One of the most remarkable aspects of my development in recent years has been in respect of my ability to tolerate what other people think of me.

For very many years, I inwardly resisted any external inference that people made to me to suggest that I was gay.

Nowadays, I feel liberated, I don’t really care too much of what other people think of me, because their inference is not reciprocated by me with a confirmation of that fact, unless I decide it to be so.

I have been recalling in my current phase of development, an occurrence which took place approximately twenty years ago, when whilst seated with my wife in a pub I looked up and across to my left and a young man was looking directly into my eyes.

I was embarrassed at the eye contact and I looked away, only to be humiliated a few moments later when as I looked over again, his gaze had been joined on me by his friend too, and as I made eye contact, they shook their heads and laughed.

I felt desolate because they had secured from me the truth that I was gay, and in my suppressed state, and at that time my wife was not in my confidence as she is now, I felt extremely fearful and vulnerable.

In all the years since that eye contact with another gay man, I have never experienced such a connection and it strikes me as sad that my perception of the moment remains one which I experienced as a cruel and cold-hearted moment.

I think this retained feeling is due in part to my recollection of how I felt about myself at that time, because should that scenario occur today, I would not care a jot. I might even gain some enjoyment of it, or at least a sense that my truth had been seen and acknowledged.

I have come to understand that the worst thing I can do, in my circumstances is to suppress my truth within myself.

My acceptance of how I feel has enabled me to function in my chosen lifestyle whilst giving attention to my inner most yearnings in ways which no longer rejects aspects of what it is that makes me the person I was born to be.

My next blog will be:  Jimmy (s)

William Defoe

In recent weeks I have been considering my tendency to experience my longings through a process of infatuation.

I have noticed that there was a time when my infatuation for members of my own sex was a source of very acute shame, embarrassment, guilt and fear.

These feelings shifted very significantly, once I had admitted to my wife that I was gay, and I had also taken steps through coaching, to find an acceptance for my truth.

After this, for quite a period of time, I found my infatuations to be liberating, soul building and I enjoyed them with a new sense of freedom, energy and relief.

My infatuations for members of my own sex took the form of enjoying images of good looking celebrities on the internet, or in films and television, and through my imagination in books, and also by enjoying the visual aspects of men-watching whilst I was driving, running or relaxing on the beach.

My development from shame and guilt, through acceptance, to freedom and liberation had a profound impact om my ability to own and embrace the legitimacy of my private thoughts.

I have always experienced infatuation by what I can only describe as “crushes” on men whom I have come into contact with throughout my working and social life.

These infatuations have been on the whole quite transient and superficial, until recently when I have experienced a very deep infatuation for someone close by which has turned my feelings from a crush to something much stronger.

The person concerned is to my knowledge inaccessible, and even if that was not the case, I have my own moral code and duty to my wedding vows to consider.

This infatuation has felt in recent weeks to be destructive and a source of torment (not guilt, not shame, not fear) because it is incomplete, it is unfulfilled, it is hopeless, it is frustrated lust.

I have been trying hard to engage with these feelings on the level of liberation and freedom, as I might do in looking at the image of a male celebrity on-line but without success.

I feel quite exhausted by it, and a tad depressed, and stuck in a rut of uncertainty, but I have the capacity to recognise that these feelings are just a valid part of the journey.

I have taken steps in my latest coaching session to explore this inner dilemma to see if there is an intellectual or emotional or physical or communication response that I can make to it, which keeps me married and satisfied.

Themes have emerged for which my mind is preparing itself to engage, so that the energy in the living moment of inner-flux and suffering begins to transform itself into something I can manage or change or end or begin.

This is my route through infatuation – curiosity not guilt; compassion not shame; hope not fear; speaking not withholding; listening not blocking; loving not hating; crying not grinding; giving not taking.

My next blog will be: Eye Contact

William Defoe

Last week I was bemused by a report of an art enthusiast who had photographed thousands of white paint spillages, which he observed on roads and pavements.

His interest was in the shape of the spillage, and his excitement was increased by the presence of footprints in the paint which was an indication of the spill having been walked through by innocent passersby before the paint had dried.

One paint spillage had occurred outside the door of a DIY store, so the artist had surmised that the paint had been dropped as the purchaser was exiting the shop with it.

The paint itself was random in its pattern and influenced by its capacity to roll and spread on slopes of smooth surfaces and was a source to the artist of deep fascination.

In truth, it all sounded to me a little bit like nonsense, until one day last week, my mother-in-law picked out a large, smooth, long white pebble, from the centre-piece of my pebble and shell garden arrangement and used it as a door stop………………………..yes, a doorstop!!

I had placed the pebble at the centre of a display of pebbles and shells which were circular in arrangement, and which had a heaped-up pile rising in the middle with this long slender, sensual and smooth white pebble resting precariously from top to bottom.

To my mother-in-law my art was a pile of stones and my prized pebble a sturdy lump to stop the door being slammed shut in the wind.

Our perceptions of the visual world around us, and how we attempt to make connections with it are not always apparent to those with whom we traverse our lives.

I have been suprised by my sudden interest in paint spillages on the road, now I have been enlightened to their value.

My mother-in-law is still oblivious to my pebble and shell art, however my precious stone has been loving restored to the centre of my art.

So it is, then, with my private musings, they provide my eye with the capacity to look deep into what it is that makes me the man I am, and waiting, waiting for an opportunity for my inner enlightenment to pour forth and be noticed in this world.

My next blog will be: Infatuation

William Defoe

Just short of five years have passed since I told my wife that I was gay.

My faithfulness to her throughout the twenty years of my struggle and isolation, enabled us to find a way through the difficulty of our situation to stay married.

I knew, even at the moment of my telling her of my feelings for my own sex, which had been locked in and suppressed, that I needed to find some way to express my self to the world in ways which would honour our vows and my truth.

I also sensed that in telling her the truth about my feelings, she would leave me, which she did not, and that my sense of isolation would end, and it did not do so.

My feelings are in constant flux, on the one hand I want to stay married to my wife of thirty years and honour the vows I made to her, but I have struggled to bring into my life a process for honouring my truth.

My coaching sessions have over the years enlightened me on a vastly increased capacity to think things through.

I have honoured my need to be seen in my truth by releasing old fears about how I am perceived by others, and by adopting many daily routines to connect my physical, mental emotional and spiritual capacities in the pursuit of self hood and being present, through running, writing and being coached.

I have healed as far as is possible within my current capacity, the relationships with my parents and siblings and my children which had been damaged by my anger, my unpredictability and my controlling behaviour.

I am a much calmer individual, a man who lives in a much more balanced way in which my perspectives on the needs of myself, and the needs of those close to me, are viewed and understood with more compassion and understanding and a greater acceptance of how things are.

I have been concerned recently with the observation of the changing nature of my isolation.

On my journey to know and love self, I have turned to various means to address my unacknowledged sexuality (without breaking my vows!) but which have tended towards visual attempts to satisfy my curiosity and investment in infatuations and longings which cannot be fulfilled.

In recent months, having sensed that these methods are potentially destructive,  I have been successful, in pushing further into my own understanding of what it is that would satisfy my need to be seen in the fullness of my nature.

I have recognised a need for an intellectual connection with the gay community rather than a physical connection because of my desire to stay married, so that I can interact at the level of conversational and emotional understanding with men who know I am gay and whom are wired like me.

My next blog will be: Pebbles and Shells

William Defoe

On 22 June, I woke up with a very sore throat.

Today is the 18th July and excepting for a brief couple of days in early July I have not been at work since, and nor will I be so for a while.

I have been to all intents and purposes, Stricken!

My illness has hospitalized me most unexpectedly, and it has forced me to submit to its hold over me so that for the first time in many years, I have had to succumb and be ill.

This stricken state has afforded me the opportunity to consider what is important in my life, and although the anticipated cliche is  – well its your health stupid, and its your family, my main concern has been around my prolonged absence from work.

I am well read, nowadays on the deathbed eulogies of people who say, I should have worked less and played more, but I have encountered a strange tension within me which says, “William you have responsibilities, at work and at home,” and my fervent wish is to maintain that balance until I retire.

In recent days as the infection has submitted itself to powerful antibiotics and I have overcome feelings of soreness, tiredness, nausea and dizziness, I have started to re-build that work-home balance by slowly accessing emails and conversations and relationships so as to keep a sense of momentum which I can build on when I eventually return.

The easy part of the illness was when I was too ill to do anything, I had no sense of guilt and yet those around me were lavishing me with there love and concern and secret fears that the illness was something more serious and life changing.

I was able to experience that love and connect strongly with how I have taken being well for granted, perhaps this is a wake up call to take more care, to rest more fully when I have the opportunity to do so, and to create a new work ethic in which I am less intense, more open and able to express my limitations than hitherto I was able to do.

My next blog will be: The Changing Nature of Isolation 

William Defoe

We recently acquired a companion seat for our garden.

A companion seat is a wooden bench-like structure with two seats which point in towards each other connected by a table.

I was keen to assemble the new structure and once I had built it, I called my wife to come out and look at it.

We sat on some other chairs looking at our new “companion seat” and I felt very pleased with my assembly skills and the finished product.

After a short while, something about the structure of the companion seat made me feel uneasy.

The two seats were facing out from each other and not inwards.

I pointed out the defect in my workmanship to my wife.

Her response was to say, leave it as it is, it will be just perfect for the times we are not on speaking terms.

My response was to hope for a less volatile future. I set to work to re-assemble the seats so they faced in towards each other, as designed.

If only we could make our relationship as resolutely fixed so as to face in rather than face out.

Perhaps when the difficulties arise in the future, a good place to sit will be on our new companion seat which places our bodies towards each other, designed for us to look at each other, hold hands, laugh, talk and cry, but above all to connect and love.

My next blog will be: Death of a Friend

William Defoe