Matthew Skinta Ph. D.

Today marks the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia, and compared to the same time last year, there is a great deal more concern about the direction the world has been going. Many have scrambled to donate to save gay men currently persecuted in Chechnya, and academicians have petitioned and rallied in support of Dr. Stella Nyanzi at Makerere University in Uganda, a gender, sexuality, and health researcher who was violently arrested on April 7, 2017.

How long will you grieve a loved one and their absence on special occasions? How long is a piece of string? While I am a psychologist, author, speaker and trainer, I’ll be very much sharing from my personal experiences of losing my brother Shane, who died tragically when he was 11. I was 14 at the time and this was the single event that got me interested in the topic of psychology in the first place.

As the year comes to a close, it is so easy to focus on all we want to change in 2017. That is tempting. And our brains are wired for surviving, rather than thriving. We are hardwired to hone in on and focus on all we did wrong and all we didn’t do. So I want to take a few moments to remember and remind myself of the things that I have done this year to break out of my comfort zone. Sure, I haven’t been perfect, just like pretty much every other human being on this planet.