James Ballantyne

Category: Journey

  • Why my healing didn’t start at therapy

    At the end of a year in which i had separated from my wife (now ex-wife) after I had left the family home to move into a friends house, with barely any money, I had a one day a week job, and had been looking for work and been knocked back from all of them for 6 months, I decided that I needed to go to counselling.

    I had already realised in the space and hospitality, maybe even retreat, from what was my home, that I had stuff I needed to deal with too. And stuff that I thought I needed to overcome because I was to believe that everything was my fault.

    Counselling, Therapy, Professional help?

    Why did I leave it so late?

    Was I scared of what it would expose? Well to be honest, there wasn’t much left that wasn’t now on the table, but still even so.

    I thought there would be a lot of work to do on me, so many things I had to deal with, where would a counsellor start?

    Then again, it wasn’t therapy that was the beginning of my healing and recovery. It was the recognition that I loved myself to want to go. That I was important enough to invest in myself to do this. The space in a safe place to heal a bit, to make a step up, to have gone through all this and not completely crumbled, and be in a place of clean air, started the rebuild from the rockest of bottoms.

    It took a few weeks for the therapy to be arranged, and those who were demanding I do it put on the most pressure, but this wasn’t for them, it was for me.

    As I went for assessments for the therapy and met them, I was asked as series of questions, I remember thinking at the time that I was confused, and had experienced so much in my life that I didn’t have any sense of value of myself, so the things I thought were incidental, were actually important, one day ill write about them too. I thought I was pretty self aware, what I actually was was professionally very competent, and a high achieving, compassionate person, that had ignored the things that had hurt for a very long time.

    My healing didn’t start at therapy. But my healing didn’t continue without it. Yes I know that it may be expensive – I also know that it may not work for some, and I’m not a therapist and dont pretend to be. But It is a matter on what you are prepared to do about loving yourself. Can you afford it – you might not be able to afford not to, and it may not take as long as you think. Starting could be the hardest part.

    I can only talk about my therapy journey. Was I slightly terrified, yes. Was it hard work, yes. Because for the first time this was about me. Giving myself there attention I had given so many others for years.

    Though I am sure its not the end of the process for me, for therapy and possibly trauma therapy. I wanted to talk about therapy, about counselling, recommending it, for, even as a fairly sensitive, open, relational male, this was a difficult, but necessary step, and one I wholly recommend.  Men, value yourselves, your heart and emotions – nothing is solved by running away and hiding. Once spoken, and let out, the healing can begin.

     

  • Football bypassing: Why is football the only topic men can talk about?

    I was sitting on a socially distanced ‘packed’ train back from a weekends travel in Scotland a few Saturdays ago, I am sitting on my own, bag on my next to seat, reading a book, there are many other people on the train, the elderly couple, other single people, and a few students. A few seats behind me in the table seat are a group of men, aged probably between late twenties and early thirties. For the distance between Dundee and Edinburgh, on a train, on a Saturday morning. They talk together for the whole journey.

    About football.

    They talk about football.

    About most of the top 6 teams in England, European football and a bit about Scottish football.

    Their chat about football, lasts longer than a game about football.

    And no one is actually playing it. Its the pre-season. So its just about transfers.

    I was introduced to a concept a few weeks ago known as ‘Spiritual Bypassing’ – what this is about is using spirituality to bypass or avoid doing real deep therapeutic work on feelings, hurts, trauma and fears. From being superstitious, ‘if I touch wood it won’t happen’ to more evangelical ‘if we just pray about it it’ll all disappear’.  So im thinking about ‘spiritual bypassing’ whilst on the train. Wondering whether, what is happening between these 4 men on the train isn’t spiritual bypassing, but football bypassing.

    But its not really though. Its more the complete avoidance of talking deeply about anything. Football as a big distraction.

    Later on though, between Morpeth and Newcastle, three very well dressed up young women get on the train, in heels, make up, nice dresses etc, out for their first night out since March. For 10 mins of the journey, their chat is about the night out, make up, getting nails done, tattoos, that kind of thing. Until one of them made a comment like ‘My mam (mum) gets so up tight about me going out, so controlling’ – the response from the friend across the table is : ‘well you’re here now, time to have a good time and forget about her’

    In a way this felt more like ‘bypassing’ or trying to distract away from a difficult situation. Not just ‘night-out bypassing’ makes for a good title. But it was as if the real problem was revealed, but no friend on a train wanted to hold it with them. Maybe the train isnt a good place to do real.

    When I discovered how much of an introvert I was, I realised why I usually got bored talking about football with anyone except my son. Even as a teenager I liked to ‘set the world’ straight, go deep, discover, ask questions. Yet at the same time, some of that I knew I was doing in the last 15 years was avoiding. The deep stuff I liked to talk about avoided the stuff that needed talking about. I could set the world right, but was no where in terms of setting myself right.

    So I didn’t judge the football chat, or night out chat at all. It was sad for me to hear in a way. We all know what our safe topics of conversation are around a table on a train, but at the same time, theres often clues and cues in conversations with friends about the things that are happening beneath the surface, and takes so much effort to keep them at bay.

    What stops us doing real conversation with our friends on a train? What actually are we afraid of?  Ourselves or other people?

    Its one reason why I started this blog, every year its we hear that Men don’t talk, or do emotions – but on those trains it wasn’t just men. Its not enough to give men a phone line to contact when things have got so bad. Make no mistake, im not here to save or rescue – but what I want to do is talk about some of the real, deep emotional things, so that if you are reading this, or other posts it means that you know you are not alone, and that talking, healing and recovery is possible.

  • Healing for Men….Why a new blog?

    For a long time I have written pieces on a range of subjects related to youth work and ministry over on my Learning from the streets blog – which you can find here: ‘Learning from the Streets’.  The purpose of me starting this blog is that I wanted to write not about what I learn about practice, but more what I am learning about me, maybe more pertinently, a space to talk about the kinds of things that often Men do not really talk about.

    In the past I have had some very positive comments and feedback about the pieces I have written on myself, my journey, therapy, healing and discoveries, and im grateful for them, as an encouragement to share and reflect on other aspects of my healing and life, to encourage others to do the same.

    In a way I wanted to keep some of this stuff separate from the learning from the streets blog, as this one will focus solely on personal, therapeutic reflections, on stuff of life, healing, emotions, and me discovering who I am. I cant say it’ll be pretty at times, but it something i hope will inspire other people, especially men to be more open about.

    Thank you

    James