Thoughts To Begin the New Year - By Calvin Harris H. W., M.

A few ideas as we move into 2023

Here we are in January, as yet another year has come to an end.

Many of you have a special association with the Holiday season. Some with huge Christmas parties.  Others may have put extra pressure on themselves to hit their targets and engagements for a full social calendar that spans November through December.

There were those of you who were maneuvering around relationship issues for the holiday season, a time that seems to elicit family drama.

Yet with the ringing of bells and blowing of horns at midnight, we heralded in a new year on January 1.

We find Living seems to slow down after the 1st, all of a sudden calmer, and you a bit more mindful. Life seems to move at a different pace, you may have even taken a conscious different approach to how you will live the day, the year, or the rest of your life. Maybe between the meals and partying of the last months, you had come to some conclusions as to how you would close out the year and how you would begin this new one. Now that things have slowed, you may feel it’s time to prep plans or at least focus on your plans for the upcoming year.  

Yes, it is that time again to take a breath, to look around your world, or maybe even recline with some of those personal reflections on how the year went. You may want to track to see if your end game is still in sight, or has your goal line been moved up, or to see what could have slowed you down or stopped you from reaching your end goal  before the clock ran out.

Kudos for those who had taken to heart and done the mid-year “checkup” recommended July 2022,  because you may be a bit ahead of the game (See the July 26, 2022 -Time For The Half Time Huddle blog in siteofcontact.net ).

So, to be clear, I am not talking about making new year’s resolutions, but I am talking about planning the year ahead; I’m talking about potential changes in how you’d handle your personal life, business, or career life moving forward.

While we are looking forward to a new year, let us always be in the Now. We also want to be cognizant to Live each moment of our lives with self-compassion which will help us live each day fully present and focused on enjoying life. If you are not enjoying life, then that is a must to incorporate into your life plan.

This is to say  that we want to be balanced in our life, not only to stay practical ( yes, we still have to pay our bills, and still have responsibilities towards others), But to remember in your new year plan, to incorporate ‘enriching your life’, as if it was a survival mask that you put on first, to be able to carry out that feat for others.

Journaling is a good resource for focus about your goals, challenges, and accomplishments.  No matter where you are in life, if you are not journaling, you want to, for it is a good place to start to turn your life around or keep it on track.

Beginning a Journal in January would be a perfect time to start. Let’s Think about January 1st of each new year as a beginning to a  new start on life.  Then adding to that a journal each year as a way to create a new start with a clean slate. You can hit the reset button and do things differently, if need be. It doesn’t matter if you consider the past year a good or a bad year. Journaling gives you a chance for a better one in the Coming Year.

So, Celebrate or Cry over the past year. But never forget that life moves forward, and you are going to engage with it one way or another. Why not try consciously and doing it on your own terms.

Questions you would want to consider for clarity when writing  your journal are these:

What do you want to focus on in the new year?

What do you want to do for yourself, your relationships, or career, in this new year?

If you have planned out the year, then ask yourself what will you do if things don’t go according to plan? (Remember, it is not wise to think that Every detail  in a Plan will go as planned. Be prepared for setbacks.)

Think - What can I control? An example of this is if you are a writer, then you may say: “I’m going to publish one article a week,  and I will spend one day a week on promoting that article.” This is something You can directly see yourself in control of achieving.

Another example would be if  you were in business for yourself, you can’t control how many people buy your products without  focusing in on your effort and the effectiveness of your skills.  You may want to consider how many people is it possible for you to reach? What steps are you going to take to reach them? How well do you know your product or service, to have someone else want to purchase it?

A year is enough time to make a lot of things happen. One can make a big impact by doing small increments of working toward your goal each day, so that in time, after a few weeks to a few months, you will find you are mastering skills, working on your character, and building relationships that are better than you have ever had before.

In this new year you may find that chasing your dreams, might mean finding out that the time has come when you will have to stop doing what you are doing in the way you were doing it. You need to move it up a notch or have it disengaged from its present form. To do that, you will need to bring self-awareness. This will notify you as to whether to keep at it, or to decide if this is the time to pivot or quit a particular action.

Self-awareness is a skill that can take years to develop, or that can be shortened by working with a Mentor or Coach. When you use Self-awareness combined with Self-Reflection you will see that  Life is full of paradoxes, and like Alice in the Looking Glass, that there is never one relative truth or ‘right’ path. The only path that’s right for you is the path YOU chose, and that may not be the same one that you are on.

Self-reflection is a powerful way to discover your goals, strengths, and weaknesses. It requires space — a chance to quiet the mind and to be still, to take advantage of the options afforded to you.

Now with a focus and thinking about the new year, don’t forget to be in the moment, to make work equal play; To make time for self-reflection and to have self-awareness; and to have a good time engaging and enjoying the company of others. 

And when January 1st comes around in the following year, you wake up with these practices under your belt.  You are ready to make work into play out of your plans and goals; and you are looking forward to conscious success, one small step at a time.

Happy New Year.

Calvin

2022 December Holiday Message - by Calvin Harris H.W.,M.

Happy Holidays in a month of celebration. Whether you celebrate Winter Solstice, Bodhi Day, Hannukah, Festivus, Christmas, Kwanza – one or all of them.  This is a time to celebrate with family and friends. A time we can look back at the year in review and see a job well done, as we take the time to remember the good in our life.

The holidays can be a stressful time, trying to meet the deadlines of social obligations of family, friends, and clients. For others, it is a tough time when the one’s you love cannot be here to share them. And for still others, they are facing loss of a loved one or loss in relationship.

At times like these, during this season, things can seem too complicated, I want you to STOP just for a few moments to do this  simple gesture -  Breathe.

If you can  make time, try maybe doing just this one additional step, each day during the  season and write down ( for no more than 5 minutes) your thoughts on just one of these words each day. This may help ease the distress or enrich your experience of the season:

•       Happiness

•       Gratitude

•       Joy

•       Peace

•       Rejoice

•       Prosperity

•       Success

•       Hope

•       Love

With these words, you can enhance  the holiday tone of your holiday experience.

I am encouraged and grateful  for your continued readership with the Site of Contact Blogs, and for being a part of what makes a better life and your better world.

I thank you for your trust and patronage,  I am sending to you

Wishes of Peace, Blessings, and the Joy of the Season

Calvin

You Are The Writer Of Your Own Script

View yourself  in your mirror

You might want to attempt to say or at least think these words as you look at yourself:

“You can’t create a new Story of You if you keep repeating the old one.”

How did that feel?

We are all story tellers some of it factual but most fictional. You might say our life is a story we tell ourselves and others, about successes and lost, comedy and tragic moments.  You can say you want success, but that hinges on self-transformation, and you can have it, if you stop replaying what no longer aligns with your inner core.

This will mean a breakup with your darling sins. A breakup with all the stories of blames or shames, stories that limit or dismiss you. Let go of the past, set free the people and you of your stories that has happened before this moment. Before this  NOW.

Starting Now, let’s make preparations in your mind to attend the funeral of your old self,  where you deliver your own eulogy, and you can walk away free and be grateful for your resurrection of self.

Sound easier said than done?

Let’s talk

contact me at things2cal@gmail.com

Happy last day of who you were!

Calvin

Straight Men Having Sex With Each Other...is that a Question? By Calvin Harris H.W., M

Josef Thorak, 1937, Comrades

This blog is the by-product of increased media exposure on Sex Classifications, vs Gender Identification vs Sexual Orientation  and of course “Bromance”.  

Questions to me about “Bromance” began surfacing five years ago because of alleged stories that got out, tagging  me in alleged tryst with various straight men, over a 10-year span of time. I found myself in conversations and debates about the subject. That led to some readers  imploring… no, demanding… my thoughts and information on what I might know about ‘straight men’ sensuality, and sexuality.

I must admit, because of the nature of mens’ sensuality/sexuality, I have tried to steer clear of this conversation in blog forms. I felt a few lines on a page cannot give a comprehensive appraisal of the subject matter, nor the depth needed to establish legitimacy,  or to evaluate its potential for future generations, not even to give justice to its place in its historic past. Since the issue won’t rest and  with mounting pressure to speak on the subject, I will speak as  objectively as I can.

I begin by calling your attention to a Blog written for the prestigious - New York Magazine website called ‘The Cut ‘

The Cut is a blog site for hip readers who  proport to seek provocative takes on issues that matter from culture, politics, power, and relationships; I concede, that the Cut site also panders to the usual celebrity sightings and women’s  fashion trends.

In their AUG. 05, 2015 issue, under the heading of “Q&A” a blog title appeared -  “Why Straight Men Have Sex With Each Other”  which was written by Jesse Singal, as an excerpt  piece from a larger conversation between Singal and  Dr. Jane Ward. Jane Ward, an associate professor of women’s studies at the University of California, Riverside,  had authored the book “Not Gay : Sex Between Straight White Men”.  Dr. Ward, in her book claimed that beyond: “the fraternity and military hazing rituals, where new recruits are made to grab each other's penises and stick fingers up their fellow members' anuses;  there are online personal ads, where straight men seek other straight men to masturbate with; and, last but not least, the long and clandestine history of straight men frequenting public restrooms for sexual encounters with other men.” Jane Ward, suggests these sexual practices reveal a unique social space where straight white men can--and do--have sex with other straight white men; in fact, she argues, to do so reaffirms rather than challenges their gender and racial identity.

The Book and a term “bromance”, these past 20 years, kept popping up in song, seen on television, and at the movies,  it was even spotlighted in a 2007 high school’s humorously, awkward friendship movie, staring  Jonah Hill titled Superbad.

I believe bromances are not new, I find it was  more common and fluid before 1950 and before the introduction of twin beds, but that is a blog for another time. Bromances were especially prevalent during the war years  (WW1 and WW2) and was not considered homosexual at all, that is because there is a difference between sensuality and sexuality; between a manly embrace,  wanking off together, versus some  type of orifice penetration. Bromance contains more of an element of sensuality rather than sexuality.

I find that the majority of men identifying as straight cisgender males(straight) are those men that feel romantic desires towards women, but Cisgender relates specifically to gender rather than sexuality. A person can be considered cisgender (often abbreviated to just cis -straight) and can still be open to any sort of sexual couplings.

Cisgender males with the moniker of straight are usually connected to a  hetero-centric community which is the way they understand their masculinity. Thus the advantage of a  ‘Straight’ identification, in that community, for by its very nature it insures the man’s sexual identity will avoid discrimination. and if the off chance of  sex with another man occurred, it is treated as irrelevant to their identities. Thus bromances can occur without consequence.

Since 1950’s more and more of what would have been considered straight sensuality between men has fallen into the category of homosexual activity, creating a clear male from female gender divide in behaviors tolerated in the Western man and  Western woman in the U. S. Culture. The gauntlet had been laid down after WWII dealing with the divide between how Women and how Men after the war would define their sexual roles and mores in American life. Therefore, what would be tolerated culturally and who could dapple with their own sex had been restricted.  Under these Cultural constraints, a man’s sexual choice was conscripted to a fixed  monogamous, heterosexual, head of the household model.

Jane Ward references in her book, that “when heterosexual women make out with one another at a bar or party, it’s generally understood that they’re simply playing around for attention, or exploring the fluid space that is female sexuality.”  Versus  “when heterosexual men hook up with each other  it was seen as an act of desperation.”( due to lack of  access to female companions.)

When straight women hook up with other straight women, no real explanation is required; when straight men hook up with other straight men, it’s a different story.

The divide stems from a notion of female sexuality being more malleable, thus more inherently open to experimentation and variety, than the males.

In Ward’s book “Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men”,  she makes the case that this is a flawed understanding. Male sexuality sometimes labeled “homosexual contact” has been a regular feature of heterosexual life ever since the concepts of homo- and heterosexuality were first created —  She states “not just in prisons and frat houses and the military, but in biker gangs and even conservative suburban neighborhoods. Given how prevalent this behavior is in so many different sorts of settings, Ward suggest it’s time to stop explaining it away — and argues that society’s conception of male heterosexuality is an unrealistic, expedient one.”

Edward Casey. 1939, Stevedores Bathing Under The Brooklyn Bridge

I can remember as a youth, that if a man could reach the rank of being called a “Man’s Man”, there seemed to be permission for him to explore and break boundaries  and be looked up to for it.  It is with that attitude of manhood  that I suspect  Ward’s assumption that sex between straight white men allows them to leverage whiteness and masculinity to authenticate their heterosexuality in the context of sex with men. By understanding their same-sex sexual practice as meaningless, accidental, or even necessary, straight white men can perform homosexual contact in heterosexual ways.

These acts of sexuality  are not slippages into a gay way of being; no, they are more like a sensual expression of a desired but unarticulated identity for balance. We all contain  male and female attributes,  Ward argues, they reveal “the fluidity and complexity that characterizes all human sexual desire. In the end, Ward's analysis offers a new way to think about heterosexuality--not as the opposite or absence of homosexuality”.  I call it, its own unique mode of engaging in androgynous sensuality, a mode of behavior that Ward would say would be “characterized by pretense, dis-identification and racial and heterosexual privilege.”  In this new era of heterosexuality complexities in the modern era prevail.

There is new and on-going sexological and psychological research being done like Jane Ward’s.  This research suggests that men’s sexuality within long-held belief systems of  the term ‘ heterosexual’ desire as having been strictly hardwired impulses to spread their seed and thus being relatively inflexible to anything else will prove false.

So what happens when sexological and psychological research evidence is all pulled together? What might we glean about straight men’s Sexuality/Sensuality?

Will it be that the fundamental difference between men’s and women’s ‘sensuality’ is not accurate. That by combing the facts on  20th-century American  heterosexual sensual/sexual behavior, we would find dabblings in male on male sensual/sexual behaviors by straight-identified, single and married men?  That there will be evidence that such homo-erotic overtones took place within biker gangs, fraternities, male-only social clubs and societies,  as well as male -for - male free and sex-for- pay (flash for cash) encounters would not recreate a sexual misidentification for them.

These scenarios play out in more or lesser degree in all sorts of different situations and cultural contexts,  Evidence will show that this occurs without having the excuse of men being without women or in prison.

Men in the act of genital sensuality with another male is not because they are building a gay sexual union with another man, nor do they want one. The  language in that act may mean something different for the participants, perhaps an act of courage, or a ritual like a rite of passage, a celebration, as seen from sailors crossing the equator for the first time or of college students in a fraternity. Physical sensuality can be a release having no connection with gender identification at all.  

I hear it a lot  “Oh Yeah Sure” or,  “Oh, come on, I think these are really gay men who are posing as straight men.”  

What am I to say to that? Of course, there’s no way for me to verify everyone, If they say they are straight then they are straight. What I know of male sexuality/sensuality  is that many  men do identify as straight in their lives and have engaged in these activities.

It is clear to me that there is needed a new language or way to talk about men’s needs to express themselves with other men, sensually and physically, that is accepting of a man  keeping their heterosexual identity intact, when that’s the logic that applies.

Everyone has the right of choice of their gender and their expression of sexuality/sensuality, and that includes you.

Where To Turn Next?

Hey You,

Have you ever wondered where you are on your journey, be it to career success or that spiritual path or just your personal best?  More importantly, where to turn next?

When you're unsure of the steps ahead, it's helpful to pause, look within, and reorient yourself.  Self-reflection is not just for when you are in the middle of a mess or problems. Self-reflection may even help you avoid problems by providing space to think and be more purposeful about your actions and intentions. And coupled with the help of a coach or mentor it can be especially helpful for getting clarity on where you want to go.

 When working with yourself or with a coach, be mindful to give yourself:

• Space for self-reflection

• To look for a fresh perspective

• To challenge your thinking where it is stuck

• Look for ways to support new ideas and get through difficulties

• Learn to hold yourself Accountable for your plans and own your authenticity.

Now this means you will develop a relationship with yourself, a very important one.  One where you find you are the key & door to your future, from your past, into the now. Nobody else can find or rescue you if you don't do it.  In the process, you will find that you develop love with yourself, not egotistic but a genuine love (agape) for your essence.

If you need help, remember you can call on me, as a Life Coach for you. I will not provide so much the answers, as much as help you ask the needed questions. Questions to help you find your own answers.

Metamorphose

February Starts Work

SiteOfContact

Metamorphose, Alteration, Change, transfiguration, Make-over, Remodel, Modification, rework, Revamp, Regeneration.