James Ballantyne

Category: Journey

  • My 5 top self learning books of 2022

    Ah yes, you say not another end of the year review blogs, segments or pieces. I’ve wondered for a while what I might write that’s appropriate for the ‘end of 2022’ as a review piece.

    I think I’ve read over 30 books this year, nearly all with some kind of self-help / journey / learning theme , and beyond what there’s been everything else that I’ve read I’ve felt and learned in the year, so maybe this is a bit of a reflective combination piece, some of the best books and most important learning from the year, for me.

    So, starting with the best books, I’m.not sure how I’ve narrowed these down to 5, but these are the ones that gave me the most wow moments, the most underlined with pencil marks or post it’s, or that stayed on my coffee table to read and read throught the year

    1. The Choice, Edith Eger

    2. A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle

    3. Dibs in search of self by Virginia Axline

    4. Heartwork a book of Self compassion by Radule Weininger

    5. The space between us, A book of blessings by John O Donohue

    I look at the choice of these 5 books, and realise that they encapsulated many of the paths my self learning has taken this year, there have been moments where I felt I needed to come close to understanding my childhood trauma and it’s effects, and understand trauma generally. Dibs is a brilliant book. It helped me see myself and also the children and young people around. The

    I knew The Choice would be one of my top books of the year, even as it was one of the first I read in 2022, so much wisdom and story included in it, so much to learn on recovery from Trauma and the rebuild. The Choice is so good that I struggled to find anything new in Man’s Search for meaning (Victor Frankl) which I also read this year., Meaningful though it was.

    It’s definitely been the case that over the last 18 months or so I have read more in relation to spirituality and personal growth. The Power of Now was a game changer for me when I read it about 18 months ago, A New Earth has stayed on my coffee table and been picked up regularly for most of the year.

    Part of that Spiritual growth has taken me to Self compassion. It’s been the learning theme I have ended the year beginning. It’s a path that has revealed much to me so far, as I’ve stepped to one side of being self critical, self loathing, guilt and responsibility, it’s introduced me and reminded me that I can receive, I am worthy, I am of value, as are my emotions and feelings. And though I know all this, I’m realising there’s a difference between knowing it and living as if I believe it to be true. Heart work, the book, was like being sat with a duvet by the fire, it felt a safe book to read and then gently sense the parts of me that were being revealed through the stories, as well as sit with the exercises that she suggests. And this is before I give myself time to do the journal that she suggests to do.

    John O Donohue appeared like a mystery from a charity book shop in November, and given me an opportunity to practice self compassion through creating the space to read and meditate on the blessings.

    There are some other honourable mentions, Matt Haig’s midnight library and How to stop time were both very good, and I loved Ruth Ozekis ‘The book of form and emptiness’ . I’m re reading The Universal Christ (Richard Rohr) for the second time to Christelle as I think there’s alot in it to enjoy. (Reading aloud does enable a new perspective) The Seat of the Soul, and Spiritual Partnership by Gary Zukav were both good too. Links to all these and others are in the resources page above.

    So there we have it, my top 5 self learning books of the year, these were the ones that caused my heart to feel opened, to be a spiritual experience in just reading them and provoke and accompany me on this life journey.

    May you, may I have a blessed, learning and compassionate 2023.

  • Discovery of the Unknown

    Sitting in the Airport Gate

    Waiting

    Expectant

    Documentation Checked

    A gap between countries

    A gap in time

    A gap

    Announcements pending

    Time to move

    But in the moment, waiting, hoping, nerves and excitement. Watching the people.

    And I wonder.

    The gap in between.

    In myself.

    Noticing

    Attending.

    To the parts of me

    Only to be discovered in the gaps

    In the silences

    By the gentle listening

    By being heard, being warmly listened to

    By being safe

    The unknown self, being awakened slowly

  • Personal Thank You

    Personal Thank You

    I just wanted to say

    For the very positive responses, comments and feedback from my recent blog about ‘1000 days since leaving Church‘ which I published just over a week ago.

    I did not quite realise, though had I thought about it, I may have also realised it, quite how common my experience has been.

    Thank you for reading, sharing and commenting on it, thank you.

    Its been very apparent in the comments, both public and private to me, from youth workers, pioneer folks, leaders in churches and denominations, for how many folks, they had to leave church, to re-find God, and find a faith.

    I guess I wasn’t brave enough to do it all those years ago.

    I guess I still wanted something about what ‘organised church’ could offer, anyway..

    So, thank you.

    Thank you for reaching out, thank you for encouraging me on the same journey.

    And that’s just it, its a journey. Cliche alert.

    I haven’t ‘made it’ , neither have I the answers, and any certainty expressed sometimes comes back as vulnerability or a lesson to be learned.

    But something feels more coherent.

    I found home in myself, in a way that I was trying to find home elsewhere.

    There was a hole in my life and heart – it wasn’t God shaped, it was because of childhood abuse, because of neglect. That God was an external being to surrender to and lose myself to – despite an internal ache that never went away.

    Haemin Sunim says this:

    We must cultivate all three intelligences for our overall health

    Critical intelligence, emotional intelligence and Spiritual intelligence

    If one falls to the wayside, it slows the growth of the other two

    Haemin Sunim, Things you can only see when we slow down.

    If I were to do a 3 way audit of these three intelligences at different times in my life – what would I have found – how might this pie chart look like?

    Something like this, probably

    And that’s 5% emotional intelligence and awareness on a good day.

    In fact I was scared of those weird things like emotions, best to stay disconnected from them, dissociate, and stay in my head. That was the safe place. Critical intelligence to the absolute full. God is to be understood and not felt.

    But without all three, no growth. No heart. Or peace. Or Joy. Or love.

    What I had been looking for, was closer than I realised. Everything I needed was within, and I have just had to be given permission, and the tools to see it. I just Am. (as are you)

    I like this from John O’Donohue too, on coming home to yourself:

    May all the is unforgiven in you

    Be Released,

    May all your fears yield

    Their deepest tranquilities.

    May all that is unloved in you

    Blossom into a future

    Graced with love.

    So…..Thank you , I am very grateful and appreciative, I really am.

    James

  • For Courage

    When the light around you lessens
    And your thoughts darken until
    Your body feels fear turn
    Cold as stone inside

    When you find yourself bereft 
    Of any belief in yourself
    And all you unknowingly 
    Leaned on has fallen

    When one voice commands
    Your whole heart
    And it is raven dark

    Steady yourself and see
    That it is your own thinking
    That darkens your world, 

    Search and you will find
    A diamond-thought of light

    Know that you are not alone
    And that this darkness has purpose
    Gradually it will school your eyes
    To find the one gift your life requires
    Hidden within this night-corner

    Invoke the learning
    Of every suffering
    You have suffered

    Close your eyes
    Gather all the kindling
    About your heart
    To create one spark
    That is all you need
    To nourish the flame
    That will cleanse the dark
    Of its weight of festered fear

    A New confidence will come alive
    To urge you to higher ground 
    Where your imagination 
    Will learn to engage difficulty
    As its most rewarding activity. 

    (For Courage – John O’Donohue)

  • Paulo Coelho: The Gift that keeps on Giving.

    Sometimes life is like wearing velcro.

    At least for me it can sometimes feel like it, I dont always know what I’m going to pick up, or what is going to stick. Or the importance of some of those small insignificant moments at the time.

    Or the way in which one persons journey inspires my own.

    Its that thing, what I learned I pass on to others, but also, by sharing my story could end up being someone else survival manual.

    So this one starts with a Sword.

    Because if there wasn’t a sword, there wouldnt be a story.

    And if there wasn’t a story, many millions, including myself wouldnt have found the life sparkles, glimpses of God, love, destiny and power as described by Paulo Coelho.

    But my story of Paulo Coelho started in a headmasters office in Billingham, near Middlesbrough in April 2018.

    I was doing a piece of community work for my then employers, FYT, in which I was conducting a community profile, including a semi structured questionnaire with , I think a headteacher or deputy headteacher in their office, at around about 4pm or so, school was empty. I remember the interview going well, and the headteacher had a number of unusual inspirational quotes on their wall. Now up until then, like a good youth worker, the only Paulo’s that I knew of were Paulo Maldini (Italian footballer) and more obviously Paulo Freire. I dont remember the quote itself, but I do remember liking it, writing it down on a notepad and then having a conversation with the headteacher about Paulo Coelho, he said that he was a Brazilian writer.

    It was an unexpected seed that stuck to me like velcro. At a time when I didnt realise how soon I might start having life revealed in the ways in which Paulo Coelho talks about it.

    I can honestly say that reading to understand and reading to see life have been so part of my healing process, from within the dark times, and also since.

    But sometimes the way in which some things have found me have been as mysterious, gifts from the universe, that are so difficult to explain.

    Fast forward less than 9 months.

    I am travelling from Sunderland to South Shields, from the friends house where I am staying, to my therapists office. It must be maybe my 2nd or 3rd session. Definitely not the first one. I have little money, though I have just started a new job. But one of the things I realise that I have started to enjoy is taking myself out for coffee, with a book. Enjoying the introvert life.

    But this was slightly less relaxing as I’m in a strange place that I dont know, I’m nervous about therapy, and I have probably 30-40 mins to spare. So I park up, and walk into the town, and noted that as I drove past there was a community cafe/centre that was open.

    I go in. Its basic looking – ie its a community cafe, its not Costa or Starbucks or a trendy independent coffee shop. It sells instant coffee in a polystyrene type cup for about £1, perfect. Luxury coffee would be too much when pre therapy angst was in the air.

    They do have, however, a second hand book stall. Second, third or fourth hand, but that’s ok. Two books grabbed my attention. They shone to my attention. They were ‘The Alchemist’ , and also ‘Veronica Prepares to die’ both by Paolo Coelho. I pay only slightly more for these two books that I do the coffee. They appeared to me, at that right time. Even as I bought them I could sense some kind of universe destiny about them. As if they were a gift to me, as I started the long road of recovery , here was a gift, a guide along the way. I would have no idea about Paulo Coelho if it wasn’t for that Headmaster office in Billingham, but it was such a compelling moment that these books were calling for me at that time. And me being open to that nudge. To follow that mysterious calling…

    I dont remember what happened in that therapy session. But I do remember that I started to read the Alchemist straight away. And…

    Id like to say that I had a wonderful experience reading it, but it didnt quite resonate in the way that I half expected it too (given its very high popularity and readership), yes some nice phrases and it wasn’t that I didnt like the story, I just found it a bit to remote, too much in a world that I didnt understand yet to connect with.

    Though I loved ‘Veronica prepares to die’. Maybe because at that time I needed to read something about dignity and life, and about facing the reality death, and in this moment life.

    Paulo Coelho has accompanied me (and also Christelle) throughout both our healing journeys and our relationship together, we have read at least 8 books of his together , some I have read alone first, some we’ve read together. Some have shown us about love, about life, about power, about death, truth, victory, and also about faith, spirit and God.

    We also re read The Alchemist, and it made more sense the second time, it resonated in a different way. But then again dont many books when we read them again? When we have changed, we see things differently.

    And that’s the beauty of Paulo Coelho.

    So, along with the many ‘self help’ reflective books I have read in the last few years,. and there’s been a lot – there hasn’t been more than a few months when I haven’t read a Paulo Coelho book, or even re read one.

    Having just read ‘The Pilgrimage ‘

    I realised, that his journey, across the strange road to San Tiago, Spain, started with his search for his sword.

    And as a consequence of searching for his sword, found more besides, and as a consequence of his journey Paulo, then wrote, stating in the Authors note afterwards, how this journey inspired him to write. His self discovery started with a sword, a faith, The Tradition.

    I realise that many of the Paulo Coelho books have found me, its been rare that I have searched them deliberately. At least 5 have been ‘found’ in second hand bookstores, in places where I was only there momentarily, Dundee, Stockton, and those two in South Shields to start off with. Its like gifts from the universe. It makes me realise how much it has been a variety of books that have accompanied me along the way, and Paulo Coelho’s fiction has almost balanced my desire for understanding and knowledge, and provided a different kind of wisdom, through story, as story. Some of Paulo Coelho, is his story.

    As Coelho says, ‘The universe conspires to help the dreamer.’

    Sometimes that ‘help’ has been in the form of therapists, or self help books, friends and gifts. Other times its been the stories of Paulo Coelho that have prompted my heart, soul and spirit, they have been spiritual experiences in themselves. Ill write this elsewhere, but he is definitely an author I feel safe with.

    I used to think there was only one Paulo (Friere) that was worth reading, now id say that my life is fuller because of the universe gifts from Paulo Coelho.

    Who’d have thought this would have started from a headteachers office in Billingham?

    ” When you want something, all the universe conspires to help you achieve it”

    (Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist)

    Im trying in a way to describe something that feels very deep and meaningful, but strangely dont have the words. Maybe its because the depth of Paulo Coelho is there for those who want to read him for themselves. Ive loved being led and guided by his journeys, maybe you will do too?

  • For Freedom

    As a bird soars high

    In the free holding of the wind

    Clear of the certainty of ground

    Into the grace of emptiness

    To fulfil new voyagings,

    May your life awaken

    To the call of its freedom

    As the Ocean absolves itself

    Of the expectation of land

    Approaching only

    In the form of waves

    That fill and pleat and fall

    With such gradual elegance

    As to make of the limit

    A soronous threshold

    Whose music echoes back along

    The give and take of memory,

    Thus may your heart know the patience

    That can draw infinity from limitation.

    As the embrace of the earth

    Welcomes all we call death,

    Taking deep into itself

    The tight solitude of a seed

    Allowing it time

    To shed the grip of the former form

    And give way to a deeper generosity

    That will one day send it forth,

    A tree into springtime

    May all that holds you

    Fall from its hungry ledge

    Into the fecund surge of your heart.

    (John O Donohue)

  • 1000 Days (Since I last went to Church)

    In a week when its been revealed that 50% of the UK is no longer christian, no surprise really, tbh… but I have to ‘confess’ something:

    I dont go to church anymore.

    It just stopped.

    I just stopped going.

    About 1000 days ago. That’s over 150 potential Church going Sundays.

    Oh and by the way, its also about 1000 days since the start of the March 2020 lockdown.

    But, my last Sunday Church Sunday was over a month before.

    A month before everyone was doing it.

    I just stopped going.

    And…. I haven’t gone back.

    On one hand that no one contacted me from the church I was going to at the time, revealed to me something, but I know the world was gearing up for a major crisis at that time, and me not going to church was barely that. Im glad in a way though, as it meant I didnt have to deal with any conversation about not going.

    So here I am, 1000 ish days later.

    To say id been drifting away from church for a long time before was pretty accurate. I knew I didnt want to commit to a church, something was stopping me, and had for a while.

    Also, though I wrote this piece in 2016/7, about falling off the evangelical cliff, and the resources I gathered along the way, what I hadn’t quite been able to do was ‘stop’ going to church.

    Falling off the Evangelical Cliff

    ‘Church’ had been part of me for , well, a lifetime, and ‘not’ going at that time was too much, I think. I still needed it, for the things that it gave me, identity, some influence, even a space to be creative, music and the odd preach. But in another world I was dynamic, edgy, liberal, yet I still ‘went’ to church in quite a conforming way.

    So I still kept going. Just.

    So, not going had been on the cards for a while.

    It took a bit of courage to finally stop going. Two Sundays of guilt. But that was it.

    Then I stopped, I thought it might be for a few weeks.

    But then no one went to church for months.

    And neither did I.

    And… it was ok…

    And…I am still alive…

    What I lost by not going was some of the people who went.

    But what I gained was significant time for me.

    I also gained coherence, and the time I didnt waste in trying to justify something to myself, doing something I felt I ‘should’ do, and had always felt I ‘should’ do. But then Sundays became another day at the weekend to walk, another day for me.

    I gained many other things too, and I think they are for future writing.

    And, in the last 1000 days, I have so needed those days.

    As, what I have come to terms with and dealt with in the those 1000 days has been the extent of the abuse I suffered as a child, and the effects of ‘self-loathing’ evangelicalism, and the impact of rigid, moralistic, closed minded evangelical faith on me as a child.

    Also in those 1000 days I began and recently ended a process in challenging that abuse, and in that process constructed significant boundaries from them, yes, finally 28 years after wanting to do it the first time, I have effectively divorced my parents.

    I took time to undergo therapy for those events, and their impact.

    It has been significant, and hard.

    And, from a spiritual perspective, through these discovered something about myself that has been profoundly impactful, about the spirituality that has been revealed that exists on my inside – and that’s for another day in terms of writing about it, but it has been a beautiful life filling awakening spiritual journey. (Do have a look in the menu above to see some of the resources that have guided me during this time on this, especially Lucia Cappacione, Eckhart Tolle, Haemin Sunim, Richard Rohr, Gary Zukav, as well as the Daily Northumbria prayer book, The CCA daily readings, and more recently John O Donohue)

    In 1000 days, or more specifically, since I started a 2nd bout of therapy 2 years ago this week, unbeknown to what I thought I was going to therapy for, I discovered a coherency to my spiritual life that I hadn’t encountered before. And I feel significantly better for it.

    God makes more sense too, because actually God makes less sense, but I feel God and this is a whole new mysterious love that is deeply connectful. God seems everywhere and in everything and also deeply within. Maybe that’s what Colossians was about all the time. Reconciliation of all things.

    ( See.. I haven’t rejected faith)

    I have enjoyed in the last three years experiencing a number of ‘online’ churches, with the most coherent, deep, soulful and peaceful being a Jewish Bar mitzvah and the Buddhist meditations, and these I have gone with with Christelle, who I also introduced her to anglican services too with Gemma Sampson (then in Hartlepool).

    I didnt expect to not keep going to church, in the same way that I didnt expect that going to therapy became the beginning of a spiritual journey, via some of the dark nights of my own soul. And also, discovering that soul too. A soul, a life, a ‘James’ that had been left behind and adapted into a type of existence.

    And this is before some of the other things that have happened to me in the last 1000 days, including marrying my beautiful Christelle a few months ago – changing jobs, flats and cars in that time too.

    As I look back on these 1000 days I now notice that its been a time of shedding of the old, and some of that was very painful, some less so, some shedding, like the proverbial Onion involved tears, and other sheddings gave space for the new to emerge.

    And some of that is for the future.

    But for today, its to recognise that its now about 1000 days, especially in a week when the christian faith in the UK has been brought to the attention, it prompted me to share a little.

    Maybe I’m now in the ‘spiritual’ and still slightly religious category, maybe I’m just realising myself and the spirituality within me, within the universe and the divine love that connects all, maybe….

    Maybe its just about becoming me, and that required a deep emotional and spiritual cleanse.

    So, tomorrow, its Sunday… where shall I go for a walk?

  • Presence

    It has been these words that I have reflected and mediated on this morning, waking up early enough to see the sunrise and to hear the birdsong through the mist.

    Take time to notice your very presence today.

    Awaken to the mystery of being here, and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.

    Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses

    Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon.

    Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to follow its path.

    Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity.

    May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame.

    May anxiety never linger about you.

    May your outer dignity mirror and inner dignity of soul.

    Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.

    Be consoled in the quiet symmetry of your soul

    May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.

    For Presence by John O Donohue

  • New Beginnings

    Yesterday I shared one of John O Donohues blessings for the morning taken from his book ‘To Bless the space between us’; as I read the next few pages of his book this morning I discovered this, its entitled, ‘For a New beginning’

    Maybe this is for you, maybe this is for me, every day is a potential new beginning, do share with others whom it may be helpful to.

    A New Beginning

    In Out of the way places of the heart,

    Where your thoughts never think to wander,

    This beginning has been quietly forming,

    Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

    For a long time it has watched your desire,

    Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,

    Noticing how you have willed yourself on,

    Still unable to leave what you had outgrown

    It watched you play with the seduction of safety

    And the gray promises that sameness whispered,

    Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,

    Wondered you would always live like this

    Then the delight when your courage kindled,

    And out you stepped onto new ground

    Your eyes again with energy and dream

    A path of plentitude opening before you

    Though your destination is not yet clear,

    You can trust the promise of this opening,

    Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning

    This is at one with your life desire

    Awaken your spirit to adventure,

    Hold nothing back, learn and find ease in risk,

    Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,

    For your soul senses the world that awaits you

    (John O Donohue, To bless the space between us)

  • Morning moment

    (A Morning Blessing by John O’Donohue)

    I arise today

    In the name of Silence

    Womb of the word,

    In the name of stillness

    Home of Belonging,

    In the name of the Solitude

    Of the Soul and the Earth

    I arise today

    Blessed by all things,

    Wings of breath,

    Delight of eyes,

    Wonder of whisper,

    Intimacy of touch

    Eternity of soul

    Urgency of thought,

    Miracle of breath

    Embrace of God

    May I live this day

    Compassionate of heart,

    Clear in word,

    Gracious in awareness,

    Courageous in thought,

    Generous in love.

    (Words from John O’Donohue ‘To Bless the Space between us’ , pictures my own)