Said the older man in the film Pride, to the main character Mark, who has been fighting injustice all his life, and now is about to have to focus on a fight for his own life from AIDS, whilst also maintaining a fight for LGBT equality and also for the mining village.
Pride – A movie I can only watch with tissues. Tears flow almost every time, and tears at different parts.
‘Save some for yourself’
I did not know what this meant when I first heard it, but it still resonated. Actually thats not true, I spoke a number of excuses instead reasoning against the need for doing it. Sometimes my inner dialogue can go something like this:
Save Some for Yourself
But I must keep busy
Save Some for Yourself
I dont need to do that, Ill bounce, ill survive – I always do
Save Some for Yourself
If I dont do that task – no one else will
Save Some for Yourself
There’s a crisis, I must go
Save Some for Yourself
I wouldn’t know what to do if wasn’t helping or serving
Save Some for Yourself
I can cope, I can always cope
Save Some for Yourself
I dont deserve to give myself time
Save Some for Yourself
That sounds wussy and weak, I need to stay strong
Save Some for Yourself
That sounds selfish
Save Some for Yourself
I can’t show my feelings
Save Some for Yourself
Ill be ok
Save Some for Yourself
You’re not telling me to do self-care are you?
Save Some for Yourself
Ill be fine, honestly
Save Some for Yourself
Its nothing, ill get through it
Save Some for Yourself
You have no idea what I have to do, I dont have time to do that
Save Some for Yourself
I like to feel needed
Save Some for Yourself
This battle isn’t going to be won without me
Save Some for Yourself
But, that means doing something new
I dont like that
Save Some for Yourself
I still dont deserve this
You actually care about me, dont you?
Save Some for Yourself
I dont want to, it sounds hard
Save Some for Yourself
Are you sure? really
Yes …Save Some for Yourself
I dont know how, and it still doesn’t feel right
Thats ok, it will, slowly, gently does it, are you ready now?
I think so
Gently does it, you got there, breathe and let me talk to you behind the mask, behind the layers, my friend
Save Some for Yourself
Save some time, quality time
Save some energy, to do something fun
Save some space to be somewhere safe to get to know your heart and soul
Save some space to allow your feelings to express themselves safely
Save some time to be curious about your inner self
The other day I was reading Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, it is quite a remarkable book, its probably the third time I have read it in the last 18 months, and whilst it didnt have the same spiritual effect on me a The Power of Now did, it is high on my list of books in which the process of reading has been a spiritual experience.
On Page 189; Eckhart writes this:
Nobody can tell you who you are, It would be just another concept and so this would not change you. Who you are requires no belief. In fact, every belief is an obstacle. It does not even require your realisation, since you already are who you are. But without realisation, who you are does not shine through into this world. It remains in the unmanifested which is of course your true home
Tolle, A New Earth, p189
And as I was reading this I looked up at my high, large window ledge. On it was my coffee cup, a wedding photo of Christelle and I, and also my clear pencil case, full of a mixture of wax and pencil crayons, and fine tips for colourful writing, and expressing in my private writing.
I looked at my pencil case.
Breathed, a slow deep breath
And realised..
That I am not my Pencil case.
It was a bit of revelation.
I could see my pencil case.
I am separate from it
I can watch my pencil case (it wasn’t moving)
I am seeing it.
I am looking at it
It is in the universe
But I am not my pencil case
It has contents, a mixture of them
And I can slowly or quickly choose them in a number of ways.
The pencils have labels, colours
Yet they are just what they are
They may be broken, some underused
Some pencils left at the bottom, my least favourite colours for writing.
Peach, Grey, Brown.
But what do I mean?
I know I am not my pencil case, surely?
Yes.
But who am I, if I am not my pencil case?
Am I my contents?
Am I my past?
Am I my labels?
Am I my emotions?
Am I just an object? just a tool?
Am I what others made me out to be?
Am I just a container, full of these things?
Feeling sometimes broken, sometimes raw, sometimes colourful, sometimes grey.
Feeling sometimes the tools connected to the writer.
I am more, or maybe I am less
Maybe all, Maybe I am the universe and I just Am, all at the same time
Connected and Isolated
Embracing natures warm bliss, and treading a tightrope of trauma
Gentle steps, sometimes joy, sometimes anxious
I am , I just fucking am.
I am not what I can see, I might be a seer
Yet I might get stuck, hiding away, trapped inside, like crayons waiting from the zip to be undone, waiting to be creatively safely found again.
I am the good Shepherd. The good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, the sheep hear my voice and listen, they don’t listen to a stranger, for they dont know his voice. (John 10)
But Lord we asked, what if the thief is already in the pen, what then?
The Sheep hear my voic-
no we didnt, we hear what we’re allowed to hear, A voice that lies
A voice that pretends to be you, but its not you
A voice that tells us that we’re just sheep, and there’ll be trouble if we dont obey them
And says that you’re not coming to protect us……
Oh Hang on, wait a minute, you let them in didnt you?
You let them in the pen!
No, well, that ‘gate’ thing, what I meant was that, thats for you, if there was no robber or thief
but you let them in too?
I couldn’t stop them, you know like wheat and weeds, both
Marvellous, great, a gate keeper with no checklist
Its not my fault! They didnt appear to be a thief or a robber, its not like they wore it on a lanyard that said ‘Thief, about to steal sheep, D.O.B 11.04.23(AD)’ actually they gave me a great list of all their credentials of sheep care.
They lied to you too?
They always lies.
So that ‘God looks at the heart thing’ you know back in the David days, how was that going, did you have a heart bypass or something, could you not see through it when you let them in, you know twitchy eye contact, a bit too ‘boasty’, seems like they tried too hard, dont you think? Could you not have done something ?
I am the good Shepherd..
Yeah yeah, we heard that one at the beginning, if you’re that good where have you been hiding since you let in the robber in the pen?
Busy.
Busy?
Well, yeah, kind of busy.
Say more, goody shepherd?
Nope
We’re waiting
Well, there’s a pen over there you see, and its just far easier to be their good shepherd, no conflict see, and those sheep get to come and go and I can do that ‘gate’ thing over there, and its just lovely and the sheep play and eat grass
No thief over there then?
Well, err no…
You went for the easy life?Gate duty over there when the thief was in our pen?
The Sheep heard my voice and they came and went, and danced on the green pasture, and ate the green grass and I could lead them
Whilst we were trapped and you knew it. No Voice for us
Thats a bit harsh, you’re not jealous are you? Or just a tiny bit angry?
(Sheep stares)
(Uncomfortable silence)
(Sheep stares a little more)
We thought we could hear them..the distant sounds of something we once recognised, the sound of fun.. something that we could only ever hear but not do
Oh yes, Peace and love and joy, sounds about right
But not in this pen. Not with the thief inside, want to know what the thief said to us when we could hear all that ‘peace and love and joy’ ?
Ok, yes tell me
They’re better than you
They’re more deserving than you
They’re being spoiled
They’re not as sinful as you
They work harder
Thats what the thief said to us, so that we couldn’t have joy, or love or peace, just more rules, and being busy, and never being good enough, want to know more?
Yes please do.
We had to change.
We stopped feeling like sheep a long time ago, it made us weep to hear that it wasn’t far that sheep could be sheep. We werent our selves, and it was stressing us out
What do you mean?
Well it wasn’t safe, no time of day, the thief kept on watching and making us work, and gradually over time we noticed, that we treated each other more prickly too, developed hard shells, toughened our skin, we grew hair to cover our eyes, its like we forgot we were sheep inside, we had to pretend to be sheep.
Sheep on the inside, elephant on the outside?
What’s an elephant? All we know is this pen and the thief, oh and those fun loving neighbours, have you been playing with elephants too, in your busy times?
No, but what else has it been like?
Thief in the pen? One day one of the workers came up from the farm to check on us, see if we were being treated well , and we were like YAY we might be rescued, (given that you disappeared oh goody two shoes shepherd just out for the fun), and so we started to shout as loud as we could to get his attention, tried to make the hired hand listen to us
Oh yes the hired hand, he doesn’t listen listen he just runs away
Yeah, we know that now, thanks for the heads up.
What happened?
Well, as the hired hand got closer, we got louder, desperate to get them to realise that something was wrong, and you know what happened next?
No, tell me
Our thief smiled all nicely and said those words, ‘don’t worry about them, they’re just a little too sensitive, they get like this on a hot day sometimes, ill take good care of them‘
And that was it, no further questions, didnt even try, just believed the charm and the smile and walked away. And then…
then?….
Thief hits us harder than ever , blames us for showing them up, and you know what they said next, just after, trying to be nice?
No go on
That if we spend more time worshipping you he’ll put a good word in and that you’d come and see us. So thats what we did, doubly hard work, making wool and now a daily regime of worship and prayer. Did you not hear us singing to you?
erm, well, I could hear something, but it was words I didnt recognise and I had nothing to do with that arrangement, the thief always lies.
We now know that , took a while for us to realise though, and some still can’t believe that the thief always lies, some of us still want to think the best of the thief in the pen, but the only way out was to realise that thief always lies, even when they say they try, try to be better, try to be good they say, but never for long, always lies, never realising that we have to be clever, clever to to figure them out, clever to cope in the pen, with the thief at the helm.
Once you werent coming, I made a decision, because waiting for you, ‘pray harder’ the thief said, no I had to figure it out and find a way of escaping, I noticed the lies, and just had to ignore what the thief was saying, and realise that their actions didnt match
And then?
A few of us got together, kept noticing the patterns and behaviours and realised we could escape, once we remembered that we had more power, and choice, and once we stopped listening to the lies we gained more strength. But thats when thief turned nasty, violent, threatening, unravelling in front of us, we stayed firm and walked out of the gate, thief’s last words were to us was that ‘we wouldnt win, were in trouble now, we’ve made them upset‘ but we walked, and we realised then we could breathe and tasted the clean grass again.
I can see, im glad you are free
But others arent though, they are stuck in the pen, with the thief, what about them? What if the thief goes to other pens, what about them?
The sheep hear my voice – eventually
Is that what we found?
I think so, now enjoy life, full life, now that you’ve found it, and made it happen
Question, just before you go, are you ok with me being angry at you?
Yes, thats what you needed to get out of the pen
What if im angry with you for a long time?
Just take your time, let it out, feel and be loving to all the feelings
Thank you, and one more thing, why our pen? Why this one and not the other one? We have only known a thief in the pen
My dear sheep, there is no one answer to that question, and it might take some time for you to realise, but know that you can now rest, and play and live, and breathe and be, and feel your own wisdom, strength and resolve. The why is because what you had was wanted by the thief, you had something they wanted, and they always want and steal, you had something they tried to take, but also maybe there’s magic going on deeper in the whole of creation that neither I or you know about, and that magic has set you free.
I was given a picture this week that has , so far, been helpful to me.
Its about string… or rope…
I was in conversation with someone who has supported me for a while through some of the challenges ive faced in the last few years, in the conversation I mentioned that whilst I am feeling generally good (and this is true, I am) , that I had ‘moved on ‘ beyond some of the things that were requiring of the support, and this is also true.
But I could sense in myself that a number of things recently had cause me to be triggered, affected, and I was in danger of reacting to them.
It doesn’t matter what they are, but they are stories of abuse investigations in churches, the swirl of conversation, and realising that although I wasn’t involved, I realise quite how easily I may have been as easily manipulated, and how my emotionally spiritually abusive childhood would have set me up to be so.
Did I ever think that I had been able to ‘let go’ of the string and cause the balloon of 40 years of abuse to just fly away?
Did I really think that? No, but maybe I hadn’t been able to create a way of explaining the dynamic of journeying through life with that upbringing as a shadow, as a thread, that plays sometimes a larger or smaller part.
I had let go of the string.
Originally it was a tight rope. I was trapped. Only with an ending in sight go leaving home at 18. Until that point it was in a toxic swirl, a large tight rope that surrounded me, suffocating, squeezing, unable to breathe, relax, unable to feel. Just the metaphorical pain of the rope burns.
Until I could see the rope, for what it is, I was led to believe I was self tightening it, that it was my rope to carry.
The balloon string used to be a thick rope.
I had to distance myself from the rope.
It could be let go of, I could now detach myself from the rope.
But as my support person said this week to me.
The String is long.
The balloon at the end of the string has lifted off, but the thread that is attached to the balloon is long.
Its got a lot of ‘lifting off’ to do before it has finally left.
I realised that there are things that happen to cause me to grab hold of the string.
And when I do, its as if the string has been coloured with a dye, and its infected me, my hands turn red, its transferred its mucky dye, and I need to noticed this, and let this cleanse out of me too.
I got angry this week, it was my detox, to get the dye out, to protect myself again. I got some ‘fucks’ out in the privacy of my own voice, my flat and in drawing them. No plates or property were damaged… ;-)
The string is long.
What if I accept that the string is long?
Actually, I have to.
The string may be all forms of dye. It is death.
Yet it tries to give off a spark.
It tries to make itself invisible too.
Just so that I touch it. Just so that I forget about it, with the hope that it gets reignited.
And it gets the chance to release its poison.
Other times it convinces itself that its ok to touch, and by then its too late.
Sometimes I do completely forget the string. Its when im having fun, its when im not thinking about it, its when im in the flow of something else.
But other times, accidental and known cause the string to be more obvious. Anniversary days, Stories of abuse, Safeguarding training even.. All to one extent reminders of the string..
But I can still choose.
I can choose how close I want to get to the string.
I choose.
What if I do something whilst holding the string – the string wants me to blame it, to play victim to the string. Tightening the grip.
Circulating the poisonous dye even further. Taking away my own power to choose.
I have that power.
Being friends with the string is to accept that it is there. It’s not to fight it. Resistance is futile and hard work. Acceptance.
A lifetime of abuse and the string is long.
But it doesn’t suffocate. Its is just there. It exists, and im not scared of it, just finding new ways to live with the string.
Its just a long string.
It requires warm playable hands to let it through my grip, to flow.
To gently notice the string and put it in its place.
Better to notice the string and let it go, again, walk away from it.
Accepting that it is long.
Noticing it and being able to talk to it, from me, the real me.
A type of mindfulness.
Loving myself releases it
Loving myself cleanses
Loving myself, doing for myself, creating fun and colour… is more rewarding that the ‘attractive’ colour dye on the string, however sparky it hopes to appear.
Accepting the long string, the threads of abuse, is better that pretending that it doesn’t exists and trying to be completely free from it. Its not realistic, its not helpful.
I have felt so so much better this week as I have began to accept the string, and in doing so detach from it.
Maybe its about keeping the darkness close, being friends with the shadow, so it can be talked to.
I was ‘playing’ this around in my mind the other day, and I started writing, just to myself.
I often write on paper, even with pencil, just to get thoughts out, to see where they flow to.
Free writing with a conceptual starting point if you will.
And I began to construct that what ‘I think’ and who ‘I am’ have been on a journey.
It could be ‘my ego’ and ‘my identity’ but I prefer to use ‘I think’ and ‘I am’ . I dont mean the ‘I am’ that self talks back the lies.. like ‘I am fat’ or ‘I am stupid’ .. I mean the ‘I am’ identity. The bit of me, the bit of you that is who you are.
So here goes…
I am, and I think are on a journey.
Its one where ‘I think’ has led the way, I think.
Historically.
Led like a shiny steam engine.
‘I am’ has been just been pulled along for the ride,
a set of carriages with passengers, scared inside.
or going to the depot, after a fraught ride.
I think, taking them away.
I am, passive.
At least thats how it was- I think
I think, shiny at the front, shiny and bright, brass cleaned,
numbered, fed, water and polished
The Steam engine, attracting the polaroids and DSLRs, and notebooks.
I think.. leading the way
I think.. wanting the attention
I think…racing away
I think..in control
I think…believing the hype
I think..denying it needed anything
I think…lies to get all this
I am.. just a powerless carriage trailing behind
hosting passengers, hosting scenes, hospitality
Trying to please, making the best of chaos.
Making the best of disconnection between I think, and I am.
I am, pulled along and subject to the conditions of I think
I am, second or third class, no power, just a shell.
I think broke down.
I think realised the race it was on, was to a finish line that never ended
I think had gone too far, alone
I think was never therefore I am
I am wants more control of the action
I am is feeling its way
I am has been waiting, patiently
Watching the chaos, overcoming the scares
Hiding, now seizing the chance, the opportunity
Realising that I think is in trouble.
I think and I am not separate.
I am with a voice on the journey
I am letting I think know differently
Its now a different journey, with I am the driver.
I am has discovered, that it is
I am has emerged from the shadows, the sidings
I am can see the lies, pride and attention
The temptations and weaknesses that tormented I think
I am…. just knows
I am..is softer, messier, truer
Human, grease, smoke, heart and skin
its not a carriage to the engine
Alive.
I am now sees the whole Train
I am can see when I think plunges into darkness
or tries to race to destinations, frustrated or impatient, or critical of the passengers for being slow, or ignoring the signals.
I am can let I think know that it is loved.
I am is the driver, who knows what I think actually needs.
The brake. the coal, the water
And rest.
Attention from the inside of the boiler. Not just the outside.
The driver knows.
I am.
I think wrestled at first and tried to do without I am.
I feel intervenes now and then, the guard with the warning flags, messages from the back. I think knows its place..some of the time.
I think used to completely ignore I feel. Disregarded at the back of the carriage.
Guard in name only.
I am takes more of the wheel
I think can rest, its not on his own.
It doesn’t have to hurry or win.
I think trusts I am.
I think surrenders, to the I am that drives, attends and controls, to the I am that feels and knows. To the I am that discovered itself, found its place and realises it has to stay.
I am helps I think to doubt the lies it had to believe, and those it chose to
I am can help I think to realise the importance of I feel.. the guard
I am can speak softly to I think, and listen to what it needs and wants to say.
Because I am is connected to all.
I am knows. I am is.
I am is the divine within.
I think I am, therefore I am.
Maybe this is helpful just to me, as I realise the journey that I have been on, one from which was dominated by my thoughts, my thinking part of me, and how every other part of me was hidden and disregarded, for reasons ive described in my story above. And now I feel, that I am, and I think is still around, but the journey, just feels and is different.
What about you – what metaphor might you use for how your thoughts, feelings and identity have culminated in your life?
Im in the middle of reading this quite brilliant book, The Fifth Agreement, by Don Miguel and Don Jose Ruiz. I guess freedom must be on my mind as ive also just finished Edith Egers book The gift, on discovering personal, emotional freedom. More to follow.
But im just reflecting on , if Faith in myself is the real faith, and I am true.. what did I place too much energy and faith in before I discovered myself and who I am?
James Ballantyne 