Hello Everyone

This is my first blog for my new website that I have created for the launch of my new venture as I am about to turn 65years old. This new journey has been planned for some time and all the goals I set myself for this change in my life’s direction have been met – almost all meeting the deadlines I had set myself.

for my new website that I have created for the launch of my new venture as I am about to turn 65years old. This new journey has been planned for some time and all the goals I set myself for this change in my life’s direction have been met – almost all meeting the deadlines I had set myself.

When, a couple of years ago, I started to think of my future with retirement age fast approaching, I had decided that I wanted to go into something that I had always harboured as a passion of mine – to help people of my tribe – LGBTQ people who needed support, love, direction and empathic understanding. I wanted to become a coach, counsellor,

and therapist who specialized in providing a helping service to those in the community.

The first step on the new path was the training and education – so I completed a range of counselling and coaching diploma courses through the Achology Institute in Scotland, which I am now an accredited member of. I then started on a very arduous period of study for a Ph.D. in Psychology, specializing in Queer counselling and Sexology. This I did through Bircham International University, having registered on the Madrid campus.

Last year I graduated Magna Cum Laude, with the award certificate reading “… for contributing with knowledge and research to the field of Sexology…”.

Now, with two months before I turn 65, I am moving into a flexi-working situation at the institution I work for as a Registrar, and am opening my own coaching and counselling private practice from my home, calling the practice: JJL Therapy Centre.

The lead-up to the opening my practice, has been the planning and renovations to the house to turn one of the spare rooms into my practice room, as well as work to the house and re-landscaping the front garden to make it more suitable and welcoming to a safe place of love, support, and help. Most of this work has been undertaken and supervised by my partner of 41 years, while I was still working long hours at the tertiary institution where I work. This remodeling and renovation is 95% complete, and now I am diving into the setting up of the practical’s of the business, the administration and now the marketing – hence the first blog for my new website.

At moments like this, when I glance backward and feel the tide of life and memory rushing forward to my 65th birthday, I am torn between longing for what has been lost, regrets for adventures and dreams not undertaken, and sorrow for a youth of possibilities no more to be had – BUT I also feel gratitude for what was given to me and sharing 41 years of my life with the most amazing man that the universe deemed for me to meet and become my soul mate.

It is here, in this dialectical paradox, suspended between joy and sorrow of the past, freedom and shame-induced bondage of my orientation, glimmers of talent and squandered existence, that JJL Therapy Centre has started to rise. As gay men, we have been anything but ordinary, and predictable. Everywhere you turn, and no matter what ages, station in life, and economic status, the lives of gay men of all shapes and sizes contain this polar mix of pain and ecstasy.

I am hoping that I will be honored and privileged to share your journey, and through the JJL Therapy Centre, provide all who seek my help in a safe and confidential space, the opportunities for:

Choice – Freedom – Confidence – Growth.

Loving Blessings

James