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?
‘It is the paradox of spiritual growth that through such bleak winter journeys we eventually come through a hidden door into a bright field of springtime that we could never have discovered otherwise’ (John O Donohue, Divine Beauty)
This feels better, healthier than
‘All things are for a reason’ cliche.
Even if both are virtually the same.
Paradox.
The paradox that facing darkness and finding strength and power through darkness…..leads to light being shone.
Lightness appears in the dark journeys in so many ways
When you discover the pattern of their behaviour
When you discover the pattern of your own
When the weight of fault or shame or responsibility falls..
When people show up to your vulnerability
When safety is felt….a feeling that had long been disregarded or survived despite it’s lacking
When small shoots of personal hope, courage and strength appear…like the tiny white dots of the snowdrops in January
Yet..the paradox is that for so long the possibility of this growth is delayed, resisted, fought against….because it feels too hard, too difficult, to time consuming to face it.
Better to leave alone
Too busy to face it
To difficult
Let it be…
In those occasions the darkness retains it’s power, the darkness has its hold, awakened free growth stays silent behind the door,
Talk of growth is fascinating, and what kind of growth is possible when the daily task is survival, suppression, soothing, avoidance, denial or rejection of the very thing that were consuming so much energy on, just to stay alive….alive behind so much hurt and pain that often written in our skin and eyes.
Yet that growth that promise, that light is veiled. Hidden in mystery.
Growth is feared, darkness clung to.
The wrestle of continuing in between, shining light in the tension of the now, light shining in darkness, costly, draining, hard, and well done you for keeping your candle lit.
Yet, we can want to protect the very darkness that’s hurting us, and preventing us from the lightness of growth that’s inviting us, because that’s the place of safety and security, a life we’ve been used to, in cycles of addiction, soothing and self blame, and feeling happy in designated smallness because that’s been ‘our place’.
Yet the door waits.
It can only block out the light for so long
It can only let you stay restless in the darkness for so long
I am not entirely sure if there are words in the dictionary to describe the events of my last three weeks, and in the main they are not for here. But let’s just say that for almost every single one of them, there have been moments of being brave, courageous, of facing inner and outer demons, and doing a lot of digging deep. Much has been revealed.
But yesterday I crashed. I was done.
A call to my line manager, and two much needed days off were required. Yet I woke today with barely a plan, and barely the energy to even think of what I might do for the day.
Instead of giving I needed to receive.
Instead of trying to write, and be creative, just needed to be
Instead of learning I needed to feel
Instead of self help, I turned to poetry.
And after a walk along the river, and with my free Caffè Nero vouchers, started my flat white coffee, and picked up ‘Brave’ by Donna Ashworth.
And for an hour it was as if she took me out for coffee.
Words of her poetry speaking into my soul.
Phrases that leapt off the page, some more warmly received than others, some affirming, some bringing a silent tear, but delivered with a warmth, care and love, that I needed.
I offer some that struck out for me today, my coffee out with Donna Ashworth, for you today too.
One Day you will see,
That all this mud
was simply the soil
that grew you to full height
(Donna Ashworth, Brave)
You Mustn’t run on a broken leg
bones rest to heal, thats true
but you can still love with a
broken heart and you must
because love is the glue
(Donna Ashworth, Brave)
And this one:
I wish you beauty in this life, my friend
but most of all, I wish you the bravery
to see that beauty in yourself
because it is there, it most definitely is there.
(Donna Ashworth, I wish you beauty)
To become a more positive person
you must make a pact with your inner child
to hear her voice above that
of your inner critics and demons
(Donna Ashworth, The Positivity Pact)
Just begin….
The world may not immediately embrace
your contribution
but the universe will and its her you need on side
(Donne Ashworth)
If you dont know how to move forward…
just take a few brave steps and have faith,
the universe will meet you there
(Donna Ashworth)
It is brave not to be busy
to be bare and boldly being
when everyone else strives to buy
the emperors new clothes
(Donna Ashworth)
My Soul garden is in bloom when light is being sought
and love is at the forefront of all I choose
starting with
me
(Donna Ashworth, Soul Garden)
Sometimes it was just the words in between the poems, the almost throw away sentences that had no titles, not made it to ‘poetry status’ just gaps in between when balming words gracefully arrived from the page.
In amidst the conversations in the coffee shop, I had this one with Donna Ashworth, she sat there, invisible in the chair, but the words of her heart, written, calmed and restored my soul.
I have written before about a certain pink coloured book (link here to that post) that I consider to have changed my life, in terms of how I could see what had happened to me, and the behaviours of others.
However.
There was another book that I had read 6 months previously that had as profound an importance.
At the time, my bookshelf was a mixture of Youth work, Theology, Mission and Social Justice books.
My head was full of ideas.
My life, however, was, and had been falling apart and I was in denial.
I felt completely alone, no where to go, emotionally or physically.
With no one to talk about what was going on.
I was already unemployed at the time, what I didnt know was that I was about to be out of the family home, with no family support, and about to battle to save a marriage. I had barely any friends, and had at least 1 breakdown in that summer.
I have no idea when I bought it, or how it got there, but there was a copy of Richard Rohr’s book ‘Falling Upwards’ on my bookshelf. I may have read 1 RR book previously, but I can not for the life of me remember when I bought it. However, I do remember picking it up to read from my bookshelf in about the April of that year (2018), and thinking to myself that it was a bit ‘woolly’ , a bit not ‘academic’ enough, for the James that wrote blogs on books and theology, this wouldn’t cut it.
In August of that same year, with cracks opening wide, beginning to expose the fragility of my situation, I noticed it on the bookshelf. It was more that likely that with no money I could only read the books I had, so it was this books turn.
To Summarise, Rohr outlined the two halves of life. The first he said was about achievement, making it, ego, and accomplishments. The second, he said was about becoming real, about to being true to the person who was actually inside, and not the masks, identities created for those accomplishments.
He said that to get from one to the other, there is often something seismic, the wake up call, the breakdown, and this could appear/be in a number of ways.
It all depended on how we responded to it.
If I’m honest, I didn’t recognise the first part of what he described, even if I did see bits of me ‘being an internationally known youth worker’ or ‘well known for writing’ all of these things seemed even at the time, I didnt feel like I had achieved, or made it, or anything, I was full of shame, fear, self doubt, and emptiness, trauma I hadn’t dealt with and running away from and bottled up for a day I never wanted to arrive.
But.
I could recognise the middle bit.
The breakdown. The situation of desperation. The need to be vulnerable. When everything that I even thought I had did begin to be stripped away.
And as I picked up the phone to a friend to ask for a place to stay, and cried in relief when he said yes, I kind of knew.
I knew that I was now in the beginning of this phase. I knew, and I could choose how I would respond to what was going on.
I knew it was time.
I said to myself on that very day of that very call,
‘I do not know what is going to happen now, but I am going to learn, I am going to face it’
It may well have been the words from a book.
(and there’s tears in my eyes today as I write this, recognising my journey in all this)
It didnt matter. Because, ‘Falling Upward’ gave me a roadmap, it gave me something to cling to, it gave me a sense that it will be ok, and a sense that what I was about to go through wouldn’t destroy everything (and at that point I needed to know that there was something theological/spiritual about whatever was going to happen). I could hang what was about to happen on a process, (which has subsequently included amongst other things, 4 separate sessions of therapy, a considerable amount of time seeing, understanding and processing and healing from deep psychological childhood trauma, my own coping mechanisms from this, and facing the inner demons, all over the last 6 years). In short, it gave me a structure, and it gave me hope.
Hope because at that moment, and had been for a considerably very long time, life had been dark, shadowed, avoided and I was in perpetual survival mode feeling trapped. But now I had hope. Hope that there might something beyond what I was about to start the process of going through.
Hope because I knew of no one, and heard of no one who had walked a similar path, yes I had heard of ‘mid-life crises’ but I was already in crisis, but no one who shared their story, it felt as though I could hope because the path wasnt completely unheard of, tiny, frightened alone me, walking, falling, held with hope from a book. But it was hope none the less.
Hope, because at that point no one had told me I was going to be ok. I just had to believe it for myself, and now this book shone a light on the possible future.
But that I had to face, encounter, deal with, and not avoid everything that was about to arrive. For though much was taken, and I had to cling on at times, in a way, I started from a very low point already.
And as I walked on the top of Roker cliffs a few weeks later, having received two weeks of safety, and care, that learning process was starting. It would do, and continues to this day.
Where did that resilience come from James?
Asked a friend of mine a few weeks ago when I was telling them this story.
I think it came from when I was 12.
When I told myself the same thing.
I knew that that point that if I am going to make it in life I am going to have to do it on my own. I could not ask for help, have needs, have dreams, ask for money even, or support, I was alone and had to make it. 28 years later, and with the framework of a Richard Rohr book and a safe place to sleep in I dug deep into that survival and determined resolve, the lowest point had been reached already. I was broken, but not beaten, and that moment of vulnerability and seeing the path, was already a very small, but significant positive fall upwards.
Richard Rohr, Falling Upwards, Thank you. Actually, you probably did save my life. You were probably my first Angel on this path.
It meant pushing through with the motivation to ‘get out’ and walk, in the grey and wet.
For it was miserable.
I left my flat in a break of sunshine.
Arrived at the walk point with rain clouds, and horizontal cold rain.
And waited in the car, long enough to unsteam the windows, and at least wait for the rain to stop.
And it did.
For a tiny moment.
It was muddy. Wet. Cold and windy.
But I was walking.
Wrapped up warm, with camera and binoculars, with scarf, gloves and hat.
And thermal socks on with the heavy duty boots.
I was out. Walking.
Brave in the cold.
Madness maybe. But out.
And this is a blog about a walk.
Just an ordinary walk.
Did I mention, cold, wet and muddy?
A very ordinary grey, wet, cold, walk.
But a walk none the less.
Ordinary.
Ordinary courage and bravery.
Ordinary steps taken, one by one.
At a place ive been to many times.
Its not a mountain top experience to deal with trauma, or deal with the monsters. Just ask Harry Potter, no one wants that badge of honour.
Sometimes the path is wet, cold and muddy and you need to be protected from the elements.
One foot in front of the other, even in the wet muddy path.
Even when I’m writing, there could be a temptation to show off the best bits, or most important, to biggest challenge in my personal healing. But recovery is about the ordinary.
Its about the every day.
Its not always about the new place, the new discovery.
Though there are discoveries, and there are significant moments. And at the moment im loving John O Donohues Eternal Echoes. Its a warm hot chocolate for my soul.
But sometimes there’s just something significant in going for a walk. Its about expectations, or not having any. Its about making a positive choice to do something, even if the path feels wet and muddy, but its being done. A positive choice doesn’t mean the sun is going to immediately shine, there’s a lot of mud, fog and cloud to wade through. But at least im walking. Started putting one feet in front of the other. the gritty ordinary of healing from abuse, is not pretty.
There are beautiful moments of sunshine though.
When the gaps open up.
But often these are surprises. Moments when the universe makes its voice known. And when I’m ready to see them.
Like on that walk.
The sun did come out, and I noticed two deer resting in the sunshine.
When the Roe deer sat down and rested in the glimpse of the evening sunshine, sat as she was on the wet grass, it was a perfect still wonderful moment. I watched, breathed, and used my camera (quietly) and enjoyed it, present in the moment.
A universe gift.
Sometimes the paths are made by those who walk. Sometimes the universe conspires to help the dreamer. Sometimes its just about putting one foot forward, in front of the other, even despite better judgement, but doing so from brokenness, from vulnerability, into a cloud of fog, with the gritty hope that there is another side beyond it.
Ill tell you something else.
I was beginning to sense boredom. Boredom being one slight step to the left from contentment. Contentment is a lovely feeling, its as if everything is early spring. What boredom felt like was the peace of contentment, but without the colour of the daffodils.
I guess when 40 years of my life have existed with a background noise of toxic drama, then the years since of processing and recovering from this… peace can feel like boredom when there’s no drama going on.
But something I realised, is that I have needed coping activities in the last 4-5 years. Maybe I dont need these as much, and maybe I’ts time to have more fun and creativity, to have more energy to give, because im in a different place. As I walked yesterday, I realised that I could be grateful for the feeling of boredom, and that this is an indication of where I am, who I am and the journey I have been on. Maybe instead of feeling frustrated by the grey cloudy days, its time to walk through them.
Sometimes the grey makes for interesting photos.. but this isn’t one of them.
Its an ordinary path, just outside darlington with the sunset reflecting on the grey wet tarmac.
It was just a walk.
But it was so much more.
It was time to see. Time to make choices. Time to receive.
Time to sense and feel. Time to be grateful. Time to notice.
Ah yes, you say not another end of the year review blogs, segments or pieces. I’ve wondered for a while what I might write that’s appropriate for the ‘end of 2022’ as a review piece.
I think I’ve read over 30 books this year, nearly all with some kind of self-help / journey / learning theme , and beyond what there’s been everything else that I’ve read I’ve felt and learned in the year, so maybe this is a bit of a reflective combination piece, some of the best books and most important learning from the year, for me.
So, starting with the best books, I’m.not sure how I’ve narrowed these down to 5, but these are the ones that gave me the most wow moments, the most underlined with pencil marks or post it’s, or that stayed on my coffee table to read and read throught the year
4. Heartwork a book of Self compassion by Radule Weininger
5. The space between us, A book of blessings by John O Donohue
I look at the choice of these 5 books, and realise that they encapsulated many of the paths my self learning has taken this year, there have been moments where I felt I needed to come close to understanding my childhood trauma and it’s effects, and understand trauma generally. Dibs is a brilliant book. It helped me see myself and also the children and young people around. The
I knew The Choice would be one of my top books of the year, even as it was one of the first I read in 2022, so much wisdom and story included in it, so much to learn on recovery from Trauma and the rebuild. The Choice is so good that I struggled to find anything new in Man’s Search for meaning (Victor Frankl) which I also read this year., Meaningful though it was.
It’s definitely been the case that over the last 18 months or so I have read more in relation to spirituality and personal growth. The Power of Now was a game changer for me when I read it about 18 months ago, A New Earth has stayed on my coffee table and been picked up regularly for most of the year.
Part of that Spiritual growth has taken me to Self compassion. It’s been the learning theme I have ended the year beginning. It’s a path that has revealed much to me so far, as I’ve stepped to one side of being self critical, self loathing, guilt and responsibility, it’s introduced me and reminded me that I can receive, I am worthy, I am of value, as are my emotions and feelings. And though I know all this, I’m realising there’s a difference between knowing it and living as if I believe it to be true. Heart work, the book, was like being sat with a duvet by the fire, it felt a safe book to read and then gently sense the parts of me that were being revealed through the stories, as well as sit with the exercises that she suggests. And this is before I give myself time to do the journal that she suggests to do.
John O Donohue appeared like a mystery from a charity book shop in November, and given me an opportunity to practice self compassion through creating the space to read and meditate on the blessings.
There are some other honourable mentions, Matt Haig’s midnight library and How to stop time were both very good, and I loved Ruth Ozekis ‘The book of form and emptiness’ . I’m re reading The Universal Christ (Richard Rohr) for the second time to Christelle as I think there’s alot in it to enjoy. (Reading aloud does enable a new perspective) The Seat of the Soul, and Spiritual Partnership by Gary Zukav were both good too. Links to all these and others are in the resources page above.
So there we have it, my top 5 self learning books of the year, these were the ones that caused my heart to feel opened, to be a spiritual experience in just reading them and provoke and accompany me on this life journey.
May you, may I have a blessed, learning and compassionate 2023.
James Ballantyne 