James Ballantyne

Tag: Anger

  • The Lies on Trumans Wall.

    Im definitely not going to be the first person to give some thought to the themes in the film ‘The Truman Show’ which was released in 1997 (I think), in fact on of my best friends wrote her Masters thesis on it, linking it to the christian faith. 

    But I think nearly 30 years later (ouch) I can do a few spoilers. 

    Truman is born into an artificially created universe for the purposes of being filmed constantly on TV, he is the star of his own TV show, that he doesn’t know, from birth, to school, to friends, to girlfriend, all are actors in the set, and this is his life. 

    On a number of occasion people invade the set to try and ‘free’ him, and gradually, and accidentally he begins to realise that what he thought was normal, was actually scripted, and regular behaviours by actors on the set, people going to work, the street cleaner always in the same place, the lift actually not being a real lift in the lift shaft next to the one he usually used. His ‘wife’ talking to the camera to advertise a cereal product, in the midst of a conversation. Branding was everywhere because this funded the series, and it was big money. 

    It was Big brother before big brother came to being, yet big brother was voluntary act, Truman show was about the story of Truman – being the only True Man, and everything around him being fake. 

    What Truman had to start doing was realising that there were patterns to peoples behaviour. 

    What Truman had to start doing was realising that whilst no one was completely lying, they were all affected by the desire to control and contain, because, they were being paid to ‘keep the show on the road’ sponsorship, branding and advertisements were driving, and popularity moments (like first kiss and wedding) were big popular national collecting moments, in which sponsorship craved. 

    What Truman had to start to do was disrupt the patterns. 

    What Truman then started to have to do was decide when and where he was going to believe and accept the lies happening around him. His Mate on the truck on the bridge, they have a long conversation, ‘I wouldn’t lie to you’ he says. But he is. 

    Truman starts to realise that inner pull to something closer to the truth. 

    He only knows the structured world of his existence, a world in which everyone is lying to him, a world which has been cleverly constructed and formed. 

    But he starts to realise that he has been lied to for all of his life. 

    And he starts to express the emotions of this

    He begins to realise that the world in which he has been contained in – even if its being broadcast to millions, wasnt free and wasnt big enough, for though he had dreams to go to far off lands, every boat he tried to use to get through was subject to ‘fake’ storms and weather incidents…. fake weather he began to notice…. 

    His anger at being lied to began to fuel the energy for him to find freedom, and live a life of truth, beyond the falsity of containment, marketing and to also realise and find the person who once loved him. 

    For so many of us … actually 

    I am definitely in a phase of ‘middle age rage’ at the moment, and im sure I am not the only one. 

    Whether we feel small, and been kept small for too long

    Whether we realise that we’ve been lied to, or not believed

    Whether we feel like our world has been clipped and shrunk

    Whether we’ve been told were not good enough, clever enough, pretty enough, worked hard enough, in the right job etc etc…

    Or told to stay within the confines of lies to stay safe, small and loyal. 

    Whether were not able to be ‘true’ to our purpose, destiny or calling

    Whether we’re being or have been abused and contained. 

    Whether our minds have been conditioned by all of this, happening to us, in childhoods, churches, systems, workplaces, relationships, wherever. 

    And often, subconsciously we swap one place of lies for another, because its what we got used to. 

    Im realising now quite how much I experienced suppression. 

    Realising how I made myself small. 

    I realised that my mum was lying about me, and to me, and always was, but I had to go along with believing her, whilst I was in the house, until I was 18 and until I was free, so free that I was sick on the train leaving home. Free to not have to navigate suffocating and destructive lies on a daily basis. 

    With so much disorientation around him, Truman grew up in a place that the blurred lines between what was real and what was fake were difficult to notice. The people themselves were real, physically, but they were being pulled by invisible strings (often also with ear pieces in ) . Invisible strings of a controlling director and a team of producers and TV staff. When I was 18/19 and watching the movie the first time I had so little ability to see how relevant it was for me. 

    ‘The Truth will set you free…… but it will piss you off first’ (source contested)

    ‘For centuries, even millenia, humans have believed that a conflict exists in the human mind between good and evil. But this isnt true. Good and evil are just the result of the conflict. The real conflict is between truth and lies. (Ruiz, The Fifth Agreement) 

    The Lies on Trumans wall were keeping him safe.

    They were also keeping him contained.

    They were told they were for his benefit .

    What are the ones you believe in, that you can’t let go of?

    But they were for the TV viewers, for the paid actors, for the paid TV staff, for everyone else. 

    Everyone else benefitted by Trumans containment. 

    The lies on Trumans wall needed rage, needed awareness, need for him to see them, and see the effects of them on him. How nothing made sense and nothing was real. 

    Nothing emotionally was real in a world played by fakery, by sheen, and for performance. Truman was the star of a show he didnt want to be in. Yet he played it until he realised it was fake. Yet he played it until he realised it was doing him harm. 

    For I have come that you might have life, life in all its fullness (John 10:10, The Bible)

    And that might mean being a sheep free from a pen that Jesus describes, in which the thief is present, to roam and explore the hillside, knowing that theres a safe shepherd at the gate as a touchpoint back. 

    Truman didnt know what lay beyond the wall at the edge of the known world to him. He didnt know how even to get out. But something real was burning inside. 

    He didnt even know there was an out. He just kept going. With the belief that there was one day a person who showed him what love was and that she was waiting. 

    Maybe it’s beauty that does save us in the end (Dostoevsky) , but it might take a period of rage at the unreality to get there. The Lies on Trumans wall, at the edges of his universe held him in, until he realised there was something else, something deeper at the source of his soul that urged him to look, urged him to find it. 

    Freedom was beyond the lies on Trumans wall. Freedom is to live a life free from lies, from the lies we believed and and the lies we inherited. Freedom from the lies we tell ourselves. 

    And Truman after all that rage. Just walked through. Once he found the door. 

    The Universe conspires to help the dreamer (Paulo Coelho) 

  • I had an Anger issue, but had to pretend I didnt.

    Let the flame of anger free you from all falsity

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

    In one of the books I am writing at the moment, I am about to talk about the feeling and emotions around Anger, it is already half written, it needs expanding, yet, as today I read the blessing and prayer above, it has caused me to realise the complexities of how I didnt deal with anger, or couldn’t.

    I share, because I know I am not alone in this, not at all, I share because the damage we do when not dealing with anger in the right way can be horrific both for ourselves and the people we love around us, those who we transfer it to.

    A few weeks ago I was talking to some friends of mine, with foster kids, they shared how the kids would rage and destroy things because they felt angry about what had happened to them, as they realised how they had been treated. We both agreed that this, was a good thing, for them, that pain is so raw it has to come out.

    In the conversation, I said, that it took me 40 years to be in any position to process what had happened to me, and have any sense of anger about it.

    I remember a friend react with anger as something my parents said to them, and I witnessed them be angry and punch the door, at the tender age of 15, I said, ‘theres just no point in being angry’ or words to that effect, because I had to delegitimise being angry for my own good, and I had shut this all down, because for me, to survive was to stay small and quiet. But someone else, my friend, in their home was safe to be angry.

    I held on to it. I held it inside.

    No emotion was safe, so all inside.

    Playing sports got some of it out, and I pushed myself hard at this from 12-40 in different ways.

    Talking to young people about Anger Management in my late 20’s was all about me hiding and pretending that by ‘being calm’ that was the way to deal with it all.

    And even though I had probably realised that Anger wasn’t a sin (just something I had held inside) from better theology, I still couldn’t be angry, denying the self, meant staying emotionally small and invisible..and safe this way…

    I did my best to add things on top of the inner pain. Keeping busy, being responsible, adding more things that were brain things, study, read, write, think, get consumed by sport, politics and the news, adding more on top of the real, layers upon layers. Burying the real.

    I couldn’t be angry about the real thing, so I directed it to other things; politics and twitter, blogging, being harsh on my kids when they were v young, the dog, these got my anger at times, because they were ‘safe’ to receive it.

    Was this a conscious thing at the time, not sure, but it was how I was trying to cope.

    I couldnt be angry because I had a reputation of being soft, kind, patient, caring, loving… keep up the facade… and yet inside so much was hurting, raw, empty, and still in survival mode.

    And, because a survival technique as a child was to ‘be there’ to soothe other peoples emotions, especially those who were also abusing me, I internalised that my emotions weren’t important, though other peoples were. Soothing other peoples angry was a safe place.

    It was a matter of feeling like I had to be the strong one for others. I could be safe for others, whilst feeling false and dead inside.

    Had to be good, Had to be helpful, had to be ‘christian’, had to be mild, had to be small, had to accept, had to be ‘grateful’, had to please others, had to…

    I couldnt be angry because that would mean that me and my feelings had validity, and that wouldn’t have been safe or acceptable. So I denied the possibility, I denied myself.

    I couldn’t be angry about what happened to me, because I had been given the suffocating rope of responsibility within this, so there was no one to be angry about it… except myself

    So I internalised it, and gave in, caved in to comfort eating, self neglect, self criticism, being annoyed at myself, despair, self loathing and shame – yet trying to hold it all together….to keep face.

    Even transferring it to others, in ways such as cynicism, passive aggression, sullen awful behaviour.. created a negative cycle of shame and further torment, and I was utterly miserable. In a pattern I could see no way out of, and felt responsible and condemned through it all. Shame cycles. Avoidance cycles. But I knew no different and had to be strong and safe for others.

    Bottling it inside, sullen energy, masking, yet reacting to everything, a mess. A hurting, bruised, mess. When pricked, acted like the frightened hurting teenager, sullen, moody, that even as a teenager wasnt allowed to be.. lid on. Raging inside with no where to go.

    All this took considerable energy, but survival and avoidance was the place of known comfort for decades.

    I couldn’t be angry at was happening to me, because until I was 40 I didnt fully see it as abuse.

    That’s the bewilderment of emotional abuse, especially by narcissists or the emotionally immature. (Check out a few resources here on this, they helped me see this for what it is, there’s also tons of this stuff on You tube, I like F Rieberson on it here)

    I couldn’t be angry because I felt shame to feel angry. It felt wrong to be angry.

    Anger wasn’t valid, because Anger meant facing reality, and facing reality was only going to be difficult, and at that time I had no where to feel safe to even start this process, and no one I thought would even know or understand what it all was.

    I was running from the external monsters, like a frightened child, running from the reality I couldn’t and didnt want to face, and running from wanting to deal with all the feelings inside and how I had tried to deal with it.

    Not being angry, was a falsity. I get it now.

    Holding Anger in was a blockage, it meant I couldn’t feel anything else, not fully.

    I was stone. Suppressed rage. Suppressed pain.

    Lifeless.

    Starting with realisations, self awareness and safety in many ways, I began to recognise what happened.. but it still took a while to deal with the anger. It was as if I had 40 odd years of it stored up and I was afraid of it, pretending it wasnt there, too self conscious to want to feel it.

    When a friend 6 years ago told me to swear and use the F word, it took me almost 30 minutes to meekly say the word. I was so scared of that feeling, the shame of letting out the depth of feeling, i was so inhibited, so afraid.

    Afraid of letting out a reality in myself… that I was angry, and it was valid, I was valid. Hiding truth had been a falsity, and I was protecting something that needed dealing with.

    And I did.

    Within the safety of both therapy and my own safe space of home, I wrote.

    Red crayon, red pencil, anything, and felt every bit of rage inside come out by letting the crayon write deep, painful scribble and lines and anything.

    Moment by moment, memory by memory, trigger by trigger.

    It had to come out.

    It had space to come out.

    It was better out.

    And yes tears, many…rage.. a lot… but all leaving…

    I began to let some of what was held inside… go…

    I wrote other writing, that will never see the light of day, but it had to just be given air to and let out

    I started to feel the truth.

    I became more able to stand up for myself and create boundaries in saying no, to them (and to others).

    Anger made me realise I was important, and vice versa.

    I had to finally recognise that what I had experienced wasn’t my fault.

    I started to feel my heart burn

    I started to feel… my heart at all

    Pretend peace and suppression became slowly slowly something real.

    Something real beyond.

    Somewhere real beyond a place I was comfortable in for too long.

    Somewhere I had to go.

    How am I today?

    Like I said in a previous piece, it’s so hard to describe.

    There are moments when I feel angry, desire and hurt and pain…because thats one colour of my heart- red – and this is legitimate and beautiful!

    There are moments when I feel peace, joy, wonder and curiosity – and thats a different colour too – orange or purple – equally beautiful too!

    And much much more, but previously everything was grey.

    Now life is colour, life is joy and my heart feels utterly alive and open.. and I love it! But God it’s taken work… but so so worth it.

    I didnt want to get real about my stuff. It felt too big and I didnt feel worth it to do so.

    And you may not want to either. You may not be able to. But my friend if you are reading this, know that there is nothing to be frightened of by feeling angry, it means there is something wrong and something needs to change….

    To take the courage to realise that you are important and worthy to be angry and act.. for your own good.

    What we get angry about is rarely the real thing, and is often expressed in places where it’s safe to, rather than directed at the situation that it needs to be.

    It could be a whole other things beyond it, like grief, frustration, overwhelmed, injustice… Anger might be the cork..released to enable us to see other things..

    What we can get angry about is how we’ve been treated and its time, time my friend to let that anger burn away the falsity, so that you, your truth and your being may emerge and be felt.

    And so, as I write a book about the feelings of anger, I realise how my own anger ‘journey ‘ has been so so complicated, but writing it, and this today in a place of health and light.

    Anger is real. Anger is so so real. I was trying not to feel it, but it was still real.

    If you are suppressing it and damaging others….. time to face this too…

    Anger… It may heal you, it may make you and take you to your truth.

    May it free you from all falsity.

  • There’s no such thing as bad feelings.

    Every time I click onto my ‘WordPress’ app on my phone it gives me a different question prompt for the day, as an example, todays is ‘What do you know about where you live’ , and normally, because there’s often a few hundred answers recorded and I dont always want to answer it, I ignore it.

    Yesterday however I was about to. It asked the following question:

    What positive emotion do you feel the most often?

    I looking at this whilst I was out and about shopping in the morning, and so it occupied my thinking around Morrisons.

    My mind went to times of deep content and happiness, about the times of being at peace and still, about times when I feel safe and loved, and I smiled a little reflecting on these as I was doing my food shopping. It felt good to have a bank of experience of good feelings and emotions to draw from.

    So I nearly answered the question.

    But then I stopped myself. A tiny bit.

    I realised that as I was thinking about the question I had fallen into a bit of trap.

    in which I was labelling ‘good’ emotions and ‘bad’ emotions – or positive feelings and negative feelings. (and I know emotions and feelings are slightly different but im using them interchangeably here)

    And by doing so giving so called ‘bad’ feelings a further reason to avoid them or feel fearful of them, if they are ‘bad’ then I can have reason for feeling shame for having them – anger, fear, distress, frustration, grief , yet these are all part of the human experience – more so – they are part of your and my collective humanity.

    I have had to dig deep over the last few months, circumstances that ill not disclose, have caused me to face a number of situations, that have required intense emotional energy, both in fearing, in feeling injustice and feeling horrified, angry and grief.

    I know in the past I would have faced difficult situations with a Stoical ‘I will survive’ kind of mentality, or dismiss my own feelings at the time, for others, or project anger or grief elsewhere (Twitter was great for this). More often I would avoid the feeling, it was shameful and unsafe to have them. I had internalised that having feelings made me a bad person. So ‘Im Ok’ would suffice.

    By being stoical and ‘avoiding’ the deep emotions and feelings – that included anger, anger that revealed grief, and grief that meant loss, I would keep all of that buried underneath. I couldn’t have feelings, and definitely not ‘so-called’ bad ones.

    But suppressing feelings and emotions – meant not experiencing life, its goodness and beautiful moments too. As I read recently Sensitive by Hannah Jane Walker, she described the effect on a child of having parents who nurture or ignore a Childs emotions and their expression of them. My parents stole my emotions, to comfort themselves and keep up pretences. The more I realise this, the more that I understand the complex nature of what I have had to work through to be better and healthier emotionally, for myself and others.

    Back to digging deep, I have days when I can sense that I feel unsettled, out of kilter- mainly also because I have an experience of days in which I feel calm, content and happy too – I can sense that there is ‘something’ and nagging feeling – and I can make a choice as to what I do with it, and I know there are days when I dont want to. I know there are days when I become afraid of what I might be feeling or wanting what is behind it to reveal itself.

    I am never upset for the reason I think

    Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth (Taken from A course in Miracles)

    The temptation , because of learned behaviour, would be for me to avoid whatever it is. It’s more than likely to be be painful. At least that what ‘that voice’ says in my head. Those days then become a bubbling pot of anxiety and forgetting to breathe. They do more damage in, than out.

    I wonder if the problem isn’t the feeling or the emotion itself, but our relationship to it, and the means in which we have to express these healthily.

    So the labels of ‘good’ feelings and ‘bad’ feelings aren’t helpful, they are what they are – feelings.

    They happen, and it is better to notice them, feel them and find ways of giving them healthy air.

    If you’re anything like me then you may have felt unsafe expressing your feelings or found a way to talk your way out of them, suppress, deny and invalidate.

    So it makes it more of a challenge to do this when feelings get associated with judgement like good or bad. Ironically – a ‘bad’ feeling about something.. might be a good natural early warning sign – that you can choose to ignore or do something about – it’s a protective good thing, potentially.

    I was wondering whether there might be a better way of ‘collectivising’ feelings and emotions- could they be like tools in a shed, or toolbox – different feelings appropriate and used in different ways – but this metaphor almost give the impression that when we see a need we can choose the right tool, but feelings can be more intuitive and instinctive than this, its not a matter of picking the right feeling for the occasion, its that those feelings accompany the occasion or situation, and its important to adopt a healthy relationship with the feeling.

    How do you respond when you can sense the feeling? Does a critical voice tell you off for being joyful at something you felt joy happening? or a voice tell you that you’re not supposed to feel a certain way? Because, you are allowed to. It’s totally natural. Totally. But that voice suggests that it’s not valid, not to be trusted. A feeling, is just that a feeling, and whilst it’s not to be fully trusted every time, it’s equally not to be dismissed or ignored either – or invalidated. It is neither bad, nor good, it is what it is.

    Those feelings aren’t bad, but need appropriate attention and releasing, space and warmth to accept them, to become friends with, to feel them as they are, in all the human messiness and complexity. There is no shame in feeling, there are no bad feelings.

    But, there are pretty awful things that we can do, because of giving into anger, fear or grief, and thats something different altogether.

  • Healing my (non) Anger.

    Anger is a Sin

    Dont you dare get Angry

    Good people dont get Angry

    We Shouldn’t feel Angry when we do

    A good boy doesn’t get angry.

    Anger will turn someone away

    Anger will mean someone else has to take responsibility for my feelings

    Anger is to be avoided

    I didnt want to be angry like they are.. when they got upset.

    I internalised all of these, and I think other myths about Anger.

    Time to stop believing the myths about Anger.

    Yet I knew about anger…in theory… because like a ‘good’ youth worker I delivered ‘Anger Management’ classes..about 15 years ago.

    I could soothe and listen, but had absolutely no experience of processing my own anger. With the exception of bottling it, and it being released in cynicism, and holding it all in.

    I couldn’t be angry and expect others to have to deal with this. I had to be the one who dealt, responded even, to other peoples anger.

    I didnt know what ‘being angry’ to the point of letting these feelings out.

    Thats why discovering saying the ‘F’ word began a process of helping me to release the metaphorical cork on the bottle.

    I Mis-managed my own anger. Conditioned since childhood.

    Anger gives me power. Anger enables me to take action. Anger now helps me realise that I have something to protect. Anger creates boundaries.

    But its new, and still new for me, and im learning to be healthily angry.

    I used to say ‘I dont get angry’ but what this meant that I suppressed everything.

    Much Anger comes from Unmet needs

    Melody Beattie (Codependent no more)

    I was scared of my own anger, because I didnt know what it would be like.

    Yet, without anger, and rage, there might not be the point beyond it to know what the actual source was and is, and experience the peace beyond. The thing we’re frightened of is often the thing that controls us.

    Silent rage is destructive. If you’re not actively, consciously releasing anger, your holding on to it. And this is not doing you any good

    Edith Eger . (The Gift)

    So.. what did I do when I got angry this week. We’ll firstly I noticed that my despair at a situation only lasted for about 1-2 hours – in the past this may have lasted longer, I may have sunk, frightened.

    But instead I realised that I could be angry about it.

    I swore, a lot.

    I threw a few cushions.

    I drew with large crayons on paper, let the scrawl take what ever shape and told myself that it didnt matter it just needed to ‘come out’

    And then I wrote, words, phrases, to the situation, to myself who had to deal with the situation. About my needs.

    I talk more about my relationship with Anger here in my latest video

    /

    I think I used to try and bypass my anger to try and find a place of calm, yet that calm was often like the proverbial shaken champagne bottle, calm, but raging.

    Im learning to be better at this. Im learning to have a better relationship with my emotions, and sometimes get opportunities to practice…..

    It took me a long while, and it required small practice steps, of even just re-learning to swear.

    Time to bury the myths about anger.

    Time to deal with it, ourselves.

    Time to let it out and not feel judgement about it.

    Notice, let it out, and listen to it.

    Anger is a defence. Burning through it and the fear and grief is revealed underneath. Then its time to forgive ourselves. (Edith Eger)

    By not releasing it were denying that we werent victimised or abused or that we’re human. Making ourselves numb. Pretending to be Ok.

    What’s your relationship with Anger? What do you do to release it, and then process the core needs underneath it?

    Its time to un manage it, time to express it

    Time to make it a healthy part of us.

    Time to be human and feel it

  • Presence

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

    Take time to notice your very presence today.

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

    Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses

    Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon.

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

    Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity.

    May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame.

    May anxiety never linger about you.

    May your outer dignity mirror and inner dignity of soul.

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

    Be consoled in the quiet symmetry of your soul

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

    For Presence by John O Donohue

  • Wounds like Eyes

    If the process of healing is like an onion

    One layer of tears at a time
    One more step towards the core

    Then wounds are like eyes

    They hurt when stung

    They are the raw, vulnerable awakening

    Of pain needing more work

    Raw exposed and seen

    Wound of black hurt

    The pupil, the dark eye in the middle

    A wound of pain surrounded by levels of anger, grief, torment, fear and betrayal

    Like an eye

    Today has been a wound day, completely unexpectedly

    A trigger went deep

    Rawness to the surface

    Yet it helped me to see

    To look at the pain again

    And see, that I am not the pain

    That i am powerful

    That I am safe

    That I am loved

    And I am not in that place

    Somehow for me, wounds help me to see

    Help me to feel, a reminder to continue to be the new me

    Wounds help me to see

    See me for me now

    See what I need

    Wounds like eyes.

  • What have I done to deserve this? Salvation through The Pet Shop boys (Healing and Recovery Part 11)

    What is the music that saves you? That carries you?

    Is it music that makes you dance in the kitchen – despite the ‘rain’ or pain?

    Is it music that soothes?

    Is it music that takes you to that place of joy?

    I recently started a conversation on twitter titled ‘ what is the music that got or gets you through the difficult times? ‘

    Many genres were shared, from ballad, blues, jazz, classical – and pop and rock, it was one of my most popular conversations starters on twitter, and showed to me, probably unsurprisingly, how much music plays a part in our lives – notably the shit times

    (im not on twitter at the moment, so cant recall all of them) But if you’re reading this and want to add your own – do put it below – theres no judgement at all – if it gets you through, it works for you, thats all that matters. (and do share this piece on twitter if you’re reading this and want to, and enjoy the conversation on music too)

    So – what about me?

    Firstly im not going to talk about music growing up for me, it represents the same childhood pattern – of implicitly having to stick to ‘christian music’ – for fear of those parents and disapproval – and also being compliant. I remember turning up to my gap year training and having only christian worship music to count on as my recent CD purchase. Then again in 1996 I really didnt like Oasis….

    Anyway, fast forward a few years – and it was probably only after spending more time with young people that my music taste may have got better, and maybe that 2000-2007 wasnt that bad for half decent guitar based music – forget the rest…

    It didnt heal though and some of it was dreary, Snow Patrol im looking at you.

    What was the music that featured in my healing and recovery?

    Was it guitars and emo-rock?

    Was it 1970’s ballads?

    Was it 1990’s brit pop?

    Or 2000’s R’n’B?

    Or Gospel ?

    Nope.

    It was that music that I rejected from my own childhood.

    For, in the home of my friend who gave me hospitality for 6 months was a CD player in the kitchen. And a rack of CD’s.

    And mainly only 1980’s pop music.

    Beach boys, Erasure (I secretly liked Erasure in my teens) and others… but what I didnt need, looking back, was the music of requited love – what I needed was to go to the dark places – to get angry.

    I needed music that gave me strength to think that I wasnt to blame.

    Music to think and believe that I deserve better.

    Music to fist pump to, and also to give me language of what I had been through.

    Music that also somehow connected with talking to my personal shame

    It was music that felt rebellious

    Music that told a story that there was hope.

    When I think of my darkest place, and the music that carried me through, music that I played almost non stop for 6-8 months, it was The Pet Shop Boys.

    Yes, I have my friend and his Pet Shop Boys CD to thank.

    For that was part of my recovery – singing strong songs with a 1980’s pop beat.

    I wondered about writing the lyrics down to ‘what have I done to deserve this?’ but irony doesnt really get reflected in the words alone.

    So, here are the words to The Pet Shops song Its a Sin:

    {Twenty seconds and counting
    T-minus fifteen seconds, guidance is okay}
    When I look back upon my life
    It’s always with a sense of shame
    I’ve always been the one to blame
    For everything I long to do
    No matter when or where or who
    Has one thing in common, too
    It’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a sin
    It’s a sin
    Everything I’ve ever done
    Everything I ever do
    Every place, I’ve ever been
    Everywhere I’m going to
    It’s a sin
    At school they taught me how to be
    So pure in thought and word and deed
    They didn’t quite succeed
    For everything I long to do
    No matter when or where or who
    Has one thing in common, too
    It’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a sin
    It’s a sin
    Everything I’ve ever done
    Everything I ever do
    Every place I’ve ever been
    Everywhere I’m going to
    It’s a sin
    Father, forgive me, I tried not to do it
    Turned over a new leaf, then tore right through it
    Whatever you taught me, I didn’t believe it
    Father, you fought me, ’cause I didn’t care
    And I still don’t understand
    So I look back upon my life
    Forever with a sense of shame
    I’ve always been the one to blame
    For everything I long to do
    No matter when or where or who
    Has one thing in common, too
    It’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a sin
    It’s a sin
    Everything I’ve ever done
    Everything I ever do
    Every place I’ve ever been
    Everywhere I’m going to, it’s a sin
    It’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a sin
    It’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a sin
    Confiteor Deo omnipotenti vobis fratres, quia peccavi nimis cogitatione
    Verbo, opere et omissione, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa

    And whilst this song for the Pet Shop Boys has one meaning – it was a song that helped me start get angry, and sing through the sin and shame culture id grown up with and in, and finding it easy to go into self loathing.

    So, for me it was the music of The Pet Shop Boys that was another part of my rebuild.

    Strange thing, that right now as I write this, and I listen to their POPART album, its easily over a year since I last listened to it, and maybe thats sometimes what music can be too. It arrives when we need it, and we move on from it. Im only listening now as it feels right to listen as I write this.

    What about you? Whats the song, the music that journeys with you through the storms?

    Do share below in the comments – id love to hear!

    And if you want a listen, here’s the Pet Shop Boys, back in the late 1980’s, not sure if ill appear below…

  • Avoiding emotions is like driving with brake stuck on.

    Now I’ve done therapy, I can deal with everything, all the emotions!

    So when they arrive I know exactly what to do

    Disappointment, Anger, grief, self depreciation, annoyance, frustration, tick them all off, I just sit, breathe, and let wash through me like a shower of life’s joys and gratitudes.

    Do I fuck.

    Actually, I’ll make myself busy, I’ll keep moving, tidy, wash, clean, check social media, walk a bit, check social media again, alot, get a drink, check social media again, tidy, eat, maybe go for a longer walk, Facebook distraction, water the plants, watch something else, say I’ll switch off the screen, then open it a minute later, write a cute healing phrase on twitter, when I’m talking to myself and honestly..trying not to do it myself..

    And that’s not just the things I have to do, essential tasks…like work or family stuff..

    That’s what I’ll actually do

    Until I realise

    That I’ve been ignoring, hiding, avoiding

    Life is one big distraction of avoiding us being our real selves. The emotion police.

    But after I did therapy I thought I would be emotionally competent, feeler, healed and deal with it

    Turns out, I just know what I could do, but still have to make the right choices for myself to actually do them.

    40 odd years of abuse survival avoidance habits die hard. Though they were needed, and to be thanked.

    The last thing I want to do is deal with myself, yet the rewards for doing so are so much that I wonder why I put it off.

    It’s like driving a car with a fixed on brake, the brakes can come off and it drives better without, but it’s easier to keep going brakes on and not bother stopping to get it unstuck.

    Maybe this is a good metaphor to explore more, a brake being stuck on, might not show up as a warning light on the dashboard, but its a nagging feeling that something isnt intuitively right. You may be able to drive without fixing it, or put the stereo on to not sense it, but its still there. Intuitively , gut, something is provoking to be dealt with.

    It’s only when I stop, do I start again. Every moment of silence to listen to my own heart is a space of healing.

    I know what I need to do, it just takes a while to do it sometimes.

    What are you avoiding? What am I?

  • Men; do we need to talk about guilt and shame?

    It was part of my healing that some of my guilt turned to anger.

    When I realised that what I thought was my fault was a burden that wasn’t mine to carry

    As I discovered that someone else’s emotions are not my responsibility. Until then I took it on myself to clear up their emotional rubbish. Soothe. Tend.

    I grew up soothing the emotionally immature people in my life

    Reacting to them, as they didn’t own their emotions themselves. Manoeuvring around their world.

    Everyone else’s needs more important than mine.

    Feeling guilt for even thinking that I might have feelings, needs, emotions.

    Feeling their projected guilt that I hadn’t tended them enough.

    Not being angry enough to care about myself. Just guilt that I wasn’t meeting others needs enough.

    I had to care about myself to be angry enough to care about myself.

    Guilt in ministry encourages us to never say no, to work too hard

    To never feel like we’re doing enough

    Guilt inside caused me not to be my true self, what was my true self?

    Guilt keeps truth caged.

    My only feelings were that of others. What did I feel, deep down? It didn’t matter. So why bother.

    I am enough, I’m learning to know this

    I can feel, I’m learning to feel

    I do feel, and the toy box of my emotions now gets chance to play.

    I needn’t live in an existence where I felt guilty for not being enough. Unsure of my own emotions, unsafe of being true, so accepting the guilt.

    Healing meant that the guilt I had been conditioned to feel dissipated, and turned to anger.

    An anger that gave me permission to stand up for myself.

    To be truer to my true self.

     

    Melody Beattie writes this, in her best selling book, ‘Co-dependent no more’ :

    ‘The big reason for not repressing feelings is that emotional withdrawal causes us to lose positive feelings. We lose the ability to feel. Sometimes this may be a welcome relief if the pain is too great or too constant, but that is not a good plan for living. We may shut down our deep needs – our need for love and to be loved – when we shut down our emotions… we lose the motivating power of feelings’ (Beattie, 1992, 2nd ed)

    One of the characteristics of those who undergo therapy successfully, according to Carl Rogers, is that ‘They tend to move away from oughts’ The compelling feeling of ‘I ought to be this or that’  The client moves away from being what they out to be, no matter who has set that imperative’ (Carl Rogers, 1968)

    A friend of mine, Jenni Osborn has just recorded this on the subject of Shame in youth ministry, do have a listen

    I stopped feeling the weight of guilt, other peoples guilt projected on to me, and started to feel angry.  Angry because I now had something worth defending. Myself.