I am really so so very grateful for my mind.
Like extremely so.
It’s a place of learning, a place of processing, a place of interpreting, a place to understand.
It has also been my place of safety, or maybe more so my place of escape to.
When emotions and feelings were unsafe, and love was absent, I could hide in my mind.
Read books. Study. Play maths games. Keep thinking.
And when I was cold, use my mind as a superpower to block the pain.
And when I was about to be hurt, use my mind to numb the pain.
Mind was a shield.
I gave my mind too much to do…. yet actually it was a survival mechanism. I could get through things, because I didnt need to feel them, just think.
Yet there’s also social conditioning, the mind has value, in academia, and religious life – learn, reflect, be curious…and I could just keep going, one more book to buy, one more hobby to try, one more thing to learn.
Keep the mind busy, keep the time occupied, keep the demons at bay…
And I sit here writing this in the local Waterstones cafe… a place of learning has been a safe place for me.
And there’s words here too aren’t there.
You are reading them.
And I am thinking about what I might write next.
Because I was afraid.
I was afraid of what would happen….. if for the first time in 40 odd years I would stop thinking, or at least there be a gap in thoughts…
My mind as a place of survival could only do so much of a job. It was incessant.
But overthinking felt normal, overthinking to find strategies to reduce pain, soothe, to please, to soften the blows, or numb them.
So I would negate anything that tried to interrupt this, dont give me the promise of silence, solitude, meditation or even quietly colouring in something, or even space to have someone ask me difficult questions. My mind couldn’t allow this. It was afraid of not being in charge. It was afraid of what it might expose.
My mind wasnt negative or destructive, it was just doing its job in the way it had subconsciously been asked to do, and beyond its skill set.
And there was no distinction for me, between my I and my mind.
Spiritually/ Religiously I gave my mind a ‘gets off scot free’ card – because my heart usually got the blame, as did the self. There’s something else here too, my mind accepted the reality that what was inside me was too shameful to expose, the hurt and pain too great. Accepted because it had tried many moral ways of dealing with it, all failed, and the cycle of shame and self loathing continued.
But also, my minds job was to numb, distract, run, avoid the pain, and protect myself. And it did a good job.
It wasnt equipped to love. And its love that heals.
As I began, forcibly, to start a journey inwards, my mind took on a new task. To learn about myself as if I am my own new hobby or project, as well as learn about the behaviours that I had been exposed to.
This.. very accurate…
So that library of self help books, from Enneagram, to Narcissism, to Spirituality, got bigger and bigger, as I understand myself though a number of thought lenses. All extremely useful.
But it wasnt thinking that would heal.
It wasnt thinking my feelings, or understanding myself that would heal.
Ugh.
I actually had to the exercises in the books, I had to participate in them. I had to feel.
I look now and see quite how much i had given my mind to do, I was a disconnected, disintegrated body, with an overactive mind, with all the voices of protection, fear, self criticism, perfection.
Healing my mind, required safety.
Healing my mind, required love
Healing my mind, required heart…and heart to be safe
Healing my mind, meant seeing it and realising that I am not it
Healing my mind, meant listening to it, loving it, carefully, gently…
Being compassionate on my self critical, self loathing, self soothing parts, scared self..in my mind… and start to not believe these, even if they had been protecting me.
Yet it can easily still want to take charge in situations, easily take me into its formerly welcome gaze, sometimes those thoughts come back, further opportunities to love them, and the wounded parts they stem from.
One of the parts of my inner journey and healing has been to allow my mind to relax and know it doesn’t have to be responsible for everything in my psyche, that I have heart, soul, feelings, that there is space and consciousness. It’s a slow revealing, it’s a daily remembrance.
My inner journey has been inside, beyond the cage of my mind, and letting the colours of the heart, and the soul to ignite, cleanse and transform.
The realisation that I am not my mind, and am trying to keep telling my thoughts that…
James Ballantyne 