WEB EXCLUSIVE MY STORY Is “Gay” Natural? By David Monroe

Coming out. I fought it. I wanted to be “normal”. I did not want to be “different”. I especially did not want to be punished by God. But to me, at the time, that is what seemed to be happening.

“He’s The Most Reprobate Man I Have Ever Met.”

These words rung in my ears, as I sat in the second row of the church. I was 30 years old. The pastor, my good friend of ten years, was describing my homosexuality to the whole church, and was calling me to repent. I had separated from my wife of five years because I was tired of “repenting” for thinking about sex with men and had decided to be honest and true to myself. I was tired of pretending to be straight.

“Reprobate” is a word reserved in Christian circles for a shameless God-hater, one who knows God’s laws and knowingly rejects them. A reprobate man has no hope of salvation.

What was I to do? I stood up and said I did not want to be gay. Everyone in the church hugged me. I went to Christian re-orientation counseling for months. I met with a “reformed” homosexual who tried to heal the hurts that he said caused me to long for male companionship. We talked about the “natural order of things” and “God’s will for my life”. But in the end I still felt the same. I finally stopped going.

“Maybe Something Good Will Come From Your Daughter’s Death.”

I had met a porn star in Los Angeles who said he loved me. I knew porn stars do not have boyfriends, but I finally convinced myself he meant it. I decided to quit my job in Houston and move to L.A. I told my wife I wanted to divorce. I prepared divorce papers. We agreed to tell our daughter, Brittany, after her Christmas school kindergarten program.

After the school program, my wife drove me to my car. My daughter wanted to ride with me. When I opened my car door for her to get in, Brittany decided to put her sweater in her mother’s car. She ran over and handed the sweater to her mother. As she turned to run back to me, a van came speeding down the street, drove between the cars and hit Brittany right in front of my eyes. Screaming, I ran the 150 feet up the street to look into her vacant eyes. I knew that she was dead. All because I was gay, I thought. God was punishing me, and my daughter.

At the funeral, friends from church were saying they hoped this would bring my wife and me back together, and that something good would come of Brittany’s death. But I had realized I did not love my wife romantically, though I cared for her deeply. I called my “boyfriend” in Los Angeles, and said I wanted to come see him. He said, “Don’t come. I have moved in with someone else.”

Gay Relationships Are Natural

Some years later, I knew I had commitment issues. I could not bring myself to commit to a relationship with another man. I saw an advertisement for a relationship seminar by Patrick Vachon. I went.

The seminar taught the Imago Therapy process, which had been used for many years with straight couples. Patrick’s seminar was the first time the material was presented for gay couples. The material was used unaltered. To my surprise, every couple there (including me and my date) found the material to fit exactly. This opened my eyes to fundamental truth number one.

Gay relationships are based on attractions that are totally natural and loving. We are attracted to people who we need to heal and grow. Gay relationships can work and be loving, happy and healthy.

This simple concept opened me up to accepting my gayness without fear. I had judged myself as unnatural and unloving, because I had judged being gay as unnatural and unloving. When I realized this judgment was wrong, I could release it and accept the truth about myself, and begin to love myself as I am.

I began to see how I had been untrue to myself and to my true nature by trying to be “straight”. It was not “natural” for me to try to be married to a woman. In fact, by trying to force myself into that mold, I had been doing what was unnatural for me.

I remembered when I was in third grade, playing with a classmate, I had imagined that we would work together all our lives, live together and grow old together. This was a first inkling of my true nature: I was emotionally attracted to my own sex and longed for same-sex companionship on an intimate level. The desire for a gay relationship was totally natural for me, before I knew anything about sex.

Being True to My Sexual Identity is the Most Loving Thing I Can Do For Other People

Even though I could now accept my gayness, I still felt guilt about my daughter’s death. Some months later, in a counseling session, Patrick he asked me to write my daughter a letter and tell her how I felt. At the next session, I read the letter to her out loud. In the letter, I told Brittany how I had felt guilt about her death. It was very liberating.

He then asked me to take a major step. Patrick asked me to write a letter from my daughter to me, using my left (non-dominant) hand. I wrote one, and he asked me to read it out loud. She wrote that she was fine and happy. She told me that she loved me. She told me she had seen me crying at the accident site, and she had wanted to tell me that it did not hurt. She then said that she was not mad at me for being gay and that she wanted me to be happy and be myself.

Patrick explained that Brittany was always a part of me, and that she was always there. He also suggested that my separation from my wife was a way of caring for and loving myself. By taking that step, I was teaching my daughter to love herself and to be happy. My daughter had once said, “If you and mommy get back together again, will you please not fight so much?” She had known we were not happy together.

I realized that I had not only been untrue and unloving to myself but to everyone I was in relationship with when I denied my true self. I am who I am, and pretending to be someone or something other than my true self was dishonest and uncaring. The loving thing for me to do is be honest and open about who I really am.

Forgiveness is Essential to Total Healing

I have also learned to forgive others for judging me. They are only doing the best they can. The church people were trying to love me as best they could. They simply did not understand my true nature.

But most importantly, I have learned to forgive myself for judging myself for being gay. I have forgiven myself for being untrue to myself. I have forgiven myself for accepting the judgments of others. I now realize that I accepted the judgments of others because, at some level, I believed I deserved them. Once I knew it was OK to be gay, other people’s judgments had no power over me.

Soul Recovery is Essential to Lasting Love and Joy

A final key that helped me to stop repeating patterns came when Dawn Clark, a shaman and therapist, told me about present and past life soul recovery. When I experience trauma, part of my soul gets stuck in that event. For example, when my daughter was killed and when my boyfriend rejected me, parts of my soul that were willing to love said I don’t deserve this and broke off from the rest of my soul. When I tried to love others and get close to them, I was unable to because I was missing those pieces that enable me to trust. No matter how hard I tried, I was unable to trust without those pieces.

Dawn showed me some symbols from her book Gifts for the Soul that facilitate soul recovery. When I drew the symbols, I recovered lost soul pieces that were necessary for me to forgive and trust others, and to love again. When I combined drawing the symbols with forgiveness work, I found that issues permanently resolved. For example, I was able to completely and totally forgive the church, my boyfriend, and myself, and the forgiveness lasted. Permanent healing resulted.

Thanks to what I have learned, I have been able to completely accept myself, just as I am—a gay man. And for me, that is the only natural and normal thing I can be.

David Monroe met Dawn Clark as she was receiving the Gifts, and was one of the first to use the Gifts for soul recovery work. David used the Gifts and Dawn’s help to accept his own homosexuality and come to peace with himself. David has continued to study with Dawn over the years. David’s spiritual background includes being a licensed Christian minister at UC-Berkeley. In addition to teaching the Gifts, David practices civil trial law in Houston, Texas, and is involved in film production in Los Angeles, California.

For more information on his upcoming seminar visit
www.dawnclark.net/david.html