On Saturday February 2 “Coming Out Coach” Rick Clemons tackled important issues in the LGBT community, including his work with people struggling to uncover their sexual identity, parents coming out as gay or parents of a gay child, and spouses in mixed-oriented marriages.
The author, speaker and dating, life and sex coach shared his personal story of the painful but ultimately empowering experience of coming out and how the process led to becoming certified to help others realize their purpose and passion and feel confident with their sexual orientation.
Clemons has come out twice. His first true coming out was in the 80s when he was 19 and a college student in Tennessee. When Clemons told his parents, they didn’t take it well. At the time, AIDS was an unknown and taboo subject and Clemon’s father had just lost his brother to the disease, one of the first 1,000 people to die of AIDS in the US.
Taking a heavy-handed approach, Clemons’s parents sent him to religious therapy and begged him to get help and change his course. And he did. A few years later he met and married a beautiful woman and became the father of two daughters. Yet when he turned 38, he couldn’t continue the lie. The shame and guilt of living a dual life weighed heavily and he knew. he had to come clean with himself and those he loved most, his wife and daughters.
Once Clemons became true to himself he was better able to love others without expectation. He now incorporates his life lessons into helping others become true to themselves, and develop what he calls his “Five Truths of Creative Consciousness.” He said, “The process starts with understanding the very core of what you value – your core values. When you start to delve into these core values and own them you will start finding what you are supposed to do and who you are supposed to be.”
When asked about what it means to be a part of the GWEN community, Clemons responded “It means to be out as yourself, to be willing to do things for yourself, and to respect yourself enough to take action, no matter whatever the courageous step it is that you need to take, whether it is getting out of an abusive relationship, self-abuse or whatever it may be but being part of this community to help people see things from that space in their lives.”

Clemons is a certified professional coach trained in the Core Energy coaching modality by the Institute of Professional Excellence in Coaching, an International Coaching Federation accredited school. He has also trained to become a master practitioner of the Energy Index Assessment, which he calls the True U Assessment that identifies the energetic truths that hold people hostage from living freely in their own skin and in their own way with utmost confidence.
To learn more about what Clemons calls his “Five Truths of Creating Creative Consciousness” listen to the seminar.

Listen to Rick Clemons on GWEN Talks Click Here