James Ballantyne

Category: Trauma

  • Trauma and the Fragility of Dreams.

    Trauma and the Fragility of Dreams.

    Its the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting (Paulo Coelho)

    ‘Whats the dream?’ once asked my university tutor, over eight years ago. It was a question I meekly answered, along the lines of ‘to be well known in theodrama’.

    It was the first time, aged 38 that I had been asked this question. It was a question I couldn’t answer. Dreams were not possible. Dreams were too selfish. At that time, and up until then and some years after, I didnt have dreams, dreams about what I wanted to be, or do. It’s probably the same part of me that couldnt engage with ‘The Purpose driven life’ book that did the christian rounds back in the early 2000’s. Whilst I could also criticise it for the being capitalist American goal setting drivel, it was also that deep down, purpose and dream were something that I couldnt have.

    Dreams werent allowed growing up, unless they were the same as the expectations my parents, mostly the abusive dominant one. Yet, dont mistake that for them being driven and forcing me to ‘be a vet, or doctor, or psychologist’ no, that would be too clear cut – because so many people ive spoken to in the last few years talk of parents who pay for their university to ‘make sure’ that their child becomes a certain thing (doctor /vet etc) . My parents wouldn’t do that (because that would mean actually offering financial support) no, the expectation was to just ‘not upset your mother’ and ‘dont let her down’ , without any actual support to do so. It wasnt that they couldnt afford it, they didnt want to.

    This meant that my choices for career had to be both self sufficient, and somehow please and not upset. It most definitely wasnt a ‘dream’. It was about somehow making her happy, or fulfilling my role as golden trophy child so I could be boasted about (for going to university) to her coffee shop churchy friends, or instead be complained and moaned about (which is almost certainly more likely) for upsetting her.

    Allign this also with belonging to a faith, and having an identity in which I was desperate to please God, and do ‘his will’ and so, in this space and having no dream for any other career, I wanted to continue being a youth worker, after being a junior youth leader in my church. It seemed to be something I enjoyed and was good at. Was it a dream? Was it even a calling?

    I hoped it would be a sensible and ‘good’ thing – but no it aroswed their fury…. – and did it make ‘them’ happy. Dear God no.

    12 years later, and even having written books on youthwork and done an honours degree, (all paid for myself with £0 from them) I am asked when I am going to get a proper job like a teacher on a regular basis. Or whether the degree I had paid for (and completed as a mature student with two small children) was worth it. Though it didnt stop them coming to my graduation and ruining it, with the celebratory present to me being a meal out in a cafe for lunch in which I was asked to pay 1/2. (that went a long way to pay off the £9000 fees, I tell you)

    Anyway, I digress.

    What i only realised a few years ago, and its been reiterated to me in the last 6 months too, is the level of coping that is required in situation of high emotional, physical or financial stress (and a lot of my first 40 years included these at varying degrees of high) is that its only possible to think or plan one hour, one day or one week, or one pay month at a time, and even then, being in a constant place of turmoil, navigating eggshells, fears, avoidance and drama – life is only about being in it and soothing it – through whatever means.

    Future planning felt conditional. Some of my thought patterns were things like:

    If I become a ________ then we’ll have money and then _______ will like me.

    If I do _________ and then ________ then I might have temporary relief from being hurt.

    If I do _________ then ill get a qualification and more money and with more money itll mean things will be easier.

    If I do ________ then God will be happy with me

    If I do __________ then my parents might be actually proud of me.

    None of this was ever about dreams. It was about trying to please others, trying to soothe others, trying to be safe, trying to earn something that with emotionally abusive people, was actually not possible. But I carried on. Thats was the pattern.

    And then I would get angry and think to myself that I had done something that would hopefully help….but it was met with only further rejection or criticism, so, then I would try harder.

    It wasnt dreams, it wasnt purpose – it was existing inside a tortured shell that was trying to earn impossible affection, validity and recognition.

    Thats what survival does.

    And that had been my conditioning since birth, and until the last few years, I hadn’t realised how unnormal it was, or the effect of childhood trauma on being able to think about the future in a clear purposeful way.

    I read ‘Codependency no more’ back in 2019/20. In it Melody Beattie, describes how healing from this, is about slowly remembering that we can have our lives to lead (and not be waiting for someone else to change/get better/not be addicted) , and start setting small goals, and maybe even have dream lists. Even at this point in my healing, I found this a really difficult thing to do. It was alien to be to set a goal. To make plans. Yes I was in my own flat, yes I had all the opportunity and space in the world. but I hadn’t yet given a future a thought, and in that space I was just enjoying being, and enjoying being safe.

    Goals and plans did include being able to go for walks, or holidays. But not quite dreams. It was all week to week. And then Covid hit.

    Bottom line is that I was scared to have dreams. Scared because for so long any dream was conditional, and any dream was something I would have to more than likely have to support myself alone. And for so often dreams meant a kind of work that I didnt have the confidence to keep going in, or had the voices of self criticism that would cause it to end. Any encouragement was in the main self determined, and that was frail, especially when those thoughts had been indwelt with self protection and fear. Dreams means desire, and desire was also quashed as being selfish.

    Can you understand the mess of my head?

    In Johann Haris book ‘Lost Connections’ he shares, when talking about children who had experience of abuse and depression in their lives:

    At some profound level M had discovered that , extremely depressed people have become disconnected from a sense of the future , in a way that other really distressed people have not’

    They are, in all intense a purposes living in the here and now. What he tried to set about was whether this was cause or effect. It’s significant though, that if motivational growth is dependence on Autonomy, Belonging and Competence (Deci/Ryan) then if that Autonomy is about being able to create, plan for and make choices about the future, and growth happens when this is the case. What happens when that is taken away – consciously or subconsciously. This happens in organisations too, purposeless organisations become depressed and anxious.

    For about 14 months I had been living in a state of being that included enjoying my job, having a sense of distance from my childhood past and feeling safe, secure and getting to a place of relative security. In that time I had began to be able to give time to the possibility of a dream, and give a lot of time for this dream. I was able to think ahead… and thinking ahead was a gift, as this helped to balance the times of anxiety and ‘the past’ coming back – and have one tiny foot in future possibility to keep hold of.

    For the last 6 months that has barely been possible. Ive been hit with a number of situations, relating to facing the past again, its situation and injustice, that has meant that what I have needed to do is to dig deep into ‘just being’. Whilst some of that hasn’t quite ended, theres relatively clarity in the mud of it all. But what happened as a result?

    Its funny, its one thing trying to live in the now, in the present – but theres one thing about living in the present when the future is open and full of possibility, another when the past has seeped in and the future feels clouded. It’s still the present from a time perspective, but it’s a space full of anxieties, flashbacks and uncertainty, digging deep one day at a time. Dreamless, with the only dreams being the nightmare of the past being relived.

    I couldnt think about the future. I stopped being able to write creatively (part of the dream has been writing a children’s book) , I was writing responsively, expressively and about the hurt or the recovery or the learning through the moment by moment of it all. But sitting down and being able to write, or focus on the dream, was difficult, almost impossible. I was ok, in my day to day, but future thinking was nigh on impossible, though I tried to valiantly keep the flame alive.

    I didnt realise the extent to which being able to have dreams was a luxury, and privilege. I didnt realise that it wasnt selfish for me to have dreams or purpose, that was about me, and not just for others. Working on a dream stimulated me, gave me life, gave me purpose, spark and creativity, and took me one step into an unknown future, that I was in a good place about trying to get to.

    The only way we can save our dreams is to be generous to ourselves (Paulo Coelho)

    Dreams are important. They make life interesting.

    They take effort. But they require soft open heartedness. To be generous to myself in search of them, to know they will happen, to give myself grace in the pursuit of them. Grace I had, but had to unlearn self criticism and the voices.

    Dreams are important to have a step in a future that can keep the past thoughts away at times, not deny them, not bypass them, but balance them, because it can be so easily, with a traumatised mind, to have two feet stuck in the past, stuck in other peoples drama, stuck in responding to others.

    And now that ive got to a place in time beyond the dealing with and responding to past related stuff…. it’s time again… to give time for the dream.

    Having a Dream is way more complicated and important than it seems.

  • You Can’t force your Jigsaw (But do open the box)

    You Can’t force your Jigsaw (But do open the box)

    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.

  • The Lie we’re conditioned to believe.

    I will be ok. 

    Thats the lie. Right there. 

    Actually not quite. 

    Because thinking about it, ‘I will be ok’ was always true, as im still here now, and ‘I will be ok’ was what I used to say to myself a lot, when going through the bewilderment of emotional abuse and manipulation in childhood and in a long term marriage. When things got tough, or weird or both, and much was just what I had been used to since birth; ‘I will be ok’ would be what I said to myself. 

    And because im here writing this, I guess that isnt the liee then. That was grit and determination rearing its strengthening head. 

    The lie was this. 

    ‘I will be ok….if’ 

    ‘If’ that tiny little word. 

    ‘If’ could also appear at the end of the phrase

    ‘They might like me .. IF’ 

    or

    ‘They might be proud of me … ‘IF’ 

    or 

    ‘Things might be ok…’if’’

    But lets get back to the first one

    ‘I will be ok….if’ 

    Conditional Okay-ness. 

    Because thats what it is. Ultimately. It’s about having a self belief that is only satisfied when certain conditions happen. Conditional self- worth, self -respect, self-regard. 

    ‘I will be ok….. if im a little bit fitter’ 

    ‘I will be happy … if I write a piece that goes viral’ 

    ‘I will be happy…. on a sunny day’ 

    ‘I will be ok… if ‘they’ treat me ok’ 

    ‘I will be ok….. if _______ happens’ 

    ‘I will be ok… if get to put in my meditation, breathing, bath, journal, cook nice food, give myself some me time, breathe again, watch the roses grow and do yoga..twice… then ill be ok’ 

    ‘I will be ok……if’ 

    Because it’s a lie. 

    In his book ‘Living untethered’ (and also The Untethered Soul) Micheal Singer writes about how much of our lives are spend trying to avoid, navigate, deny or skirt around pain and challenges in our lives, so much that they dominate. So much so that we create a type of living in which the pain, the abuse, the darkness holds us in captive, and so we instead (I instead) would tell myself these little lies, the lies of conditional okayness. 

    Because I wasnt ok, I hoped and tried to will myself to be, but without facing the real pain, the real issues inside. I was temporarily ok….if my football team won, if I managed to get a good grade in an essay, if I could ride my bike…if , if, if, if… 

    I needed something to happen for me to have temporary ok-ness. 

    I needed something to cause me to feel a tiny bit ok. 

    I was requiring something other, to soothe… something inner. 

    I was needing ‘the world’ to fix/solve/soothe what was on the inside… without facing or dealing with the real issue. It was avoidant, I was avoidant, and yet ‘I will be ok..if’ is all around and so it was easy to go along with it… even if I was dying on the inside. 

    Because. If was depending on something to make me feel ok. Then I wasnt ok. 

    I was just in a cycle of it. 

    Being ok, needn’t be conditional. 

    It took me a very long while, at least 5 years of facing the stuff, journaling, listening to my emotions, giving myself time, safety, therapy, using the tools and having better self care routines, that helped me be in a better place. A place where I could trust myself a bit, a place where I was more aware of my sensitive nature, and awareness of the damage that had been done to me. (for more of this read my story here) . Yet, I was still trying to believe that I was ok. Yes I could relax, yes I was safe, but so much deep down, inside I was , and especially when I hit some low points, I would collapse and breakdown, which I did in 2023. 

    I knew I didnt believe in myself because the very thing that I needed, was the thing I criticised. Positive psychology. Thinking positively. Self affirmations.. yuk no no no. I can’t do that…it’s so Ammmerrican. It’s false, it’s ugh, no. 

    But I realised that my inner critic voice was still running the roost. Even with a lot of change. I still had ‘needs’ and ‘needed things’ to be ok. 

    I didn’t believe I was ok, not unconditionally ok. Self belief hung on a fragile string. 

    That little lie ‘ I will be ok…if……I change my job…if I write something…if I …..’ 

    And whilst im at it, ill not dwell on this here, but I might well have been told that ‘God loved me’ – but since that was also the belief of my abusive parent, and also church was a place I needed to belong, to be important, to be busy, to be intelligent, to know (and not feel) – two theology degrees later and a 22 year career working in faith groups in the UK… Unconditional Gods love, was lost in a kernel of conditional institutional performance and responsibility. It wasnt Gods fault. But too much pain and damage surrounded this heart, and so unconditional love or even unconditional ‘ok-ness’ was off the table. 

    So, it was easy to believe the lie. 

    I wasnt ok, and I was stuck in a cycle of believing that I would be one day ok…if…

    What I had to do was face the reality of myself, and my hurts, pains, defence mechanisms, sand strategies…and dig right deep, into the places of self loathing, self mistrust, self destruction… and find myself stronger, more loving, and more compassionate than all of them. 

    To start to rebuild a self that had been broken and tormented since birth. 

    To realise that ‘ I will be ok.. If’ 

    Was actually a lie. 

    Because the truth is something else. 

    The truth is not that I am ok. 

    The truth is that I just am. 

    Regardless of what happens. I still am. 

    Regardless of what I do… I am

    And in me there is love, and joy, and calm, and truth… 

    The funny thing is, in the last year or so I notice myself saying things like ‘I need ______’ or ‘if I buy _______ ill be ok’ – its almost as if its an unusual thing, to notice, to realise and then I check in with myself. 

    I dont need to believe that I am conditionally ok. 

    And neither do you. 

    But it’s a lie we’ve been often told to believe. 

    Because it keeps us trapped.

  • One Brave You.

    My friend

    My glowing universe friend

    I cannot wrap this in cotton wool.

    You will never be safe

    Not fully, not completely

    It’s not how the world works

    Especially when you’re used to scanning for danger

    Waiting for something to happen

    Living self around the other

    You will never be safe

    Not 100%

    And I know you’re gonna hate me for saying this

    I heard it all the time

    You can always be brave.

    Hate having heard it…

    Now to embrace it

    Now to own it.

    You can always have courage, to do , to act, to love, to give

    Because that’s who you are

    In the midst of danger, that beautiful caring soul

    You can always be brave, you will always have strength

    For what’s inside you

    That care, that love, that dream

    Is you, and will always be you

    And No-thing can truly hurt you…not there, not deep within

    A soul that cannot be damaged

    Flickering soul light

    You may not ever be safe

    But you can be brave

    Because that’s about you

    That’s what you can do.

    Flickering soul candle

    God flame burning

    Inside you

    Brave path making

    Universe guiding

    One brave you.

  • Growth Conditions (on the inside)

    Growth Conditions (on the inside)

    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?

    And yes its ‘only a theory’ but just pondering….

  • The Journey.

    I realised something today in doing a Mental Health Awareness course with work. It was that I am so proud and pleased with the journey I have been on
    When in the past suicidal thoughts were common from the age of 9
    When negative thoughts crowded my mind, constantly
    When I gave in to self soothing behaviours
    When I felt shame
    When I disconnected from feelings
    When I couldn’t look anyone in the eye – when they asked.. ‘Are you ok?’
    When I lacked any joy, dreams, or self worth
    When I was in survival mode
    When I travelled through life sacred, bruised and with a lingering depressive state.

    So…as I sat in the room, I realised the extent to which I have dug deep, how much I have faced fears and inner demons  and stood up for myself, how I’ve sought professional help.
    Sometimes it’s just important to be grateful for the journey…the one before ..and the one emerging …..

  • It’s not always sparkles

    Its not always sparkles

    Or rainbows

    Or endless bliss flowing freely

    Its not always sparkles

    It really isn’t

    Its not always perfect

    Its not always clear

    Sometimes it’s fog

    That feels very near

    Sometimes the weight feels heavy

    Sometimes the swirl goes around and around

    Sometimes peace is

    Struggle to be found

    Therapy isn’t magic,

    And the book isn’t a spell

    When your mind goes all cloudy

    And races like hell

    Its not always sparkles

    Its not always bunnies

    It was never going to be

    Sensing the discomfort

    Yet know

    That’s not me

    Experience the feeling

    Don’t bury it away

    Experience the discomfort

    As a message of healing

    And love it anyway

    Talk to the voices

    Bring them down from the ceiling

    It won’t be all sparkles

    It won’t ever be quick

    It might be quite blue

    Yet what is certain

    The power

    Is in you.

    💜

  • Broke, but not broken.

    But I bet you think you are.

    I did.

    I thought I was too broken to be fixed

    The fear of deep scars caused by abused too much

    To afraid to go there.

    Too weak to want to

    Too afraid of the consequences

    Didn’t know what it would take

    What it would mean

    Then all the soothing tactics when coping.

    They would need sorting too.

    And they haunted my days like heavy weights.

    Thinking I was to blame

    Thinking I was broken

    Thinking…

    I’m too wounded….I don’t want to start facing it

    I’m too broken to even face it

    I’ll be going alone.

    Yet, I had no choice in the end.

    Dug deep when everything lost and clawed my way into safety and space.

    Turned around after running away for too long.

    Turns out I wasn’t broken

    Turns out what I considered sin ..was abuse others had done to me

    Turns out I had been normalised into thinking surviving was default

    Turns out I wasn’t broken, but holding onto things that weren’t mine to hold

    Turns out I wasn’t broken, but I had been broken.

    Turns out I was light and love underneath

    But that had been sniffed out, crushed and stolen from since birth.

    I wasn’t broken….but I had been broken.

    Yet…I wasn’t broken

    Because I didn’t leave the world when suicide tempted me as a child

    Or when emotional breakdowns occured in my 30’s

    I wasn’t broken.

    I wanted a better life.

    I wanted to escape

    I wanted more

    I wasn’t broken, and neither are you.

    You are not what someone, or a system has done to you

    You are not the weight of others expectations

    You are not the mask or the shield

    You are not broken.

    You just are.

    You are light, and love and joy all along

    This is your soul, you are breaking to find love inside

    And love is withing melting it down

    Your own love, you.

    You are not broken.

    Love is within.

    Love is you

    You are within.

    You are not broken, you are complete within.

  • Loving the past….goodbye….

    Learn to love and appreciate your past. Fully embrace it, thank it for teaching you, and let go of any judgement that there was something wrong with it. Your past is uniquely yours. It happened. It’s sacred. It’s beautiful. Nobody else had it, and nobody else ever will. Embrace your past, hug it, kiss it, love it to death

    (Michael A Singer, Living Untethered) 

    That’s very different from ‘you just need to move on’

    What happened yesterday happened. It isn’t today.

    What happened 35 years ago happened. It isnt today.

    But current experience may also be the constant reliving of the past.

    Loving the past feels dreamy and impossible.

    And for 40+ years I loved suppressing the shadows of a past I didn’t want to open. A past that I was afraid of, a past, the wounds of childhood abuse that I had masked for so long.

    Had to hide it was to make it on my own

    Had to pretend it didn’t happen to have a ‘successful life’

    Had to, it was the only way.

    Didn’t want to go there.

    And that didn’t seem even a choice at the time, just the only way I knew, suppress and pretend, just don’t open the box.

    Let the past have power over me.

    Yet some things find themselves harder to get rid of.

    Memories intertwined with regret

    Memories intertwined with loss

    Memories intertwined with shame.

    Self defeating prisons of the mind.

    That don’t exist in the now.

    But haunt.

    Self love isn’t just baths.

    Its tender, kind, self forgiveness

    Love of the highest order

    The past.

    It happened to cause us to learn.

    And to give us the opportunity in the now to hold it, hug it and kiss it to death, so that it’s part of our loved selves.

  • Walking in the darkness (and befriending it)…..(Advent reflection 2)

    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.

    Always Hope.