In amongst the usual stuff I write about, I thought I would share over the next few weeks, as a review of the year, 4 of the stories, readings, poems, that struck me in the course of this year, as a little gift for you.
I have read Paulo Coelhos books for well over 5 years now, and this one ‘Maktub’, was translated into English in the last few years, I bought it in March, as at the time was restricting my book buying to just favourite authors or books that really stood out.
So this one was a definite. Its bite sized stories accompanied by early morning reading and quiet space for a while.
But it was this one that made me stop, underline, put the date next to it, and have a bookmark in it all year.
God is the God of the brave.
Brave. Courage.
I could talk about Mary’s bravery in the run up to advent. The 7 months of waiting, and now the month before the birth of Jesus. What did she (and Joseph) need to do to be brave?
Because…
It’s the same bravery when you or I have stood up to injustice.
It’s the same bravery when we hold someone we care about
It’s the same bravery when we face the inner demons
It’s the same bravery that we can use to make our dreams happen.
Brave means getting angry and rising to do something.
Brave means setting boundaries and saying no
Brave means turning love for others inwards too
And Hope.
God is the God of the brave.
‘Face your journey with courage. Don’t be afraid of other people’s criticisms, above all don’t let yourself be paralysed by your own self criticism’
Bravery means going beyond, to the new place you’ve have never been before.
Brave, means taking on your world to make it different. Whatever that is.
What might it mean for you to own your bravery today?
(and yes, God, it’s fucking tiring feeling like being brave is a constant…I get it..)
But own it as it’s your inner strength coming to the party, and so that one day, that power will be yours to have for you.
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.
Dangerously there were two words that I started 2023 with.
It was as if, they were the words that were about to shape my life, weirdly.
One of the words I wrote about, a little bit. The other I didnt.
I wasn’t a bit fan of ‘manifesting’ or ‘goal setting’, for a mixture of reasons, one felt too charismatic and dare I say it, American, the other I realise now was because of inbuilt depression.
Want to know what the two words were?
(I guess thats the point of this piece)
One of the words was Happy.
The Other was Surrender.
And… little did I know what was about to happen in the year.
Because, I started the year in quite a good place.
But it sort of felt just a bit fragile, I was having happy moments. I was having moments of ‘overcoming stuff’ that in the day to day I was enjoying the bliss of this, the wash of self love, and also beginning to feel a bit more me, and a bit more confident.
Yet, the early confidence of 2023 was fragile. I could tell. It wasn’t matched with self belief, it wasn’t matched with a sense of inner wholeness, it wasn’t confident.
As I said, the words were Happy, and Surrender.
From April until August 2023. I crashed.
Big time crashed.
I had fought a fight and lost badly, and the inner voices returned.
And it felt so so dark.
Had I gone too soon with trying to be Happy?
No.
Did I have more healing to do?
Yes
Was the universe shaking it all up so that I could Heal even more?
Oh fuck yes.
Was it hard. Absolutely.
As bleak and as dark as anything before. As anything since I was 9. The year I had to shut out the voices.
But now I heard them again.
Happy and Surrender.
really?
Happy and Surrender.
Surrender and Happy.
It’s so hard to explain now, but the spiralling fall that was taking place was debilitating.
Happiness felt like an unachievable illusion
Surrender felt like falling, failing, giving up.
I was treading water with lead bricks attached by ropes to my feet.
Walking a tightrope that was on fire
Bleak, Dark, humiliation and all the feelings. All of them.
And yet.
And yet, I also realised at the time, with gritted teeth, that the voices, the inner peril was being revealed to me so that I had no choice but to deal with it.
No choice.
After 6 months of not really writing to myself, I re started journalling again, when I say journalling, I mean writing out the rage, the hurt, the anger, the pain, the feelings of humiliation, little James’ pain. This was the beginning of starting to write to little James, writing that tentatively started to shape the book im writing.
I had to ask for help.
I had to accept, surrender even, that I needed help.
Everything was triggering me. Everything.
I could tell how self absorbed I was in my own damaged head. In my own woundedness.
Help arrived in a number of ways.
Yes, professional help in terms of beginning therapy again. But also finding a safe space to write and give myself distance from the places that felt unsafe or too draining.
The raw path of vulnerability opened up the beautiful. I noticed the gifts of the universe in response. I began to feel held.
Happy and Surrender.
Strength from surprising places, notably from within. One Vulnerable step at a time.
Some of the breakthroughs might warrant a whole piece on them.
At that wasn’t really the point of this piece, the point was that 15 months ago there were two words that seemed to be announcing themselves to me at the beginning of the year. Happy and Surrender.
And the relationship between the two, in my healing process in the last 15 months is quite astonishing.
Surrendering to the darkness did not mean giving in, giving up, or believing the voices, even if they were loud and I felt terrified, small and humiliated.
Surrendering meant accepting that those inner voices were the consequence of pain and a damaged wounded childhood and I needed again to love those wounded parts, listen, and be open to whatever the path might be, navigating through them.
Surrendering to the path through the darkness and slowly but surely holding myself in love as the path was being walked on slow step by slow step. A path of self-compassion and warmth as the anti-dote to self hatred, blame and criticism.
Happiness was a risk. It still feels like a risk, a tender shoot to love and care for.
A new toy to protect.
Easier to talk about pain, shame and darkness – that isn’t going to be stolen.
Happiness is fragile. Happiness feels conditional. Happiness requires surrender.
Because, after all, what was the point? What was the point of wanting to be whole, healed and better? Just to exist and survive? Just to write about it and get the views? Just to stay stuck in it?
I dont think so.
Happiness and Surrender – what did I need to surrender to, in order for there to be inner happiness in my heart, soul and mind?
A happy mind? imagine that… not an over thinking, over sensitive, triggered one.
And, 4 months since the end of regular therapy. 9 months of the slow step by step inner healing process (of this phase of it).
Whisper it quietly, or shout it from the rooftops, a deep sense of Happiness, of Joy even, has found me, a kind of clarity and strength and peace in heart, soul and mind, that hasn’t been my life experience ever. It’s weird, so so weird, but incredible all the same.
Happiness and Surrender… You dont always get what you wish for, at least not in the ways you might expect, but sometimes the universe, the loving mystery of the universe has it, and it has you too.
Not the beach ones, the ones that get filled with sand, or get fought over by those who’ve paid the tourist tax to hire then on a British cloudy (but was sunny that morning) kind of day.
No, I don’t mean these ones.
Im thinking about the ones that get referenced in the times of personal, collective, or organisational despair.
Because, there’s nothing more despairing that when someone trots out that phrase. The one about Rearranging Deckchairs on the Titanic.
For, at that moment, there does not seem to be anything more despairing. Imagine, (and it may not be that difficult to imagine, given that most of us have seen ‘that’ film) what it might have been like, seeing or feeling the iceberg hit, and being the ones to know that there would be only 2-3 hours left. Time spent trying to convince only those who had read the news that the ship couldn’t go down. But it could.
If you weren’t able to read this, then neither you or I have been in such a situation, such a perilous state of emergency with almost no escape. (or you’re reading this and you survived a miracle).
But let’s just imagine, for a moment, that this is you, what would you do?
Given the utter pointlessness of the situation, do you clamber on to what is worth saving? Why not just sit an eat a meal in the slightly sinking cabin? Sing along with the band? Watch a favourite movie? Hold hands and enjoy the final embrace of a loved one? Dance or play the piano? Say a prayer? Save others, try and save yourself?
Deckchairs – would re arranging them even cross your mind? At that moment?
If we’re prone to depression, despair and cynicism – or when we might be told often enough that the company, organisation, institution or ideology is waning on its final death-knell – then it can often feel like there’s no way out, no alternative, no escape.
And that can be what we tell ourselves, when things feel futile and pointless.
But there is a subtle difference, always, between whatever our situation is, and to those stuck on that ocean liner in the early 1900’s.
We have Time.
And, in the main, we also have more Choices too. (even if we can’t think of them, thats our inner critic lying to us again)
That time thing though, is the crucial thing.
Even in the midst of despair and hopelessness, there is time, and, in the midst of that time, there is still you, able to note and notice the time.
So what if the ship of your mental or organisational health is starting to tilt, wobble and begin to sink?
Maybe rearranging the deckchairs might take a colossal effort at that time, panic setting in, but it’s important to do something that seems menial, just to give other people somewhere to sit. Maybe it is time to sand down the decks and give it a proper paint job too, because thats just what you need to do in the midst of that state of despondency, just to paint the floors, be useful and do so maybe even with the tiniest of proud smiles on your face. Well done you, that takes effort just to do that one thing. It wasn’t pointless at all, was it, no, not for you.
There might well be other things to do, on that sinking ship, that show bravery, courage and creativity – or maybe were creative, that showed bravery and courage: drawing, painting , songwriting – or just looking out from the deck at the sea beyond, trying to catch a glimpse of whales, puffins or other sea birds flying in the distance, just because thats what you love to do – and loving what you do in the midst of that despairing spiral might just be exactly what you need to do. One brave showing up for yourself step at a time. Binoculars might just give perspective.
Dancing on the ships deck might seem the most ridiculous, but there are no rules at that point of paralytic fear and hopelessness, if you want to dance and smile, shake it out, then let the critics judge, its only your recovery that matters – and even if we might feel that the situation is a disaster , we might as well enjoy ourselves, might as well see what happens when we give ourselves time to have fun – like go to that movie, football match, or play darts on the ship deck.
Life is going to throw us curveballs all the time, some as serious as Titanic ones, some far lesser, sometimes these challenge our expectations, sometimes they question our realities, sometimes, maybe all times, we have time, we still have complete responsibilities for the choices we make, we can try something new, reassess, and emerge far far different, and look back and realise, that it wasn’t pointless re-arranging deckchairs on the titanic after all.
Maybe, just maybe, it was the absolute right thing to do, in that very moment after all.
and… surrendering to the final inevitable, might just mean that the important things, like those birds in the binoculars, come into sharper focus than ever before, like joy, wonder and life..
When the light around you lessens And your thoughts darken until Your body feels fear turn Cold as stone inside
When you find yourself bereft Of any belief in yourself And all you unknowingly Leaned on has fallen
When one voice commands Your whole heart And it is raven dark
Steady yourself and see That it is your own thinking That darkens your world,
Search and you will find A diamond-thought of light
Know that you are not alone And that this darkness has purpose Gradually it will school your eyes To find the one gift your life requires Hidden within this night-corner
Invoke the learning Of every suffering You have suffered
Close your eyes Gather all the kindling About your heart To create one spark That is all you need To nourish the flame That will cleanse the dark Of its weight of festered fear
A New confidence will come alive To urge you to higher ground Where your imagination Will learn to engage difficulty As its most rewarding activity.
James Ballantyne 