"Who told you that you were naked?"
- Gen. 3:11a
As a Sex and Intimacy Coach, my work is borne out of my own spiritual and sexual journey - having come from a fairly Conservative Christian (Pentecostal) background. I came out in 2000 and for the next decade wrestled with what it meant to be Christian, black, and gay. That decade of wrestling taught me a lot about who I was, what I truly desired, and what I could offer the world. In 2011, I attended my first Body Electric workshop. It was during that weekend I realized a significant truth, that Spirituality and Sexuality were not mutually exclusive!
From this solitary experience, my spiritual appetite for a more embodied existence had been whet!
INSPIRE | Introduction (Jan 2017)
In this introduction, Garland gives history of how he came to this work and why he finds it so important.
For the past 15 years I have been on the front lines of the fight against HIV/AIDS - individual and couples sexual health counseling, STI testing, and HIV/AIDS Social Work Case Management. In 2012 I became a student of Tantra. However, it wasn't until I graduated with my Masters in Social Work in 2013 that I realized that my passions could not be fully realized within the typical Social Work medium. I longed to do work that helped people heal the rift between their spiritual and sexual identities. I knew and had experienced the valuable healing that could be derived by the somatic work I had already experienced and I felt that it was this type of work that was sorely needed in my spiritual, racial, and sexual communities.
I am a firm believer that as we continue our march towards equality for all, we, as somatic educators, have an unique opportunity to teach others how to be more embodied and one more in community; to truly embrace the equality, liberation, and freedoms so many have fought and died for. I consider helping and serving others in towards their healing as part of my spiritual work and practice.
You can read more about my personal journey here!