You’ll be frozen in your moment You’ll be beautiful for all of time Waiting on the wonder road Where saints and angels walk the line And someday much, much older You’ll look back and chance to dream aloud Was there a moment greater Than one to make someone proud
I love this time of the year. Its the time of year when I wake up and drink coffee looking out of the window and see how the dark blue early morning light changes through the colours into the sunrise, admitted today it is just a grey light giving tree branches a dark effect. I love this time of the year, because this all happens at a reasonable time of the morning.
Yet, I do the same thing every morning
I turn on the light.
I flick the switch
So I can see.
So that I can get on with..whatever the day brings, requires light
Coffee, breakfast, reading, work….
Its as if the darkness of the night needs to be escaped from, obliterated, and eyes drawn to the comfortable of the kettle, the sink, the phone, the laptop, the busy, the things, the activities..
Night Walking with Scouts when I was 13 taught me about not using the torchlight until it was impossible not to see with my own night vision. My eyes could adjust. At 13 I would need lights for my bike on early morning paper rounds, so cars could see me, but I could see ok. ‘It’s not as dark as we make it out to be’ when we step outside light infused buildings into the natural light of the streets, the parks or the moonlit infused sky of the open field.
‘The people in darkness will see a great light’
I used to the love the darkness of the streets, the towns the cities, as I walked them, as I had conversations with young people as a youthworker in them, the darkness often meant more interesting conversations than in the summer time, the dark autumn and winter nights full of adventure, adrenalin and unpredictability. That was a darkness, that was a terrain I was comfortable to explore in, and rarely needing a torch.
Far easier to explore the outer terrain of the darkness, than explore the terrain within.
The terrain within, the darkness within so full of shame, hurt, pain, not to be touched, not to go there. To be afraid, to let it have power.
To be afraid of the dark.
To become aware, is to see the light (John O’Donohue)
Yet that often truthful voice of darkness remains, at times shouting, at times cajoling, at times fearing, at times reminding, and for so long it dominated my everything, and it may do you too.
I thought I could maintain appearances
I thought if I could just do something everything would be ok
I thought if I did the right things, other people would change
I thought that ……
Yet the ache of darkness pained within, prowled, festered, and was fed daily. Telling me truths, that I tried to block out, cover it with busy, distract with drama, soothe with food, fill that aching pain of darkness. Pretend it wasnt there, false masking in life, the energy it took to keep the James show on the road, numbing the pain.
Afraid of the inner dark.
The inner dark maintaining its place, loving the self destruction, never wanting to be exposed, never wanting to be seen, self torture and blame its oxygen, self destruction its goal.
Morality is often the enemy of growth (John O Donohue)
We dont want to go there. It feels painful.
I didnt.
So accustomed to the light, so sometimes spiritually accustomed to God being equated with light, that darkness is shamed, darkness is rejected, darkness is suppressed, darkness is moral failure. Darkness is to be avoided.
Yet, thought you and I may walk in the shadows, I will be with you, you will not be alone (Psalm 23)
He will be called Emmanuel, God is with you….and with you always…
In the dark, and not just to transform it, but walking with you through it, through the torture of trauma, through the torture of the voices that dont go away, through the torture of daily abuse, the self soothing and addiction, through the torture of feeling small, trapped, alone… through, with, alongside.. In…yes in the darkness
About three weeks into recovering from my emotional breakdown of 6 years ago, I was reading the Anglican Morning prayer with my friend, and though I cannot remember or find the exact passage, it was something about ‘God appearing in the clouds’ it was in Isaiah somewhere, I can’t find it. And my anglican priest friend just said to me, ‘James, God will meet you in the cloud, whatever path you need to go on, God will be close, even when the cloud mystifies, hides, soaks the path, God will be there, and will appear to you, in the cloud itself’
It gave me ‘spiritual permission’ for want for a better phrase to continue the very tentative process then of the inner walk, revealing and uncovering, that God, that I believed in was light, love and joy….was also in the darkness, also in the bewildering hidden space between. Also in the cloud.
Like today. No mystical sunrise beyond the blue. Just grey light as grey as this screen is im typing on.
In the darkness we are confronted with the unknown, peering cautiously around the corners, tentative steps with tiny courage, falling at hurdles never seen in the light… but thats ok.. its where courage gets tested, its where resolve gets made, its where, honestly, its where love finds us. The more we shame the darkness the more it destroys us. Thats not the path of the God of the bible, its not the path of love, its not the path of healing, its not the path of joy.
That darkness is not us. It is not your identity. It is not who you are.
The darkness might help us, in ways we are unable to see…yet.
The darkness might be shielding us from too much shiny light (s) that seem false, seem unreal, seem artifical
The darkness might be reminding us of part of our truth, a truth to be be faced, faced so that it doesn’t continue to have power over us . Faced so that we can realise that we are bigger than it. Faced so it’s a friend and loved, not a prickly pain in the corner, festering, faced so it has the possibility of transformation.
The darkness helps us to grow, if we have the courage to turn, to, like my eyes on scout trips, adjust to it, feel our way around it, become friends with it, accept it, and love it. Slow, eye adjustment, not blinding torch. Darkness needs hugs and warmth, and whilst it tells you otherwise, you have more than enough love to give to it.
The people who walk in darkness will see a great light… They will, and you will, and I will..and from the shadows light will emerge.
I have waited a full year to tell you this story. It’s a personal one, but I hope a good one, and please do bear with the length of it, grab yourself a coffee or tea and strap in.
Maybe many of you have been reading my work for a while, if you go back to youth work days, maybe its 2013…and some of you will be friends I haven’t seen for a long while, and some of you might be readers from across the globe who I have no idea of, but what many of you will know about from reading is some of my story. Some. not all.
So, this is a little bit about the story of James, of me, in 2023-4. Actually come to think about it, there’s a piece about stories I want to share soon, but this one comes first.
You have heard so much about the pain I have had to face. It won’t be repeated here.
In early 2023, I thought, I thought I had got to a good place in how I had recovered. I thought i could leave stuff behind.
I was wrong. Deep down I knew it, I knew I was faking it. But I did try.
But it didnt stop me trying to believe it.
What I thought was the end of a story, in which I stood up to my abusive parent, actually hadn’t ended, they had in fact been validated, protected and also given a powerful role.
This I discovered in June 2023.
And then I crashed, big time.
Summer 2023 was a blur.
Of despair, bleak, blackness, and every childhood voice of defeat rang squarely in my head.
Nothing made sense, I was unsafe, and I was defeated.
I gave up everything that seemed to be creative, positive or constructive, self belief, and confidence shattered, so no camera, photography felt useless, or video chats, or anything.
I had to dig deep. I wanted to hide.
Yes I could have fought the battle more, but I had no energy.
I was exhausted.
And I was about to quit.
Just wanted to run. hide and even considered taking a job cleaning northern trains, and if you know anything about the level of alcohol or vomit stains on northern trains….
I knew there was stuff I needed to face and deal with
I also knew I needed help
I also knew, again, that I was going to grow and learn and get better.
A number of things happened.
Firstly, I had to get vulnerable, and firstly with my new line manager, given the complications of it all. She was and has been immense in all this.
Secondly… She ensured I got therapy paid for.
Thirdly. I started to write my book, August bank holiday 2023, i wrote and wrote, stories of, words to and learning for my childhood self, this has subsequently been honed and developed and sent to an editor. However… this is the current story, not the past one.
In and amongst all these things I maintained my reading, with not just John O’Donohue, but also Michael Singers book ‘The Untethered Soul’ was read on repeat for about 6 months.
And I was starting what felt another rebuild. A rebuild I wanted to do as completely as was possible. Rock bottom and upwards..again.
Nothing left unturned.
So I got a therapist.
I got journals
I got myself back to work on me.
Slowly does it.
There were a few sessions in which I caused my therapist to cry.
There were a few sessions in which I told him about how I was re writing my childhood story, and healing that neglected child that was close to suicide at 9.
There were sessions of therapy in which I didnt always know what to say.
Slowly by slowly.
Until, one weekend, around the middle of or end of November I was reading the following section in John O’Donohue’s book, Anam Cara;
The first step in awakening to your inner life and the depth and promise of your solitude is to view yourself as a stranger to your own deepest depths (p81)
then going on to say
Each inner demon holds a precious blessing that will heal and free you. To receive this gift you have to lay aside your fear and take the risk of loss and change that every inner encounter offers (p88)
And this struck me.
Because there were ALOT of voices in my head, self sabotage on autopilot most of time.
For a number of years you will have realised I have been a fan of the ‘self love’ / ‘self compassion’ brigade (if there is such a thing), this I needed after starting from a very low point (see here), and so I had to be loved and safe in order to believe and be able to love my self.. I had to even think I deserved this.. this has taken a long time.
And in the process I have been able, slowly to trust myself to love myself in this way, and it’s taken a long while.
But I hadn’t considered what it might require for me to be a stranger to myself, and these words in the book were plainly what I needed to do.
So thats kind of what I did.
On a Saturday in late November last year, I sat and metaphorically took myself for a walk on the inside.
I imagined it like Frodo (me), Sam (friend) and Gollum (enemy, but guide) going for a walk, having to be taken to the scary places (by the guide/stranger) and have a friend go with me, and encounter what I could find.
And so I wrote this out, and mapped some of it.
And noticed what I found.
The voices that were telling me not to do this, were first.
Fear. Ego. What was terrified.
Then Self blame, self criticism and self loathing
All voices that I had listened to for so long.
All sensed, listened to, loved as a friend, and given the opportunity to leave, to not be needed anymore, and definitely not to protect me.
It was mostly the voices of internalised darkness, rather than the behaviours, because these were the roots, caused from birth, and from my mind that had been overworked for my survival.
In effect I ended up doing shadow work, without realising it.
And after a few hours of writing, of wrestling, of tears, of less a fight, but more gentle releasing these things of the jobs they do not have any more.
I stopped. I stood up.
I felt light.
I cried
I danced in the kitchen that evening, for the first time ever. My legs felt light, as did my shoulders.
I felt free.
It was a lightness I had never experienced in 45 years.
It was over. And I was free.
On the Monday, I think, I then had a therapy session.
In which I shared what I had done over the weekend with him.
The notes, the reading, what I had done, how I felt.
And. In a moment I think I will never forget.
He looked me in my eyes, with tears streaming.
And said.
‘James, you are Incredible’
and… looking back I said
‘I think, for the first time, I think I believe you’ with tears in my own eyes.
And, the session ended, it wasnt the last one, for, I wanted to keep the ongoing therapy conversation going, as I began this new found freedom of being and sense of lightness, wanted not be on my own as I started it.
I then went to the Waterstones cafe that afternoon I think, or definitely the next day, and instead of writing my book, I began writing the same words, over and over and over again, ‘James, you are incredible, you are incredible, you are incredible.. and for about an hour told myself all the amazing positive things, over and over again, from my own heart, from my own soul, to myself, loving me after the loved shadows had been released.
This was from that day:
And I did it the next day. And the next.
But told no one.
It’s like I didnt know what to do with what this felt like. It was so new. It also felt so ridiculously simple, but also so transforming.
A few weeks later I bought a journal for 2024, because I wanted to keep it up.
It was as if my competent unconscious voice needed to be trained to be positive, thats what I thought, keep the positive voices, positive messages every day, to replace the 45 years of self doubt and negativity.
And so, every day of 2024, that is what I have done.
I have written positive words to myself, every single day.
And maybe the odd positive quote, but no ‘reflecting’ , no ‘wrestling’ or trying to understand, I had done enough of that, and that can stay elsewhere, this would be a daily journal to write positive things about me in it… the TRUTH stuff.
the truth that isnt the lies about self doubt, shame or lack of self belief.
The truth about the love that I actually am, and the heart I actually have
The truth that I am loved and deserve to be
The truth that I am..I just am
And so much more, whatever I hear my heart say, or the angels, or the magic… whatever… message if for me for that day, sometimes short, sometimes its a repeat, sometimes its just the truth of what I need to hear that day.
Every single day in 2024.
And it’s been utterly life transforming.
A year, of feeling in the main, incredible.
Light, whole, true
and smiling, joyfully, and feeling whole, safe and able to feel an be open to enjoy all life has for me.
Its been described as ‘post traumatic growth’ to me, it could be said to be ‘life in all its fullness’…I dont really care too be honest… it just feels so so good, it is like life beginning at 46…
You dont get to see the journal aside from a few pages above, a few close friends have, they’ve been close, and seen the James transformation.
I know, that until I had faced the shadows I wouldn’t have been ready to hear what I was told. I know that that because it arrived from someone whom I could trust their opinion of my journey, I could take it. I know it was something I could believe.
That was the beginning of my incredible year. A year in which I faced the life time inner demons of a year ago, and began to believe the truth about me.
A day by day rewiring of the brain, which began over 5 years ago, the task of trying to survive and understand, and after being given tools of EMDR and inner child work, and then last year, day to day rewriting my own voice, rewiring my own self talk.
Some you have seen me glow this year.
Some of you have seen me smile.
Some of you have told me I look 36 (not 46)
Some of you have commented that my writing is from a place of healing.
Thank you, Thank you for noticing, it has been amazing for me to hear this, to sense that the lightness and joy is infectious.
The true me, has been beginning to emerge.
And I am so proud of me.
If you read my last piece, then you have an idea of how incredible all this feels, feeling alive, from this point 6 years ago.
Thank you. Thank you for reading, for encouraging me, for your support. You have heard my pain often enough, I hope you smile as you read this.
It’s a place of learning, a place of processing, a place of interpreting, a place to understand.
It has also been my place of safety, or maybe more so my place of escape to.
When emotions and feelings were unsafe, and love was absent, I could hide in my mind.
Read books. Study. Play maths games. Keep thinking.
And when I was cold, use my mind as a superpower to block the pain.
And when I was about to be hurt, use my mind to numb the pain.
Mind was a shield.
I gave my mind too much to do…. yet actually it was a survival mechanism. I could get through things, because I didnt need to feel them, just think.
Yet there’s also social conditioning, the mind has value, in academia, and religious life – learn, reflect, be curious…and I could just keep going, one more book to buy, one more hobby to try, one more thing to learn.
Keep the mind busy, keep the time occupied, keep the demons at bay…
And I sit here writing this in the local Waterstones cafe… a place of learning has been a safe place for me.
And there’s words here too aren’t there.
You are reading them.
And I am thinking about what I might write next.
Because I was afraid.
I was afraid of what would happen….. if for the first time in 40 odd years I would stop thinking, or at least there be a gap in thoughts…
My mind as a place of survival could only do so much of a job. It was incessant.
But overthinking felt normal, overthinking to find strategies to reduce pain, soothe, to please, to soften the blows, or numb them.
So I would negate anything that tried to interrupt this, dont give me the promise of silence, solitude, meditation or even quietly colouring in something, or even space to have someone ask me difficult questions. My mind couldn’t allow this. It was afraid of not being in charge. It was afraid of what it might expose.
My mind wasnt negative or destructive, it was just doing its job in the way it had subconsciously been asked to do, and beyond its skill set.
And there was no distinction for me, between my I and my mind.
Spiritually/ Religiously I gave my mind a ‘gets off scot free’ card – because my heart usually got the blame, as did the self. There’s something else here too, my mind accepted the reality that what was inside me was too shameful to expose, the hurt and pain too great. Accepted because it had tried many moral ways of dealing with it, all failed, and the cycle of shame and self loathing continued.
But also, my minds job was to numb, distract, run, avoid the pain, and protect myself. And it did a good job.
It wasnt equipped to love. And its love that heals.
As I began, forcibly, to start a journey inwards, my mind took on a new task. To learn about myself as if I am my own new hobby or project, as well as learn about the behaviours that I had been exposed to.
This.. very accurate…
So that library of self help books, from Enneagram, to Narcissism, to Spirituality, got bigger and bigger, as I understand myself though a number of thought lenses. All extremely useful.
But it wasnt thinking that would heal.
It wasnt thinking my feelings, or understanding myself that would heal.
Ugh.
I actually had to the exercises in the books, I had to participate in them. I had to feel.
I look now and see quite how much i had given my mind to do, I was a disconnected, disintegrated body, with an overactive mind, with all the voices of protection, fear, self criticism, perfection.
Healing my mind, required safety.
Healing my mind, required love
Healing my mind, required heart…and heart to be safe
Healing my mind, meant seeing it and realising that I am not it
Healing my mind, meant listening to it, loving it, carefully, gently…
Being compassionate on my self critical, self loathing, self soothing parts, scared self..in my mind… and start to not believe these, even if they had been protecting me.
Yet it can easily still want to take charge in situations, easily take me into its formerly welcome gaze, sometimes those thoughts come back, further opportunities to love them, and the wounded parts they stem from.
One of the parts of my inner journey and healing has been to allow my mind to relax and know it doesn’t have to be responsible for everything in my psyche, that I have heart, soul, feelings, that there is space and consciousness. It’s a slow revealing, it’s a daily remembrance.
My inner journey has been inside, beyond the cage of my mind, and letting the colours of the heart, and the soul to ignite, cleanse and transform.
The realisation that I am not my mind, and am trying to keep telling my thoughts that…
Rocked the 5 piece band, singing the International Christian College song back in 2004.
Open the eyes of my heart
Another popular worship song from that time.
Eyes. Seeing
And often it was all about how to see others. Open the eyes of my heart, to see you (God), open the eyes of my heart, to have compassion for others.
There’s nothing more powerful
Than being seen, truly by the other.
(and loved when also being seen in truth and reality)
Yet.
Eyes have a habit of not seeing clearly.
Eyes have a habit of looking outwards with fear, judgement, desire, criticism, resentfulness, inferiority and indifference.
And those same eyes, look inwards, with the same.
Vision is central to your presence and creativity. To recognise how you see things can bring you self knowledge and enable you to glimpse the wonderful treasures in your life secretly holds (John O Donohue, Anam Cara, p 58)
If you know me well, you will know that this book has been a dwelling place for me in the last year, today it was these pages 57-58, on Vision. In which JoD describes all the ways of seeing above.
This morning, I sat and ate a lovely greek breakfast in town, and let the words, and my sensing of them fill me, bring me that awareness, to feel love towards myself in how I used to see myself.
Trying to reach a harsh perfection, Not being good enough.
Totally self critical and beating myself up
Small me and feeling inferior.
High judgement of myself.
Feared..what I might find
Thats not only what I thought I was on the inside, but how I looked at myself too, in fact.. I didnt look at myself. I didnt want to go there.
As I read it this morning I realised quite how much my healing journey of the last 5 years has been about healing of my vision, healing of the way I see myself, from fear and judgement slowly slowly to gentle tender curiosity, to compassionate eyes, loving eyes even.
To truly love myself, I have to see myself in love.
I have to love myself, with gentle, compassionate eyes
Where love opens, love warms, love brings light to what stayed hidden, love sees.
It’s love, it always is love.
The loving eye sees through and beyond image and effects the deepest change (AC, p58)
James Ballantyne 