James Ballantyne

Tag: grief

  • Calling from the Blue

    Calling from the Blue

    And then….

    The lights went out

    Darkness filled the air

    Stillness hung like smoke

    No-thing

    Space for fear to come in

    Dread

    Alone-ness

    Oh how those disciples of Jesus, and the women, and others, each of them lost in different ways,

    facing the end, death, and an uncertain life

    Allegiances loosely pledged, dashed, unfulfilled.

    Wondering lost in the next

    That hadn’t started, that wasnt there

    Just lost.

    They probably woke early, even if exhausted,

    To the new darkness approaching.

    They had nothing to wait for, because nothing was expected.

    Grief freezes

    Grief holds

    Grief and Anger mixed together in a soup of despair

    The poignancy of the empty blue sky

    and the shadows of the day before.

    The rush to start the new,

    to move forward

    to get on with life

    to run, avoid, fill up time

    Blue deep sky in the morning.

    Blue hearted

    Death is the great wound in the universe, it is the ultimate vulnerability that overshadows every footstep

    John O Donohue, Divine Beauty

    Yet…. love waits, calling from the blue

    Calling from the tears

    Calling from the unfulfilled dreams

    Calling from the nothingness

    Calling from the truth

    So…

    Take your time

    Its important that you feel

    And feel it deeply

    No rush

    Take your time

    Its important that you feel

    and feel it

    wholly.

    A known path is often full of potholes

    Take your time

    Its important that you feel

    your way

    led on the wings of the angels

    carried at their speed……

    not yours

    not the speed that you were going

    as you rushed to make it happen

    headlong into perfectionist headache

    Running from avoidance in your heart

    No rush

    Take your time

    Life awaits

    and calls you

    in the midst of

    in the midst

    of

    the waiting

    the liminal space

    between

    the death of the old

    the awakening of the new

    Take your time

    No rush

    It’ll be there

    Yet in this moment

    in its ambiguity

    in its uncomfort

    in its wrestle

    is your working

    is where your life tools get chiseled

    Self compassion and care make their deepest clean

    Dreams wrestle with reality

    Frustration becomes a higher calling

    to a place beyond, not yet felt

    not yet in..

    Take your time

    as an act of love

    a gift to yourself

    to embrace this now

    embrace this gift

    let it change you

    make you

    teach you

    No rush

    Take your time

    Life day will happen

    Resurrection day will happen

    In your soul, in your heart

    and

    now

    its just making itself known

    awakening your heart to feel it

    in the midst of this now

    So

    No Rush

    Let Love move in its slow way

    Beyond the blue

    in the blue.

  • 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.

  • Feeling (truly) safe now.

    Three days ago my mum died.

    Yeah, thats quite a start to a blog isnt it.

    I mean I could have warned you, or said something reflective, or a nice quote. But no.

    Three days ago my mum died.

    And the hardest thing about it, so far, has been trying to share this news, to friends (who know my story) and maybe all of you who have followed it on here, to illicit the kind of response that seems appropriate.

    My story. My survival and rebuilding story.

    Because, for so long my life wasnt about me, and even most of what I wrote here, wasn’t about me. She dominated… and im almost reluctant to give this news attention, but I almost want to share because it means that the story ive written about here, has completion, or reality. Its not even as if in writing this I feel like i’m processing, or hurting or sharing pain, its more just acknowledging the reality.

    On a human level, she died 9 months after being diagnosed with cancer, and it accelerated fairly quickly, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, yet also there is something in the relief of such an illness not dragging on.

    But I didnt feel the need to see her, there was nothing I needed to hear, say or see, and I am at peace with this.

    Peace. Thats an interesting word.

    If there has been a word that this has all felt in the last few days, it has been safe.. and safe is a bit like peace. The world is safer, for me and many others.

    I know other people might have different opinions or have had different experiences of her, I can’t imagine anyone who met her didnt at some point feel any sense of emotional eggshell walking, or the force of abruptness, some of you might choose to ignore these things.

    (Ive already had someone share their story yesterday to me of being on the received end of her rudeness, and my last conversation with her (March 2020) involved being shouted at on the phone and being told that covid was being over dramatised…. )

    It’s almost like I didnt want to give this news and her any attention, yet somehow, there is some attention I need to give this or should, because it is important, and big.

    Should. Thats an interesting word.

    Should.

    What should I feel.. when my life abuser dies?

    Who also played the role of mother.

    What should I feel…

    Is there a should?

    Is there a should about what I feel?

    Because..

    If you’ve known me personally this year, you will know that ive been very real and present with my emotions, safe on the inside, doing a lot of crying, happy, feeling this year.. safe… and ive felt like life has been from my heart, open.. to feel, receive and give…

    And I know what numb and suppression feels like – I had to do this for 40 years. This doesn’t feel like that. Neither does it feel like denial.

    I have space to feel, safety to do so… yet…

    Its not even as if I haven’t ‘gone there’ to find a good memory, or moment… but when I have… its not been met with a sense of grief, or happy, or anything… its just a memory.

    And the memories that have emerged, have all been negative.. and because of therapy and where I am at.. they have also been met with self love, and care… but also.. just a memory.

    A thought, a past thought, that feels distant.

    Maybe I was already ready for this.

    Maybe I had already gained life despite, or maybe realised my own self in such love and power, that she had emotionally and physically disappeared…. and the grief I gave myself safety to feel about 8 weeks ago, was the grief of what might have been .. with loving supportive parents, not those who I had to navigate, hide away from and avoid emotionally.

    Maybe when I read this book in November, (and thank you to Meghan, for sharing it with me)

    Im glad my mom died by Jeanette McCurdy

    – it gave me permission to feel what might be a reality in the nearer future than anyone thought a few years ago. (mum was only 68)

    It also helped me see what I have had to do to make my story public about what I suffered. Yes im not the only one who has done this, but not many write about their mothers publicly. It also helped me know that others have stood up to them, yet Jeanette did this when her mother was dead.

    (I raised complaints and made safeguarding statements in the last 4 years against her, when she was alive. I made others aware of her, in professional places. Yeah, you didnt know this, and this adds to all of this)

    Jeannettes story is full of heartbreak, anger and coping. Mine has been too, and you have read this.

    But im not raging, angry or feel like any sort of fight, thats been done. That fight had been 4 years with all those processes, and it nearly killed me last summer, I was empty.

    I had to finally let go, and do life for me.

    Neither …i’m not glad, happy, or even feel like dancing on her grave stuff… even if that would make for a good blog title or book cover, im not cruel, and that can be sensationalist, and its not that.

    But today I dont feel in that place, I haven’t all year.

    Its calm. Its peace. Its safe. And even writing this today isnt being met with anything other than these feelings. Feeling held and whole, love full on the inside, peace, calm, safe.

    And, I didnt wait until her death to find life, or feel safe, this been apparent all year, but now..it feels complete.

    I have let things go and doing so has felt light, for different things this year.

    So this… feels like… a release? maybe.

    It’s almost like… it’s over.

    I had created life for myself in almost every way that didnt involve her, except any processing of the strings of old abuse, and I am utterly proud of what that has been for me, its been massive.

    I know what I have had to do. I know what I have done.I know who I am. I know that I am love, I feel full of love and joy, in myself that feels so so deep.

    I do wonder if other feelings and thoughts will emerge in the next few days or weeks, and maybe they will, maybe they won’t, and they won’t hurt me, it won’t hurt me to feel them.

    This might be one of the may pieces I have written that to you feels really big as you read this… but as I write, it just feels like ‘just a part of my story, part of the reality, part of me feeling my way through all of this.

    Im truly safe now. Thats what this feels.

  • Love; the healer, today and forever

    It doesn’t matter.

    It doesn’t matter if your heart feels heavy

    wounded, broken, or hard

    It doesn’t matter if you are acceptable or powerful

    It doesn’t matter if you are in prison or free

    It doesn’t matter what you have or what you dont have

    It doesn’t matter if you are at the beginning or the end of life

    It doesn’t matter if you done so much wrong, or tried to keep to all the rules

    It doesn’t matter if you have ran away or whether you stand up and face it

    It doesn’t matter if you have tried and tried and tried

    It doesnt matter if you feel shame, guilt or fear

    It doesn’t matter if you denied the need for love, or had that stolen from you

    It doesn’t matter if you have met all your goals, found all your dreams or just trying to survive one day to the next

    It doesnt matter, only now matters, only today matters, only here matters.

    When it comes to love, none of the other matters

    When it comes to love, and the choice of love, only today matters.

    Today love can change you

    You deserve love.

    As you are.

    You deserve love.

    Let love in.

    Love

    Love beyond the fear, the guilt, the shame

    Love beyond the gear, the dreams, the pain

    It is true, that no matter what, you are a wonderful human and you deserve to be loved, and you are love.

    Love cries in your pain

    Love waits for you, in your shame

    Love holds as you grieve

    Love shows in your confusion

    Love fires in your cold

    Love is, the rain and the sunshine

    Love just is.

    And it is all yours.

    The gifts of love in the universe are all yours

    Today, and every day.

    May you feel love today

    May your broken wounded heart be held by surprising love

    May your soul receive the love sprinkles of the universe

    May there be an awakening of love and fire in your body

    May your mind trust the love you receive

    May love today open and cleanse you

    May love change you and surprise you

    May love show its joyful caring face to you

    May love be yours today.

    Love doesn’t mind, it just loves.

  • 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.

  • Christmas and the Feels.

    Just stopping by on the beginning of Christmas week 2022, in the midst of me getting ready to cook some food for my son and his girlfriend, and then as I travel on trains tomorrow and planes on Wednesday to be with my beautiful wife Christelle for Christmas.

    A moment of calm. Nat King Cole is playing. The Christmas lights and candles are glowing. Apple and Cinnamon scent is wafting around, presents have been wrapped and its a moment to breathe.

    A moment to notice.

    A moment to appreciate feeling safe. A moment to appreciate feeling love. A moment to be thankful, to be grateful. A moment to feel, and notice that moments like this, gaps, are not to be frightened of anymore. Its these cracks where love washes in.

    Its 4.30pm and its not been all like this all day. Ive carried a pre Christmas and travel to do list around in my head all day, whilst also being at work for the last day. But now, having scurried around a bit for the day, Im having just a moment of me time.

    Breathing slowly. Noticing the light of the candle. Feeling.

    Realising too, the effort its taken, the effort Ive taken to get to where I am, this year. A lot has been happening. There’s been some dark moments of reliving trauma, abuse and suffering. There’s been times of facing my own complex vulnerabilities, of embracing what’s its meant by being self compassionate, of enjoying receiving, of making choices about responding to what I’m actually feeling day by day.

    So I sit here, feeling a sense of love for myself, acceptance of myself, and feeling relaxed as I take one then another breath. Grateful for the vulnerable giants whose own shared lives have inspired, encouraged and caused me to dig deep into my own heart, power and strength, Brene Brown, Gary Zukav, Paulo Coelho, Edith Eger, Matt Haig, your life story, your fictions and your insight is truly transformative. The therapists in person, and the therapy groups on Facebook – there’s many a time you have struck a chord and enabled me to come face to face with a new reality, so thank you, North Brisbane Psychotherapists, Dr Glenn Patrick Doyle, Mike Philips and Patrick Weaver Ministries. Thank you.

    But Christmas.

    Somehow as I sit here and in conversation with Christelle, we shared about how this time can be a weird one for those of us rebuilding our lives after childhood trauma. Weird in that kind of way of noticing, facing, and accepting the moments that aren’t so apparent in April , June or September. Pain in a Christmas movie can be about grief for the much loved parent who isn’t around – rarely one who was abusive. (yes I know, no one wants that Christmas movie)

    Christmas time gives opportunities for continued self love, tenderness and self- compassion.

    Know that its ok to feel whatever Christmas feels for you. Feel that mystery of love deep within your wounded heart and soul. Neither I, neither you are the pain or shame.

    May I share with you this blessing, as a gift, from John O Donohue, as I also say thank you, and do have a truly restful, calm, loving, heartfelt, self compassionate Christmas.

    A Prayer for the Awakened:

    For Everything under the Sun, there is a time, This is the season of your harvest awakening, where pain takes you where you would rather not go.

    Through the white curtain of yesterdays to a place you had forgotten you knew from the Inside out, And a time when that bitter tree was planted.

    That has grown always invisibly beside you, and whose branches your awakened hands, now long to disentangle from your heart.

    You are coming to see how your looking often darkened, When you should have felt safe enough to fall towards love; How deep down your eyes were always owned by something.

    That faced them through a dark fester of thorns, Converting whoever came into a further figure of the wrong, You could only see what touched you as already torn.

    Now the act of seeing begins your work of mourning, and your memory is ready to show you everything, having waited all these years for you to return and know.

    Only you know where the casket of pain is interred, You will have to scare through all the layers of covering, And according to your readiness, everything will open.

    May you be blessed with a wise and compassionate guide, Who can accompany you through the fear and grief, until your heart has wept its way to your true self.

    As your tears fall over that wounded place,

    May they wash away the hurt and free your heart

    May your forgiveness still – the hunger of the wound

    So that for the first time you can walk away from that place, Reunited with your banished heart, now healed and freed

    And feel the clear, free air bless your new face

    For Someone Awakening to the Trauma of their past – John O Donohue

    Be Still friends, and Know that you are love – Happy Christmas to you

    James

  • When there is nothing, but relief

    I wonder – does ‘grief-guilt’ exist?

    Not the ‘I should have done this’ ‘ I could have prevented something happening’ kind of guilt – when there is grief – a bit like this

    But more, like , that feeling when you’re expected by other people to feel grief for the loss of something – and yet you have nothing?

    Like, that feeling when you’re meant to feel loss and pain – and you’d feel like you were pretending to feel anything close like that?

    Like, that feeling when you then feel guilty for ‘not’ feeling the way others might do about a situation, when actually that feeling of grief – is no where to be found?

    Grief-guilt.

    Guilt for not feeling grief – when somehow you’re supposed to feel grief – because the person who is talking to you would feel grief…

    Guilt for not being able to muster up any sense of emotional feeling – because, there is nothing.

    Grief-guilt – because Im meant to feel something?

    I know what grief feels like, feelings that overcome, that aching, of missing something and someone. Just shitty tears. Shitty tears that hurt.

    Love filled tears of loss, of someone I loved, and loved me back.

    Grief reserved for those for whom there is love.

    As I watched ‘The Boy called Christmas’, something was helpfully revealed to me

    Grief is the price we pay for love. And it is worth it, a thousand times over

    Matt Haig (A Boy Called Christmas, on Netflix now)

    It is.

    Grief is the price we pay for love.

    So – what happens when there wasn’t actually love?

    Grief may just be hard to find?

    ‘You’ll miss them when they’re gone’ Some people often say.

    If you’ve not walked the path of toxic, narcissist, psychopathic parents – who ‘look’ like ‘nice’ people to everyone else – you dont really know.

    And by the way – they haven’t died…

    But I have taken huge steps in the last 2 years to remove them from my life.

    And bring others into the collective space of seeing them for who they are, and have always been ..forever.

    And they have, and do.

    Which has been really hard work – and no doubt many of you have stopped reading what I write… its painful stuff, I’m sure.

    So I don’t feel grief for the loss of the relationship with my parents – even though im possibly meant to, because , I think Matt Haig nailed it – Grief is the price we pay for love.

    If there was a relationship in the first place – there would be something to grieve over.

    But its always been the way it always has been.

    There was no ‘way things were’ – so there was no ‘restoration’ or ‘reconciliation’ – fine ideals, and even manipulative standpoints – a broken relationship implies that there was actually something.

    I might grieve the person of myself who had to hide for decades under the shroud of trauma – though that person is feeling safe to play again, to live and love

    I might grieve the lost time

    I might grieve the love I didn’t have , especially when I see it in others – and know that its ok

    Or the Cards I couldn’t send

    But it’s ok not to feel that actual tear stained, shitty, painful grief for those who have abused us, the caregivers who were meant to do more. I think we need to say this. It’s ok.

    Save the grief for those we actually loved, and who loved us back in truth. Those who natured and protected us, for even glimpses in our lives.

    We have enough actual feelings to feel, to notice and accept – the grief for those who we have actually lost, loved ones – that forcing feelings (to avoid shame) doesnt feel right at all.

    So grief-guilt – can go its merry way and jump the hell off.

    Permission to not feel grief. Permission to tell the grief guilt to be dispelled.

    None of us need to force grief, or be forced to. It’ll happen if it happens.

    So what do I actually feel?

    I feel peace. I feel free. I feel safe. I feel big.

    Vindication is a hard fought battle.

    I might feel relief.

    Maybe ‘Grilief’ is a more appropriate word.

    The combination of grief and relief – if theres grief at all.