James Ballantyne

Tag: surrender

  • The Truth will make you Free (but….

    The Truth will make you Free (but….

    it may piss you off first)

    On a walk back from town this week, in the bookshelf of Darlington’s new LGBT Bookstore I saw this book.

    I seriously laughed out loud.

    The Evangelical Christian I used to be would have got angry at this violation of the Bible verse.

    Today I thought I would do some digging, The quote could originate from a book by Jamie Buckingham, and if so, is the same Jamie Buckingham who wrote about forgiveness in the Christian context back in the 1990’s, ‘Risky living’ was one of his books. Anyway, I digress.

    Because, the Truth will set you free, even if it will piss you off at first, completely encapsulates the process of healing struggle after abuse, not that different to the oppression context Gloria writes this in from a feminist perspective.

    Individually though, I got faced with choices and decisions and raised awareness about my past and my behaviours that were hard to face, very hard.

    But knowing the truth about myself and these things, in the present of the realisation, gave me the choice, to do something about it or deny them, run from them. Deny and Run was what I had done for the previous 40 years. That gave Lies Power.

    Acceptance of the truth is what makes us free. But our..sorry my ego, my protective parts wanted to wrestle with them first, deny them any reality, deny I wasn’t ok, hide behind a mask, maybe it didnt piss me off, but parts of me were screaming inside.

    Today. I see the book and smile. I see the book and realise the work. The journey ive been on and these last few weeks I seems to have a number of reasons to go back, birthdays do that dont they, as do Facebook memories, as do meeting people and being vulnerable with the story. So I see how I responded when confronted with the truth of what happened to me. So I see myself more clearly through that lens, and the behaviours I used to self soothe and survive and the consequent damage.

    Today I sit and sense peace, I sense joy, i sense freedom. And in these things, to give and receive, to love, share and be loved. To be me.

    The truth of me, that I am worth and deserving of love and happiness, also was something that would proverbially piss me off. But, again, it is the truth that loves is power, love from within heals, our bodies, minds and souls. It has done mine.

    The Truth about Love, will set you free, but our wounded hardened selves might want to feel pissed off by it first.

    Death and Resurrection, the ongoing day to day. Surrender and Acceptance.

    The ‘and’, that gap between, full of tension, fear, worry and change. the Holy Saturday in the death and resurrection cycle.

    On the same theme from Paulo Coelho’s new book, Maktub.

    The Human Race has committed its worst crimes in the name of Truth.

    Men and Women were burned.

    Entire civilisations were destroyed

    Those who committed sins of the flesh were cast out. Those who sought a different path were marginalised.

    One of them was crucified in the name of the ‘truth’ but before he died he left a magnificent definition of Truth.

    It isn’t what gives us certainties

    It isn’t what gives us profound thoughts

    It isn’t what makes us better than others

    It isn’t what keeps us locked inside the prison of our prejudices

    the Truth is what sets us free.

    ‘Know the truth’ he said, ‘and the Truth will make you free’

    Paulo Coelho, Maktub, 2024

    (just be warned, it may piss you off first)

  • Careful, the universe might give you what you wish for.

    Dangerously there were two words that I started 2023 with.

    It was as if, they were the words that were about to shape my life, weirdly.

    One of the words I wrote about, a little bit. The other I didnt.

    I wasn’t a bit fan of ‘manifesting’ or ‘goal setting’, for a mixture of reasons, one felt too charismatic and dare I say it, American, the other I realise now was because of inbuilt depression.

    Want to know what the two words were?

    (I guess thats the point of this piece)

    One of the words was Happy.

    The Other was Surrender.

    And… little did I know what was about to happen in the year.

    Because, I started the year in quite a good place.

    But it sort of felt just a bit fragile, I was having happy moments. I was having moments of ‘overcoming stuff’ that in the day to day I was enjoying the bliss of this, the wash of self love, and also beginning to feel a bit more me, and a bit more confident.

    Yet, the early confidence of 2023 was fragile. I could tell. It wasn’t matched with self belief, it wasn’t matched with a sense of inner wholeness, it wasn’t confident.

    As I said, the words were Happy, and Surrender.

    From April until August 2023. I crashed.

    Big time crashed.

    I had fought a fight and lost badly, and the inner voices returned.

    And it felt so so dark.

    Had I gone too soon with trying to be Happy?

    No.

    Did I have more healing to do?

    Yes

    Was the universe shaking it all up so that I could Heal even more?

    Oh fuck yes.

    Was it hard. Absolutely.

    As bleak and as dark as anything before. As anything since I was 9. The year I had to shut out the voices.

    But now I heard them again.

    Happy and Surrender.

    really?

    Happy and Surrender.

    Surrender and Happy.

    It’s so hard to explain now, but the spiralling fall that was taking place was debilitating.

    Happiness felt like an unachievable illusion

    Surrender felt like falling, failing, giving up.

    I was treading water with lead bricks attached by ropes to my feet.

    Walking a tightrope that was on fire

    Bleak, Dark, humiliation and all the feelings. All of them.

    And yet.

    And yet, I also realised at the time, with gritted teeth, that the voices, the inner peril was being revealed to me so that I had no choice but to deal with it.

    No choice.

    After 6 months of not really writing to myself, I re started journalling again, when I say journalling, I mean writing out the rage, the hurt, the anger, the pain, the feelings of humiliation, little James’ pain. This was the beginning of starting to write to little James, writing that tentatively started to shape the book im writing.

    I had to ask for help.

    I had to accept, surrender even, that I needed help.

    Everything was triggering me. Everything.

    I could tell how self absorbed I was in my own damaged head. In my own woundedness.

    Help arrived in a number of ways.

    Yes, professional help in terms of beginning therapy again. But also finding a safe space to write and give myself distance from the places that felt unsafe or too draining.

    The raw path of vulnerability opened up the beautiful. I noticed the gifts of the universe in response. I began to feel held.

    Happy and Surrender.

    Strength from surprising places, notably from within. One Vulnerable step at a time.

    Some of the breakthroughs might warrant a whole piece on them.

    At that wasn’t really the point of this piece, the point was that 15 months ago there were two words that seemed to be announcing themselves to me at the beginning of the year. Happy and Surrender.

    And the relationship between the two, in my healing process in the last 15 months is quite astonishing.

    Surrendering to the darkness did not mean giving in, giving up, or believing the voices, even if they were loud and I felt terrified, small and humiliated.

    Surrendering meant accepting that those inner voices were the consequence of pain and a damaged wounded childhood and I needed again to love those wounded parts, listen, and be open to whatever the path might be, navigating through them.

    Surrendering to the path through the darkness and slowly but surely holding myself in love as the path was being walked on slow step by slow step. A path of self-compassion and warmth as the anti-dote to self hatred, blame and criticism.

    Happiness was a risk. It still feels like a risk, a tender shoot to love and care for.

    A new toy to protect.

    Easier to talk about pain, shame and darkness – that isn’t going to be stolen.

    Happiness is fragile. Happiness feels conditional. Happiness requires surrender.

    Because, after all, what was the point? What was the point of wanting to be whole, healed and better? Just to exist and survive? Just to write about it and get the views? Just to stay stuck in it?

    I dont think so.

    Happiness and Surrender – what did I need to surrender to, in order for there to be inner happiness in my heart, soul and mind?

    A happy mind? imagine that… not an over thinking, over sensitive, triggered one.

    And, 4 months since the end of regular therapy. 9 months of the slow step by step inner healing process (of this phase of it).

    Whisper it quietly, or shout it from the rooftops, a deep sense of Happiness, of Joy even, has found me, a kind of clarity and strength and peace in heart, soul and mind, that hasn’t been my life experience ever. It’s weird, so so weird, but incredible all the same.

    Happiness and Surrender… You dont always get what you wish for, at least not in the ways you might expect, but sometimes the universe, the loving mystery of the universe has it, and it has you too.