James Ballantyne

Tag: Spiritual Bypassing

  • Allowing Shit to Settle

    No thanks

    I’d rather pretend the shit didn’t exist thank you very much

    I’d rather add a whole layer of other stuff on top of it

    I’d rather pretend that the shit was actually roses without any thorns

    I’d rather do avoid the shit, and run and hide away

    I’d rather distract from the shit

    Id rather bypass the shit and say it was just God’s plan for me to endure

    I’d rather keep busy that sit with it.

    I’d rather cover it up with comforting food

    Or hope that entertainment soothes it

    Or scroll on Facebook to take on even more, or get annoyed at something else

    Or go to a football match or do some exercise to ‘get the anger out’

    I can’t allow it to settle

    That would mean accepting

    Feeling it, smelling it

    Sensing it in its fullest sense

    Realising that it exists

    And it has affected me

    And I feel sad, I feel angry, I feel hurt,I feel..what ever this dose of shit makes me feel

    Rage, hurt, tears, coming out, from amidst the shit

    And then

    The voice from within that says, you are not the shit

    I am not the shit, I am bigger than it

    I let it, but it isn’t devouring me, I can feel it, look at it, and realise that I am me, and the shit isn’t me

    Even if I am in it or have been given it

    It’s not a place to want to stay and now that I’ve felt it, I can move away

    And not keep it buried, hidden or avoided to come back to..and deal with, another day. Piling more and more above it

    Naming it, feeling it, sensing it, letting it settle, and be

    And breathe, and know, that I am more, I am bigger, I can see

    That there’s a way out, that I can take, and in the quiet of nothing

    That voice , that me, is waiting to speak, and heal, repair and recover, rebuild and remake

    And Ill look at the shit one day from a different place, and realise how far I am from it, and I needn’t look back, because I dealt with it once, twice or many

    Clean air awaits, entices and breathes, it’s fresh and it’s pure, green grass in the fields awaiting our feet

    It’ll only feel good when I haven’t cheated, and try to enjoy it with a bag full of shit, I’m still carrying around, or buried deep, hoping never to be found.

    Letting it settle and letting it be

    Is part of the way of making me free.

    (thank you to Gabriella Russo on Facebook for the image)

  • Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 18) Terrified by breakfast table Jesus.

    Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 18) Terrified by breakfast table Jesus.

    Christ is the Head of this house

    So far, in parts 1-17 of my story of what I needed to do to survive psychopathic parenting, I have talked alot about emotional abuse, emotional neglect, narcissism and the drama triangle, and the eggshells that had top be continually walked upon. I haven’t really talked about the spiritual weaponising that associated all of this as I grew up.

    At the same time as all of the events I have described went on, it was all occurring in a ‘home’ that outwardly professed to be a ‘Christian’ one. So much so, that for most times in my life I would have said ‘I grew up in a Christian home’ . Now id say I grew up in an abusive home and my parents also had an evangelical faith.

    What did this mean?

    It meant that I grew up with a distorted sense of God.

    ‘Family’ mealtimes of course included ‘saying grace’ – but also this ritual meant having to be ‘serious’ and ‘saying grace properly’ – and at times having to be thankful for food that was delivered with little care or value.

    Breakfast was accompanied by an elongated daily bible reading – usually ‘Our Daily Bread’ and lengthy prayers by the parents afterwards.

    The unseen guest

    Prayers that were often messages, sorry, prayers that were messages of morality to us as children. Im not going to say that they didnt pray for exams or issues (that they knew about) – but thats not really what I remember. This time was enforced on me (us as it included may sister too) , it was as important as the eating part.

    It enforced daily that God was on their side. It enforced daily a time that they projected outwards to keep casting moral messages to us as children. They knew God, God was on their side. God was a weapon they used to control our behaviour.

    The Silent listener

    ‘We pray that we (though looking at me) dont behave like the older child when the prodigal returned (on the brief occasion my sister started going to church)’

    ‘We pray that the lost are returned, and you accept us when we return (looking at my sister who had stopped going to church)’

    There were many that were worse than this.

    Im not sure that the writers of ‘Our Daily Bread’ had this in mind, when they ensured that evangelical parents were starting every day with this, and reading it publically in front of their children as a control, a weapon.

    Christ is the Head of this House

    The Unseen guest at every meal

    The Silent listener of every conversation

    Was hung bold and in a red (not green) background large and proud in the dining room.

    On a blood red background.

    In a place where it had to be walked past every day to get the kitchen, or to where our shoes were kept in the back room.

    It was put there as deliberately.

    God was on their side. God was to be terrified of.

    God was watching us. (he wasnt watching them)

    In his book ‘Ghost Ship’ A.D.A France-Williams writes…

    My mum would point to this piece of terror art and use it as a motif of her and Gods total surveillance. So whatever I was getting up to at home, I was being watched

    A.D.A France-Williams (2020)

    My mum would always sit on the side of the table nearest the kitchen. That may have been one reason. The other was that it meant that, as she dominated every conversation, that picture was in view behind her head. She didnt point to it, as the author of Ghost ship described. In my case the picture was to be as feared as its message.

    God was to be terrified of. He was no help in the emotional abuse, in fact he was on their side.

    A.D.A was right though. This was terror art.

    We were being literally watched.

    From being Sunday school leaders and Primary school dinner ladies. We were being watched.

    If we didnt behave in church that morning, or in Sunday school, there were repercussions afterwards.

    They were watching, God was watching. God was to be terrified of, because she was to be terrified of. The God who was said to be about love – was delivered by the parents with bucketloads of added fear, terror and morality.

    God was abused by them.

    As an older teenager , who fearfully stayed within the box, I remember going to one of the bigger christian festivals in the mid to late 1990’s, and someone there talked about ‘Father God’ and if what we might need do ‘if people have a poor image of God because of a damaged relationship with their Dad’. Which is all perfectly legitimate. But I wonder about what space there was to talk about a damaged relationship with God, because of the way that he was presented as a child. What about the effect an abusive mother who was a powerful evangelical woman, could have on the image of a child, a teen..and me? What about, as I know now, that God the father to me was unprotective, abused and also silent?

    As she damaged the whole family, doing so claiming that God was on her side.

    Fast forward 40 odd years to me writing this now. looking back, what did I do to survive?

    I did what I had to do, and that was try not to upset or go against them, or make things difficult for them. Those eggshells to navigate on the ground were multi facetted. I conformed, out of fear. And eventually, and only because they left that church, it could become a place of safety. (Yes, they left the church, thats been a common pattern ever since)

    Its no wonder I grew up with a large dose of evangelical fear and self loathing . I internalised all of that fear, guilt, shame. I hid myself, disconnected, and ultimately ran away as far, geographically as I could.

    Before then though, I had started to re think God. I felt home, and also something of a different God in places where I felt safe. However, I, took on the same devout faith as them, usually not because I wanted to, but because I thought it was make them proud or pleased of me. An impossible task, as I have realised now. Its what abuse does to you, you keep going back for more beatings even if you’re carrying a bunch of flowers, flowers you think they will like.

    I did discover that God was and is love. Though removing the shed skin of being traumatically terrified of God can be hard to shift.

    Im working on what faith is, beyond trauma, in the midst of reconnecting with myself all the time. Im learned that I dont have to keep going back to God with flowers to show my efforts. I can do what was always words sung, I can ‘be still’. Be still and know. As I’m learning to know myself, and to be myself, im discovering faith new again.

  • Football bypassing: Why is football the only topic men can talk about?

    I was sitting on a socially distanced ‘packed’ train back from a weekends travel in Scotland a few Saturdays ago, I am sitting on my own, bag on my next to seat, reading a book, there are many other people on the train, the elderly couple, other single people, and a few students. A few seats behind me in the table seat are a group of men, aged probably between late twenties and early thirties. For the distance between Dundee and Edinburgh, on a train, on a Saturday morning. They talk together for the whole journey.

    About football.

    They talk about football.

    About most of the top 6 teams in England, European football and a bit about Scottish football.

    Their chat about football, lasts longer than a game about football.

    And no one is actually playing it. Its the pre-season. So its just about transfers.

    I was introduced to a concept a few weeks ago known as ‘Spiritual Bypassing’ – what this is about is using spirituality to bypass or avoid doing real deep therapeutic work on feelings, hurts, trauma and fears. From being superstitious, ‘if I touch wood it won’t happen’ to more evangelical ‘if we just pray about it it’ll all disappear’.  So im thinking about ‘spiritual bypassing’ whilst on the train. Wondering whether, what is happening between these 4 men on the train isn’t spiritual bypassing, but football bypassing.

    But its not really though. Its more the complete avoidance of talking deeply about anything. Football as a big distraction.

    Later on though, between Morpeth and Newcastle, three very well dressed up young women get on the train, in heels, make up, nice dresses etc, out for their first night out since March. For 10 mins of the journey, their chat is about the night out, make up, getting nails done, tattoos, that kind of thing. Until one of them made a comment like ‘My mam (mum) gets so up tight about me going out, so controlling’ – the response from the friend across the table is : ‘well you’re here now, time to have a good time and forget about her’

    In a way this felt more like ‘bypassing’ or trying to distract away from a difficult situation. Not just ‘night-out bypassing’ makes for a good title. But it was as if the real problem was revealed, but no friend on a train wanted to hold it with them. Maybe the train isnt a good place to do real.

    When I discovered how much of an introvert I was, I realised why I usually got bored talking about football with anyone except my son. Even as a teenager I liked to ‘set the world’ straight, go deep, discover, ask questions. Yet at the same time, some of that I knew I was doing in the last 15 years was avoiding. The deep stuff I liked to talk about avoided the stuff that needed talking about. I could set the world right, but was no where in terms of setting myself right.

    So I didn’t judge the football chat, or night out chat at all. It was sad for me to hear in a way. We all know what our safe topics of conversation are around a table on a train, but at the same time, theres often clues and cues in conversations with friends about the things that are happening beneath the surface, and takes so much effort to keep them at bay.

    What stops us doing real conversation with our friends on a train? What actually are we afraid of?  Ourselves or other people?

    Its one reason why I started this blog, every year its we hear that Men don’t talk, or do emotions – but on those trains it wasn’t just men. Its not enough to give men a phone line to contact when things have got so bad. Make no mistake, im not here to save or rescue – but what I want to do is talk about some of the real, deep emotional things, so that if you are reading this, or other posts it means that you know you are not alone, and that talking, healing and recovery is possible.