James Ballantyne

Tag: destiny

  • Paulo Coelho: The Gift that keeps on Giving.

    Sometimes life is like wearing velcro.

    At least for me it can sometimes feel like it, I dont always know what I’m going to pick up, or what is going to stick. Or the importance of some of those small insignificant moments at the time.

    Or the way in which one persons journey inspires my own.

    Its that thing, what I learned I pass on to others, but also, by sharing my story could end up being someone else survival manual.

    So this one starts with a Sword.

    Because if there wasn’t a sword, there wouldnt be a story.

    And if there wasn’t a story, many millions, including myself wouldnt have found the life sparkles, glimpses of God, love, destiny and power as described by Paulo Coelho.

    But my story of Paulo Coelho started in a headmasters office in Billingham, near Middlesbrough in April 2018.

    I was doing a piece of community work for my then employers, FYT, in which I was conducting a community profile, including a semi structured questionnaire with , I think a headteacher or deputy headteacher in their office, at around about 4pm or so, school was empty. I remember the interview going well, and the headteacher had a number of unusual inspirational quotes on their wall. Now up until then, like a good youth worker, the only Paulo’s that I knew of were Paulo Maldini (Italian footballer) and more obviously Paulo Freire. I dont remember the quote itself, but I do remember liking it, writing it down on a notepad and then having a conversation with the headteacher about Paulo Coelho, he said that he was a Brazilian writer.

    It was an unexpected seed that stuck to me like velcro. At a time when I didnt realise how soon I might start having life revealed in the ways in which Paulo Coelho talks about it.

    I can honestly say that reading to understand and reading to see life have been so part of my healing process, from within the dark times, and also since.

    But sometimes the way in which some things have found me have been as mysterious, gifts from the universe, that are so difficult to explain.

    Fast forward less than 9 months.

    I am travelling from Sunderland to South Shields, from the friends house where I am staying, to my therapists office. It must be maybe my 2nd or 3rd session. Definitely not the first one. I have little money, though I have just started a new job. But one of the things I realise that I have started to enjoy is taking myself out for coffee, with a book. Enjoying the introvert life.

    But this was slightly less relaxing as I’m in a strange place that I dont know, I’m nervous about therapy, and I have probably 30-40 mins to spare. So I park up, and walk into the town, and noted that as I drove past there was a community cafe/centre that was open.

    I go in. Its basic looking – ie its a community cafe, its not Costa or Starbucks or a trendy independent coffee shop. It sells instant coffee in a polystyrene type cup for about £1, perfect. Luxury coffee would be too much when pre therapy angst was in the air.

    They do have, however, a second hand book stall. Second, third or fourth hand, but that’s ok. Two books grabbed my attention. They shone to my attention. They were ‘The Alchemist’ , and also ‘Veronica Prepares to die’ both by Paolo Coelho. I pay only slightly more for these two books that I do the coffee. They appeared to me, at that right time. Even as I bought them I could sense some kind of universe destiny about them. As if they were a gift to me, as I started the long road of recovery , here was a gift, a guide along the way. I would have no idea about Paulo Coelho if it wasn’t for that Headmaster office in Billingham, but it was such a compelling moment that these books were calling for me at that time. And me being open to that nudge. To follow that mysterious calling…

    I dont remember what happened in that therapy session. But I do remember that I started to read the Alchemist straight away. And…

    Id like to say that I had a wonderful experience reading it, but it didnt quite resonate in the way that I half expected it too (given its very high popularity and readership), yes some nice phrases and it wasn’t that I didnt like the story, I just found it a bit to remote, too much in a world that I didnt understand yet to connect with.

    Though I loved ‘Veronica prepares to die’. Maybe because at that time I needed to read something about dignity and life, and about facing the reality death, and in this moment life.

    Paulo Coelho has accompanied me (and also Christelle) throughout both our healing journeys and our relationship together, we have read at least 8 books of his together , some I have read alone first, some we’ve read together. Some have shown us about love, about life, about power, about death, truth, victory, and also about faith, spirit and God.

    We also re read The Alchemist, and it made more sense the second time, it resonated in a different way. But then again dont many books when we read them again? When we have changed, we see things differently.

    And that’s the beauty of Paulo Coelho.

    So, along with the many ‘self help’ reflective books I have read in the last few years,. and there’s been a lot – there hasn’t been more than a few months when I haven’t read a Paulo Coelho book, or even re read one.

    Having just read ‘The Pilgrimage ‘

    I realised, that his journey, across the strange road to San Tiago, Spain, started with his search for his sword.

    And as a consequence of searching for his sword, found more besides, and as a consequence of his journey Paulo, then wrote, stating in the Authors note afterwards, how this journey inspired him to write. His self discovery started with a sword, a faith, The Tradition.

    I realise that many of the Paulo Coelho books have found me, its been rare that I have searched them deliberately. At least 5 have been ‘found’ in second hand bookstores, in places where I was only there momentarily, Dundee, Stockton, and those two in South Shields to start off with. Its like gifts from the universe. It makes me realise how much it has been a variety of books that have accompanied me along the way, and Paulo Coelho’s fiction has almost balanced my desire for understanding and knowledge, and provided a different kind of wisdom, through story, as story. Some of Paulo Coelho, is his story.

    As Coelho says, ‘The universe conspires to help the dreamer.’

    Sometimes that ‘help’ has been in the form of therapists, or self help books, friends and gifts. Other times its been the stories of Paulo Coelho that have prompted my heart, soul and spirit, they have been spiritual experiences in themselves. Ill write this elsewhere, but he is definitely an author I feel safe with.

    I used to think there was only one Paulo (Friere) that was worth reading, now id say that my life is fuller because of the universe gifts from Paulo Coelho.

    Who’d have thought this would have started from a headteachers office in Billingham?

    ” When you want something, all the universe conspires to help you achieve it”

    (Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist)

    Im trying in a way to describe something that feels very deep and meaningful, but strangely dont have the words. Maybe its because the depth of Paulo Coelho is there for those who want to read him for themselves. Ive loved being led and guided by his journeys, maybe you will do too?

  • I had to make it happen – myself

    I love when I read something and because im in a different time and place, it means something different to me, I see something different in the words and meaning that I didn’t before. When I studied hermeneutics as part of my theology studies and then personal research 10 years ago, I would have understood this as the ‘reader response’ to a text, and thought then only of sacred texts like the Bible.

    I have just finished re-reading The Hobbit, it’s the fourth time I have read it, and the second time I’ve read it out loud, I read it to my son George about 10 years ago, and recently to my fiance Christelle, also as a bed time story.

    It’s the first time I’ve read it in 8 years though, and I had sort of dismissed it as an adventure story, and wonder how I’d find it compared to having just read the Harry Potter series

    As well as finding resonance in the conversation with the dragon part, the sneaky burglar role and the effect of power and wealth – whether got for legitimate or non legitimate means, it was this part at the end that stood out

    And why should they not come true, surely you don’t disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bring them about yourself? You don’t really suppose that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit?

    What did I once believe? That God would sort things out? That I couldn’t make anything happen? Maybe even that my destiny was never to be happy and that was what my luck was?

    Or was I waiting for someone else to fix it for me? Me, the passive victim waiting to be emotionally rescued and someone else patch me up, and yes at the point of crisis I needed immediate patching up. But..

    I had to make it happen

    I had to act, even with all the best guidance and support in the world

    I had to make a myriad of choices and actions happen

    I had to learn how to make decisions for myself and also that were for myself

    I had to stop being passive, or waiting for someone or something else to fix it, or play a never ending waiting game of was a manipulation in itself.

    Echart Tolle writes something very similar, stating that in simple terms, if we want to get out of a situation, or change it, we must act, and doing nothing is also action. Improbably misquoting him, but hey I’m writing this on a train

    If I attributed what I did to ‘The Gods’ where would that leave me now? What if how Ive changes and grown and dug deep been all just God and not me? I’m not going to say that I don’t believe God wasn’t in it, and I’m rediscovering God again, but what sense of power, or achievement or self pride would I have in it, if It was just God’s plan or destiny? Or good luck?

    The universe conspires to help the dreamer – Paulo Coelho

    But even then I had to make things happen, i had to take responsibility for myself, make choices and decisions, not all of them perfect or right, but I where I listened to my heart, and sought to do something that I felt was best for me, somehow that did. And that includes every day. Every day even now.

    Whether that’s a positive decision to not have a TV or watch the news, whether that’s a positive decision to listen to my feelings and anxiety and sit, write and express them, whether that’s to cook good food for myself, whether that’s to continue to deal with the mess of the past or survival strategies of the past through therapy, whether that’s to embrace love and vulnerability with my fiance Christelle, whether that’s continuing day by day to attend to myself, be kind to myself, these are all active choices I make every single day.

    So maybe, this is all about power after all. I had to realise I had more power that I thought, more power than I knew, more power than I wanted, and that I wasn’t fatalistically dependent on someone else. That I didn’t need to be scared anymore.

    From a place of fear, of being abused and scared, I had to take power, I had to start to make things happen for myself, sometimes one vulnerable step after another, but still steps.

    Maybe destiny and prophecies have to be found and created, and not waited for…thanks Gandalf…