashionable state of mind.

Making a change should be easy. Coming out of the closet should be just opening the door. Changing fashion should be a trip to the mall and laws should pass Congress with simple readings, debates and votes.

But that’s dreaming. Look how long it took for the new healthcare policy. And look what mountains had to be conquered?

Perhaps it’s good that some change takes focused time and effort. If not, you can imagine what some politicians would thrust upon the other 59%, given today’s super majority rules.

But why should personal changes affecting just one person take equally big dramas? I think I have an answer.

For me, it’s easy to confuse facts with feelings, and when feelings look like facts, progress chokes. Where I trip up is throwing a feeling into the thought process and calling it fact.

So what’s the difference? Both are thoughts . . . I think.

Facts are things I know to be true. This means, they have to be true now.

Feelings are emotions, gut responses, created from personal history, which is always from the past. They may still be true, or their truth could be diluted or withered completely over time.

Take the “fact” that Candy Land is the world’s greatest game ever invented. You see where I’m going? We can hold facts / thoughts that have aged into feelings. And we give them rule in our life as if they were facts. What once was true may not be true now.

That’s change.

The challenge is removing the tattoo that used to be a fact.

We often base our steps today on habits from our past. These are not current, proven facts. But they act like it.

This use of old facts comes from not having new facts, fear of loss, fear of the unknown or not feeling worthy or empowered to make change. Or . . . there are many reasons.

But there’s one way to pick out a lying, tyrant feeling from a mountain of facts. I write them all down on paper. When they’re exposed to a different way to see them, like writing, these screaming fleas from the past don’t look anything like facts.

These 10 or 15 minute writing efforts make way for days, years and decades of new personal truth, free of baggage. Personally, I melt with gratitude when I find these new gems. And I know my mind is working with the season’s newest fashion of thought.

So whether you’re coming out or coming to be honest with yourself, try to fashion your mind with the latest facts. All it takes is pencil and paper.

So many efforts are a waste. It’s a wonder we have any energy left at the end of the day.

Depending on viewpoint, we can lump into that waste pile the trip we make to the store that sold the last sale item we plan to buy an hour before we get there. Throw into the mound the stylish summer shorts we buy the Thursday before Memorial Day. You know they’ve got a three-day lifespan.

My fridge is a bone yard for leftovers that cry to run into the trash. And let’s not talk about gasoline I burn hauling everything breeding in the back seat. We live with so much waste, even in this day of green this and recycle that. So I have to join in.

Waste is such a waste.

Long ago, I tired of remembering who knew I was gay, remembering what I could say or how something would sound. It was ludicrous that in the middle of a party I might think to guard myself. Dinner out with friends brought tension, and clothing would debate me over what we thought others would say it spoke of me.

My baggage rivaled Giza. Something had to be done.

I finally swore I would not waste my time, energy and attention on what didn’t matter. And what someone else thinks about whom I love or what I value doesn’t matter. I can barely live my life so I’m frequently happy. How can I make everyone else happy too?  Get real!

It’s a nice resolve to swear off worry over what others may swear about. If feels good to say no more to that old habit. But it only works when there’s motivation and follow through. Motivation is what carries us into integrity with our New Year’s resolutions. It’s not just a new habit we’re adopting. We’re promising ourselves to muscle the courage to overcome the old habits that rise up to battle for our daily choices.

This year, let me make a suggestion. For any and every resolve, and I hope you have many, list a host of motivations that support each new decision. Choose the motivations that make you feel good, support how you enjoy time with friends that enrich your life, and release you from worry. Choose motivations that grow your health and open your mind and vision for a better life. Choose what reaffirms your value and is sweet to hear. Choose what gives you a solid place to stand and supports all your senses.

Choose your motivations carefully, and you may well not have to choose your battles. And when you support yourself with resolve, others rush to support you too. That’s support recycling.

[box]Editor’s Note: Steven Michael Hall facilitates the Coming Out Workshop with Shelley McGoffin each Tuesday at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center in Tulsa. Contact Oklahomans for Equality at 918 743 4297 for details about the program or visit www.okeq.org.[/box]

The most common reason people connect with the Coming Out Workshop is to find the easy way to come out. They want a path without pain, rejection, threat of injury or job loss, disinheritance and so on. They want to avoid what they fear.

I don’t blame them.  I did too.

By the time I was out, I realized I had walked through what I feared, and I was not hurt. In fact the process proved the depth and caring of many friendships, most of which surprised me. And the biggest devastation was to my old concepts that kept me in the closet.

Faced with the possibilities, it’s reasonable to be stuck in fear. In fact, it may be helpful, IF used well.

Fear has it’s values. It gives us time to pause to evaluate before we rush into what could be a black hole. In fear, we can discover sources of support, empowerment, understanding and priorities. And it can be a gage to see how we have grown.

When we pause we can redefine ourselves and our direction, priorities and goals. And the benefit of fear is that these new discoveries all contribute to our quality of life.

It’s how you use fear that matters. For example, one designer on Project Runway may take a great piece of fabric and create magic; others wad it, stab it with a needle, turn it on end and unravel it to make a mess! Of course that’s part of their learning and proving or growing their talents.

Our time, our situations, relationships, definitions and futures are like the fabrics. We have them at hand to drape divas or dirt. With help and best efforts, we create magic.

For some the easy way to come out is directly and quickly. For some the easy way is through the backdoor of service and finding personal reward from helping others and enjoying fellowship. For some it’s easy to study how others have traveled the road to out. And for some it’s learning how to communicate and value personal truth in constructive ways.

Each effort is part of a personal display and proving of ourselves.  And it can be done alone or with support. It can be achieved over time or in a blink, with only ripples or sometimes more.

Whatever comes, we have a new starting point in each day.

Each of us has to make our own way or make a way our own. What’s easy is what fits for us.

Consider fear is the potter’s wheel and coming out is your clay. If you’ve never turned a piece on fear, you might devote yourself to new insight before you book yourself on national television.  You never know what you don’t know until . . .

Easy is always a relative description. But easy is usually found in the company of supporting friends, focus on positive contributions, experience on related topics and skills, good communication and knowing personal truth.

Of all the fears I’ve faced, I have to say that fear of coming out has been the sweetest. From that I reinvented myself. And you can too, easily in your own way.

Steven Michael Hall facilitates the Coming Out Workshop with Shelley McGoffin each Tuesday at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center in Tulsa. Contact Oklahomans for Equality at 918 743 4297 for details about the program or visit www.okeq.org.