Gay Men & Caring for our Heart
Our heart can guide us to love, joy, and connection, but it needs our help along the way.
Throughout our lifetime, our heart will experience moments of love, thrill, and peace. It will also endure bumps, hits, and major blows. Things like childhood family conflict, romantic heartbreak, and disappointments are felt and stored within, just as our most cherished moments. In a way, our heart is like a dog’s tail; it behaves according to our emotional state and the situations we’re in. It carries the wisdom, passion, and desire we use to navigate life. A healthy and strong connection with our heart allows us to experience the gifts it has to offer.
But, how do we maintain a connection with our heart and how do we care for it? Phrases like “follow your heart,” “from the bottom of my heart,” and “pour your heart out” inform us that our heart is a guide, a meaningful place within us, and a container of our most authentic self. However, can a heart filled with confusion and uncertainty lead effectively? Can it beam our light out into the world if we’re disconnected from it? Can it hold our joy and love when we allow pain and hatred to consume it?
These questions offer insight to how we perceive and relate to our heart, and can prompt us to envision how we can connect and care for it.
The heart of the matter
It’s Valentine’s Day weekend as I write this and I’m thinking back to how I was taught to celebrate this holiday. There’s so much tradition, pressure, and expectations that children are pulled into related to the heart — what it can do, what we do with it, and how to demonstrate what it holds. One thing that sticks out is the act of “giving your heart” to someone as an act of love. We’re not always given all the pieces to that puzzle, like how to choose who we give our heart to, whether they want it or are ready to receive it, and what happens when they don’t want it or aren’t ready.
Another piece is not just seeing ourselves as heart-givers, but as receivers. At some point in our life, we become holders of something that’s precious to someone else but we may not know how to handle and care for it.
When you think back to the lessons you learned about your heart, some were probably taught to you and others you learned on your own. For those that were taught to you, when in your life did they occur? Were they taught by people who had a healthy perspective? Did they cover every aspect of what you’ve encountered up to now and your unique kind of love?
The likely truth is that most of us weren’t taught how to understand, connect to, and care for our heart. The few lessons that we learned were from people with varying relationships to their own heart. Others we learned through trial and error.
I mention this because as queer people, specifically queer people of color, we aren’t equipped with a manual for our heart. With this in mind, I invite you to extend yourself the kindness and compassion you deserve throughout your journey.
Heart on my sleeve
How you ‘carry your heart’ is a good way to know how you relate to and care for it. There are as many ways to carry one’s heart as there are people in the world. Here are some of the ways people may carry their hearts.
- Overly protected — A walled-off heart with a reluctance to allow anyone or anything near it; or, entry requires strict and complex requirements.
- Limited or lack of awareness — A limited understanding of the heart’s role in life or seeing it as just another organ.
- Generous without protection — A heart opening to the world and offered without boundaries or a practice of care.
- Filled with anger and resentment — Life filtered through a heart filled with emotions that negatively color one’s perspective and possibilities.
- Wounded/broken and seeking rescue — Primarily on a quest for healing that fully or partly evaluates everything and everyone for their potential to be a savior or healer.
- Open, aware, connected, and with healthy boundaries — An awareness of the heart’s wounds and a balanced approach to ongoing healing, while staying connected to oneself, and open to the world with healthy and adjustable boundaries.
Take a few honest moments to notice how you carry yours. See how it impacts the way you move through life and the relationship with yourself, others, and activities you engage with.
Connecting to our heart
The heart is a divine gateway that exists within us and helps us navigate life, live out our soul’s purpose, and fulfill our desire to connect. Our heart is plugged into every part of our body and being. At its strongest and clearest, it works with the rest of our body so that it can perform at its best. It shows us who and what to move toward and away from. It senses and signals danger, love, and all else. It shares wisdom when we hone in on its voice. It is a vessel for healing, a port for connection, and a well of creativity and inspiration. It’s the greatest influencer of all time. Without a conscious connection to our heart, we miss out on these and other gifts.
To establish and maintain a connection with our heart, we need trust, humility, curiosity, and love. If our connection involves fear, confusion, a sense of superiority or dominance over our heart, we will continue to miss out on its gifts.
- Trust — Many things make us feel unsure or mistrustful of our heart. We may question what our heart is telling us because of external factors, circumstances, obligations, and our past.
- Humility — Humbling ourselves to our heart is not about making ourselves small, but rather a way to remember the power and complexity it possesses beyond our conscious understanding at any given moment.
- Curiosity — A curious mind opens us to limitless wonders and possibilities. Extend that curiosity to the heart because it holds an infinite ability to create wonders and possibilities just for us.
- Love — Love for our heart facilitates a desire to maintain its health and wellness. Care and respect are components of love.
If we refuse to check in with our heart or ignore its voice, we lose our greatest asset and ally. Keeping a heart journal is an easy and effective way to connect with your heart. On a regular basis (I’ll let you decide how often), reflect on the following questions:
- What filled my heart with joy recently?
- What feels heavy on my heart at this moment?
- What is my heart trying to tell me?
- How can I show up and care for my heart at this time?
I encourage you to speak to your heart directly and bring to it some of the things that feel difficult in your life. Ask your heart what it wants, what it needs, and what harm it endures. Allow it to speak back to you. Become familiar with its voice and vibration within.
Healing our achy breaky heart
While our heart is susceptible to injury and pain, it’s not irreparable. Healing needs to be part of our relationship because experiencing the joys of life means practicing vulnerability. Creating and accessing space to process our pain is a way to open a path for healing. Some examples are a heart journal, talking to a trusted person, connecting to a spiritual practice, meditation, and counseling. There may be barriers to accessing some of these spaces because of our sexuality, finances, our relationship with religion and spirituality, fear of opening up, or feeling like we don’t have anyone to talk to.
Another set of forces that negatively influence the connection to our heart is living in a white supremacist and capitalist society filled with homophobia, transphobia, sexism, ableism, and other forms of oppression. It’s difficult to maintain strong and unwavering senses of trust, humility, curiosity, and love when trying to survive the onslaught of attacks from those negative forces.
As important as it is to access spaces and people who affirm and support our healing, it’s equally important to know when space and people compromise this for us. An ability to detach from them without detaching from everyone and everything is key.
When you move through life with a strong connection with your heart and a practice of healing, life becomes more of what you want and you inspire others to engage in their own journey.
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