About Chris Hyde
For many years I lived a life of quiet desperation, trying to live up to the expectations of others and overcome my own feelings of inadequacy. Being raised in a narcissistic home left me searching for love and meaning. It also led me to wear a mask and not fully embrace my true self. I knew I was gay from a young age but felt I had to be someone different in order to make everyone happy. So my search for meaning and healing led me to conservative Christian churches and ultimately to a vocation in ministry. I spent 21 years as a pastor.
While studying to be a pastor, I had to deal with the nagging issue of my sexuality. You see, conservative religion made no space for me to be who I really was: a gay man. The messages I heard from the pulpits of America told me that I had to be something I wasn't in order to make God happy. So I turned to Exodus International, the now-defunct organization that specialized in "conversion therapy" which supposedly helped people to "overcome" being gay. I spent two years in conversion therapy trying to "pray the gay away." Through the therapy, I was convinced that I was on the road to overcoming being gay and I even took the ultimate step of marrying a woman. That marriage, another place where I couldn't be myself, would last 19 years and produce three children.
So after many years of being living inauthentically and feeling powerless and miserable, I went back to counseling and worked on the issues of shame, poor self-esteem, and self-sabotage, that had taken root in my life due to the narcissism that seemed to envelop all of my life. I ended up resigning from my church, coming out of the closet and going through a divorce. That began a journey of accepting and transcending my past, embracing the present, learning to love myself, and setting a course for my future. Today I am happily married to my husband and living a life of authenticity and freedom in Portland, Oregon.
I have over twenty years' experience providing coaching to individuals who have sought to progress and better their lives. I am a Certified Life Coach through the Fowler International Academy of Professional Coaching and an Achology certified NLP Practitioner.