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A Mighty Change of Heart

Keynote Address delivered by Rich Wyler, Friday, September 21, 2007 at the 17th Annual Evergreen Conference

An Executive Summary is also available.

Rich Wyler is the founder and executive director of People Can Change, a non-profit organization of men who have overcome unwanted same-sex attractions who now support others seeking similar change. He is also a co-creator and leader of its experiential-healing weekend called “Journey Into Manhood,” a program that has had a life-changing impact on hundreds of men from a dozen nations since he started it in 2002. He is a personal life coach who works with clients around the globe who are working to overcome unwanted same-sex attraction or sexual addictions, as well as their family members.
 

 People can change.  They can and they do.

 Change is central to the gospel and to our Heavenly Father’s plan. We are on this earth to learn and to grow, and that requires change. Faithful men and women repent and experience sometimes dramatic conversions. They are born again and become new creatures in Christ.

Faith and repentance bring about a change of heart, Helaman tells us (Helaman 15:7).

The people of king Benjamin experienced a mighty change of heart, (Mosiah 5: 2), as did Alma and his people (Alma 5: 12-13), and many others.

The stories of dramatic conversion that we read about in the scriptures are not simply about a change in behavior, but a mighty change of heart.

The People Can Change web site references 48 research studies and published reports of change, published over the past 50 years, reporting on at least 800 cases of individuals who have experienced a often significant shifts from homosexual to heterosexual feelings, behavior and identity. Included in these are the NARTH studies from 1997, and the Spitzer study from 2001.

Change is possible. It is real. It is only because of the “evils and designs of conspiring men in these last days” that this information is suppressed, and mental health associations can claim with a straight face that there is no evidence of change. They are wrong.

The truth is that there are hundreds of testimonials and case studies and published research studies showing that, in fact, many people who once felt homosexual attractions or who thought of themselves as gay have changed, and now feel heterosexual, and consider themselves straight.

I am one of those people. I struggled for many years – unsuccessfully – with unwanted same sex attractions before I found my way out.
 

Hitting Bottom

In Alcoholics Anonymous, they talk about “hitting bottom.” The idea is that an alcoholic will keep drinking as long as he can make it work, as long as the benefits of drinking seem greater than the consequences. Then one day he sinks to a level he never thought he would reach, when the consequences have become greater than the pleasure, and he becomes finally willing to change, no matter what.

THAT is key. To become willing to do what I have to do, no matter what.  To be willing to do God’s will – not try to lobby him into doing MY will, and then try to pass that off as faith. No, to find and do God’s will, no matter what. THAT is real faith.

This was the answer. This was my personal turning point toward A Mighty Change of Heart.

It was as the prophet Mormon said, “They experienced the sorrowing of the damned, because the Lord would not always suffer the wicked to take happiness in sin. (Mormon 2:13).

And Alma said, “Now my son… go no more after the lusts of your eyes, but cross yourself in these things.” (Alma 39:9
 

Finding Hope

At about the same time I hit bottom, I also found real hope for the first time. Until I found hope, nothing else really mattered. But with hope, I could begin to follow a whole new path to healing. A path built on truth, not on false beliefs.

My first glimmer of hope was when I found Erin Eldridge’s book, “Born That Way,” published by Deseret Book. Here at last was a personal testimony of change. I’d heard claims in the past that change was possible, but they never seemed to be backed up by real stories of real people.

In the back of her book was a list of references including an organization I’d never heard of before called Evergreen, a ministry for faithful Latter day Saints. I was familiar with the advocacy group for disgruntled latter day Saints, and had attended a meeting or two in the past. But this one was different. Evergreen was a group for faithful, committed Latter-day Saints, who wanted to change themselves, not change the church.

It so happened that a small Evergreen group was just getting started in Los Angeles, where I was living at the time. I attended my first meeting. This was in April 1997. And for the first time I met other real live human beings who were dealing with this issue. I started to come out of isolation and not feel so alone.

Most significantly, the leader of the Evergreen group was an LDS therapist who was starting a practice in Los Angeles, not far from my home. Here was the first real live human being I had ever met who could say “I used to feel gay, but I discovered and dealt with the underlying issues that caused me to feel that way, and now I no longer feel that way. I now consider myself completely straight.”

Imagine! A real live human being who with this experience. They weren’t supposed to exist!

Finally, I had found real hope.

Moroni wrote: How is it that ye can attain unto faith, save ye shall have hope?” (Moroni 7:40) And if ye have no hope ye must needs be in ^adespair; and despair cometh because of iniquity. (10:  22)

And Paul wrote to the Romans:

Hope maketh not ashamed; because the ^blove of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost (Romans 5:3-5)

And so began 2 ½ years of therapy with this wonderful counselor. My work with him, and my work outside therapy during the time I was with him, changed my life for ever.
 

Understanding and Enlightenment                                           

Between therapy and Evergreen, I began discovering a rich trove of resources that I had never known existed.

One of the first things I read was Jason Park’s book, “Resolving Homosexual Problems: A Guide for LDS Men.”

When I read for the first time about the theory of same sex attractions resulting from development issues like longing for a father’s attention and a peer groups inclusion, the Holy Spirit witnessed the truth of these things to me in a way that was nearly comparable to the witness of the Spirit I had received so many times of the truth of the Book of Mormon.

I knew that after all the disinformation and noise I had heard over the years about how people are supposedly born gay and that homosexuality was unchangeable, I knew at last that I was drinking from the waters of truth. Sunlight broke through the confusion and darkness, and I felt the exhilaration of finally understanding the root causes of my same sex attraction – and understanding the causes, I could begin to find my way out.

It must needs be that … the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to ^eenlighten my ^funderstanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me. (Alma 32:  28)

For the ^aword of the Lord is truth, and whatsoever is truth is ^blight, and whatsoever is light is ^cSpirit, (D&C 84:  45)

So, I had hit bottom and become ready to change.  I had found real hope. I had begun a program of emotional healing through therapy. And I had begun to find real enlightenment and understanding.
 

Confession

At this point I had a head-on collision with my cardinal rule of surviving SSA: No matter what happens, no one must ever find out. 

Homosexuality is in many ways a relationship problem. Relationship problems don’t get resolved in isolation. They get resolved in relationships.

As long as secrecy was my first priority, and healing was my second, I made no progress. When I turned it around, and healing became my first priority, no matter what, then the breakthroughs started happening. 

I talked with my therapist. I confessed, yet again, to my wife. And most difficult of all, I prepared to go again to my bishop and confess all.

This was the most frightening step of all. Was I ready to face the consequences of what this confession might bring?

The truth is, confession is not optional to those who seek forgiveness. It is required 

By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins—behold, he will ^aconfess them and ^bforsake them. (D&C 58: 43)

If we ^aconfess our sins, he is faithful and ^bjust to ^cforgive us our sins, and to ^dcleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:  9)

For I, the Lord, ^aforgive sins, and am ^bmerciful unto those who ^cconfess their sins with humble hearts; (D&C 61:  2)

And what happens to those who don’t confess their sins? Well, it’s only a matter of time before their sins are exposed to all the world, in the judgment day, if not before 

Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in ^adarkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have ^bspoken in the ear in ^cclosets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. (Luke 12: 3)

And the ^arebellious shall be ^bpierced with much ^csorrow; for their iniquities shall be ^dspoken upon the housetops, and their secret acts shall be revealed. (D&C 1: 3 

Confession actually prevents this eventual and humiliating public proclamation of our secret sins, for

He who has ^arepented of his ^bsins, the same is ^cforgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more. (D&C 58: 42)

And Proverbs tells us:

He that ^acovereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso ^bconfesseth and ^cforsaketh them shall have mercy. (28: 13)

So I broke my cardinal rule of secrecy, and confessed to my bishop, and then the stake president, which led – no surprise – to a church disciplinary council.

This resulted in my excommunication from the church, 10 years ago last month.

My excommunication was one of the most challenging and difficult parts of this entire journey.

And yet, perhaps it was one of the most fruitful, as it gave me a greater degree of accountability than I’d ever had before. It gave me clear goals to strive for, toward rebaptism and reinstatement to full fellowship in the church.

And at last I was in integrity with the church and with Heavenly Father. I was no longer claiming to be one thing while living as another. I was a sinner, certainly, but at least I was an honest sinner. I no longer felt like I was living two lives, a Jekyl and Hyde.
 

Reaching Out

I threw myself into my healing work and reached out in courageous new ways for help and support.

I asked a man in the bishopric to mentor me.

He didn’t know anything about ssa, but he knew about brotherly love, and spirituality. He made himself available to talk on the phone and meet me for lunch and just spend time with me as I shared my struggle. It was a wonderful, healing relationship that fed my soul’s need for a father’s love and caring.

I went to individual therapy one evening a week and group therapy one evening a week.

I started going to my 12 step meetings for sexual sobriety again.

I found a men’s experiential healing retreat – and discovered a connection to men unlike anything I had ever known before. For the first time in my life, I really felt like a man among men – like I really belonged. I was making more friends, experiencing more authentic connection, living more honestly and taking more risks than I ever had before.

I carried a list of 20 men I could call on when tempted, or just needed to connect. This from the guy who swore he must never tell anyone!

I found out that my needs were not a bottomless pit. They were beginning to get filled. I was becoming whole.
 

With All Your Heart

In short, I was doing, and was willing to do, whatever it would take… to experience a mighty change.

I don’t know if this kind of time and commitment is necessary for everyone. I only know that it was necessary for me. Some people have suggested to me, wouldn’t it be better to just ignore the whole ssa thing altogether. To dismiss it out of your mind, and give it as little time and attention as possible.

If that had worked for me, I would be giving a very different testimonial. But I tried variations on that approach for 20 years, and it only made things worse.

If you don’t need to dig as deep as I had to, and don’t need to overhaul and rebuild your life from the ground up like I did – good for you. Why use a bulldozer when a paintbrush will do?

But in my experience, you may be deceiving yourself. You may waste a lot of years looking for the easy way out when you need to be looking for the right way out – no matter what.

The 12 step programs have a saying, “Half measures availed us nothing.” In other words, do everything it takes, or don’t even bother.

The Lord tells us more forcefully:

Behold, this is your work, to ^akeep my commandments, yea, with all your might, ^bmind and strength. (D&C 11: 20)

I know thy ^aworks, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.  So then because thou art ^alukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will ^bspue thee out of my mouth. (Revelations 3: 15-16)

And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the ^aplough, and ^blooking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. Luke 9: 62

If ye will ^aturn to the Lord with full purpose of heart, … he will… deliver you out of bondage. (Mosiah 7: 33)

A year and a half after my excommunication, I was rebaptized into the church in a beautiful, simple ceremony attended by my wife and children and a few close friends. For the first time in many years, I felt completely clean before the lord.

Though your ^bsins be as scarlet, they shall be as ^cwhite as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (Isa. 1: 18)

I say unto you, that likewise ^ajoy shall be in heaven over one ^bsinner that ^crepenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance. Luke 15: 7

In the years since my excommunication and rebaptism, my marriage prospered and thrived as never before.

Four years after my rebaptism, Marie and I returned to the temple, renewed our temple covenants and had our youngest child sealed to us for time and eternity.

Marie and I became closer and more in love than ever. To her credit, she stood by me through it all, encouraging me and loving me while always insisting that I become the faithful husband that she so rightly deserved. On that she would not compromise, and I respected her for it and was motivated by it. We restored trust and finally created the marriage we both had always wanted.

Marie became a great support of my work with the nonprofit organization I founded called People Can Change, and shared her personal testimony with me and others that it was God’s work.
 

Change

As you can see, I believe in an approach that is not about merely resisting temptation, although that is important. But actual change of the condition.

Not just a “cross to bear”. But truly “No more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.” (Mosiah 5:2)

Now I’ve quoted a lot of scriptures that talk about repentance and peace and forgiveness and righteous desires, a mighty change of heart. But I haven’t found a scripture that promises you heterosexuality. While many people can and do experience a shift to heterosexual attractions, that is not necessary in order to experience successful ‘change’ and to have happiness in this life.

Most of the time, whether consciously or not, men pursuing change are not really after heterosexuality as much as they’re simply after peace and happiness, or personal fulfillment, in a way that is congruent with their values, beliefs and life goals.

I would say that the men I’ve worked with are really after three or four things:

1. If they are struggling with unwanted homosexual behaviors – and not everyone is, certainly – they want to stop those behaviors, and stop them in a way that brings a degree of peace and contentment, not the pain of white knuckled resistance.

2. They want to eliminate the distress and shame they feel in having same sex attractions.

3. Whether consciously or unconsciously, they want to feel more masculine and have meaningful relationships with other men.

4. Many of them, but not all, want to marry and have a family, or if they are already married, they want to keep their marriages and families together.

I always tell the men I work with: In doing this work, we have no way of knowing in advance how completely your same-sex attractions will subside. We have no way of knowing for sure what degree of opposite-sex attractions will ultimately emerge.

But if you do this work sincerely, I CAN promise you three things: 

1. You can bring your behavior in line with your values, and in a way that brings peace, not the pain of white knuckled resistance. You’ll stop acting out sexually, whether in person, or through pornography, or in the fantasies of your mind.

2. You can have more masculine identity, masculine connection, more brotherly love, and more male community in your life. You’ll experience the brotherly love that the Greeks called Agape, at a greater level and in more fulfilling ways than you’ve probably ever experienced it before.

3. You can overcome the distress and shame of homosexuality and experience greater peace, joy and fulfillment in your life than you’ve ever known before. For many people, this includes a significant spiritual component, a greater connection to the divine, and a greater sense of life mission or purpose.

So these are the 3 big promises of the pursuit of change.

1.       “You will gain sexual sobriety, or the ability to joyfully live the Law of Chastity.

2.       “You will experience increased brotherly love and masculine connection.

3.       “And you experience peace, joy and personal fulfillment – the kind of peace and joy that can only come from aligning your heart with God’s will.”

As we experience these changes in our lives, most men experience a significant decrease in same sex attractions and a meaningful increase in opposite sex desires. But these sexual shifts may actually be a byproduct of these other changes – sexual sobriety, masculinity and brotherly love, and peace and joy.
 

2-Part Process: Need Fulfillment and Surrender

I summarize the process of change from unwanted SSA in this way:

Change is possible by:

1. healing buried emotional pain
2. authentically meeting core needs for love, acceptance and secure gender attachment
3. and surrendering the rest

This word “surrender” I borrow from the Twelve Step traditions of programs like Alcoholics Anonymous and Sexaholics Anonymous, but LDS audiences will be more familiar with the concept of “yielding our hearts to God,” or to God’s will for our lives.

Helaman 3:35 Nevertheless they did...wax…firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the ^dpurifying and the ^esanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their ^fyielding their hearts unto God.

I summarize the process of change as a two part equation –

First, are the core needs that you need to fulfill – especially the needs for love, acceptance, affirmation and masculine connection for men, or feminine connection for women. The things you need more of in your life, in healthy, platonic, emotionally nurturing ways. This is all that is positive within the same sex attraction.

Now you might be saying, positive? How could there be anything positive about same sex attraction? Remember, at the root of it, it is a positive drive. There is a healing intent. To get you more connected to your own gender. To have you experience authentic brotherly love, and male community. To have you feel a father’s love, and a peer group’s inclusion. To love, and be loved.

All of these are positive, healing needs that the ssa, at its root, is calling you to fulfill. I want you to discover and fulfill all that is positive within the ssa.

The second part of this two-part equation is all the things you need to surrender, or release or let go. This is all that is negative or destructive about the ssa. The lust, the shame, the self-destructive cycles, the gender confusion. Things you need to surrender might include a gay identity, resistance to change, anger, hurt, resentment…

So the two parts are to discover and fulfill the authentic, underlying needs that are a positive drive and have a healing intent…

And surrender the lust and other negative, self-destructive patterns.

In the simplest of terms: add more of the good, surrender all of the bad.

I believe that when people get stuck in their change efforts, it is frequently because they’ve got the equation totally backwards.

They are suppressing their authentic needs, which they ought to be fulfilling… and they are acting on their self-destructive lusts, which they are ought to be surrendering. They are acting on the bad, and suppressing the good.

They need to turn the whole process upside down.
 

Authentic Needs

I believe in every SSA moment there is a healing intent within it somewhere. Your job is to discover the healing intent and fulfill it in positive ways

The attraction is revealing a need to you, a deficit that is going unmet. What is it?

Some of the most common authentic needs that underlie homosexual desires include:

1. The need for male affirmation, attention and acceptance, as I mentioned.

2. The need for male association; for a male community,

3. to feel like "one of the guys"

4. to connect authentically to feeling, and especially for a safe place to feel and express anger and grief

5. to heal emotionally, from wounds of the past

So, if all of your efforts have been focused on suppressing needs such as these, I am advocating here a completely different approach. Search for the good desire at the core of even your most unwanted desires. On our Journey Into Manhood weekends, we call this finding the "gold inside the shadow."

Instead of trying to stop or resist unwanted behaviors and feelings, I want you to work on preempting and replacing them. I want you to identify and plan specific, fulfilling alternative ways to consistently and proactively meet your needs in constructive, healing ways.

A primary focus of this healing work will be on healthy male attachment.

Homosexuality is in many ways a relationship deficit. It cannot be resolved in isolation. You need to get outside yourself and connect with others in platonic but emotionally fulfilling relationships.

The solution is in living the gospel fully, whole heartedly, without reservation AND in so doing meet the need for love through solid bonds of brotherly love and charity, or Christlike love.

The Greeks have three words for love – different types of love:

·         eros, romantic love (derive the word “erotic”)

·         philia, brotherly love (as in Philadelphia, city of brotherly love)

·         agape, or charity, or Christlike love.

People who experience homosexual temptations fail in their efforts to overcome them if their solution to experiencing romantic love, or eros, is to resist and suppress need for love at all.

They succeed when they REPLACE their pursuit of same-sex romantic love with the pursuit of deep, meaningful brotherly love, or philia and Christlike love, or agape.

Now someone here is thinking “brotherly love is an unsatisfying substitute for romantic love or erotic love,” or even “Christlike charity can not substitute for my need for romantic love”

If you are, I will tell you that that is only because you have not sufficiently experienced deep, meaningful brotherly love, or the sublime joy of true Christlike charity.

You have bought into the lie in our culture that “eros” is the most fulfilling and highest form of love there is.

I submit to you that brotherly love (philia) and Christlike charity (agape) truly experienced in Godly ways will meet any person’s need
 

Surrender

Surrender may be understood first by what it is not. It is not suppression. It is not willpower, nor self-control, swearing that we will never do it again (whatever "it" is). white-knuckled resistance,

Rather, surrender is letting go. It is choosing to release specific obstacles - whatever is holding you back and hurting you.

When we talk of surrender, we mean, first and foremost, the yielding of our own self-will to a God. It is the essential experience of submitting to and trusting in the Divine Will -- living for something better or nobler than one's own selfish pleasure.

Surrender is the cornerstone principle of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, Sexaholics Anonymous, and other Anonymous programs.

Of course, homosexuality is not addiction, and addiction is not homosexuality (although a great many people who start down the path of homosexual behavior do become addicted to the sexual "rush" of meeting needs in homosexual ways).

But millions of people across the world have found that these principles of surrender, yielding and submission to the Divine Will apply to every type of struggle imaginable.

A few of the Twelve Steps state:

·         We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him (Step Three).

·         We became entirely ready to have God remove all our defects of character. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings (Steps Six and Seven).

·         We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out (Step Eleven).

And Mosiah writes:

For the ^anatural ^bman is an ^cenemy to God, and has been from the ^dfall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, … unless he ^eyields to the enticings of the Holy ^fSpirit, and ^gputteth off the ^hnatural man and becometh a ⁱsaint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a ^jchild, ^ksubmissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (Mosiah 3: 19)

And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did ^astrengthen them that they could bear up their ^bburdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with ^cpatience to all the will of the Lord. (Mosiah 24: 15)

True surrender requires us to release anything from our lives that prevents change from happening -- any place, person, relationship, group, practice, habit, defense, idea, belief, way of being, anything. To surrender is to let go of ideas, prejudices, defenses, old resentments, and behaviors that block change.

The book Alcoholics Anonymous explains:

"Our whole trouble had been the misuse of willpower. We had tried to bombard our problems with it instead of attempting to bring it into agreement with God's intention for us" (page 40).

The book Sexaholics Anonymous states:

"When we surrendered out of our own enlightened self-interest, it became the magic key that opened the prison door and set us free"

And it goes on to say:

"Everything begins with (sexual) sobriety. Without sobriety, there is no program of recovery" (Sexaholics Anonymous, p. 77).
 

Conclusion

In summary, we found that we need to make two things happen at once. Instead of suppressing and abstaining, we needed to submit and fulfill. When we felt homosexual lust kick in, we had to immediately surrender it up to our Higher Power, and at the same time we needed to discover the underlying, non-sexual core need and work to fulfill it in a non-sexual way, instead of through homosexual lust.

In his book Desires in Conflict, Joe Dallas writes that, as long as a person continues to engage in homosexual acts, the needs they fulfill will remain repressed. The needs can't be identified as long as homosexual behavior covers them up and keeps them unconscious. And as long as they remain unidentified, they can't be recognized and fulfilled in more legitimate ways.

"When homosexual behavior is removed, the needs behind it become more acute than ever. That's why many people have such a difficult time abstaining from it. It's not just sexual temptation that draws them back, but the desire to satisfy these needs in the old, tried-and-true way….

"Suppose a man's homosexual behavior satisfied his need for a nurturing male to take care of him. He turns away from this behavior, only to find that he needs such a nurturer more than ever. But the only way he's gotten that nurturing in the past is through homosexuality. He hasn't yet learned nonsexual ways of getting what he needs, so he goes through a season of waiting while the need continues to throb away….But that's exactly how legitimate needs are eventually satisfied! First they make themselves known. Only then can a person plan legitimate, nonsexual ways to satisfy them"

So the journey out of homosexuality can be described as a journey inward, a journey of self-discovery, authentic self-expression and renewal. It is not a journey of willpower. It is a journey of healing -- of uncovering and healing the underlying pain and emptiness that had caused so much of our homosexual yearning to begin with.

And the journey out of homosexuality is also a journey outward, a journey of connection, of brotherly love, of greater connection to the divine. It is a journey toward true fulfillment of our deepest needs.

And for all of these reasons, it is a journey to joy.