Many people live with anxiety on a daily basis, whether it’s mild low-level worrying, obsessional thinking, or severe crippling fear. Managing anxiety, like managing stress, is crucial to living a reasonably healthy life these days. There’s not a quick fix. If only there were. Medication can help. Meditation can help. And I’m always on the lookout for other tools to help reduce the suffering of people who live with chronic anxiety. In the latest issue of Counseling Today, the in-house journal of the American Counseling Association, Bethany Bray offers clinicians a thorough overview in her article “Living with anxiety.” I particularly appreciated a chart she shared, based on the work of Gillian Butler and Tony Hope, called “The Worry Tree.” The intention is to help people sort whether the worry is about something you can do about it right now, or not, and if not to reduce worry by changing the focus of your attention. Easier said than done, of course. But I find that a roadmap almost always helps. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Monthly Archives: June 2017
MEDIA: interview for La Revista Diversa
Luis Antonio Capurro is a friendly, enterprising young blogger and informal minister of culture to the gay male community in Lima, Peru. He recently interviewed me (by email) for his online magazine La Revista Diversa. Check it out here and let me know what you think.
DID YOU SEE: The Guardian on Laura Dodsworth’s MANHOOD
I’m always fascinated by the differences between American and British newspapers, especially how they handle discussions of sex and depictions of nudity. The Guardian, the most progressive of London’s daily papers, recently published a feature about photographer Laura Dodsworth and her latest book Manhood, for which she photographed 100 men naked from the waist down and interviewed them about their penises. (The book is a sequel to Bare Reality, in which women talked about their breasts.)
In addition to talking to Dodsworth about her book, the Guardian published several excerpts of the interviews and every single one of the photographs. I can’t imagine any daily newspaper in the United States running pictures of 100 penises, can you? Above and beyond the initial titillation, the article (and the book) do a great public service by exploring a subject that men think about all the time but don’t talk about much at all, even to their closest friends and loved ones.
The men range in age from 20 to 92, and their bodies take many sizes, shapes, and colors. Unless you are an enthusiastic naturist and spend time on nude beaches or in other environments where naked bodies are the norm, you may not have seen very many penises in your life — outside of pornography, which almost exclusively features penises that are large, erect, and intimidating. In my experience, it’s almost always revelatory and healing for men (and women!) to see a large quantity of penises and realize how varied and individual they are. And the men in Dodsworth’s book talk very honestly and intimately about their private parts. Check out the excerpts online here and let me know what you think.
food for the joybody 