James Ballantyne

Tag: pain

  • Will you be brave and give love a chance?

    Will you be brave and give love a chance?

    One of the reasons we men dont want to deal with our shit is because we dont believe we have the capacity to love ourselves.

    In many scenarios, whether from driven, neglectful, absent or collusive, abusive parents, Love was absent, and instead rules and expectations.

    In School, that wasnt the place either.

    And then there was the competitiveness of existing, having to win at football, chess or reading, having to be the best, having to compete and complete…

    Having to grow up, having to stay strong, having to not be weak

    And all the while, that little voice inside, seemed to grow smaller and smaller, the trappings of externals whilst dying inside.

    Not believing in Love.

    Not knowing Love

    Unless conditional, unless dependent, unless loaded, unless

    Unless hidden even behind labels in sacred stories. Believe in God (who is Love btw) or Jesus, or Mohammad, or whoever, and have the strength and power of Love be hidden behind all of these, and even then, some of these institutions require loyalty or adherence (of rules, of routines) and preach love like its a strategy for expansion. Conditional love, and rarely love of the self, love of the body, love of the past, love of feeling, hurts or wounds. Just pray them away and come back for more, morality the enemy of growth, and maybe even the enemy of love.

    Or you chose a different path, another Vocation, Military, Farming, Teaching, Medicine… All where the purity of what you wanted to be, got lost in the system of numbers, discipline and rules.

    And the was presented as real. This is the real world.

    Dreamers and Artists those who love. Sensitive ones weak.

    Macho. Hurting. Insecure. Violence. Real Man.

    Ugh.

    Deny the hurt, hide it away.

    Soothe the pain by satirical comedy, busyness, the rat race that continually exhausts, failure for the weak, vulnerability for the soft.

    Cultural masculinity at its best. Show no pain. Keep going.

    Until the cracks appear. Until desperation. because:

    If theres no such thing as Love, then it doesn’t matter does it. Beat up your wife, beat up yourself, steal, take and destroy, because Love is absent, Love isnt real, Love is just once a year, and your loveless head, can’t cope with not being in charge. Its running a show thats destroying you, but because you dont believe in Love, you can’t believe that you have to capacity to love, then you dont face it, you can’t, its too fucking big and painful and you think that it looks weak, or a failure, or your mates will think you weird, or you dont have time, or you dont have….

    Deep down its fear.

    Fear…that Love might actually be what’s required….

    Deep down it’s too much.

    You’d rather believe in power than believe in yourself.

    Deep down you have a heart, but its hidden under layers

    Deep down you have shared that heart to help others even whilst wounded yourself….

    Help….not heal….

    Its deep, because its underneath so many layers and blockages that youve put in there, pain soothers, pain avoiders, and these have caused further shame, guilt and pain – addiction, violence, manipulation – all outward projections of deeper hurt, masking anxiety, depression, abuse, the weight of expectation, perfection and trying to please, or make someone proud who is never satisfied – name your pain and add it here. ____________-

    All that stuff feels heavy and feels impossible to love. Shame monsters feel big. We know we’ve done wrong to others, to ourselves…to keep what’s hidden underneath at bay.

    Can I tell you a secret.

    You have the capacity to love yourself, if you are alive, you have a heart.

    You have the capacity to be vulnerable, to ask for help, to begin a different path

    To shed the masks, the fake strength, the keeping going, the weight if pain and suppression, the false appearances that are aching at your soul.

    The very first time I felt a surge of self love and realised a feeling of true self worth was the day I decided to go to therapy. A tiny step of bravery and fear, a tiny tiny shard of self love, to begin the very beginning step of facing and bringing hurt and pain to light. It’s not for everyone, and I needed a safe place to start.

    Most of you will have that, somewhere, and trust me on this, you might need new friends, or new people who can be your cheerleaders, or have ‘been there’ – once you begin this path, you’ll be surprised who shows up and where it takes you.

    Because you can.

    Healing isnt weak, it’s the bravest thing you can do.

    Sometimes we’re so addicted to the cycle of pain and denial that we wear it like a cloak, preferring blame and victimhood as a norm.

    Dont believe me when I say you can love yourself?

    You dont have to. Thats your choice.

    But stay in unbelief and stay as you are, and nothing changes.

    Love is such a powerful force in the universe and stronger than you think.

    It’s been there all along. Aching to be listened to….maybe it’s time to let it.

    You have the capacity to love yourself, because Love is you.

    It’s been you all along.

    And…..it will save you in the end.

    You just were told otherwise, and believed in it to conform, to hide.

    Yeah, and this all has in some ways applied to me.

    We are all in this together.

  • You Can’t force your Jigsaw (But do open the box)

    You Can’t force your Jigsaw (But do open the box)

    Each of us has bits of us that we dont really like. Theres the bits of us that got damaged by our parents or family when we grew up, whether this was abuse, neglect, abandonment, the choices of our parents and the hurts of these. Theres the bits of us in school, the parts where we adapted, the parts of us that we’re wounded, hurt. Theres the parts of us that we’d rather not talk about in polite company, the parts of us that turned to sex or drugs or alcohol or something other to soothe the pain, or the parts of us that hid away, the parts of us that acted in fear, anxiety, acted in vengeance and transferred inner anger from parents or jobs, onto partners, children or pets. Theres the parts of us that made choices when in survival mode, choices to be busy, choices to give to others from neediness, choices to take advantage of others, choices not to view another persons dignity and humanity, only as a service t our own. Then theres choices and actions in denial, to run away from dealing with the pain, to avoid it, to hide it.

    We all have them.

    Your pain might feel huge. But you are definitely not alone.

    All making our heart, our mind, our bodies…feel not quite right, or very quite wrong, or just stuck, or weary…

    All with a root of shame, or guilt or anger.

    And we would rather not go there.

    Then theres that inner voice that accompanies them all.

    Shame, Loathing, Guilt, Perfectionism, Control, Fear… all protecting the parts, all making a good argument for ‘not going there’ .

    And so often the morality we encounter – the shame of what we encountered, or what we did, or what we didnt do, who we hurt… feels too much to accept, feels too much to be able to get real about.

    We’d rather hide than face the truth

    We’d rather mask and hide than go there.

    We’d rather continue on, with that ache inside, than give light and warmth to a state of being thats hurting ourselves and others, yet its doing exactly that, and we’re spinning out of control.

    ‘So often… Morality is the Enemy of Growth’ (John O Donohue)

    The moral obligation to look good

    The moral obligation to be strong

    The moral obligation to ‘battle’ through darkness (or sin)

    The moral obligation to not feel shame, is to not feel anything.

    Yet, as a result that ache and pain haunts like a shadow, becoming more and more entrenched when challenged.

    I know. I didnt want to go there. Trying to keep a status quo whilst dying inside and running away from the pain, and the shame of what I was doing to soothe it. Until I cracked between it all, and lost everything, and yet…. realised that when everything was lost, I found something much more precious… eventually.

    Because those parts of us we’d rather hide are like parts of a jigsaw, and along with our hearts, our minds and bodies, theres fragmentation and fracturing within, caused by all the damage, to us and by us.

    And jigsaws, especially those with brittle edge pieces dont fit or mould together with force. Like trying to get two cuttlefish pieces to interlock.

    Friend. It isnt an inner battle you have to win.

    Battles are for armies.

    It isnt a war on the inside between the parts, even if they are raging, and making a noise. Their voice is often so loud.

    Your wounded parts are part of you, but they aren’t you.

    You hold the blow torch.

    Your heart is the gas.

    Love is the flame.

    And your parts and their raw, pained, rugged edges, mould together not with force, but with love, love that powers, love that emirates, love that emerges from your heart….once you finally, surrender, accept and listen to its call. Love from within resolves fractures and pain. Its warmth that melts the edges and aligns them into your soul and heart, its love that unifies your fractures and fragments, Its love that brings wholeness.

    Being a friend to the parts of you, the shame of your past that you’d rather not admit to, is a path marked with the deepest, most passionate and erotic love you can imagine, making love to your inner parts, melting their pain away with tenderness that is possible, even if thats new.

    Pain leaves with tears, leaves in a warm car, on the road to your own soul, to be met with harmony and kindness.

    The darkness you’re doing a battle with, in that tough man masculine way, won’t leave until you and your armour back down, and instead surrender to heat, light and love, and yes, that means losing control.

    But right now your pieces feel all over the places and control is an illusion anyway, shards of temporary colour disconnected, carried in a box that doesn’t want to be opened.

    Dare you lovingly open the lid…. and may love guide you in the integration of your whole, melting, welding, searing and bringing you to a harmony within, harmony your soul is already grasping for in the moments of pain you’re trying to hide.

  • Bestowing Your Gift Softly.

    Bestowing Your Gift Softly.

    One of the treasures within each and every one of us is our hearts. You have one, as do I, and yet so often in our day to day lives our hearts, and the desires of them play a silent role in our lives. Advertisers appeal to our minds, our desires , our discontent and our wallets, our thinking is so honed and shaped that its the reason behind entire education systems, create knowledge, and experiences, so that you can work. Religion is not far different, belief is highly attuned to ‘thought’ and less about feeling (in some places feelings are derided or discarded within religion, for the sake of holding beliefs that are about facts) and I’m not deriding the pursuit of depth of knowledge or curiosity – our minds are important…but they are not everything.

    But our minds can only do so much, even if our thinking wants to convince us that it can do everything – thats often the role we have given it, thats more our ego than our whole. But our mind knows things, it knows experiences, it knows, it calculates, it thinks, constantly, and that constant thinking, is often why the heart seems to be silent. Yet a life without heart, is a life on the move, an life on constancy, a life reacting to the speed of thought, where each curiously results in action, where layers of life build on each other.

    One of the treasures is our hearts. It is where there is pure love, where there are feelings of anger, desire, passion, love, and where the channel opens to the soul , a place that can’t be thought into, it can only be felt, and have soft loving hands open the doorway, to a space of consciousness beyond, a place where there is harmony, security and the soft stillness of the inner love voice.

    Where your heart is there will be your treasure. Your life is ‘wholer’ when you can feel, and be grateful for being able to and safe to (Michael Singer, Living Untethered) and yet so often we live a life afraid of, in denial of, or ashamed of feelings, and the experiences in our lives that caused them. Spirituality is the task of loving softness on the parts we’d rather hide. ‘Morality is often the enemy of growth’ writes John O Donohue ( Anam Cara) Morality is thoughts and shame put together, often in institutional cultures and behaviours. Spiritual growth requires deep inner love, requires hearts, requires anger, requires the softness of the love that comes from the depth and mystery of our heart itself.

    A heart that holds when life around us breaks into a million pieces. A heart that heals with tears. A heart that responds inside with softness. A heart that loves the world with bliss and connection. A heart that rests and the moment at the end of each breath. A heart that tells you ‘ I love you’, ‘Im proud of you’ , even if your thinking wants to tell you otherwise. Your heart will always be on your side. Your thinking has so often been placed there from other sources.

    And when you find your heart, your life will shine with beauty.

    And when you find the gift of your heart, it was your heart that found itself all alone. For it is love that carries you in love all along, to find that love that hides under that shadows of shame and pain, and guilt and perfection, until its gift is accepted, and its gentle hands are held, walking hand in hand in love.

    Part of the beauty of the act of discovery is the integrity of its desire for wholeness. Your soul will not want to avoid of neglect the regions of your heart that do not fit the expected. When you trust yourself enough to discover and integrate your strangeness, you bestow a gift to yourself.

    Rather than annulling a complex part of your heart which would continue to haunt you, you have thrown your arms around yourself to embrace who you are’

    (John O Donohue, Divine Beauty)

  • The Struggle….

    The Struggle…….is the healing

    The Struggle…..is the real

    The Struggle………is where darkness and soul clash their fists

    And where something wounded reveals its truest need

    The Struggle….is the moment

    The Struggle…..is the sign

    The Struggle…..is the place

    Where past and future rage for change

    In a present unlived

    The struggle…is the grind

    The struggle… is the tension

    The struggle …. reminds

    Where sharp and raw

    Pain recoils agains trust

    and protection from

    The Struggle ….is the opportunity

    The Struggle ….. is the gain

    The Struggle…. points

    to where there’s love that aching for you

    and something is in its way,

    Where a pillow is required

    and a scream

    and a cry and a fucking ‘wonder why’

    there feels no end, or feels no reason.

    Because its in the struggle

    where healing happens

    where the fight for love occurs

    and your soul is making itself desperate to love you

    awakening by awakening

    layer by layer

    pain by pain

    to reveal a power so deep

    it can cut through despair.

    The struggle….is the healing

    It’s the place.

    Where power is forged in the sparks of the grind.

    In the Struggle, there is gold.

    Treasure awakening from your soul.

    Let it rage

    Let it feel.

    The Struggle is the place…

    where wounds get loved to hope.

  • Awakening

    For everything under the sun, there is a time

    This is the season of your awakened harvesting

    When pain takes you to 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 the bitter tree was planted.

    You are coming to see how your looking often darkened

    When you should have felt safe enough to fall toward love

    How deep down your eyes were always owned by something.

    That facd 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 scrape 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 you heart has swept the way to your true self.

    As your tears fall over that wounded place

    May they wash away your 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, by John O Donohue)

  • Wounds like Eyes

    If the process of healing is like an onion

    One layer of tears at a time
    One more step towards the core

    Then wounds are like eyes

    They hurt when stung

    They are the raw, vulnerable awakening

    Of pain needing more work

    Raw exposed and seen

    Wound of black hurt

    The pupil, the dark eye in the middle

    A wound of pain surrounded by levels of anger, grief, torment, fear and betrayal

    Like an eye

    Today has been a wound day, completely unexpectedly

    A trigger went deep

    Rawness to the surface

    Yet it helped me to see

    To look at the pain again

    And see, that I am not the pain

    That i am powerful

    That I am safe

    That I am loved

    And I am not in that place

    Somehow for me, wounds help me to see

    Help me to feel, a reminder to continue to be the new me

    Wounds help me to see

    See me for me now

    See what I need

    Wounds like eyes.

  • Growth, Risking the promise of colour

    Growth, Risking the promise of colour

    Growth

    Begins with death

    Losing, leaving, darkness

    Leaving yourself behind, old you, old me

    Growth

    Requires risk

    Moves

    takes time

    clears, cleanses, challenges, reveals

    Pain

    Sometimes letting

    light in, where once was dark

    straining for warmth

    for light, for love

    Growth

    needs warmth

    needs food

    safe nutrients

    safe everything

    Growth

    at the speed of safe

    not competition

    but attention

    Growth

    faces pain

    Growth

    shows and shines

    takes its time

    shoots appearing

    green, new, tender

    life

    begins

    Growth

    prefers slow

    and the speed of love

    Growth

    a choice of making

    colours from our heart

    life from within

    not without

    Growth

    from within

    from death to light

    with love in pain

    Growth

    Universal language

    prompts from within

    to make us see

    ourselves

    a work of beauty

    emerging painfully from within

    wounded and hiding

    now starting to shine

    risking the promise of colour.

  • Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 21) Accepting delusional normality

    Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 21) Accepting delusional normality

    If you’re like me and have spent a lot of your life reading or watching politics, you may know about the phrase ‘hyper-normalisation’ . I dont know who coined it, but its spoken of in depth in Adam Curtis’ brilliant documentary here. The key part in which he speaks of it, is when the people of Russia dying of poverty are living a very different life to that of which is portrayed on their TV screens, and they accept it as ‘normal’. Imagine A Boris Christmas party being live broadcasted last year. Curtis’ documentary is long, but worth it.

    Anyway, this blog isn’t about politics. Its about Normality.

    I have found it fascinating, that over the course of the last few years, especially, as I have shared my story, incidents, events and situations of my childhood and then more recent times involving my parents, I sometimes get the reaction ; ‘That isn’t normal behaviour’ , then followed with… ‘ its shocking/abusive/disturbing/manipulative’

    It isnt normal behaviour.

    But then, like Boris world, and his accompanying anger – growing up in ‘non normal’ world, is about navigating it for safety reasons – showing pretend acceptance that doesnt rock the boat, hiding and all the other things. But its one of the weirdest things to write about, is that those who create a delusional reality, that isnt ‘normal’ (but normal to them) – based on entitlement, ego, woundedness, self absorption, narcissism etc – then expect that this normal is adhered to by others.

    Sounds sort of cult like. Sounds pretty psychopathic too.

    But what about me, what about any of us caught in the whirlwind of delusion, of a person chucking out death traps all the time?

    One form of ‘normal’ they create is the one that you are forced to accept – their world.

    There is another one too.

    Theres the ‘Everything is normal’ that they determine.

    They do a weird thing.

    Imagine for a moment that you have no capacity to show remorse, shame or guilt – can you imagine that?

    So now, consider how you react after someone has called you out for your crime?

    Remember you cannot feel shame, guilt or remorse (and secretly you enjoyed the party, or crime)

    Of course, not only do you have selective amnesia about it, deny it, or blame others for it (taking no responsibility) … and hope to get away with it..again and again… but then what…

    Yes, you guessed it. They carry on as normal.

    As if nothing happened.

    Making no attempt to do any work in the relationship, because..they dont do anything wrong..remember?

    Thats one of the crazy bewildering patterns of the abusive ones. Sometimes it even is accompanied by ‘playing the victim’ and being hurt that they got found out. On other occasions it may be said that ‘everyone just needs to move on and forget about it’ or ‘you cant get over what I did, I said sorry’ – putting the responsibility on someone else again, and they create a new normal, their normal.

    Its bewildering isnt it? And thats why growing up in an emotionally abusive home, delusions become normalised.

    And everyone else goes – that really isnt normal, or thats not the way to deal with hurt or pain..

    But negotiation or conversation about the abuse never happens.

    It’s normalised. Its not even viewed in that way. Its ignored.

    Because a person who cant feel, cant accept that others might feel too.

    Everyone else is emotional and cant get over it.

    Most normal people recognise when they cause pain.

    Some normal people might apologise

    Some might have to face consequences.

    Others live in a reality in which none of these exist.

    Where everyone else is expected to see normal in the way they do.

    As a child, its only possible to navigate through the delusion with safety, and escape on the mind.

    But that delusional reality, and the trauma created as a result of it..affects..

    Every time I accepted normal as abusive I denied myself, though that core was hurting badly.

    Surviving Psychopathic parenting was about navigating the delusional normality and the price that I and everyone else paid for it.

    And then what happens when you stop…

    And realise that I deserve better, and able to stand up for myself.

    See the delusional world, highlight others to it, and stay out.

  • Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 20) Turning up to school, with blood on my hands

    (TW, Self Harm)

    There was blood on my hands every day I was in Primary school.

    No scars of the pain of abuse, apart from my own.

    Torn away skin

    On the top of my fingers.

    Every day pain.

    Squeeze those fingers. Make it bleed

    Feel that pain.

    Make it sore.

    Every day pain.

    Pick that Scab and make it worse.

    My fingers, my nails, my spots, my hair

    Needed to feel something

    No signs of abuse on my body, except what I did to myself

    Soften that nail, break it off, and wait for the pain

    How bad will it be

    skin peeled back

    Infections

    Blood red turned to white

    Septic fingers

    That smell and

    sting of TCP

    Septic fingers

    Signs of anxiety, fear and self sabotage

    Septic fingers

    Septic home

    gnawing fingers till they bled

    Punished for picking them

    Hands slapped more

    Pain on pain

    Shamed for picking them

    Pick the skin back

    make it bleed

    my body doesn’t matter

    Pain I needed to feel

    And if not fingers, toes

    Toes bleeding through the night

    Kicking footballs the next day.

    Blood stained socks in school shoes.

    My Pain body. Body full of pain.

    Trying to squeeze it out , one septic finger at a time

    get the pain out, will it go away?

    Pain, the only feeling I was able to feel.

    Pain was all I deserved to feel

    Pain, in a septic home of terror.

    Pain Pain go away

    Come back the next day.

    Another nail, another unhealed bit of skin

    Sore, bright red, raw, pain.

    Bite, bite, pick, pick

    Cant let them heal.

    Stay sore.

    Self inflicted wounds

    Hiding scars of terror

    Of loveless neglect

    Feel the pain

    Never let it go away.

    Turning up every day

    With blood on my fingers.

  • Why its time to be kind..on the younger version of me

    Sometimes I think about what my 42 year old self might want to say to my 8 year old self, or my 16 year old self, or the 28 year old?

    Sometimes I wonder what I feel about the 8 year old, or 16 year old, 28 or 42 year old?

    Sometimes I wonder if I could say anything, would it have changed anything- and if it did, would I want it too?

    Do I look back with regret

    With anguish, pain or embarrassment?

    Do look back and be annoyed at what I could have done differently?

    Or do I look and see

    that

    all I was trying to do was survive

    and protect myself

    and somehow make something out of life

    Can I look back and see the missed red flags and think I could or should or would have done differently?

    But how could I know, if I couldn’t see

    Would younger me, like to know about the current version, because one day he gets there

    What does present me need to be reminded of, when younger me comes into view

    That he was scared and scarred and in pain too

    So what could he do?

    A bundle of pain, shame, guilt and pretence

    Nothing. He couldn’t have done anything.

    Living a grey life, forgetting the dreams.

    The Butterfly is grateful for the frumpy caterpillar

    The Tree, for the acorn

    I cannot go back to younger version of me, but

    I can be and kind to he, and I am to me

    I can have grace and let it be, let it go

    I can just say, that my inner child, its time to be free

    I can just say, its safe now to grow

    Love myself now, love the me then

    Its time to just be.

    Here in the moment

    Love myself now, and love me from then

    Love myself now, and love the me new

    Rest in the version I currently am.

    So, you did good, aged 8,16 or 28 – there were positives too

    You made decisions to be good, to learn and to grow

    You had courage and strength, and despite what was lacking

    Theres stuff to be thankful for, in amongst all the storm.

    Don’t look back in anger, I hate that song.

    Instead, Be kind

    on the previous version of younger little me.

    So what would I now say to, that younger version of me?

    What do I feel about that version of me?

    It might be nothing but admiration, pride and respect, instead of regret

    pain and embarrassment.

    Time to accept, time to thank, time to be.

    Im finally me.

    Matt Haig, The Comfort Book, 2021