James Ballantyne

Tag: personal-growth

  • The Last Judgement.

    The last judgement is the day we’re no longer afraid to be alive again, it when we come back to our real state , our divine self, where we feel a communion of love with everything in existence (Don Miguel Ruiz, The Fifth Agreement)

    This is a far cry from what I grew up believing.

    Though I was spared ‘The Left Behind’ series, UK evangelicalism hadn’t fallen for this work of christian cult fiction (or taken it as the underlying influence for US christian education policy) , I still had given to me, from Sunday school and home, a deep worry of what ‘the last judgement’ could mean.

    Hades, Hell and eternal damnation, or absence from the love of God permeated in my prayers, behaviour, diligence and attempts to be good christian boy/man – with the requisite states of shame for failings and repeated eradication of sin.

    The Last judgement stood as a place of reckoning – appearing even in the Family game ‘The game of life’ . I imagined a replaying of the TV screens in a production room of all the scenes of my life, the good, the bad and the ugly, and everything else. I was going to be judged, and fearing this judgement, and the possibility of ‘going to hell’ featured heavily in my evangelical upbringing as well as further theological studies. The conversations about the end times rattled around endlessly, when a so called 1000 years might occur and how it related to the fires of Hell and end times. No one could even consider that it was more metaphorical than real. That wasnt the question, the question was which.

    The heat of hell was to be feared and avoided.

    Hell was real……and ….

    there were many sermons that would decry that ‘one of the tricks of the devil, is to say that he doesn’t exist, that hell isnt real’ – stoking the fear of disbelieving hell even more – even in slightly more compassionate theological evangelicalism in the UK, this was still a thing said.

    As a good christian boy, I believed it all. Every action was seen through a lens of being judged one day.

    So in effect I did a very good job of judging it each time myself.

    Did I hurt that person? Did I make a mistake? Could I have done better? That was embarrassing James…

    The fear of judgement, created my own personal judgement.

    Id push myself to the brink, because being self critical was a skill, and being ‘reflective’ was a thing people consider me known for. Asking questions.

    None worse than the judgement I gave myself.

    Judgement poured inwards.

    All questions, and almost no heart. Restless frustration that world should be a better place – whilst im wallowing in an ache of hurt, pain and internal suffering that im judging myself for. Spewing criticism outwards, as an outpouring of my own conditioning.

    Hell was what I was living, it wasn’t just in my own mind, it was the drama of all around.

    The last judgement. The decision time.

    Without question, part of my awakening process has been to see my faith in different ways, and though rejecting some of it, re appropriating other aspects, and so whilst I probably rejected the notion of ‘end times Hell’ a long while ago, realising that I was living in my own personal hell and taking power to change it, has taken a very long while.

    Since the moment in 2023, after an emotional breakdown, and undergoing therapy for the 4th time, I saw myself differently.

    (This is the story of that moment)

    It felt different.

    It was as if something awoke inside me

    I felt clean. I felt whole.

    I felt as if I had been swimming in shark infested water all my life, and now I was standing on an island in the sunshine that I didnt even know existed, I couldnt even see it. I felt light, joyful, whole.

    It was a feeling, a sense, a reality that has, with the exception of a few challenging situations, been a place that I have been able to stay in, to return to – because I know now that it exists.

    Some might call it awakening, or realisation of consciousness or the moment when I walked through my own personal shadows and hell, to gently loving let these parts of me go.

    The last judgement might just be the last time you make a judgement.

    I didnt believe it would continue. There was a part of me that would envisage me falling back into the waters, and theres been moments of my toes and maybe knees getting wet again. But these moments haven’t been met with self criticism, or failure, or disregard (you know that voice that wants to disregard the ‘good’ moments as blips, and suggest that ‘real’ is the struggle)

    The last judgement.

    Is a place thats possible to create- but its a place the finds you. I didnt go after it, there isnt a magic formula, it arrived when I was ready.

    Judgement is a place of safety, security and dependence, it’s also a place of fear and lack of self trust – and this stuff is hard to work through. But when it happens, you know, you just know.

    It’s like that inner spaciousness that gets bigger.

    It’s not just a crack where the light gets in- thats the start – , more an embodied lightness of being, where being is love and light – and its judgements, of self, of the other, of the past, of the future, of the world – that become the blockages in the light tube.

    Maybe they were the true ‘sins’ after all. Not the actions, but the judgements.

    But 45 years of self critical programming, I realise had to be reorientated. The language I used for myself, in how I spoke to myself – had changed in the preceding 5 years – but the voices of my inner protective dialogue hadn’t been dug out at their roots – and they were my default programming, I was unconsciously competent at beating myself up, for everything I did or didnt do. That was the voice. I didnt need God to do this for me – though deep down I believed in a God that was about to… I did it to myself.

    After the moment when my therapist heard my story of taking myself into the shadows, and telling me that ‘James, you are incredible’ and my response, instead of self denial, or reluctant acceptance, was ‘I think I believe you’

    I walked down to the bookstore and wrote the positive words of being incredible, down, and repeated and repeated. I bought a blank journal for 2024 and wrote down only positive messages of myself to myself each day, sometimes it was wrestled determination, but most days, using coloured pens, there were stars and hearts and rainbows and words of grace and love and joy and power for myself – from my imagination or the universe to myself……and a re-writing of my inner dialogue – to retrain or to give more practice – or to give more weight to my inner God, my inner heart, the voice of my soul.

    Using language to become acquainted with the beauty of love and life for myself. To create on a daily basis a space of the island within my being. Using words of love and not self judgement for myself. Writing it daily embodied my belief in it. Writing it daily fed the loving voice. And where there is love, there isnt judgement.

    I get how positive psychology is both derided and believed in – (this could come across as this). This wasn’t a path I chose, it just found me, as I realised that self belief was something that I could make for myself. But I couldnt allow myself to do so, whilst I was in place of self judgement.

    Fear of the beyond, where critical judgement wasn’t the dominant voice wasnt a known place, it was a prison of my normal…so it was easier to obey and stay at its mercy.

    Faith in yourself is the real faith. Real faith is to trust in yourself unconditionally , because you know who you really are, and you really are the truth

    (The Fifth Agreement)

    When you find the place of self truth, it will become apparent that the ways of living previously were prisons that you (and I) had made ourselves more comfortable in than we would like to believe. And one of those was the place of judgement – where someone, something, some system, some part of ourselves – is to blame or causes us to blame ourselves.

    Judgements are fractures in our wholeness, beliefs to keep us stuck in places of restraint and comfort, they feel easy – they lie easily and are believed easily – especially when we feel we need to belong in the very systems that permeate them (religion, family etc) as moral codes or stated behaviours….until we realise, or start to notice….that to buy into the judgement is to remain stuck, in someone else’s personal hell or even our own. Judgement creates it.

    Notice what happens when you stop making judgements.

    Notice what happens, when you stop yourself beating yourself up.

    Notice what happens when you feed the voice inside that is gentle warm and kind.

    Notice what happens when you completely accept yourself. Your body. Your actions. Your past. Your emotions. Your thoughts,

    Notice what happens when you let go of being judgemental

    Notice what happens when judgement feels wrong and not normal anymore.

    Notice what happens when the lie of judgement is exposed.

    The last judgement, might be the last judgement you might make – before life actually begins.

    Beyond judgement beckons, as place of deep agreement – where no-thing but love, light, life matters – it just is and it feels like heaven.

    Maybe the last judgement is the last tine you make a judgement.

  • Seeing Yourself Clearly.

    Seeing Yourself Clearly.

    There will come a day when you stop believing in your own smallness.

    The great suppression that you were colluded into, when you played small to stay safe, when you played small to get paid, when you played small, played the part of the extra in someone else’s drama. Hiding your gifts, hiding your voice, hiding your immensity, chasing love, chasing one more thing to something other than a gnawing sense of inner tiny.

    In stormy waters you are going to feel small, and those who want you to feel inadequate, ashamed, powerless, guilty often keep chucking the stones into your pond, or start up the wave machine, or turn the water into acid, gently corroding you bit by bit. For some, you born into a pond full of nasties, creatures roaming in the deep, heavy rocks, and tiny little vulnerable you, barely able to breathe as the water around surrounds, swallows and tumultuates.

    You cannot see yourself when dodging the rocks, trying to swim, trying to stay alive and afloat, your concentration and energy is on staying alive and afloat – whatever it takes, and colluding with their small opinion of you is one such way. You have to believe your parents view of you, because you require them to feed you, or your partners view if they’re threatening you, or the places of escape and safety from these, jobs, churches, whatever, when you’re in need of a rescuer or saviour, you’re also vulnerable.

    One storm after another, and the great collusion continues, small you rages in the corner like a jack Russell at a vegetarian ball. The great suppression erodes so much that if you can’t believe it when you are believed in, or it feels uncomfortable, or it is dismissed and denied. Believing in our own inferiority, self oppression, and all of a sudden the stone thrower has won.

    John O Donahue writes about the different ways of sight we have, and in considering how we might have an inferior eye, as we look at ourselves we might say:

    To the inferior eye, everyone else is greater. Others are more beautiful, brilliant and gifted than you. The Inferior eye is always looking away from its own treasures. It can never celebrate its own presence and potential. The Inferior eye is blind to its own secret beauty. The human eye was never designed to look up in a way that inflates the other to superiority, nor to look down reducing the other to inferiority

    John O Donohue – Anam Cara

    I lived for so long small. Feeling weak, small and inferior on the inside. Feeling shame for having needs, feeling shame for my body, shame and belittled for having emotions, others upset internalised as my fault and responsibility, and carried all of this from childhood into adulthood, carried on the ongoing wings of various incarnations of faith that required me to stand small inside in the face of the all powerful God, and still continually feel inadequate or a sinner, on a constant loop of need, fuelling my inner smallness and insecurity, and giving me far too many reasons to stay feeling small inside. God perfect, me inadequate.

    When we forget our own immensity, or we have been conditioned from birth never to have it, it’s a long road to find realise it, because its not trusted, its not just self care we need, but self trust is harder to find. When we act from self smallness we are desperate, needy and tossed around on other peoples waves, unable to see ourselves, looking out for others – approval, acceptance, protection…

    Lovingness and Compassion alone dont produce insight. They smooth the waves of emotions. When those waves of grief, pain, lamentation, worry, fear and anxiety, envy, jealousy, dislike and resentment have finally come to rest, there is a clear reflection without any obscuring ripples in it, like a mirror, the mirror of the mind. That mirror of the mind makes it possible to get a clear vision

    Ayya Khama- Being Nobody, Going Nowhere.

    Safety comes first, emotional safety. Then feeling all the feelings, the grief, pain, envy etc have come to rest, they are not avoided, dismissed or sidelined, they are felt. Beyond the rage and tears, and in the place where you can ride the stones, if they can’t be avoided or escaped from…yet.

    In the place of rest is a clearer reflection.

    When we don’t believe it when someone tells us that we are incredible and beautiful, we need to be angry about those who have convinced us into feeling small.

    Once you stop making yourself small to fit into others.

    Once you stop agreeing with their insecurity, because they have to coerce you into staying small.

    Once your small thought is given the redundancy slip. That job is not required anymore.

    You realise, tiny step, by tiny step

    That inside you is huge.

    Divine, Universe, Consciousness in its expanse

    No apologies for being you darling human.

    The dawning of your new large inner age is upcoming.

    Time to rise, time to live.

    From brokenness to wholeness

    A new beauty arises when you finally believe.

  • 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.

  • How Journalling has helped me (and why I found it difficult to start)

    How Journalling has helped me (and why I found it difficult to start)

    I had the weird moment a few weeks ago when I was standing in the well known outlet store ‘TK Maxx’ in the stationary and journal section, where I was joined by….another man in the aisle, looking for a new suitable journal. It was a rare experience. I have never encountered another man in the journal section of either TK Maxx, Waterstones or WHSmith. The lesser spotted male journaller.

    In amongst the array of pink, peach, ‘self care for you’ , ‘be your better self’ journals, that were mainly targeting the female journaller, in conversation we realised we were both looking for something very similar. A plain looking, plain inside journal. No ‘Year planner’ no ‘Goal setting’ no ‘write your dreams for 2026’ – just plain, so that we could write, and write without prompting.

    Oh it wasnt allowed to be pink. Sorry. Just plain. A blue, green, black or purple.

    I didnt feel like asking this random stranger male what he journaled, or what he wrote, we just looked for a while trying to find what we were both looking for.

    Given that its incredibly important that we men have healthy avenues to try and describe, write and formulate our thoughts and feelings – that it seems that its a market more targeted to women, is another tiny obstacle men face when beginning the inner journey. (dont mishear, this is not an excuse..just an observation)

    So, I journal. And I realise that over my lifetime I have written down my thoughts in different ways.

    Firstly, given that bedrooms weren’t safe, there was no way I could write about what was going on at home as a child, nor leave it in a place. Some of my girl friends (friends who were girls) wrote diaries, as did the girls in TV shows, but rarely did boys. The times that I did I kept everything factual and boring, like the weather that day, school homework and probably football scores. Thats all that was safe to be left in my childhood bedroom.

    Between then and 5-6 years ago I would write thoughts and ideas down, usually stemming from what I had read in the Bible, talks or conferences, training notes or my academic notes or ideas for essays. Rarely entering the world of my feelings, or heart – just ideas, thoughts, concepts.

    I probably baulked at the idea of doing journaling back 6 years ago. It seems like a ‘girly’ thing to do. But that I know now was my reactions to it, because it wasnt a safe thing to do in the recent or long term past. But now, I had my own flat, my own space, and I was learning to realise that i was safe to write, safe to express myself and safe to put anything I want down on paper and in any shape or form. Even if at times this had to be fought against the inner voices that were inhibiting it at times.

    I would say that I have used writing in four main ways in the last 5 years, the private stuff, not what I write here.

    1. Free writing – This can take the form of wax crayons, colours and plain paper, closing my eyes and just scribbling, and writing anything on the page depending on the feeling that wants to come out, anger, rage, frustration, hurt, pain, and it can be anything, swear words, scrawl – anything at all – sometimes its a fight to come out but I just sit there and let it, however much thought resistance there might be.
    2. Therapy homework and dreams – After one particular time of therapy I was introduced to inner child writing, and so, i have a journal in which i have an ongoing inner dialogue with my ‘self’ or my feelings, my childhood ego state, and listen, love and care for it. I do this one more often when feeling anxious, depressed, or fearful – but also, when calm too, as it’s a good way of assessing my inner feeling temperature. I followed the ‘discovery of your inner child’ book by Lucio Cappacione for a very long while. I needed to do..not just understand.
    3. Dreams. I write them down. So that I notice what my subconscious is having a play around with during my sleep.
    4. Raging words and trying to understand things. One of my journals was about trying to understand things, trying to write out the questions, the reasons, the hurt and pain of what I suffered.
    5. My Affirmation journal. I began this in 2023 (Here is the story), and continued it each day (give or take a few) , in which I write to myself affirmations, no negatives, no questions, just positive affirmations, as if the universe and its angels were looking at me with delight and then telling me, or as if I as a friend to myself was telling me my truth. Who I am. This has been utterly transformative, not using the language of lies and limitations to shape my inner voice or self any more. To re – orientate my inner critic into something small, and let me heart and soul speak into my life.
    6. The blank one. There always a blank journal on the go, for anything else, just to grab it and write something, a sentence, a phrase, a line from a book, a meme. It’s a bit like the journal equivalent of saving screen shots from healing memes on fb, that also include stuff from books too. Sometimes words just find me, and so I let them arrive and put them down, sometimes these become titles for blogs too. Oh and more recently writing poetry has begun from this.

    For most of these I use coloured pens, to express myself inwardly, and also because blue and black are too close to official colours of study or work. My inner life deserves purples, pinks, greens and yellows, and feelings often emerge in colour.

    I have used writing in a number of ways to listen, and speak from my pain and trauma, from my heart and to my wounded parts, and as the process has continued I have developed different strategies as different aspects have required attention.

    I definitely didnt start this process thinking ‘I am going to journal’ though maybe it was likely given my blogging history and love of writing academically, that writing was going to be one way that was going to be a very useful tool for my healing processing and journey. I did find it painful to start, to force myself to write deep things, as I had spent so long writing thoughts and ideas and my inner heart and feelings were so locked, shamed and hidden away. It was always going to take time, and the guidance of psychological professionals to help me unlock and unblock.

    Sometimes it’s a quick grab of the paper and write down something, sometimes I realise that ive been fighting myself for hours and I just needed to sit, and write and listen and respond. It doesn’t matter, it’s just day by day doing the work, rebuilding, noticing, revealing and loving my self through its own expressions.

    This has been, so far my journey of journalling, what about you? Id love to hear in the comments below your hints and tips for journalling and how it has been part of your healing journey through whatever the situation has been for you.

  • Growth Conditions (on the inside)

    Growth Conditions (on the inside)

    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?

    And yes its ‘only a theory’ but just pondering….

  • Following The Gap

    Take a moment and have a look at this photo. 

    What do you notice?

    The Misty shrouded mountain top? 

    The Stone wall?

    The Green fields?

    As I stood and looked at this scene just before Christmas, the thing I noticed was the gaps. 

    Gaps. 

    Intentional spaces between a barrier, or border, space left open. 

    A navigation tool,  and opening to see from distance to walk towards. 

    To follow. 

    To trust. 

    To know that you are on a path (though might not always be the right one ;-) ) 

    And at the start of the new year, the year starts with the gap of opportunity. The gap of unlived promise, desires to be awakened, space to be filled. 

    Yet…

    What, if I’m honest, do I struggle with most? 

    Often it’s the gap between expectation and reality, the expectations in my thoughts, and the reality of the experiences, what actually is happening, or going to and being unable to have open acceptance. Too little a gap between them, to much mind going on in the swirl of the every experience.

    Or the noise in my mind when I think I’m in trouble, or upset someone , or not done enough, or guilt about any of these things and the filling of the space happens….yet….

    Or even deciding to make that gap, because it’s sometimes so much more comfortable to fill it, even when that inner discomfort is saying otherwise. Because, I can decide, I have more power than I realise.

    What space might we make for the gap, that space between things and no-things. 

    To sense and make a space between expectations and realities, and not feel disappointment, but to notice that what is as a gift. 

    The gap is open, it is air. 

    It may be time to breathe in the gap. 

    To make space to dwell in presence, and not productivity.

    The Slow time of betweenness where silence calls its disturbing, and also peaceful voice. 

    Space for Space itself

    The invitational promise of the gap

    That focussed the mind on consciousness itself

    To wonder

    To be

    To imagine

    The gap between thought and feeling

    Between longing and belonging

    Where we find God, being, freedom or Love

    Where we sense that mystical indescribable something, close.

    Just there. 

    Always.

    Like the empty pages of this years diary, or the gaps between the notes in a music score. 

    Notice.

    The Gap.

    And, let the Gap call you forward.  

    Take your time this year. 

    Move slowly. 

    And decide to go there. 

    To give that energy inwards

    And let it find you. 

    Because it’s there.

    And there may you be embraced by peace. 

    Time, to be, time to sit,

    stay there…as long as you can dwell.   

    This has been inspired by my current reading which is  ‘Living Untethered’ by Michael A Singer, his previous book ‘The Untethered Soul’ is one I highly recommend, on seeing, feeling and noticing the mind, and how to live in personal freedom. 

  • Loving discomfort

    I used to suppress everything, so I didn’t feel anything

    Get through it

    Survive it

    Bounce

    Close off my heart, live a shrouded life.

    Any discomfort was barely even felt

    Or felt in silence, private and…

    then pushed through,

    and receive the weight , the noise of my own destructive self talk.

    Trauma voice shouting internally.

    No heart open to love myself, so no love to do its work.

    But I realised over the course of the last year,

    of journaling words of self love everyday.

    That there are more aspects of life that I now talk more lovingly to.

    Because, talking lovingly to myself is actually a free choice. You can do it, but like me, I was too scared to.

    I didnt want to believe that I actually was lovable, incredible, brave, courageous, powerful.

    But then I did.

    And something I noticed, is that when I talked kindly to myself…

    I didnt beat myself up that often

    I could tell myself that I had done well in what I was doing

    I could feel proud of myself

    All completely unconditionally. A choice.

    Loving the discomfort.

    Thats been tough.

    Because often I forget, or I am tired, or there’s a new ‘thing’ that appears, a feeling or situation, and it swipes me.

    Sometimes I berate myself for feeling what I feel. it’s like I think I shouldn’t feel anxiety, or depressed, or lonely even after doing all this work.

    Maybe I dont think I should be triggered.

    But thats not what it’s about.

    It’s these moments, where the work helps to self regulate. It’s these moments to notice the feeling. It’s these moments to feel them.

    Sensing it.

    And to love it.

    In the moment.

    Because they stem from wounded parts. They are feelings, angels of learning, and opportunities to be loved and held.

    Discomfort needs to be loved and not berated

    Discomfort needs to be loved and not criticised

    Discomfort needs to be loved and not ignored or suppressed

    Discomfort needs to be held, in your open heart

    And know that its ok, its trying to protect you

    And love you may have for someone else, rightly, turn it inwards, protect your energy and fill that discomfort, that pain with love from within. Talk to it as a friend. Ask. Love. Breathe love into it.

    Because then healing arrives from the inside out.

    Love does always win, truly.

    Love the discomfort, and then be transformed.