Posts

The Physiology of Sustainable Queer Activism: Staying Regulated While Creating Change By Payam Ghassemlou, MFT, Ph.D., SEP

Image
  Most members of the queer community who are paying attention are aware of the urgent need to address the critical issues surrounding attacks on the rights of LGBTQ+ people. In my somatic therapy work with concerned queer activists who are deeply passionate about making the world a better place, I have noticed a recurring pattern: this sense of urgency is not simply held as a conscious awareness; it can become a chronic, lived bodily experience. What begins as an understandable response to hateful acts against members of the LGBTQ+ community can become deeply embodied, shaping how a person’s nervous system responds, even when they are no longer consciously focused on an immediate threat. The urgency to fight to protect our rights can become so deeply embodied that it overrides the body’s need for rest, recovery, and self-care. We can remain aware of the urgent need to create change without becoming physiologically stuck in a state of urgency. When socially conscious people who c...
Post a Comment
Read more

An Embodied Love for the Earth By Payam Ghassemlou MFT, Ph.D., SEP

Image
  My relationship with the Earth and my ecological consciousness have evolved over the years through an organic shift toward falling in love with the Earth. Like any love affair, my relationship with the Earth involves complicated and sometimes contradictory feelings—love, pleasure, intimacy, guilt, and grief. What began as an awareness of the natural world has gradually become a deeply personal and embodied relationship with the planet that sustains me. In most world mythologies, including Persian mythology , the Earth is traditionally assigned a feminine gender. My love affair with the Earth, however, goes beyond gender. Many people who personify the Earth as a mother have found a loving way to relate to them. I relate to the Earth as a living being with a soul, while choosing not to assign them a gender. This allows me to experience the Earth without projecting masculine or feminine qualities onto them. Some argue that because the Earth has traditionally been imagined as fe...
Post a Comment
Location: West Hollywood, CA 90069, USA
Read more

Style Is Not Vanity — It’s Nervous System Regulation By Payam Ghassemlou MFT, Ph.D., SEP

Image
  No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, it is hard to escape the weight of a world that often feels unsettled. As a gay immigrant in these unprecedented times, my nervous system is frequently on high alert. I carry a constant awareness of the threats facing people like me, and that awareness inevitably shapes how I move through the world. Because of this, I seek resources that offer me a sense of agency and help regulate my nervous system. Fashion and style have become both a personal resource and a form of armor — my runway to nervous system regulation. When I put thought into what I wear, I am not simply getting dressed; I am preparing myself to meet the world. Each outfit is an intentional act of protection and self-definition, allowing me to move through uncertainty while affirming my strength. Clothing becomes more than self-expression — it becomes a practice of resilience, presence, and self-preservation. Whether my clothing changes how others perceive me is im...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pause and Notice: A Gentle Invitation into Embodied Experience Beyond the Story By Payam Ghassemlou, MFT, SEP, Ph.D.

Image
  Everyone's story matters, and sometimes our personal mythology needs help emerging from the basement of repression or forgetfulness. Those of us in the helping professions often assume that every word of a client's painful story is like a step on a long staircase that must be climbed for healing to occur. Words can illuminate, organize, and bear witness to experience, but they are not the only path to transformation. There is also a sensory field beyond words—a place where memory, emotion, imagery, movement, and felt experience come together. Within that field, another kind of knowing becomes possible, and our stories can be rediscovered, reshaped, and gently integrated. When I began my mental health counseling internship in 1990 at what was then known as The Gay and Lesbian Center in Hollywood, I had the honor of working with people whose life stories were shaped by homophobic and transphobic mistreatment, often beginning in childhood. As a young intern, I believed that ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Lavender Garden of Relationships: Beyond Colonized Models of Intimacy By Payam Ghassemlou MFT, SEP, Ph.D.

Image
  As members of the LGBTQ+ community, we have the opportunity to cultivate relationships free from imposed religious, cultural, and social conditioning. Yet many of us continue to subscribe to colonized approaches to intimacy out of fear of judgment or a desire for acceptance. The garden of relationships is vast and diverse, offering many ways to love, connect, and build community. Whatever style of relationship you choose to cultivate is entirely up to you but let that choice be guided by what genuinely nourishes your life rather than by a desire for approval from the dominant culture. Many gay men living in LGBTQ+-friendly urban neighborhoods such as West Hollywood or Greenwich Village may have a network that includes platonic friends, friends with benefits, a life partner (who may or may not also be a sexual partner), work colleagues, and, in many cases, a broader community through 12-step programs, LGBTQ+-affirming churches, or other social groups. Each of these relationshi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Joyfully Queer: Tending to Your Vibrational Field with Intention By Payam Ghassemlou Ph.D., MFT, SEP

Image
  At our core, we are made of energy. In fact, everything in the universe can be understood as energy in motion. Science shows us that all matter is composed of tiny atoms that are constantly moving and vibrating, forming patterns of energy. The speed of these vibrations—often described as frequency—relates to energy levels: faster movement corresponds to higher energy, while slower movement corresponds to lower energy. As a metaphor, we can connect these ideas to our emotional lives. Higher “vibrational frequencies” can represent feelings like joy, love, and gratitude, while lower ones may reflect fear, anxiety, anger, or fatigue. While this isn’t a literal scientific mapping, it can be a useful way to think about how our internal states shape our experiences. So, what does this have to do with being gay? Human beings are deeply responsive to one another. The way we feel about ourselves often influences how we show up in the world. As a queer person—however you define your bea...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Inner Witness: Embodied Awareness, Neuroception, and Queer Pleasure By Payam Ghassemlou Ph.D., SEP, MFT

Image
  For queer people, sexual desire often longs for wings—seeking to rise beyond the gravity of shame and heteronormative oppression . The queer body remembers; stories of homophobic wounding,   traces of which can be read in the patterns of the nervous system. When homoerotic desire has been bound too tightly to shame, the body may come to experience pleasure not as invitation but as danger. Desire hesitates at the edge of threat, and when pleasure is blocked, a restless urgency begins to stir—an ache for release, for a way through. From this tension, desperate pathways may emerge, including chemsex, as an attempt to slip past the sentinels of shame and reclaim a fleeting sense of freedom. Paradoxically, chemsex can offer a fleeting escape from shame, yet its relief is often ephemeral. In the wake of use, crashes, risky encounters, or choices that betray one’s own values can stir a tide of guilt and regret. These echoes of shame do not fade quietly—they linger, feeding vuln...
Post a Comment
Location: United States
Read more