The post resurrection stories have always fascinated me, there’s about 5 pieces on Emmaus and the fishing story on my old blog alone, and I was about to do a full research MA on Emmaus at one time.
So, on this easter monday, I’m sitting with a coffee and reading them again.
From John 21.
The disciples, full.of uncertainty of their futures, and the relationship they have with Jesus, head out fishing.
A normal avoidant, fearful thing to do, when in trauma, stay busy, don’t let the thoughts appear, go back to something familiar….people please by doing something helpful…
They don’t catch fish…..but it wasn’t about the fish.
Until Jesus appears and tells them where.
And then they catch fish.
And they recognise him.
And they head onto the beach with their catch, excited, fearful,
Jesus had cooked fish.
And was about to cook more.
On a fire.
Now, I’m no expert in 1st Century beach barbeques, or cooking utensils, but I’m going to hazard a guess that it wasn’t a gas stove with utensils….
Maybe sticks hanging fish over the fire….or a primative pan…
But it just struck me…
The disciples could see that Jesus had cooked fish, with his bare wounded hands…..
And in doing so…I wonder….
Might there be a something in the how and what he cooked?
Would they have some idea of his ‘mood’ towards them by the way he was cooking the fish….
Anxious, angry hands struggle with delicate cooking
Anxious angry minds can’t process many things at once
And fish needed delicately cooking over a fire…with all that heat
Maybe the disciples could see in the way that Jesus cooked the fish, how he was cooking, and sense how they were about to be treated emotionally.
If Jesus wounded hands were calm, and gentle with delicate fish, even if their palms were sore with wounds….might this have given the disciples reassurance of their woundedness.and fear being gently handled too?
Was this what the disciples noticed?
I wonder…
They were used to Jesus serving them, he washed their feet, this was a breakfast on the beach with layers on.
Maybe their was something in the way Jesus cooked, not just where, when and what he cooked.
Wounded hearts require delicate gentle warmth.
It wasn’t about the fish, or fishing, it was something else, yes it was something that resonated with them, fish was part of their routine and past, yet…maybe it was in the way in which it was being prepared, and cooked….that wounded hands cooked gentle and with love, the disciples felt safe, felt cared for, despite all the uncertainty around them.
Because, not for the first time in my last few years, it has been something that my partner at the time identified that I might have, or be in the midst of navigating the symptoms of.
Currently this has been because I have had some very close encounters with my abusive childhood in the last month, and needed to ‘re group’ in the way I have needed to – to feel safe, EMDR, journalling, sensing emotions/thoughts and loving them, and myself.
I guess I had been reluctant to self identify with ‘having’ c-ptsd before. WHY JAMES?
Maybe because i just existed and what I had to deal with was ‘normalised’ .
Maybe because I had to hide all experiences, and feelings, and knew that was my only choice to stay safe
Maybe because I didnt feel the need to categorise what I suffer from in such a way…. yet, given that my childhood was about survival, and counting down the days until my 18th Birthday (and leaving home when I was 18 1/2 and never going back) and survival in a marriage of limited emotional health (I’ll be kind) or support, and no supportive parents to go to… trapped, wasnt the word …….. but it was what I was used to.
The story of my childhood and surviving it, amid psychopathic parents is here
I took on their weight of expectations, shame, guilt, I hid my emotions, self soothed, self harmed in a variety of less seen ways, and then to add this, adapted this into a religious belief that also created self-loathing, shame and high expectations.
That was what happened to me….. that I took on as being my fault, and my responsibility to fix.
But…. none of these things are in my life right now.
Even if they have got a bit close in the last few months, for reasons I cannot go into here.
Even with safety, even with the tools, even with the measure of control I have.
Doesn’t mean to say it hasn’t affected. Doesn’t mean to say it hasnt required work.
Thats the thing…..
The Trauma has gone.
But it doesn’t quite shift.
‘I feel like I am an escaped prisoner’
William Cartier Bresson
And it’s not the ‘wanting to go back’ – it’s that the magnet of its emotional pull fights to go back, fights to cause sinkage, stuckness and have the voices of despair, doubt, pain. Past takes over when present and future had been almost blissfully enjoying themselves for a rarity.
I didnt want to say ‘I have c-ptsd’ because well what difference would it make?
and it would mean causing a fuss or a statement or recognition of this, as a thing. See how thats a symptom in itself.
But I do.
And the thing is, with what happened to me, and when, it has required a lengthy painful inner ‘journey’ to feel safe within, to feel safe without, to be able to feel emotions, and for my trauma brain to trust, its what Ive been doing and what I continue to do.
C-ptsd was my normal – it was a survival strategy.
And I lived in day to day trauma for over 40 years.
Yet. I wonder.
I wonder whether what happened to me, is not just for me any more.
What if it was something that might be a superpower to bring light and life to others? Not just a survivors gift….but a statement of what it is to be, to be fully human, and shine light
What if the very thing that I had to be, to survive, is actually a strength and a superpower?
What might my story or my sense of being from the post-traumatic growth I’ve encountered in the last 18 months – from a life of abuse survival – might bring to others?
As I shine light on what I did to survive, as I bring light into the wounds, as I notice and love myself to my fullest, i just carry on doing this, and being able to live, grateful, honoured and joyful in the open possibility of a future.
I don’t need to label myself.
I am not a label or a diagnosis
I just need to love myself.
I am me
I just keep being in love with me
one step and day at a time.
Mending the love pathways inside, where there was only fracture.
Maybe wounds are where the light wrestles its way in.
And those wounds keep opening every now and then, to reset and remind me, that I am someone now, I am love now, a trigger as a reminder that I can love myself….and a wounded part of me requires time, care and attention.
One of the concepts I really like that I have used in some of my community work practices, is that of ABC, and it’s taken from Deci and Ryan’s stuff on self -determined growth. I first found it in Jocelyn Bryans book ‘Human Being’ :Insights from Psychology on the Christian Faith.
A link to Deci and Ryans stuff is here. Basically how I have tended to share this has been about how young people, more pertinently, how three key factors are required to enable us to be able to ‘grow’
They are A – Autonomy – the capacity to make decisions about the things that are important to us
B- Belonging – it’s all about relationship…. but felt safety, felt sense of ‘home’ , being valued, being seen…
C – Competence – Having the opportunity to do things, take risks, have positive feedback, ‘go beyond’
Thats it in brief. So, when I share this stuff i normally do so on the basis of the ‘external’ places where these things happen…. or dont… and so when young people (or anyone) feels that they dont have these things, or maybe only 1 – then its unlikely that they will be able to flourish/grow in balance.
A place where there is felt safety – but no challenge o autonomy might get boring or belittling…
A place where there is challenge- but no relationship or autonomy might be task heavy, uncaring and disempowered…
How might all be present, to the extent that a person requires in in a setting, and then, what’s required in a place like a workplace to keep someone in a role, when these things aren’t there. Higher pay? Better conditions? enforced compliance?
Not every situation is going have ‘all three’ in balance, and maybe thats an impossibility given our individuality, however, in situations where 1, 2 or 3 of these is seriously lacking… and maybe there’s a thing too that some places offer one of these, because of the damage of somewhere else, and people embody these as much as places create them too.
Yet, I was pondering all this over the last few weeks, given that I used this ‘model’ in a conference recently.
And I was wondering, how might this all be applied on the inside.
What if instead, the ‘place’ of growth wasnt the external place of the school, youth group, workplace etc… what might it be if the place was the ‘community’ on the inside?
The heart, soul and mind in community – linked with thoughts, memory and experience?
So often I have realised that what I tried to create for others…..I needed myself….
On the inside….
What might felt belonging and safety feel like – inside? – a place on where emotions are free to come out and play…. all of them , a place where inside there is a sense of calm, and not urgency, fear or danger…. a place where the talk inside is caring, soft and loving? A place inside of connection and harmony. The inside can rarely feel safe, more a barren landscape that can be thought of in fear…..
True belonging……. on the inside…..
Autonomy – on the inside… the ability to make decisions about thoughts and emotions, distinct from the thoughts and emotions, having a sense of control rather than bewilderment, overwhelm and where there’s is choice. Choice to act in a way that is conscious. Inner choices to make assessments of emotions, and thoughts.
And what about Competence. Inner competence. To feel internally proud of achieving and making hard changes, in behaviour, whether this is addiction, dependence, whether this about self protection, or whether this is the day by day, step by step of seeing, feeling and becoming more awake. Brave steps to face stuff on the inside and work through them, rising to that challenge, often reluctantly or belligerently. Often starting with the externals, the relationship, then working on the internals, the default protective patterns, that are self prisoning. Competence on the inside as a process of ongoing healing from trauma and growth amidst it…and beyond.
All of these are required for growth. All of these are required in the process of inner deep healing.
I was reminded also of these yesterday as I watched Brene Browns TED talk again of 15 or so years ago, and the path of vulnerability.
Im just pondering really, giving these some thought space… what might be required psychologically on the inside for healthy post traumatic growth?
Maybe these are markers that inner growth is happening?
Ive been on what I call ‘Project James’ for over 6 years now, and in that time to heal from 40 years of manipulative abuse since childhood, including recovering from unemployment and homelessness.
Internally, breaking down behind the ‘I’m doing ok’ facade, pretend strength but hollow and hurting inside, that had been my survival strategy since childhood, one that I thought was normal, a lifetime of running, avoiding or soothing, in a variety of destructive ways, oh and hoping that Jesus would deal with it, fix it and that ‘church’ would be my saviour.
And thats just a summary.
In summary, then, the last six years has included
4 different bouts of therapy, including trauma therapy
Pages of journalling, raging and writing
Reading an extensive amount of self help books that encompassed:
Undertstanding narcissim, psychopathy and emotionally immature parents
Codependency
Self Understanding on Enneagram
Self compassion
Inner child work
Trauma – including Edith Eger, Victor Frankl, The Body keeps the score etc…
Spirituality, including Eckhart Tolle, John O Donohue and others.
Personal freedom, such as The four/five agreements, and The Untethered Soul
It’s been a lot. A lot to try and understand myself, alot to be able to become more and more safe for me on the inside to be able to feel emotions, to be able to regulate and to face the pains and damage from my abusers, and also how I internalised and survived it all, and at the same time, work, earn, live and exist.
Yet, when I think about it, it’s been a long journey, to make a small distance considerably more healthy and whole.
It has been a long journey, in thinking, feeling and experiencing.
To build connections where there once was fracture.
To heal the holes, brokenness and wounded-ness between my head, my heart, and my soul.
The distance from I to myself.
An extensive work to heal a small amount of space.
A journey I was putting off taking for far too long
A journey I invalidated and avoided
My thoughts that I believed, told me that I was too broken, too beaten, too frightened, to guilty, to shameful, too small, too weak, to make, and the journey
Too big, too exposing, too tiring, too massive, too encompassing, too hard, too challenging and was also too invalidated by those around me, or my own beliefs ( I needed more of Jesus, and not anything of myself….)
And a journey that didnt promise any outcome.
Didnt shout its reward.
Didnt have a map, or compass
Or sometimes any directions
It just needed to start.
And it started from being broken, started from the place of nothing.
‘For when she had nothing to lose, then she was free’ (Paulo Coelho)
It started as I changed, slowly, trusting in a moment of vulnerability,
‘I have no home, will you look after me’
When for so long I couldnt articulate weakness, vulnerability or be anything other than ‘the strong one for others’ …
The longest journey of the smallest distance started with being broken.
Started as my mind had run out of resources.
Coping wasnt living, especially wasnt coping in survival mode.
The packaging of life hadn’t fulfilled its ‘James hoped for’ expectations.
Because the landscape on the inside was a barren mine- filled land of fear, terror, a landscape I was afraid of, that was dominating every action, every moment.
What I was afraid of held power over me.
I couldnt go there.
And yet…. as soon as I started the walk….. the universe provided…. angels in the form of spare bedrooms, kind words, walks, safety… beyond anything… safety.
And slowly, slowly I began to tentatively see, feel, walk in the landscape.
It was and is the journey of a lifetime, for it has been a journey of life.
Maybe the longest journey is the shortest distance, and how this is navigated shapes so much of our lives.
There are times of deep searching, deep disconnection, emotions and fear, yet I have been open to the possibility of healing and growth within it all, for nearly all of the time, yes some resistance… but old habits change hard….
It was only the gap of the thoughts,
It was only the gap between heart and soul,
No distance at all…..
Yet an ongoing journey of love, of life and gratitude
Might it invoke promise, openness, wonder, curiosity
Might it be a threshold into opportunity
Might it tantalise and tempt
Might it awaken
Might it feel too big to ask right now….
What if you could even ask a what if question…?
What if?
What if might tease at a playful side of your soul……
Untethered wonder like…..
What if the moon was actually made of cheese?
(yes there would be cracker and chutney shops on venus)
but….
What if you could be anywhere you want to be?
What if freedom was yours, what would you do with it?
What if today’s sunshine was universe love, just for you…. what would you do with it?
What if you could believe the universe was loving you , independently of the weather, independently of any-thing?
What if you gave yourself the love you give others?
What if your breakdown……was an opportunity instead?
What if your struggle……. actually was an opportunity, not that you can see it yet…..but one day…….
What if?
What if……you allowed yourself to be open to the possibilities?
What if nothing was holding you back?
What if you had limitless energy?
What’s your what if?
What if ………………………………………….?
What if you lived aligned with your what ifs? The curious dreaming, the awakened heart, the possibilities
In a world often ready to shrink the space of dreaming and construct the box in which your possibilities and growth can only be…… what if it was time to live beyond….. where the spark of your soul imagination might want to take you….
What if there was no box? What if the question reveals the borderlines and barriers?
But what if there were far less rules?
What if you…… were to be open to the ‘What if?’
beyond into life, beyond into the place where your soul feels free……
Im a youth and community worker by profession, and so, words like ‘community’ have been bantered around for a long time, and trying to understand what they mean, there’s often talk of online community, or groups of people with shared values, purposes, aims or actions.
It was always out there.
‘The Community’
A group of people. An estate.
Theologically, I learned about the community of the Trinity – Father, Son Spirit.. and spent far too long wondering if it was hierarchical or social, upwards or flat.
Yet.
The one community I was negating the treasure of, was the community inside.
For inside, there is a restless community of treasure awaiting your finding, awaiting a safe time to make itself known, awaiting space to show itself in its energy, colour and brilliance.
Neglected inner energy, thats been held back for so long, energy that comes from the heart, the soul and the mind.
The Community within, with its parts, with its roles and jobs, with its functions.
An inner community that awakens to the wonders, and curiosity of the childlikeness, seeks peace and stillness
An inner community that seeks love, harmony and joy, and radiates them all too.
An inner community that lets us know when its out of sync or out of kilter, when it’s fractured and disconnected, when it is not ok, and you’re not.
An inner community whose communication to you is always love, always care, always for you – even to protect when it doesn’t need to, its still protecting.
So, pause for a moment, and turn your gaze, your breath and your mind inwards and say hello to that inner community, the inner life, your inner reality.
James Ballantyne 