James Ballantyne

Blog

  • Learning to love myself…

    Learning to love myself…

    Over on Substack, I have been writing a series on how I have learned to love myself over the last 6-7 years, please do subscribe to me there, as it is where I do most of my writing.

    The most recent one, part 7, I published is about how I noticed that a separation was occurring.

    And a copy of it is here:

    Im Male, 47 and learning to love myself. 

    And this didnt happen overnight. It’s still happening. 

    Sometimes it’s the little noticing things that aren’t spectacular to describe or read about, so this one doesnt arrive with fanfares, it’s something I started to notice. 

    You see, having lived around the orbits of others, trying make or feel guilty about keeping other people happy – and realising this actually wasn’t my responsibility – and the exhaustion/busyness of this….. (eek just noticing how huge this shift was – but hey, thats the healing journey isnt it, huge incidentals that just roll out) 

    Back to 2021, I was now in a space of safety, my own flat, with clean air around me, and also in a space of choice. Living on my own for the first time in my life. Not alone, I didn’t feel alone at all. 

    I could choose what I did, what I spent my money on, how I spend my time, who I spoke to, where I went, what I did – pretty much for the first time in my entire life. 

    You’d think that this was the green light to fly and to be free and go on adventures….and yes…. it did begin this way….

    However, what this also meant was that for the first time also in my life I had time to think – previously there were known default switches and no choice- but now, because I could choose, I had to make choices, and this meant that so many thoughts could invade in a way that I had put them at bay. 

    The working week was often relatively easy to navigate all of this, and many evenings I would enjoy a local walk around the marina, cook and eat and then read. But getting towards the weekend, I would begin to get paralysed by thoughts and choice. 

    Where shall I go? what will the weather be like? when are you going to cook? or shop? The ____ needs doing? Will you have time? What about x? is it even worth doing x? 

    And so on. 

    Thoughts invaded more in a place of choice, than previously, when patterns were in a survival mode, now they had time, and I had to make choices, decisions, and it was as if I was small to them. 

    There were some Saturdays when the choices were paralysing, as the voices of the questions repeated over and over again…. why? 

    Because I was used to being told off for doing the wrong thing, not being tidy/good enough….and now…. that wouldn’t be the outcome however late/messy I was, I could do what I wanted – yet sometimes I still couldnt do anything….. unless I had vacuumed first…..

    Previously I didn’t have time to ‘think’ because the routines of default expectation operated on a daily basis, and it wasnt just time, I didnt have space or even feel important enough to create that space, I just acted reactively, trying to appease or please. No time for thinking. That was before. And in a way it was less of an internal struggle because I just ‘did’ without thinking, even if I was dying a slow soul death. 

    But now. 

    In my own space, in my own time, freedom to choose….. 

    Could fairly regularly become what I termed…

    The treacle days. 

    When I could be in life, because I was too busy being subject to the storm in my head. 

    Yet my thoughts and the internal voice, critic voice, had been my protector…..it was slowly, in my new way of life, becoming a hindrance. 

    Before I learned about how to respond to these inner thoughts I would wrestle them. Or submerge to them, on a number of occasions I would end up ‘just doomscrolling twitter’ to escape other thoughts and then feel even worse, and not move from the bed. The thoughts got darker as they got noisier. I’d act out self soothing practices just to respond to the noise in my own head. I didnt know any different, I was just in it, it was new, relatively speaking. 

    And yet…..’Nothing’ was happening – the day was sunny, the sea was there to be walked along the edge of, nature called and I could walk with a camera, and I wasnt being unduly stressed by work, and set boundaries with others. 

    And then I would notice. I would realise. 

    Even 40 mins, and hour later or longer, of feel consumed, overwhelmed by noises and voices, that I realised, that I didnt have to do what, or listen to, what the noises in my head were saying. 

    On other occasions I would notice a little bit earlier, and move. 

    I’d stand up and say to myself; ‘ Right, James, lets just go, we can go and walk down the nature reserve and look at the birds, you can you know’ and it was as if I was gritting my teeth to myself, to talk back to nothing other than my own head, giving myself permission to be. 

    Even if the thought chatter still came with me on the walk – I was in somewhere, I was walking, and my eyes could focus on elsewhere, and be in something. I read a book on bird therapy, and the writer said that looking through binoculars helped him focus on one thing, and cause there to be breaks in time where the ‘many’ thoughts had to take a back seat. I understood what he meant. 

    Previously I didnt have separation from my trauma conditioning to think. Now I was beginning, slowly, to operate from the internal critic, thought voice that had a tendency to want to fill the gap of space and choice, when I didnt make a plan. I hadn’t realised how ‘indecisiveness’ was something I had grown up with, yet what it actually was was fear of making decisions and having to think through them, for feat of upsetting people, for also – when I did the right thing for me – I was criticised, punished or it unleashed the monster into decades of anger, and spouting it off everywhere. (‘Im still angry he didnt go to university’, might be on my mothers headstone) 

    So all the conditions around the choice making I had in the past was now being revealed, in a place when I didnt have to make it. I started to trust my gut. I made small gut choices, especially around clothes (colourful socks and shirts started to be bought, as they made me feel good and confident – and done largely without overthinking it) 

    But it was moments when I had space, and had choice, of time, of a day or two…. 

    ‘You are not your mind’ was the first chapter in ‘The Power of Now’ by Eckhart Tolle, that I read, very deliberately and slowly, in 2021 – I genuinely dont remember when I bought it, but the edition I have has a 2020 date stamp on it, so I am assuming 2021. Much of this book felt aspirational at the time, yet, given the many underlines and comments I made in it, tiny glimpses of it were resonating, especially around the thought patterns that were revealing themselves to me, as they had the space to. 

    I was a long way off this…. but this was hopeful… 

    The good news is that you can free yourself from your mind. (The Power of Now)

    Within a few years, I was noticing that I was able to separate from the internal chatter, and ‘I’ could take charge. Slowly. One sometimes overwhelming thought Saturday at a time. This was a slow slow process. And im note sure I could have articulated this back then, 5 or so years ago. 

    I continued also to read more about love – from bell hooks, in Paulo Coelho, and even what I had learned previously, love was an action, a verb. Learning to love myself was an act of doing, of making choices, of realising that indecisiveness or over thinking (both of which I was now revealing) were caused/created by something deeper. 

    I couldnt ‘think’ my way out of thinking, I had to take and make tiny actions – where a nurturing ‘I’ was separating from ‘thoughts in my head’ – gently, slowly, learning how to listen to them, watch them and not ‘be’ them. A combination of learning about thoughts, my patterns and conditioning, and continuing to learn about love, acts of (not thoughts of) self – love, were starting to happen. 

    It was the beginnings of a great separation. Self love was about ‘doing’, and noticing that there was an ‘I’ that was separate from my thoughts. 

    I could actually choose. But did I feel I could? 

    Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash

    If you would like to subscribe to me there, read the previous 6 parts and stay up to date with the next ones, please click this link.

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  • Sense.

    Sense.

    Listen.

    Can you?

    Hear.

    Will you?

    Feel

    Be you?

    Touch

    Near you.

    Breathe

    in you.

    Rest

    As you.

  • Finding the Presence.

    Human, Wanderer, Traveller, Friend: 

    May these words find you well,

    May you breathe them in.

    Sense them as you sit here and rest a while. 

    And find yourself indwelling presence, and may it be something like this: 

    Presence as being in self wonderlust

    Presence as resting at the pool of reflection

    Presence as raising my arms to feel alive

    Presence as the dance of the witness of the heart

    Presence as the beat of love.

    Presence as no- thing matters

    Presence as divine dwelling of the soul

    Presence as the pen drawing the lines

    Presence as productivity drowns its ugly self

    Presence as accepting, bathing in self power. 

    Presence beyond the hustle

    Presence as overwhelming self generosity

    Presence as the luxury hotel of unconditional love

    Presence as the pool of life, where thoughts wait on the edge

    photo of calm body of water surrounded by trees
    Photo by Jack B on Unsplash

    The pool of flow

    The pool of still flow

    Presence as relaxing in the still flow

    The relaxing wave of breath

    Restless wonder ceases

    Permission for divine presence everywhere to envelop you

    As you are.

    In all things,

    As all things. 

    Presence as the circle of your arms envelop the divine water

    Enter with rage

    Enter with grace

    Enter the pool with awe

    Bring it all to the pool

    Refresh your soul

    In divine, knowing presence. 

  • The Last Judgement.

    The last judgement is the day we’re no longer afraid to be alive again, it when we come back to our real state , our divine self, where we feel a communion of love with everything in existence (Don Miguel Ruiz, The Fifth Agreement)

    This is a far cry from what I grew up believing.

    Though I was spared ‘The Left Behind’ series, UK evangelicalism hadn’t fallen for this work of christian cult fiction (or taken it as the underlying influence for US christian education policy) , I still had given to me, from Sunday school and home, a deep worry of what ‘the last judgement’ could mean.

    Hades, Hell and eternal damnation, or absence from the love of God permeated in my prayers, behaviour, diligence and attempts to be good christian boy/man – with the requisite states of shame for failings and repeated eradication of sin.

    The Last judgement stood as a place of reckoning – appearing even in the Family game ‘The game of life’ . I imagined a replaying of the TV screens in a production room of all the scenes of my life, the good, the bad and the ugly, and everything else. I was going to be judged, and fearing this judgement, and the possibility of ‘going to hell’ featured heavily in my evangelical upbringing as well as further theological studies. The conversations about the end times rattled around endlessly, when a so called 1000 years might occur and how it related to the fires of Hell and end times. No one could even consider that it was more metaphorical than real. That wasnt the question, the question was which.

    The heat of hell was to be feared and avoided.

    Hell was real……and ….

    there were many sermons that would decry that ‘one of the tricks of the devil, is to say that he doesn’t exist, that hell isnt real’ – stoking the fear of disbelieving hell even more – even in slightly more compassionate theological evangelicalism in the UK, this was still a thing said.

    As a good christian boy, I believed it all. Every action was seen through a lens of being judged one day.

    So in effect I did a very good job of judging it each time myself.

    Did I hurt that person? Did I make a mistake? Could I have done better? That was embarrassing James…

    The fear of judgement, created my own personal judgement.

    Id push myself to the brink, because being self critical was a skill, and being ‘reflective’ was a thing people consider me known for. Asking questions.

    None worse than the judgement I gave myself.

    Judgement poured inwards.

    All questions, and almost no heart. Restless frustration that world should be a better place – whilst im wallowing in an ache of hurt, pain and internal suffering that im judging myself for. Spewing criticism outwards, as an outpouring of my own conditioning.

    Hell was what I was living, it wasn’t just in my own mind, it was the drama of all around.

    The last judgement. The decision time.

    Without question, part of my awakening process has been to see my faith in different ways, and though rejecting some of it, re appropriating other aspects, and so whilst I probably rejected the notion of ‘end times Hell’ a long while ago, realising that I was living in my own personal hell and taking power to change it, has taken a very long while.

    Since the moment in 2023, after an emotional breakdown, and undergoing therapy for the 4th time, I saw myself differently.

    (This is the story of that moment)

    It felt different.

    It was as if something awoke inside me

    I felt clean. I felt whole.

    I felt as if I had been swimming in shark infested water all my life, and now I was standing on an island in the sunshine that I didnt even know existed, I couldnt even see it. I felt light, joyful, whole.

    It was a feeling, a sense, a reality that has, with the exception of a few challenging situations, been a place that I have been able to stay in, to return to – because I know now that it exists.

    Some might call it awakening, or realisation of consciousness or the moment when I walked through my own personal shadows and hell, to gently loving let these parts of me go.

    The last judgement might just be the last time you make a judgement.

    I didnt believe it would continue. There was a part of me that would envisage me falling back into the waters, and theres been moments of my toes and maybe knees getting wet again. But these moments haven’t been met with self criticism, or failure, or disregard (you know that voice that wants to disregard the ‘good’ moments as blips, and suggest that ‘real’ is the struggle)

    The last judgement.

    Is a place thats possible to create- but its a place the finds you. I didnt go after it, there isnt a magic formula, it arrived when I was ready.

    Judgement is a place of safety, security and dependence, it’s also a place of fear and lack of self trust – and this stuff is hard to work through. But when it happens, you know, you just know.

    It’s like that inner spaciousness that gets bigger.

    It’s not just a crack where the light gets in- thats the start – , more an embodied lightness of being, where being is love and light – and its judgements, of self, of the other, of the past, of the future, of the world – that become the blockages in the light tube.

    Maybe they were the true ‘sins’ after all. Not the actions, but the judgements.

    But 45 years of self critical programming, I realise had to be reorientated. The language I used for myself, in how I spoke to myself – had changed in the preceding 5 years – but the voices of my inner protective dialogue hadn’t been dug out at their roots – and they were my default programming, I was unconsciously competent at beating myself up, for everything I did or didnt do. That was the voice. I didnt need God to do this for me – though deep down I believed in a God that was about to… I did it to myself.

    After the moment when my therapist heard my story of taking myself into the shadows, and telling me that ‘James, you are incredible’ and my response, instead of self denial, or reluctant acceptance, was ‘I think I believe you’

    I walked down to the bookstore and wrote the positive words of being incredible, down, and repeated and repeated. I bought a blank journal for 2024 and wrote down only positive messages of myself to myself each day, sometimes it was wrestled determination, but most days, using coloured pens, there were stars and hearts and rainbows and words of grace and love and joy and power for myself – from my imagination or the universe to myself……and a re-writing of my inner dialogue – to retrain or to give more practice – or to give more weight to my inner God, my inner heart, the voice of my soul.

    Using language to become acquainted with the beauty of love and life for myself. To create on a daily basis a space of the island within my being. Using words of love and not self judgement for myself. Writing it daily embodied my belief in it. Writing it daily fed the loving voice. And where there is love, there isnt judgement.

    I get how positive psychology is both derided and believed in – (this could come across as this). This wasn’t a path I chose, it just found me, as I realised that self belief was something that I could make for myself. But I couldnt allow myself to do so, whilst I was in place of self judgement.

    Fear of the beyond, where critical judgement wasn’t the dominant voice wasnt a known place, it was a prison of my normal…so it was easier to obey and stay at its mercy.

    Faith in yourself is the real faith. Real faith is to trust in yourself unconditionally , because you know who you really are, and you really are the truth

    (The Fifth Agreement)

    When you find the place of self truth, it will become apparent that the ways of living previously were prisons that you (and I) had made ourselves more comfortable in than we would like to believe. And one of those was the place of judgement – where someone, something, some system, some part of ourselves – is to blame or causes us to blame ourselves.

    Judgements are fractures in our wholeness, beliefs to keep us stuck in places of restraint and comfort, they feel easy – they lie easily and are believed easily – especially when we feel we need to belong in the very systems that permeate them (religion, family etc) as moral codes or stated behaviours….until we realise, or start to notice….that to buy into the judgement is to remain stuck, in someone else’s personal hell or even our own. Judgement creates it.

    Notice what happens when you stop making judgements.

    Notice what happens, when you stop yourself beating yourself up.

    Notice what happens when you feed the voice inside that is gentle warm and kind.

    Notice what happens when you completely accept yourself. Your body. Your actions. Your past. Your emotions. Your thoughts,

    Notice what happens when you let go of being judgemental

    Notice what happens when judgement feels wrong and not normal anymore.

    Notice what happens when the lie of judgement is exposed.

    The last judgement, might be the last judgement you might make – before life actually begins.

    Beyond judgement beckons, as place of deep agreement – where no-thing but love, light, life matters – it just is and it feels like heaven.

    Maybe the last judgement is the last tine you make a judgement.

  • Eyes read, what the heart bleeds.

    I got to the Coffee shop After a walk that included more work chat.

    Sitting down.

    I

    Open the blank lined page

    Green tea poured. 

    Red pen chosen.

    Ready. 

    Tired. 

    But ready, 

    The page. Blank. Inviting. Alive with possibility. Daunting with expectancy. Weary limbs picking up the pen. Mind unsure. Facing the unknowingness of what to write. This side of the release. Blank page Bleak page.

    Write,

    The place of comfort

    as the words flow from you

    to you. 

    As inside your heart breaks open its loose edges

    Awakening itself from the slumber of the tired mind. 

    Pen

    Writing

    a melody. 

    A tune echoing in the line of ink flowing onto the page

    Uneven, breaking, heart leaking its colour on the page

    Giving itself as it appears,

    To be immediately read by the eyes, 

    A message from the heart eyes.

    Eyes read, What the heart bleeds.

    Colour lines appear as meaningful imaginations of the soul

    Read back into the same mind that consumes it all with acceptance

    Rage, Wonder, Hurt, Joy

    All taken in in the moment of the hearts disposal in the pen

    Soul imagination writing its truth

    Soul imagination writing its love

    For your mind to keep reading

    Head healed by Soul

    The Delicate passage of time. Imagination working at the speed of consumption Consumption furthering the flow of imaginaion One stoke One flow One ink bleed at a time Word by word.

    Connecting the disconnect within the fracturedness 

    As mind embraces the speaking heart

    Consciousness watching the cyclical orbit around it

    Increasing as the mind and soul unite in divine imagining

    Heart creating space for the soul to expand

    One Flow Of Ink at a time.

    Soul words written by flesh hands

    Transported back into the mind

    Sealing the divine circle

    With love within

    Eyes read,

    What the heart bleeds.

    Bleed love

    Bleed kindness

    Bleed it all through the hand

    Restoring fragments buried underground

    Subconscious soul connection in the pathway of the pen

    Mind reads

    Mind hears by the heart

    A new story

    A new song

    The one it knew

    All along. 

    a person writing on a piece of paper with a pen
    Photo by Hannah Olinger on Unsplash

  • Hand in Hand, Soul by Soul

    Come take a walk with me,

    Walk through my suffering,

    Walk through my quiet silencing,

    Walk with me, and share my story

    Walk with me, so I get to talk too

    Hand in hand,

    Soul by Soul.

    Come take a walk with me

    Walk with me as I show my workings,

    Walk with me as I ask the questions

    Walk with me as I dream the dreams

    Walk with me as I lead the story

    Hand in Hand,

    Soul by Soul.

    Come walk

    Walk with me as I show you my heart

    Walk with me as I hold your hand

    Walk with me as I step one foot in front of the other

    Walking with the beat of my soul

    Hand in Hand

    Soul by Soul

    Walk with me into the lightness

    Walk with me into the darkness

    Walk with me where the voices fear to tread

    Walk with me beyond the knowing

    Hand in Hand

    Soul by Soul

    Walk with me, breath by breath

    Walk with me, beyond the rules

    Walk with me, under the trees

    Walk with me, into the moonlight

    Hand in Hand,

    Soul by Soul.

    Walk with me open handed,

    Walk with me, into the bliss,

    Walk with me,

    Take my hand.

    Love, Divine, Soul, Universe, God

    Walk with me

    Be me.

    Hand in Hand

    Step by Step

    Soul by Soul.

    James Ballantyne (2025)

  • Passing Places

    Ive just come back from a week holiday away in the gorgeously delightful tiny village of Port Appin, on the west coast of Scotland, almost equidistant between Oban and Fort William.

    I wrote lots, and read less, but didnt write anything here (or on my substack – if you’d like to subscribe to me there heres the link https://substack.com/@jamesballantyne1) , mostly wrote out alot in my journal and some ideas. But mainly I walked, along either way of the coastline.

    The first thing I noticed when driving into the village was that the road was single track, with passing places every so often. The village was only accessible by two small roads, and on the Monday I walked back along the road (no pavement, as you can see)

    Because at the end of the road was the jubilee bridge, across the estuary. A bridge, incidentally that was so narrow it fit one person at a time.

    The Passing places on the road fascinated me though.

    The bridge added to it as well.

    It meant that there was always going to be some kind of interaction between people (or people in cars) to negotiate the passing of each other.

    Speed was only rude. Barging past the other as likely to cause accidents.

    So it meant that entering the village was only an opportunity to acknowledge the other, a raised hand of ‘thank you for letting me pass’ or ‘thank you for waiting for me’ . Im not sure what happens on the bridge though, as in 4 days I didnt see how this would be negotiated as there were so few people.

    It was a gentle reminder to me of the passing places, and letting things pass, holding things lightly.

    As Micheal Singer writes in ‘The Untethered Soul’, so much of our internal suffering is due to ‘Clinging’ onto things, holding them too tightly, whether emotions, memories, responses and anxiety, or being so close to something we care about it too much. The Irish describe emotions and something has ‘come upon me’. But decisively it is not me.

    In a passing place two things meet, in the places in our lives, it might be many more, two emotions, work, people, feelings, fears, thoughts, dreams and pasts, all meeting with each other, and sometimes the path feels laden heavy, and entering a passing place can feel like leaving it heavier than prior to entering. We picked up more than we left down, more weight, more fear, more responsibility, something else clung to us. To the point of sometimes stopping moving. To weighted down by what someone else gave us in that passing place, guilt, expectation, shame – and yet they left lighter having disposed of their weightiness.

    On other occasions the passing takes place with no one else, its those moments when memories pass with emotions, when dreams pass with thoughts, when thoughts and thoughts pass by each other, and sometimes the two parts stick together rather than pass – and clog up the whole road, blockages, or theres tension between the two and peace has shifted.

    Prior to being away a number of things were in my passing place, lots of anger, stuff to do with work, and for quite a few weeks , the passing place was more clogged up, heavy, weighted, tension between so many parts that I couldnt see how beautiful the scenery was around, couldn’t be grateful, struggled to be anything like calm or separate from what I was feeling. And though much of that had begun to clear the week before, the image and reminder of the passing place on the holiday, early on was a tiny reassurance and remembering of allowing myself to be, and to let go of the things that were causing harm, for….they are and were not me, just things that hurt.

    I can, and you can, leave the passing places, you have more power than you realise. Yet in the passing places so much can demand our attention, combine, circle around each other – and for there not to be gentle movement, noticing of the speed, and grateful acknowledgement of what the moment was there to teach us, and softly, still gently we give ourselves distance from it, until the next passing place around the corner….

  • Broken Shells and Cliches.

    Broken Shells and Cliches.

    Forgive the slightly meandering nature of this piece of writing, I may be writing out loud some of my inner musings over the last few weeks and months as it feels like a long time I’ve written, maybe not for you, but for me it does, and most of that time I’ve been engaged in some deep inner work, thats given insight to some of the below, I’ve also been giving more time to being creative in other ways, including trying to get the book (s) on track. Over the last 24 hours I’ve been pondering something that I thought was worth sharing, and so….here goes…

    Do you find sometimes that theres some overused cliches in the ‘healing’ world? resurrection to life, caterpillar to butterfly, autumns letting go of leaves….and that Japanese art thingy (Kintsugi) where they put gold between cracks of the jar or pot to make it more beautiful than previously. There isnt a week that goes past that someone refers to it somewhere, and for your joy, it’s me today.

    The problem with cliches, is not them. Its us. It’s me, because I dismiss it too quickly, too soon, and not give its complexity time to dwell. Overuse breeds complacency, popularity causes it to be dismissed.

    Yesterday Japanese pot mending (Kintsugi) was brought to my attention at a time when I noticed it, it snuck up on me unannounced….a time when I was ready for it, not to be a meme, but something that yielded something of depth, and has taken me on a little reflective learning journey.

    Broken Shell

    More beautiful for having been broken.

    Yesterday, as part of my work, I was in the role of chaplain for a retreat that I had helped to organise for the worship leaders and preachers for the Methodist church in my district (Darlington , UK), the theme was pilgrimage, and it was led by John, who had travelled the Santiago de Camino around 15 years ago. It was a beautiful day, and the first time I heard personal stories of the route, bringing to life for me some of the stories I had read in Paulo Coelho’s book ‘The Pilgrimage’ that has been influential to me over the last few years.

    During the day, we learned about the scallop shell, the emblem of the pilgrammage, a shell that is attached to the bags of those along the way, and has become an emblem of pilgrimage. (we used the same shape for id badges and also gave people a shell stamp as they departed yesterday (heres mine)

    John shared how a few months after he had completed the pilgrimage, he was sharing about his experiences on the route in a local church, and was showing them the artefacts, boots, his bag and journal ..and the shell. In a turn of events, he left the shell attached to his bag, but someone dropped a chair onto his bag and as a consequence, the shell broke into two.

    He described how the broken shell now reminded him of how following the way of pilgrimage is more often about following the way of brokenness and the shell, that was naturally imperfect now gives him this reminder.

    But I went to somewhere else.

    I went to the Japanese art gold thread concept.

    The last few months ive been a simmering rage pot.

    Inner boiling water has been one open lid away from explosions. Ive felt hurt, ive felt pain, ive been digging into the source of it all (yes childhood abuse, being stolen from emotionally, being child therapist/responsible one, feeling alone/suicidal at 9) , and realising much, not all for here. 

    But rage, heat, fire

    And reflecting on the broken shell, i shared some of this with John, as the participants also reflected in their groups.n

    I shared how I noticed that if the shell was able to withstand the heat of the golden meld required, that the heat of the material softens and prepares the two parts for integration, but whilst the meld is furnace hot, the two parts can still move, they can still be split apart, they are not integrated. I noticed as I gave this concept time, that it is only when the bonding material cools, that integration occurs.

    Heat causes the possibility of integration, rage exposes the rawness of it all.

    But heat alone is not enough.

    The key materials of kintsugi are: ki urushi (pure urushiol-based lacquer), bengara urushi (iron red urushi), mugi urushi (a mixture of 50% ki urushi and 50% wheat flour), sabi urushi (a mixture of ki urushi with two kinds of clay), and a storage compartment referred to as a furo (“bath” in Japanese) where the mended pottery can rest at 90% humidity for between 2 days to 2 weeks as the urushi hardens.

    The cooling down period from that extreme heat is variable.

    The cooling down period from that extreme heat requires the right conditions – stillness, gentleness, the ‘right humidity’ (according to wiki)

    It’s only after the cooling down period that there is integration.

    In the heat, theres still damage, but heat is required.

    Taking the shell as the example, im not sure this kind of fracture could be melded using such extreme heat, and like the bones in our body, fusion is delicate, and sometimes best left to nature, until we dont have the capacity to. The broken clay pot though can withstand the heat, requires the heat.

    Coolness beyond the rage seems to be a place of integration.

    It would require careful manual handling to bring the two parts together, not forced, not so squeezed the meld disappears, not too lose as the materials then don’t bond. Our parts require gentleness, there are no bad parts (IFS).

    Perpetual rage, however, is not a place of integration. It’s a place of heat, its loose, its bitter, it keeps the fragmentation, it keeps the possibility for the wound to expose itself again (and wounds are deep, wounds hurt, wounds require rage 100%).

    There were times, in the last few months that I couldnt function due to the rage, especially in places that had harmed me. Yet similarly, that rage was fully justified (and as ive shared before, anger itself was suppressed in me, by parents and also church) So….there was a lot.

    Every now and then in the last few years, anger and rage has been a visitor to me. As I realise what happened to me, and what I didn’t have, and should have done…and how frustrating it is to have to be ‘brave’ all the time… and not be believed… It’s completely understandable.

    I may not like it when rage is a visitor, but a lifetime of avoiding it, was far far worse.

    Im getting slowly used to letting rage do its melding work. But it’s hot and uncomfortable.

    The cliche of the Japanese pot art as it revealed itself to me yesterday through a broken shell.

    I began to see something, and realise that time (2days to 2 weeks) is required, for the heat to cool, and it is only when it does does integration happen. Theres something deep in cliches if we give them time. Theres something held in our wounds if we gently let them speak, and sometimes they need to shout, rage and boil.

    Thank you for reading.

    I was going to share more, but I’ll save that for the next piece, for as ive reflected on the pots, something else has revealed itself.

  • Slow Growth

    From being chopped down,

    Suppressed.

    Real growth from raw exposure.

    Takes time.

    And vulnerably reaches earnestly for the light.

    Collecting a community of nutrients. 

    Just like nature,

    You are the universe.

  • The Lies on Trumans Wall.

    Im definitely not going to be the first person to give some thought to the themes in the film ‘The Truman Show’ which was released in 1997 (I think), in fact on of my best friends wrote her Masters thesis on it, linking it to the christian faith. 

    But I think nearly 30 years later (ouch) I can do a few spoilers. 

    Truman is born into an artificially created universe for the purposes of being filmed constantly on TV, he is the star of his own TV show, that he doesn’t know, from birth, to school, to friends, to girlfriend, all are actors in the set, and this is his life. 

    On a number of occasion people invade the set to try and ‘free’ him, and gradually, and accidentally he begins to realise that what he thought was normal, was actually scripted, and regular behaviours by actors on the set, people going to work, the street cleaner always in the same place, the lift actually not being a real lift in the lift shaft next to the one he usually used. His ‘wife’ talking to the camera to advertise a cereal product, in the midst of a conversation. Branding was everywhere because this funded the series, and it was big money. 

    It was Big brother before big brother came to being, yet big brother was voluntary act, Truman show was about the story of Truman – being the only True Man, and everything around him being fake. 

    What Truman had to start doing was realising that there were patterns to peoples behaviour. 

    What Truman had to start doing was realising that whilst no one was completely lying, they were all affected by the desire to control and contain, because, they were being paid to ‘keep the show on the road’ sponsorship, branding and advertisements were driving, and popularity moments (like first kiss and wedding) were big popular national collecting moments, in which sponsorship craved. 

    What Truman had to start to do was disrupt the patterns. 

    What Truman then started to have to do was decide when and where he was going to believe and accept the lies happening around him. His Mate on the truck on the bridge, they have a long conversation, ‘I wouldn’t lie to you’ he says. But he is. 

    Truman starts to realise that inner pull to something closer to the truth. 

    He only knows the structured world of his existence, a world in which everyone is lying to him, a world which has been cleverly constructed and formed. 

    But he starts to realise that he has been lied to for all of his life. 

    And he starts to express the emotions of this

    He begins to realise that the world in which he has been contained in – even if its being broadcast to millions, wasnt free and wasnt big enough, for though he had dreams to go to far off lands, every boat he tried to use to get through was subject to ‘fake’ storms and weather incidents…. fake weather he began to notice…. 

    His anger at being lied to began to fuel the energy for him to find freedom, and live a life of truth, beyond the falsity of containment, marketing and to also realise and find the person who once loved him. 

    For so many of us … actually 

    I am definitely in a phase of ‘middle age rage’ at the moment, and im sure I am not the only one. 

    Whether we feel small, and been kept small for too long

    Whether we realise that we’ve been lied to, or not believed

    Whether we feel like our world has been clipped and shrunk

    Whether we’ve been told were not good enough, clever enough, pretty enough, worked hard enough, in the right job etc etc…

    Or told to stay within the confines of lies to stay safe, small and loyal. 

    Whether were not able to be ‘true’ to our purpose, destiny or calling

    Whether we’re being or have been abused and contained. 

    Whether our minds have been conditioned by all of this, happening to us, in childhoods, churches, systems, workplaces, relationships, wherever. 

    And often, subconsciously we swap one place of lies for another, because its what we got used to. 

    Im realising now quite how much I experienced suppression. 

    Realising how I made myself small. 

    I realised that my mum was lying about me, and to me, and always was, but I had to go along with believing her, whilst I was in the house, until I was 18 and until I was free, so free that I was sick on the train leaving home. Free to not have to navigate suffocating and destructive lies on a daily basis. 

    With so much disorientation around him, Truman grew up in a place that the blurred lines between what was real and what was fake were difficult to notice. The people themselves were real, physically, but they were being pulled by invisible strings (often also with ear pieces in ) . Invisible strings of a controlling director and a team of producers and TV staff. When I was 18/19 and watching the movie the first time I had so little ability to see how relevant it was for me. 

    ‘The Truth will set you free…… but it will piss you off first’ (source contested)

    ‘For centuries, even millenia, humans have believed that a conflict exists in the human mind between good and evil. But this isnt true. Good and evil are just the result of the conflict. The real conflict is between truth and lies. (Ruiz, The Fifth Agreement) 

    The Lies on Trumans wall were keeping him safe.

    They were also keeping him contained.

    They were told they were for his benefit .

    What are the ones you believe in, that you can’t let go of?

    But they were for the TV viewers, for the paid actors, for the paid TV staff, for everyone else. 

    Everyone else benefitted by Trumans containment. 

    The lies on Trumans wall needed rage, needed awareness, need for him to see them, and see the effects of them on him. How nothing made sense and nothing was real. 

    Nothing emotionally was real in a world played by fakery, by sheen, and for performance. Truman was the star of a show he didnt want to be in. Yet he played it until he realised it was fake. Yet he played it until he realised it was doing him harm. 

    For I have come that you might have life, life in all its fullness (John 10:10, The Bible)

    And that might mean being a sheep free from a pen that Jesus describes, in which the thief is present, to roam and explore the hillside, knowing that theres a safe shepherd at the gate as a touchpoint back. 

    Truman didnt know what lay beyond the wall at the edge of the known world to him. He didnt know how even to get out. But something real was burning inside. 

    He didnt even know there was an out. He just kept going. With the belief that there was one day a person who showed him what love was and that she was waiting. 

    Maybe it’s beauty that does save us in the end (Dostoevsky) , but it might take a period of rage at the unreality to get there. The Lies on Trumans wall, at the edges of his universe held him in, until he realised there was something else, something deeper at the source of his soul that urged him to look, urged him to find it. 

    Freedom was beyond the lies on Trumans wall. Freedom is to live a life free from lies, from the lies we believed and and the lies we inherited. Freedom from the lies we tell ourselves. 

    And Truman after all that rage. Just walked through. Once he found the door. 

    The Universe conspires to help the dreamer (Paulo Coelho)