The thread you cannot see,
Is holding you all the same.
Shrouded.
Intimate.
Reverent.
Sacred.
There. But not there.
Until.
You make yourself open,
To know it.
Yet.
It is there.
Is.
There.
Requires Your Breaking.
Melts you in Being.
There always, constant
Loves pure thread.
Goldness and Godness,
Love twined with Beauty.
On a rope from souls eternity.
There.
Always.
There.
Touch it.
Yours, always
Forever.
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.
There will come a day when you stop believing in your own smallness.
The great suppression that you were colluded into, when you played small to stay safe, when you played small to get paid, when you played small, played the part of the extra in someone else’s drama. Hiding your gifts, hiding your voice, hiding your immensity, chasing love, chasing one more thing to something other than a gnawing sense of inner tiny.
In stormy waters you are going to feel small, and those who want you to feel inadequate, ashamed, powerless, guilty often keep chucking the stones into your pond, or start up the wave machine, or turn the water into acid, gently corroding you bit by bit. For some, you born into a pond full of nasties, creatures roaming in the deep, heavy rocks, and tiny little vulnerable you, barely able to breathe as the water around surrounds, swallows and tumultuates.
You cannot see yourself when dodging the rocks, trying to swim, trying to stay alive and afloat, your concentration and energy is on staying alive and afloat – whatever it takes, and colluding with their small opinion of you is one such way. You have to believe your parents view of you, because you require them to feed you, or your partners view if they’re threatening you, or the places of escape and safety from these, jobs, churches, whatever, when you’re in need of a rescuer or saviour, you’re also vulnerable.
One storm after another, and the great collusion continues, small you rages in the corner like a jack Russell at a vegetarian ball. The great suppression erodes so much that if you can’t believe it when you are believed in, or it feels uncomfortable, or it is dismissed and denied. Believing in our own inferiority, self oppression, and all of a sudden the stone thrower has won.
John O Donahue writes about the different ways of sight we have, and in considering how we might have an inferior eye, as we look at ourselves we might say:
To the inferior eye, everyone else is greater. Others are more beautiful, brilliant and gifted than you. The Inferior eye is always looking away from its own treasures. It can never celebrate its own presence and potential. The Inferior eye is blind to its own secret beauty. The human eye was never designed to look up in a way that inflates the other to superiority, nor to look down reducing the other to inferiority
John O Donohue – Anam Cara
I lived for so long small. Feeling weak, small and inferior on the inside. Feeling shame for having needs, feeling shame for my body, shame and belittled for having emotions, others upset internalised as my fault and responsibility, and carried all of this from childhood into adulthood, carried on the ongoing wings of various incarnations of faith that required me to stand small inside in the face of the all powerful God, and still continually feel inadequate or a sinner, on a constant loop of need, fuelling my inner smallness and insecurity, and giving me far too many reasons to stay feeling small inside. God perfect, me inadequate.
When we forget our own immensity, or we have been conditioned from birth never to have it, it’s a long road to find realise it, because its not trusted, its not just self care we need, but self trust is harder to find. When we act from self smallness we are desperate, needy and tossed around on other peoples waves, unable to see ourselves, looking out for others – approval, acceptance, protection…
Lovingness and Compassion alone dont produce insight. They smooth the waves of emotions. When those waves of grief, pain, lamentation, worry, fear and anxiety, envy, jealousy, dislike and resentment have finally come to rest, there is a clear reflection without any obscuring ripples in it, like a mirror, the mirror of the mind. That mirror of the mind makes it possible to get a clear vision
Ayya Khama- Being Nobody, Going Nowhere.
Safety comes first, emotional safety. Then feeling all the feelings, the grief, pain, envy etc have come to rest, they are not avoided, dismissed or sidelined, they are felt. Beyond the rage and tears, and in the place where you can ride the stones, if they can’t be avoided or escaped from…yet.
In the place of rest is a clearer reflection.
When we don’t believe it when someone tells us that we are incredible and beautiful, we need to be angry about those who have convinced us into feeling small.
Once you stop making yourself small to fit into others.
Once you stop agreeing with their insecurity, because they have to coerce you into staying small.
Once your small thought is given the redundancy slip. That job is not required anymore.
You realise, tiny step, by tiny step
That inside you is huge.
Divine, Universe, Consciousness in its expanse
No apologies for being you darling human.
The dawning of your new large inner age is upcoming.
Time to rise, time to live.
From brokenness to wholeness
A new beauty arises when you finally believe.
Over the last few years, one of the hobbies I have taken up since Covid has been bird watching, and generally enjoying nature more and more. But bird hides, these are fascinating places, and I have a few favourite ones. Yesterday I had a bit of a lucky day, seeing a hobby, greenshank, bittern and an osprey.
‘Theres nothing going on’ is so often a deliciously tempting phrase to set the tone in a bird hide, this translates to ‘Whilst there is a panorama of unpredictability of natural life outside, there isnt an unusual bird today to get excited about’ just the seemingly usual birds. In the tempting demand to make life consistently exciting and full, the chase can be on, to go to the places where the ‘interesting birds are.
Modern life, and modern expressions of faith, often want to fill, rather than keep the empty spaces open, the gap, the pause. We’re frustrated when the ‘gap’ between trains is too long at the station, when theres a gap in the curtains, when there a gap in the TV schedule, church services full of activities in their 90 minutes. Silence feels uncomfortable. Yet…
What would be music without its gaps?
There is inside each of us, a sacred pause, a gap, a space. A place where thoughts are watched like birds in a bird hide, some stick around a bit, others fly past fleetingly, some hover, pounce and leave marks. Yet in that place of watching, there is a gap. A gap, like undrawn curtains where the light is. A gap like an artist sees between objects that give the objects their identity. Inside you and me, the sacred gap accompanies our every waking moment, waiting to be noticed, like the things of the thoughts themselves.
And that sacred pause is where the power is, the joy is, a wonder, mystery, and where love is, its where our consciousness envelops the divine eternal oneness, its where no-thing exists and everything exists all at once.
And it’s there all the time.
Find life in no-thing. The Sacred Pause.
Where – No – thing separates.
Because it connects as one. Whole being.
In the nothing there is everything.
When it comes down to it, the only place where there is peace, is in the sanctity and sanctuary of your own heart.
Beyond the noise of a million thoughts that delegate themselves self importance and demand a million answers to.
Am I good enough?
Am I real? What shall I do now?
Can I make the right decision?
What shall I write today? will I find my table at Neros? (as if its mine)
As I walked in the rain to Caffè Nero this morning, present-ness diffused by the inner suffering of a thousand and one thought voices. Hoping for a clear walk and focus on writing for the morning, yet too many thoughts swirled instead. Hopes and expectations, anxieties and excitements, fears and dreams, certainties and uncertainties all rolled into not one, but many thoughts.
Then standing in the queue for coffee, choice to think about.
Macchiato, Cappuccino or Latte.
Nope. Stick to the normal ‘Flat White’ today not the day to be different or brave.
And then I sat down.
And journalled.
Most of what youre reading now.
There is only peace in the sanctuary of the heart.
Beyond thought
Beyond the sights, the sights of colours and shapes, the busyness of a million movements around, people in sports clothing (ready to do the local 10k), the efficient and caring service of the caffe Nero staff, on this busy frenetic Sunday. I watch as their hands upturn cups, pull levers, find muffins, make unusually early luxury hot chocolate. I notice with eyes. Eyes focussed outward, on the process of coffee that draws my attention.
Momentarily away from the choice in my mind.
And then I remember the peace and stillness. Conscious remembering of the possibility of peace.
So, that its then when I write it down. It’s what I read this week, from a book on buddhist meditation.
There is only peace in the sanctuary of the heart.
It can’t be found anywhere else. Yet we look.
The green space is full of suffering if our mind isnt in it
The coffee shop is full of peace..if our heart is open to it.
The pathways that offer peace by their words id often dissolved into anxiety by their actions, and shame by their attitude.
Peace, beyond all understanding. Beyond all thought.
There is only peace in the stillness of your heart. In that sanctuary beyond.
Beyond the wrestle, beyond the hustle, beyond.
Beyond a thousand thoughts that demand an answer.
Beyond thinking, is that feeling
Untrusted, brave, hidden, aspirational
Seemingly impossible Peace.
It isnt found. It’s there all along.
Everything else just needs to get out of the way.
And Peace chosen instead.
For a million thoughts want a million answers to problems that are rarely there.
Thinking on peace, creates the moment.
Irrationally and bravely.
It’s there inside you all along.
Each of us has bits of us that we dont really like. Theres the bits of us that got damaged by our parents or family when we grew up, whether this was abuse, neglect, abandonment, the choices of our parents and the hurts of these. Theres the bits of us in school, the parts where we adapted, the parts of us that we’re wounded, hurt. Theres the parts of us that we’d rather not talk about in polite company, the parts of us that turned to sex or drugs or alcohol or something other to soothe the pain, or the parts of us that hid away, the parts of us that acted in fear, anxiety, acted in vengeance and transferred inner anger from parents or jobs, onto partners, children or pets. Theres the parts of us that made choices when in survival mode, choices to be busy, choices to give to others from neediness, choices to take advantage of others, choices not to view another persons dignity and humanity, only as a service t our own. Then theres choices and actions in denial, to run away from dealing with the pain, to avoid it, to hide it.
We all have them.
Your pain might feel huge. But you are definitely not alone.
All making our heart, our mind, our bodies…feel not quite right, or very quite wrong, or just stuck, or weary…
All with a root of shame, or guilt or anger.
And we would rather not go there.
Then theres that inner voice that accompanies them all.
Shame, Loathing, Guilt, Perfectionism, Control, Fear… all protecting the parts, all making a good argument for ‘not going there’ .
And so often the morality we encounter – the shame of what we encountered, or what we did, or what we didnt do, who we hurt… feels too much to accept, feels too much to be able to get real about.
We’d rather hide than face the truth
We’d rather mask and hide than go there.
We’d rather continue on, with that ache inside, than give light and warmth to a state of being thats hurting ourselves and others, yet its doing exactly that, and we’re spinning out of control.
‘So often… Morality is the Enemy of Growth’ (John O Donohue)
The moral obligation to look good
The moral obligation to be strong
The moral obligation to ‘battle’ through darkness (or sin)
The moral obligation to not feel shame, is to not feel anything.
Yet, as a result that ache and pain haunts like a shadow, becoming more and more entrenched when challenged.
I know. I didnt want to go there. Trying to keep a status quo whilst dying inside and running away from the pain, and the shame of what I was doing to soothe it. Until I cracked between it all, and lost everything, and yet…. realised that when everything was lost, I found something much more precious… eventually.
Because those parts of us we’d rather hide are like parts of a jigsaw, and along with our hearts, our minds and bodies, theres fragmentation and fracturing within, caused by all the damage, to us and by us.
And jigsaws, especially those with brittle edge pieces dont fit or mould together with force. Like trying to get two cuttlefish pieces to interlock.
Friend. It isnt an inner battle you have to win.
Battles are for armies.
It isnt a war on the inside between the parts, even if they are raging, and making a noise. Their voice is often so loud.
Your wounded parts are part of you, but they aren’t you.
You hold the blow torch.
Your heart is the gas.
Love is the flame.
And your parts and their raw, pained, rugged edges, mould together not with force, but with love, love that powers, love that emirates, love that emerges from your heart….once you finally, surrender, accept and listen to its call. Love from within resolves fractures and pain. Its warmth that melts the edges and aligns them into your soul and heart, its love that unifies your fractures and fragments, Its love that brings wholeness.
Being a friend to the parts of you, the shame of your past that you’d rather not admit to, is a path marked with the deepest, most passionate and erotic love you can imagine, making love to your inner parts, melting their pain away with tenderness that is possible, even if thats new.
Pain leaves with tears, leaves in a warm car, on the road to your own soul, to be met with harmony and kindness.
The darkness you’re doing a battle with, in that tough man masculine way, won’t leave until you and your armour back down, and instead surrender to heat, light and love, and yes, that means losing control.
But right now your pieces feel all over the places and control is an illusion anyway, shards of temporary colour disconnected, carried in a box that doesn’t want to be opened.
Dare you lovingly open the lid…. and may love guide you in the integration of your whole, melting, welding, searing and bringing you to a harmony within, harmony your soul is already grasping for in the moments of pain you’re trying to hide.
There is within each of us the ache of aloneness. An aloneness borne from our uniqueness of experience, for there is no one whose footsteps have graced the world in the ways our own have. Childhoods filled with the complexity of unmet expectations, of abandonment, of navigating more than relaxing, even in a more secure childhood, an aloneness still permeates.
Aloneness carried amidst the weight of the shame of having to stay silent, or carrying experience, of choices made and decisions slighted, of being hurt and bewildered, of self protection that creates walls, fears and wants to run and hide away. Aloneness of never being truly understood, never being allowed to be, never being seen. Aloneness that cannot be exposed, but appears in the midst of places where its not supposed to, the supposed happy childhood, marriage, the party and the church, the silent reality, the shame that it itself carries that no one else seems to know.
Aloneness that both aches and hungers.
Aloneness that no ‘other’ , no ‘thing’ and no ‘experience’ can truly fill, however hard we grasp, desire, dream or hope that it might. Aloneness that sits there, sometimes haunting, sometimes aching, sometimes screaming, sometimes raging, sometimes crying, sometimes seen, sometimes unseen. Aloneness hiding underneath the surface of the drama and distraction that pulls our energy towards and yet lurking underneath is a lack of something, and the presence of something, nothing, the bleak aloneness lurking in the shadow of the soul.
Aloneness that raises its voice in the despair of never being truly loved, or seen or heard and yet though temporarily happiness covers it, its hollow ache exists, and craves for one more temporary fix, until it finally makes itself safe to be known and seen, when the fixes run out, the busyness ceases and its raw truth
There is within us a deep sense of aloneness, that creates a need in others, or Gods, to fix, solve or mend us, expectations that they can never fill, a burden placed externally that is ours to face truly.
Yet, paradoxically, it is only when we are truly alone, bravely alone that aloneness itself can be faced. When everything else is stripped away, and you allow yourself to go to the dark recesses of your own soul. The places you dare not go to, where the mist of shame festers over a cave of cold , dark , but truthful aloneness, where there is only you, embracing gently, willingly, openly, the lost truth that yours ,and my, life has carried.
It is in that moment of going there, that there is realisation that there is a you, that is apart from the alone ache, when you travel towards it, you realise that you are not it, yet it haunted you like a lost presence throughout directing your life, yet, it wasnt ever you, just an ache in your soul waiting for you to love it, to listen to it, to face with courage and kindness.
Let it speak, Let it say what its always wanted to, when you face it, its been there, being part of you, embrace it with love, for, theres nothing more uniquely universal that the aloneness within, and nothing more powerful than meeting it face to face and loving it into your presence, integrated, not afraid, not shamed. There is within us the presence of aloneness that brings us into true courage, and true depth, and true connection with the other.
On a brand new page
Of a brand new journal
On a brand new day, at 6am this morning….
This arrived….
A new Journal
A new Day
Sun shining through the windows
I am.
I am many things…but
I also just am.
Here.
Now.
Sitting in the gap before
The beginning
The gap before
The gap between
What awaits now….here in these pages
Better than the love the universe has for me
Better than love, wisdom, light, power and
Soul enriched by harmony, creativity
Soul surrendering to Joy that cloaks it’s being
The invitation and calling
The promise and prompt
To
Be open, stay open and walk and let
The universe call you, chosen beautiful one
Chosen for this time and this day
Chosen, Joyful, glorious you.
Here.
Now.
One of the treasures within each and every one of us is our hearts. You have one, as do I, and yet so often in our day to day lives our hearts, and the desires of them play a silent role in our lives. Advertisers appeal to our minds, our desires , our discontent and our wallets, our thinking is so honed and shaped that its the reason behind entire education systems, create knowledge, and experiences, so that you can work. Religion is not far different, belief is highly attuned to ‘thought’ and less about feeling (in some places feelings are derided or discarded within religion, for the sake of holding beliefs that are about facts) and I’m not deriding the pursuit of depth of knowledge or curiosity – our minds are important…but they are not everything.
But our minds can only do so much, even if our thinking wants to convince us that it can do everything – thats often the role we have given it, thats more our ego than our whole. But our mind knows things, it knows experiences, it knows, it calculates, it thinks, constantly, and that constant thinking, is often why the heart seems to be silent. Yet a life without heart, is a life on the move, an life on constancy, a life reacting to the speed of thought, where each curiously results in action, where layers of life build on each other.
One of the treasures is our hearts. It is where there is pure love, where there are feelings of anger, desire, passion, love, and where the channel opens to the soul , a place that can’t be thought into, it can only be felt, and have soft loving hands open the doorway, to a space of consciousness beyond, a place where there is harmony, security and the soft stillness of the inner love voice.
Where your heart is there will be your treasure. Your life is ‘wholer’ when you can feel, and be grateful for being able to and safe to (Michael Singer, Living Untethered) and yet so often we live a life afraid of, in denial of, or ashamed of feelings, and the experiences in our lives that caused them. Spirituality is the task of loving softness on the parts we’d rather hide. ‘Morality is often the enemy of growth’ writes John O Donohue ( Anam Cara) Morality is thoughts and shame put together, often in institutional cultures and behaviours. Spiritual growth requires deep inner love, requires hearts, requires anger, requires the softness of the love that comes from the depth and mystery of our heart itself.
A heart that holds when life around us breaks into a million pieces. A heart that heals with tears. A heart that responds inside with softness. A heart that loves the world with bliss and connection. A heart that rests and the moment at the end of each breath. A heart that tells you ‘ I love you’, ‘Im proud of you’ , even if your thinking wants to tell you otherwise. Your heart will always be on your side. Your thinking has so often been placed there from other sources.
And when you find your heart, your life will shine with beauty.
And when you find the gift of your heart, it was your heart that found itself all alone. For it is love that carries you in love all along, to find that love that hides under that shadows of shame and pain, and guilt and perfection, until its gift is accepted, and its gentle hands are held, walking hand in hand in love.
Part of the beauty of the act of discovery is the integrity of its desire for wholeness. Your soul will not want to avoid of neglect the regions of your heart that do not fit the expected. When you trust yourself enough to discover and integrate your strangeness, you bestow a gift to yourself.
Rather than annulling a complex part of your heart which would continue to haunt you, you have thrown your arms around yourself to embrace who you are’
(John O Donohue, Divine Beauty)
(John O Donohue, Eternal Echoes)
Then you know.
When you know.
That. You.
Have the freedom to think differently.
Differently from those who want to determine your thoughts.
Differently from those whom you have to please.
Differently from those who have taken it on themselves to be your thought and belief police.
Differently too….. from the very thoughts that cloud your vision of who your thoughts say you are.
Differently too from the programming of those thoughts, and their effects.
You….in your youness…. can choose.
You…. in your youness …..have freedom
You ….in your youness are separate from the thoughts
Pause. Between the stimulus and the response (Victor Frankl)
You can put that pause there.
Right now, you can choose to look out of your window and think about what you see…. whether thats a tree, a building or a cloud.
You have that freedom. The gap is yours. The gap….might be you.
Until that point of knowing… the thoughts that you didnt realise are doing it are shaping you…..yet…..when….then….all of a sudden….. theres a you emerging beyond, before and within thought.
Consciousness spilling into the poignant pause, and you can, truly can….listen to the pause.
The place where you reside. In your youness.
James Ballantyne 