In ‘Mind Your Own Life,’ author Aaron Anson comes ‘full circle’
By Aaron Coleman
Mind Your Own Life: The Journey Back to Love, the biographical/self-help/confessional by Aaron Anson is, in short, a revelation. In an easy-to-read, short-chaptered format, he constantly challenges the reader, while telling his story, to ask questions about one’s own beliefs, and how they got there in the first place. He then asks readers to reconcile the often surprising answers that unfold by acknowledging their connection to Source (God), reconnecting, and trusting the unconditional love and acceptance found there, despite what one may have been told.
As a fellow black gay man from the South, I found myself closely identifying with Anson’s journey of self-discovery. But his message of self-love and acceptance is universal and can be viewed as an “everyman” phenomenon.
According to Anson, the mixed and often critical and hurtful messages concerning one’s gayness—from family, friends, and religious and political figures—all serve to separate us from the peace and acceptance we felt in the womb, and from our inherent connection to Source. The author views God as “The Source,” for lack of a better name, from which everything and everyone emanates, and from which we can never be disconnected.
Anson writes: “. . . [T]hrough our learned behavior and prejudices, we experience shorts in the circuitry, and therefore a disrupted flow of our Source energy. To reconnect, we must cleanse our corroded connections so we can reconnect with our birthright—the love we inherently knew at birth.”
After all of the twists and turns in his life—from unexpected sexual advances (though secretly and avidly desired) at his church and during his brief stint in the military, to his brief marriage to the woman who bore his two beloved children, and finally, after reconciling his gayness and finding his life partner, the love of his life—Anson indeed comes “full circle,” by way of forgiveness, and enthusiastically recommends that others examine their own lives and find the answers that are found nowhere else but within.
Aaron Coleman, a Houston native, is a musician, writer, and producer.
Mind Your Own Life: The Journey Back to Love
by Aaron Anson
Balboa Press (balboapress.com)
256 pages
hardcover $35.95
softcover $19.95
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