What happens when we avoid feeling our emotions? In this episode, we explore the importance of emotional awareness: tuning in instead of checking out. We share what happens when we suppress our feelings, and how to navigate the tough ones with compassion and care.

We also explore:

• The link between emotional avoidance and things like addiction, depression, and burnout
• What blocks us from feeling our emotions
• Practical ways to process emotions that feel overwhelming or uncomfortable
• The power of self-compassion in emotional healing
• Why learning to feel your emotions leads to more empathy, connection, and confidence

Whether you’re someone who bottles it all up or someone who feels everything all at once, this conversation will give you insight and tools to better understand yourself and others.

Today's Hosts:

• Michael DiIorio
• Matt Landsiedel
• Reno Johnston

Support the Show - viewer and listener support helps us to continue making episodes

- CONNECT WITH US -

• Watch podcast episodes on YouTube
• Join the Gay Men's Brotherhood Facebook community
• Get on our email list to get access to our monthly Zoom calls
• Follow us on Instagram | TikTok
• Learn more about our community at GayMenGoingDeeper.com

- LEARN WITH US -

• Building Better Relationships online course: Learn how to nurture more meaningful and authentic connections with yourself and others.
• Healing Your Shame online course: Begin the journey toward greater confidence and self-worth by learning how to recognize and deal with toxic shame.
• Gay Men Going Deeper Coaching Collection: Lifetime access to BOTH courses + 45 coaching videos and 2 workshop series.
• Take the Attachment Style Quiz to determine your attachment style and get a free report.

It’s Pride Month, and with everything going on in the world right now, it feels especially important to pause and reflect.

In this special panel discussion episode, Reno Johnston is joined by three incredible guests—Mark Fleming, Keone Wales, and Jordan Layne—for a candid panel discussion on the meaning of Pride: where it began, how it’s evolved, and what it means to each of us today. Together, they explore questions like:

• What does Pride mean to you?
• What was your first Pride experience?
• How has Pride changed since then?
• What would you like Pride to become?

This conversation isn’t a history lesson or a debate. It's an open, honest sharing of lived experience. Whether you’re a seasoned activist or celebrating your first Pride, we invite you to reflect alongside us and consider what Pride means to you, not just this month, but all year round.

Today's Guests:

Mark Fleming

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Keone Wales

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Jordan Layne

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Today's Host: Reno Johnston

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- CONNECT WITH US -

• Watch podcast episodes on YouTube
• Join the Gay Men's Brotherhood Facebook community
• Get on our email list to get access to our monthly Zoom calls
• Follow us on Instagram | TikTok
• Learn more about our community at GayMenGoingDeeper.com

- LEARN WITH US -

• Building Better Relationships online course: Learn how to nurture more meaningful and authentic connections with yourself and others.
• Healing Your Shame online course: Begin the journey toward greater confidence and self-worth by learning how to recognize and deal with toxic shame.
• Gay Men Going Deeper Coaching Collection: Lifetime access to BOTH courses + 45 coaching videos and 2 workshop series.
• Take the Attachment Style Quiz to determine your attachment style and get a free report.

In 2025, LGBTQ rights are facing renewed challenges- from the rise of far-right populism to legislative rollbacks and the rise of hate sweeping across the globe. But how serious is the threat? And if the fight is back on… are we ready?

This week, Michael is joined by author and longtime activist, Tim McCaskell, who’s been on the front lines of LGBTQ+ resistance for over five decades. From the bathhouse raids to the fight for AIDS treatment and beyond, Tim brings deep historical context and lived experience to the conversation.

Together, they explore what activism looks like in 2025, whether we’ve grown too comfortable, how activism has changed over the decades, and most importantly, what we need to do to show up and fight for our future.

Today's Guest: Tim McCaskell

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Today's Host: Michael DiIorio

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Support the Show - viewer and listener support helps us to continue making episodes

- CONNECT WITH US -

• Watch podcast episodes on YouTube
• Join the Gay Men's Brotherhood Facebook community
• Get on our email list to get access to our monthly Zoom calls
• Follow us on Instagram | TikTok
• Learn more about our community at GayMenGoingDeeper.com

- LEARN WITH US -

• Building Better Relationships online course: Learn how to nurture more meaningful and authentic connections with yourself and others.
• Healing Your Shame online course: Begin the journey toward greater confidence and self-worth by learning how to recognize and deal with toxic shame.
• Gay Men Going Deeper Coaching Collection: Lifetime access to BOTH courses + 45 coaching videos and 2 workshop series.
• Take the Attachment Style Quiz to determine your attachment style and get a free report.

In today’s episode, we’re diving into a question many in our community have been quietly (or loudly) asking: Has Pride lost its meaning?

In this wide-ranging conversation, we reflect on how Pride has evolved from its radical roots in activism to its present-day celebratory scene shaped by media, politics, and corporate sponsorships. We talk about what’s been gained, what’s been lost, and what still needs to be reclaimed.

Some topics we explore:

• The impact of corporatization and rainbow capitalism
• How we’d reimagine Pride moving forward
• The meaning Pride has for us personally
• The importance of making Pride more inclusive for those still on the margins
• The role media plays in shaping what Pride looks and feels like
• How far our rights have come… and how fragile they still are

Whether you love Pride, feel disconnected from it, or land somewhere in between, this episode is an invitation to reflect, reimagine, and reconnect with what Pride means to you in 2025.

Today's Hosts:

• Michael DiIorio
• Matt Landsiedel
• Reno Johnston

Support the Show - viewer and listener support helps us to continue making episodes

- CONNECT WITH US -

• Watch podcast episodes on YouTube
• Join the Gay Men's Brotherhood Facebook community
• Get on our email list to get access to our monthly Zoom calls
• Follow us on Instagram | TikTok
• Learn more about our community at GayMenGoingDeeper.com

- LEARN WITH US -

• Building Better Relationships online course: Learn how to nurture more meaningful and authentic connections with yourself and others.
• Healing Your Shame online course: Begin the journey toward greater confidence and self-worth by learning how to recognize and deal with toxic shame.
• Gay Men Going Deeper Coaching Collection: Lifetime access to BOTH courses + 45 coaching videos and 2 workshop series.
• Take the Attachment Style Quiz to determine your attachment style and get a free report.

For many gay men, friendship is complicated, performative, and sometimes downright painful. We crave genuine connection but end up navigating cliques, comparison, and quiet loneliness.

In this episode, Michael and Pepper are doing an exposé on gay friendships to unpack what’s really going on beneath the surface and why so many gay friendships fall short of the depth and safety we actually want.

We’re breaking it down in three parts:

• The Pretty Lies: Performative friendship, superficiality, and toxic group dynamics
• The Ugly Truth: How shame, fear, and survival strategies get in the way of true friendship
• True Friendship: What fun, nourishing gay friendship looks like and how we can build it

This episode is your invitation to shift from followers to friendship, and from competition to collaboration—and start building real connection.

Related Episodes:

• Making Friends (Introvert Edition)
• How to Make Friends with Gay Men

Today's Guest: Pepper Rojas

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Today's Host: Michael DiIorio

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Support the Show - viewer and listener support helps us to continue making episodes

- CONNECT WITH US -

• Watch podcast episodes on YouTube
• Join the Gay Men's Brotherhood Facebook community
• Get on our email list to get access to our monthly Zoom calls
• Follow us on Instagram | TikTok
• Learn more about our community at GayMenGoingDeeper.com

- LEARN WITH US -

• Building Better Relationships online course: Learn how to nurture more meaningful and authentic connections with yourself and others.
• Healing Your Shame online course: Begin the journey toward greater confidence and self-worth by learning how to recognize and deal with toxic shame.
• Gay Men Going Deeper Coaching Collection: Lifetime access to BOTH courses + 45 coaching videos and 2 workshop series.
• Take the Attachment Style Quiz to determine your attachment style and get a free report.

How do the unmet needs of our childhood shape who we are today? And more importantly, how do we learn to meet those needs for ourselves as adults?

In this deeply personal and eye-opening episode of Gay Men Going Deeper, we explore the re-parenting process—a therapeutic model that helps us heal old wounds, develop self-compassion, and rewrite the internal narratives we inherited from childhood.

We’ll be getting personal as we reflect on on three powerful questions:

1️⃣ What needs went unmet for you as a child? 2️⃣ How did you cope with these unmet needs? 3️⃣ How have you learned to meet these needs for yourself as an adult?

From loneliness and perfectionism to people-pleasing and self-expression, we dive into the real-life stories and coping strategies that shaped our past and the lessons we’ve learned to become the men we are today.

Tune in for an honest, vulnerable, and inspiring discussion on how we can become the loving, supportive parents we always needed—for ourselves.

Related Link: Inner Child Work

Today's Hosts:

• Michael DiIorio
• Matt Landsiedel
• Reno Johnston

Support the Show - viewer and listener support helps us to continue making episodes

- CONNECT WITH US -

• Watch podcast episodes on YouTube
• Join the Gay Men's Brotherhood Facebook community
• Get on our email list to get access to our monthly Zoom calls
• Follow us on Instagram | TikTok
• Learn more about our community at GayMenGoingDeeper.com

- LEARN WITH US -

• Building Better Relationships online course: Learn how to nurture more meaningful and authentic connections with yourself and others.
• Healing Your Shame online course: Begin the journey toward greater confidence and self-worth by learning how to recognize and deal with toxic shame.
• Gay Men Going Deeper Coaching Collection: Lifetime access to BOTH courses + 45 coaching videos and 2 workshop series.
• Take the Attachment Style Quiz to determine your attachment style and get a free report.