James Ballantyne

Tag: emotional maturity

  • 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?

  • On Gareth and the Hug we all need

    On Gareth and the Hug we all need

    I feel like there needs to be a broader conversation about men and processing emotions in day to day life, after incidents of violence and racism, and not just during special events like #mentalhealth awareness weeks. If football/alcohol cause the emotions to explode..

    Then those emotions are lying dormant, waiting to come out. Yet, those emotions are themselves from other things, and the bottle/cork that contains them is kept tight, then its waiting to happen…and its a big release when it does

    Its easier in the media to keep the blame game up and project anger continually , on the players that missed, the people who raged afterwards, the racists, so there maintains a cycle of perpetual anger, and yet also a realising that sport means so much…why?

    So I ask, whats the cork, or bottle made of? what it the pain or trauma thats keeping the emotions under wrap (until alcohol loosens the cork) Someone to blame is one thing, it projects from inside that we made not more than it was, we ‘needed’ England to win…

    and that need reveals. When Southgate held Sako, what, as a man did you feel? Grief, Hurt, Envy? Southgate held Sako in a way many of us as men have rarely encountered. Being heard, valued and seen as emotional beings, who are real.

    Gave him a cuddle’ was the way in which the commentator said it… what about held, felt, grieved, allowed emotions to happen, made it safe to do so, even on a public stage.

    Southgate showed an emotional maturity, empathy and warmth, that as a man, and a man in a leadership role, and on the public stage, is utterly incredible and inspiring. Yes its leadership, but its also character. It may be projecting but what Men might need more, is not …

    the victory of the sport, but to be held, heard and validated, in the midst of their disappopintment, expectations and especially on the public sphere. Southgate showed how it is done.

    Where might we turn to, as men, to process emotions more healthily? If we know Sport is the ‘release’ then maybe its time to look inside the bottle at whats fizzing around, to deal with it.

    There are some links and resources on this website: as well as articles on trauma and emotions.. one of the first things though is to start to get close to the things that have caused the pain, to find safe place, to slow down. All easy to say ..

    Because:

    I couldn’t run away and pretend to survive forever. I though I was ok, but really wasn’t. I needed football, so I get it, I really do

    I needed football, I admit it, in my previous blog here

    I thought therapy was for weak people

    I thought I didnt need it

    I didnt want to face the monsters

    I didnt think ‘my childhood’ was the problem

    I hid emotions in the bottle, closed them off completely.

    And in work I did exactly the same. Expectations of being responsible and leading, were aspects of the cork in the bottle.

    We won’t find love, and healing in the space of the media. We’ll find pointers of it in places like @matthaig1 and others. Men (though its not just men) we have waking up to wake up to the cuddles we actually need, before taking out more destruction on others.

    All I can say is, Gareth Southgate, thank you for showing that this is possible. Thank you for holding Sako, and in doing so holding all of us.

    Not just because of a pandemic, but because we are all human and it is what we all need.