The Sickness I was fed up of being in.

Therapy and Walks. 

Thats basically what I was doing for about 2 months, late 2023. 

And writing at weekends, using coloured pens and writing out the tiny starting shoots of a story, in the safe space of the bookstore coffee shop. Writing a book in a place of books and words, and in the place where most of my recent self help books had been bought from. 

I noticed that I would let the books find me. Yes I probably bought too many, but I was rarely not reading a book on the inner journey, from a psychological or spiritual perspective. I started to find books on personal development, rather than understanding the other, and then also sensing the spiritual, on the bookshelf now included The Power of Now, Four/Five Agreements, Anam Cara, but also on understanding Trauma, such as Mans search for meaning, The Body keeps the score, The Choice and What Happened to you. 

But in the moment of the deep darkness I didnt want to read much, my head was doing enough, I didnt need to know more, but all of what I had read was already inside, and my ‘self-help’ bookshelf was larger than my theology or youthwork one… 

But now wasnt the time to read more, what was happening was taking to me to a place, where the books stayed in the metaphorical rucksack, it was a walking process, an action process, it was a pilgrimage of the heart, which wasnt at a retreat centre, or foreign holiday to ‘find myself’ it existed less than 5 miles from my house.

Local river walk, bookshop and couch. 

Intentions. 

Intentions. 

I hated this word. I hated it for its over use. I hated it for its use when it wasnt meant. I hated it because, well, it often spoke of guilt or expectations – to do something well, or to even know what the motives were. I hated it….because…. I didnt exist like this. 

I was sick….

sick. 

I was angry. I was annoyed. I was wanting to make this darkness disappear. 

Like the Purpose driven life those many years before, and like the ‘need to set goals’ for personal development – my life thus far had been reactive, survival, grinding, and now I was in the thick of it every day, though it was getting lighter, as more was unravelling, and my creativity being aroused in the midst. 

Setting goals, dreams, plans….ugh no. I didnt have the inner strength alone to deal with my own self doubt, so, why would I even bother, so it was better to negate this.

I was sick. Fed up. Fed up. 

Yet. 

Something was beginning to change. 

Just as the seasons of the year were changing. 

Summer was making its way to Winter, with the golden surrender of Autumn in the middle. 

I was sick. 

And on an afternoon of 10th October 2023, I followed an intuition. (The date stamp is on the photo) 

I noticed the Acorns. 

And decided to pick up five of them. 

And take a photo of them. 

I didnt quite know what for. But there was something in me. 

Previous determination was about resilience and survival. 

I was sick. 

Sick

Sick 

Because I had had enough…

The thing I was sick of, was the photo in my hallway. 

The one that says ‘Dance in the Rain’ 

I was sick, fed up, tired I had had….

Enough of Dancing in the Rain.

And getting wet. 

Damp

Cold. 

That was hard work, draining…that wasnt light….warm…or joyful. 

I was sick of dancing in the rain. 

I wanted to dance…..in sunshine. 

This was something else. 

This was about – ‘what kind of life do I want to have – and what do I want to grow in it’? 

Where is the fucking sunshine, and can I at least have a bit of this please…. 

Yes, ive always grown – but what do I want to grow. 

Im tired of growing…. 

What would I want to ‘plant’ as a seed in the autumn, and want to harvest and nourish into the next season, and years beyond.

Did I go to the local river walk and ‘intend’ to make ‘intentions’? oh no. 

It was as if that deep voice, that inner resolve was saying something – to do something. What actually did I want my life to focus on? What did I want to be? 

And so I walked back to my flat, with these 5 acorns in my jeans pocket. 

I began to wonder. 

I was very aware not to ‘think’ too much, my thinking had been on overdrive, trauma response, fear mode for 3-4 months, and it was didnt take much for frustration to reappear.

The call to intention came from somewhere else and I had to stay there, present with the acorns. I sat on my couch, and using the back page of the note book that I had used to start my children book, drew around each one, then with a mixture of green and brown coloured pencils, coloured each in. 

October 10th 2023. 

And then in the middle of each, in pencil ( I didnt want to over commit) I wrote the following words. 

Wisdom (Solomon asked for this right?) 

Peace ( I had had enough of the drama, destruction and pain of abuse- and its tentacles) 

Love – (I wanted this, to be able to be this, for my heart to grow, to be love)

Wealth – It was going to help – right? Essential for living… but what kind of wealth? 

and in the Middle one….

Power. Power because I was sick of feeling powerless to others, and powerless to the thoughts those same others has created, but also…. to feel powerful, to not be small, 

The artwork, the writing didnt matter. The writing did matter though. 

I was staking something in myself. 

And then I wrote around it. Desires for each. Wants for each. Looking at these today over two years later, quite a profound moment, to realise how much these were aspirational then, gritted determination, and yet now, feel that life is abundant, and peaceful and that I sense power. Real, not aspirational. 

In between times, I went back to them. As a marker point, remembering, and thinking about what a deep desire in me wanted. These things. 

Not the trappings. Not the externals. But these things, and have them felt. 

No vision board, no plan, no goal setting. Just 5 acorns and an inner resolve, to begin to create a life full of these things. 

I was making intentions to myself in the secret, in the autumn amber that was heading to winter, and when I was thick in a dark cold place. 

Intentions made in Autumn light – the fading of the year. 

Autumn and letting go, surrendering, to things that made me feel small, weak, poor, cold and dark, and in their place the beginnings of focussing on what I wanted my life to be. Full of love, wisdom, inner power, wealth and peace. I was beginning to feel like I could make choices. To wrestle a sense of power back, to reclaim a sense of being, and decide what I would want in it, and what I didnt. Starting from scratch, like an acorn. Starting new. Planted in the cool autumn, buried underground through the winter and about to arrive in the warmth of spring. 

The clouds were parting…..slowly…and I was the wind machine. 

I wasnt going to have to wait that long for the next transformation. It was all happening. 

That ‘Self-love’ train, was making its way with a driver now. It was no runaway train. 

And soon I would dance in the sunshine, but I didnt know it then…..