Authentic Relating & Empowerment for Gay Men
A Comprehensive online group coaching program for learning how to thrive as a Gay Man
In this 9-week group program you will learn how to heal your relationship with yourself so you can feel empowered in your relationships with others. Through teaching you life changing skills and facilitating healing connections with like-minded gay men, each workshop will bring you closer to becoming the confident gay man you deserve to be.
Before we get into the nitty gritty about the program, we want to talk about who this program is actually for…
You identify as a gay man and you have always felt a little different than most people. You have an urge to express yourself but are uncomfortable doing that due to previous rejection, so you sometimes feel the need to hide the true nature of who you really are.
Whether you’re…
- Hiding aspects of yourself due to prior experiences of rejection, criticism, or judgement
- Struggling with intimacy avoidance or avoiding your own emotions
- Don’t understand how to accommodate your sexuality or sexual urges in a healthy way
- Feeling socially overwhelmed and anxious
- Struggling in your relationships
- Can’t seem to kick that pesky habit of people pleasing
- Feeling alone or lonely in the world without connection to other gay men/community
You’re in the right place and I want to tell you exactly how Authentic Relating & Empowerment (ARE) for Gay Men will give you the tools, inspiration and support to learn how to thrive as a gay man in a world that often tells you to be something that you’re not.
Maybe this is the time in your life when you unconditionally fall in love with yourself…
By the end of this 9-week program you will:
Have a better understanding of what it takes to thrive as a gay man
Learn how to embrace and accommodate your sexuality
Have a greater sense of safety and confidence to show up just as you are without hiding behind the masks you have created
Develop strategies to manage the anxiety that being gay can cause
Experience more vitality and aliveness as you establish meaningful connections with like-minded gay men
Develop interpersonal skills and new ways of relating to others in an authentic way
Learn how to become more self-expressive so you can get your needs met and live a more fulfilling and satisfying life
When you enroll for this 9 week program you’ll learn how to:
- Embrace and value your identity as a gay man
- Be vulnerable in a safe space with like-minded people
- Accommodate the impact of being gay in everyday life
- Address the challenges of being a gay man
- Draw on the strengths of being a gay man
- Understand your unique needs as a gay man
- Honour your own boundaries
- Let go of people pleasing habits
- Let go of unhelpful coping habits
- Develop emotion processing skills
- Show up authentically so you can stop hiding
- Let go of shame related to being gay and recognize and develop tolerance to your shame triggers
- Show up more presently in your own life
- Express yourself in a way that gives you more satisfaction in your roles and relationships
- Handle rejection and let go of your fear of judgement
- Self-affirm instead of seeking external validation
- Replace unhelpful coping habits with facing up to challenges with courage
- Form healthy relationships that will meet your needs
When you enroll you get access to:
- 25 hours of workshops over 9 weeks (Live on Zoom)
- Workshops include: PowerPoint slide presentations, large group discussions, smaller breakout room discussions
- Lifetime access to all the course materials (PowerPoint slides, resources etc.)
- Weekly check-in calls with other participants
- Access to a WhatsApp group chat during and after the course
- Resources and pro tips on how to navigate many of the challenges faced by gay men
- Reading recommendations
- An opportunity to change your life and meet some amazing people who are on a similar journey
Do you believe that life has singled you out, and in some ways has placed an unfair burden on your shoulders?
Instead of dealing with your feelings, you may have suppressed them in order to function and survive. You may feel that your sexuality inhibits you from accessing life like you want to, or that you’re not able to live life on your own terms.
I am also a gay men so I understand what you’re going through. I know what it’s like to disown aspects of myself. I know know what it’s like to abandon myself for the approval of others. I know what it’s like to feel like I need to hide away from the world because my anxiety is out of control.
I want to offer you a way out. The same way out that I took to learn how to thrive as a gay man. I know you are capable of transforming the way you relate to yourself and the world around you. I know you can stop disowning aspects of yourself and embrace who you really are. I know how powerful it can be to connect with other gay men on this journey and I want to share this opportunity with you.
The “ARE for gay men” group program offers you a healing community where we all walk each other home to the truth of who we are. For many of us it may be the first time we feel like we truly belong to a community of like-hearted people.
This is the power of the ARE group program and I would love for you to join us on this powerful and transformative journey.
Sneak peek at what’s inside the program
9 weeks of interactive group training and coaching:
Week 1: Introduction to ARE
- Creating a safe space and getting to know each other
- Course overview and setting your goals
- How to get the most out of the course
- Understanding the nature of gay men and our community
Week 2: Overcoming the Pain Of our Past: Growing Up Gay
- Exploring the emotional impact of growing up gay
- Exploring the challenges and benefits of being a gay men
- Unpacking the social conditioning we may have inherited around sexuality and gender
- Understanding gay shame
- Exploring internalized homophobia
Week 3: Understanding Emotions & developing Emotional Intelligence
- Explore the difference between healthy and unhealthy emotion processing
- Learn how to work with challenging emotions many gay men have to face: shame, inadequacy and fear
- Addressing unhelpful coping behaviours (substance use, sexual compulsivity, comfort eating, procrastination, codependency, dissociation and social withdrawal)
- Addressing unresolved emotional responses from the past by exploring the journey of emotional development
Week 4: Healing Shame & Trauma
- Understanding the impact of toxic shame and developing shame resilience
- How to care for the traumatized inner child
- Understanding trauma and how to begin the healing process
- Understanding and working with our protector parts
- Moving towards an internal sense of safety and security
- Understanding the unique needs of gay men
- How to start to empower ourselves as gay men
Week 5: Integration Period: learning to rest
- 2 hour group discussion integrating the last 4 weeks
- Integration is taking what we learned so far, making meaning of it, and applying it to our lives
- We use this week to integrate all the information and experiences from the first 4 workshops
- It is a time to slow down, rest, and let the work we have done take hold in our mind, body and soul
Week 6: Becoming more Present
- How to authentically connect to yourself and others through presence
- How to become emotionally intelligent and resilient
- Developing the observer self: the part of you that witnesses your experiences
- Developing your intuition and curiosity in relation to other people’s feelings and behaviours
- Learn how to hold space for other people to be authentic
Week 7: Improving Your Communication: Listening Skills
- How to give and receive emotional validation
- Understanding differences in relating to people who are not gay
- How to actively listen and make people feel heard
- How to slow down your pace of relating so it can meet your needs and the needs of others
- The art of conflict transformation
Week 8: Improving Your Communication: Self-Expression
- Exploring barriers to self expression
- Breaking the habits of people pleasing
- How to communicate your needs and make decisions more effectively
- Using vulnerability to enrich your relationships
- Cultivating your sense of worthiness
- How to set and maintain healthy boundaries
Week 9: Program Integration & Wrap Up
- 2 hour group discussion integrating the last 9 weeks
- Sharing challenges and successes throughout the course
- Getting a chance to share the impact other participate had on you
- Discussion of the next steps to continue your journey to towards empowerment
THE “ARE for gay men” Facilitator
You may be asking yourself “who is this person that will show me how to change my relationship with myself and my sexuality?
I help gay men who feel they need to hide who they are and are struggling with low self-worth, learn how to overcome insecurity, loneliness and shame. I am offering you a step-by-step process and a supportive community to go on a journey towards living a more authentic and empowered you!
Matt Landsiedel
Matt is a Relationship Counsellor, Facilitator & Educator from Calgary, Canada.
He specializes in working with highly sensitive people (HSP), empaths, and gay men to develop a stronger sense of self-worth. His areas of expertise are teaching people how to heal toxic shame and complex trauma so they can embody their authentic selves and feel more secure in their relationships.
Matt is a Registered Professional Counsellor through the Canadian Professional Counsellors Association. He has spent the last 17 years guiding thousands of seekers on their psychological and spiritual journey through life. He has also studied Peruvian Shamanism through the Santa Tierras Earth Medicine Traditions, incorporating this healing modality into his life and coaching/counselling practice.
Inspired to Be Authentic is a mission Matt has purposefully created. Through his creative content, coaching/counselling, and community facilitation, he inspires you to share more of your truth with the world. He does this by teaching you life-changing skills and sharing energetic transmissions that inspire you to show up courageously in your own life by practicing vulnerability.
Matt’s vision for this world is for us all to live with more courage to share ourselves authentically and enjoy greater intimacy and connection with one another.
In his spare time, Matt can be found traveling the world, writing, reading, hiking mountains, meditating and contemplating life, spending quality time with family and friends, learning the guitar, singing, taking photos of the natural world, tending to his plants, and bringing his two visions to life; Inspired to Be Authentic and Gay Men’s Brotherhood.
TESTIMONIALS
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND attending this program. I registered on a whim with the intention of getting to know myself. To my surprise, I realized that I had no clue about how things from my childhood were controlling my life today! I was able to gain understanding at how those events so long ago wrote who I am and what my life is like today. Much of the knowledge I gained in the program was obtained through others sharing their story and that allowed me to look inside myself to see if I too dealt with similar issues and to my surprise, yes, I was. At no time was I forced to share or pressured to share. However, I paid for the course and felt it my obligation to myself to go out on a limb and share my life experiences with the goal of uncovering me for me. Matt is an amazing caring and empathetic leader in the course and does a great job of moving us through the spaces of our lives to help us uncover the reasons behind ourselves today. It was my experience that this program was truly the greatest gift to myself. I also walked away with new friends, young and old, from all over Canada and the USA that I know we will enjoy deep authentic supporting conversations for many years to come. Thank you Matt for all of it!
The ARE Course for Gay Men allowed me to hear other men tell their stories of growing up gay and process along with them the challenges that we all seem to face as we navigate our lives. I felt a sense connectedness that I have rarely ever felt – a brotherhood. We aren’t so alone in the world – we just rarely ever have experiences like this to realize it.
I did the ARE course and I’m still getting great benefit from it.This course has given me more insight into who I am, who I want to be and who I will be in the future.
Learning to have more awareness of myself and the people around me has helped me to connect deeper than before. I’ve become more aware of possible triggers and how to deal with and or avoid those situations.
I’ve become more authentic and grounded following this course.
Matt is fun and down to earth. We all have our journey and baggage accumulated along the way. Matt has a very sweet disposition. He is also a good listener and truly hears what people say. No hidden agenda. I like that. It’s obvious Matt has been doing this for awhile now and his years in the trenches are paying off. I hope to be able in the near future to be able to be in another course of his. The ARE for HSP course is the next instalment for me. Thank you for your commitment to the gay community and how you are going about it.
During the course of this workshop I became more aware, made discoveries that allowed me to make immediate behavioral changes, and I learned how to better communicate difficult emotions. I am changed.
If you are willingly self-aware and curious about your triggers and or ways of avoiding your insecurities/shadow side. This course will sure bring them into the light in a safe and supportive environment. For me, I felt less alone, isolated and safer… like I found my “tribe” that I could belong, in.
