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.
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.
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….
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)
As I walked home from town the other day, I noticed the sad sight of this butterfly on the pavement in front of me.
Nearly dead.
Prematurely dead on concrete that wasn’t its destiny.
I walked past at first, my heart somehow ached for it.
And then I went back, slowly, no one was around and so….gently, lifted it up, its wings so so delicate in my open palm, and still reflexing, or having its last few beats. I so so gently placed it over a wall and into a garden, so that at least it could spend its last few hours on soil and not pavement. Slightly closer to where it was meant to be.
A colourful butterfly dying a premature death, probably hit by a car and then concrete.
A soul less death after spending so long in its life to be, finally who it was meant to be, the end of the cycle. (possibly unless it laid eggs)
It at least had a slightly softer death rather than a sudden one.
And I said goodbye to it, and walked on, for at least in that moment, it had been cared for.
And I heard a voice saying to me, as I walked away from it.
You did not go through being small.
You did not go through being silenced.
You did not go through scraping around on the floor.
You did not go through being afraid.
You did not go through eating fifty times your body weight.
And then…
You did not then die a thousand deaths
or
sink into a darkness
or surrender to change
nor melt into a secret sacred home
nor hide away nor stay
to then emerge
and fly…..briefly….only
to live a curtailed life.
You did not change to live a soul less concrete life
You did not die, only to die again and again
The cocoon doesn’t have a return door.
You can’t go back.
The universe is waiting for your flight,
The universe is waiting for your colour,
The universe is waiting to look up and watch and wait for you to dance upon the wind, and be interrupted by your joyful wonder.
You were chosen for this life,
You were chosen for this life to be life,
You were chosen to be light and in the light,
You were chosen for colour and to be colour,
You were chosen from the beginnings of silence,
From before colour and before time.
To radiate eternity, poured out from hearts sacred colours.
One of the reasons we men dont want to deal with our shit is because we dont believe we have the capacity to love ourselves.
In many scenarios, whether from driven, neglectful, absent or collusive, abusive parents, Love was absent, and instead rules and expectations.
In School, that wasnt the place either.
And then there was the competitiveness of existing, having to win at football, chess or reading, having to be the best, having to compete and complete…
Having to grow up, having to stay strong, having to not be weak
And all the while, that little voice inside, seemed to grow smaller and smaller, the trappings of externals whilst dying inside.
Unless hidden even behind labels in sacred stories. Believe in God (who is Love btw) or Jesus, or Mohammad, or whoever, and have the strength and power of Love be hidden behind all of these, and even then, some of these institutions require loyalty or adherence (of rules, of routines) and preach love like its a strategy for expansion. Conditional love, and rarely love of the self, love of the body, love of the past, love of feeling, hurts or wounds. Just pray them away and come back for more, morality the enemy of growth, and maybe even the enemy of love.
Or you chose a different path, another Vocation, Military, Farming, Teaching, Medicine… All where the purity of what you wanted to be, got lost in the system of numbers, discipline and rules.
And the was presented as real. This is the real world.
Dreamers and Artists those who love. Sensitive ones weak.
Macho. Hurting. Insecure. Violence. Real Man.
Ugh.
Deny the hurt, hide it away.
Soothe the pain by satirical comedy, busyness, the rat race that continually exhausts, failure for the weak, vulnerability for the soft.
Cultural masculinity at its best. Show no pain. Keep going.
Until the cracks appear. Until desperation. because:
If theres no such thing as Love, then it doesn’t matter does it. Beat up your wife, beat up yourself, steal, take and destroy, because Love is absent, Love isnt real, Love is just once a year, and your loveless head, can’t cope with not being in charge. Its running a show thats destroying you, but because you dont believe in Love, you can’t believe that you have to capacity to love, then you dont face it, you can’t, its too fucking big and painful and you think that it looks weak, or a failure, or your mates will think you weird, or you dont have time, or you dont have….
Deep down its fear.
Fear…that Love might actually be what’s required….
Deep down it’s too much.
You’d rather believe in power than believe in yourself.
Deep down you have a heart, but its hidden under layers
Deep down you have shared that heart to help others even whilst wounded yourself….
Help….not heal….
Its deep, because its underneath so many layers and blockages that youve put in there, pain soothers, pain avoiders, and these have caused further shame, guilt and pain – addiction, violence, manipulation – all outward projections of deeper hurt, masking anxiety, depression, abuse, the weight of expectation, perfection and trying to please, or make someone proud who is never satisfied – name your pain and add it here. ____________-
All that stuff feels heavy and feels impossible to love. Shame monsters feel big. We know we’ve done wrong to others, to ourselves…to keep what’s hidden underneath at bay.
Can I tell you a secret.
You have the capacity to love yourself, if you are alive, you have a heart.
You have the capacity to be vulnerable, to ask for help, to begin a different path
To shed the masks, the fake strength, the keeping going, the weight if pain and suppression, the false appearances that are aching at your soul.
The very first time I felt a surge of self love and realised a feeling of true self worth was the day I decided to go to therapy. A tiny step of bravery and fear, a tiny tiny shard of self love, to begin the very beginning step of facing and bringing hurt and pain to light. It’s not for everyone, and I needed a safe place to start.
Most of you will have that, somewhere, and trust me on this, you might need new friends, or new people who can be your cheerleaders, or have ‘been there’ – once you begin this path, you’ll be surprised who shows up and where it takes you.
Because you can.
Healing isnt weak, it’s the bravest thing you can do.
Sometimes we’re so addicted to the cycle of pain and denial that we wear it like a cloak, preferring blame and victimhood as a norm.
Dont believe me when I say you can love yourself?
You dont have to. Thats your choice.
But stay in unbelief and stay as you are, and nothing changes.
Love is such a powerful force in the universe and stronger than you think.
It’s been there all along. Aching to be listened to….maybe it’s time to let it.
You have the capacity to love yourself, because Love is you.
It’s been you all along.
And…..it will save you in the end.
You just were told otherwise, and believed in it to conform, to hide.
Yeah, and this all has in some ways applied to me.
I wrote in the first line of my journal this morning, as if I was channelling the ghost of Simon and Garfunkel and trying desperately not to rewrite the song as the outpouring of what I was feeling. I wanted a unique feeling. Not some old crooners giving it some and im just the same as them.
Because, the darkness monster appeared to me as I lay under the duvet just seconds after I clicked the snooze button.
It hadn’t appeared for a while. Actually I thought, that it may have gone forever. But.
No.
It appeared.
Inviting me into itself as a companion of negativity.
Wanting to envelop me again.
And before you say it, today is not a ‘back to work’ monday morning.
Today is actually the first of three days off when I want to do some writing and crack on with the book im in the middle of.
For ten minutes I let it speak to me.
It wanted to remind me of my smallness
It wanted to remind me of my shame
It wanted to remind me of how I haven’t actually written ‘the book yet’ – failings..
It wanted to remind me that it would be easier to not bother and avoid the disappointment
It wanted to remind me that there were easier ways to spend my day
It wanted to tell me that it was protecting me
It wanted to still be important…
It wasnt lying to me, not quite, it was giving me an easier way out….
Appearing as a monster. And I felt small.
I shaved, showered and put on clean clothes, as a defiant act of self care, and feeling my body, and in the moments of waiting for the kettle to boil for coffee, I wrote and wrote, using black pen for the darkness and pink for me. Pink for my soft heart that wasnt angry, wasnt frustrated by the return….. but wanted to hear even more.
I asked my darkness what it wanted, and what it was scared of
I asked it for its message, and what it was alerting me to
I asked it to tell me the truth.
And I realised that the visit this morning was brought about by a number of things, that started yesterday, when I struggled to write, and gave myself into ‘just having a lazy day watching you tube and sport’ until I got to the evening, where I read a bit and chatted to my partner.
Because although I find that the mornings have been a time for me where my darkness friend arrives often, it has mostly only been in the last five or six years when I have been open, safe, and able to feel it. Before this time I had underlying depression that was just constant and masked, as I hid everything away behind a stony mask of survival. Depression was in effect a constant.
And then I watched a bit of a documentary over breakfast. And walked into town.
And as I walked I realised that maybe, maybe we still dont talk about depression anything like as much as we talk about anxiety. Or maybe we do and I just dont read, or hear about it.
And if we do talk about depression it’s rare theres a conversation about how masking it makes it worse, and how for so long it can be hidden.
Last week was international suicide prevention day, and that is one easy way out from all the pressure, or all the voices of being scared, unsafe, fear and living a life masking it all, trying to stay strong, trying to be strong for others, with often no support. This is not just a men issue, but it mostly is, and no job, vocation or career is immune from it. Depression is everywhere.
In Johan Hari’s book ‘Lost connection’ he writes about the seven things that he realised that we have lost connection with, that all increase depression. I realised I had two of them all my life without realising it. (writing about them here ‘shining a light on my depression’)
They are
Lost connection with Meaningful values – Junk food for the soul is what Hari regards the rising of the media and cheap capitalist values.
Childhood Trauma – if that pain feels too large to deal with, then it’s haunting.
Nature – too much screen time is making us sick….the trees heal, touch them.
Purposeful work – as everything is standardised, AI is a threat…
Dreams and future – survival mode is a present reality that makes the future seem impossible, time is compressed
Status and respect – Understanding who we truly are, and respect for ourselves and others…
Each other/Community – For some there is more connection and yet more isolation within technological spaces, yet depth of community and conversations can often be lost….(im writing this in a coffee shop and its lovely watching people have in-depth conversations with each other)
I summarise all of them, and writing them from memory. I could add a number of things to them, and in a way connection is another word for reverence, to have connections with these things is to pay reverence to them, to realise their importance and dig deep into the relevance and intention to work on them – all very difficult when the darkness monster wants to remind us of being small, alone and afraid. (and the anxiety friend helps out with these too…too often)
I didnt wake up this morning, or even want to spend any time writing about depression or me or trauma or recovery or healing today, in fact im almost trying not to.
Yet I have a life of survival and a life of masking depression and anxiety, and I didnt give in to the easy option of ending life when I was 9, or 34, 39 or 44, when I was close to, and just felt this was important today. To own it, write about it.
The real.
So here I am, and it’s whats burning to come out today. Writing through the feelings, writing through the process, writing vulnerability into being.
Hello darkness my old friend.
Friend. Thank you.
And then I reminded myself, that I am.
I am not the small thoughts
or the fears….and there is a gift in the voice
a seed of truth.
To remind myself.
Of my gifts, my hope
and the world opening up and waiting for me.
Yeah ive now gone full circle, from Simon and Garfunkel to The Greatest Showman.
I dont think we talk about depression enough.
I dont think its as easy as ‘just talk to someone’
It’s clinging on to something where the rock bottom hits.
Its not just a you issue, there are wider factors, there always is…
It’s a you issue for you though and you, and I are more important than to give in to it all.
Darkness is a friend. (as is anxiety)
Not monsters. Friends.
Trying to not feel them, or always feeling them…..reveals there is something wrong.
And whilst you’re alive there is a way out, change is always possible.
The battle between thoughts and feelings, good and bad voices, demons and angels was a lie, a lie to create shame and fear and dependence.
Oh and yes sometimes I would love to not feel all these things, and sometimes they feel yucky and raw and debilitating and yet, the alternative of not feeling, was not living. I cannot go back, and I dont want to. Life is journey paved with love, even if the darkness friends sometimes want to pop in and have a conversation, through tears they are met with love, and sometimes we’ll walk together. Me and my darkness and anxious friends.
Theres a funny but profoundly interesting moment in Brene Browns fairly famous ted talk (link below) ‘The Power of Vulnerability’ in which she describes how as a researcher in vulnerability and shame, she undergoes, well, resists the undergoing of the practice of vulnerability (because of….shame)
She goes on to share how she sits in front of a therapist, and is trying to work out what is or isnt happening to her.
Her therapists describes it as a ‘breakdown’ , to which Brene, probably fuelled by the Eat Pray Love stuff, says ‘ oh no, its not a breakdown, its a spiritual awakening’
and, whilst its funny, it also leads to a deeper truth.
Words in Healing matter, sometimes.
Sometimes though, they dont quite capture it.
The descriptive language of whatever the process is to whatever the new (or re-new) is, has a myriad of descriptors and metaphors. Some can be really helpful to some, some can be really unhelpful, some stick, some dont.
Most describe a journey, a movement,a change – from the ‘dark night of the soul’ to the ‘pilgrims progress’ , from caterpillar to butterfly (via the v important chrysalis) , or to the remoulding and reconnecting of Japanese china with gold welds – brokenness to wholeness in a more beautiful/useful way than before.
Theres something profound to realise that theres both something in, and also lacking in the descriptive words that include; Healing, Recovery, Breakthrough, transformation, reconnection, awakening, wholeness journey, wellbeing , growth, remaking, restoring, breakdown… (add even more)
And the ‘wellbing and self-help’ section in Waterstones bookstore has expanded threefold in the last 5 years- self help is the new sexy, and most, if not many describe very similar practices of change, just starting from different points, anxiety, depression, abuse, trauma….there is a hunger overall for the solving of the problem, and quite a few people, from celebrities to self determined spiritual gurus proclaiming answers into the void, using similar processes for slightly different problems. (and lets not talk about the ‘Let Them’ theory book…. the rebadging of ‘acceptance’ as a concept thats as old as the ancient saints)
But…. language matters and yet at the same time, language is sometimes insufficient. The pain of what we go through and its experience seems to be belittled by the work ‘breakdown’ , and spiritual awakening, whilst seems more positive does feel like ‘Eat Pray Love’ and a desire to ‘find oneself’ through doing experiences- when one wasnt entirely lost in the first place. Yet awakening can also be a good word, describing the new seeing of things, describing clarity…
For you, for me, our experience of life that require the seeing, clearing, healing, recovery and all the messy bits in between will all be different. As I read, and largely enjoyed Karen O Donnells book on Spiritual Practices for Trauma survivors this week, I was reminded that the way in which language can be helpful for someone who has had a ‘one off’ traumatic experience (and the shame/silence afterwards) – and so can consider their lives in ‘before trauma/trauma event (ie miscarriage, car accident, bereavement) /post trauma’ timeline (it will always be more complex than this, so just for brevity, forgive me) – and words like ‘remake’ and ‘post’ trauma, seem more relevant, than to someone (like me) who has had many traumas (divorce, unemployment, homelessness for example) yet underlying all of it was the trauma of a childhood of being raised by a psychopathic mother – and so, I dont have a sense of a healthy life ‘before’ trauma, when I was born into it. In effect, this is what my soul chose for me….. (and even that has taken a while to accept) – but from a timeline of before/middle/after…. it’s as if I was born in the ‘middle’ … the C of cptsd is quite critical…. but the D needs changing as rarely is the emotional or bodily reaction to a trauma a disorder….usually its very natural (just unwanted in a capatalist world thats disconnected from the sacredness of the body)
Maybe theres something in everything. If no one descriptor is perfect, then a multitude will, and surely if in a place of acceptance and seeing, language is only meant to affirm and encourage, and what’s going on for us and how we make our lives become more loving to our selves, others, the world and the divine soul of the universe and within our souls is mythical, mystical and messy, and there are sometimes no words, but all words. Maybe it’s that language is insufficient because our soul, heart and body know and that knowing is beyond language.
James Ballantyne 